Tracey Ramsey

[Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act, September 18th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I am quite happy to hear my colleague speak with such passion about farmers, because I also have a passion for the farmers not only in my riding but across Canada. I actually was the winner of the Essex County Ploughing Match this year and I am quite proud of that.

I spent Friday night with families from the supply-managed sector until very late at night in my riding office. They feel betrayed by the CPTPP, by what is on the table in NAFTA, and by what happened with CETA. They see themselves constantly being put on the table. They have a government that continues to bafflegab about protecting them while giving up portions of farm families' market left, right and centre, as though those families cannot see what the government is doing.

Unfortunately, it was the Conservative government that negotiated this deal before, which gives up percentages of supply management. Therefore, while I appreciate that the member speaks passionately about farm families, I would ask him why the farmers in the supply-managed sector are once again under attack in the CPTPP and how he can defend farmers when he will vote for this deal that will harm farm families in Canada.

[Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act, September 18th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I am quite pleased to hear Liberals and Conservatives talking today about the importance of auto jobs. However, unfortunately in the field they are not listening to the auto sector itself, which is saying not to sign the CPTPP because it will harm jobs in Canada. This is not me as the member for Essex or the NDP who are asking this; it is actually the people they are claiming to represent. If they are not listening to those in the exact sector they represent, to those whose jobs will be lost in their community, then I do not know how they have the nerve to stand in the House and talk about auto in a way that says they are representing it.

Auto is in the crosshairs in NAFTA and in the potential 25% tariffs. I ask the member, why are you not standing up for auto workers and standing against the CPTPP?

[International Trade, September 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure the Prime Minister understands what they have signed on to.

The trans-Pacific partnership will be a blow to Windsor-Essex. People in my region are begging the Liberals to hold off on pushing through this job-killing trade deal. I met with small business owners over the summer who warn they were being slammed by steel tariffs and may be forced to shut down.

Yesterday I called on the Liberals to delay the CPTPP so Canadians could brace for a possible failed NAFTA and more U.S. tariffs. Instead, they are steamrolling the deal through Parliament without proper debate.

Why are the Liberals hell-bent on killing Canadian manufacturing jobs?

[International Trade, September 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, on October 4, 2015, the Prime Minister said on television that the TPP should never be negotiated in secret, and now he is signing on to a deal that he negotiated in secret. The Prime Minister also told Canadians that he would never compromise on supply management, and now his government is doing exactly that and trading it away. Farmers are scared they are going to lose their family farms.

When will the Prime Minister start keeping his pre-election promises and stop using these farmers' livelihoods as a bargaining chip?

[Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act, September 17th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, in his very eloquent speech, my colleague expressed a lot of the frustration that we in the New Democratic Party feel when it comes to trade agreements simply because, as my other colleague pointed out, we do our homework. We look at these agreements from top to bottom. We examine them and make sure that we are representing Canadians and their interests. While members on the other side say the NDP is being anti-trade, do they say the same to the dairy farmers of Canada? Do they say the same to the building trades? Do they say the same to the Girl Guides and librarians? They were some of the 400 witnesses that appeared before the international trade committee.

People expressed their legitimate concerns. They are not anti-trade. They said that with this particular trade agreement, they have serious concerns with the provisions and the impacts they will have on their lives. New Democrats do not deny that and try to gloss it over with some pretty language. We acknowledge the fact that real Canadians feel a real threat to their daily paycheques and their very livelihoods. That is something it seems this Parliament is devoid of on both sides, in the official opposition as well as in the government. There is an absolute refusal to acknowledge how harmful this agreement would be to Canadians, and that does a disservice to trade.

Over the summer we had a conversation about NAFTA that we have never had in this country around trade. It benefits all of us to look at trade agreements in depth, in a way that we have not before, and challenge the way we have been treating the effectiveness of it. My colleague did this very well.

I want to speak to one particular point: the building trades. When representatives of the building trades appeared before the international trade committee as some of the 400 witnesses, they said they were not prepared to be before for us because they had never been part of a trade agreement before, and the government had not even informed them that they would be involved in a chapter in the agreement. The building trades see a direct threat to their livelihoods. I wonder if the member could speak to what he has heard from some key stakeholders in the building trades on the CPTPP.

[Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act, September 17th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the hon. member for Drummond, for his comments on bringing family farms into the House of Commons. It is very important. It seems as though the Liberals are in a crisis about supply management. They are saying one thing, but they are doing another. That is becoming quickly exposed by Canadians and by the families in my riding.

I had a meeting late on Friday evening with dairy farmers, Bernard Nelson, Mark Stannard and Vicky Morrison, and our Essex County Federation of Agriculture president Lyle Hall. There is deep disappointment in what the Liberal government is doing.

Under the original TPP, there was an opening of supply management, but there was some money attached under the previous Conservatives that evaporated under the Liberals. We find ourselves in this situation because of the U.S. When it was in the TPP, it wanted access to our dairy market. That is where this came from. When Canadians went back to the table in the CPTPP, the Liberals were not able to get rid of this provision in the CPTPP. They had an opportunity to do it, but they did not stand strong and did not defend supply management and our farm families.

I thank my colleague for bringing forward those stories because these are real people. Talking about food safety and the health of Canadians is a big part of this conversation that cannot be ignored.

Does my colleague agree with the dairy farmers in my riding and has he heard from farmers in Drummond that this opening of our market is just the beginning of death by a thousand cuts to our farm families in Canada?

[Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act, September 17th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I really want to go back to the issue of supply management. I feel that in trade agreements this has become kind of the favoured way for Canada to make concessions on the table.

The people who are hurting for that are our farmers. We hear, clearly, from farmers from coast to coast to coast that they do not want to give up their family farms. They do not want to give up the supply management that has worked so well for our system, that has kept our milk prices competitive, that has kept our food local, that has kept hormones out of our milk and that has responsible animal treatment on our farms.

There are family farms in my riding that are 100 years old or more. I do not really understand how the Liberals can say on one hand that they will protect something, but that they then continue to give up. In CETA, they gave up on supply management. In CPTPP, they are doing the same. At the same time, something is happening, and there is a lot of speculation as to what is happening, in the NAFTA negotiations.

I wonder if the member could provide us with some insight as to what she thinks about the Liberal government saying that on one hand they will protect it, but then it is death by a thousand cuts to these farmers who are the backbone of our communities in rural Canada.

[Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act, September 17th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my wonderful colleague, the MP for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, for his wonderful speech here today on the NDP's position on the trans-Pacific partnership, now the CPTPP. I know his portfolio is agriculture. He does a wonderful job as our agriculture critic, and certainly supply management is something that has been bantered about in the House since I was elected in 2015. It is ironic that when we are on the cusp of something potentially better in NAFTA, the Liberals are bringing this trade agreement forward that clearly shows we are willing to throw open the doors on supply management.

I would like to quote a pre-election release from the Liberal Party of Canada. The Prime Minister, who was then the candidate for Papineau, stated:

The government has an obligation to be open and honest about the negotiation process, and immediately share all the details of any agreement. Canadians deserve to know what impacts this agreement will have on different industries across our country. The federal government must keep its word and defend Canadian interests during the TPP’s ratification process—which includes defending supply management, our auto sector, and Canadian manufacturers across the country.

Does the member finds it mind boggling like I do that when the Liberals were running for government, they said they were going to protect these things, and yet today we see the ratification of the CPTPP in which none of these things have been protected by the Liberals?

[Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act, September 17th, 2018]

Because we would do it right.

[Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act, September 17th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I am not even sure where to begin to bust apart the myths and the misinformation we just heard coming from the other side. However, I will attempt it.

First, the member mentioned CETA. Stats Canada came out and said that our trade since signing on to CETA has declined, that Canadian exports are lower than where they were a year ago before signing on to this agreement. Therefore, the benefits for Canadians are not there. The tanker traffic has increased simply because we have so many imports coming into our country from Europe.

A second point is about labour. I want to let the member know that in the original TPP, the U.S. negotiated some advances with respect to labour. There was a 12-page labour reform plan to allow Vietnamese workers to have free and independent collective bargaining. Canada could not even secure this same commitment and let it go.

In terms of labour as well, under President Obama there were labour consistency plans that were struck with Malaysia and Brunei in an effort to have both countries live up to fundamental labour standards. Again, that is gone with Canada sitting at the negotiating table by itself.

Last, there is the progressive piece. There is no gender chapter, no indigenous persons chapter, and no mention of climate change whatsoever.

If the Liberals are sticking up for the middle class, my question to the member—through you, Madam Speaker—is this: What does he say to the 58,000 manufacturing workers and supply-managed farmers who today are very afraid about losing their livelihood?