Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to continue debating the motion.
As I was saying earlier, I wonder if the government has a grudge against the hands that feed it every day. I am talking about the people who work on the farms, the dairy producers—in fact, those who feed our children.
The announced program of $50 million per year offers no real compensation and will not provide satisfactory protection for our supply management system. Indeed, the industry estimates that the annual losses to Canada’s dairy producers will be $116 million. Those losses come at a time when the Liberals are still missing in action on the diafiltered milk issue despite the fact that they have been promising a solution for over a year now.
More cracks are starting to appear on the issue of supply management, a system that Canada has chosen as a society to guarantee the survival of our family farms and proper land use. The region’s milk producers were not very excited by the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food's announcement.
Mr. Daniel Côté, president of the Producteurs de lait du Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, has said that his association was extremely disappointed at the plan announced by the government. It was clear that the Liberals had failed in their job. They had promised a comprehensive program to solve all of the sector’s problems, including diafiltered milk, but the announcement was only concerned with CETA, and it was for very insignificant amounts. The government says it consulted producers, but it would seem to be hard of hearing because the results are far from what our dairy producers expected. As Mr. Côté has said, the government owes it to the region’s producers to shoulder its responsibilities and keep its promises.
The agreement before us today also has shortcomings with respect to government purchasing and procurement. Many witnesses have said that they are afraid of the impact the Canada-Europe agreement will have on the flexibility of the government’s internal supply and services structures.
Witnesses representing the municipalities have pointed out the important role played by government supply policies in local economic development initiatives. They believe that the provisions of CETA risk undermining local development plans by granting new rights to European companies.
I will conclude by saying that New Democrats support trade agreements that reduce customs duties and stimulate exports but firmly exclude elements that threaten sovereignty, such as the provisions concerning investor-state disputes. We believe it is the government’s responsibility to conclude better trade agreements, particularly as regards human rights and labour standards, as well as protection of the environment and Canadian jobs.
I have serious reservations about the so-called progressive trade program of the Liberal government. When all is said and done, a trade agreement has to be assessed based on the costs it entails and the net benefits it affords.
In the past, we New Democrats have always stood in very clear opposition to agreements liable to have a negative impact on Canadians, such as the agreement with Honduras and the foreign investment promotion and protection agreement, or FIPA, with China.
Allow me to add that better processes lead to better agreements. Far too often, successive Liberal and Conservative governments have negotiated behind closed doors and kept Canadians in the dark about the process. That is notably what happened with the negotiations of the trans-Pacific partnership.