Madam Speaker, I am very proud to rise in the House to stand up for farmers across Canada, especially the people of Salaberry—Suroît, who work tirelessly to feed the people in our region and also just to survive. Unfortunately, that is the reality they must face. They are just surviving and do not earn a decent living from working the land.
The NDP supports farmers and is determined to preserve the integrity of the supply management system and the Canadian dairy system. For years, we have been calling for the full protection of the supply management system. Unlike the Liberals and the Conservatives, we believe that Canada should not have made concessions in the CETA negotiations with the European Union, or in the TPP negotiations, or in the recent negotiations between Canada, the United States and Mexico.
Mr. Trump was expecting Canadians to accept similar concessions because the Conservatives and the Liberals had already made them in the two previous negotiations for the TPP and CETA. Unfortunately, the U.S. got their concessions.
The Liberals made some significant concessions. In total, these three agreements signed over three years account for a 10% breach. This is the equivalent of about one month of a farmer's income. Farmers have said that they are having to forgo 28 days of income because of these three international agreements. I do not think anyone in this House would easily give up a month's worth of work.
Furthermore, in the latest agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico, access to Canada's dairy market was expanded by 3.6%. The Canadian government abandoned class 7 and is also allowing a new dairy product, diafiltered milk, to enter the Canadian market. Canadians fought to say that we should prioritize Canadian milk. They said that when other classes are allowed to cross the border, it is harder to know where the milk in our products comes from.
As a result of all this, farmers will lose more than $200 million in revenue a year, and the agreements will also limit supply-managed exports to levels lower than they were in 2017.
The government also signed away its sovereignty by giving the Americans oversight of the classification of dairy products. Farmers are strongly opposed to this. They never expected this to come up in the negotiation.
The Liberals claim to defend supply management and say they are going to offer compensation programs, but so far no such program has been offered to farmers following negotiations with the U.S.
As for the meagre compensation offered last summer, it was the middle of July and it was handed out on a first-come, first-serve basis. Farmers fell off their chairs and said that it made no sense, because it did not meet their needs and it really was not fair for all the farmers who were busy working in their fields. Nobody could make head nor tails of it. The Liberals understood and acknowledged that it was ad hoc and that they should not have gone about it like that, but they still have not offered farmers an alternative.
How is this going to help attract young people to farming?
