Bibeau praises new trade deal as good news for Canada

NAFTA is out, and a new deal, currently known as the United Statesmexico-canada Agreement (USMCA) is in. That was the news Monday morning following a year of negotiations on the North American Free trade Agreement that tested the limits of Canada-us relations. Speaking with The Record about the deal on Monday, Marieclaude Bibeau, Minister of International Development and Member of Parliament for Compton Stanstead said that the Government feels happy with the agreement overall.

“This is good news for our Canadian and Quebecois economy,” Bibeau said. “We didn’t want to sign just any kind of agreement; we were ready to not sign an agreement if it was a bad one.”

The Minister pointed to the fact that the news of the agreement caused an immediate improvement in the value of the Canadian dollar as a sign that the agreement had an important impact on the trust of foreign investors in Canada. She highlighted improvements to the cultural exemption in the agreement as well as the preservation of the chapter 19 dispute resolution mechanism as significant wins for the country and for Quebec.

Not everyone had good things to say when the news broke about the new agreement. Francois Bourassa, the President of the Estrie Chapter of the UPA farmers’ union, said that the news about the USMCA’S concessions in dairy supply management, namely the fact that the government gave up another 3.5 per cent of the market share to the

United States, came as a disappointment. “This is not good for anyone,” Bourassa said, arguing that the deregulation will lead to massive losses in the industry. “The whole region will lose.”

The UPA president said that he didn’t feel that any deal needed to be struck, and that the federal government should have been more patient rather than sacrifice Quebec’s dairy farmers.

“I hope there will be some sector that will gain from this,” he said, “because there certainly won’t be any in agriculture.”

Bibeau acknowledged that the concessions made by the government on supply management are not good news for the Dairy sector, and she recognized the significance of the issue to people in the Eastern Townships specifically. The cabinet minister pointed out, however, that the United States went into the renegotiation process wanting Supply Management scrapped entirely

“We have to remember that the President of the United States wanted us to completely abolish the supply management system,” Bineau said, adding that even though there was no way that would have happened, there is a need for some give and take in a negotiation process. “We had to open a little in terms of access to markets.”

The Compton-stanstead MP said that she has already seen the concerns of local dairy farmers being expressed on social media and she urged calm.

“This is not good news for our diary producers obviously, but we are committed to providing compensation for them not to be financially impacted by that,” Bibeau said. “The agreement will not enter into force tomorrow morning, it will take many months before it is ratified by the three countries so we have the time to work with the industry and evaluate the value of what they will be losing and what should be the compensation and the compensation mechanism.”

The minister said that Canada’s dairy industry can already see evidence of the commitment to compensate in the $350 million committed to offset market share given up in the recent European trade agreement, although she said that the government would like to work with producers to determine if this kind of approach is the best to offset the impacts of the deal.

“The message I want to send is don’t make decisions right now, we are going to work together to find the best way to compensate,” she said. “We really believe in the importance of family farms.”

Asked about the lasting impacts of the negotiation process on Canada/us relation, Bibeau said that she feels the Americans underestimated the strength of Canadian resolve.

“I think they realize we are stronger than they thought,” she said. “Overall this is a good agreement.”