SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 258 - Nov/29/23

Nov/29/23 5:00:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have been asking for the grocery code of conduct for over three years. Three years ago, I started talking about that. As a farmer who used to supply three of the five major grocery chains with potatoes, I know the grocery chains were imposing ridiculous fees on farmers and suppliers. They were constantly nickel-and-diming farmers and suppliers. Because farmers are price-takers, and because there are so few options because of the consolidation in the grocery industry, where we only have five major players in this country owning over 80% of the grocery chains, we see the need to keep them accountable. If the grocery giants and the grocery stores are kept accountable through this code of conduct, it will ultimately help to reduce prices for consumers.

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Ms. Leah Taylor Roy (Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, Lib.)

Nov/29/23 5:01:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am also a member of the agriculture and agri-food committee, and I am very proud of Canadian farmers, having come from a farming family myself. I want to ask the member opposite what she feels the impact of the increase in commodity prices has been, of oil and gas as well as grain, on food prices over the last several years. Do you feel that helping farmers to get off fossil fuels and adapt some of these new clean technologies, such as the hybrid heat pump drying system and the biomass-based heat pump systems, things being developed right to a commercial scale, would help farmers deal with these fluctuating oil and gas prices in the future?

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Nov/29/23 5:02:05 p.m.
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I will remind the hon. member I will not feel anything, but I hope the hon. member Lambton—Kent—Middlesex will.

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Ms. Lianne Rood

Nov/29/23 5:02:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, farmers are innovators, and they have always been innovators. Farmers are trying to save money however they can so they can put money back into their businesses, grow their business, and continue to farm and grow food for Canadians. Unfortunately, the carbon tax makes their fuel more expensive. Again, if there were commercially viable options available for heating barns or drying grain, farmers would be using them if they were cheaper. Instead, we are penalizing farmers and making them pay a carbon tax when there is absolutely no option available for them to heat their barns or dry their grain other than natural gas and propane.

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Mr. Yves Perron (Berthier—Maskinongé, BQ)

Nov/29/23 5:03:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in this study, as in pretty much every study that provides an opportunity to focus on regional transformation, we also concentrated on improving our infrastructure. As mentioned earlier, this study was done during COVID‑19, which exposed the fragility of our food processing chains. I would like my colleague to elaborate on that. What do we need to do to improve our food processing network, especially in meat processing, in regions around the country?

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Ms. Lianne Rood

Nov/29/23 5:03:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, through this study, we saw that, during COVID, provincially inspected abattoirs were allowed to move meat across interprovincial borders because of some of the COVID protocols out there. If we removed interprovincial trade barriers, we would see a lot more movement of meat across this country, and we would see more abattoirs potentially opening up with capacity.

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Hon. Ginette Petitpas Taylor

Nov/29/23 5:04:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am tabling the government's responses to Questions Nos. 1803, 1804, 1808, 1805 to 1807 and 1809 to 1813.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Nov/29/23 5:04:37 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-9

Madam Speaker, I have a lot of opinions and thoughts on farms. Members might not be necessarily surprised. After all, I come from the Prairies, and I was born and raised in the Prairies. I have lived on Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. While in Alberta, I was a member of the Canadian Forces. I have grown a great appreciation for farms. How could one live on the Prairies for 60 years and not appreciate the value of our farms? I am going to get into some details on that, relatively shortly. I really want to focus on why this is. I put it in the form of a question to the member who brought forward the motion. Liberals in general are open to talking about the farming community. We understand the appreciation of agriculture and the importance it has not only to Canada but also to the world. Canada, in many ways, does help to feed the entire world. The types of products we produce on the Prairies and throughout Canada are second to none. No other country in the world has the diversity of product, not to mention the quality of product. Therefore, I understand and appreciate, as my colleagues do, the importance of our agricultural communities, our rural communities and the farmer. I say that because I wanted to focus some attention on the behaviour of the Conservative Party today and the disturbing pattern we are witnessing day after day. I suspect that most members who came into the chamber today did not want or expect the Conservatives to move yet another motion for concurrence in a committee report. That is what this is: a motion for concurrence. The motion is that we, in essence, talk about farmers, agriculture, and the industry as a whole that feeds off of it. Let us not forget that there was another very important issue we were supposed to be debating today. It was, in fact, Bill S-9. Bill S-9 is all about weapons of mass destruction. Canada plays a very important leadership role around the world, and one of the areas in which we play that role is the area of weapons of mass destruction. I remember the day Lloyd Axworthy brought the land mine issue to Ottawa. We had a worldwide ban and a convention came out of it. Bill S-9 deals with the chemical weapons convention, the listing of chemicals, and it would reinforce that particular aspect of Canada's role. Fortunately, it was brought in through the Senate because of the legislative agenda we are trying to get through. Even in some of the comments I heard from across the way in the previous two speeches, the members talked about the importance of affordability. Tomorrow and the following day, we will be talking about the fall economic statement because we understand the issues that are so critically important to Canadians. I want to tell my friends across the way that using motions for concurrence in committee reports takes away from the government's ability to get its legislation through. It is interesting. When I posed the question to the mover of the motion, his response was that it is up to the government to get things through. The government is trying to get things through. We were planning on bringing forward Bill S-9 today in the hope that we would be able to get that legislation passed because I do not think anyone will be opposing it. Now, we are losing a day to pass that legislation, so if we want to deal with Bill S-9, we will have to call it to the chamber again. Opposition members will say, “Who cares? It's not our problem. It's the government's problem.” If we cannot bring in items such time allocation, how can the government possibly pass legislation when we have an opposition party that is preventing the government from doing just that? We are talking about food for the world. I have heard members on the other side talk about trade many times. Members can think about Ukraine, the trade agreement Canada has with Ukraine, and the impact that has on food supply, processing foods and so forth. The Conservative Party, all its members, voted against that important piece of legislation, the trade agreement between Canada and Ukraine. The people of Canada understand and value the legislation, and they are not the only ones who want to see it pass. There is the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, the ambassador from Ukraine to Canada, the politicians in Ukraine and members from every other political party, except the Conservative Party. The president of Ukraine came to Canada at a time of war and signed an agreement. The legislation was brought forward, and the Conservatives filibustered. They used the same tactic they are using right now with a concurrence report. Bringing in concurrence report after concurrence report, is limiting the number of debate days the government will have. Is this an attempt by the Conservative Party to prevent the Canada-Ukraine free trade debate from taking place at third reading? Does the Conservative Party not understand that there is legislation, such as the fall economic statement, that needs to be debated in the chamber? If they continue to bring in concurrence reports, they will continue to take time away from debating the legislative agenda. Many, including myself, want to see a number of pieces of legislation debated. This is not to take away from the issues the member is raising today concerning farmers and our agricultural community. As I said at the beginning, I am a very strong advocate for those two communities. I have given many speeches in the House, as I know my colleagues appreciate. Every week, when we are in session and in caucus, the rural agenda is there and being talked about. We understand and appreciate the needs of our rural communities, our farmers and our smaller municipalities, as well as how vital they are to Canadian society. Why did the Conservative Party do this? We will have another opposition day next week. We have maybe 12 more sitting days before the break. How many of those days will we be dealing with the fall economic statement? We have an opposition day next week. The number of days is shrinking, and if the intent of the Conservative Party is to prevent the Canada-Ukraine deal from getting to third reading and passing, I say shame on them. That is not the only legislation, but there is a lot of focus on it. The Conservatives wonder why we bring it up time and time again, and it is because we do not trust the Conservative Party. It has gone so far to the right. We see that attitude in the leader of the official opposition taking his party to a place where it votes in ways that are very hard to understand for one reason. We already heard two members stand up to speak to this issue, and they strictly talked about the carbon tax, as they referred to it, or the price on pollution. The Conservatives are using that as an excuse for everything they are doing in the chamber. It is reckless. That is what we are witnessing. We have a leader of the official opposition who is not in tune with what Canadians are asking legislators to do here in Ottawa. It is only a question of time before Canadians actually realize the destructive behaviour of the Conservative Party today. That is why I think it is important, as a Liberal member of Parliament, to amplify it and to ensure that Canadians know and understand what is in fact taking place, and that there are important things that need to be passed here. The report talks about infrastructure. Recommendation 1 is to associate infrastructure with trade. It highlights infrastructure and trade. No government has spent more and committed more on infrastructure in the last 50 or 60 years than the current Liberal government has, because we understand and appreciate the importance of having a healthy infrastructure so we can get our product to market, whether a local market or an international market. It is one thing to talk about it, but it is another thing to see the action. With the Liberal government, we have seen action supporting investment in Canada's infrastructure from coast to coast to coast. The Conservatives say “access” and “making sure”. Over the summer, a number of months ago, the former minister of transport was in CentrePort in Winnipeg, just outside my riding. It is a huge park, thousands of acres, strategically located near rail lines and a first-class long-haul trucking industry, the biggest in the province, possibly the biggest in the Prairies. There is an airport literally a couple of miles away. There is a great deal of focus on infrastructure and how we can get products to market. We see the agricultural community coming into CentrePort in a very real and tangible way. It is not that we do not want to have those types of discussions. That is why we have standing committees. The New Democratic member stood up and said that it was nice we were having a debate on agriculture in the chamber today. I would like to think that we have debates and discussions on agriculture on an ongoing basis, whether they are budget debates, throne speech debates or the numerous private members' bill debates that take place. One of the reasons we have standing committees is so we can actually look at and take a deeper dive into an issue. That enables, I believe, reports like the one we have today. With those reports, Canadians can get a better understanding of where the House of Commons or the collective parliamentarians would like to see the government of the day take some form of direction. That is what I like about the system. What I do not like is when reports are consistently used as a mechanism, through concurrence, to prevent debates from taking place on government legislation. That is very problematic. The Conservatives will say that it is the government's responsibility to bring forward the legislation. We are bringing forward the legislation; it is the opposition that is preventing the legislation from being debated. It is the opposition that is choosing the tools it has in order to filibuster legislation. Some members across the way are laughing. Our Ukrainian heritage community is not laughing; it is upset because it sees the games the Conservative Party of Canada is playing. That needs to change. I cited just one piece of legislation, but there are numerous ones. Even during the pandemic, with regard to financial supports to Canadians, we saw the Conservatives using concurrence as a way to prevent government legislation from moving forward. They used an excessive number of concurrence reports. They have the standard line: “This is an important issue; why would we not want to be able to debate the issue?" They make it sound as if the government were not being sensitive to the issue. I ask my Conservative friends across the way, if the issues were as important, from a Conservative perspective, as they try to imply to Canadians, why are they not using them as opposition day motions? They have plenty of opposition days when they get the entire day to be able to debate the issues they want to debate, just like yesterday, when they chose to debate the Senate and the behaviour of the Senate. It is rooted in the price on pollution, I must say, because the Conservative Party of today is very much infiltrated by individuals who are truly climate deniers. Maybe not all members of the Conservative caucus are; I suspect not. However, I do believe there is a preoccupation within the leader of the Conservative's party, which is, in fact, climate denial. The Conservatives are so fixated on the issue of getting rid of the price on pollution. Think about it in terms of this particular report. In the report, members are saying that the price on pollution is scaring farmers away and that they are going to shut down and go elsewhere with their produce. During the last break week, I had the opportunity to go just north of Portage la Prairie to Roquette, a world-class pea processing facility. Did members know that the largest pea processing plant in the world is in the province of Manitoba? I can say that I am quite proud of that particular fact. The facility creates all sorts of opportunities for the farmers in the area. I am told it even has to bring in some yellow peas from other jurisdictions because it cannot keep up with the demand. The demand is going to continue to grow. The facility is actually diversifying, which is great news. It reinforces that the world is looking at Canada as a place to be able to invest in, and that includes our agricultural community. The role of the farmer is just as real today as it was in any day in the past. The innovators in our environment are often farmers. We do not give our farmers enough credit. Quite frankly, what I do not like is when they are used as a political tool. I was in opposition when the Conservatives got rid of the Canadian Wheat Board. Suffice to say, I really and truly believe that the Conservative Party needs to get its ship in order, whether with the Canada-Ukraine trade agreement or stopping the filibustering and the preventing of legislation from being able to pass. There is a minority government; that means there is an expectation that opposition members would also behave. There is nothing wrong with criticizing. I was in opposition for 20-plus years, so I understand that role. There is also a role in terms of being a little bit more creative in one's opposition.

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Mr. Warren Steinley (Regina—Lewvan, CPC)

Nov/29/23 5:24:45 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-234

Madam Speaker, I know that there is someone watching who has been with me for 12 years. We work together in my office. It is Heather Kuntz' birthday today. I am not sure which one, but I want to say “happy birthday” to her in Regina. I will ask my colleague from across the way a question. He said one thing that I think is very true, which is that our farmers do not get enough credit for how well and how much they have innovated in their farming techniques. Does he not think they would be able to innovate even further and bring forward new technologies? For example, in Saskatchewan, we have zero-till, rotational grazing and crop rotations that keep our soil healthy and strong. They make it very, very rich so we can grow bumper crops with less water and less fertilizer. Saskatchewan uses 75% less fertilizer than any other jurisdiction in Canada. Does the member not think that if farmers had more money in their pockets and we moved forward with the carbon tax exemption bill, Bill C-234, that the money could go toward even more innovation? Like he said, our farmers are the ones who bring forward innovation. Why will the Liberals not get out of the way and make sure farmers can do that?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Nov/29/23 5:25:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I wish a happy birthday, and many more, to Heather in Regina. I believe that farmers, in many ways, lead in terms of innovations and making sure we have wonderful, successful farming in rural communities into the future. I applaud them to the nth degree for that. The issue I have is that the Conservative Party wants to chip away here and chip away there. Ultimately, let there be no doubt, what it really wants is to get rid of the price on pollution. Conservatives have said that and have been very clear on the point. It is kind of a dumb idea, I would suggest, but they are determined to put it into place. I have to defend the constituents I represent who actually get more money from the rebate than they pay. Eighty per cent get a larger rebate portion.

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Mr. Yves Perron (Berthier—Maskinongé, BQ)

Nov/29/23 5:27:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I understand my colleague's complaints about the fact that the House is not following the order of business each day. Then again, we are always happy to talk about farmers, so I would like to take this opportunity to ask him a very specific question. Recommendation 17 in the report we are discussing today highlights the importance of providing capital to our SMEs, our small businesses in general. We are talking about food processing at the moment, but we could extend this to businesses in general. Right now, the entire Canadian business community is asking the Liberal government for a one-year reprieve on the repayment of the Canada emergency business account. This is particularly necessary and urgent in the restaurant industry, as well as in agriculture. If my colleague has so much respect for the farming community, is he prepared to lobby within his party to give our small businesses the breathing room they need to survive and keep their doors open?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Nov/29/23 5:28:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, during the worldwide pandemic, the Government of Canada literally supported small businesses in virtually every sector to ensure their survival during a very difficult time. How we ensure that we can minimize the amount of hurt to small businesses is an ongoing issue. To pick up on what the member first spoke about in regard to how important the diversification of our agricultural community is, it is really important to the government. That is one of the reasons why we invest so much in our regional development agencies, knowing full well that they are in a great position to identify where we can expand and make sure diversification takes place. More processing is really important. I like to think of the pea processing facility just north of Portage Avenue as a good example of the diversification taking place. I think there are so many other examples that one could give, but the bottom line is that the government, virtually from day one, in 2015, until the present day with the fall economic statement, is there to support our farmers and our agricultural communities.

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Mr. Blake Desjarlais (Edmonton Griesbach, NDP)

Nov/29/23 5:29:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to narrow down a very troubling reality facing Canadians, the terrible reality facing workers. We know from recent reports, particularly reports throughout COVID, and reports before that, that temporary foreign workers often face circumstances that are simply undignified. We heard just recently that some temporary foreign workers have died. Some others have found themselves in situations where they are undocumented. There needs to be far more oversight. Ultimately, the government must implement the process that was promised to the workers: having a “status for all” commitment to ensure that a worker who toils the soil here in Canada, pays taxes and does everything right, and still finds themself in a position where the government does not accept them, will find justice. When will the government ensure status for all, for all the workers who give tirelessly to this country?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Nov/29/23 5:30:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is important to recognize that international workers play a critical role here in Canada in many different sectors of our society. It is also important that the federal government continue to work with provincial governments in particular and with departments of labour and other non-profit agencies to ensure the rights of these international workers and ensure they are not being exploited as much as possible moving forward. With regard to the member's policy announcement and the position of the NDP that international foreign workers or international students would be given automatic permanent residency status, that is not what we are saying as a party.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Nov/29/23 5:31:35 p.m.
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Order. This is not a cross-debate. The hon. member had an opportunity to ask a question. He needs to listen to the answer, whether he likes the answer or not. If he has other questions or comments, he should wait until it is time for them. The hon. parliamentary secretary.

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Secretary

Mr. Blake Desjarlais

Nov/29/23 5:31:35 p.m.
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So you would rather have undocumented people.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Nov/29/23 5:31:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I highly recommend that the member talk to the Minister of Immigration and share with him his thoughts.

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Mr. Chandra Arya (Nepean, Lib.)

Nov/29/23 5:32:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Canadian farmers and agri-food exporters have made Canada the fifth-largest exporter of agricultural produce and agri-food products. The member mentioned the largest pea processing facility in this province. I appreciate that the manufacturing sector, including the agriculture-processing sector, has been in decline for the last 20 years. We need more manufacturing and processing, not only to be self-reliant but to export value-added products. I would like to know whether the member accepts that we need more processing for value-added exports.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Nov/29/23 5:32:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciate the question. At the end of the day, the more value we can add into our products, the better. It means more jobs. It means more money. That is one of the reasons I am a very strong advocate of trade agreements. Canada is a trading nation. No government in the history of Canada has signed off on more trade agreements than the current Prime Minister and this government. It is nice that the Conservative Party, almost for all of the trade agreements, has been supportive of us signing them. There is one exception, the Canada-Ukraine trade agreement. I am hoping we will see a somersault flip-flop and Conservatives will come back and support it at third reading. I think a number of Conservative members would like to see the leader of the Conservative Party change his mind and support that trade agreement. I hope he does.

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Trading

Ms. Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia—Lambton, CPC)

Nov/29/23 5:33:47 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-9

Madam Speaker, I see the parliamentary secretary is troubled that we are not talking about the Senate's bill, Bill S-9, on weapons of mass destruction, even though that was not a Liberal campaign promise. Would he not agree that, with two million people using a food bank every day and one in five families eating less food because they cannot afford it, it is more important for this House to be looking at solutions on how to address food insecurity, such as with this motion?

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