Bill C-282

An Act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act (supply management)

This enactment amends the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act so that the Minister of Foreign Affairs cannot make certain commitments with respect to international trade regarding certain goods.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank the witnesses for being here.

I want to follow up with the ICCC on some questions. We've heard from beef, especially about the U.K. ascending into the CPTPP. You mentioned a few of the existing trade barriers you're facing. I wonder if you could comment on how your companies are adapting to those. I wonder if you could comment on Bill C-282, which we recently had here in committee. If that passes, how would that work for your customers and the companies you represent?

Budget Implementation Act, 2023, No. 1

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Shefford for her question.

This is an opportunity for me to talk about the farmers and families in Perth—Wellington, where we have the largest number of dairy farmers and chicken farmers in the country. Supply management is very important for me and for the people of Perth—Wellington.

I was very pleased to vote for Bill C-282, which is very important, but let us be clear: This bill is only a small part of a big concern for farmers and families in Perth—Wellington and across Canada.

50th Anniversary of Egg Farmers of Canada

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of all the egg farming families of Berthier—Maskinongé and Quebec, I would like to congratulate the Egg Farmers of Canada on its 50th anniversary.

I would also like to call attention to its commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, as our egg farmers join the fight against climate change.

Our supply management system ensures that farmers have the income and capacity they need to reinvest in their operation when our market grows. It also promotes land use and food resilience. The more family farms there are, the more villages will flourish.

For the Egg Farmers of Canada, this 50th anniversary is a chance to spotlight innovative practices and effective management. To celebrate this anniversary, let us protect supply management by passing Bill C‑282. No gift could be more welcome.

Long live the Egg Farmers of Canada, and long live supply management.

International Trade

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the eighth report of the Standing Committee on International Trade, in relation to Bill C-282, an act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act, on supply management.

The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House without amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Shall the bill carry? We'll have a recorded vote, please.

(Bill C-282 agreed to: yeas 7; nays 3)

Shall the chair report the bill to the House? We'll have a recorded vote again, please.

(Reporting of bill to the House agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)

Thank you all very much. That concludes the clause-by-clause on Bill C-282. I will report it to the House, as directed by the committee.

Just for the information of the committee, on Monday we will be returning to the IRA and the discussion about the Washington travel. On Thursday, we will start on the non-tariff barriers and the motion from Mr. Seeback. Is everybody good with that? Okay.

I move adjournment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Arya.

I need to make a ruling on your proposed amendment.

Bill C-282 amends the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act to restrict the Minister of Foreign Affairs from making certain commitments with respect to international trade regarding tariffs and the tariff rate quota for certain goods. The amendment seeks to remove these restrictions.

Again, as the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, on page 770, states:

An amendment to a bill that was referred to a committee after second reading is out of order if it is beyond the scope and principle of the bill.

As such, there is no debate. LIB-1 is inadmissible.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Madam Chair, I move that Bill C-282, in clause 1, be amended by replacing line 9 on page 1 with the following:

give due consideration to the net benefit to Canada before making any commitment on behalf of the Government

As I said earlier, I'll make it very brief.

This bill is a big problem, and not only during the negotiations of any future trade agreements. In my view, it will start affecting Canada negatively even before certain agreements come for negotiation.

Currently, if I'm not wrong, there are free trade agreements negotiated with India, Indonesia and several other countries. The negotiators of the countries who are negotiating with Canada may use this bill as a tool to demand concessions or to prevent themselves from offering any concessions that Canada desires.

As I mentioned earlier, it is our responsibility as elected members of Parliament to look at what is in the best interests of Canada, not our partisan political interests. Supply management is well entrenched, and its supporters are quite vocal and very organized. We can't support a bill that goes against the interests of most of the farmers in the country just to respond to pressure from this small group of farmers, and not—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

All right, thank you very much. Our translation issue is all right.

I need to now make a ruling on CPC-2. Thank you for moving it.

Bill C-282 amends the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act to restrict the Minister of Foreign Affairs from making certain commitments with respect to international trade regarding tariffs and the tariff rate quota for certain goods. The amendment seeks to institute a compensatory regime that would be applicable to anyone affected by international trade.

As House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, states on page 770:

An amendment to a bill that was referred to a committee after second reading is out of order if it is beyond the scope and principle of the bill.

It is my opinion, Mr. Seeback, that the amendment is inadmissible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

If CPC-1 is adopted—if Mr. Baldinelli's motion is adopted—CPC-2 and LIB-1 cannot be moved due to a conflict in the lines. Once a line of a clause has been amended by the committee, it cannot be further amended by a subsequent amendment, as a given line may be amended only once.

I'm going to ask for a recorded vote on CPC-1, Madam Clerk.

(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The amendment does not carry.

On CPC-2, Bill C-282 amends the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act....

I'm sorry. Do you want to move CPC-2, Mr. Seeback?

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I see that we have no party lines today. That's great! It's a new thing.

So here's my opinion. This amendment proposes that we replace “the Minister must not make any commitment on behalf of the Government of Canada, by international trade treaty or agreement” with “the Minister may consider not making any commitment on behalf of the Government of Canada, by international trade treaty or agreement”.

This amendment simply removes all substance from Bill C‑282. It takes all of the teeth out of it. It takes away any opportunity to prevent one minister from legally forcing another minister to put supply management on the table. It opens the door again. We are back to what we already had, which was verbal commitments from all sides to supply management and, in the end, no binding legislation. It completely distorts the bill.

If that's what you want, instead of passing an amendment, vote against clause 1. It will amount to the same thing.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Well, it's great that the parliamentary secretary can tell all of his members how they're going to be voting on this in advance of their consideration of it, but I guess that's how things work in the Liberal Party.

I quite frankly find it exhausting to listen to a member from Toronto tell members of this committee that they don't care about supply management. I spent the last two-week break visiting dairy farms and other farms in my riding—of which I have hundreds—and explaining to them the concerns that we have with this bill. Everyone there was understanding, including the dairy farmers I spoke to, so I'll take no lessons from Mr. Virani, from a downtown Toronto riding, telling me about whether or not I support supply management. I support it by the fact that I visit the farms in my riding often to discuss what the issues are.

With respect to this amendment, it actually enshrines what our long-standing policy in this country has been, a policy that the Liberal Party actually used when it negotiated the CPTPP and granted access to the supply-managed sector. They're the ones who did it, Madam Chair, and they did it because they had to. If there were no access to supply management, there would be no deal on the CPTPP. What the Liberals are now saying is that somehow by passing this they'll still be able to sign trade agreements.

Well, Madam Chair, the only way they're going to do that is if no other country in the world that we enter into a trade agreement with has any interest in any of our supply-managed sectors. I'm not an expert on the economies of every country in the world, but I suspect that's not the case. What Mr. Virani is effectively saying is that we will then not have those kinds of trade agreements, or they'll be less ambitious, or perhaps, Madam Chair, when they bring forward enabling legislation, they will just repeal Bill C-282 so they can give away access in supply-managed sectors. I find all of his comments ironic.

This is a well-thought-out amendment by Mr. Baldinelli. I'll be voting in favour of it. My Conservative colleagues, because we live in a democracy, will have the choice on how they're going to vote.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Madam Chair, thank you for this opportunity.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.

As everyone knows, we've been looking at this legislation over the past couple of weeks with regard to supply management, and I believe that we can all say that we support supply management and its existence in Canada to protect our domestic sectors. In fact, as I mentioned last time, I dare say I am probably the only member of this committee who has actually worked for one of the supply-managed sectors. I was a lobbyist during my time at Hill+Knowlton, and we had as our client the Dairy Farmers of Ontario. They were a client of mine, and I worked with them closely over a five-year period. I support supply management and what it means to our sector.

During the hearings, listening to the testimony of the various stakeholder groups that came out, there was a theme that we continued to hear, and it was always one of predictability and stability. Those who came from the supply-managed sectors would talk about wanting this piece of legislation because of the predictability and stability that it would provide. However, those in non-supply-managed sectors would also talk about that predictability and stability being put at risk because of what this legislation could potentially mean if it was adopted by this government, so I have great concerns.

As I mentioned last time during my comments, as legislators we're here to try to make the best bill possible. I'm trying to see if there is a better way to do it, to take a flawed bill and make it a bit better. As we heard during the testimony, even the honourable member who sponsored the bill hadn't reached out to trade experts to seek their opinion on whether this bill would bring about some challenges and difficulties for Canada. He said that it's essentially like Bill C-216 from the previous Parliament, and those comments were on the record—in the blues, as he said—and we could simply take those comments and go with them. Well, I found some concerns.

When I did that, I had the opportunity to read those blues. In June of 2021 some of the witnesses with us today spoke out against that piece of legislation and raised some concerns about it setting a dangerous precedent. When we're here now examining this bill, those concerns are not as strong, so I just have those questions. That's why I believe it would have benefited us to actually have the opportunity to bring in some trade experts and to hear their views.

I'm not going to read into testimony the comments about the previous bill and the comments of our witnesses here today who made comments on Bill C-216. I don't want to get into that. I just want to reiterate some of the concerns.

One of the gentlemen who live in my riding is retired now. He was a government employee. He worked with the Competition Bureau. He was here when supply-management systems were established. He came to me and raised his concerns about Bill C-282. I believe everyone has received a copy of the letter he submitted today. He talked about the bill not being needed.

He said this:

The bill is not needed to show support for supply management. As some have already suggested to the Committee, Bill C-282 does not address supply management itself but rather attempts to dictate Canada's approach to future trade negotiations.

As a trading nation, Canada's success internationally has been the ability to be flexible in trade negotiations and adjust as needed to achieve an agreement good enough for all Canadians, including the supply management sector. It is undeniable that over the years and the multitude of [successful] trade agreements negotiated around the world, Canada has earned a reputation as being a fair, knowledgeable, and respected negotiator. However, Bill C-282 sends a concerning signal that Canada's trade negotiators no longer have the necessary discretion to discuss the supply management sector during future trade negotiations.

In my view, this signal is not needed, and it will likely be perceived as a negative by the international trade community. If [this] bill becomes law, most trading partners will be looking for compensation in some form in return for honouring Canada's request to keep supply management off the table.

Those are just some of the concerns. I think that adequately expresses some concerns I have too with regard to this bill.

Again, my hope here, in sitting on this international trade committee, was to listen to the feedback and try to make this bill a bit better for everyone so that it could address the concerns of all agricultural sectors.

It's almost an analogy of parents in a family. You don't love one child more than you do another. I felt that was what was happening here. We had one sector asking for special consideration, essentially, over the views of others. That is why I propose this amendment, to provide a little more flexibility to the government as it moves forward.

I table this for my colleagues' consideration.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Madam Chair, if I may, at this point I would like to propose an amendment to clause 1. Perhaps I could read that for the benefit of everyone here. It reads as follows: that Bill C-282, in clause 1, be amended by replacing lines 8 and 9 on page 1 with the following:

and functions set out in subsection (2), the Minister may consider not making any commitment on behalf of the Government

That is the proposal that I would like to make, Madam Chair.

[The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)), Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I call this meeting to order.

This is meeting number 58 of the Standing Committee on International Trade.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Therefore, members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike and please mute yourself when you are not speaking.

With regard to interpretation, for those on Zoom, you have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of either floor, English or French audio. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

I remind everyone that all comments should be addressed through the chair. For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as well as we can, and we appreciate your patience.

Please also note that during the meeting, it is not permitted to take pictures in the room or screenshots on Zoom.

Should any technical challenges arise, please advise me. Please note that we may need to suspend for a few minutes in order to ensure that all members get to participate fully.

Today we are meeting for clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-282, an act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act (supply management).

I will now welcome the officials who are with us today to answer questions we may have during the clause-by-clause consideration.

From the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food, we have Tom Rosser, assistant deputy minister, market and industry services branch.

From the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, we have Aaron Fowler, associate assistant deputy minister, trade policy and negotiations; Stacy-Paul Healy, deputy director, tariffs and market access law division; and Doug Forsyth, director general, market access.

Thank you very much for joining us today.

We will start our consideration of Bill C-282. I need to provide members of the committee with some instructions and a few comments on how the committee will proceed with the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C‑282.

As the name indicates, this is an examination of all the clauses in the order in which they appear in the bill. I will call each clause successively, and each clause will be subject to debate and a vote. If there is an amendment to the clause in question, I will recognize the member proposing it, who may explain it and speak to it. The amendment will then be open for further debate. When no further members wish to intervene, the amendment will be voted on. Amendments will be considered in the order in which they appear in the bill and in the package each member received from the clerk. Members should note that any new amendments must be submitted in writing to the clerk of the committee.

The chair will go slowly to allow all members to fully follow the proceedings properly.

Amendments have been given an alphanumeric number in the top right-hand corner to indicate which party submitted them. There is no need for a seconder to move an amendment. Once it is moved, you will need unanimous consent to withdraw it.

During debate on an amendment, members are permitted to move subamendments. These subamendments must be submitted in writing. They do not require the approval of the mover of the amendment. Only one subamendment may be considered at a time, and that subamendment cannot be amended. When a subamendment to an amendment is moved, it is voted on first. Then another subamendment may be moved or the committee may consider the main amendment and vote on it.

Once every clause has been voted on, the committee will vote on the title and the bill itself. If amendments are adopted, an order to reprint the bill may be required so that the House has a proper copy for use at report stage. Finally, the committee will have to order the chair to report the bill to the House. That report contains only the text of any adopted amendments as well as an indication of any deleted clauses.

We will now move into the clause-by-clause consideration.

(On clause 1)

Supply Management

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I remember last February 8 when all the parties voted in favour of including supply management protection in international agreements. All the parties voted for Bill C‑282. I know that some people remember that. Maybe it is time that the political parties remembered too. At this time, in committee, the Conservatives are filibustering to block Bill C-282. They keep stalling, slowing down procedures and generally wasting time. They are doing everything they possibly can to undermine a bill they actually voted for.

It is such a sad spectacle, when the very future of Quebec agriculture hangs in the balance.

I am calling on all Quebec members from every party. All of the parties promised to protect supply management and voted in favour of this vital bill. My Quebec colleagues, Conservatives and Liberals alike, all gave farmers their word. I can assure them that our farmers remember. Today, the time has come for them to honour their word.