Debates of May 7th, 2019

International Trade

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rose months ago to ask a question about the Liberals' decision, when they signed the new NAFTA, to give up a percentage of our supply management, specifically dairy.

We know that we have given access to the United States that compromises our supply management and that, quite frankly, hurts farmers. That is something we have heard consistently. I have dairy farmers in my riding of Essex. It is something that, as New Democrats, we have stood against. We believe strongly that we should not be giving up supply management, certainly our dairy, in agreement after agreement. The question really is why the Liberals have betrayed farm families and our food security in Canada. That day I posed the question to the Prime Minister.

The NDP strongly believes that we should be defending our supply managed sectors, not sacrificing them in trade deal after trade deal.

I do not know how much more our dairy farm families in this country can bear. They are continually thrown under the bus in every trade agreement, and enough is enough. In CETA, CPTPP and now the new NAFTA, we have conceded 8.4% of our dairy production in Canada. To put that in perspective for Canadians who are watching at home, that is 800 million litres of milk that will be permanently removed from our farms. That will have a very serious impact on farm families across our country.

We know that this is an erosion of our supply managed dairy farm families' livelihoods and the communities they live in. The Liberals have the nerve to stand in this House, and the Prime Minister on that day, repeating the line that we have heard over and over, which is just a complete and utter falsehood, which is that they, of course, will protect supply management and defend supply management in some way. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Do Liberals not understand that dairy farmers are not falling for their claims that they are protected in any of these agreements? When the agreements come out at the end, dairy farmers can see in black and white that they were sacrificed. In fact, the previous minister of agriculture himself admitted that, saying that we had to give it up. We had to do something.

I am not sure how this goes along with the rhetoric that the Liberals will protect supply management and that they have in the USMCA, because nothing could be further from the truth. It is very disrespectful, I have to say, to our farm families. My farm families locally are tired of hearing it. It is Liberal spin. It does not make any sense. It is not the truth. I think the Liberals have to start being honest about that.

I want to talk about supply management and what protecting it means. There are three pillars of supply management: import control, pricing mechanisms and production. In production, we have a quota system in Canada. We make sure that we are only making as much as the market demands. What is being thrown away in every single trade agreement is the pillar of import control. When we start to have, in this case American milk, which is not up to the standard of Canadian milk, we can certainly talk about health standards, bovine growth hormones, antibiotics and the fact that Canadians will not know if their milk is 100% Canadian, with the little blue cow. We know that the U.S. system is not working, and their farmers are looking for a place to dump their milk. Quite honestly, Canada should not be that place.

I live in a border city. I live in a border area, down in Essex County. Canadians are not going across and purchasing milk, because they are aware of the different standards and the different health impacts of the milk in the U.S. compared to Canada.

Why have Liberals betrayed farm families and our food security in Canada?

[Jean-Claude Poissant, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Essex for raising this important issue.

The Government of Canada fully supports dairy, egg and poultry farmers, as well as our supply management system. Canada's dairy, egg and poultry producers and processors contribute to countless other industries, help support local economies, and create prosperous and dynamic rural communities. Promoting trade and upholding our supply management system are not mutually exclusive. We just concluded two of the most important agreements in Canadian history, namely the Canada-United States-Mexico agreement and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. We have also seen our agreement with the European Union come into force. All these efforts benefit the Canadian economy, the agri-food sector and farmers.

We did all this while protecting our supply management system. The United States tried to dismantle our system, but we managed to preserve it, protect it and defend it. The USMCA upholds the three pillars of supply management: production control, price control and import control. Transparency provisions are common in free trade agreements and do not compromise Canadian sovereignty in any way. They also do not interfere with our ability to change our milk classes as we see fit. The provisions do not apply only to Canada. The USMCA will require Canada and the United States to publish, notify and consult regarding various aspects of the milk pricing system.

The government fully supports the dairy, poultry and egg industries, and we are working together to assess the impact that the USMCA will have on those sectors. In order to mitigate the effects of more open access to the dairy, egg, and poultry markets, we have repeatedly said that will we fully and fairly compensate those affected by the agreement.

On that point, the government recently formed working groups with dairy, egg and poultry farmers to discuss the new agreements and collaborate on developing strategies to help them adapt, innovate and remain competitive.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, again I hear these ridiculous Liberal talking points about fully supporting supply management. Nothing could be further from the truth, and that is insulting to farm families, who are getting in touch with me every single week because that is not the truth. No matter how many times someone repeats something, it does not make it true and farm families are being hurt.

I want to talk about U.S. oversight, which was given up in the new NAFTA. The Dairy Farmers of Canada have asked the Prime Minister not to sign the USMCA until the U.S. oversight clause has been removed. What they say on their press release is that Canada’s sovereignty is at stake.

Basically, the Liberals are giving power to the United States in this agreement. The United States will be able to determine and dictate how Canadian dairy is operated in our country. How on earth can the Liberal government say that this is protecting supply management? How on earth can it say that it is maintaining our sovereignty? The dairy farmers themselves are saying that this is not the case and that the government should not sign the agreement with this provision in place.

The government has given up the tariffs. That is bad enough, but this provision alone—

[Jean-Claude Poissant, Liberal, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, let me repeat that the USMCA upholds the three pillars of supply management. The government understands how important Canadian agriculture and agri-food trade is for our economy and our jobs.

Our negotiators worked hard to defend the interests of Canadian agriculture at the bargaining table. Defending supply management has not prevented Canada from signing free trade deals and negotiating new ones with major partners. Supply management is the system our farmers chose for themselves, and it has been working well for many years. It benefits the Canadian economy, and I can assure the House that we have protected and defended it and we always will.

The government is committed to working with the dairy, egg and poultry sectors to determine the best way forward in order to keep these sectors strong, dynamic and innovative at all levels of the supply chain and to ensure that farmers are fairly compensated.

National Defence

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be able to rise on a question that I originally asked back in December about the Liberals' continued investment in the F-35 program.

The Prime Minister promised in the last campaign that he would not be buying the F-35, so I felt it was kind of strange at that point in time that the Liberals would be investing in a program that they do not believe in.

We get down to the truth now. Just yesterday, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a very well-respected independent think tank right here in Ottawa, came out with a new report called “The Catastrophe: Assessing the Damage from Canada’s Fighter Replacement Fiasco”. This report strongly condemns the way the government has handled this file in trying to find a replacement for our fighter jets.

I do not think I have to remind Canadians that the government's idea for replacing fighter jets is to replace our CF-18s with even older, more worn-out F-18s from the Australian air force. The Liberals are taking a position on these used F-18s now.

Let us be clear that the reason we have this fiasco is that the Prime Minister made an ill-informed campaign promise in 2015 that he would not buy the F-35. Every move the Liberals have made since then on replacing our aging CF-18 fighter fleet is about covering up for that promise, which they are going to have a heck of a time fulfilling, especially if they actually were to run an open, fair and transparent competition.

We know that this competition is not transparent because everybody has lifetime gag orders on them, and we know it is not fair because this report says it is fixed against some of the potential competitors.

It is clear that the Liberal government and the Prime Minister himself, with the assistance of the Minister of National Defence, have placed the partisan interests of the Liberal Party of Canada ahead of our national interest as a nation in protecting our sovereignty. It has eroded the respect that we used to have on the world stage, and in particular it has undermined our defence partnership with our strongest ally and neighbour, the United States.

Throughout our time as government, we stood up for the Canadian Armed Forces, but morale within the Canadian Armed Forces is at the lowest levels we have ever seen. Members of the armed forces are voting with their feet. Pilots and aircrew and aircraft technicians are leaving in droves, all because they have lost confidence in the Liberal government.

As the Conservative Party, we know that we will select the right fighter jet in an expedited amount of time when we form government this fall. We know that we will restore our relationships with our defence partners, especially the United States, through NORAD. We will not waste billions of taxpayer dollars on old fighter jets. We will not continue on with that Liberal tradition of buying used and old worn-out equipment, as the Liberals have done in the past and are doing right now. We will make sure that we are the true north, strong and free.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I know that he likes to blame our government for all the world's problems, so I will just look back and bring up some unpleasant memories about the Harper government's F-35 program.

Our government has always been clear that a fleet of modern fighter jets is essential to Canada's defence and sovereignty. That is why we launched an open and transparent process to replace Canada's fighter fleet with 88 advanced jets. This is something the Conservatives were unable to accomplish in their 10 years in power. Thanks to this competitive process, we will have good aircraft at the right price and also create jobs for Canadians and our businesses.

Let us go back a little in time. Under the Conservatives, military procurement processes were almost always sole sourced, without calls for tender, and the military's expectations were never met.

Here is the Conservative record on fighter aircraft. First, a Parliamentary Budget Officer's report set the cost of purchasing modern aircraft at double the government's estimate. What is even more shocking is the Auditor General's report indicating that the Conservatives kept two sets of books, one for the Canadian public and one for themselves. A decade later, our air force still does not have new fighter jets.

Instead of lecturing us, my colleague should look at what we are doing with respect to the bidding process. He said that members of the Canadian Armed Forces are disappointed, but everywhere I go on the ground, the military personnel I meet tell me they finally have a government that thinks of them and is taking care of them.

Our government will provide the Royal Canadian Air Force with the critical equipment it needs to be fully operational, now and in the future. That is why we are launching an open and transparent competition for the acquisition of 88 new fighter jets. The Conservatives were planning on purchasing only 66, and they were incapable of acquiring a single plane in 10 years.

In the meantime, Canada continues to participate in the joint strike fighter program, which will enable Canadian businesses to obtain contracts valued at over $1.5 billion U.S. It also gives us the opportunity to buy jets under this program if the F-35 qualifies in the tendering process for the future fleet.

This fall, another report from the Auditor General confirmed what we have always known, and that is that the Harper Conservatives mismanaged the fighter jet file and misled Canadians for over a decade. The report also confirmed the existence of the capability gap, which started under the Harper Conservatives.

Unlike them, we will not compromise our ability to meet our NATO and NORAD commitments. That is exactly why we have been working with Australia on the procurement of fighter jets to strengthen our fleet until the permanent replacement for our CF-18s is operational. Some planes have arrived and others will be arriving soon.

We are required to take these measures because of the Conservatives' inaction and the fiasco they created. We are going to make sure that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Royal Canadian Air Force have the equipment and planes they need to continue to fulfill their mission.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to take any lessons from the Liberals.

The PBO report that came out this spring showed that the Australian fighter jet program is going to cost us 22% more. Why? It is because the Liberals are running two sets of books.

The report that just came out from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute includes a redacted copy of the original Auditor General's report from last fall, which recommended “National Defence should not purchase interim aircraft”. It is right there, and the Liberals took it out.

The Liberals have also said that they are part of the joint strike fighter program, but there are two letters from the Pentagon and the U.S. Department of Defense indicating that jobs are at risk in Canada because Canada has not been following the rules under the memorandum of understanding between all nine partner nations.

Under the joint strike fighter program, 900 direct jobs have been created, $1.35 billion in benefits have been provided and 9,000 indirect jobs have been created. The Liberals are going to squander all of this for partisan purposes, and this is not in Canada's national interest.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I know it is hard for my colleague to hear the truth, but that is exactly what we did. We launched an open and transparent process to replace Canada's fighter fleet with 88 advanced fighter jets, not 66. That is something the Conservatives were unable to do during their 10 years in office. The Auditor General's two reports show that they gravely mismanaged the file and failed to acquire any new fighter jets. That is their record.

My colleague talked about transparency, but let me remind the House that the Conservatives had two sets of numbers, one for the public and the other for themselves. Anyone with a record as poor as the Conservatives' should not be talking about transparency.

Our bidding process will get us good fighter jets for the right price and will create job opportunities for Canadians. I think Canadian Armed Forces members are very happy with what we have done with this program.

Rail Transportation

[Erin Weir, Independent, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, back in December, I asked about restoring Via passenger rail service between Winnipeg, Regina and Calgary. In response, the Minister of Transport tried to reassure me that Via Rail does pass through Saskatchewan. He must have been referring to the quite limited Via Rail service to Saskatoon, but I want to make the distinction between Regina and Saskatoon clear to the parliamentary secretary, because that seemed to be a point of confusion for the minister. My question was about restoring passenger service on the southern Prairie line, from Winnipeg to Regina to Calgary.

One of the original purposes of our Canadian Confederation was to build a railway across the Prairies to the Pacific coast, so it is somewhat ironic that today we do not have passenger rail service in the southern part of the Prairies. Of course, the motivation behind my question was not simply to achieve that historic goal. I think in the present day, we need to recognize the importance of providing accessible transportation options to people and also of providing transportation options that are environmentally friendly.

We had a whole debate in this House for most of today about an opposition motion regarding the price of gasoline, and a lot of the argument came down to whether a higher gasoline price would motivate consumers to drive less. A key part of that question was whether people had concrete alternatives to driving. On the southern Prairies, people do not.

The Saskatchewan Transportation Company and Greyhound have both withdrawn intercity bus service, and as I mentioned, there is no Via Rail service in the southern part of the Prairies. Therefore, people really do not have much of an option other than to drive or fly. We have people without the means to travel for important purposes, and the people who do have the means to travel do not have much choice but to use these more polluting means of transport. That is part of the major rationale for wanting to restore Via Rail service on the southern Prairies.

I am sure that one of the questions is how much this would cost. Is it feasible? Is this a realistic proposal? I took a look at Via Rail's 2017 annual report, which is the most recent annual report available. What it shows is that the subsidy per passenger mile in western Canada, in other words for long-haul travel from Toronto to Vancouver, is about 32¢, which is quite similar to the subsidy of 28¢ per passenger mile across Via Rail's entire system. As well, it is quite a bit less than the subsidies of three dollars and four dollars per passenger mile that we find on some of Via's more remote routes. What I am proposing is actually quite consistent with Via's existing operations.

To put that in terms of total dollars, the subsidy for long-haul travel west of Toronto is $41 million. Extending that to the southern part of the Prairies would presumably cost a comparable amount, which would be quite a bit less than the $350 million currently provided to Via Rail.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Youth Economic Opportunity)]

Mr. Speaker, our government understands that VIA Rail has an important role to play in providing Canadians with a safe intercity travel option. It does so across a vast network that spans from Halifax to Vancouver. VIA's western transcontinental service, the Canadian, crosses the prairie provinces on its route from Toronto to Vancouver, serving many communities along the way. Our government recognizes the importance of this service to the people who use it and the role it plays in connecting our country.

We also recognize that for some communities—for example, Churchill, Manitoba—passenger rail is the only viable option for connecting to other communities. This is why when service to Churchill was cut off, we knew we needed to act to have it restored, and now passenger rail service has returned to the community.

While it serves an important role, passenger rail is just one of the many ways that Canadians travel between communities. In a country as vast and spread out as Canada, it is inevitable that the passenger rail network will not reach all communities.

For decades, many Canadians have relied on intercity bus services to get them where they need to go. The withdrawal of Greyhound from nearly all of western Canada and northern Ontario in October 2018 was, and continues to be, a big loss for Canadian travellers, especially Canadians living in rural and remote areas. Our government recognizes the seriousness of this issue, and while we are encouraged that several operators have stepped in to pick up former Greyhound routes, gaps in service still remain. This is why, on October 31, we announced our willingness to partner with the affected provinces to fill service gaps on a temporary and cost-shared basis. Federal money is on the table, and the member opposite's provincial Conservative government is refusing to use it to help the people of Saskatchewan.

In terms of indigenous transportation needs, we also committed to supporting indigenous peoples by providing vital transportation services to their communities.

Over the next year, we will continue collaborating with the provinces and territories to develop innovative, longer-term solutions to address the intercity surface transportation needs of Canadians. Together, we are aiming to ensure that our passenger transportation system is safe and efficient and provides excellent service.

[Erin Weir, Independent, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by agreeing with the parliamentary secretary that it is quite disappointing that the Government of Saskatchewan did not take up the funding that the Government of Canada offered to try to restore some intercity bus service. However, the federal government does not simply need to wait for the province to agree to cost-share bus service; the federal government could, on its own, restore passenger rail service on the southern prairies.

I thought it was interesting that the parliamentary secretary began by mentioning that VIA Rail is needed to provide a transport option to Canadians. I want to reiterate that this option does not exist on the southern prairies. It is impossible to travel from Winnipeg to Regina to Calgary by train.

The parliamentary secretary mentioned all the money the government spent in restoring passenger rail service to Churchill, Manitoba. That is a good thing, but it would be far more economical to restore that same service on the southern prairies.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our government recognizes how vital surface transportation options are to meeting the mobility needs of Canadians across the country, and we are taking this issue very seriously. We are committed to working with the provinces and territories on solutions to address the intercity transportation needs of Canadians. That is why, in the federal government's October 31 announcement, we committed to working with provinces and territories across the country in developing innovative, long-term solutions to meet the intercity surface mobility needs of Canadians.

In the meantime, we will continue to work with the provinces interested in cost-sharing to fill the gaps in service left behind by Greyhound on October 31, as well as indigenous communities.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The motion that the House do now adjourn is deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:30 p.m.)