Evidence of meeting #12 for International Trade in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was saskatchewan.
10:10 a.m.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
It's just nice to know that you're speaking not just for yourself, but with some weight behind your comments. I just wanted to clarify that.
With that I'm done. Your presentations were informative and instructive and we appreciate your being here.
Thank you.
10:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Thank you, Mr. Peterson.
I commend you on your French, but I'd like to remind members that, if they're going to speak French, they need to give the witnesses a little bit of time to get the translation. Don't assume they're bilingual. If you're going to speak French, give them a heads-up so they can get set. I'm sure the witnesses all have a set of headphones in front of them.
On that note, we're going to move over to Mr. Ritz.
Go ahead, sir.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your concise presentations today. It's good to have all sides of the debate.
I'd like to start with Ms. Neal. Kudos for the great job that you're doing and the advocacy that you're doing. It is a noble cause.
I have a couple of points that I wanted to make. You said that President Obama's program is the most efficient and effective one to this point. It seems strange to me that he is one of the strongest advocates for TPP. Is he at cross-purposes there?
10:10 a.m.
Member, Leadership Team and Regional Leader for the Prairies, Grandmothers Advocacy Network
I think you could say perhaps the same for Prime Minister Trudeau. He has made strong statements that he supports the 90-90-90 goal that was put out by the United Nations and it was a target for 2020.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
10:10 a.m.
Member, Leadership Team and Regional Leader for the Prairies, Grandmothers Advocacy Network
Prime Minister Trudeau has definitely supported that. He's made many statements that he supports access to medicines. He supports all these things, yet, I suspect he's....
I can't speak for him, but there are a lot of people, of course, who are supporting this trade agreement. The trade agreement is so wide. I can't pretend to speak for all these other people. I'm only speaking for the medicines. That is a real danger. I just don't think, even though there might be benefits, you can be doing this with those medicines.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
It's also well known that India is the largest producer of generics, and it will continue to be.
10:15 a.m.
Member, Leadership Team and Regional Leader for the Prairies, Grandmothers Advocacy Network
Yes, we help....
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Since they're not part of TPP, why would that stop?
10:15 a.m.
Member, Leadership Team and Regional Leader for the Prairies, Grandmothers Advocacy Network
There are many other drugs that are needed.
As the population increases.... Of course, because the infection rate has gone down, you actually have more people who are living, and more people with AIDS, of course. If you're on antiretrovirals for many years, you find that they don't work anymore. You need these second...whatever—I can't remember what they're called. The second string—
10:15 a.m.
Member, Leadership Team and Regional Leader for the Prairies, Grandmothers Advocacy Network
Yes. A second generation of drugs are certainly ones that are still needed, and the patent on these is not going to be available.
There are still problems too. We don't know whether India will be able to do this forever. Even with this, there's only 41% of adults who are actually on these drugs and 31% of children, so it's not reaching them. There are not enough drugs, even with India supplying them.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Some of that is political instability in the countries of record—
10:15 a.m.
Member, Leadership Team and Regional Leader for the Prairies, Grandmothers Advocacy Network
Some of it is actually getting the drugs to the people. I agree with that.
10:15 a.m.
Member, Leadership Team and Regional Leader for the Prairies, Grandmothers Advocacy Network
Yes. The distance and the rural thing.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Thank you.
Mr. Boehm, it is no secret that we would disagree on a lot of what you're saying, but I just want to correct a couple of things.
You made the leap that trade has not been helpful to agriculture, that it's debt-to-asset and farm income and so on. I have to correct that, because I think your research is a little behind the times.
The average age of farmers is going down. We've seen that over the last decade. We're gaining about 8% in younger farmers, and that's good because there's a solid bottom line. The asset-to-debt ratio hasn't been this good for almost three decades. Farmers are making the decisions to invest because there are positives in the bottom line, and I see a few young farmers in the audience who would certainly love to show you that. Net income over the last five years has been growing exponentially, and that's what's led to farmers making investments on their debt side. They see the long-term benefit of trade allowing them to expand their ability to market offshore.
10:15 a.m.
Chair, Trade Committee, National Farmers Union
I think that when we we see debt numbers increasing by several billion dollars, frequently, annually, one has to question when that debt needs to be serviced. We're seeing increasing debt throughout the Canadian population. A lot of it is largely because of very low interest rates. At the end of the day, though, when we acquire this debt, who are the net beneficiaries and who is actually benefiting from the investments?
Our research for a long time has said that players outside of agriculture offloading costs onto farmers, whether it's grain storage requirements, increased transportation, etc., is showing up in the debt ledgers of farmers. We're seeing an offloading and an externalization of costs on agriculture, partly as a consequence of these agreements, partly because of other policies.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Thank you.
Ms. Gendron, thank you for the work that you do on behalf of your union.
I'm a little concerned that it didn't come through in the provincial election that we had here in Saskatchewan, or in Manitoba, which happened yesterday. Somehow, the province isn't picking up on your advocacy.
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
I think that sums up your time, sir.
Now we're going to go back to the Liberals and Mr. Dhaliwal for five minutes.
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Surrey—Newton, BC
Thank you.
Ms. Neal, I would like to add my vote of thanks for the incredible work you have done and the Grandmothers Advocacy Network is doing in people's lives, ensuring access to important medication, improving access to education, and ending violence against women and girls. Those are some of the things that we all agree on around this table. Certainly, TPP is the one that we have some differences with.
There's one clause in the statement in the TPP that contains the following text in regard to the government:
The Parties affirm their commitment to promote and strengthen an open trade and investment environment that seeks to improve welfare, reduce poverty, raise living standards and create new employment opportunities in support of development.
What are your thoughts on that? I would also like Catherine and Raymond to chip in as well, please.
10:20 a.m.
Member, Leadership Team and Regional Leader for the Prairies, Grandmothers Advocacy Network
I'm not quite sure. That was a quote from where?
10:20 a.m.
Member, Leadership Team and Regional Leader for the Prairies, Grandmothers Advocacy Network
Okay. I'm not quite sure what you want me to answer there.
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Surrey—Newton, BC
Your concern is the well-being of people. This agreement states in here that this is the intent. I thought if you have any comments to make, otherwise I'll pass it on to—