Madam Speaker, I was saying that I was going to take a deep breath before I spoke, to try to curb my emotions, and that I was going to start my speech from the end. I am sick and tired of hearing members claim that they support supply-managed farmers, that they think they are important, that they want to protect them and that they are committed to looking after them, but then refuse to actually protect them. They are talking out of both sides of their mouth. They cannot say they are going to protect farmers and not do it.
Then they wonder why the public is cynical about politicians. I am so sick of this. Last time, the House voted overwhelmingly in favour of this bill. We cannot expect the same result this time because perhaps not as many members of a certain political party, by which I mean the Conservative Party, will vote for it. However, I know there are some Conservative members who believe in supply management, so I would ask them to stick with us and vote with us. I know they understand that this is a good bill.
The government needs to stop sending farmers mixed messages by saying it will protect them and then not doing it. Neither farmers nor voters believe that anymore. I have some news for everyone: That strategy is not going to work anymore. It worked for decades, but not anymore. People want action. Supply management means the three pillars and a bunch of other things, but it is mostly about the vitality of our regions. This protects small businesses.
I believe it was the member for Dufferin—Caledon who said in his speech that other farmers wanted to export and did not support supply management. We in the Bloc Québécois support all farmers, and we support their choice of marketing model. We do this out of respect for the people who get up every morning to feed us.
The government cannot tell these people that it is spoiling them and that it respects them and at the same time say that it is afraid that if it has to renegotiate CUSMA and this bill has passed, it will not be able to give them any more. That is the pretext it uses for not voting in favour of the bill while still saying it will protect farmers. Come on. Does the government really think anyone is going to fall for that?
Seriously, I do not know how those people opposite sleep at night. Maybe it is by ignoring others and repeating their own talking points over and over in their heads. This bill is essential. It is important and extremely simple. It will exclude agricultural products that are subject to supply management.
I heard the member say that he was afraid that supply-managed agricultural products would be excluded during negotiations. That is exactly what this bill will do. He should not be afraid: That is the whole point of the bill.
We will adopt this bill because we are in the majority, and I expect the same thing to happen in the Senate. We will collaborate with our colleagues in the Senate to explain the merits of this bill to the other members and explain how badly farmers need it.
If the government continues to say that it is going to protect supply management and help farmers, but that it can hang onto them to use as a bargaining chip, that means that it is going to put them on the table during future negotiations. It already lopped an arm off our farmers, but next time, it will be a leg. How can they keep farming after that?
A supply-managed market is a balanced market in which the quantity produced and the price are controlled. According to carefully targeted market studies, in order to obtain a stable, reasonable price and a high-quality product, it is essential to control what comes in from outside. That is the third pillar, the third leg of the stool that the member from Montcalm was talking about earlier. The government needs to stop cutting off this third leg, because the stool will fall over. It will not work anymore.
What I am hearing from the Conservatives this morning is that they clearly intend to eliminate the supply management system, but little by little. They want to do it by lying to agricultural producers, saying that they love them and want to protect them, but they will lay them on the sacrificial altar as soon as they get the chance. I suspect the Conservatives' plan is to take away the system that our farmers put in place, to steal the value of their quotas. Do members know how much quotas are worth?
What the member for Dufferin—Caledon told supply-managed farmers across Canada, including those in his riding, is not to worry because they will quietly disappear. They will become pro-free trade and pro-big businesses converts.
What he does not understand, so I will explain it to him, is that all the small family farms come together to form one big company. That big company is created through solidarity, through joint marketing. This way, small businesses are assured of a stable, recurring income that they can use to innovate and make constant investments.
It is often falsely claimed that this encourages inefficiency, but that is not true in the least. Our farmers have lowered their greenhouse gas emissions in recent years. They have done amazingly well. They are still investing. However, by continuing to take market share away from them, the government is telling them that maybe they should stop making investments. It has the opposite effect. Basically, the government is telling them the same thing the member for Dufferin—Caledon was telling supply-managed farmers earlier. It is telling them to hurry up and sell their quotas while they are still worth something.
I apologize for not being as calm and collected as usual this morning, but when I hear things like this, I am outraged. It is baloney, it is pure nonsense. Members say one true thing and the opposite. It is preposterous. Farmers and the public are fed up with all this bullshit. We need the truth.
Oh, I cannot say that word. It just slipped out. I apologize.