Mr. Speaker, it is certainly an honour to rise again to speak in the debate regarding the free trade agreement with Europe which has taken many years to negotiate. It was done when many of us actually were not here in the House. I was one of the new MPs last year and while I have not been part of the process to secure this deal, I certainly congratulate both the previous government and the current government on the work they have been doing. I do not think Canadians are sitting at home wanting us to pat ourselves on the back, but I think it certainly needs to be recognized that there was significant work done on both sides of the House. This is perhaps an example where we can identify parties running in the same direction and certainly putting Canadian interests ahead of any political ones.
Mr. Speaker, you will know Barrie Welding because you are just up the highway from this company. It is certainly a great company that does a lot of business in Europe. When I originally spoke with them about the Canada-Europe Union free trade agreement, about CETA, one of the things that came out in the conversation was that they are not looking for any government handouts. They are not looking for the government to somehow prop up the business they are doing. What they are looking for is a good trade environment, a strong trade environment, which CETA certainly works toward, and stability in the marketplace, meaning that they do not want to see tax changes that would put the company at a disadvantage with its competitors, either inside or outside the country. They want a good stable place to do business to ensure that their investment is made on good information and they will be able to reap the rewards of that investment. The reward for our municipality, for Simcoe County as well, is that the company is a strong employer, with many employees. In fact, it employs in the range of 600 persons.
When I look at trade overall, it certainly is a huge issue for the Canadian economy going forward. Diversification of our trade agenda was something which the previous government worked on with over over 40 agreements signed.
With this one in particular, we now have access to a market of 500 million people, with $20 trillion a year in economic activity. This is a huge deal for the Canadian government. It is a huge deal for the Canadian public. It is very timely considering everything that is going on in the world. Diversification is something that perhaps has never been so paramount for the Canadian economy when considering what we are doing with the U.S.
We cannot be too reliant on the U.S. Traditionally, our strongest trading partner continues to be the U.S., but let us just imagine for a second that there was a U.S. president who wanted to tackle trade with Canada and there is a potential that we were going to see a reduction in that trade. This is certainly highlighting the opportunity with Europe, as well as the idea that we need to follow through and diversify and reduce our reliance upon our American counterparts south of the border.
When we look at the deal that was negotiated under the previous government, there were many tenets to it. It is a huge trade deal, but there were a couple of items which I know stood out for the people of Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte. One of the unique things about the riding I represent is that we have both agriculture, a large rural area, as well as an inner city. The previous speaker and I have that in common. This was a trade agreement that had a wide-ranging effect on our economy, because we have both supply-managed farmers and on the other side we have great big manufacturers. About 15 minutes away from Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte is a Honda plant that employs thousands. The word “plant” does not really describe what it is. It is more of a complex. This is certainly one of the local manufacturers that was seeing a positive return from CETA.
In fact, when I look at the supply-managed farmers, there was a decision regarding 17,000 tonnes of cheese and potential compensation available for those individual farmers, based on the loss of quota, etc. This was something that was committed to by the previous government. It included both CETA and the potential for TPP negotiations, which are certainly up in the air at this point. However, it was something that had been communicated to both this Parliament and the agricultural sector.
Unfortunately, one of the things that the government has not done is clearly articulate what its intentions are with regards to this piece of the trade agreement. We certainly do not want to see the government trading away supply management without the proper compensation put in place, as this is, after all, a government program. It is the government that has created this artificial value to the quota itself.
This has bred some uncertainty into the agricultural sector with regards to milk, cheese, etc., and just as it was in the manufacturing sector, the agricultural sector is looking for certainty and stability. It wants to know what the cost of doing business is going to be and certainly wants to know what the return on investment is in terms of a best case prediction and business plan going forward.
I will fast forward to Honda. I believe on March 15, 2015, and it might have been a little later in the month, there was an announcement made by the then prime minister, Stephen Harper, and the Canadian CEO of Honda Canada at the Honda plant in Alliston, that 40,000 vehicles, Honda CRVs, would be manufactured in that plant. There was going to be some retrofitting going on within the facility to allow Honda to create vehicles that would be used in Europe. This was going to spur a $100-million investment by Honda Canada in the facility. Now we understand from Honda that it is no longer applicable and it is not going to produce those vehicles there. This comes back to the whole idea of stability and what is going on in the marketplace.
Since the original CETA decision was made by the previous government, we have seen some things change. It is clearly having an effect on Canadian jobs. It is having an effect on Canadian investment within manufacturing, and the result is that there will no longer be 40,000 vehicles built at Honda in Alliston and sent across to Europe. This means we are actually losing out on opportunity, we are losing out on jobs, and we are losing out on investment in Canadian manufacturing.
This is what changed. Previously, we had a government that said it would reduce small business taxes. In fact, today's government actually agreed and said that it would also reduce small business taxes, yet failed to follow through on that. We have a government today that is increasing taxes through a carbon tax, and $50 per tonne of carbon is now going to be a tax going forward. It is being phased in from 2018 to 2022. It is having, obviously, a detrimental effect on the manufacturing sector.
The third piece was the cost of labour. We have seen payroll taxes coming down the line. Obviously it started with ORPP in Ontario and morphed into CPP nationally, and this is having a detrimental effect, a very bad effect, on the job market. The result that we have seen both across the country and in Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte is that there is less investment, fewer jobs being create, and therefore more jobs being sent overseas, 53,000 last year alone.
Trade is not the only component to a strong economy. We want to have open arms to trade agreements with jurisdictions that we see a strong business case for, but we cannot kill our competitiveness at the same time. What the current government is doing through these increased taxes is killing our competitiveness while opening up these new trade agreements. Therefore, we would ask that Liberals to ensure that with all of our policies going forward, they change on the tax side to make Canada competitive again. Certainly we will support and follow through on CETA.