Kyle Seeback

[Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act, January 30th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa.

It is always a great day when I get to rise in this place and defend the interests of the wonderful residents of my riding of Dufferin—Caledon.

I want to start off by saying that members on this side of the House support this agreement. It is good for business. It is good to have certainty. Those are some of the benefits of having this trade agreement resolved.

However, Conservatives have been asking for information from the government on a number of issues. In fact, we have been asking for some information not for one or two weeks, but for several months and we are not getting that information. Specifically, we have been asking when the government will release the economic impact of this agreement. I would think that is something the Liberals would have and would be willing to share.

Members on this side of the House would like to be informed before deciding how to vote on this issue. Instead of releasing this information to us and all Canadians, we get no information. In fact, what we do get is a request to please approve this agreement as quickly as possible. If we want someone to dance with us, we actually have to ask them to dance. We do not just grab them and pull them out onto the dance floor and start swinging them around. That is not the proper way to do it.

This is a very clear request that we have made, and to date, we have had no response. Effectively, we are being asked to vote in favour of a trade agreement without knowing what the economic impacts are going to be not only in our own ridings, but all across the country. Quite frankly, I think the government's request is inappropriate. The Liberals should be giving us the information that we are demanding.

My friends on the other side of the House will say that they have offered us a briefing. A briefing is not an economic impact analysis. I am wondering when the government is going to raise the curtains and give not only parliamentarians but all Canadians the economic impact of this agreement so we can all make an informed decision.

It is bad enough that we are not getting the economic impact, but what I find far more insidious and odious is the fact that there is a report on the economic impact on dairy and SM-4, and guess what: It has been kept confidential by the government.

Why would the Liberals keep an economic impact analysis on important agricultural sectors confidential? Why is it not being released? As parliamentarians, we are being asked to vote on something without information. Some information the Liberals clearly do not have. They do not have an economic impact analysis, despite years of negotiations. However, they do have a very specific economic analysis that is very important to the constituents of my riding of Dufferin—Caledon.

In Dufferin, the number one economic driver is agriculture. In agriculture, we of course have dairy and other supply-managed industries. They are nervous because they know there will be economic impacts, but the Liberals are choosing not to release that information. Therefore, people do not know the extent of the impact.

I met with dairy farmers in my riding two weeks ago. They are concerned about the agreement itself, without still knowing the economic impacts. One of the things they are concerned about is that dairy products coming in from the United States are not going to be subject to the exact same standards as Canadian dairy products are subjected to. There are hormones used in dairy production in the United States that will allow for greater production at lower cost, but they are not allowed to be used in Canada.

Not only have they negotiated a deal for further access to the supply-managed dairy market in Canada, but they have also not levelled the playing field. It is a double hit on our dairy sector. Producers do not know the economic impact and they do not know what the compensation will be.

We ask repeatedly what the compensation is going to be for sectors that are adversely affected. Again, like so many things we get from the Liberal government, there is no transparency; we get no answer. A great example of the lack of transparency exhibited by the government was how they opposed the Parliamentary Budget Officer looking into their infrastructure spending. This is a government that said it was transparent and “open by default”. That is not what is happening specifically with that vote; it is certainly not what is happening with this trade agreement.

All we are asking for is information. It seems like a very simple and basic request. The Liberals are saying to us that they need a partner in this chamber to pass this trade agreement, but they are not going to give us any of the information that we need in order to make a really informed decision. It is especially needed for the residents of my riding, who are going to be affected by the changes to the dairy industry.

What did the government get in return for negotiating away milk classes 6 and 7? We have asked this question; again, we do not have an answer.

What did we get in exchange for effectively giving a tariff on exports in the dairy market that go above a certain threshold? What did we get in exchange for that?

What did we get in return for negotiating away our sovereignty over exports of milk protein concentrates, skim milk powder and infant formula?

These are legitimate questions that we are not getting answers to. This is becoming a pattern with this government. The Liberals do not want to answer the tough questions. I sit here like all of us during question period, when there are lots of great questions that are asked, very specific questions that can have very specific answers. Of course, we do not get very specific answers, do we? On this side of the House we know the answers are the old “Ottawa spin and twist”: spin the question around, do not really say anything and then time is up. That is what we are getting on this trade agreement. We are getting no answers. I know my friends are going to say that we were given opportunities for briefings, but that is not sufficient.

I have two final points to raise on this. Why has softwood lumber not been included in this trade agreement? We know that this is a very serious issue, not in my riding, but in ridings all across the country. Why was “Buy American” not addressed? This is a major impediment for Canadian companies that are trying to do business in the United States.

These are simple, basic questions. All it would take is someone on the other side of the House to take the time to actually answer a straight question. To date, they are not doing it. I am losing faith that it will happen. We want to approve this trade agreement. We want to vote in favour of it, because Canadian businesses and industries need certainty. We need the information. My request is that the Liberal government start providing us some answers instead of pulling down the curtains and saying to vote blind on this issue.

[Agriculture, January 28th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I have two supplemental questions.

The parliamentary secretary used phrases like “this is a top priority” and “we are engaging at the highest levels”. Does he have any time frame whatsoever for these disputes to be resolved? That is number one.

With respect to accessing new markets, what are the new markets that the government is looking for, what is it doing to let farmers know that they are going to have access to these new markets and when does it anticipate any new markets opening up?

[Agriculture, January 28th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to ask supplemental questions tonight with respect to a question I asked the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food on December 13. It is well known that right now farmers, not only in my riding of Dufferin—Caledon, but all across the country, are suffering from a lack of access to foreign markets. This is particularly difficult for our soybean and canola farmers.

I asked a very specific question on what steps are going to be taken. I received an answer that I did not quite feel to be satisfactory to the farmers in my riding or across the country, something about “we stand with, we are going to have some meetings, we are going to talk, this, that and the other thing”.

What is really happening is that we have lost access for foreign markets as a result of unresolved trade disputes that the government seems incapable of taking any action on.

The U.S. has had similar problems and it brought forward a $28-billion market stabilization fund for U.S. farmers. Good for them. The problem we are having with that now is that allows them to do a whole bunch of things. Number one, they can sell their product to other markets that are not closed, at a price that is much cheaper than Canadian farmers can. What they can also do is sell their product into Canada at a price much cheaper than our farmers can sell here in Canada.

This is the big problem and I met with the Dufferin Federation of Agriculture. Hard-working farmers whose livelihoods are being severely affected by this met with me. Most farmers do not just farm soy or canola, they have a whole bunch of other things they do. On top of this issue, they are now struggling with the fact that they had a wet harvest in Ontario. They now have to pay to dry their corn and wheat. On top of that, they are getting slammed with a carbon tax. Some farmers are getting bills for $1,400 worth of carbon tax just to try and dry their product so they can get it to market, with no relief in sight from the government.

To make matters worse, many farmers in my riding across Ontario and across Canada are also cattle farmers. In Ontario, they have a complete lack of processing capacity due to the closure of the processing facility in Toronto. A farmer told me that in November she looked for a new place to have her beef processed and was told it could be processed in April. What happens to that family? They now have to pay to feed those cattle for the next four and a half months, the cattle will be overweight, and they will get less at market and pay penalties.

This is a catastrophic crisis in farming communities all across this country and in particular in Dufferin—Caledon. What they do not need are platitudes. I am not feeling very confident that we are going to get any concrete answers. They do not want platitudes like “we stand with” or “we are going to have a meeting”. They also do not want the government to say it will give them some loans. Farmers do not want loans, they want solutions to the problems. They want access to foreign markets fixed. They want processing capacity restored.

For the farmers in my riding and the farmers across the country, I would like an actual solution and not platitudes.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, January 27th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, a broken clock is right twice a day. Coming up with one program that might address one small thing actually does not address any of the needs of the farming community in my riding and ridings all across this country. There is nothing on soy and canola. There is nothing to help farmers in the beef industry in Ontario. These are the critical things that are going on in my riding right now. While that might be a great program, that and a $1.50 will get the farmers in my riding a double-double and nothing else.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, January 27th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, farmers are always great stewards of the land and they are always very interested in making sure that we have an environment that allows them to farm both sustainably and responsibly. One thing I am not in favour of is a carbon tax, because it is going to do absolutely nothing to affect climate change.

What we have to realize, in this House and in this country, is that climate change is global. We can reduce our emissions to zero in this country and all that CO2 space will be used up by China with its growing emissions in six months.

If there is not concerted international action with respect to the big emitters around the world, nothing we do in this country is going to prevent the harmful effects of climate change, and that is where the Liberal government needs to start working.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, January 27th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, in the riding of Dufferin—Caledon, we have a large dairy industry and I am absolutely fully supportive of supply management. We will always vote in favour of it.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, January 27th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, for Melancthon county the gas tax is $91,000 this year. That is $91,000 for six million dollars' worth of infrastructure that is desperately needed.

Maybe all this infrastructure money is flowing into ridings like his and Liberal-held ridings in Toronto, but I will say that after meeting with the reeves and councillors and wardens in the rural municipalities that I represent, I learned the money is not flowing to them. That is the issue, and that is what I am here for, to fight for them and to make sure that they get some fair share of the giant deficit that the Liberal government is running.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, January 27th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, there is an old phrase, absence makes the heart grow fonder. I can say that my absence from this place has only made my fondness for it grow stronger over the last four years. It is great to be back here representing the great riding of Dufferin—Caledon. I want to quickly do a shout-out to our former member of Parliament, David Tilson, who retired and represented this riding so well from 2005 to 2019.

Unfortunately, I am going to say that this throne speech does not represent the riding of Dufferin—Caledon nearly as well as David Tilson did or how I hope to represent it. I am going to talk about three things that the throne speech either ignores or really gives short shrift to. These three things are infrastructure, rural broadband and agriculture.

When we talk about infrastructure, there is no mention in the throne speech of investing in transit for rural and small communities in this country. Let me say that these communities desperately need investments in infrastructure and in transit.

Let me give an example. Orangeville, one of the municipalities in my riding, is trying to buy new buses to expand bus routes. The current government is one that allegedly cares about climate change. Why would the Liberals not be investing in transit?

The project is $2.1 million. The provincial government has stepped up with $667,000, its one-third share. It is in the bank. Where is the answer from the federal government? As of January of this year, the Orangeville transit task force has told me it has heard crickets from the current government. It is disrespectful and it is neglecting small communities.

One of the things my constituents talk about is exactly that: the need for transit and the need for investments. The government seems to be able to invest in all kinds of things, allegedly. The deficit is $20 billion or $25 billion a year, but there is absolutely nothing for rural Canada and small-town Canada when we talk about transit. In addition to that, the Liberal government cancelled the transit tax credit, which was always a benefit.

In the riding of Dufferin—Caledon, there are critical infrastructure deficits for small municipalities. I held a town hall meeting in Shelburne, another small municipality in my riding, last week. In Shelburne, people are talking about the urgent need for investments in bridges and roads in their communities.

The Township of Melancthon is an agriculture-based municipality. It has 248 kilometres of roads as well as 51 bridges and other structures. The municipality had an engineering report come out in 2019 dealing with roads, bridges and culverts that desperately need repair. Many of them are at the absolute end of their lifespan. It will take $6 million just to deal with that problem. When they deal with all of their infrastructure needs, including roads, bridges and culverts, it is another $6.6 million over 10 years.

This is a township that has an annual budget of $4 million. How is it going to repair these bridges? Where was the mention in the throne speech, the Liberals' document to outline the priorities for this country over the next four years? There was not a single mention.

In the Township of Amaranth, eight bridges have to be replaced in the next year alone, which is $5.3 million. Its annual budget is also approximately $4 million.

Are these types of critically needed investments mentioned by the government in its throne speech? They are absolutely not there, yet the government will talk about what the Liberals would call a buyback of guns as part of their program.

They are not buying back. They would require law-abiding Canadians to sell their guns to the government with estimated costs of $250 million to $1 billion to buy these things back, force people to sell them back to the government, which will add nothing to public safety because these are law-abiding citizens. However, the Liberals do not have any money for small and rural municipalities. That is disgraceful, and they should be doing better.

At my town hall meeting, the frustration and the anger from small-town Canada and rural Canada are palpable. Those people are not being heard by the government. They are not mentioned in the throne speech and they know they are not a priority.

What people do know is that the priority of the government is to buy votes in the larger urban centres. That is all it cares about. In the rest of Canada, it is too bad, so sad.

With respect to rural broadband, I used to represent a riding in Brampton. Someone can drive 15 minutes north from Brampton into Caledon and guess what. There is almost no broadband. Cellular service is awful and rural broadband is awful. Again, was this mentioned in the throne speech? This is a critical infrastructure investment across this country and it does not even get a mention, not even a small little blurb.

I talked to the farmers in my riding. They have to drive into town to Tim Hortons to download software upgrades for their machinery and equipment. That is a wonderful solution, is it not?

They have to do the same thing if they want their children to get access to homework and other online tools that all school districts now provide. They have to leave their house and drive to Tim Hortons where they can get reliable Wi-Fi. Where was that again in the throne speech? It was just completely ignored.

The lack of service is killing small businesses in my riding and in ridings similar to it all across this country, and the response from the government is absolutely nothing. After winning an election a party is supposed to govern for all the people in the country, not just the people who gave it votes. I would ask my friends across the aisle to please rethink the strategy toward rural and small-town Canada, because it is suffering under the government.

Again, the Province of Ontario is stepping up to help with this. It is investing $315 million over five years for unserved and underserved areas. This is expected to generate up to $1 billion of total investments when it is matched by the private sector. These are the kinds of investments that the government should be making, not spending $250 million to $1 billion forcing law-abiding gun owners to sell their legally purchased guns back to the government.

The final point I want to raise is with respect to agriculture and farmers. Again, farming was almost completely neglected in the throne speech. Farmers are facing huge challenges, not just in my riding but all across the country. I would love it if members of the government would come and sit down in my community and hear what the farmers have to say.

These are hard-working people, hard-working families who are suffering as a result of a lack of access to markets for soy and canola. They are suffering as a result of a carbon tax to dry their corn and dry their wheat. This was a very wet year in Ontario. If one wanted to get corn processed one had to dry it, and the carbon tax that is being charged to farmers to dry their corn and grain is highway robbery. They cannot afford it. They are struggling and they do not even merit a mention in the throne speech.

The U.S. government is stepping up for its soy and canola farmers. It has a $28-billion market facilitation program. I asked the minister about this back in December. She said they were going to talk, meet, do this and do that. Now we are at the end of January and there has still been no substantive action taken on this.

In Ontario, we lost processing capacity for the beef industry. This is critical. In talking with some of the farming families in my riding, I can tell my colleagues that when they looked for an alternate place to have their cattle processed, they were told in November that it would be handled in April.

Those families have to pay to feed their cattle for the next five months at cost. Also, the cattle are going to be oversized and the families are going to have to pay more in penalties to have the cattle processed. What is the response from the government? What has it done? Was it mentioned in the throne speech? These are hard-working Canadian families who are suffering and they do not even deem a mention in the throne speech. It is having a devastating effect.

I have to say that I will be voting against this throne speech as there is absolutely nothing in it for the residents of my riding and for residents across this country in small towns and rural communities.

[International Trade, December 13th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I recently met with the Dufferin Federation of Agriculture, all hard-working farmers in my riding. They are suffering from a lack of market access for soybean and canola as a result of unresolved trade disputes.

In the U.S., the government is stepping up with a $28 billion market facilitation program. Other than words like “we stand with” or “we always support”, what is the government actually doing to support soybean and canola farmers?

[Decoration Day, June 11th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, last weekend Decoration Day commemorated the sacrifices of Canadian and allied soldiers as they stormed the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944. I had the great privilege of attending two such commemorations in my riding over the weekend: one with Branch 15 of the Royal Canadian Legion and one with Branch 609. I have to say it is very encouraging how many cadets came out to those services to honour our brave men and women in the armed forces.

Brampton has a tradition on Decoration Day. Canadian flags are placed on the graves of all of our fallen soldiers and veterans. It was wonderful to see so many people come out and support the community on that day.

I want to personally thank Branch 15 and Branch 609 for making such great efforts to keep this tradition alive and making sure that we do not forget.