Senate committee makes major changes to Bloc Québécois supply management bill

OTTAWA — Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet accused senators of betraying their fellow Canadians to benefit Americans and other trade partners, after a Senate committee voted to add a major caveat to a Bloc supply management bill.

Still, Blanchet said Thursday he’s optimistic the changes will be reversed when the legislation comes up for third reading in the Senate.

The private member’s bill seeks to protect Canada’s supply management system during international trade negotiations. The dairy, egg and poultry sectors are all supply managed, which means production levels, wholesale prices and trade are all regulated.

The bill had broad support in the House of Commons from all parties, even before it became a focus of political machinations in September. That’s when the Bloc announced its support of the minority Liberal government was contingent on Parliament passing the supply management bill and a second bill to boost old age security payments.

Supply management has been a flashpoint in multiple trade talks including with Europe, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the renegotiation of the North American trade agreement under the first Donald Trump presidency in 2017.

It is expected to be a pressure point again as that deal comes under review in 2026.

After eight hearings, Sen. Peter Harder put forward an amendment that would exempt existing trade deals such as the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement from the bill.

“I have seldom seen people having a knife in the back of their own population for the sake of other countries,” Blanchet told reporters in Ottawa Thursday.

“They say, ‘No, no, no, we will serve the best interests of Americans and Europeans and South Americans instead of protecting the just price, the quality and the safety of what is being produced, bought and consumed in Canada and Quebec.'”

If the amendment becomes law, it would mean there is nothing to legally prevent the dairy, egg and poultry sectors from being subject to upcoming North American trade talks.

“It is not a bill about supply management, but rather about trade policy,” Harder told a Senate committee on Wednesday.

“It’s unfortunate that the atmosphere surrounding this bill has turned from one of policy to one of politics.”

The bill’s sponsor in the Senate, Amina Gerba, implored her colleagues on the committee to vote against the amendment, but lost the argument in a 10 to three vote.

“If this were adopted … supply management would always be a main target of many of our trade partners and could always be used as a bargaining chip,” she said in French during the committee.

The changes Senators approved in the committee could still be overturned by the rest of the Senate.

Regardless, the Liberal minority government has already promised supply management will be off the table when CUSMA negotiations begin.

“We have been clear that the supply-managed sector is something that this government will continue to protect going forward,” Trade Minister Mary Ng confirmed Thursday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

Laura Osman, The Canadian Press