Madam Speaker, on November 24, 1997, I asked the Hon. Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food if he intended to protect Canadian dairy farmers against the import of increasing amounts of the cream and sugar mixture commonly known as butter oil.
At the time, the secretary of state for Agriculture and Agri-Food stood up to thank me, of course, for my question and say he was doing his best. That was on November 24, one month before Christmas.
Today, nearly two months after Christmas, many weeks have gone by and it is clear that butter oil imports to Canada are doubling every year. To preserve our so-called supply-managed industries, that is to say dairy, eggs and poultry, when the WTO agreements, formerly known as GATT, were signed in December 1993, tariffs were set so high that they would discourage any country from exporting supply-managed items to Canada, including dairy products.
A number of exporters affiliated with Unilever met with Revenue Canada senior officials to discuss the tariff schedule and numbers. With the blessing of Revenue Canada, they were told: “Put in only 49% butter, melt it, add 51% sugar, and you will pay a 7% entry tariff instead of 284%”.
That is how things are done under this Liberal government and our farmers, our dairy producers, have seen their milk quotas drop by 3% last year. That is a 3% decrease in net profits.
Very recently, the Dairy Farmers of Canada held their annual convention in Vancouver, where the minister took the trouble to meet with them at the end of their meeting. The poor guy said he was disappointed by the position taken by the Dairy Farmers of Canada, and he asked the revenue department to set up some kind of tribunal, a so-called advisory tribunal, to review the tariff on butter oil. What a disgrace.
In one, two or three years from now, this advisory body will probably submit its report to the revenue department, which will review it under the leadership of the revenue minister, but without too much pressure from the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. We will end up with another agreement we will have to sign since, in 1999, in 18 months' time, we will have to embark upon a new negotiation process to renew this WTA agreement.
I have always been told that, in law, one cannot do indirectly what one cannot do directly. Dairy products were subject to a quota—