Ruth Ellen Brosseau

[Dairy Industry, June 8th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the government promised to fix the diafiltered milk problem, but it is taking its sweet time, and farmers are paying the price.

The fact is, the government does not want to upset the Americans. Sooner or later, the Liberals will have to pick a side: either they defend supply management and take a stand, or they let the United States tell them what to do.

Why is the Liberal government protecting American farmers instead of Canadian farmers?

[Committees of the House, June 7th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food for his speech in the House today.

The government boasts that it introduced our supply management system. However, when we look at what is actually happening at the moment, our government appears to be in the process of destroying our supply management system by permitting the importation of diafiltered milk. The Liberal government should be ashamed. Farmers came here to the Hill to demonstrate. Three thousand farmers came here to say that they were fed up and had had enough of consultations. Everyone agrees on the solution.

The government needs to do its job, enforce its regulations, and put an end to the importation of diafiltered milk into Canada. That is all. It is simple. The government tells us it is a complex situation for which it is seeking a long-term solution. This has to end. The government must enforce the regulations under the existing laws. Then perhaps it can look for other solutions, but everyone knows what the solution is. The government must take action and stand up for Canadian farmers.

[Committees of the House, June 7th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I have been on the agriculture committee since 2012. I tabled a motion in 2013 in support of supply management, asking the government to compensate the industry because of losses under the Canada-European Union trade agreement.

We are talking about diafiltered milk. Everyone is aware that this problem has been going on for two to three years. Industry has been consulted. Transformers and processors have been consulted. Everybody is aware. We have regulations in place. When diafiltered milk comes into Canada, it is not considered milk, so is not taxed a certain way. If the government were to actually apply the rules in place and stop diafiltered milk from coming into Canada, we would not have these losses. Transformers would actually use Canadian products. It would support management, reassure our producers, and solve a lot of problems.

We are just asking the government to act. It has consulted enough. There has been a lot of talk and enough hot air. There were 3,000 people on the Hill. We need to government to finally do its job, that is all.

[Committees of the House, June 7th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Trois-Rivières for his question.

We should certainly be proud of Canada’s supply management system. When we look at farming and uncertainty in other countries, it scares us. That should make us feel even more like proclaiming loud and clear that it is important to defend our supply management system, not only in our trade agreements but especially at the border.

As a member representing a rural area with 37 municipalities and several hundred dairy farmers and poultry producers, I recognize the importance of our supply management system. It is important to take action.

The government has been holding consultations for 30 days, and it has been in power for seven months. Everyone agrees that the supply management system must be protected.

The solution is simple: the Liberal government must stand up to the Americans and stop the importation of diafiltered milk into Canada.

[Committees of the House, June 7th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

The dairy industry and the supply-managed industry are suffering huge losses as a result of the Canada-European Union comprehensive economic and trade agreement and the trans-Pacific partnership.

The former government negotiated a $4-billion compensation plan, which was also designed to fix the problem with diafiltered milk. However, a few months later, the Liberal government came to power and chose not to honour the compensation plan announced by the former Conservative government. The Liberal government says that it is consulting representatives of the supply-managed industry to find a long-term solution to the problem of diafiltered milk.

The industry and processors say that the simple solution is to enforce the compositional standards for cheese, put an end to tariff circumvention, and stop diafiltered milk from entering Canada. Canadian producers are suffering huge losses of $15,000 to $20,000 a year. Family farms are disappearing at lightning speed. Last year, more than 250 family farms shut down, and two-thirds of those were in Quebec.

The government must take action. If it genuinely wants to protect our supply management system, it must stand up for producers.

[Committees of the House, June 7th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, this is a problem that has been going on for over two years. It is a problem we inherited from the Conservatives.

At committee, we had people from industry, we had Dairy Farmers of Canada, and we had processors. They all came together and told us they were consulted under the old government 60, 70, or 80 times. Therefore, the officials and the minister were aware. They were working, hopefully, on solutions.

Fast forward, we had an election and seven months later the Liberals are in power and are going to be here for another four years. We know what the solution is. Whether dairy farmers, processors, or transformers, we all know the government has to apply the rules. The government has to recognize that diafiltered milk is causing a lot of losses for dairy farmers and is disrupting supply management.

The transformers know they are going to have make that change. Once the government applies the rules that are already in place and actually stops it from coming in at our borders, they will have to stop using it. They will have to pay more and actually use Canadian products. That is it. That is the reality. There are not going to be any job losses.

The government has consulted enough. Everyone is on the same page. The government just has to act. That is all.

[Committees of the House, June 7th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, it is my great pleasure to rise once again in the defence of our dairy producers.

It seems that government after government is taking pleasure in making their lives difficult.

I must admit that I am very frustrated by the fact that we are still talking about this issue. There has been consultation, and once again, no action on the part of the Liberal government.

Two years ago, I introduced a motion in this House that was unanimously adopted. Past Conservatives promised to compensate producers for the concessions they made in the agreement with the European Union. In this agreement, the Conservatives gave away 17,000 tonnes of new cheese import quotas to the Europeans. These 17,700 tonnes are on top of the 13,000 tonnes the Europeans can now sell to our supermarkets. This crack in our supply management system will cost our producers millions and millions of dollars.

A similar situation happened in October when the Conservatives negotiated the TPP in secret and gave away 3.25% of our dairy producers' market share. This is another attack and crack in the system, which hurts our producers. Being good players, they said that they were open to both agreements as long as other industries were not potentially profiting at their expense.

As the NDP and all parties voted in favour of the motion, the producers believe that they should be adequately compensated for their losses under CETA and TPP.

Negotiating and signing these trade agreements has created uncertainty for the industry, which continues to see negative impacts. What is more, while the Conservatives had announced compensation for those agreements, the current Liberal government has backtracked and has made more uncertainty for the industry.

The Minister of International Trade said that she did not feel bound by the plan the Conservatives announced and wanted to hold consultations.

After more than seven months in power, the Liberals still have announced nothing, apart from consultations. The minister prefers to announce that she is focusing on the coming into effect of the comprehensive economic and trade agreement, CETA, between Canada and the European Union in 2017, instead of reassuring producers with a compensation plan.

By and large, since coming to power, the Liberals have only compounded the uncertainty for the dairy industry. They are of course profuse in their use of the word of the year, “consultation”. They say they are defending supply management, but when one looks at the tangible measures they have taken for the dairy industry, the real impression is that they want to put an end to supply management. They are only aggravating the situation with their inaction.

I will always be here to remind the government of the importance of the dairy industry and need for our supply management system to function smoothly. For two years, our supply management system and the producers who work under it have been threatened by another type of breach.

Supply management is supported by three pillars. The first pillar is production management or discipline, which means that the quantity produced is regulated by quota. Producers agree to produce what Canadians need, and if they overproduce, they are responsible for those costs. The second pillar is producer pricing, negotiated based on production costs. Last but not least, the final pillar is one entirely in the government's hands, which is control over imports.

Based on these three pillars, supply management is like a three-legged table or chair. If one leg is unstable, the entire system is unstable. That is exactly what is happening.

For more than two years, the government has not been playing its role of import controller, and a milk product known as diafiltered milk has been pouring across our borders. This product was created for the sole purpose of circumventing the tariff rules, and in 2015 it was responsible for losses of over $220 million for Canadian producers. From what the industry is saying, the losses in 2016 will be even more substantial.

In response to the industry’s appeal during the election campaign, the NDP and the Liberal Party pledged to resolve the problem quickly, once they were in power. We all know the October results. I know that we are debating this issue in the House, but I would still like to offer a little history on it.

Since last December, I have been hounding the government to tell us when it will finally resolve the problem of diafiltered milk. The inaction of this new government has forced us to remind it of its commitment and the importance of acting on this matter for the vitality of our dairy industry and the proper operation of our supply management system.

At first, the Liberals said that they wanted to consult the industry and they were abreast of the file. In February, there was a little glimmer of hope for our producers when the minister told them there had never been any question of diafiltered milk being used as milk in the cheese compositional standards. In fact, it must be remembered that at present, in Canada, diafiltered milk has a dual identity, courtesy of the Conservatives, and now courtesy of the Liberal Party as well. This product crosses our borders as duty-free milk protein concentrate, making it advantageous for processors. Then it is considered as milk by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, even though it is nothing like the milk we pour on our cereal.

As a result, processors have no specific limits in their use of diafiltered milk, in contrast with other milk protein concentrates. That explains the growth in imports over the last few years. Furthermore, remember that the Americans do not use diafiltered milk in their products. It was designed specifically and exclusively to get around the Canadian rules.

Let us now get back to where I was today on this issue.

In February the minister told us that diafiltered milk should not be used like milk and he was going to make sure that all processors were made aware of that.

At the standing committee on agriculture, we heard representatives from across the dairy industry who, for the most part, believe that diafiltered milk should be considered as a dairy protein concentrate rather than milk. After that the minister repeatedly stated in interviews that diafiltered milk should not be used as milk.

Based on those statements, the producers and I were at least a bit reassured that the government would understand that the ideal solution would be to consider diafiltered milk as DPC and to have the cheese compositional standards apply to all processors.

We naturally remained concerned about how quickly the government would move to finally apply this solution, which did not seem to be a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, a few weeks later, as we have come to expect from the Liberals since the start of their mandate, they changed position overnight. Another complete 180-degree turn from the Liberal Party of Canada. Now the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the government went back to square one by launching consultations again, as if they didn’t know the solution. Indeed, I do not like the word “solution” because applying its own standards to everyone is not a solution. It is the least one can do; it is simple common sense.

In other words, having said that they were making sure the standards were clear for everyone and they would apply to everyone, the Liberals backtracked once again. They began giving us the same response again and again: they were protecting supply management, they were in discussions with the dairy industry, and they were aware of the problem they had inherited from the previous Conservative government.

After weeks and weeks of hearing this in the House, to ensure the well-being of the industry and to protect our family farms, my party and I decided to debate this issue of diafiltered milk another time, on an opposition day. The motion I tabled on that day asked the government to resolve the problem immediately by enforcing its cheese compositional standards, while recognizing that every day it did not do its job, producers were suffering substantial financial losses and many family farms were disappearing.

We know the rest of the story. The Liberals voted down our motion. They promised to consult the industry in the next 30 days to find a long-term solution. Yes, that is right: more consultations to buy more time. Now it was a matter of finding a long-term solution for the entire industry. These are fine words, but on paper and in real life, their search for a long-term solution is leading to the disappearance of many family farms and the loss of thousands of dollars for our Canadian dairy producers.

These producers are losing between $15,000 and $20,000 on average a year. That is shameful. Meanwhile, U.S. producers are getting rich at the expense of Canadian producers. It seems to me that U.S. producers are already well subsidized by their government and that they do not need additional help from the Canadian government.

The search for a long-term solution led more than 3,000 producers to protest on Parliament Hill last week. They wanted to remind the Liberal government that it has sole control of one of the pillars of supply management and that, at present, it is not doing a good job of controlling imports of diafiltered milk under the duties relief program.

Over the course of one year, dairy producers have been forced to protest on Parliament Hill twice because the Liberal government has not shown them any respect, as was the case with the previous Conservative government.

During the House debate on our motion and on the Facebook pages of several Liberal MPs, some have said that the solution lies in investing in processing facilities. Others have even said that enforcing the current standards would simply be a Band-Aid solution. However, not one of them could explain what was preventing the government from enforcing the standards and then looking forward to another long-term solution.

The same applies to investing in processing facilities. This would not prevent or control the quantity of diafiltered milk coming into Canada. Nothing is preventing the government from considering diafiltered milk as DPC and enforcing cheese standards, while also investing in processing facilities. Nothing is stopping that. I know the Liberals have not always been unanimous on supply management, and there sure has been a lot of discontent and dissent, but I simply do not understand why it is taking the government so long to act and stand up for family farms, unless it just does not want to do it at all.

What I have to say is even more troubling. Why are the Liberals not being honest with Canadians and producers and telling them what is really going on? There is no difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives with respect to producers. They keep them in the dark and in limbo until the last minute. If the Liberals have a good reason for not addressing the problem of diafiltered milk, why will they not explain that to producers? Why will they not explain that to us in the House? Why are they not fully compensating producers for their losses? This would not be the first time the Liberal government has sacrificed the dairy industry for another sector, but at least our producers could get on with their lives and make do with this compensation.

Perhaps the government would come to its senses more quickly if it realized just how many farms have disappeared. To make sure that I have made myself understood I will repeat that the NDP continues to believe that the law is the law and that it applies to everyone.

The classification of diafiltered milk as a milk protein concentrate by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the application of cheese compositional standards to all processors is the solution that we would have implemented within 100 days, had we become the government.

I am really tired of watching as our producers close their doors. I am discouraged for dairy producers. I tell myself that perhaps the government would be open to compensating producers for its inaction because we should remember that, right now, the producers are paying the price for the Liberal Party's poor management and the government's irrational decisions.

If the government does not do something quickly, the future of many farms, our region's economies and, even worse, the supply management system will all be at risk.

Considering what is happening around the world, I am lucky that there is a supply management system in Canada. I sincerely hope that the Liberals will keep their election promises, stop spouting empty rhetoric and will take action on behalf of Canadian producers.

[Committees of the House, June 7th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. colleague for her speech today in the House. It has been a pleasure working with her on the agriculture committee.

As we know, thousands of farm families came to Ottawa last week. They took the time out of their days. These are people who work 365 days a year and support rural economies. They took the time to come to Ottawa with their tractors and cows 30 days after the consultations with the government. These farmers are losing thousands of dollars. They are fed up with the government. They are at the end of their ropes. This is the glass overflowing. They have no hope. They are coming to us saying, “I have to sell my farm. I'm giving up hope. I don't know what to do.”

The government has been consulting. It has been listening but there has been no action. The farmers are fed up. We all know what the answer is. The long-term solution is for the government to stand up, apply the rules in place, and ensure that we are defending Canadian farmers instead of getting on our knees for the Americans. We have to ensure that we are applying the rules as they are. Will the government finally do that and stop these consultations?

[Dairy Industry, June 6th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, last week, thousands of dairy farmers came to Ottawa to speak out against the government's inability to protect them on the diafiltered milk issue.

Farmers have lost millions of dollars because the government did not enforce its own regulations. Now, the government is trying to convince us that opening our markets through the trans-Pacific partnership is going to be a good thing.

Does the government take us for fools? How are farmers supposed to feel reassured about the trans-Pacific partnership when the government is not even capable of enforcing its own import regulations?

[Privilege, May 18th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say I was the member in question. I was standing in the centre, talking to some colleagues. I was elbowed in the chest by the Prime Minister, and then I had to leave. It was very overwhelming, so I left the chamber to go and sit in the lobby. I missed the vote because of this.

I just wanted to clarify and make sure it is clear to all members in the House that it did happen.