Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for her important question.
The Government of Canada strongly supports the supply management system, farmers, their families and producers.
The NDP says one thing in the House, but behind closed doors it admits that this agreement protects Canadian jobs. The leader of the NDP celebrated the agreement at an event in Ottawa last Tuesday evening. The NDP member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, who is also the NDP's Quebec lieutenant, described the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement as the best possible agreement. The NDP privately admits that this is a good agreement because it knows that it protects the millions of Canadian jobs that were in jeopardy.
Canada's supply managed sectors are essential to ensuring our country's prosperity and growth. As the saying goes, if you ate today, thank a farmer. The dairy, egg and poultry industries combined create several thousand jobs in our country and generate $32 billion in economic activity.
Canada's dairy industry, one of the largest segments of the Canadian agrifood sector, generates farm gate sales of $6.5 billion, processing sales of $14 billion, and more than 40,000 jobs.
The USMCA preserves and maintains Canada's supply management system and its three pillars, namely production control, the pricing mechanism and import control. Our government preserved and maintained the supply management system when it negotiated CETA and the CPTPP, and when it renegotiated NAFTA.
We have announced new working groups consisting of producers and processors in the dairy, poultry and egg industries. The working groups will bring together representatives from Canadian dairy organizations and associations, regional representatives and senior officials from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. They will develop mitigation strategies to fully and fairly support producers and processors and help them adapt to the United States—Mexico—Canada agreement.
Supply-managed industries can count on the full support of our government. Our commitment has never wavered.