That may not happen, immediately, because Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Liberal government have been busy over the last 10 months, dealing with trade conflicts, wars and the potential end of the global world order.

“We continue to speak to elected officials… (but) Prime Minister Carney’s attention has been focused elsewhere,” said Kaitlyn Mitchell, director of legal advocacy with Animal Justice, a Toronto-based animal welfare organization.

Exporting live horses from Canada made headlines in mid-February, due to an unusual trial at the Provincial Court in Winnipeg.

Animal Justice led a private prosecution of a horse exporter from Swan River, Man., charging him with shipping horses to Japan without making the necessary plans to protect their welfare.

The group launched the private prosecution in 2024 because the Canadian Food Inspection Agency didn’t take legal action in the case.

On Feb. 13 the prosecution and defence submitted their closing statements to the court. Justice Sandra Chapman reserved her decision for a future date.

Animal Justice’s lawyer, Dan Stein, laid out the basic facts of the case in his closing submission:

• On Dec. 11, 2022, Lyle Lumax, the owner of Carolyle Farms in Swan River transported 97 live horses by truck to the Winnipeg airport
• Of that group, 79 horses were put in crates and loaded onto a Korean Air plane in the early hours of Dec. 12
• The flight departed Winnipeg at approximately 4:00 a.m. that day, but the plane was re-routed from Anchorage, Alaska to Seattle, Wash. because of a snowstorm in Anchorage.

Stein said that re-routing caused the horses to be in transport for more than 33 hours without food, water or rest, in the journey to Kagoshima, Japan.

That exceeded the 28-hour time limit for transporting horses in CFIA regulations.

The travel time was in excess of 28 hours, but Animal Justice claims that Carolyle Farms failed to a have a contingency plan for unknown but foreseeable events for the shipment from Winnipeg to Japan.

Canada’s Health of Animals Regulations require a contingency plan, to prevent an animal’s death, injury or suffering.

Carolyle Farms did file a contingency plan in September 2022 for the trip to Japan. But Lumax only had a contingency plan for the transport of the horses from Swan River to Winnipeg, not the entire journey to Japan, Stein said.

“His plan only went as far as the airport and wheels up,” he said. “Was it OK that Carolyle Farms washed their hands of this (contingency plan), once this plane lifted off?”

Farmer’s responsibility ends at the airport: defence

Lumax wasn’t in court Feb. 13. His attorney told the court that the farmer can’t be held responsible for decisions made, or not made, after the Korean Air flight departed from Winnipeg.

Yes, there is shared responsibility to ensure the welfare of the horses and develop a contingency plan, the defence said.

But ultimately there is a decision maker and when the plane is in the air, Korean Air was responsible for the welfare of the animals.

The defence pointed to testimony from Dr. Erika Spek, of the CFIA, who told the court that the air portion of the contingency plan is the responsibility of the airline.

Another bill to ban live horse exports?

Each year, 2,000 to 3,000 horses are exported from Canada to Japan. Once there, they are fattened, slaughtered and the meat is served raw, as sashimi, said Animal Justice.

“There are a small number of feedlots. There is one here (in Manitoba). There are about four in Alberta,” Mitchell said.

“It’s about $18 million a year going to this handful of companies.”

From 2023 to 2025, Bill C-355 was before Parliament. It would have prohibited the export of live horses, by plane.

It passed the House of Commons in May 2024 but died in the Senate when the election was called in early 2025.

Animal Justice continues to lobby for a new bill or regulation to stop the practice and some MPs have committed to getting this done, Mitchell said.

“As far as we’re aware, that’s still the plan.”

There are, however, politicians who support horse exports for slaughter, including Senator Don Plett, who retired from the Senate in 2025.

In a piece published last year in The Hill Times, Plett argued that this issue isn’t about animal welfare.

It’s mostly about misinformation and emotional manipulation, he said.

“The legislation (Bill C-355) was… a tool of animal activists who are ideologically opposed to the human consumption of horse meat.”

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On that day, backbench Conservative MP Arnold Vierson — who represents the Peace River-Westlock riding in Alberta — stood next to members of the Canadian Beekeepers Federation and Alberta Beekeepers Commission to highlight obstacles facing the honey sector.

Those included some now well-known problems that have seriously cut at honeybee stocks and hurt producers’ bottom lines in recent years, as well as a brand new parasite threat looming — tropilaelaps mites, or t-mites.

WHY IT MATTERS: Packaged bee trade, and whether or not the U.S. should be allowed as a source, has been a hot topic among a beekeeping sector where persistent production problems have pushed some farms to the edge of viability. Beekeepers in favour of the idea aren’t backing down.

Parts of Canada, including Manitoba, have suffered a string of hard winters where many colonies failed to survive. The industry is embroiled in an increasingly difficult battle with varroa mites, with products previously used to control the parasites no longer delivering the same results.

Linked to those, the debate over bulk packaged bees from the U.S. has roared to the forefront in recent years. Without replacement stock, beekeepers with poor bee survival often split hives, something that limits their honey harvest that year.

Some beekeepers want the U.S. border thrown back open, after decades of restriction due to pest and disease risk. Earlier this year, the CFIA shut down a list of industry proposals that had been submitted in the hopes of convincing the agency that those pest risks could be mitigated. That, in turn, frustrated beekeepers, who felt the agency had dismissed them out of hand.

That same day, Vierson brought a new motion forward in the House of Commons, the M-22 Honeybee Importation and Regulation motion.

Vierson’s motion would put five recommendations on the table for the CFIA:

• restore free trade of honeybee packages from safe zones in the United States (something that industry had argued for in its rejected list of proposals),
• develop a clear, consistent methodology for assessments,
• work with beekeepers to review and update the national farm-level biosecurity standard,
• partner with Animal Health Canada to create a tropilaelaps mite emergency plan, and
• improve and speed up the approval process of management tools for bee pests, such as varroa mites.

Drama on honeybee trade

The blanket ban on U.S. packaged bees doesn’t make sense, argued Peter Awram, director of the Canadian Beekeeping Federation. Awram said the CFIA has held the line on the packaged bee ban since 1987, despite mounting evidence that there are significant risks from bees brought in from the list countries that the CFIA does allow.

“They want to say the U.S.A. is dangerous, yet they are allowing from places that are easily 10 times, if not 100 times, more dangerous,” he said.

The cross-section of the beekeeping sector that stood with Vierson Nov. 25 suggests that perhaps Canada should halt packaged bee shipments from these designated safe countries. That’s partly from concern over emerging pest threats, and partly to underline what they see as CFIA’s inconsistency.

They note beekeepers are free to import queen bees from approved zones in the U.S., which suggests risk can be appropriately managed.

The CFIA, meanwhile, argues that the risk of queen bees is a much different thing than bringing in packages that contain hive material. The industry’s rejected submission, which would have set up trade from select areas of the U.S., also needed zoning approval from U.S. officials, the CFIA said in a summary report earlier this year.

Danger from abroad

The current list of approved countries doesn’t take proper account of t-mite risk, the motion’s advocates say, nor do they seem to acknowledge that countries on the approved list aren’t varroa-free. Australia, one of the last bastions against varroa, had its defences breached in 2022. In 2023, authorities decided that eradication of the mite was no longer achievable.

The current list includes:

• Australia
• New Zealand
• Chile
• Italy, and
• formerly included Ukraine

Australia is only 93 kilometres from tropilaelaps-infected Papua New Guinea at the closest point between the two countries’ nearest borders, those in favour of M-22 worry.

The packages from the approved regions are also simply not very good for Canadian production, Awram said. Mismatched seasons and 16-hour flights take their toll on the bees, killing many of them before reaching Canadian shores.

“The danger from outside of North America is far greater than any benefit we get,” he said.

“We import a very tiny amount of stock from Australia, New Zealand, Chile (and) Italy. The stuff we get from those areas; it’s poor for a number of reasons. Some of it is the genetics. The genetics from those regions just are not well-adapted for what we have.”

Awram has verified at least one example of high varroa mite content in packages from New Zealand.

“The lowest was at four per cent varroa in there, which means four mites per 100 bees in a package — up to 20 per cent. According to the regulations from CFIA, it shouldn’t be more than one per cent, but this is the way it is.

“It’s just a bad idea from a biological point of view to be pulling (packages) out of the southern hemisphere.”

The promise of U.S. bees

The situation would change if beekeepers were allowed to bring their packages north from the U.S., he said. They would arrive much faster, and in trucks, which allow greater control over shipping conditions.

“You can have somebody who actually knows how to take care of them watching the temperature and things like that,” Awram said. “This is what was done for decades and decades before 1987. They were brought up by truck, and we never had (these) sort of transport problems.”

CFIA report creates bad blood

Some beekeepers — Awram included — saw the CFIA’s denial of their proposals earlier this year as the final straw.

Along with set safe zones for trade, industry associations across Canada had pitched measures like transport inspections upon entering Canada, current import conditions of queens being expanded for packaged bees, using of best management practices to limit risk and evaluating the impact on inter-provincial movement.

The CFIA, however, responded that “after careful evaluation of all input received, the CFIA concluded that no feasible, scientifically-supported (sic) mitigation measures are currently available to bring all identified risks within acceptable levels,” an Aug. 6 agency statement read.

“As a result, Canada will maintain its current import restrictions and will not permit the importation of honeybee packages from the United States at this time.”

Awram — who maintains the recommendations were based on sound science — sees the feedback as evidence that the CFIA cannot be engaged on a scientific level.

“We’ve been fighting this non-scientific nonsense forever. They did this new risk assessment and despite the fact that there’s plenty of scientific evidence to the contrary, they still made the same claims.

“We’re not talking about an issue that is going to be solved by showing the scientific data or being logical. There is a block somewhere in the CFIA,” he said.

Industry ban not a done deal yet

Those who appeared in Ottawa in November, however, don’t represent the whole honey sector in Canada.

Ian Steppler of the Manitoba Beekeepers Association, who serves on the Canadian Honey Council’s (CHC) tropilaelaps mite committee, said the CFIA has been actively working to minimize beekeepers’ woes. He has been among those representing beekeeper interests with the CFIA on several fronts.

Manitoba’s official beekeeping organization was among those pushing the CFIA to reassess risks posed by U.S. bee shipments in the face of high winter losses.

Steppler says not every beekeeper will want to cease importing packages under the current protocols.

“There’s also a lot of beekeepers who will say, ‘Well, we utilize these packages from overseas to make up replacement losses, which is important to our industry, and if (the countries are) following all the surveillance protocols and preventative measures to ensure the pest doesn’t get in their country, then that should be enough to mitigate the risk.’”

Although the Canadian Beekeepers Federation and Alberta Beekeepers Commission have made their stance on these packages known, any industry-wide decision to push for reducing or stopping the import of bee packages from CFIA-approved countries will depend on what the various industry organizations say at their annual general meetings, Steppler noted.

“Our (MBA) meeting is in March and we’re going to be presenting that question to our membership to see where they would like to land on that position,” he said.

Awareness efforts pay off

Connie Phillips, Alberta Beekeepers Commission executive director, believes the press conference, in addition to the delegation’s well-attended Honey on the Hill reception, broadened awareness of the plight of beekeepers in Canada.

“In addition to what Arnold put forward, we had brought materials and information to that event that we could hand out or people could take away. That just reiterated what Arnold was presenting in his motion.”

The delegation, which Philips was a part of, also met with the Conservative Party of Canada caucus, officials at the Mexican embassy and representatives of the United States Department of Agriculture . She believes these meetings were fruitful.

Phillips is optimistic about the future of the Canadian beekeeping industry but urges mindfulness when planning the future.

“I think they’re just really on the cusp of a big paradigm shift in the industry and a needed one. So that’s good. But I also think we have to be careful how we go about it so that you have time to grow into that change, rather than just ripping the Band-Aid off all at once.”

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The appointed MPs include five Liberals: Sophie Chatel, Paul Connors, Michael Coteau, Emma Harrison Hill and Marianne Dandurand. It also includes four Conservatives with John Barlow, Richard Bragdon, David Epp and Jacques Gourde. Yves Perron represents the Bloc Québécois, according to a report from the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

The committee also named 22 associate members.

The 10 selected members represent four provinces. Four are from Quebec, three from Ontario and one each from Alberta, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Four of the members, Epp, Gourde, Hill and Perron are farmers. Others also have relevant experience in the sector. Dandurand served as chief of staff to former ag minister Marie-Claude Bibeau. Barlow has served several terms as shadow minister for agriculture and agri-food.

The committee is expected to name its chair on Wednesday.

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Party leader Yves-Francois Blanchet introduced Bill C-202 May 29, and on June 5 it was sent to the Senate without any debate. It follows Bill C-282 in the last Parliament and C-216 in the one before that. Neither of those bills made it fully through the parliamentary process.

The bill would amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act to protect supply managed industries in future trade negotiations. Exporters don’t like that idea, while supply management proponents say they’ve given up enough.

Blanchet said he promised during the campaign to introduce the bill because it is important to Quebec’s economy and reminded MPs that all political parties say they support supply management.

“Once again, I note that all of the political parties in the House have indicated that they will support this initiative. I therefore hope that we can move forward quickly with the support of all members,” he said when introducing the bill.

He said the amendment deserved urgent attention.

The Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance urged the Commons and the Senate to reject it.

“As with previous iterations of this bill, C-202 would undermine Canada’s agri-food sector, damage our trade relationships and harm the thousands of farmers, ranchers, processors and agri-food exporters who rely on open access to global markets to make a living,” said president Greg Northey in a news release.

CAFTA said the bill would have implications for all sectors of the economy, not just agriculture, and that sectoral carveouts in trade negotiations would put objectives at risk at a time when Canada should be more ambitious.

The organization urged MPs to not bypass parliamentary procedure and send it directly to the Senate, but they did.

The debate over supply management also continues outside of politics.

University of Saskatchewan agricultural economics professor professor Stuart Smyth called for the system to be phased out “for the greater good of the country.”

In a June 3 commentary for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Smyth said that would lower the cost of dairy and poultry products for consumers. He called supply management “an outdated, flawed and costly system” and an anti-competitive production model.

Dairy Farmers of Canada begged to differ.

For one thing, farmers don’t set retail prices, the organization said after reviewing the commentary.

“The prices of supply managed products have remained stable and generally in line or below inflationary trends in Canada,” it said in an emailed statement.

“In 2024, the average retail price of milk was almost equal to that of the United States at $1.64 per litre in Canada versus $1.44 per litre in the U.S.”

At the same time, the average prices of yogurt, natural cheese blocks and butter were similar or lower.

DFC said American and other dairy systems receive direct financial production subsidies, which means consumers pay twice — through taxes and at the store.

Smyth said farms would be larger and more efficient without the supply managed system. DFC said Canadian dairies are smaller than those in the U.S. but that doesn’t make them inefficient.

Smyth said the new government should phase out supply management by removing 10 percentage points of total quota each year for the next 10 years. He also said the government should reduce tariffs by the same amount in the same time frame to encourage competition.

“Allowing new and existing producers to increase production based on free market signals will greatly reduce the waste and inefficiencies that have long existed in supply management production systems, such as the practice of dumping excess milk,” Smyth wrote.

DFC has disputed a study earlier this year that estimated Canadian dairy farms dumped 6.8 billion litres of milk between 2012 and 2024.

Smyth also argued that dairy production could and should move to the Prairies because herds are already twice as large as the average Quebec herd and water is plentiful.

“Canadian dairy consumers are paying higher prices to subsidize small, inefficient Quebec dairies, while other dairies across Canada are dumping milk as they do not have enough quota to sell the full volume of milk they produce,” he said.

Smyth suggested four policies government could enact:

• Quota licences should be available nationally, rather than provincially.

• There should be a time-limited guarantee backstop for younger farmers who have used their quota as collateral.

• Financial institutions recognize the value of quota licences while the system is dismantled and not demand immediate repayment.

• The government should also provide a 10-year guarantee to farmers who demonstrate economic efficiencies and increase operating equity, thereby reducing their financial risk, before the system is officially dismantled.

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Bill C-234, which passed the House of Commons in late March, remained on the Senate’s order paper for debate Wednesday afternoon, after adjournment Tuesday night without a vote on third reading of the bill — nor a vote on a proposed amendment from the Independent Senators Group (ISG).

The new amendment, put forward Nov. 9 by Ontario Senator Lucie Moncion — an ISG member appointed to the Senate in 2016 by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — would amend the bill’s proposed sunset clause so that after eight years, approval for an extension would require Parliament to pass a new bill.

Marc Gold, a non-affiliated senator who serves as the Liberal government’s representative in the Senate, was among those speaking Tuesday in favour of Moncion’s amendment.

Gold said that without Moncion’s proposed change, a review and extension of the bill’s proposed farm fuel exemptions beyond eight years “could proceed with a simple resolution passed in both chambers or by a decision of the executive branch, with no role for parliamentary scrutiny and oversight or committee examination and study.”

Senator Don Plett, leader of the opposition, called Moncion’s proposed amendment “frivolous” and said C-234, as was passed in the Commons, would already allow for a further extension to be initiated — and the length of that extension determined — only by the government, via an order-in-council.

A further extension also wouldn’t be granted unless approved by both the Commons and Senate, he added.

As written, C-234’s language for extending the time frame of its sunset clause “is not unique to this bill,” he said, citing a similar sunset clause for rail interswitching provisions in Bill C-30, the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act.

Rather, Plett said, by forcing a Senate-amended C-234 back to the Commons, “the only utility of this amendment is to carry the (Liberal) government’s water and defeat the bill.”

‘Intimidation’

Debate on C-234 was to continue Tuesday evening but Quebec Senator Raymonde Saint-Germain, also an ISG member and Trudeau appointee, rose at that time on a question of privilege, citing an incident on Nov. 9 which she said infringed on senators’ privilege “to conduct our business free from obstruction and intimidation.”

At the Nov. 9 session, she said, ISG Senator Bernadette Clement’s motion to adjourn debate on the proposed amendment was met with some Conservative senators “demonstrat(ing) physical and verbal intimidation directed at members of my group and myself.

“After violently throwing his earpiece, (Plett) stood before Senator Clement and me as we sat at our desks, yelling and berating us for proposing this routine motion that would see debate resume the following week, when we returned,” Saint-Germain said, adding that another Conservative senator, Michael MacDonald, shouted the word “fascists” at ISG senators.

Later, Saint-Germain said, “at least two” Conservative senators retweeted a post on social media platform X “that not only spread misinformation about the proceedings but encouraged members of the public to call and harass” Clement and Senator Chantal Petitclerc, adding that it “elicited high volumes of threatening phone calls and emails to these independent senators.”

Clement, speaking Tuesday evening to Saint-Germain’s question of privilege, said “Canadians deserve to know that adjournment doesn’t mean a bill is being nixed, but that nuanced explanation wasn’t offered by people pointing the finger at me.”

Senate Speaker Raymonde Gagne noted some senators who had been mentioned in Saint-Germain’s question of privilege weren’t present Tuesday evening, and said she would hear “brief additional arguments” on the matter on Thursday.

However, Conservative Senator David Wells then put forward a separate question of privilege stemming from the same Nov. 9 sitting, saying Moncion had “walked over from her seat and accused me of bullying” after the session was suspended.

Such an action, he said, “creates an atmosphere that may hinder any senator from even contemplating engaging in free debate, lest they be accused of bullying.”

Moncion replied that she was not threatening in her approach but wanted to call attention to a separate tweet from Wells alleging that Gagne, as speaker, “in concert with the ISG leadership has shut down debate” on C-234.

“Receiving a point of privilege was disappointing, but I understand where you’re coming from,” she said. “You want an apology from me, I apologize, Senator Wells, and I apologize in front of this whole chamber.”

Asked by Gagne if he wished to pursue the matter further, Wells replied that “given the debate and the open discussion we’ve had as well as my professional and personal regard for Senator Moncion, I consider this issue closed.”

Debate on Moncion’s amendment resumed briefly before the Senate adjourned for the day at 11 p.m. to resume at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Members of the House of Commons voted June 21 to adjourn until Sept. 18, while the Senate did likewise June 22, to return Sept. 19.

While the two houses of Parliament were able to see to passage and royal assent of the federal budget bill last week among other government legislation, at least three private members’ bills — on which multiple farmer groups have lobbied for months — are now parked for the summer, including:

• Bill C-234, An Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act;
• Bill C-280, An Act to amend the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (deemed trust – perishable fruits and vegetables); and
• Bill C-282, An Act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act (supply management).

C-234

Introduced Feb. 7 last year in the Commons by Conservative MP Ben Lobb, C-234 passed third reading in the House on March 29 this year. It last appeared in the Senate on June 13, when it passed second reading.

The Senate on June 13 also referred C-234 to the standing Senate committee on national finance, “to examine and report on the subject matter of the bill.” The bill was also referred to the standing Senate committee on agriculture and forestry, which the Senate also authorized to take into account any findings from the finance committee’s study.

C-234 would grant farmers an exemption from federal carbon pricing on propane and natural gas used for drying grain and heating of barns.

Farmer groups including the Alberta Federation of Agriculture, Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan and Manitoba’s Keystone Agricultural Producers had called on the Senate on June 13 to pass the bill before breaking for the summer.

“We understand that senators are looking forward to enjoying the summer season. Prairie farmers want to enjoy theirs by knowing this bill is passed so they can look forward to the fall harvest,” APAS president Ian Boxall said at the time in a joint release.

“If we experience a wet harvest like 2019, I have real concerns about the added burden farms across Saskatchewan and the Prairies will be forced to absorb.”

C-280

Introduced on June 8 last year by Conservative MP Scot Davidson, C-280 passed second reading in the Commons on May 17 this year and was referred at that time to the Commons standing committee on agriculture and agri-food.

Several Canadian produce growers’ groups said last Thursday in a joint release that they were “thrilled” to then see the committee pass the bill “without amendment and with the support of all political parties” on June 21.

C-280 proposes to set up a “deemed trust,” which the groups described as “a vital financial protection mechanism for fresh produce sellers in Canada.”

Such a trust is meant to help growers of fruits and vegetables secure payment in the event of buyer bankruptcy. “The perishable nature of fresh produce, coupled with the industry’s typically longer payment terms, leave sellers unable to recover losses when faced with buyer bankruptcy,” said the groups, which included the Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada, Canadian Produce Marketing Association and Fruit and Vegetable Dispute Resolution Corporation.

“The recent case of Lakeside Produce in Leamington, Ont. serves as a reminder of the urgent need for a financial protection tool to safeguard this essential sector and uphold food security in Canada,” they said.

Such a trust could also help restore Canadian producers’ access to the U.S. Perishable Agricultural Marketing Act Trust (PACA Trust), which provides a protection mechanism to secure payment in case of a U.S. buyer’s bankruptcy.

The U.S. government in 2014 withdrew Canada’s preferred access to the PACA Trust payment dispute arbitration mechanism, unless or until such time as Canada comes up with an equally effective resolution process for buyer defaults.

“Looking ahead to the final rounds of debate and voting in the House of Commons, we are optimistic that all parties will continue to lend their support and work to advance the bill as quickly as possible,” FVGC executive director Rebecca Lee said. The groups acknowledged the bill would not return to the Commons again until this fall.

C-282

Introduced June 13 last year by Bloc Quebecois MP Luc Theriault, C-282 completed third reading in the Commons last week, on June 21, and passed first reading in the Senate the following day.

The bill, Theriault said last year, is meant to “protect supply management from further dilution in future international trade negotiations,” following tariff rate quota concessions granted to imports through the Canada-E.U. free trade agreement (CETA), the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) which he said “really did a number on this agricultural system.”

The bill would amend existing federal legislation with new provisions to exclude supply management from future trade negotiations.

Groups representing farmers in Canada’s supply-managed dairy, poultry and egg sectors, in a joint release June 22, hailed the bill’s passage in the Commons, saying it would “safeguard the sustainability” of production in those sectors.

However, the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, which represents producer groups in export-dependent ag sectors, said June 21 its members were “profoundly disappointed” in C-282’s passage in the Commons.

CAFTA president Dan Darling said the bill will diminish Canada’s negotiating hand in future trade negotiations and MPs who voted to pass the bill “have chosen to entrench protectionism and favour one economic sector above all others.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Brandon-Souris MP Larry Maguire saw his private member’s bill, aimed at lowering taxes on the sales of farms and other small businesses, pass in the House of Commons and go to the Senate after receiving bipartisan support.

The 199 votes for Bill C-208 came largely from the Manitoba MP’s fellow Conservatives, while the 128 opposing votes came from the governing Liberals including Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau.

Those in favour of C-208 say it improves the tax treatment of sales of farms to adult children or grandchildren, by excluding them from current anti-avoidance rules on business transfers.

“Parents will no longer have to be given a false choice of having to choose between a larger retirement package by selling to a stranger, or a massive tax bill because they sold to a family member — their own child or grandchild,” said Maguire, whose bill received support from Keystone Agricultural Producers, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) and others.

In the Senate, Maguire’s bill arrived for first reading on May 25 and, after a side trip to the Senate standing committee on agriculture and forestry, passed third reading without amendment on Tuesday.

“If we want to ensure the next generation of family farms is in strong financial health to capitalize on the immense opportunities facing our sector and drive Canada’s economic recovery, we cannot burden them with undue tax liabilities from day one,” CFA president Mary Robinson said Wednesday in a release hailing the bill’s passage through the Senate.

“This is tremendously positive news for farm families, who will now will not have to face an additional tax bill, potentially in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

C-208 would come into force when it receives royal assent, which as of Friday hadn’t yet been given.

Concessions

A private member’s bill introduced by Louis Plamondon of the Bloc Quebecois to prohibit any further market access concessions on supply-managed commodities in future international trade negotiations was not voted on.

Bill C-216 received second reading in the Commons in March and, after allegations of political delays, was studied by the international trade committee, which on Tuesday reported it back to the Commons without amendment.

But the dream of shielding supply-managed industries from trade negotiations might end with the current session.

That would be welcome news to opponents of the law, which include the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance. CAFTA’s president Dan Darling had previously told parliamentarians that legislating the exclusion of products from trade talks would irritate trading relationships, and tie negotiators’ hands.

“Put simply, this would be detrimental to our ability to generate growth and support about a million jobs across Canada,” he said in a 2020 letter on the subject.

Proponents of C-216, including representatives from supply-managed industries, said the law would allow continued predictability to ensure food security.

No entry

Foothills MP John Barlow’s bill to amend the Health of Animals Act also did not pass this parliamentary session. First introduced in 2020, the law aims to make it an offence to enter a place in which animals are kept if doing so could reasonably harm the animals.

While it passed second reading in March, the agriculture committee didn’t study it until the current session had almost ended and no vote on a third reading took place.

Another private member’s bill, C-206, which as proposed by Ontario MP Philip Lawrence would specifically exempt farmers’ use of natural gas and propane from federal greenhouse gas emission pricing, on Wednesday cleared third reading in the Commons and first reading in the Senate.

Jockeying for votes is expected to be a popular summertime exercise among MPs, as many political watchers are expecting an election as soon as September.

Easter departs

One long-time Liberal MP who won’t enter the fracas is Wayne Easter, who recently announced his retirement. A stalwart in Canadian agriculture for decades, Easter came off his family’s farm in Prince Edward Island to work with the National Farmers Union, where as president he rose to prominence championing the Crow Rate on grain handling.

Easter entered federal politics in 1993 as the MP for Malpeque, where he handled the agriculture portfolio as a parliamentary secretary (2004-05), opposition critic (2006-11) and member of the Commons’ standing committee on agriculture (2004-11).

Throughout his time in government, he was known as a fierce advocate — once arguing against his own Liberal government’s support of introducing rBGH, a bovine growth hormone that is still banned today.

“It has been my honour to work with and serve the residents of Malpeque, and it has been my honour to work with all members across political lines,” he said during his farewell speech to parliamentarians.

“It is the discussion, it is getting to know each other and it is the debate that, at the end of the day, makes for better policy and a better country.”

— D.C. Fraser reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Ottawa.

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Canada is the only one of the three signatories not to have formally blessed the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) deal and officials fret the process may well last until April. This could irritate U.S. President Donald Trump, for whom the pact was a major political victory in an U.S. election year.

Trudeau said his minority Liberal government would unveil legislation on Jan. 29 to ratify CUSMA, which will update the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

“We are going to make sure we move forward in the right way and that means ratifying this new NAFTA as quickly as possible,” Trudeau said while flanked by members of his cabinet following a three-day retreat in Winnipeg.

Free trade is critical to the economies of Canada and Mexico, which both send around 75 per cent of goods to their much larger neighbor.

The Liberals though no longer control the House of Commons and passing legislation requires the co-operation of other parties, which can, if they wish, slow down the process.

The main opposition Conservative Party, which complained the Liberals had not answered earlier questions about CUSMA, said it wanted to examine what it called potentially worrying aspects of the deal.

“We definitely want to give it the proper due diligence to shine a light on some of the unique (aspects),” said Randy Hoback, the party’s spokesman on trade, expressing concern about possible damage to the dairy and aluminum sectors.

“I don’t think anybody has any intention of dragging anything out. We just want to make sure we do our job… there are some things in this deal that I think the business community isn’t aware of that we need to shine a light on,” he said in a phone interview.

CUSMA, which includes tougher rules on labour and automotive content, cannot take effect until it has been ratified by all three member nations.

Last week, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly approved the legislation sending the measure to Trump for him to sign into law.

Trump made the renegotiation of NAFTA a key element of his 2016 presidential election campaign, calling it the “worst trade deal ever made.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Steve Scherer and Kelsey Johnson; writing by David Ljunggren in Ottawa.

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The legislation for the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (CUSMA) passed on an 89-10 bipartisan vote, sending the measure to President Donald Trump for him to sign into law.

The U.S. House of Representatives, where Democrats hold the majority, passed the legislation on Dec. 19 after insisting on changes to improve enforcement of new labour rights.

Canada still needs to approve the trade deal before it can take effect and replace the 26-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump has blamed NAFTA for the loss of thousands of U.S. factory jobs to low-wage Mexico.

Canada’s Parliament does not return to session until Jan. 27, so the scheduling of a vote there remains unclear. But USMCA is expected to see little resistance in Canada, as Conservatives have said they would back the deal negotiated earlier by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal-dominated government.

“Today the Senate will send this landmark agreement to the president’s desk. A big bipartisan win,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in Senate floor remarks.

The vote comes a day after Trump signed a Phase One trade deal with China, and shortly before the Senate formally began the impeachment trial of Trump on charges that he abused his power.

— Writing for Reuters by David Lawder; additional reporting by Andrea Shalal.

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U.S. President Donald Trump had imposed the global “Section 232” tariffs of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminum in March 2018 on both Canada and Mexico on national security grounds, invoking a 1962 Cold War-era trade law.

The metals tariffs were a major irritant for Canada and Mexico and had caused them to halt progress toward ratification of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the trilateral trade deal signed last year which will replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

“We were very clear that as long as the 232 tariffs were there it would be very, very hard for us to ratify the new NAFTA, and that is why we did not table the legislation,” Freeland said in an interview broadcast by CBC Radio.

“Now that that big obstacle is lifted, full steam ahead,” she said, without saying when the agreement would be presented to Parliament, which closes down in June ahead of an October federal election.

“I hope all members of the house will support this agreement,” she added.

U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence said Friday he would meet with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa on May 30 to discuss “advancing” ratification.

While several U.S. Democrats applauded removal of the tariffs, some on Friday said USMCA was not yet ready for their support.

“When it comes to the new agreement, House Democrats continue to have a number of substantial concerns related to labour, environment, enforcement, and access to affordable medicines provisions. Those issues still need to be remedied,” said U.S. House ways and means committee chairman Richard Neal on Friday.

Freeland said Canada was in the process of reaching out to U.S. Democrats to allay their concerns.

“We have been meeting with many leading Democrats to talk to them about the new NAFTA,” Freeland said. “We have a good, strong conversation happening.”

Despite the breakthrough on tariffs and the USMCA agreement last year, Freeland said Canada was still worried about U.S. protectionism.

“I am still concerned about U.S. protectionism and I think it would be naive for anyone to think that there is any kind of permanent safety or security. The reality is that this U.S. administration is openly, explicitly, and proudly protectionist,” Freeland said.

— Reporting for Reuters by Steve Scherer.

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