Madam Speaker, I am happy to speak to Bill C-282. On the Conservative side, we absolutely support supply management. We always have been.
In my riding of Dufferin—Caledon, there are many supply-managed farms, both in dairy and, of course, in eggs and poultry. I take the opportunity to visit those farms on a regular basis. The last break week, I visited dairy farms in my riding and I talked about the bill and the incredible contributions that they made not just to my riding of Dufferin—Caledon but all across Canada.
That being said, I really do have concerns with respect to the bill and a big part of it is that the bill has turned into a gigantic wedge issue with all the rest of the folks in the agriculture sector. Every agricultural sector outside of supply management has said it does not support the bill. These people are concerned about what the repercussions will be to their sector in any future trade agreement.
Why are they thinking that? When we take something off the table in a negotiation, then our negotiating partner will automatically take something off the table as well. If we are taking supply management off, and that is something our negotiating partner is interested in, it will take something off the table that Canada is interested in, and we end up with trade agreements that are less ambitious, less broad in scope and therefore have less economic prosperity for Canadians.
This is an example of who came to the committee to say they supported supply management. There are agricultural colleagues, our friends and neighbours, who are against this bill, such as the Canola Council of Canada; the Canadian Canola Growers Association; the International Cheese Council of Canada; the National Cattle Feeders' Association; the Canadian Cattle Association; CAFTA, which is the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance; Cereals Canada; just to name a few. They have all said that they think this bill will damage their opportunities to export their products around the world. They spoke very forcefully against the bill at committee.
What the bill has accomplished, to a large extent, is to pit one farmer against another, and that is truly unfortunate.
Government officials have also spoken against the legislation. When the bill was before the previous parliament it was Bill C-216, and there were several questions that were asked with respect to it. I will quote one section.
Mr. Doug Forsyth said:
If we were to end up with this bill as it is written, I think very much that we would start with a much smaller scope of negotiations with various partners. It wouldn't be unusual for them to say “That's fine. Canada has taken these issues right out of play. We will take issues that are of interest to Canada right out of play.” Then you're talking about negotiating from a smaller pie...
That is exactly the concern I have raised. Canada is a free-trading nation. We rely on free trade, as 60% to 70% of our GDP comes from trade. We are a trading and exporting nation, and agricultural products are a huge bedrock of our exports. When every other agricultural sector is saying that it is concerned about what this is going to do with respect to its ability to export its products around the world and in negotiations for other free trade agreements, we should listen.
One of the things I tried to accomplish at committee was to have extra meetings to have trade experts come to say what they thought the impact of the bill would be with respect to negotiating future trade agreements, and the committee received letters from trade experts.
This is a snippet from a letter from Robert de Valk, who said:
Remember what Canada had to pay in 1989 to keep supply management off the table when the Canada-US Trade Agreement (CUSTA) was completed – increased access. Now all our trading partners can rightfully ask for compensation. The bill, unfortunately, may have the unintended consequence of putting the supply management sector in focus early in any future negotiations.
When we talk about future negotiations, our free trade agreement with the United States and Mexico, CUSMA, is under review at six years. We are three years away from that. With this bill passing, what happens if the United States says that it wants some additional access in supply managed industries? Under this bill it would be absolutely impossible. Then what happens? Are we going to blow up our entire free trade agreement with the United States and Mexico because of this legislation? These are the unintended potential consequences of the legislation.
At committee, I also asked government officials if we would have been able to successfully renegotiate NAFTA, which became CUSMA, if supply management was off the table? This was the answer, “Madam Chair, I was not a part of the negotiating teams for either of those negotiations. However, the stated policy of the Canadian government during both of those negotiations was that” supply management was off the table and that they would “make no concessions. Therefore, having ultimately determined that such concessions were necessary, I can only conclude that failing to do so would have put the deal at jeopardy.”
This is what we would be looking at if we pass legislation like this. We are potentially putting other trade deals at jeopardy with respect to one sector of the Canadian economy. I find this absolutely troubling.
However, if we take away the challenges with future deals and if we take away the challenges with the review of CUSMA, or USMCA, whatever we want to call it, those are big, extraordinary challenges as a result of this.
Let us look at it in a broader context. Our largest trading partner is the United States, with 70% of our trade going to the United States. We have two major trade irritants with the United States right now.
First, on softwood lumber, $8 billion worth of duties have been collected as a result of the softwood lumber dispute. This has been going on for eight years, with no progress at all on resolving it.
Second, country of origin labelling for beef is percolating in the United States again. It would have devastating impacts for Canadian cattle.
If we go to the United States and say that we want to try to resolve these things, I think it will say, especially with beef, that we have just protected an entire swath of our agricultural sector and it will want to know why the United States can not go forward with its country of origin labelling.
The bill would give the United States a hammer to hit us with in negotiations, to try to resolve the trade irritants that we have now. These are the unintended consequences of passing this legislation.
We can support supply management without the legislation. Our country has done it. In all the free trade agreements we have around the world, there is only a couple where access has been granted on supply management. When that access was granted, Canadian producers were compensated financially.
When we look at the statistics on farm gate proceeds, for example, with respect to dairy, actual production of milk has gone up despite access that has been granted. Therefore, farm gate receipts have gone up despite access being granted.
If access is granted, we could compensate those who are affected. Also, because the Canadian population is growing, the Canadian economy is growing, so they still produce more, sell more and make more money. The system as it is exists very well. It is not, as we keep hearing, the first thing on the negotiating table in a free trade agreement. It is the absolute last thing. It is the only thing that would get done, because if we did not, we could not get a deal.
Imagine, if this bill was in place when we were trying to renegotiate NAFTA with the United States and the United States demanded more access in supply management. It is very interested in it, because we have disputes under USMCA with respect to how it applies tariff-reduced quota in the dairy sector. We know it is important to the United States. We would not have a deal, and government officials very clearly said that.
The intention of the bill is good. We should protect supply management. I understand why farmers are nervous and frustrated, because the government has not negotiated good deals, like CPTPP. The original TPP granted less access in supply management. The Liberal government came along and gave up so much more in CPTPP. However, the bill would have unintended consequences that would not be good for Canada and the Canadian economy.
