Madam Speaker, we are indeed a party of and for the regions, but if my colleague wants to ask questions, he can do so after my speech. I will be pleased to answer. I have been speaking for five minutes already. It is crazy how fast it goes.
We are here to make gains for Quebec. We have two conditions. We want our seniors to have a decent standard of living. There has been enough dilly-dallying. Seniors aged 65 to 74 need money just as much as seniors aged 75 and up. Let us not create new discrimination. Let us let them make a little more money before taxing them on that income.
The other big thing is the protection of supply management in future trade negotiations. That one is the easiest condition to meet because our bill is already before the Senate, which started working on it yesterday evening. We are very pleased about that, even though we have learned some rather troubling things. I want to point out that the bill is getting a lot of support from senators, but there is also some opposition. I think that we we need to go talk to those people. We really need to put a rush on this. We need to move forward faster. The House passed this bill in June 2023 and now it is September 2024. I would have expected the Senate to examine this bill in September or October of 2023, but it seems as though it was set aside. It is a private member's bill, which means that it less of a priority than government bills.
It is no ordinary private member's bill, however. It obtained official approval from the executive branch of the government via the minister of agriculture and agri-food at the time. It is a serious bill, and the government supports it. If it really supports it, it should support it in the Senate as well, yet that is not what we have seen until very recently. It is good that the subject was raised in the Senate yesterday. The committee chair wanted to reassure us by saying that they had other fish to fry, but now that they had started working on it, it would not take long. We want to believe them, and we are watching. The senators are aware of our deadline here, that is, the end of October. The bill needs to be studied. I do not expect every senator to vote in favour of it, but I expect the bill to be studied on the Senate floor. We are certain we can win the vote, because we got an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons with 262 votes for and 51 votes against. Even a majority of Conservatives voted in favour of the bill, despite all the obstruction. I want to point out that the bill is getting similar support in the Senate. I have people on my side.
Things need to move forward. Why do we need to move forward? Because it is not certain whether we will get another chance to protect supply management in the near future, and because more international negotiations are coming. Yesterday we heard several times that there will be a review of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA. Before reviewing CUSMA, can we clarify our mandates? There is a way of clarifying mandates. In terms of supply management, they did their part. It is almost 10% in every sector. It is even worse for milk at 18%. As someone I know well would say, that is enough, anything more will be untenable. That is what is happening, because people need to understand that supply management is a balancing act. Prices are controlled, market supply is controlled. To be able to do that, we need to control what is coming in from outside. With milk at 18%, that means one quart of milk out of every five will be coming from outside. It has not happened yet, but we are getting there gradually. It will be difficult to maintain a balance. More than that and it collapses. It will not work any more.
If people have no intention of protecting supply management, then they should be honest with the farmers and say so. They should uphold the value of the incredible system they put in place, that preserves family businesses, that preserves the vitality in each of our regions, that allows businesses to run, from the Gaspé to Abitibi and to Montérégie with the same transportation costs. The supply management system is so good, so effective. It provides a very stable ecosystem for all other agricultural production.
I could go on all day, as I am sure you know. Unfortunately, I have only a few seconds left. I have 15 seconds left to tell you that this needs to get moving. My message to my Conservative friends today, whose questions I am looking forward to answering, is let us be serious. Let us be serious and work on the issues. There is going to be an election, do not worry. Our decision not to trigger an election today is not made out of fear.