Odina Desrochers

[Agriculture, October 7th, 2002]

It upsets members opposite when they hear the truth. But it is our hope that the more they hear the truth, the better are the chances that they will wake up some day and help farmers in Quebec and across the country, from coast to coast.

The Prime Minister delayed the beginning of the session and this evening, the opposition must bring the Liberal government to order. Again, we support farmers from western Canada who are facing problems.

However, in Quebec we are increasingly concerned about the behaviour of the Minister for International Trade and of his colleague, the Minister of Agriculture, who refuse to formally commit to maintaining the Quebec model of supply management. Officials from the Fédération des producteurs laitiers du Québec keep asking for a meeting, but the Minister for International Trade keeps postponing it, thus showing his incompetence and, more importantly, that he does not want to have anything to do with the agricultural sector. The Minister for International Trade does not know anything about agriculture.

I would now like to discuss the issue of supply management. Supply management is based on three pillars. It is the result of many years of efforts in Quebec and in the Canadian provinces that adopted this system. The three pillars of the supply management system in Canada are: the control of imports; the price paid to producers; and the planning of production. There are significant benefits to this supply management system. In Quebec, the Fédération des producteurs laitiers and the UPA worked very hard to build the dairy industry. These benefits are that supply management has given producers the possibility of earning a fair income on the market, without direct assistance from governments. A constant supply to processors has given consumers continued access to a wide variety of reasonably priced, high quality products.

Agricultural producers are so worried that they travelled to the Saguenay region during the caucus meeting held by the Liberals, in August. If nothing else, they put some life into it, because all that we were hearing during that caucus had nothing to do with politics or the economy: it was all about the infighting within the party opposite, a situation which is currently paralyzing everything in the House of Commons.

In the coming months, nothing will get done in Parliament because all efforts will be directed towards the race for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada.

We know that Liberals like to play hide and seek. A cabinet document confirmed farmers' fears that they were being betrayed. According to the document on the mandate for WTO trade negotiations, Canada is allegedly prepared to give up supply management.

The secret document, recently made public by the Council of Canadians—a few days ago—raised the ire of Quebec's 10,000 dairy, poultry and egg producers. I will read an extract and you will understand why Quebec's farmers no longer trust the members opposite. I used to work in negotiations. Modern society likes us to try for a win-win situation, but when you are negotiating with the members opposite, it is clearly a win-lose situation, because the centralizing policies of the federal Liberals kill any regional or provincial initiatives and threaten all of agriculture, be it in Quebec or Canada. The document reads as follows:

The problem: negotiations involve compromise.

I am sure the members opposite do not know anything about that.

Sectors of the economy benefiting from protection which shelters them from foreign competition will object to any change in the status quo, particularly if it comes during an economic downturn.

We have already seen that this government has laid a lot of blame on the events of September 11. It is incredible how much they blame on September 11. Imagine what the members opposite are going to be like in negotiations. What will they come up with in order to justify their behaviour and their decisions?

Supply-managed producers of eggs, poultry and dairy products, the textile and clothing industry, and certain service sectors will probably object to any changes that would lead to increased foreign competition.

Here is the grand strategy of this secret committee. The people on the payroll of International Trade have said:

The government will recognize that multilateral trade negotiations require Canada to consent to certain measures to open up markets to its trade partners. The government is working in close collaboration with the sectors most likely to be affected in order to define the priorities and objectives for negotiations.

So far, so good. But then:

A more thorough examination is also required of how to manage the ongoing transition to a more globally integrated economy and the related costs of adaptation.

Things are starting to head downhill. It goes on:

At the same time, we will emphasize the overall gains the new negotiations will bring for Canada's economy, businesses and consumers.

Clearly put, this means that this government is prepared, when it has to negotiate multilateral agreements, to sacrifice supply management, and I am convinced it is also prepared to sacrifice other important elements of the Canadian and Quebec agricultural sector. And we are going to trust them? This is unacceptable.

My colleague for Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, the official agricultural critic for the Bloc Quebecois, is currently holding a series of meetings. People in just about all areas of Quebec have reacted to the disclosure of this document and now it is being discussed again in agricultural circles.

Do you know what they tell me? They say “How is it that you are coming back with this question? We appeared four times before the agriculture committee in Ottawa. Liberal members paraded through our office and they still do not understand”.

So I answered, “Listen, based on the document that was just released, I do not think that they did understand”.

Currently in Quebec and in agriculture across Canada, people are mobilizing, especially back home in the riding of Lotbinière—L'Érable, which is the most rural riding in Quebec. I have also begun meeting with the Fédération des producteurs laitiers du Québec and the Union des producteurs agricoles in order to fully identify their needs and more importantly, establish Quebec's strategy with them in preparation for the next round of negotiations between the World Trade Organization and Quebec.

They want to meet with the Minister for International Trade, but he is not available, he is not there, he is absent. I do not have to explain what a complete mess we are in with softwood lumber, which is also hitting the Canadian provinces hard. Nor do I have to tell you about the famous U.S. Farm Bill, which will create phenomenal distortions on Canadian and American markets. There is not a peep out of them. They are silent. We are waiting.

Meanwhile, the agricultural crisis is growing worse in Canada and Quebec. The Bloc Quebecois and all the stakeholders from the agricultural sector have already made their demands known to this government. We keep repeating them in the hope that some day it will understand. We will keep reminding the government. This is what opposition parties have done this evening, because what I have heard from the other side has not convinced me at all that they are sensitive to the problems that farmers are experiencing right now.

If this government has a hard time taking action, it should at least take the first step and start listening. Because the perception that members opposite have of the agricultural crisis is quite different from ours. Opposition members, including Bloc Quebecois members, have solutions. We are prepared to act. Since we were re-elected in November 2000, we have regularly asked questions on this issue in the House.

Voters who elected opposition members can be proud, because these members are looking after their best interests. Unfortunately, the members opposite regularly provide evasive answers and keep repeating that their obsolete program might solve the crisis. This government has no initiative, as we saw in the Speech from the Throne. The Liberals only have old ideas that they keep recycling, and they think that Canadians and Quebeckers will continue to believe them.

It is unacceptable to see how little this government cares about such an important issue as agriculture. Let me give an example. In some European countries, the Minister of Agriculture often also is responsible for international trade. This is also the case in Australia, New Zealand and Brazil. Here, agriculture is treated as a secondary issue, and we what that has led us to.

I hope that all the efforts being made on this side of the House will make the government more receptive, so that solutions can be found to help these people and put an end to the agricultural crisis that is hurting hundreds of thousands of people so much all across the country.

[Agriculture, October 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, to begin, I would like to say that we in the Bloc Quebecois feel a great deal for the situation that farmers in western Canada are experiencing.

Once again, agriculture in Canada is being threatened by the Liberal government's inertia. This is not hard to fathom, because since the current Prime Minister announced his retirement, there has not been any debate of substance on the economy, with the exception of the reply to the Speech from the Throne, an anemic document full of recycled promises and unfulfilled commitments from the Liberal Prime Minister.

I almost forgot. There was one little insignificant line about agriculture, which again demonstrates how important the sector is to the Liberals. To put it clearly, the Speech from the Throne on September 30 did not broach any of the problems affecting farmers. There was nothing on the protection of supply management. There was nothing on rural development. There was nothing on tax measures for agricultural cooperatives. There was nothing on GMOs. There was nothing on intergenerational transfers of farms and also nothing on natural disaster relief, such as what the people out west are currently experiencing. How unfortunate. All this explains why agriculture is currently in such rough shape.

In my brief career as a member of this House who was elected in June 1997, not one year has gone by when we have not had one or two emergency debates on agriculture. Are such debates brought about by the economic context? No, but rather by the irresponsibility of the Liberals, who have abdicated their responsibilities.

The federal Liberals—be it the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister for International Trade, the Minister of Finance or backbenchers—support the vision of the current Prime Minister, who treats agriculture as a second class industry in this country.

All the while this government is attempting to download part of the bill onto the provinces and acting behind dairy producers' backs, it is failing to take its responsibilities.

I would like to mention the drastic and dramatic cuts the Liberals have made to support to Canadian farmers. The current Minister of Agriculture has been played like a schoolboy by the Americans and the European Community, which obstinately refuse to lower their agricultural subsidies, as provided in the GATT agreements.

Let me give a few figures. Between 1993 and 1999, farm assistance programs were cut by $1 billion.

In this very place, we repeatedly and vigorously denounced the cuts made by the Liberals. We accused them, and rightly so, of having reduced the deficit on the backs of the provinces, the workers, the unemployed, the sick and—I say so unequivocally today—Canadian and Quebec farmers.

Last spring, during the umpteenth consultation tour by the Standing Committee on Agriculture, at the specific request of the Minister of Agriculture, we were able to size up the crisis in the agricultural industry.

This minister keeps consulting, but forgets to come up with a real plan for the future of agriculture. Moreover, bereft of ideas, the Liberals went on their own partisan tour before this one, but nothing concrete came of it. This lack of leadership has forced thousands of farms into bankruptcy in western Canada. This region is now faced with one of the worst droughts in its history.

I will tell you, if I may, what I saw and heard during my tour of the Canadian west. I saw people whose family farming heritage dated back for generations. These men and women came to tell us in anguish that, if the federal government did not come to their aid, things were over for them.

The Liberals have turned a deaf ear. They are not listening to the complaints from farmers in the west as well as many in Quebec.

After this extensive tour, the committee published a voluminous report last June on the agricultural sector's expectations of the Liberal government. We all were given copies of this wonderful report, and still we wait. The crisis has worsened in the meantime.

The Liberals' response is always the same. There is no concrete follow-up, despite the report recommendations. Our audience realizes that the end result of all this traipsing across the country once a year or so—and I have seen a number of these tours since 1997—is to disturb people, consult them, ask their opinion, tell them changes will be coming. Then none do, and so the government over there has no shred of credibility left. No credibility with the people of the maritimes, Quebec, Ontario or western Canada.

The Prime Minister delayed the beginning of the session of the House of Commons.

[Copyright, October 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the report on copyright issues was recently released and committee consideration is expected to begin in a few weeks.

There are persistent rumours to the effect that this report will be considered by the standing committee on industry, rather than the heritage committee, which could not fail to send a very poor message for upcoming trade negotiations.

Will the Minister of Canadian Heritage assure us that the report on copyright will not be considered by any committee other than the heritage committee?

[Government Contracts, June 17th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, when the Treasury Board, which is the agency responsible for controlling government expenditures, no longer controls anything, it means that the problem goes much deeper and that the situation is not just the result of an error, as claimed by the Prime Minister, but of an organized system.

Will the government recognize that when the Treasury Board condones such a situation, it is really time to launch an independent public inquiry?

[Government Contracts, June 17th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we are stunned to see that even the President of the Treasury Board no longer controls what is going on in her department, even though she insisted that all the rules had been complied with. As we can now see, these statements were far from accurate.

How can the Prime Minister keep her in her position the President of the Treasury Board who, like Media IDA Vision, is paid to monitor the work being done and who, in reality, monitors nothing?

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, as we know, Canada is a very vast country with regional disparities. Quebec has a position on dairy production, eggs and poultry, and the Canadian Alliance has another position on agriculture.

I cannot provide an answer right now because, as we know, negotiations are underway. The Minister of Agriculture is always consulting with his provincial counterparts to try to achieve a consensus. As I said earlier, the federal government is always trying to achieve consensuses, to find solutions. It keeps telling us that it will set up good action plans, but nothing happens.

At any rate, it is well-known that the Bloc Quebecois has the solution. Once we have achieved full control over our economy, we will not ask the federal government to get involved in our business, because we can manage our own economy. The Quebec agricultural industry will then be better off and better protected.

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, on June 2, I will have been a member of this House for five years. I attended all the consultations on both agriculture and softwood lumber. On each occasion, I saw ministers from the Liberal government make commitments. On each occasion, they made me feel a little more optimistic about the economic situation in Canada and Quebec. However, on each of these occasions, they mostly made my frustration level go up, because they did not make good on their word and their commitments.

If agriculture and softwood lumber are now in this situation, as shown by today's debate, it is because the federal Liberals did not do their job. It is because the Prime Minister should have looked after the economy, instead of dealing with scandals. If the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister for International Trade are not able to do their job, then the Prime Minister must act and replace them.

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I too am very pleased to support the Canadian Alliance motion, which condemns the adoption, by our American neighbours, of the infamous U.S. Farm Bill, and which particularly condemns the inaction of the Liberal government and its agriculture minister, who is continuing his consultation and is being buried under numerous reports that do not provide any solution to the agricultural crisis that will soon hit Quebec farmers hard.

As members know, I represent one of the most rural ridings in Quebec, the riding of Lotbinière—L'Érable, where agriculture plays a key role in our economy.

The whole supply management system that governs Quebec's dairy industry is in jeopardy. With its protectionist legislation, the U.S. government will allow the payment of billions of dollars in subsidies, which will create a distortion on the market.

The UPA, the Federation of Dairy Producers of Canada and agricultural co-operatives are all condemning the action taken on May 13 by President George Bush, who signed what is now known as the infamous U.S. Farm Bill. What is left of the family farm in the regional economy, which is already seriously affected by the massive industrialization of its agriculture, will disappear.

I have with me the headline of La Terre de chez nous . This weekly publication owned by the UPA does not mince words about this U.S. legisllation, which is one of the most protectionist in the agricultural world.

The headline reads “Farewell to freer trade”. The author of the text is very critical of the U.S. administration. When commenting the American approach, the journalist writes “Hypocritical, perverse, reactionary, protectionist, election-minded”.

This is rather clear, is it not? La Terre de chez nous also alludes to the outcry that followed President Bush's decision. The European commissioner for agriculture said that the American position is the opposite of the position that the United States defended at the last recent WTO conference, held in Doha.

At this point, I should remind the House, so that Liberal members opposite know exactly what this infamous bill is all about, that it provides for the most generous subsidy program in U.S. history, and the most unfair to Quebec and Canada.

Indeed, over the next 10 years, an additional $5 billion will be given annually to U.S. farmers, thus bringing to $22 billion the annual amount of money earmarked for special production.

The purpose of the WTO rules on the liberalization of markets established a few years ago was to make producers less dependent on government financial support.

Through this bill, the Americans are breaking not only their WTO commitments, but also those they made during the last Uruguay round, which led to the World Trade Organization.

In an obvious vote-getting ploy, the Bush administration has, for some time now, been adopting a series of protectionist measures which are penalizing its economic partners.

Again, I would like to know how the Americans define “partner”. My feeling is that their definition is quite different from the one we use on this side of the border. Free trade seems to be one-sided, benefiting only U.S. made goods. The members across the way appear not to understand this.

The Americans' expansionist aims are more obvious than ever and do little to hid the interests of an agricultural industry which no longer leads world markets.

I would like to come back to Quebec. On behalf of his organization and its 40 affiliated federations, UPA president Laurent Pellerin fully supports the Canadian Federation of Agriculture's urgent appeal to the federal government for compensation for Canadian farmers to offset the infamous U.S. Farm Bill.

Farmers in Quebec and in Canada, farmers in my riding, have trouble understanding how the government could put off acting any longer.

This time, it is the responsibility of the federal government. It must act, instead of starting off in search of a kind of consensus in order to try to enlist the help of the provinces in connection with unassumed responsibilities. What is more, this government has at its disposal all the surplus funds it may need to take immediate action. It must accept responsibility for its inaction. It must act because what we are dealing with here is a trade dispute between two countries.

As far as the Minister of Agriculture is concerned, this great specialist in consultation, we give him the green light right away today to adopt positive measures to provide farmers with some reassurance.

The Minister of Agriculture, the Minister for International Trade, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, and the majority of the Liberals have the cash in hand and the power to use it. We know that, like his counterparts, the Minister of Agriculture has spoken out against the Farm Bill.

But the Canadian government must not stop at merely speaking out, it must take action immediately.

I would like to see the Prime Minister being as quick to act as he was this past weekend with his cabinet shuffle, in an attempt to cover up and put an end to the wave of scandals affecting his government these past few weeks.

Yet, he is being patient as far as agriculture is concerned, and particularly unaware of the disastrous consequences of the position taken by his neighbours to the south. The Liberal government is far quicker to give nice little contracts to its cronies than to take action to help the agricultural producers of Quebec and Canada. It is shameful to see the Liberal attitude. Quebec and Canadian agriculture is disappearing. What are they doing about it on that side of the House? The Liberal federal ministers have worn out their knees groveling to the Americans. It is unacceptable to have a government so lacking in leadership.

In conclusion, this government must immediately speak out against this law before the World Trade Organization. I would like to just add a comment made by my colleague from Rimouski-Neigette-et-la Mitis, the official Bloc Quebecois agriculture critic. In a recent press release, she gave a good summary of the weakness of the federal minister of agriculture:

For too long now, the government has been following the policy of turning the other cheek as far as the Americans are concerned. We demand a firm stand in this matter and some tangible support for farmers.

I doubt that the present Liberal government is likely to exhibit such an attitude, since it has backed down to American imperialism.

[Government Contracts, May 24th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister can try as he will to cover up his government's reprehensible acts by diverting our attention with measures to fight corruption, but people will not be fooled.

Does the Deputy Prime Minister understand that a public inquiry is not only necessary, but imperative to rebuild public trust in democratic institutions and the people who represent them?

[Government Contracts, May 24th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, with time, the circle of Liberals involved broadens and business relationships grow stronger.

Not only is the minister of public works involved, but the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, with his cozy relationship with Groupe Everest, the Minister of Justice, leadership contenders, including the Deputy Prime Minister and his fundraisers, who benefit from government contracts. Basically, it is a fine patronage network.

Does the government understand that only a public inquiry will allow us to get to the bottom of this fine Liberal network?