Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise today to take part in this debate on the whole question of the World Trade Organization.
Understandably, my remarks will focus on agriculture and all the possible repercussions of the WTO negotiations scheduled to begin late this month or early in December.
I became aware of the importance of international trade in April 1998, when I took part in a meeting of the Cairns Group, which gave me a bit of an idea of where Canada stood. As members know, the Cairns Group is made up of about 15 countries with a much more trade-oriented philosophy. A great deal has been said about market access, but we seem to be forgetting fundamental things like the environment or social issues.
Last week, I attended the 10th meeting of the Inter-American Board of Agriculture. Thirty-four countries from the three Americas were present at this meeting in Salvador, in the state of Bahia in Brazil. Here again, I saw that the program under which countries would normally be starting negotiations was far from ready.
Increasingly, we are seeing tensions developing between various growth poles in the world. For example, we were able to see firsthand that more and more Brazil is taking an aggressive approach and becoming an economic player that wants to impose its views on South American countries.
As I said earlier, Brazil is a member of the Cairns Group. Its philosophy is also very trade-oriented and it tends to ignore major priorities in the context of WTO negotiations.
Tension runs so high that, last week, WTO's ambassador in Geneva, Nestor Osorio, could not participate in the meetings held in Brazil because of problems with setting an agenda and getting WTO negotiations under way.
The situation is currently as follows: The United States, Brazil and several North American countries are refusing to include the concept of multifunctionality proposed by the European Union. This is very embarrassing for the WTO ambassador, because negotiations are at an impasse. It is very difficult to set an agenda and to clearly indicate what issues will be raised.
What is Canada's role in all this? What will it do? Canada should be a model, a unifier, or a moderator. We still do not know what its status will be. Yet, this is a unique opportunity for Canada to act as a leader in the integration of the three Americas.
At the present time, two trade powers seem to be emerging, Brazil and the United States. However, Canada could readily play the role of moderator-facilitator, intervening with either the United States or Brazil to get them to understand the importance in the context of negotiation of having a grasp of all the concepts which could help advance the issue worldwide.
Now I shall touch on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, or the Canada food police if members prefer, that wonderful propaganda agency, which guarantees to other countries that food is Canada Proof, while systematically refusing within the country to provide elected representatives with information on such important issues as genetically modified foods when asked. What is one's reaction supposed to be when one contacts the food agency and is told “Contact Access to Information and pay for it”. That is why I call the agency the Canada food police.
If we ask questions on the agency here in the House, I can just hear the minister answering “Mr. Speaker, you know, this is an independent agency. I would not like to be accused by the government of interfering in the internal workings of an agency”.
Meanwhile, MPs still have no answers, and the public has no answers. The issue of food inspection control is so vital that, last week again, in Salvador and Brazil, there was much discussion of the whole issue of GMOs, which will be on the agenda.
Where does Canada fit in all this? Despite numerous speeches by my colleague from Louis-Hébert, there is no way of knowing. However, the recent throne speech gave me a few shivers. There is a little sentence in it that indicates quite clearly where the Liberal government is headed, and I will read it:
The government will protect the health of Canadians by strengthening Canada's food safety program, by taking further action on environment health issues, including the potential health risks presented by pesticides, and by modernizing overall health protection for a changing world.
What does that mean? It means that the government is preparing to create a super agency to include health, environment and food issues. We will again have a hard time in this House getting information.
The protests are so strong that the government has decided to back up with the bill it introduced in the last session, Bill C-80. But we know its intentions. I am sure they will come back later one with a more biting offensive to impose Bill C-80 and the new agency on us in 2000.
What does the creation of this super agency mean? It will house all the disciplines required to control information and will Canada, abroad, to show its “Canada approved” seal more, a seal that here will become “Ottawa controlled”. The government will not just be controlling the information coming from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, but all the information having to do with food, health and the environment.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, I intended to concentrate more on the issue of agriculture, which will be the focus of concerns when WTO negotiations begin, possibly in late November or early December, in Seattle.
The purpose of the meeting, it should be noted, is to agree on an agenda and negotiations, which will then begin in earnest, and move to Geneva, where they may go on for months and months, if not years. The whole issue of trade will be up for discussion.
Producers, all the stakeholders in the agricultural community, need to know, to be informed and, last March, with this in mind and with the help of the member for Louis-Hébert and the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, I organized a symposium to look at this whole issue and really inform people.
It was attended by 125 people. They all left better informed but, at the same time, more worried, because they can see that the Canadian government does not have the necessary leadership to defend them in WTO talks.
Who is better placed than Quebec to defend the interests of farmers? As members know, Quebec is unique in Canada. We have two completely different income security systems. We have a broadly diversified agricultural sector.
So, if the government really wants to be consistent in all the partnership ideas that it has been promoting since the beginning of the session, it should give a seat to the Quebec government, so that Quebec's elected officials can closely follow WTO negotiations.
We asked the Canadian government to ensure that other countries do their homework. As things stand, the Canadian government has fulfilled most of the commitments it made during the Uruguay Round of negotiations. However, countries such as the United States, the European Community and Japan have not yet fulfilled theirs.
We asked here in this House that when the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the Minister for International Trade travel to Seattle later this month they demand, before negotiations begin, that their trading partners do their homework and comply with the commitments they made.
Right now, the situation is very distorted. Let us take a look. The president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Bob Friesen, who was here this morning and who once again deplored the whole federal income security system, says that Ottawa went too far and that Canada reduced subsidies beyond what was expected of it. Mr. Friesen claims that Ottawa could do much more for farmers without violating trade agreements.
Here are some figures. For each dollar received by Canadian farmers, their American and European counterparts receive $2.50, and this does not include the $8.6 billion in assistance that the United States just gave to American farmers. And Canada is going to agree to begin negotiations in spite of such an injustice.
Here are more figures, which clearly demonstrate that the Canadian government is not standing up for our farmers. On the contrary, it has got down on its knees to please its trading partners. In 1998, the OECD estimated that total support provided by agricultural policies amounted to $140 U.S. per capita in Canada, compared to $360 U.S. in the United States and $380 U.S. in Europe. Again, one can see the distortion. One can see that Canada will arrive at the negotiation table and will be at a disadvantage, considering what it has already given up, unlike other countries.
We can see that the agriculture minister's argument about constraints imposed by the WTO does not hold. I should point out that following the GATT treaty signed in 1995—I have been referring to these signatures since the beginning—commitments were made by the various partners. In fact, it is during that meeting that the World Trade Organization was created.
In 1995, GATT members had to pledge to reduce their farm subsidies by 15%. Canada did so by giving only 50% of what it is allowed to give under international agreements. By contrast, the United States and Europe are giving 100% of what they are allowed to give. Again, these figures have a distorting effect on the current world market.
The farmers' plight in Canada and Quebec is not simply related to problems of subsidies. It clearly shows the federal government's failure in its farm income support policy.
Let us look together at the federal government's failure in the AIDA program. The federal government is largely responsible for the present situation. I know that the agriculture minister once again announced a program, earlier, but we do not know the terms of it, how it will be implemented or when it will take effect. In the meantime, the farm crisis in the west continues.
In the area of farm income, the current situation proves that AIDA does not work and cannot guarantee farmers a decent living standard. The government cannot deny responsibility for the situation, and it contributes to maintaining the farm income crisis.
As I said this morning, in December 1998, all parties pulled together to find a title for a report. They talked about a farm crisis. A crisis means specific and speedy action is necessary to help people. Today, November 4, 1999, statistics continue to be bandied about, figures are being brought out to help people, but the situation is unresolved.
The main problem comes from the fact that AIDA, as it stands today, denies benefits to a number of the producers it was intended to help originally. As it now stands, the program will not be paying out in the next two years the $900 million the federal government had announced with great pomp last December. The government will not be able to keep its promises of assistance.
I would like the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to tell us how much of the $900 million has been used up. What became of this money?
Why does the minister not want to be of more assistance to people in a time of crisis? The problems with AIDA in its present form are many and show that the federal government does not really want to come to the assistance of those going through this crisis.
I will give another example. We hear that the forms are very complicated, and so forth. The answer I was given this morning contained a mountain of statistics. I would not have liked to have seen any farmers listening in at the agriculture committee meeting this morning. I think they would have gone away furious. Politicians would not have had much credibility with them, particularly those in the Liberal Party of Canada. We are told that administering a program is a hard task. Yet it was announced in December 1998.
I will give an example. At the time the federal government announced its program on December 12, 1998, the U.S. administration also announced a special emergency program for American farmers, bringing to over $5 billion the additional funding put into agriculture in 1998-1999.
Despite some delays, American farmers got their payments more promptly than their Canadian counterparts. Here again, the technocracy and bureaucracy has put Quebec farmers in a position of weakness, less able to compete.
It is high time this government woke up to reality. First of all, I will come back to a point I have already made: the federal government ought to accept the presence of representatives of the Government of Quebec because of their type of agricultural production. It is completely different from that of the rest of Canada. That is the first point. There are two completely different income security systems. In some areas, we are more proactive. We have a far more diversified agricultural industry.
If the Canadian government has any desire to prove its willingness to become a reliable partner with Quebec, it must give Quebec a seat at the WTO meeting in Seattle, not only in Seattle, but throughout the negotiations, because we need to monitor what this government plans to do. We need to know what is going to happen. We need to be kept informed of the various stages to the negotiations, so as to ensure that the hard-won advances of Quebec agricultural producers are maintained. As Bloc Quebecois MPs, my colleagues and I will defend Quebec to the very end.
