Ottawa-A lot of rhetoric has been aired in discussions about the impact of new trade deals on Canadian dairy and poultry producers stirred up by a Bloc Quebecois bill to protect them from further concessions in trade negotiations, says Keith Currie, President of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA).

Speaking to the Senate trade committee, Currie noted that five members of the CFA board come from the supply managed sector and the other 24, including himself, represent the rest of the agriculture community. “The bill has been well talked about at our board meetings.”

Every board member supports the bill “because they feel it brings stability to a 50-plus-year-old industry that benefits food security in Canada. It adds value to the economy of Canada and there is no proof out there or anywhere that shows that by passing Bill C-282, other commodities would be affected in future trade deals.”

Steve Verheul, the chief Canadian negotiator for the NAFTA, has said passing of this Bloc bill “will not impact future trade negotiations. There is a lot of noise around this bill, but I think the less we turn it into a political battle and political football and get down to what this bill means, the better off we’re all going to be,” Currie added.

CFA advocates for farmers and ranchers right across this country “to make sure they have the opportunity to take advantage of all the opportunities out there in food production while providing the food security that we have talked about, along with maintaining what gets lost in a lot of this: the economic sustainability that’s required by our members. We are working to make sure they have all the opportunities and protections they need so they can fill not only our domestic food markets but also our export-oriented markets.”

Brodie Berrigan, CFA’s Senior Director of Government Relations and Farm Policy, said the European and Pacific free trade deals and CUSMA allowed increased access to the Canadian market as a result of concessions made in those trade agreements that increased imports from $899 million to $1.5 billion or 67 per cent growth.

The result was “very significant concessions that those industries had to make. Our supply-managed sectors as well as all agricultural sectors across Canada have had to deal with a rise in input prices in a number of areas, which has made it very difficult,” he said. Fertilizer, fuel prices and farmland price as well as debt-servicing costs have climbed. “The entire sector has faced increased strain as a result of a number of global factors.”

“The level of compensation provided to supply-managed producers as a result of concessions during those agreements was significant, no doubt, but it was a recognition that those concessions were, in fact, very significant. The market access that was provided is permanent and will go on, so this is going to have a significant impact on producers over the long term.”

Farm debt-servicing costs are up by more than 36 per cent, which is the highest it has been since the 1980s “for the sector that we’re relying on to produce our food and maintain our domestic and international food security objectives.”

This news item prepared for National Newswatch