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.

[Martin Caron]

First, I have to say that we're pleased to see support for Bill C‑282, which deals with supply management.

This is certainly something that lets us adjust prices very quickly. What we're saying today is we want a fair price. That allows for predictability, research and innovation, while also meeting Canadians' expectations. People talked about animal welfare and the environment, among other things. Farming operations need predictability. As we know, when we invest in agriculture, it's for the long term, and the supply management system makes that possible. The producers benefit, but so do all Canadians. Whether we're talking about processors or suppliers, the whole chain benefits.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I'm going to say something totally non-partisan: I want to thank my colleague from the Bloc Québécois for introducing Bill C‑282. Actually, the minister, the entire cabinet, the vast majority of my party members and I supported it.

As we know, the dairy sector is often criticized for being under supply management. However, as we've seen inflation shoot up, the price of milk has remained fairly stable, at least on the farm. I can't speak to the cost of processing or the retail price, but at the farm level, the price has remained quite stable.

Do you have any comments about this?

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

We are talking about Bill C-282, which deals with supply management, correct?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Dancella Boyi]

As per what Mr. Seeback just suggested, if the members are looking to resume the meetings on Bill C-282 around March 5 or March 8, it would be best, if possible, to submit lists by February 24.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Concerning the business that we have before us, on Monday we have a continuation of this mining study that's coming on the 13th.

On the 16th it was the BDC and the minister, but the minister is travelling, and BDC is not available either, so I'm suggesting, in discussions with the official opposition, that on the PMB that was referred to us yesterday, we start that on the 16th. I understand that it is of real interest to a lot of people, so to try to be efficient with our time, we'll start on the 16th with Bill C-282.

Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Pursuant to order made on Thursday, June 23, 2022, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-282 under Private Members' Business.

The House resumed from February 7 consideration of the motion that Bill C-282, An Act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act (supply management), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Supply Management

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

Mr. Speaker, in recent weeks, the Bloc Québécois travelled throughout Quebec to promote its Bill C-282, which seeks to protect supply-managed agricultural sectors by preventing future international agreements from having a negative impact on our farmers' share of the market and the income they earn from all of their hard work.

Supply management is a critical component of our regions' economies and helps feed families in Quebec and Canada. It must be protected.

Again today, many stakeholders from the agricultural community have come to Parliament Hill to show their staunch support for this bill. I want to recognize them and tell them how much I respect them.

I thank them for their work and especially for being here to remind parliamentarians of the importance of supporting this bill, which will help maintain our very effective and resilient agricultural model.

The message is clear. Parliamentarian friends, let us unite and pass Bill C-282 together.

Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, here in the Bloc Québécois, we work as a team. Protecting and promoting supply management matters to all of us, not just the member for Montcalm, as does the outcome of tomorrow's vote.

Supply management has been a priority for me since I first came to the House in 2015, and, as the sponsor of Bill C‑282, I have to say that, for my friend and colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé, protecting supply management has truly become an obsession. That obsession can be satisfied only once Bill C‑282 comes into force. To make that happen, we are going to need the tenacity and skill of our colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, because if Bill C‑282 makes it through the crucial vote tomorrow, it will then go to the Standing Committee on International Trade, of which our colleague is a member. I also have to say that it has the unconditional support of every member of the Bloc caucus, who stand not only with me, but with supply-managed producers.

As this debate at second reading comes to a close, I see that the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford and his party will support my bill. Last week, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food held a press conference to announce that the Liberals are supporting Bill C‑282 at every stage. It is not clear where the Conservatives stand. They will sleep on it, but let us not take anything for granted, even though Bill C‑282 is identical to Bill C‑216, which, in case it needs to be repeated, received the support of a majority of members before the last unnecessary election.

I travelled around some of Quebec's major agricultural regions with my colleagues, the member for Berthier—Maskinongé and the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. We met a farming community that is more mobilized than ever and determined to defend and promote supply management. We also met Quebeckers who care deeply about the advantages of this agricultural model. Indeed, supply management has proven its worth, especially during the pandemic, in terms of self-sufficiency and food security, and consumers are finding that they have access to an adequate supply of high-quality food at competitive prices. They actually want to bring farmers closer to their plates. They want farms with a human dimension, not mega-farms that are fuelled by overproduction and the waste of food and resources.

Farmers in the United States actually want to return to supply management, because their model, based on overproduction, favours only mega-producers and makes human-scale farms disappear. This often means that quality disappears, as well. Consumers can see the beneficial effects of supply management on sustainable agriculture, on land use and on regional economies.

Our producers deserve to no longer feel threatened every time a free trade agreement is negotiated. They want predictability, they want to be able to imagine the future, to be able to ensure succession and to preserve their quality standards. The time has come to take action. All countries protect sectors of their economy that they consider to be essential before sitting down at the free trade table. In the United States, that is the case for cotton and sugar.

After several motions were unanimously adopted by the House of Commons, successive Conservative and Liberal governments did not keep their promises and, on three occasions, made long-term and irreparable breaches. Only one law will prevent this from happening again. My mother used to say that it is never too late to do the right thing. If we truly respect those who work to feed us, we must walk the talk and vote for Bill C‑282.

Therefore, I invite all Conservative parliamentarians who have yet to be convinced to vote for Bill C-282 so not one more government will take it upon itself to sacrifice, on the altar of free trade, supply management, our agricultural model and the men and women who feed us.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to represent Shefford, a riding that is located in the region known as Quebec's pantry. We are proud of our farmers. Agri-tourism is at the heart of my riding's economy. I love going around to all the public markets and talking to local farmers.

Naturally, the subject of Bill C-282, supply management, is vital to many of them. During the last election campaign, I promised the Union des producteurs agricoles de la Haute‑Yamaska that I would fight tooth and nail for supply management and introduce a bill. I also made the same promise during a press conference with the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, the riding next to mine.

It is therefore with great humility and tremendous respect for the the work of the first dynamic trio who recently went to bat for the vital issue of supply management that I rise to speak on this subject. I am talking about my dear colleagues from Berthier—Maskinongé, Montcalm and Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

I will begin my speech by talking about the importance of supply management. Then, I will remind the House of the Bloc's historic role on this issue and close with the words of some farmers from my riding.

First, the bill amends the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act to include the protection of the supply management system as part of the minister's responsibilities. It adds supply management to the list of directives the minister must take into account when conducting business outside Canada, including in international trade.

Once this bill comes into force in its entirety, the minister responsible for international trade will have to stand up for supply-managed farmers in front of our trade partners. The minister will henceforth have the mandate to negotiate agreements without creating breaches in the system, as it did during the signing of the three most important international trade agreements of the past decade.

The bill has become necessary, not least because of the serious breaches that previous governments, both Liberal and Conservative, opened up and negotiated in the last international trade agreements. These breaches in the supply management mechanism prevent the system from working effectively by attacking the integrity of its basic principles, namely pricing control, production control and border control.

In Canada, only the markets for dairy, table eggs, hatching eggs, and poultry, meaning chicken and turkey, are under supply management. This is a system that was put in place in the 1970s. It ensures that we produce just enough to meet domestic demand while avoiding overproduction and waste. It also ensures price stability.

Prices are controlled by setting a price floor and a price ceiling so that each link in the chain gets its fair share. That includes the consumer, who can be sure of getting a very high-quality, ethically farmed local product. Another aspect is border control, which includes very high tariffs and import quotas, preventing foreign products or by-products from invading our market. Because the market is largely closed to imports and there are price controls in place, producers do not end up in a never-ending race to lower production costs.

The current government is taking a number of worrisome actions that compromise the ability of Canada—and especially Quebec, which has a different agricultural reality—to choose the type of agriculture it wants to develop. In fact, the recent free trade agreements, particularly the one with the United States and Mexico, CUSMA, will have catastrophic consequences for certain products and processors under supply management.

Border control is the pillar most weakened by the international agreements. However, given that supply management has never come under fire from the World Trade Organization, or WTO, Canada has every right to protect its markets so long as it complies with the degree of openness established by the WTO.

If international agreements and the WTO give Canada the right to protect its markets, why have there been concessions? It is because Canada cannot cope with pressure from trading partners during negotiations. It is as simple as that. It succumbs to lobby groups and arguments made by other countries that want access to an as-yet untapped market at all costs.

Despite the new aid programs, which were a long time coming, it is abundantly clear that no compensation can possibly make up for the permanent damage caused by concessions in agreements with Europe, the Pacific Rim nations, the United States and Mexico. Accordingly, the Conservatives' argument about how compensation was promised under the Harper Conservatives during the opening rounds of the first two agreements is false.

Second, I want to stress the following point: The Bloc Québécois has always defended supply management in Ottawa. This is the second time that this bill has been tabled and, if not for the unnecessary election that the Prime Minister called in August 2021, Bill C‑216 might have made it to the Senate by now.

By contrast, the House had to adopt four motions unanimously to ask the federal government to fully protect supply management. However, the Liberal and Conservative governments presumably did not feel bound by this commitment when they signed the last three free trade agreements. In fact, because of the concessions that were made, these agreements were catastrophic for agricultural producers and processors under supply management, who are now wondering about their future.

Supply management is a model that is envied around the world, especially in jurisdictions that have abolished it. In Quebec, agriculture is practised on smaller farms where there is a much greater concern for quality and respect for the environment. While Quebec's quality-centred agriculture sector is flourishing, with an ever-increasing variety of local products and organic farming, Ottawa is taking the opposite approach by encouraging more industrial agriculture.

Until the Quebec government is present at international negotiations and until it gets to act as the sole architect of agricultural policies, there is a serious risk that Ottawa will align the federal government with the needs of western Canada. The Bloc Québécois simply wants the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party to keep the promise they have made more than once to stop making concessions at the expense of supply-managed producers. That is all.

It was Stephen Harper's Conservatives who got the ball rolling in 2008. Supply management first started crumbling with the Canada-Europe free trade agreement negotiations, because the Canadian government started putting supply management on the table, something it had never dared to do in the past. Since then, there has been one breach after another.

Supply management has always been a key issue to the Bloc Québécois. During the entire time that the Bloc Québécois had a strong presence in the House, which I remember well, as I was an assistant then, the government signed free trade agreements with 16 countries and fully protected the supply management system.

During the federal election that followed the creation of the WTO, in other words the June 1997 election, defending the supply management system was already one of our election priorities. That was quite a few years ago. The Bloc Québécois was the first party to move a motion in the House calling for the pillars of the supply management system to be fully maintained. The House will recall that the motion was adopted unanimously by all parties. What is more, for practically every major negotiation, the National Assembly of Quebec has unanimously adopted a motion calling on the federal government to protect supply management. We are the defenders of supply management, the voice of supply-managed farmers.

Third, I want to share the words of farmers back home. Nancy Fournier, a farmer from Saint‑Alphonse‑de‑Granby who is a member of the board of directors of the Haute-Yamaska branch of the UPA and part of the next generation of Quebec farmers, told us that she is proud of our efforts and our support for agriculture.

Denis Beaudry, a farmer from Saint‑Alphonse‑de‑Granby, said the following: “The bill is very relevant because we are fed up with supply management being used as a bargaining chip in treaty negotiations. From a more local perspective, the riding of Shefford is home to many supply-managed businesses, so when supply management is mishandled, the agricultural community suffers. I look forward to seeing whether the other parties will support the bill. The government said that it would no longer compromise on supply management. We will see.”

Valéry Martin, a communications advisor at UPA de l'Estrie, said the following: “Supply management provides stability and helps maintain the country's food self-sufficiency. Supply-managed farms are everywhere, keeping our communities strong. There are not many sectors that can provide this kind of predictability, food security and superior quality products without direct subsidies.”

I want to say one last thing. Without supply management, there would not be many people left in Abitibi, Saguenay, Lac‑Saint‑Jean or the Gaspé, because it helps ensure that there are family farms all across our beautiful Quebec nation. If there is one economic sector that is key to how our land is used in Quebec, it is the agricultural industry. The statistics speak for themselves. With $9.1 billion in sales generated by just over 42,000 farmers on 29,000 farms, Quebec agriculture is essential, important, vital.

Agriculture is going through a very difficult period, however. We are at a crossroads, where we will have to choose between following the trend of more open markets and protecting domestic markets in order to promote human-scale agriculture. We will need strong agricultural policies that will help local farmers make a living providing top-quality agricultural products to consumers.

Consumers are also placing increasing demands on farmers. Farmers are being asked to produce better-quality food that is more diverse at a lower price. They are also being asked to protect the environment and use Quebec's land to benefit all of society. As incredible as it may seem, despite the meagre support they receive, farmers are doing a brilliant job of rising to this challenge, despite the pandemic, the labour shortage, the disastrous consequences of the free trade agreements, the war in Ukraine and the inflation crisis.

We must respond to the requests of this sector that feeds us, that sustains us. Tomorrow, let us put partisanship aside and vote in favour of Bill C-282. We must take action.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a real pleasure and a privilege to stand in the House and speak to supply management. At one time, I had the honour of being the official opposition critic for international trade, so I remember well this issue and how deeply it engages so many people who live in this country.

I also recognize the threats that supply management has been under for a long time. This bill, Bill C-282, an act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act with regard to supply management, is introduced by my colleague from Montcalm, whom I have the pleasure of serving with on the health committee. I want to congratulate him for this bill, because I think it is a very important and necessary piece of legislation that, unfortunately, is required because supply management has been under threat by successive Liberal and Conservative governments, which have continued to push trade deals that increasingly carve away at one of the key pillars of supply management.

This bill would forbid the minister from promising to make larger percentages or amounts of imported dairy products, poultry or eggs, which are supply-managed products in this country, eligible for lowered or waived tariffs. In other words, it would forbid the minister to reduce tariffs applied to these goods when more than are eligible for lowered or waived tariffs are imported.

It is unfortunate that we even have to do this, because I have stood in the House for a number of years when successive Liberal and Conservative governments have passionately risen and stated their undying commitment to supply management and their commitment to the farmers in their ridings that they would never encroach upon this very well-thought-out and important system, and then have turned around and negotiated trade deals that increasingly give other countries increased quotas to come into our country.

Why is that a problem? I am going to start by explaining just a little bit what supply management is. It is a system that started in the 1970s and that was meant to provide farmers in key industries in this country with the ability to have a stable income and to know how much supply would be provided in any given year. This is the real strength of the system. It is a system that rests on three key pillars.

It was brought in because those farmers were suffering through very wild price fluctuations, especially on commodities: One year they might do very well, but the next year they would face ruin. Many farms experienced great difficulty in planning for the future. We know that if one wants to stay competitive and maybe even have an edge in agriculture, investments in technology and machinery are absolutely critical. Supply management provides that certainty, so that farmers can make those investments with the firm knowledge that they will be able to recoup their investment and sell their goods for a fair price.

The three pillars of supply management are production control, pricing mechanisms and import control. It has been referred to as a three-legged stool. Of course, we all know that if we affect one leg of a three-legged stool, then the whole seating structure is at risk. What has been happening in the trade deals, negotiated and signed by successive Conservative and Liberal governments, is that they have focused on the import control leg of the pillars and they continue to allow more and more goods to be imported into Canada in those supply-managed sectors, which of course threatens the entire system.

What this bill would do is remove the ability of the trade minister, when negotiating a trade deal, to put those supply-managed commodities on the table and to trade off, as it were, supply-managed sector goods for other trade benefits.

This happened in the TPP. It happened in CUSMA. It happened in CETA. Those agreements did allow, first the European Union, then the TPP countries and now the United States and Mexico, to make ever-increasing inroads into being able to get more of their goods into Canada. I will try to put that into perspective, to see why it could be so destabilizing.

It is my understanding that the entire production of milk in Wisconsin would be enough to serve the entire Canadian market. One can only think about those very large corporate farms in the northern United States that, if they were able to have untrammelled access to the Canadian market, would be able to flood Canada with products on an economy of scale that would make it impossible for Canadian farmers to compete.

The other factor that is critically important is that supply-managed sectors also give us the ability to make made-in-Canada regulations around the production of our food. For instance, there are certain growth hormones, certain ways of production and certain chemicals that are permitted in other countries that Canada would not want to have in our food system.

At the end of the day, Canadians, when given a choice, would like to source their food from local producers. Canadians want to know that they are supporting their neighbours, their small towns and rural Canada, and that we are helping those farmers and those farm families to make a decent living. We want to know that our food is produced in humane, high quality, safe and healthy manners. This means that Canada should have control over our domestic food production. Again, most Canadians support that and I know that the vast majority of farmers in supply-managed industries also support that.

I want to just touch briefly on a couple of myths. There is this myth that this artificially increases the price of these goods and the Canadian consumer is somehow being exploited or taken advantage of by the supply-managed sector. Nothing could be further from the truth because what supply management does is provide stable prices. I know that right now in this country we have a crisis in the price of food, but in regular times, generally when someone goes to the store to buy a litre of milk or a dozen eggs over the last 20, 30 or 40 years, they know that they are going to be faced with a stable price. In non-supply-managed countries, they may have extraordinarily cheap eggs and milk one year and then if there is bad production in the next year due to bad weather, blight or disease, the prices of those goods skyrocket. Therefore, what supply management does for consumers in this country is provide a stable source of high-quality, supply-managed goods, including poultry, eggs and milk, at stable prices. That ensures that everybody has access to these excellent products at all times.

I know that I speak for my New Democrat colleagues when I say that we are firm, committed and passionate believers in the supply-managed sector. We know it is a system that works well for rural Canada, for farmers and for consumers. To use the old metaphor, “if it ain't broke, don't fix it.”

We also know that the forces that are constantly wanting to cut this away are not forces that care about Canadian farmers, small-town communities, rural Canada or consumers in Canada. Rather, they represent large agribusiness, usually multinational agribusiness, or right-wing economic ideologues who are just pursuing a free-market frenzy philosophy without any regard for the actual impact that this will have on our community and our country.

Therefore, we are very proud to support this bill to committee. We look forward to listening to the evidence and testimony. I want to again congratulate my colleague from Montcalm for this excellent bill. We look forward to working together to strengthen the supply-managed sector in this country so that Canadian farmers and Canadian consumers have access to high-quality products at all times.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity that the member for Montcalm has provided me to reaffirm the government's support for Canada's supply management system and for the bill before us. We know that our dairy, poultry and egg producers want to keep the system strong and sustainable well into the future, and so do we.

Canada's supply management system is a model of stability. It provides a fair price for farmers, stability for processors and high-quality products for consumers, and has done so for over 50 years. Supply management is a pillar of rural prosperity. It sustains farming families and rural communities.

The great contribution of supply-managed sectors to our economy is undeniable. In 2021, the dairy, poultry and egg sectors generated almost $13 billion in farm gate sales and accounted for over 100,000 direct jobs in production and processing activities. In this context, supply-managed sectors have played a significant role in making Canada's agriculture and agri-food industry a leader in sustainable food production and processing with high economic growth potential.

For these reasons, the government has consistently reaffirmed its unwavering support for Canada's supply management system, including in the context of international trade agreements.

During the negotiations of the new NAFTA, the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA, Canada faced significant pressure to dismantle the supply management system. I cannot stress enough how hard we had to resist. However, we succeeded, and all three pillars of the supply management system remain firmly in place: production controls, pricing mechanisms and import controls. Looking into the future, we will continue to preserve, protect and defend all three pillars of Canada's supply management system.

For this reason, in line with the spirit of the bill, the government has publicly committed that we will not provide any new market access for supply-managed products in future trade agreements. This policy has been clearly and publicly stated by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. Bill C-282 would make this commitment even stronger.

We have made this commitment and we will keep it. In fact, we demonstrated this most recently during the negotiation of the Canada-United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement, which did not include any new access for cheese or other supply-managed products.

Furthermore, the government believes that ensuring greater involvement of the public, stakeholders and parliamentarians in Canada's trade agenda strengthens the defence and promotion of our broader economic interests, including supply-managed sectors. As such, we have increased transparency in the conduct of trade negotiations and have enhanced reporting obligations to Parliament for new trade agreements.

In November 2020, we updated the policy on the tabling of treaties in Parliament to provide additional opportunities for members of Parliament to review the objectives and economic merits of new trade agreements. Furthermore, in 2018, this government committed to fully and fairly compensate producers and processors of supply-managed commodities, including dairy, poultry and egg farmers, impacted by recent trade agreements.

Our government will continue to preserve, protect and defend our supply management system in the context of any challenge by our trading partners. We are confident that Canada is fully compliant in the implementation of its trade obligations, and we will vigorously defend our interests.

To close, let me reiterate the government's unequivocal commitment to maintain supply management as a pillar of strong and sustainable rural prosperity into the future. Bill C-282 is aligned with our commitment, and for this reason, we support it. The government is fully committed to defending the integrity of supply management while also continuing to pursue the ambitious trade agenda on which economic recovery depends.

The House resumed from November 16, 2022, consideration of the motion that Bill C-282, An Act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act (supply management), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Bibeau, let's go back to the discussion where we left off.

You say that rebating the 35% surtax on Russian fertilizer directly to producers is complicated. However, according to my research service, it would be possible to make a remission order. If that avenue was not explored, I invite you to ask the officials in your department to do it. It makes no sense for those people not to get their money.

In addition, when you assure Mr. Lehoux of your desire to protect the supply management system, I sincerely believe you, so I imagine you are going to support Bill C‑282, which we will be discussing shortly.

I am now going to ask you a question about the Canadian Organic Standard. This is not the first time I have spoken to you about it, and it is important to know whether the revision of that standard is being funded by the federal government. Do you have good news for the people in the organic agriculture sector today?

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

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.