Ben Lobb

[Business of Supply, March 9th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, we have limited time and debate will come to an end pretty quickly, but I have a few key points to summarize the debate. Maybe the riding I represent best exemplifies some of the realities. It really has been the best of times and it has been the worst of times.

The riding of Huron—Bruce, the entire western shore, borders on Lake Huron. During the COVID pandemic we have had a tremendous uptick in tourism. People have come from all over the place to rent cottages, buy cottages, develop real estate and stay at hotels. It has been one of the biggest booms of all times, with four wheelers, boats and RVs, a very prosperous times.

On the other side, some restaurants are forever damaged financially as well as banquet halls and subsidiaries such as rental shops that support weddings. Also, different companies provide shuttle services to the airport in my area and tour bus operators, all of which have been damaged permanently. Years and years of toil and hard work have been obliterated in the matter of a year.

In northern Ontario, tour operators who maybe have a resort or a fishing lodge have been decimated. I talked to a tour operator today, who said that they would be able to make it through this year, but that it would be game over at the end of 2021 for many if they did not receive support. We need to be mindful that for some it has been very good times and for others it has been absolute desperation. This is why we will need further supports.

There has been a lot of talk today about airlines and support. We need to look no further than what is going on at Air Canada to see all the moves it has made to try to stay alive. The money from the wage subsidy is called survival. Air Canada did a stock issue, debt, did all sorts of different things with airplane deliveries, but the airlines will need some financing to re-establish routes and rebuild the 10 years worth of networks or their business models will be forever changed. For example, we heard earlier today about two airports in Saskatchewan, one in Saskatoon and one in Regina, and about all the flights that had left.

The CEO of Porter Airlines made something very clear, and it really highlights one of the huge failures of the Liberal government. The United States vaccinates more people every day than have been vaccinated in our entire country. That is absolutely unacceptable. That will forever be a mark on the government going forward and when the next election comes, there definitely will be a focus on what happened. Another thing he mentioned was the head-scratcher going on at our major airports regarding quarantine, but being able to cross at land border crossings.

Porter was going to start flying March 29, but because of this, it will may be the middle to the end of May because of the actions of the government, not ours, and these were his words and not mine. Anybody who has been to Toronto can see those airplanes taking off from the island airport what seems like every two minutes, but it has not turned a propeller in almost a year. These are the things we are talking about today.

Air Canada has let go 20,000 people. There is not one town in my riding that has 20,000 people. That is 20,000 people who do not have a job and would love to get back to work.

The other issue is around financing. If we go back, we will remember that the government left out credit unions. It is as if it had not even heard about credit unions. The credit unions and the opposition parties had to fight to ensure they were able to also offer CEBA loans to their customers. They had calls from all sorts of colleagues, from chambers and business improvement areas, wondering why the big charter banks were able to offer these loans but credit unions were not. Going forward, we have to ensure we fight for credit unions.

The other thing I wanted to mention was Community Futures. It is a government-backed organization and there are two offices in my riding, Bruce and Huron, and just over in Grey, there is Saugeen. They provide tremendous loans to small businesses and quite likely to those who need it the most and they are the fastest and most effective.

If we think of the motion we have presented today, I do not really look at it as a political motion. It is not meant to drive a wedge between one another. To me, it is a summation of things that we need to do to help not all businesses, but those that need it the most. We cannot do that if we do not have a budget. The businesses know, the associations know, the chambers know what needs to be done.

Last, on charities, I would suggest, and a lot of people would support this, that we look at the deductibility for people giving to charities. A lot of people across the country have a charity they love. They want to support them and maybe even give them some lifetime savings or inheritance. Maybe if there were a little extra enticement to give, they would do it. The great thing is that the money stays local. It stays in their community. Instead of having a large government decide, it would allow them to direct it to their food banks, to women's shelters or to wherever they feel it would do the best.

We all need to work hard in the House to support and defend those people who put their finances on the line each and every day. We need to do something to ensure they are supported, not just for survival but for the revival of their businesses.

[Graeme Craig, February 17th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, Huron County lost one of its great residents February 8.

Graeme Craig was a lifelong resident on a century farm in Walton. His first passion in life was music. Graeme entertained many people, singing and playing guitar at numerous events. He was a graduate of Ridgetown College and had a very successful career with United Breeders and McKillop Insurance.

Graeme was a federal returning officer for Huron—Bruce for five elections. He ran as a LIberal candidate in 1979-80 and was trustee and chair on the Huron County Board of Education for 12 years. Graeme did a term as president of the Ontario Plowmen's Association. He was the chair of the 1999 International Plowing Match in Dashwood and was the current treasurer in the Canadian Plowing Match. He made a positive impact on everyone he knew.

My condolences to Graeme's family, wife Helen, Michael, Shannon and Dave. May Graeme rest in peace on a life well lived.

[Canada—United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement Implementation Act, January 28th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, probably in time TPP will be the best deal, but I think for South Korea, country-to-country is likely the best deal all the time. When we look at the benefits it has brought to my area and western Canadian farmers, it is likely the best now.

There is a big responsibility that agriculture and the ag minister have this year with the certification, and the screw-up they had a couple of years ago, so they need to fix that permanently so that we do not have any issues shipping beef to the U.S. and then having it processed and shipped to Korea.

However, yes, South Korea has to be the best deal ever country-to-country.

[Canada—United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement Implementation Act, January 28th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I tried not to make a big partisan speech or revisit who was the greatest trading partner or all that.

I just tried to lay out where we could have benefits. I will say there could be some criticism on the part of the government for the lack of consultation, obviously. I think it would admit that as well.

The reality is the government basically took the consultation from CETA and lumped it into the Canada-U.K. deal. It has to do a better job of consulting going forward. The public service and negotiators are going to have to do that as well.

Just as I mentioned with the Hensall Co-op, companies like that, white bean growers and the different commodity groups have to be consulted, because there are some areas where CETA has not worked for producers. We have to make sure we have it fixed for Canada-U.K.

[Canada—United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement Implementation Act, January 28th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I cannot speak for my colleagues, but I do believe that we have to continue to grind forward and take the U.K. on good faith. Obviously other countries that have similar transitional agreements will be doing the same thing we are trying to do.

We are 98% of the way there anyway, but the parts that we may have gotten wrong in CETA, we have to fight like heck to fix. I do not think we need to do a bad U.K. deal just to say that we have a deal. We just have to continue to grind it out until we feel like we have made everybody happy, or as close to happy as we can get.

[Canada—United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement Implementation Act, January 28th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to present. This is the first time I have presented in this format, and it is an interesting way to present a speech, but these are the circumstances we are in, and we will make the best of them.

Usually when I start a speech, I give my perspective on the economic context we are in. Obviously we are in unprecedented times. I was around in 2008 and 2009 during the last economic downturn. The circumstances were completely different from what we are faced with here today, but nonetheless there is pressure from everyone to perform and to deliver for Canadians from coast to coast, so that is where we are. We know where our deficit levels are and we know where our debt is going to roughly be at the end of this pandemic, so we know we have a tremendous burden to lift future generations from under the debt they are in.

I will go back to review some of the past trade agreements, such as the Canada-European free trade agreement, which includes countries like Switzerland, Liechtenstein and others; Canada-Honduras; Canada-Jordan; Canada-Colombia; Canada-South Korea, which was probably one of the best deals and advantageous for Canadian producers and farmers; CETA; and TPP. These were all deals that were negotiated by the previous government.

The former minister spoke, and Gerry Ritz is likely out there listening today as well. He was the agriculture minister for most of it. I thank them for all their efforts, and the current government here today is doing its best to work its way through Bill C-18 and eventually come to a long-term deal between Canada and the U.K.

There are some legitimate criticisms, I think, with some of the negotiations along the way. Was it always going to be a revision and an extension of CETA? Was it going to be something new, such a true free trade agreement between the two countries? Maybe we will get both here. That is the context.

I have some key points from my perspective as someone who lives in a rural riding where there is a pretty heavy agricultural footprint and impact on the Ontario economy, but these points would apply to farmers from coast to coast. One of them is that in a good, quality long-term Canada-U.K. deal, even though we are talking about a transition agreement, it will be very important that we get the edible bean sector right when we look at tariffs and non-tariff barriers and a number of different things with the U.K. In my riding alone, the Hensall Co-op, which is about 40 minutes north of London, Ontario, ships about half of the white beans for the entire United Kingdom, and they are sourced from all over southwestern Ontario. They are short-day beans, and they are some of the highest-quality white beans in the world, so we want to make sure that stakeholders like Hensall and other advocacy groups or industry groups are at the table when the consultations take place to make sure that we get absolutely everything right and improve upon what we have with the CETA deal.

To put it into context, they ship about 15,000 20-foot containers per year of edible white beans, so it is a huge number. I believe it is around 40 or 50 containers a day that they ship. It is a great bean for farmers to grow, because it is a short-day bean, which is good. As well, it also allows for cost savings and cost effectiveness in using the equipment. Farmers can use the same combine they use for traditional GMO soybeans. They would be able to clean it up and put it back out there or use it first and then clean it up, but they can use the same header for both the edible white beans and soybeans. That is a great bean for us to grow, and it is at quite a premium in our area.

Regarding the red meat sector, anybody who is on the trade committee has heard me complain about CETA and its outcome. When CETA was finally ratified or first announced, however members want to look at it, the trade for Canadian beef farmers would eventually end up at about $600 million a year, I believe, just in beef alone, but I think we are at about 1% or 1.5% of where we thought we would be. We thought we would be at least at the tariff rates. All beef cattle have hormones in them, and whether we add or do not add to it, they are going to have hormones.

There needs to be an understanding. Obviously there is an opportunity for beef farmers to grow beef on grasslands and maybe not add some of the different components used in beef farming today. Nevertheless, while the science proves out, it is very costly for farmers. Even if they wanted to grow beef cattle the way Europe and the U.K. are asking, it does not make financial sense. We need to take a close look at this issue. I would call this maybe a non-tariff trade barrier.

In addition to that, on the pork side, the situation has been even worse with the European Union. About $100 million a year in pork is traded between the European Union and Canada, and Europe has almost all of it. We ship about $2 million or $3 million worth of pork to the European Union, and the European Union ships about $97 million to Canada. People in Huron County or Bruce County or anywhere else in southwestern Ontario or across Canada are seriously scratching their heads at how we could have a deal with the European Union or the U.K. and have a trade deficit in beef and pork.

The issue with pork is around trichinella, and the way they are dealing with it does not make sense. In our negotiations, using experts and scientists, we have to finally come to a way to agree in order to move forward.

On country of origin labelling on beef and others, during the Obama administration we dealt with this issue for years. Now we are dealing with Italy on the same type of thing with regard to durum wheat. It is just not fair. I do not believe our negotiators are pushovers for one second, and I do not believe any government wants to be pushed around, but the evidence starts to mount after a while that we are in fact getting pushed around and are not being treated fairly.

When we look at some of the successes we have had with TPP, we see that the corn-fed beef program in Ontario has been a huge success. Korea is in the same boat. We are shipping product to Korea. Korea wants it, and it is a good, quality product, but what is happening in Europe is a little disappointing. It is shipping 100% of its tariff rate quota of cheese, while we are shipping 1.3% or 1.5% or 3% in beef, and that is unacceptable. That is the reality of the situation. It will be for the current government or whichever party is elected the next time an election rolls around to push our trade officials to do more and to do better. I will leave it at that.

Around the world, it is tougher times. With the new American administration coming in, immediately we saw Keystone being shut down. The next thing we will see is the buy America provision. We cannot help but be frustrated. I toured the Decast plant in Utopia, near Barrie, Ontario, and the number one complaint after the tour was the buy America provision and what we could do if buy America were not in place in the United States.

When we put it in context, the government recently negotiated the USMCA, and here we are right back at the table again, dealing with issues like buy America and other items like softwood lumber. It goes on and on. Finally and forever, we need these issues dealt with, and I hope we do that.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, January 25th, 2021]

With regard to the recommendation by the Chief Public Health Officer that Canadians use a three-layer non-medical mask with a filter: (a) how many non-medical masks purchased by the government since March 1, 2020, (i) meet this criterion, (ii) do not meet this criterion; and (b) what is the value of the masks purchased by the government that (i) meet this criterion, (ii) do not meet this criterion?

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, December 11th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I am pretty sure the government did not transform the manufacturing industry in Canada, but we will talk about that on a different day.

The agriculture minister continues to hammer farmers with the carbon tax and does not give the farmers any credit for any of the environmental work they do on the farm: environmental farm planning, planting cover crops, no-till drilling, manure management, taking marginal land out of production, managing on-farm water and planting millions of trees. At the same time, she ignores the fact that crops and trees are natural carbon sequesters.

When is the minister going to take this carbon tax off farmers?

[Questions on the Order Paper, November 16th, 2020]

With regard to what the Prime Minister describes as the "due diligence" conducted by government officials in relation to the original decision to have the WE organization or WE Charity administer the Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG): (a) how many officials were involved in conducting the due diligence; (b) who conducted the due diligence; (c) who was in charge of overseeing the due diligence process; (d) did the due diligence process examine WE's recent corporate governance or financial issues; (e) if the answer to (d) is affirmative, why did the officials still recommend that WE be chosen to administer the CSSG; (f) if the answer to (d) is negative, why were such issues not examined in the due diligence process; and (g) on what date did the due diligence process in relation to WE (i) begin, (ii) end?

[Questions on the Order Paper, November 16th, 2020]

With regard to the government's ethical apparel policy PN-132 and contract clause A3008C, since November 4, 2015: (a) how many times has the contract clause been breached by companies doing business with the government; (b) what are the details of each instance where a breach occurred, including (i) the date that the government advised the vendor that they were in breach, (ii) vendor, (iii) brand names involved, (iv) summary of breach; (c) for each instance in (b), did the government terminate the contract or issue a financial penalty to the vendor, and, if so, what are the details and amounts of the penalties; (d) how many investigations have been conducted to ensure compliance with PN-132, and, of those, how many vendors were found to be (i) in compliance, (ii) not in compliance; (e) does the policy consider ethical procurement certification for contracting below the first-tier subcontractor level; (f) what specific measures has the government taken, if any, to ensure that all vendors, including any contractors or sub­contractors of such vendors, are in compliance with the policy; (g) what specific measures, if any, has the government taken to ensure that any products produced by forced labour camps, and specifically the forced Uyghur labour camps in China, are not purchased by the government; (h) what is the government's policy, if it has one, in relation to the termination of contracts in cases where a second-, third-, or any level below the first-tier subcontractor are found to be noncompliant with PN-132; (i) what is the total number of employees or full-time equivalents assigned to ensure compliance with the ethical apparel policy; and (j) for each employee in (i), what percentage of their job has been assigned to investigate or ensure compliance?