Mr. Speaker, I rose months ago to ask a question about the Liberals' decision, when they signed the new NAFTA, to give up a percentage of our supply management, specifically dairy.

We know that we have given access to the United States that compromises our supply management and that, quite frankly, hurts farmers. That is something we have heard consistently. I have dairy farmers in my riding of Essex. It is something that, as New Democrats, we have stood against. We believe strongly that we should not be giving up supply management, certainly our dairy, in agreement after agreement. The question really is why the Liberals have betrayed farm families and our food security in Canada. That day I posed the question to the Prime Minister.

The NDP strongly believes that we should be defending our supply managed sectors, not sacrificing them in trade deal after trade deal.

I do not know how much more our dairy farm families in this country can bear. They are continually thrown under the bus in every trade agreement, and enough is enough. In CETA, CPTPP and now the new NAFTA, we have conceded 8.4% of our dairy production in Canada. To put that in perspective for Canadians who are watching at home, that is 800 million litres of milk that will be permanently removed from our farms. That will have a very serious impact on farm families across our country.

We know that this is an erosion of our supply managed dairy farm families' livelihoods and the communities they live in. The Liberals have the nerve to stand in this House, and the Prime Minister on that day, repeating the line that we have heard over and over, which is just a complete and utter falsehood, which is that they, of course, will protect supply management and defend supply management in some way. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Do Liberals not understand that dairy farmers are not falling for their claims that they are protected in any of these agreements? When the agreements come out at the end, dairy farmers can see in black and white that they were sacrificed. In fact, the previous minister of agriculture himself admitted that, saying that we had to give it up. We had to do something.

I am not sure how this goes along with the rhetoric that the Liberals will protect supply management and that they have in the USMCA, because nothing could be further from the truth. It is very disrespectful, I have to say, to our farm families. My farm families locally are tired of hearing it. It is Liberal spin. It does not make any sense. It is not the truth. I think the Liberals have to start being honest about that.

I want to talk about supply management and what protecting it means. There are three pillars of supply management: import control, pricing mechanisms and production. In production, we have a quota system in Canada. We make sure that we are only making as much as the market demands. What is being thrown away in every single trade agreement is the pillar of import control. When we start to have, in this case American milk, which is not up to the standard of Canadian milk, we can certainly talk about health standards, bovine growth hormones, antibiotics and the fact that Canadians will not know if their milk is 100% Canadian, with the little blue cow. We know that the U.S. system is not working, and their farmers are looking for a place to dump their milk. Quite honestly, Canada should not be that place.

I live in a border city. I live in a border area, down in Essex County. Canadians are not going across and purchasing milk, because they are aware of the different standards and the different health impacts of the milk in the U.S. compared to Canada.

Why have Liberals betrayed farm families and our food security in Canada?

Tracey Ramsey

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