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Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was quebec.

Last in Parliament October 2015, as Independent MP for Richmond—Arthabaska (Québec)

Won his last election, in 2011, with 34% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Agricultural Marketing Programs Act February 25th, 2008

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to also take part in this debate on Bill C-44, which the Bloc Québécois fully supports. Admittedly, there is an emergency and, as a farm producer keeps telling me, all this is not the workings of the Holy spirit.

Listening to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food who spoke earlier, one got the impression that the government is taking action today to solve a problem that arose just yesterday. That is my greatest fear in this situation because, while we support Bill C-44, the government must certainly not assume that the problem is solved, that it can wash its hands of it and that all is said and done.

The optimistic remarks of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food had me fearing the worst. Just this afternoon, the worst did happen at a meeting of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. With the help of opposition members on the committee, I managed to get a motion approved, asking that the chair of our committee send the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food a letter urging him to respect the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food concerning the crisis in the livestock industry. But the Conservative members, the government members of the committee voted against this motion, arguing that this bill would solve the problem. Far from it. Just because we support the bill does not mean that we believe the livestock crisis is completely over and that there is no longer any problem. It was really pathetic to hear the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food earlier try to persuade us that all is fine again, that everything has been fixed and that the government did all that with its magic wand. That is not true, and we must be very careful.

We definitely have some reservations. We have some questions about this bill. Will the government follow up on the recommendations in the unanimous report I mentioned earlier by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, which was behind the emergency debate I instigated on February 13?

Will there also be consequences for Quebec since this bill falls under the agricultural policy framework?

And how much of the $80 million is new money?

It is all well and good to broaden the definitions, but if at the end of the day the producers are sharing the same amount, no one benefits. According to some sources, this is not new money, but an interest rate reduction instead. We must remember that a loan is still a loan, and we do not want to increase the debt load of producers.

Earlier, I heard cries from the government side when I spoke about the committee's unanimous report. What happened this afternoon does not make any sense. All the members of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food unanimously adopted a report to help resolve or at least alleviate the crisis in the livestock sector, in the pork and, particularly, the beef sector. All the committee members voted in favour of this report and agreed that long-term measures were needed to alleviate this crisis because they acknowledged there was a crisis and that solutions must be found.

Bill C-44 is not the ultimate and only solution. I think it is completely inconsistent and cynical of the government members to have voted against a motion today in committee that would have had the chair of the committee call on the minister to take action to ensure that the committee's recommendations are adopted. I will list them later on, so we can see how the committee, including members from the government, had a clear view of the situation and were prepared do something to propose logical solutions, demanded by the producers themselves.

Today, because a bill has been introduced, all that is going by the wayside. But the Bloc Québécois will not give up, just as we did not give up when I joined the agriculture committee, which was grappling with the supply management issue. We obtained a unanimous motion to protect the supply management system.

The same is true of our call to use article 28 to restrict milk protein imports. Government representatives and bureaucrats told us that we were going to be crushed by countries like the United States and New Zealand, which would tell us that we had no right to use article 28 and that it made no sense. The country would be put in an embarrassing position, and there would be plenty of problems. Then, out of the blue, the Minister of Agriculture at the time came to the annual meeting of the dairy farmers of Canada and told them that he was invoking article 28. It was no good when the Bloc Québécois was calling for it, but when the government feels an election coming or a demonstration on Parliament Hill, it makes the necessary decisions.

We have to put things in perspective.

On a positive note, I will say that I am glad the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food introduced this bill, which would change the eligibility requirements for the advance payments program, in response to the emergency debate the Bloc Québécois requested on February 13 about the crisis in the livestock industry.

As I said, the government still has a long way to go to make livestock producers more competitive. There was a reason we asked for an emergency debate. Livestock producers are at the end of their rope and have to take whatever help they are offered. That is why Bill C-44 helps matters. But as I told the minister when I spoke to him last Friday, the government still has not responded to the six recommendations in the unanimous report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, entitled “Study on the Collapse of the Beef and Pork Sector Revenues”, which was tabled in this House on December 12.

The report recommends that transitional measures be put in place to alleviate this crisis, along with longer-term measures to improve the competitiveness of the industry. The government does not seem to understand that we are looking for longer-term measures. As with any problem, we have to look beyond the end of our noses. To resolve a problem, we have to ask what can be done in the future to have solutions that ensure the sustainability of a certain sector. That is what we tried to do with this report.

The Bloc Québécois has been very aware of the problems of livestock producers for a long time now. In November 2006, I invited pork producers from Quebec to come testify in the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. A year later, in light of the government's inaction, we had to raise this issue again and put the livestock crisis back on the agenda. I also had to request an emergency debate on this matter because nothing was being done.

As I was saying earlier, to listen to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, we get the impression that the Conservatives only found out there was a problem yesterday and today they are taking action and resolving the problem. We have to go back much further than that. My colleague, the hon. member for Malpeque, has already listed everything the opposition has done in this matter. For a very long time now, alarm bells have been ringing and it was high time the government took action.

I do not know whether it is because an election is in the air, but perhaps some matters will get resolved a little more quickly now. Mind you, I am not complaining. This does not bother me. In any case, when we achieve success for the producers and the people we represent, we are always prepared to hold our heads high in our ridings and throughout Quebec and tell people that we did something good for them. That is not a problem. The minister can also say he got things done with Bill C-44, and I would be the first to recognize that he finally did.

Yet, it took threats of demonstrations on the Hill—which, farmers told us, were in the works—as well as the possibility of an election, before we saw any action. This government has been in power for two years and could have taken action long ago. Members here in this House have expressed their agreement with what I just said.

Some very interesting recommendations were adopted by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. I would remind the House that the report was unanimously passed. The first recommendation states:

The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food recommends that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada deploy ... a special transitional measure that will provide cash flow in the form of interest-free loans to be paid back over a period of three to five years, and bankable cash advances to hog and cattle producers.

The report also states:

The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food recommends that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, in partnership with the provinces and territories, payout the remaining percentage owed to producers under the CAIS Inventory Transition Initiative (CITI) and respect the federal-provincial funding agreement.

Another interesting recommendation states that:

The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food recommends that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) hold formal discussions with the Minister of Finance to show the impact of the strengthening Canadian dollar on the food producing and processing industry in Canada and to examine ways to relieve the pressure on the industry from the rising Canadian dollar. AAFC officials should report back to the Committee on the result of these discussions.

Of course, this would have allowed us to participate in the debate that arose in all the sectors affected by the sudden surge of the Canadian dollar.

It is our duty to examine this situation and determine to what extent it affects our sectors. In addition, given that pork and beef producers are exporters, it would have been important to study this.

The fourth recommendation states:

The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food recommends that measures be taken to improve the responsiveness of BRM programs when a liquidity crunch arises in the farming sector. Examples of these measures include, but are not limited to:

allowing producers, for the purpose of reference margin calculations, to use the better of the Olympic average, the average of the last three years, or a five-year rolling average;

eliminating the viability test, which requires that producers show positive margins in two of the three years;

increasing the annual contribution limit in the AgriInvest program;

fast-tracking the federal $600 million Kickstart program for producer accounts in the AgriInvest program, so that funds can start flowing earlier than initially planned.

Another recommendation states:

The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food recommends that the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food conduct a complete review of regulatory measures susceptible of putting the Canadian meat industry at a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis other countries, and that this information be shared with the Committee.

And the final recommendation states:

The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food recommends that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada review program funding available to beef producers, processors and renderers to help them with the disposal and storage costs of ruminant specified risk material (SRM).

Those are the six recommendations. Because I only have 20 minutes, I will not read the entire report. However, I can tell you that it is an excellent report that was adopted unanimously. We would have thought that government members would join us in continuing to exert pressure on the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to respond favourably to these six recommendations. Unfortunately, we did not have this opportunity because the members of government are under the impression that Bill C-44 has fixed everything.

However, not everything has been fixed yet. This is evidenced by the fact that, in a press release issued today, the Canadian Pork Council says that it is pleased to see the bill being passed quickly. At least, this is what it hopes, and this is what will happen, because all the opposition parties will ensure that we go through the various stages very quickly, so that the bill comes into effect. However, while the Canadian Pork Council is pleased with this situation, it also makes the following comment, through its president, Mr. Clare Schlegel:

...while the troubles in the industry will not end soon, the federal government and the pork industry must continue to work together to find improvements that help to guarantee the long-term competitiveness of this important Canadian livestock industry.

That pretty well sums up what I said earlier. We are of course pleased that the government has finally decided to take action, but we are concerned about guaranteeing long-term competitiveness, and we are saying that the troubles in the industry will not end soon. The producers themselves just sent us a very important message. That is why we, on this side, will continue to ensure that the recommendations made in the report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food are implemented once and for all.

I should also point out that the producers' demands have not all been met. Obviously. One might argue that every industry has specific demands but does not always get everything it asks for. The fact of the matter is that this bill does not solve the majority of problems experienced in the beef and pork industries.

Just last Friday, I met with representatives of the Fédération des producteurs de porcs du Québec at my constituency office. These are people from my region, central Quebec. They came and presented their problems to us. Every member from Quebec received a small pamphlet in which the federation asks the federal government to implement several solutions to help pork producers. The hon. members will see that Bill C-44 does not solve everything.

For example, the Fédération des producteurs de porcs du Québec is asking that the $1.5 million cap under the AgriStability and AgriInvest programs, as well as the $3 million cap on the start-up fund, be raised.

It is asking that the reference margins to provide appropriate support to producers be adjusted in light of the unique nature of the crisis and the persistently poor market conditions.

It is asking that the Canadian product labelling rules designed to ensure that consumers can clearly identify where products come from be tightened up.

It is also asking that a new envelope be set up to support shared cost programs, allowing for regional flexibility in the next generation of agricultural policies.

As we know, Quebec farm producers are calling for agri-flexibility in addition to the AgriStability and AgriInvest programs. We are therefore looking for a much more flexible program for the producers and for the provinces as well.

The advance payments program, which was recently expanded to include stock production, should not use the business risk management program as collateral, thereby forcing producers to pay back advances when they receive payments.

All the MPs from Quebec received a visit from the pork producers in their region pushing these demands. Obviously, I would like to take advantage of this speech to pass this along to the government and make it realize that Bill C-44 is not going to put an end to all this and shut everyone up. Of course the government would rather see the opposition remain quietly seated and not say another word, but since we represent our people we will continue to speak up. It is with a great deal of vigour that I, personally, will continue to defend not only the pork producers, but the also the beef producers who are going through this crisis.

I must say that it was not so long ago that the Conservative government sang a very different tune about this crisis. I am referring to the emergency debate that I requested and obtained on February 13. I agree that some Conservative members made good, realistic presentations. In any case, one such member, the chair of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food and the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake, was even cited in the Canadian Pork Council newsletter as having delivered an eloquent and interesting speech.

It should be noted that the news release did not cite the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food because he had his rose-coloured glasses on. He came here, and all he did was put down the opposition parties, saying that it was all a bunch of garbage, that money had been pumped into the pockets of agricultural producers, and that all was well in the best of all possible worlds. As a result, the Canadian Pork Council did not quote him as having given a speech that addressed the producers' grievances.

It did mention me, the member for Richmond—Arthabaska—I cannot say my own name—because I was the one who called for and got an emergency debate. It also said that the comments made by the members for Malpeque and British Columbia Southern Interior were especially notable. I would add that the Bloc Québécois members for Montcalm, Beauharnois—Salaberry, and Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot also gave speeches recognizing the seriousness of the crisis.

On the government side, we heard from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, and especially from the member for Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière. I promised him that I would print copies of his speech to give to agricultural producers because it was so appalling, lamentable and sad to hear him say that everything was fine in the livestock sector. And that is exactly what I did.

On Friday, when people came to see me to talk about this crisis, I gave them a copy of the speech. After reading a few lines, they were very disappointed in this government member, who refused to acknowledge just how serious the crisis had become. Yet, even his minister realized that something was happening, given that we are now studying a bill that was just introduced.

There was a problem at that time. Fortunately, the opposition is here to make the government understand what is going on. Otherwise, we would still be stuck there and nothing would happen.

All that to say I am very pleased to see this bill fast tracked, so that our farmers may get at least a bit of a break.

Agriculture and Agri-Food February 14th, 2008

Mr. Speaker, the minister says that he has been working on this for months, which is how long the producers have been in dire straits.

Christian Lacasse, the president of the Union des producteurs agricoles, has said that the situation is very serious and that the federal government needs to free up some money. There is no getting around it.

Will the minister heed this plea and implement the six recommendations in the unanimous report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food concerning the crisis in the livestock industry? This is urgent.

Agriculture and Agri-Food February 14th, 2008

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Bloc Québécois requested an emergency debate on the crisis facing pork and beef producers. We would like to have heard the minister speak, but instead we heard his Conservative colleagues take turns denying that there is a crisis in this industry. But the Quebec agriculture, fisheries and food minister recently met with his federal counterpart to ask him to take action quickly to help the pork and beef industries.

Does the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food acknowledge that these industries are in crisis, and does he finally plan to do something about it?

Livestock Industry February 13th, 2008

Mr. Speaker, I am very grateful that a number of members stayed until the end of this emergency debate. That shows how important this is. However, I would have liked to hear more from the government side, although toward the end we did hear a few more enlightening and interesting speeches about the crisis that is affecting pork and beef producers. I hope that the minister will hear about everything that has happened here, that he will take it into consideration, that he will take note and that he will act.

Some comments were made a little earlier this evening. I would like to know whether the member agrees with Bob Friesen, the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, who said recently about this crisis that the federal government needs to show some leadership now and do what needs to be done, that all the announcements made to date have been about program funding already announced and committed, and that the solutions recommended by the industry are being ignored.

Solutions have been proposed by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food and producers themselves. Will the member promise to present them to the minister and see to it that they are implemented?

Livestock Industry February 13th, 2008

Mr. Speaker, we are indebted to the member for Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière for the speech he gave during this emergency debate on the crisis in the pork and beef industries. There will probably be an election campaign soon. I intend to print the member for Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière's speech and pass it around to everyone in the agricultural sector.

For minutes that seemed to stretch into hours, he said over and over that everything is fine, everything has been fixed, all of which was much the same as what we heard from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. According to the member, the Conservative government has gone to great lengths to avert the crisis. So why are we having this debate tonight? That is my question for the member. Why are we having this debate? I can help him answer that question.

During committee meetings, a unanimous report was drafted. Members of his party were among those who signed the unanimous report with its six specific recommendations. Beef and pork producers told us that they were experiencing an unprecedented crisis. Perhaps the member is not aware that the dollar has gone up. That is one of the factors contributing to the hard times these producers are going through. The people who met with us in committee proposed solutions. I would like the member to talk about that during his remaining time. During his 10-minute speech, nothing he said acknowledged these problems at all.

Livestock Industry February 13th, 2008

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from the NDP on his excellent speech. He, like my colleague from Malpeque and the other members of the committee, is someone with whom I enjoy working tremendously. You could feel that he spoke from the heart.

There have been a lot of quotations this evening. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister has quoted several people for us. Just before the emergency debate, I received an email from a pork producer in Alberta. He is a real producer. He comes from the Conservative Party stronghold. I would like my colleague from the NDP to comment on what this producer had to say. I will be practising my English at the same time, because this is what he says:

The present government's response is a slap in the face. The promise of some money starting to trickle to farmers in the spring time does not help us deal with devastating losses we face now. To me it is like standing on the bank of a river with a lifeline in your hand and saying to the drowning farmer, “Keep your chin up, hang in there, I"ll throw you a lifeline in a few months”.

It is quite extraordinary to hear this from a producer who comes from a Conservative Party stronghold. It is a good summary of the situation and the problems the producers are having. I would like to hear what comments my colleague who just spoke on this subject may have.

Livestock Industry February 13th, 2008

Mr. Speaker, one has to wonder what we are doing here. According to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario, all is for the best in the best of worlds. He is wearing his rose-coloured glasses this evening. He was in attendance at meetings where witnesses told the committee about the urgency of the situation and the serious crisis in the cattle and pork industry. I cannot understand his position. Better yet, the parliamentary secretary and the committee members from his party signed the unanimous report containing six recommendations in which the suggestion was made to the government to consider the possibility of helping these industries.

I would like to respond to the member from the Conservative Party who told my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot that there might be some danger with respect to the WTO. I was laughed at, here in this House, when we called for article 28 to be used to limit imports of milk protein. The minister shouted insults at me. At committee, officials told me that I was doing a dangerous thing. A few months later, while the Bloc Québécois may not be doing anything, under pressure from us and from producers, article 28 was used.

I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary where he was when these committee meetings were held. Did he agree with the six recommendations in the first report of the Committee on Agriculture, which was adopted unanimously? Does he agree with those six recommendations?

Livestock Industry February 13th, 2008

Mr. Speaker, since I only have a moment, I will say quite frankly that after the two years the government has been in power we are tired of hearing it blame the previous government. Let them read everything we said about the Liberal government when we were—

Livestock Industry February 13th, 2008

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Malpeque for his very pertinent questions. I must say that, having worked with him on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food for some time now, I usually appreciate his contributions enormously. Even though we do not belong to the same party, we have certainly developed a sense of solidarity on this issue. I think the whole committee has that sense of solidarity. Earlier, I mentioned the unanimous report we produced. Some people in the Conservative Party seem to have understood, but they have not yet helped the minister understand what was going on.

The examples that the member just gave are good ones, and they are also tragic. I do not know how the minister responded to those cases. Producers have told me that they have not yet received a response to all the letters they wrote to ask the minister for help. Nevertheless, it is clear that these people cannot continue to live like this. They cannot survive on such ridiculous sums of money.

As I was saying, this evening, we will no doubt hear people on the government side talk about billions of dollars—some $2.3 billion—that it injected to deal with these crises. But producers are telling us that they have not received a penny of it. The government knew that CAIS was not working, so it proposed AgriStability, which is a lot like CAIS and does not seem to work any better.

Producers have been receiving advance payments, only to be told two weeks later that they have to pay it back. That is a serious problem. The member for Malpeque may know more about this than I do, but I do know that in Saskatchewan, producers were told that they had been sent a cheque by mistake, which was too bad, but they had to pay it back. As if they needed that on top of everything else. These people have had it up to here!

The fact that this is happening proves that there are serious flaws. It is not that the government cannot fix these problems. It can attenuate the crisis. The committee, the members of the opposition, and agricultural producers gave it the means to do so a long time ago.

There are solutions out there, and it is up to the government to implement them.

Livestock Industry February 13th, 2008

moved:

That this House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to speak this evening. I want to thank your predecessor who occupied the chair this afternoon for approving this emergency debate.

We have heard a great deal from pork and beef producers, who are going through an unprecedented crisis. Until recently, producers were telling me that soon they would come en masse to Parliament Hill to make their demands, if the government refused to listen to reason and would not listen to their calls to deal with this crisis.

Obviously, we are holding an emergency debate because there is an emergency. We all understand the situation. I would like to thank the Chair again for allowing this debate on the crisis in the beef and pork industries.

The livestock industry is in crisis because of the rise in the value of the dollar and the costs of inputs, combined with a major drop in the price of meat in the case of pork and additional costs to manage and dispose of specified risk materials in the case of beef producers. In recent weeks, this House has heard all about the problems in the manufacturing and forestry industries. The increase in value of the dollar has often been mentioned as one of the major problems. It is also important to understand that there are exporters other than the people in the manufacturing and forestry industries. Of course, there are the pork and beef producers. These people also export their products and are also having problems because of the rise in the dollar. As I said, other factors also account for the crisis. I will come back to these a bit later.

In the case of beef producers, we remember the mad cow crisis and the border closures. In the case of pork producers, we can think of porcine circovirus and so on. These industries are truly in crisis. That is why it is really important to do something now.

Pork producers want an immediate program to guarantee loans or take over the interest currently assumed by producers, while beef producers want emergency measures such as a $50 million program over two years to help them deal with the costs incurred as a result of the new specified risk material standards. New standards were imposed on Canadian and Quebec producers when it was determined as a result of the mad cow crisis that certain materials in cattle had to be removed. We must realize that producers are incurring higher costs because they are obliged now to get rid of these specified risk materials. These include, in particular, the spinal cord, eyes, cerebellum, and so forth. Certain parts must absolutely be removed before carcasses can be shipped for human consumption.

On the other hand, and this is the main problem, American producers are not obliged to do the same. This means additional costs for Canadian producers, who have asked for $50 million over two years. This is far from extreme or exorbitant in view of the huge surplus that the federal government has been talking about this year. They have been talking about a surplus of nearly $11 billion. However producers have been getting nothing but the cold shoulder.

This debate is needed because of the silence of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food in the face of all the letters sent to them by producers in addition to the unanimous recommendations of all—and I wish to emphasize—of all the parties, including the party in power, which voted on the recommendations in the first report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

Entitled “Report on the Beef and Pork Sector Income Crisis”, the unanimous report recommends transitional measures to alleviate the crisis as well as more long-term measures to improve the competitiveness of the industry. Producers have appealed over and over for assistance. So far though, the government’s response has been nothing at all.

The government will surely talk this evening about the huge sums that have been allocated to these producers. What we hear in the field, though, is talk about producers who sometimes get an advance payment from the famous APP but two weeks later have to pay it back because they got money from the Farm Income Stabilization Program. What the government gives with one hand it takes away with the other. Producers have a serious problem when they hear talk about $600 million having been allocated.

That means nothing to them because they cannot get the money that was announced.

I would like to say that I will be splitting my time with the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. I apologize for not saying that earlier. Her riding, in Quebec, is the one with the most hog producers, and obviously she wanted to speak this evening. So I believe that my new colleague has a strong interest in standing up for her producers, and I will be splitting my time with her. Thank you.

As I was saying, that is why we need to hold this debate, particularly in view of everything that is happening at present, so we can make this government see reason, when it has literally abandoned the pork and beef producers. In Quebec, there are 23,000 beef producers and 4,000 pork producers, and I mentioned the heavy concentration of producers in the riding of my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

In my region, which extends from central Quebec to the Eastern Townships—the riding of Richmond—Arthabaska practically covers both those areas, obviously not completely, but in large part—there are 5,000 beef producers and nearly 700 pork producers. So a lot of people come in regularly to ask us to carry their message.

As I was saying earlier, if we do not reach an agreement, if we do not find a solution to these problems, they will be coming to carry their message themselves. Now, we do not want that to happen. These people have got to the point where they are leaving home and coming all the way here to demonstrate. The beef and pork producers and the agricultural producers are not demonstrators, they are not paid to do that. In fact, they want to work on their land and produce food for the public. They have a lot of things to do other than come and carry placards in demonstrations. When people are at the end of their rope, however, there is nothing left to do but go on the road to make their demands heard, and rightly so.

I rise this evening on their behalf and I to call on the government to act. The opposition, and in particular the Bloc Québécois, is often accused of talking but doing nothing. I will remind this government that one party in this House rose in 2005 to say that supply management had to be protected. It introduced a motion. That motion was passed unanimously, and still today, at the World Trade Organization negotiations, that Bloc Québécois motion is still being used by the Canadian negotiators.

At present, we have grave concerns about the agreements drafted in Geneva. But we hope that Canada will stand firm and defend our producers and supply management system. That is action and not just talk. We are prepared to withstand the accusations. However, we want the government to walk the talk. That is what we are asking this evening.

As I was saying, the government response is that it has given a great deal. But these are recycled announcements. The same thing is announced over and over. That is the problem. This evening they will say that they provided more than $70 million to combat circovirus. We do not deny it. We understand completely, but that will not solve the crisis.

Furthermore, the Secretary of State (Agriculture) and member for Mégantic—L'Érable was bragging that he went to Paris to tell the French that they were subsidizing their hog producers and that they had to put a stop to that. We do not oppose that. Naturally we understand that pressure must be brought to bear on other countries with respect to subsidies they provide to their agricultural sector. However, that will not solve the current crisis in any way, shape or form.

As I only have a few minutes left, I would like to read some very interesting quotes from those in the know about this crisis.

First, Christian Lacasse, President of the Union des producteurs agricoles du Québec said, “The situation is extremely precarious. Federal money must be forthcoming. There is no question about that.”

Jean-Guy Vincent, President of the Fédération des producteurs de porcs du Québec, a resident of my riding, stated, “the situation has become untenable—” He also added that Ottawa remains silent. He is probably listening this evening. He absolutely wants this Conservative government, during its term of office, to respect its election promise to help hog production.

I will close with one last quote and then listen carefully to my colleagues' questions and comments. According to Michel Dessureault, President of the Fédération des producteurs de bovin du Québec “—we constantly come back to see you and to tell you that producers are at the end of their rope. They cannot take even one more step. They have done their utmost.”

In my opinion, if the government does not hear these alarm bells, I do not know what will spur it to action. I hope that this evening's emergency debate will get things moving.