44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 14, 2023 10:00AM
- Dec/14/23 2:06:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the agriculture and agri-food sector is a powerful economic force in Canada. It is a growing industry that employs 2.3 million people and single-handedly generates approximately 7% of our GDP.
Aliments Ouimet-Cordon Bleu is a Montreal-based company celebrating its 99th year in operation this year. The company uses its investments to support product development. Cordon Bleu's success hit new heights last spring when it was honoured as Quebec's SME of the year at the Les Mercuriades awards ceremony, sponsored by the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec.
I congratulate and salute the Cordon Bleu executives who are here in Ottawa today, and I encourage all Canadians to keep supporting the vitality of our agri-food businesses.
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- Dec/14/23 2:36:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when it came to action, my hon. colleague and the Conservative Party of Canada voted against every program that would support agriculture. It is a shame. I have talked to agricultural producers right across the country; they cannot understand why an opposition would vote against the on-farm climate action fund to help farmers adapt to climate change, which adds to the price of groceries.
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- Dec/14/23 2:37:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am a farmer and I talk to farmers across the country. They cannot understand why the opposition party would vote against so many programs that assist agriculture across the country.
Also, farmers find it very disappointing and cannot believe that one would vote against support for Ukraine and for democracy. They were ashamed.
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- Dec/14/23 3:00:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, 2023 has been an extremely difficult year for farmers: rising interest rates, rising input prices, floods, droughts. It is one thing after another.
Meanwhile, the federal government is abandoning them. Ottawa's investments in agriculture do not even amount to 5% of agricultural production value. That is four times less than in Europe.
The government must immediately set up an emergency fund for struggling farmers. We have been saying this for months. Canada also needs to claw its way up from the bottom of the world's agricultural investment rankings.
When is this government going to support our farmers?
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- Dec/14/23 4:12:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is indeed a great question from my hon. colleague, whom I have the pleasure of sitting with on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.
All I can say at second reading stage is that this is a debate and vote on the principle of the bill, and that is one provision of the bill that I have personally identified as problematic. That is something I hope my colleagues from all parties who are sitting on committee will take a close, hard look at, because I do not understand why we need that length of time when this issue is so serious and workers need legislative safeguards to make sure they have an even hand with their employers.
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Madam Speaker, we are here today to discuss an issue that is important to me and to many Canadians, my private member's bill, Bill C-355, which seeks to ban the export of live horses for slaughter.
I tabled this private member's bill in September and I continue hearing from and consulting with stakeholders and receiving calls and emails as recently as today. I commit to continue this dialogue and I am open to hearing people's concerns and ideas. If this bill passes second reading, it now looks like the vote will be at the end of January. I look forward to this bill going to the agriculture committee and continuing this conversation. I am especially proud of the fact that I sit on the agriculture committee.
I thank everyone who spoke today and everyone who has reached out to me and all members of Parliament across Canada to share their opinions about this practice. I want them to know their voices are being heard.
The most important thing to me, the goal that I commit to work toward, is that we join other countries in the world and ban the export of live horses for slaughter. I welcome the opportunity to work together across party lines and advance this important legislation.
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- Dec/14/23 6:17:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. When I was speaking with respect to the agriculture report and concurrence, I did not talk about the corruption that was there with Stephen Harper—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Dec/14/23 6:41:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise. I am not going to speak at length about the report.
I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:
“the first report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, presented on Wednesday, February 2, 2022, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food with instruction that it amend the same by adding to Recommendation 5 of the report a call to the government to discontinue the carbon tax, given that over 100 first nations communities have taken the government to court because it is violating the rights of First Nations with the carbon tax on rural and remote people and the recent request from the Premier of the Northwest Territories, who joins other premiers, for an exemption from the carbon tax”.
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