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Jun/16/22 10:34:12 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I congratulate my colleague on his excellent speech. He talked about support for getting grain out of Ukraine at this time. If we want to see short-term results, we have to look at that. Does my colleague have a sense of what the government has done? Last week, when Ukraine's agriculture minister was with us, she said she needs urgent help clearing mines from fields. The fields were seeded this spring, but there will be no harvest this fall because farmers are too afraid of setting off mines to go into their fields. Has my colleague heard anything from the government about plans to do anything about that? Everybody is desperate.

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Mr. Yves Perron

Jun/16/22 10:35:02 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I thank my esteemed colleague from Beauce. Like him, I hear good intentions and lip service. It is all well and good to establish principles of action in the early days, but at some point we need to take action. I think we are in a position to provide demining equipment, for example. We can do that and we must do it quickly. We can also do it with drones, I believe, without putting human life at risk. That is very important. When Ukrainian farmers return to the fields, we want them to be harvesting crops, not bombs.

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Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP)

Jun/16/22 10:35:52 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I am sorry, but it is hard for me to speak in French because it is so late. I really enjoyed it when my colleague talked about what good development principles are. We know that we have the principles of sustainable development effectiveness. He talked about what we can do with the FAO and with other organizations to deal with the global food crisis in a holistic manner or how to deal with it in an unsiloed manner, as my colleague from the Green Party has mentioned. The sustainable development goals are something that the government has signed onto, and the 17 goals work together to build a more sustainable, more prosperous future. I wonder if the member could comment on the sustainable development goals and how multilateral institutions such as the FAO and the United Nations could contribute to these global solutions we will require.

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Mr. Yves Perron

Jun/16/22 10:36:57 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I sincerely thank my colleague for her very interesting question. That was indeed the basis of my speech. We cannot talk about the food crisis without talking about the environmental crisis. They are both intertwined, and any development needs to be done with sustainability in mind. The thing that gets me down the most in life is the pace at which politicians move. I was taught about sustainable development at university in the 1990s. It is still not being done. The government is still approving worthless things like Bay du Nord. It is mind-boggling. Everything we do counts. When my colleague talks about multilateralism, we also need to set an example internationally, because there are other countries that do not want to budge and are entrenched in a dynamic of oil production or other polluting things. On the international stage, one needs to have credibility in order to have influence. That is the challenge. Unfortunately, I am not so sure that Canada has a lot of credibility in this area right now.

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Ms. Anita Vandenbeld (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development, Lib.)

Jun/16/22 10:38:07 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I want to compliment my hon. colleague for talking about the demining that is needed in Ukraine. I wonder if he is aware that Canada has provided over $450 million in the last two decades to demining. I also wonder if he is aware of the importance of the assistance we are also providing to Ukraine and the fact that, through DND, we have tremendous expertise in this regard.

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Mr. Yves Perron

Jun/16/22 10:38:39 p.m.
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Madam Chair, that is precisely why my colleague from Beauce and I were talking about this. We know we can do it. That is why we are saying we need to make an extra effort and get going on this. We need to do it intelligently and in consultation with other countries, of course, but we have to be at the table. Canada does not have the military power to decide tomorrow morning to open the grain export corridor. It will have to be done jointly, with the UN. However, we can carry out this other kind of operation ourselves. I think we need to focus on humanitarian aid and charter flights. The Bloc Québécois spent endless weeks calling for charter flights to get Ukrainian refugees out. We finally got three, but it took a very long time. Can more be arranged? People are still waiting, and this could take some pressure off people who are undernourished. We have to think about the refugees. Those who can cross a border, for example into Poland, are relatively better off because they are in some way registered. However, Ukrainians were telling us about refugees inside Ukraine, and it is like they are stuck in a land that does not exist. They are desperate. Many are women and children who have to trust strangers. I leave it to my colleagues to guess what this kind of situation can lead to. There is a huge amount of work to be done.

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Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC)

Jun/16/22 10:40:06 p.m.
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Madam Chair, last year, we spoke with the German ambassador and were told that an energy crisis in Europe was imminent. It has arrived. Now we are seeing that the global south, in particular, will experience a food crisis. What will we do? Does Canada have a solution to improve the situation we will be facing next year?

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Mr. Yves Perron

Jun/16/22 10:40:48 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I thank my colleague for his question and for asking it in French. He made a good effort, and I congratulate him. I understand the question. He is telling me that there is a food crisis, that there will be an energy crisis and that we must do something. We have a certain level of production at present, but we are not going to build pipelines to fix things in 10 years' time. It is happening now. The food crisis is linked to the climate crisis, and droughts and floods are occurring right now. We must act now. I am not saying that we must shut down everything today, but we must start the transition. Massive amounts of money are being invested, including in the Bay du Nord project. However, I believe we should invest this money in the energy transition, because there are other sources of energy. We must be forward-thinking and innovative.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)

Jun/16/22 10:41:46 p.m.
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Madam Chair, before he started his speech I told my colleague that he would be the cherry on top of the sundae. He said that he might just be the sundae. He is both the cherry and the sundae. The teacher in me is irrationally happy to hear him talk about passing on knowledge and about sharing Canada's success stories, especially when it comes to supply management. At the same time, he also reminds us not to repeat the mistakes of the past, and the historian part of me loves that as well. I would like to hear my colleague talk about the mistakes we should not repeat and the success stories from Quebec and Canada that deserve to be better known.

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Mr. Yves Perron

Jun/16/22 10:42:38 p.m.
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Madam Chair, the “sundae with the cherry on top” would love to answer that question. I will not address the other things my colleague said because it could become a bit of a slippery slope. She asked me to talk about our success stories. Every chance I get, I talk about supply management. A great example is the COVID-19 crisis. Some milk was thrown away at first, but that was a very temporary situation. Farmers adjusted very quickly. They had much less difficulty than other producers, overall, because the quantity and the price are controlled. That is how you control quality. However, in order to succeed and continue to manage this system, we have to continue to control imports. If too many foreign products start coming into the country, if our local farmers decide to reduce the quantity they produce, if products continue to come in by the truckload from abroad, the system will no longer work. As for not repeating the mistakes of the past, we should never again give away a single share of the supply management market. We should promote it abroad, especially in African countries, where I think it would work really well. We should protect it with the Bill C-282, a fine bill. Do not forget the number, it is going to make an impact.

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The Assistant Deputy Chair

Jun/16/22 10:44:02 p.m.
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It being 10:44 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 53.1, the committee will rise and I will leave the chair.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Jun/16/22 10:44:27 p.m.
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Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1). (The House adjourned at 10:45 p.m.)

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