CIIT Committee Report

Supplementary Opinion from the Bloc Québécois

Supply management is more relevant than ever

Following a series of doubtful trade positions on the part of the Canadian government that had worried the Québec agriculture community, we are pleased to see the unanimity of the committee members for a report that underlines the importance of defending the supply management system both on the multilateral and bilateral levels. By doing so, the committee members reiterated the all-party support for the unanimous motion adopted in parliament in 2005. Furthermore, we are happy to have obtained the assurance that the Minister for Trade and his negotiators will not sign a trade agreement that does not fully protect the supply management system.

The relevance of supply management has been once more demonstrated when the recent world food crisis, coming from an important fluctuation of food prices, exposed a new challenge to the world food safety.  Thus, supply management becomes a model for a solution protecting toe populations and producers against the catastrophic fluctuations of the agriculture goods. As the UN special Representative on the right to food recently raised the limits of the market forces to insure food safety, we must seriously consider new concepts as that of food sovereignty.

The quick conclusion of the current study unfortunately did not allow the committee members to thoroughly analyze matters related to food sovereignty, which might gain in importance in the world discussions on agriculture. This concept rests on a form of agriculture of proximity whose main objective is to allow the populations to define the production and consuming modes that are best adapted to their reality. In that context, supply management is perfectly suited for the imperatives of food sovereignty.

The Bloc Québécois considers that the integration of the concept of food sovereignty in the Canadian trade policy would allow Canada to be more coherent in its defense of supply management. Finally, since most of the Québec farm production is aimed at the internal market rather than exports, the concept of food sovereignty is well adapted to our reality.