Roger Gaudet

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, November 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the federal minister refuses to act; he refuses to set a floor price for all of Canada; and he still has not answered the request from the Quebec minister of agriculture, fisheries and food.

Does his refusal mean that the minister prefers to protect the interests of the abattoir, which has given more than $45,000 to his party?

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, November 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the Quebec National Assembly, the Quebec minister of agriculture, fisheries and food asked the federal government to transfer all the powers necessary to establish a selling price for all meat and cull cattle slaughtered in Quebec.

Does the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food intend to reply favourably to this request?

[World Trade Organization, November 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is quite right. Given the current crisis in the agricultural community, I think that supply management is a good way to help the government and the producers make fair and equitable choices in the future, so that everyone can live within their means.

I find that very fair. Besides, this is the way to go. The government must make its support to supply management very visible.

[World Trade Organization, November 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.

The answer is simple. They will have a guaranteed income. That means that subsidies the government has difficulty providing will not be there; they will have a guaranteed income. They will themselves be responsible for their surpluses.

In that case, it would be better for the government to negotiate properly at the WTO to ensure that these five sectors remain efficient and do not produce more than is necessary. Moreover, our government must not import to interfere with our products.

[World Trade Organization, November 23rd, 2004]

moved:

That, in the opinion of the House, in the current World Trade Organization negotiations, the government should not agree to any concession that might weaken collective marketing strategies or the supply management system.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to move the motion today, which reads as follows:

That, in the opinion of the House, in the current World Trade Organization negotiations, the government should not agree to any concession that might weaken collective marketing strategies or the supply management system.

This is the complete text of the motion. The Bloc Québécois will support the supply management system, and it hopes that all political parties in this House will do likewise.

The Supply Management Five, or SM5, is a coalition for a fair agricultural model. Its goal is to support the Canadian government in the WTO negotiations. A broad-based coalition supporting supply management was set up in July 2003. It is composed of agro-industrial partners, businesses, financial institutions, consumer associations, unions, municipal, provincial and federal elected officials, as well as individuals.

Its aim is to unite all persons and organizations who believe in a strong agricultural sector and a prosperous food industry in Quebec and Canada.

Supply management is the means by which dair, chicken, turkey, table egg and hatching egg producers set the best possible equilibrium between supply and demand for their products in Quebec and Canada.

Producers thus only produce the quantities of agricultural products necessary to satisfy Canadian needs and avoid producing surpluses that would then have to be disposed of at a loss.

This planning process, coupled with the control of imports and a mechanism that enables producers to negotiate jointly for a price based on the production cost, assures them of a stable and fairer income, without governmental subsidies.

Supply management is based on three pillars. The first pillar is production management. Agricultural producers undertake to provide the Canadian market with quality products in sufficient quantities, avoiding surpluses. Dairy, chicken, turkey, table egg and hatching egg producers each undertake to supply a share of the Canadian market.

The second pillar is import control. The government commits itself to limiting imported products to ensure Canadian market requirements are met by Canadian production. This needs to be watched carefully.

Take the example of butter oil. The Ontario processed ice cream industry wanted to stop using cream in the production of its ice cream in order to cut production costs. It had hoped to buy a mixture of U.S. milk by-products and sugar called butter oil as raw material.

The federal government gave in to the industry lobby and abandoned dairy farmers by declaring that butter oil was not a dairy product, which opened the border to imports. In five years, between 1997 and 2002, imports increased by 557% resulting in a $500 million loss for dairy farmers.

The same is true for cheese sticks. Since this product contains as much bread as cheese, the government declared that it was not a dairy product. It promised the WTO to allow a certain quantity to enter duty free but regularly issued supplementary permits. Each time, the Bloc Québécois expressed its opposition and the government reversed its decision, until the next time.

The third pillar is a pricing policy that covers production costs. The government also introduced mechanisms to enable producers to receive prices that guarantee reasonable returns and a decent living from their production, without subsidy.

Supply management is a fair agricultural model thatensures consumers a nutritious basket of high-quality products that are among the least expensive in the world.

Under the Canadian Dairy Commission Act, the CDC’s legislated objectives are:to provide efficient producers of milk and cream with the opportunity to obtain a fair return for their labour and investment; and to provide consumers of dairy products with a continuous and adequate supply of dairy products.

Dairy products are a good buy for Canadians. According to an AC Nielsen survey this summer of 83 stores in 10 Canadian and 10 American cities, Canadians paid 23.6% less than Americans for the same 25 dairy products.

This backed up the findings of a previous study. Canadian dairy producers have been carrying out surveys on a smaller scale since 1996, and these show that dairy products are a far better buy in Canada than in the United States.

According to a Statistics Canada spending report, Canadians spend under $12 a week on dairy products, less than it costs to go to the movies, buy a CD or park for one day in Ottawa.

What the dairy farmers get for their milk is just a drop in the milking pail. Even the tip we leave for our waiter, or the taxes added to our restaurant bill, are more than what the dairy producer gets for the products sold to the restaurant.

Supply management also introduces stability into the market, and contributes to the success of processing companies, which realize attractive earnings in Canada.

For example, according to a survey by Samson Bélair/Deloitte & Touche, in 2001, Canadian dairy processing plants realized a 21% return on shareholder equity. This same sub-sector was found in the same survey to rank in the leading group of the entire Canadian agri-food sector.

This sector does not cost public treasuries one cent. Dairy, table egg and hatching egg, chicken and turkey producers get no government income subsidies whatsoever.

It stabilizes producers' revenues and allows a better distribution of the consumer dollar among the various links in the food chain, from producer to retailer.

It promotes efficient and human-scale agriculture throughout Canada that respects resources and people.

Supply management thus helps create a stable and equitable economic environment that benefits every link in the food chain.

I would now like to speak about the WTO, whose goal is to create a free-flowing international commercial system by eliminating all obstacles to trade, from high customs tariffs to restrictions on the types of products that can be imported into a country. For example, the Europeans no longer want to import beef containing growth hormones or genetically engineered farm products, also called GMOs or genetically modified organisms.

During the last round of WTO negotiations, the Uruguay Round, the issue of agricultural products came up for the first time. The treaty nations agreed at that time to reduce the obstacles to trade in these products. They began to trade more freely and agreed to continue this process during future rounds of negotiations.

In Qatar in November 2001, the WTO member countries began the Doha Round of negotiations, which was expected to conclude by January 1, 2005. Agriculture is one of the principal issues in this round.

The proposals are now on the table and if they are accepted they will have a very serious impact on agriculture here, and especially on products that come under supply management.

Export subsidies offered by the great economic powers are largely responsible for the ridiculously low prices of some agricultural products on the world market.

Our governments in Canada and Quebec do not have the means to compete with the United States or European Union treasuries. The proposal now on the table would not completely eliminate these subsidies.

I would like to tell the House about a study by Daniel-Mercier Gouin. It was published in Le Devoir on November 16, 2004, and reads as follows:

Replacing supply management for dairy production in Quebec by income support to maintain producers' income approximately at its current level would cost the governments $600 million more every year, without any guarantee that consumer prices would not rise.

This is what Daniel Mercier Gouin, the director of the Groupe de recherche en économieet politique agricoles and a professor in the Department of the Agri-FoodEconomics and Consumer Sciences at Université Laval, concluded. This study was carried out for the Coalition pour un modèle agricole équitable, representing the five supply management sectors in Quebec, namely dairy, poultry (chicken and turkey) and eggs (table eggs and breeder eggs). The coalition has 7,000 members, including municipalities, businesses and various economic organizations. The party leaders in Quebec City and Ottawa also gave their support to this formula.

This 120-page study, presented yesterday morning with former Premier and coalition counsel Pierre Marc Johnson, Marcel Groleau, the president of the Fédération des producteurs de lait du Québec (FPLQ), and Serge Lefebvre, the president of the Fédération des producteurs d'oeufs de consommation du Québec, present, marks the launch of a new public awareness campaign in preparation for the negotiations at the WTO, scheduled to resume next spring.

There have been various modes of regulation.

The study consisted in analyzing the various regulation modes for the dairy sector in five countries, namely Canada, the United States, France and the Netherlands in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The professor found that, despite the Uruguay Round, safeguards at the borders remain high and interventionism is the rule to regulate dairy markets. For example, between 2002 and 2004, the United States paid $1.8 billion in direct subsidies. In Europe, quotas were imposed as part of a budget control process.

Whether it is in constant or absolute dollars, the study shows that the price paid to Canadian producers is stable and higher than the prices paid to their fellow producers in the other countries. Moreover, in those countries that have supply management (France, the Netherlands and Canada), prices paid by consumers increased less between 1981 and 2002 than in the other two countries. There is also this finding that Canadian producers are better protected, and that Canada is one of the countries where state support is the least significant. And producers are responsible for production surpluses.

Based on these findings, Mr. Gouin concludes that deregulating the Canadian dairy sector would not provide any guarantee of a benefit to consumers. Why then is there this widespread desire among WTO members to deregulate agricultural products? The answer is that this is part of a prevailing ideology to the effect that liberalizing the agricultural economy would result in significant gains. “It is an economic theory that does not stand the test of reality”, says Mr. Gouin.

Access to markets through tariff quotas is an effective means of promoting trade, while allowing the country to maintain programs such as supply management. If all countries were to put in place conditions that would provide clear access to the market though tariff quotas, the volume of agricultural and food products that could be traded in the world without being subjected to special tariffs would increase drastically.

Supply management or SM5 will not solve all agricultural problems. There are still the main crops, such as corn and wheat. Even the Prime Minister received a cow yesterday. Today, it was auctioned off for 18¢ a pound. This means less than $200, because the cow was not very heavy.

Therefore, we support supply management. This should not be negotiable. We should hold firmly to our position and defend it. I hope that all members of this House will support my motion.

[Agriculture, November 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it was Mr. Pellerin who said that. So far the government has delivered five different aid packages to try to alleviate the impact of the crisis. The five packages do not reflect the reality in Quebec.

What is the minister waiting for to announce a package that properly covers all the farmers in Quebec?

[Agriculture, November 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, on September 23, the president of the UPA criticized the federal government's centralizing attitude in the mad cow situation. Laurent Pellerin said that the federal government's five aid packages are not geared to the reality in Quebec.

What is the minister waiting for to recognize the urgent need to help the dairy and cattle farmers in Quebec?

[An Act to establish the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, November 16th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I think what is really important when we talk about regional development is the isolation of the regions. This is what the federal government is actually doing now—isolating the regions. It is fine to say that it gave funds to the CFDC, but when we look at what it did for air transport, we see that it turned the airports over to the municipalities. And now everything is falling apart.

The same thing happened with regard to rail transportation. The government dismantled the railways. If we want to develop the regions, we need roads and transportation. What did they do with highway 175, highway 50, and highway 30? That is what regional development is all about. It is more than just talking about creating jobs, although I am completely in favour of that. While we are on the subject, let me say that it was not the Liberals who created the CFDCs, it was the Conservatives back in 1990. I wanted to point that out since I was one of the people who worked on this.

I am still sitting on the infrastructure and transport committee at the provincial, federal and municipal levels. However, I observed that there was no interference from municipal, provincial or federal governments. We need to leave matters of development into the hands of capable people.

It is the same thing with maritime transport. They have stopped maintaining our seaports and they still will not do a thing to address that situation. I think that regional development requires large infrastructures. I agree with Canada Economic Development. I would like to get an answer regarding air, railway and maritime transport for regional development. Then, all the problems will have been solved.

[An Act to establish the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, November 15th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I only wanted to ask a short question. Today, during oral question period, we talked about Mirabel. I see that the Liberals opposite created Mirabel to the advantage of Toronto's Lester B. Pearson airport. Now, we have a beautiful airport named PET, short for Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

I would like to know if the member thinks that the Liberals across the way are really capable of regional development in Quebec. That is the question I am asking myself. Up to now, they have proven that they are incapable of such development. All they have created, they have turned around and destroyed. Whether airports or General Motors, everything they have given Quebec, they have then taken away. I would like to hear the view of my colleague for Jonquière—Alma in this regard.

[Agriculture, October 7th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, I shall be brief. I have heard tonight—and you may have heard it today—that, in the throne speech, reference is made to cooperation. Cooperation ought not be sought after the program has been established, but rather beforehand. Producers and key stakeholders are brought together. That is how it is done.

The government, however, comes up with something no one approves. In my opinion—this has been repeated often enough today, you would think they would have got the message—cooperation comes before the fact.