Mr. Chair and honourable committee members, thank you for the invitation to address the committee today.
My name is Pierre Lampron. In addition to being a dairy farmer myself, I am the president of Dairy Farmers of Canada.
Joining me for this presentation is our vice-president, Mr. David Wiens. We welcome this opportunity to express the strong support of Canada's 10,000 dairy farmers for Bill C‑282.
If passed, this legislation will ensure that supply management will no longer be on the table in current or future trade negotiations, thereby strengthening the Canadian dairy sector. It will give us greater predictability and stability to invest and plan for the future. It will also allow us to continue to play the vital role we need to play for the benefit of Canadian families.
The past few years have been challenging for all Canadians. In addition to a global pandemic and the resulting high inflation, there was the war in Ukraine and unreliable global supply chains because they were weakened.
Dairy farmers have also faced these significant challenges and have done their utmost to adapt. However, we have also faced an additional challenge: the impact of market access concessions granted under three successive trade agreements: the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP, and the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA.
Dairy farmers in Canada estimate that the combined market access afforded by these agreements equates to an average annual loss of revenue of $450 million for dairy farmers.
I will now turn the floor over to Mr. Wiens.