Agriculture Committee on Nov. 7th, 2013

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I can hardly wait until the meeting is done.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, can we please distribute that cheese?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

That's not a point of order; it's discussion.

[An hon. member]

It sounds like a point of order to me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

At any rate, it's a great idea, Mr. Payne.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

We're looking forward to trying that out.

It's my understanding, Mr. Smith, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that the three pillars are still in place, are they not?

[Wally Smith]

Yes, the three pillars are still in place.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

And it's my understanding that the tariff of I think 245% remains intact.

[Wally Smith]

It's my understanding that the tariffs were not eliminated or reduced.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Okay. So I would have to say that for this agreement, we're protecting the supply management system. Everywhere I read, people want to get rid of it. I'm supporting it. Our government is supporting it.

I just want to go back to my colleague's question regarding the cheese market. I know that there are obviously some imports, but when we look at the cheese market maintaining I think 90% or 95%, Canadian cheeses will trump the import markets. To me that's a pretty healthy piece of the market. If we look at other products, I'm not sure they would have that same kind of major access over imported products.

Do you have any comments you'd like to make on that?

[Richard Doyle]

I must admit that I find it quite interesting that Europe is giving away one-half of 1% for beef and pork and is threatening to pour chemicals on the loads as they arrive at the ports. They have a huge amount of concern over one-half of 1% of access, while everybody here says, “Well, you only have to give 4%, and this shouldn't hurt you.”

I don't understand that, quite frankly. I've heard these messages, but quite frankly, 4% is a $300 million cheese market that has been given away. Whether it's in future growth or whatever, it's still a $300 million market that has been given away.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

You made a comment about pouring oil or something on the cheese...?

[Richard Doyle]

I'm saying that there have been all kinds of reports from Europeans that their farmers would take action against the imports of Canadian beef and pork and so on. It's been in the media; I'm not inventing this. I'm saying that we haven't done that, right?

Quite frankly, we're being told that we're not supposed to be worried about having 4% given away. Europe will maintain 99% of their cheese market. They only gave 1% access on—

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I'm not suggesting that that's not a good thing, that they can continue to have 99%.... What I'm suggesting here is that in Canada we're maintaining about 90% or 95%, whatever the number is. To me, that is pretty good, particularly when we think about Canada as a trading nation. We're trying to get new agreements right across the world for exports of Canadian products. We know that Canadian products are one of the standards in the world; we make some of the best stuff. In particular, this artisan cheese, I understand, got a gold medal, and another bronze medal, as I understand it. I think that potentially we need to be able to compete everywhere in the world. That's sort of where I'm going on that particular thing.

As I also understand it—and you can correct me if I'm wrong—Canadian cheeses will still be able to keep their trademarks that go into Europe, the European market.

[Wally Smith]

My understanding is that under the geographical indicators with the CETA agreement, that is incorrect. We would have to use modifiers on the cheese that we actually export into the European market.

I want to back up a little bit to some of your comments about so many people against supply management—

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Actually, I think—

[Wally Smith]

There's a handful of journalists who are opposed to supply management. Our—

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Actually, that's not true.

[Wally Smith]

Our polls are showing us that we have 81% of Canadian consumers strongly behind supply management and the stable and secure and safe food supply that they have confidence in, and we are very proud of that.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I don't disagree with that, but I'm—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Your time is up. Thank you.

We're going to go to Mr. Atamanenko.

You have five minutes and no longer.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Thanks very much, Chair.

My question is one of process. I'd like to read for you something that

Marcel Groleau, president of the Union des producteurs agricoles du Québec, said the following, and I would like you to comment on it:

“This concession is not consistent with the House of Commons unanimous motion on the protection of supply management.”...All through the negotiations, no such mention was made in the reports to the industry. “We had confidence,” added Mr. Groleau. “Canada's decision is regrettable and opens the door to the dumping of European cheese on the Canadian market... Here we have regulatory support whereas they have financial support”. Mr. Groleau points out that, in trade agreement negotiations, countries usually make sure that the subsidies of future trade partners will be reduced or eliminated before opening the market. However, the current agreement does not seem to affect European subsidies. “Our dairy and cheese producers will have to start competing with the European treasury for a spot on the shelves of our grocery stores”, said Mr. Groleau.

He's saying that we've allowed cheese that is subsidized to come into our country. He goes on to say that about 60% of the revenue of the producteurs who compete against our cheese comes from subsidies, and our farmers don't receive any money from our government. I guess his point is, is this fair? As we were doing the negotiations, was that a fair way to conduct the negotiations?

Could you comment on that?

[Wally Smith]

We have some of the finest and best artisanal cheese in the world, without a doubt, and we can compete with anyone in the world, without a doubt. The caveat is that it must be on a level playing field. That is the issue we're up against. So I agree with what the UPA president has said, because that is what our message is, I guess. Certainly the Prime Minister himself, when he made the announcement about the CETA deal back in Brussels, did acknowledge that there could be some.... I don't know exactly the language he used. There were some fairly big words there about some transitional negative impact and that the government would compensate for that.

As I said earlier in my opening statement, we have fully and willingly engaged in constructive dialogue with the government to try to mitigate some of this injury we are facing as dairy producers. As to the comment about the House motion back in 2005, zero and zero—zero new market access and zero tariff reduction—back in British Columbia where I'm from, zero and zero equal zero. Zero and zero doesn't equal eighteen. I'm trying to figure out the math on that one. But I was told very clearly that the House motion is not binding on the negotiators. It's not binding on the government, so we obviously can no longer use that.

Regarding the House motion, we were told by some officials that the elected representatives of the day today, who have made the deal, weren't even in the House in 2005. So how could it, in spite of unanimous party support, be actually in effect at this date?