Over the weekend, an announcement was made by Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, regarding the second year of promised compensation for concessions made to domestic dairy production as part of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) as well as the schedule of payments for the remaining balance.
“Dairy farmers want to invest in their farms to innovate and increase efficiencies. Our objective is to be better prepared to face the intensification of competition from imported dairy products made from milk produced elsewhere, as a result of CETA, CPTPP and more recently the Canada-US-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). These important investments on the farm can only come with a level of certainty as it relates to the promised compensation. Reducing the timelines for the scheduled payments is recognition by the government of the importance of the foreign competition we face, this is why today’s announcement is so significant,” said Pierre Lampron, President of Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC).
In 2020, DFC had three items to achieve on its workplan with government:
- Obtaining the payment for year two of the government’s eight-year compensation package for CETA and CPTPP;
- Developing a schedule of payments for the remaining years; and
- Developing a plan for full and fair compensation for CUSMA.
“I want to thank Prime Minister Trudeau for following up on his commitment. We now turn our attention to the last item on the workplan, compensation for CUSMA, and we look forward to engaging with Deputy Prime Minister Freeland and Minister Bibeau,” added Lampron.
The House of Commons adopted unanimously last Thursday a motion in support of compensation for the supply managed sectors, including dairy.
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