Brigitte Sansoucy

[Child Care, December 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, a study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives informs us of the rising cost of child care for families. That is unacceptable. Even though Quebec has the lowest child care fees and is held up as an example to follow, the province has still seen a 14% increase in the cost of child care since last year.

What is the government's plan to help families who are dealing with these rising child care costs?

[Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, December 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked about a family of dairy producers who live in her riding. As we know, every time we allow more imports of dairy products, such as the 17,000 tonnes of European cheese that will be imported under this agreement, it undermines supply management and creates an imbalance in the dairy industry.

I would like my colleague to tell us more about the impact that this will have on the family dairy operation in her riding.

[Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, December 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

I was talking about farms that went out of business 15 years ago, some of them 20 or 25 years ago. However, the same thing is still happening all over my riding, and the main issue is that there is nobody to take over.

A career in agrifood is a vocation, as I often tell farmers. They have to get up seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a week, especially when they are taking care of animals. They are always on alert because unexpected things can happen. That kind of job is truly a vocation, and it is getting harder to find people who want to take over. That is what farmers tell me.

It is obvious to young workers that the people their age with whom they went to school get better pay, better working conditions, and maybe even pension plans. A lot of young people in farming are in very precarious situations.

Every time a new international agreement is signed, it undermines their production capability because every agreement opens another crack in the supply management system that governs them. I have to point out that supply managed sectors are not entitled to government subsidies. That is an important thing to remember here.

[Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, December 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Sherbrooke for his question.

Actually I am refusing to call the $350 million amount compensation, because it is not.

When compensation was set at $4.3 billion, it was calculated that this was how much the sector was losing. We see it in the diafiltered milk coming across the border. I have met with young dairy farmers who said that the losses, for some as much as $50,000 per year, were as big as their profit margins.

The $350 million spread over five years is being called compensation. That is a misnomer. It is a subsidy, a new subsidy. During the announcement, the Liberals said that it was a modernization subsidy. The dairy farmers in my riding have already modernized. I have visited their farms and have already seen their milking machines.

The subsidy will not even pay for the electricity needed to run the milking machines. The subsidy is basically telling farmers that they have to keep going deeper in debt and keep investing. However, they have already invested a lot. They are going to see their incomes drop, since production is expected to decrease because of the agreement and its 17,000 tonnes of cheese.

Currently, what they are being told is that they will be given a subsidy if they invest more, despite their losses. This is unacceptable.

[Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, December 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP has long been calling for improved trade with Europe to diversify Canada's markets. However, there are many serious concerns that have not been addressed and many unanswered questions regarding the proposed agreement.

I would like to say that I will not be supporting Bill C-30, an act to implement the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union and its Member States and to provide for certain other measures.

The Prime Minister signed the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA for short, on October 30, at the Canada-European Union leaders' summit. However, the Liberal government put Bill C-30, the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement implementation act, on the Notice Paper just two days prior to that, and it introduced the bill on October 31.

I would like to remind the House that this rushed process violated the government's own policy on the tabling of treaties in Parliament. This policy requires the government to table a copy of the treaty along with an explanatory memorandum setting out the key elements of the treaty at least 21 sitting days before the bill is introduced, not just two.

Trade with Europe is too important to be taken lightly. The government has to make an effort to fix the unresolved problems in the agreement instead of settling for a flawed document. There is no shortage of flaws, including in agriculture, health, the environment, and the list goes on.

Nevertheless, the Liberals are blindly forging ahead. We need to think of the people, the jobs, and the local economies in our regions. The cost of pharmaceuticals will go up. The Liberals' promised compensation has evaporated. Some 23,000 jobs will be lost. That is the number of jobs Canada will lose because of CETA.

A study published by Tufts University's Global Development and Environment Institute in September showed that we will still be experiencing the job loss fallout from signing this agreement in 2023.

According to Maude Barlow, chairperson of the Council of Canadians, this agreement “suggests that there aren't economic gains—only job losses, inequality, and the erosion of the public sector”.

I refuse to sit here and do nothing. It is our duty to protect the interests of our constituents. While the Conservatives had promised a $4.3-billion compensation package to supply-managed farmers who will be affected by the Canada-Europe agreement and the trans-Pacific partnership, the Liberal government ultimately decided to create a subsidy program worth just $350 million for dairy farmers and processors.

I hope the Liberals realize that that amount is not nearly enough to compensate the dairy industry for the job losses it is going to suffer under that agreement.

I would like to explain what this will mean for a region like my riding, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

The agrifood sector is really the motor for economic development in the riding I represent. I often say that I am extremely proud to represent Canada's agrifood technocity. We have a high concentration of producers in various activity sectors, including educational institutions like the Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe, the Institut de technologie agroalimentaire, and our faculty of veterinary medicine, the only French-language school of veterinary medicine in North America. My riding is also home to laboratories, research centres, and many agrifood processing plants. My region's entire economy depends on the agrifood sector.

A retail clothing store owner recently told me that he realized that half his clients are farmers, or people who work in the agri-food industry. He realized, as a store owner, how much he relies on the agri-food industry even though he sells clothing for a living.

This is a fragile industry. Let us not forget that. I live on a concession road, on my husband's family farm. My husband is the son of a dairy farmer. When he was young, there were three dairy farmers along our road. Now there are none. I represent two RCMs, Maskoutains and Acton. There are very few dairy farms left in the Maskoutains RCM. It is almost all crop farming now.

In Acton, I have the good fortune of representing dairy farmers. If we look at the village of Upton, for example, we see that on some concession roads there is a dairy farmer at every corner, at every farm. We have to realize that every time we sign an international agreement where we chip away a little more at supply management, there are direct and immediate repercussions on these dairy farmers.

The “Strong and United” campaign was rolled out during the summer of 2015. What I found really encouraging about this campaign was that my constituents, and all Canadians, were made aware of the fact that supply management is not just the business of the farmers concerned. In fact, it is everyone's business because supply management of milk, eggs, and poultry ensures that consumers have an adequate supply. As its name indicates, the supply management system is a system based on supply and demand. It ensures that we have enough good quality products at prices that do not fluctuate.

My constituents have told me that they sometimes go the United States where a litre of milk is less expensive. I tell them to go back in three weeks to see what that litre of milk costs. Without supply management prices can fluctuate throughout the year. There can even be a shortage. In fact, two years ago, there was an egg shortage in the United States, which was followed by price hikes.

We can always count on having enough high-quality products. That is important. Under the Canada-Europe free trade agreement, 17,000 tonnes of European cheese will be imported to Canada. That is definitely going to affect dairy production. We will definitely not need to produce as much milk because we are going to be importing 17,000 tonnes of cheese. Small cheese makers are already talking about it.

In addition to the problems this will cause for dairy producers, there is also the matter of land use. I was saying earlier that I represent villages where there is a farm around every corner. When I visit the villages in my riding, I am told that the agrifood industry is the lifeblood of our villages and schools.

Earlier, I was talking about a clothing retailer, but this will also impact the village grocery and hardware stores. All of the jobs in my community are directly affected by the agrifood industry. It is therefore very important that, any time we sign an international agreement, we consider the specific impact that the agreement will have on the agrifood industry.

A few years ago, we decided to exclude culture from our international agreements because this is a sensitive field that needs to be handled in a specific way. The same is true of agriculture. It is a matter of land use and food security. Food self-sufficiency is important. When we sign an international agreement, we need to ask those questions about the agrifood sector.

In conclusion, the NDP cannot support an agreement that is harmful to our regions, our jobs, and all Canadians.

This could have been a good agreement. Unfortunately, the Liberals do not appear capable of acting in the public’s interest.

We hope that the government will take the time to consult Canadians and rework the agreement, which hurts our regions and the public. This is the only way we will be able to build healthy and sustainable trade relationships between Canada and the European Union.

I am very proud to have been able to present this message on behalf of the farmers and the constituents of Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

[Health, December 9th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the clock is ticking on the deadline for a new health care agreement, but we still have no news.

The provinces agree that the government's choice to maintain transfer payment cuts will hurt our health care system.

Philippe Couillard made it clear that Quebec would not agree to any conditions because the federal government has no right to impose conditions on the provinces for health care.

Will the Prime Minister keep his promise and negotiate with the provinces in good faith, or will he just do whatever he wants?

[The Environment, December 9th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, over a year ago, the Prime Minister signed the Paris agreement, even though his targets for fighting climate change are the same as Stephen Harper's.

Today, that same Prime Minister will be meeting with his provincial counterparts to come up with a plan.

We want to know whether the government intends to put forward a real plan that will enable us to keep the promises we made when we ratified the Paris agreement—or will he settle for Stephen Harper's approach and take the credit for the provinces' work?

[Aerospace Industry, December 8th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, employees need more than the minister's thoughts. They need action.

On October 31, the minister told me that the job losses clearly had nothing to do with the discussions they were having with the company with respect to its request for $1 billion in assistance. Nevertheless, we saw what happened with Aveos. Without financial help from the government, 1,800 workers lost their jobs. That cannot happen again.

The jobs at Bombardier and its contracting firms, like the one I mentioned earlier, are crucial in my riding. We cannot afford to lose even one. It is a matter of Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot's economic health.

When will the government take action?

[Aerospace Industry, December 8th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, on October 31, I asked the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development to tell us what was happening with the financial assistance promised to Bombardier.

The minister replied at the time that the government was working closely with the company and that it understood the importance of Bombardier to the aerospace industry. He said that the government has been clear and that it was not a matter of if but how it wanted to make this investment. More than a month has passed, so has he come up with an answer?

Bombardier is one of our flagship companies, and we must help it. Bombardier is a major employer in my riding. The company was founded by Joseph-Armand Bombardier, in Valcourt, a city that is just on the other side of the border of my riding.

Every morning many people from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot head over to Valcourt for work. I myself have had to go to Valcourt to record community television programs. Those programs are actually doing an excellent job keeping the viewers in my riding informed. Ever since I was a little girl, every time I go to Valcourt, I am always impressed to see the mountains of shipping crates containing snowmobiles and watercraft ready to go, sitting in the plant's yard.

In my riding, there is a company called Roski Composites in Roxton Falls. In 1963, Mr. Bombardier created a division called Roski Ltd. to supply parts for the Ski-Doo assembly line. In the early 1970s, Roski was tasked with producing and assembling the first generation of Sea-Doo personal watercraft. During that period, Roski produced the full series of Bombardier sailboats.

As it developed expertise in large-volume manufacturing of composite parts using contact moulding technology, Roski diversified by being one of the first Canadian and even North American companies to make large-scale use of liquid resin ingestion and high-pressure moulding technology.

In the mid-1970s, Roski helped design the Montreal metro by producing its car linings. During that same period, in order to pave the way for the 1976 summer Olympic Games in Montreal, the division designed and provided the city with composite parts for the Olympic Stadium, the Olympic Basin, the Complexe sportif Claude-Robillard, and the Maurice Richard Arena.

In 2015, Roski Composites expanded its facilities with a view to diversifying and producing larger composite parts, such as in-ground pools, windmill parts, outdoor furnishings, tanks, boats, and parts for recreational vehicles, buses, and train cars.

As hon. members can see, Bombardier is important to my riding's economy. We must keep all the jobs there.

With the description I just provided of Roski Composites, hon. members can appreciate how proud I am to have such a company in my riding and how anxious I am to secure the survival of that company through support for Bombardier.

I will repeat my question: what happened to the help that was promised for Bombardier?

[Tax Convention and Arrangement Implementation Act, 2016, December 8th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

We too believe that it is a good idea to support this bill and to have this sort of agreement with Israel and Taiwan. However, when it comes to the fight against tax evasion and tax havens, it is important to include automatic tax information exchange provisions in agreements signed by Canada.

Does my colleague not believe that it is a good idea to include automatic tax information exchange provisions in the 92 existing agreements and in future agreements so that this sort of exchange does not just occur by request only, as is currently the case?