- Member of Parliament
- Caucus Chair
- NDP
- Cowichan—Malahat—Langford
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $140,733.69
- Government Page
Mr. Speaker, this legislation was tabled in the House last week on October 17. I am hoping the member can enlighten me, because the government's own policy requires that before the tabling of legislation, 21 sitting days have to expire so that members of Parliament can take a look at the agreement before any enabling legislation is brought in. We did not have that presented to members of Parliament. We also do not have an economic statement.
The government has attached a lot of importance to Bill C-56, so I am just wondering why the government did not take the time to do those two key priorities. We have plenty of time to consider this legislation. Instead, maybe we should devote the House's time to Bill C-56, which the government often likes to complain is not moving ahead.
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Mr. Speaker, I like how my colleague touched on the fact that when this type of legislation and these types of agreements come before the House, it is necessary for us, as parliamentarians, to do wide consultation with stakeholders.
I have been a member of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food for five and a half years now. One of the concerns brought up to our committee by Chicken Farmers of Canada was the Ukraine remission order that allowed Ukrainian poultry to come into Canada.
It is not that Chicken Farmers of Canada does not want to support our Ukrainian allies, but it felt that more time was needed to ensure that the high standards we have in Canada, especially with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, were in place. Before we had such a system, it felt it was rushed too quickly.
Could my colleague expand on that one notable example? Perhaps there is more that he knows on why with these kinds of agreements, while we know they are being done in good faith and for good reason, we still, as parliamentarians, owe it to the Canadian public and to stakeholders to ensure we iron out all those very fine details because of the unintended consequences.
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Madam Speaker, I offer my congratulations to the member for Montcalm for bringing forward this bill for us to consider. I appreciate having this bill because it allows me to talk about my riding and the long, storied and very rich agriculture history of the Cowichan Valley. We have multi-generational farms there.
For Cowichan tribes, in the Hul'q'umi'num language, Cowichan means the warm land. We are blessed with a beautiful little microclimate in the Cowichan Valley. We get copious amounts of rain in the winter, but we are absolutely blasted by the sun in the summer. It allows for a very unique growing climate where there is a very strong connection between local farmers and the population that they grow food for.
As to supply management, I am very lucky to have a number of dairy farms in the Cowichan Valley and a number of egg farms. In my seven years as a member of Parliament representing that amazing riding, I would be remiss if I did not point out how welcoming supply-managed farmers there have always been to me. They have always extended the courtesy of an invitation so that I can go and tour their farms to see how modern they are, how efficient they are and how the supply management system is able to give them a good income and also allow them to plan for the future.
That is a real strength of the system. It is a system that rests on three key pillars. It was brought in because a lot of farmers back in the 1970s and before were suffering through very wild price fluctuations, especially on commodities. It was really hard to try to plan for the future. Many farms experience that to this day. If one does not know what one's income is going to be in the year or years ahead, it makes it that much harder to do financial planning around the farm, and that is critical.
If one wants to stay competitive and have an edge, investment in technology and machinery is absolutely critical. Supply management has always allowed farmers to do that. When one goes to some of the dairy farms around the Cowichan Valley, one can see that they are actually serviced by remarkable robotics. It is quite incredible to see the level of technology on display.
Those three pillars are production control, pricing mechanisms and import control. Like a three-legged stool, if one were to weaken one of those pillars, the whole system would be at risk. It needs all three to work in tandem, in harmony, and to also be strong.
Under our system, we have not had so much trouble with production control, which is issued through quotas, or on the pricing part. The part that has always been targeted by governments of a variety of stripes is import control. The way we do this is through tariff rate quotas. We do allow imports of certain dairy products such as eggs and poultry. They can come in at a certain rate, but once they go over the maximum amount that is allowed, a huge tariff is placed on them. That is to protect our homegrown system.
I am sure if one were to ask any Canadian, their preference would be to always have locally sourced food. I think it is a point of pride that we have developed a system where our farmers can not only thrive but also produce that good local food for their local communities.
That brings me to why Bill C-282 is before us. I can understand why this bill was brought forward. I was here in the 42nd Parliament. I remember hearing the news of how the TPP had been negotiated, the CETA and also, later on, CUSMA. Each one of those agreements started carving out more of our supply-managed market and allowing more foreign imports to come into Canada. That was despite repeated pleas from the industry to the Liberals to leave their sector alone. Now we have a bill that is going to specifically address that and curtail the ability of a foreign affairs minister to negatively impact it.
I have been very curious to see where the Conservatives will land on this bill because, in the previous Parliament, when Bill C-216 was brought before this House, I believe the Conservative caucus was split. About a third of them supported it and two-thirds were against.
I can understand the awkwardness for the Conservative Party because at one time it almost had mad Max as a leader, the famous man from Beauce. He was almost the leader of the Conservative Party. It went down to, I think, the 13th ballot. Maxime has always been very vocal in his opposition to supply management, which is a very curious thing given the region he comes from, and it may explain why he is no longer here as a member of Parliament. It will be interesting to see, when this bill comes to second reading vote, what the blue team will be able to do on this.
I will read out a few facts and figures. Last year, Canada had over 9,000 dairy farms. It is an industry that contributes 221,000 jobs and nearly $20 billion to Canada's GDP. We have over 5,200 poultry and egg farms. One statistic that has always stood out for me is that Canada, with a population of around 36 million people, has over 1,000 egg farms. In the United States, which has 10 times the population, there are just over 100. This shows the differences in the systems.
We have a system that has allowed 1,000 egg farms to thrive on a population that is a tenth the size of our southern neighbour. We know the state of Wisconsin produces more milk than our entire country. Farmers there, unfortunately, have suffered negatively from wild price fluctuations. I know, from talking to farmers, that many of our southern neighbours do look north in envy of the system we have in place here.
Bill C-216 was successfully referred to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade and reported back to the House. Unfortunately, in 2021, we had to deal with an unnecessary election, which had the effect of killing the bill outright. I hope we have enough runway for this bill to make a longer push this time. I am certainly going to be giving my support for it to be heading to committee, just as I proudly did last time.
If we look at the mechanics of this bill, we need to take a look at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act. Section 10 basically spells out all of the functions, duties and powers the minister of foreign affairs has. For example, the ability to conduct diplomatic and consular relations on behalf of our country and foster the expansion of Canada's international trade and commerce. These are a few examples of what the powers and duties are, as they currently exist in the act.
What Bill C-282 seeks to do is to basically prevent the foreign affairs minister from making any kind of a commitment by international treaty or agreement that would have any effect of increasing the tariff rate quota, so basically allowing more foreign imports to come in, and of course reducing the tariff rate on that particular quota that is coming in.
Again, it is born out of the experience of dealing with Liberals over the last seven years, where they repeatedly stood up in the House and said that they were the strong defenders of supply management, but every single trade deal that came through the House and was enacted was always slicing a bit more of the pie away. I understand why this bill is before us.
I am always happy to have the opportunity to talk about farmers, not only those across this great country but also those in my riding, and I am always happy to stand here as a strong defender of supply management, as all New Democrats always have been. I look forward to this bill getting another turn at committee. I congratulate the member for Montcalm for bringing it forward.
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- Dec/1/21 8:34:05 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I appreciate my colleague's speech and I quickly want to give a shout-out to the hard-working men and women of the steelworkers union in my riding, who work very hard in the mills in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford to provide for their families.
In British Columbia we are developing designs for a lot of mass timber structures, which of course have a much lower carbon footprint than buildings made out of steel and cement. I am wondering if my colleague could talk about these emerging technologies and how we do need to stand up for Canadian workers but also to make a concerted push to U.S. industries, because of course they are going to suffer from the tariffs on these. The U.S. homebuilders are the ones who are going to suffer, but there are some amazing technologies coming and we really need to see the Canadian government stand up for that abroad.
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