Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
While many may know the Teamsters as Canada's largest transportation union, it is less well known that we are also Canada's largest dairy workers' union.
We represent 5,000 workers in dairies across the country and more than 500 workers involved in bulk milk and dairy transportation from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland and Labrador.
As such, our union supports supply management, and we recognize our government's efforts to protect the supply management system. It is a win to repel the American push to dismantle supply management. It is a loss that greater foreign access to Canada's dairy market was granted.
One cannot examine CUSMA's potential impact on dairy workers in isolation. Canada has repeatedly tossed the dairy sector under the bus in an effort to secure trade agreements. The impact on the sector of CETA, the CPTPP and CUSMA is cumulative and severe. Close to 10% of the Canadian dairy market has been sacrificed on the altar of these free trade agreements—this, at a time when domestic demand for milk has been steadily falling.
As a result the government recognized the need to compensate the dairy industry. Let me be clear: We are in complete solidarity with dairy farmers, and we are not opposed to companies in the dairy processing sector receiving money either. The problem we call to your attention is that actual dairy workers are getting nothing—no money for training or skills upgrading, no enhanced EI or severance for workers who lose their jobs.
They are getting absolutely zero.
This year Saputo announced it will lay off 300 workers, after receiving $7 million from the dairy processing investment fund. These laid-off workers will receive nothing from a government that has seen fit in recent years to give billions to literally every other player in the industry. Worse still, the government's subsidies might not even create or secure other jobs in the sector, as the funds can be used to automate production lines, potentially causing even more job losses.
Trade agreements are viewed as one cause in the rise of the disaffection of workers. What do you think dairy workers and everyday working-class Canadians in general might think when industry is given billions and workers get nothing?
Our thinking at this stage is that a program for the 25,000 workers employed in the dairy processing sector could cost less than 1% of the $3.9 billion earmarked in the spring 2019 federal budget for sectors affected by recent trade agreements. The good news is that Teamsters Canada has held some discussions at the departmental level. They are at an early stage and came only after years of effort.
We ask that the committee support our initiative. As a matter of policy, we should no longer assume money given to an industry will automagically trickle down to workers. It is a sound position that when a government decides it must compensate an industry due to the effects of entering into a trade agreement, compensation must include a package for actual workers.
That said, we'd welcome any questions the committee might have.
Thank you very much.