The Senate Agriculture and Forestry Committee will be undertaking a brief study on how the Government of Canada can offer the best support and compensation for Canadians involved in supply-managed agriculture sectors by reviewing what has occurred for CETA.
When it comes agriculture, there’s much to celebrate these days in new trade agreements. But there are also hard questions about the future of the sector Canada is counting upon to be a champion in growing trade.
While the Liberals are aiming to increase our sales, they are forcing our farmers, ranchers, and producers to pay an additional tax which will lead to lower competitiveness with other countries.
Canadian farmers and food processors are ready to deliver, and our government has set an ambitious target of $75-billion in agri-food exports by 2025.
The unfortunate reality is that with pieces of our domestic market continually being carved off as bargaining chips in trade disputes, there may be little left of these once-thriving industries for the next generation of farmers.
In order to pressure other countries to also accept the IPCC advice, Canada must show leadership in the world and ratchet up our current target before COP24. We must announce before Dec. 1, 2018, that we will set in place plans and programmes to reduce 45 per cent below 2010 levels by 2030. Failure is not an option.
The biggest impact of the new agreement is with the dairy sector. There are two elements here. The first is that the agreement allows for increased market access (approximately 3.6 per cent in dairy) for U.S. product into Canada.