OTTAWA — Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet and MPs from several other parties were on Parliament Hill Thursday to call for the Senate to pass a Bloc bill on supply management.
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, a system that regulates production levels, wholesale prices and trade.
Flanked by a large group of people representing supply-managed sectors, Blanchet commended the cross-party support at a time when he said federal institutions are at their most divided.
The Bloc has given the Liberals until Oct. 29 to pass two of its bills — the supply management bill and one that would boost old age security — or it will begin talks with other opposition parties to bring down the minority government.
Blanchet repeated this deadline as he spoke to reporters after the press conference.
“We gave them five weeks,” he said in French.
The Liberal government survived two non-confidence votes in the House of Commons in September, but the Conservatives have said they plan to put forward more confidence motions.
The Liberals have already signalled they don't plan to support the Bloc pension legislation, but Liberal ministers have spoken in support of supply management.
Blanchet also reiterated accusations that two senators are blocking Bill C-282 from moving forward.
"We have two senators who are putting themselves above the democratic choice of the entire Parliament and saying, 'What I think myself is better and more important.' Both are completely out of line of their mandate as senators, superimposing on democracy," he said.
One of those senators, Peter Boehm, denied blocking the bill as he spoke to reporters in Ottawa.
"This deadline came from outside. It is not part of what we do here ... what we're doing now is looking at this in some detail as we had planned originally."
MPs from all the major federal parties joined Blanchet Thursday including the Bloc's Yves Perron, the NDP's Alistair MacGregor, and Liberal ministers Marie-Claude Bibeau and Lawrence MacAulay.
Sen. Pierre Dalphond said it's time to send the bill back to the senate floor "to debate and vote and do it as expeditiously as we can."
Brian Bilkes, chair of the Canadian Hatching Egg Producers, spoke on behalf of all supply-managed sectors and said the bill is essential to protect supply management.
"Previous trade agreements have severely hurt Canadian farmers under supply management by granting significant access to our markets. Bill C-282 protects supply management and safeguards the sectors for future negotiations," he said.
— With files from Émilie Bergeron
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 10, 2024.
Rosa Saba, The Canadian Press
