Kyle Seeback

[Citizenship Act, February 24th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I wanted to be sensitive and not interrupt the member during his speech, but it would appear the member is rising in the House to speak without wearing a tie, which I believe is in violation of the Standing Orders. I would like to leave it to you to determine that.

[Citizenship Act, February 24th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, recommendation No. 94 from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission suggested that four words be inserted into the citizenship oath. I am going to cut and splice here for the sake of time. It says, “I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada including”, and here is what is inserted: “Treaties with Indigenous Peoples, and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.”

Why is the government freelancing on this recommendation by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, adding in things that were not included in the recommendation?

[Government Spending, February 5th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, wasteful spending and Liberal governments go hand in hand. Who can forget former Liberal minister David Dingwall's infamous statement, “I'm entitled to my entitlements”?

On one 10-day tour, the Prime Minister's flight spent, wait for it, $143,000 on food and alcohol. Given the massive debts that this government is running up, they are putting it on our nation's credit card. Maybe it is a Mastercard.

Every day, Canadians in this country are struggling to make ends meet. They deserve better than this. When will the Liberal government stop wasting taxpayer money on fine dining and boozy flights?

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

Mr. Speaker, that is a great question. Uncertainty is, of course, the antithesis of good business practices. With uncertainty, businesses do not know how to plan and budget to expand.

These delays and the amount of time it has taken has caused all kinds of damage within our business sectors. Not knowing what is going on with the economic analysis of this new trade agreement is creating further uncertainty. It is creating incredible anxiety and uncertainty in the dairy sector and other supply-managed sectors, because they do not know what the impacts of this agreement are going to be.

I do not want to continue to repeat myself, but we have been asking for these documents for over two months. I do not understand why these documents are not being produced, and why we are not being given the understanding of what the economic impacts are going to be. Effectively, what we are being asked to do is support a trade agreement without knowing the implications of the trade agreement. Quite frankly, that is wrong.

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I am flattered that I was confused with the eloquent and debonair member for Edmonton West. I thank my Bloc colleague for that confusion. It is quite a compliment.

With respect to the trade agreement, I know that we have a fantastic group of people who worked very hard on this agreement. I am still waiting for answers and I am becoming increasingly despondent that there will not be answers to the specific questions that I raised in my speech.

These are questions that not only people in my riding are asking me, but Canadians from coast to coast to coast are asking as well. What are the economic impacts of this agreement? We have been asking for two months. I met with dairy producers in my riding. They know there has actually been a report prepared about economic impacts on the supply management sector, and the Liberals have kept it confidential.

Why will the Liberals not produce the report? What are they hiding?

[Points of Order, January 30th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know what he is referring to. Was it during my speech on the free trade agreement? I do not know what he is referring to.

[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.