Debates of Nov. 29th, 2001

Dick Harris Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC

Mr. Speaker, we have two hours that the government appears to want to just write off because it does not have more business, but there are some very pressing and even critical issues in this country. One, in particular, is the very disastrous pine beetle epidemic in British Columbia that is devastating our forests.

I would like to suggest that we call an emergency debate on the pine beetle disaster that is devastating our forests and putting tens of thousands of forestry workers out of work.

I would like to seek unanimous consent--

Howard Hilstrom Selkirk—Interlake, MB

Mr. Speaker, we are here tonight debating Motion No. P-3 in regard to the production of papers requested by the hon. member for Lakeland. He had requested that the Minister of Health produce papers with regard to the use of 2% and 5% solutions of strychnine and the studies on their effect on the income of Canadian farmers.

The reply came back from the minister that no studies were done on the economic impact on Canadian farmers of the withdrawal of the registration of the concentrated strychnine solutions used by farmers to mix their own 4% end use product. We heard the parliamentary secretary talk about how the government was studying the issue and doing research projects.

However the problem remains massive. All the studies in the world at the rate they are being done will not solve the issue for prairie farmers and ranchers.

The member for Lakeland is doing an excellent job in bringing the issues of predator and pest control before the House for debate. Pests and predators are those animals and plants that hinder the production of the very food supply we eat such as grains and meat supplies.

Gophers are pests that cause a lot of damage to fields by making mounds where they dig holes and eat plants. That is what we are debating. The issue is something I grew up with.

My granddad came to Saskatchewan in 1902 from Iowa, Eric Hilstrom and his wife Elsie started the family ranch and homesteaded before Saskatchewan was even a province. There were some gophers around at that time but not to the extent we see now. Agriculture practices facilitated the vast expansion of the gopher population throughout the prairies.

My brother Donald and his wife Gail still operate the family ranch. My other brother Mervin and his wife Isla have a grain operation. I am there every summer. I see the problems they still have with gophers and the issue of the federal government not making products available to the farmers who could control the gopher problem.

As a child growing up, besides hunting gophers which every prairie farmer's son did from time to time, maybe once a summer for a couple of days, we would help a farmer whose field was massively destroyed by gophers. He would put the strychnine product out and kill the gophers off in a couple of days. Then there would be no more strychnine around and as a result there were very limited auxiliary deaths of other animals and birds.

The product was used because it was effective. The member for Lakeland is trying to keep agriculture viable and not have a farmer's bottom line ruined by a pest that should be controlled. No one is asking that gophers be wiped out. Certainly the mascot for the Regina Roughriders should never be touched in this regard.

The issue of the PMRA was raised by the parliamentary secretary. What a mess. The Pest Management Regulatory Agency under the health minister is horrible. It does not have the ability to make decisions. For example, veterinarians bring forward new products to be used for cats and dogs such as antibiotics and other things that need to be passed through the health minister to get approval and be registered. I met with them just this week. They told me that it takes four years from the time they notify the health department for it to say it will look at the product.

Once it starts to do research on it, it takes another four years for it to finish up. It said that our regulatory system of licensing new products is in such a shambles that it is impossible to get a decision out of it. In Manitoba we have a related problem to the PMRA and that is the use of cyanide as a predator control.

We have a massive problem in southern Manitoba with wolves attacking and killing our cattle and ranch animals. For example, Stephen Cook is a rancher from the Steep Rock area who had 85 heifers in a half section pasture. The wolves came in one night in the fall after the lake had frozen over and harassed and killed some animals right on the spot. These were 700 pound to 800 pound heifers. The wolves then drove about 80 on to the ice on the lake. When they got them about four or five miles from shore, the ice was so thin the animals broke through and 25 to 30 of them drowned. After that the rancher had to round up the rest of the animals. Predator control is a massive problem.

I referred to the Cook ranch and the Reykdal ranch along Lake Manitoba. All that is needed is reintroduction of the use of a cyanide gun for predator control. The Manitoba Cattle Producers Association identified as one of its resolutions that it would lobby both provincial and federal governments to have that brought back. Conservation officers do not want to go against their employers, but they say that is the only predator control which works. It is much like the strychnine and gopher issue that the member for Lakeland has brought forth.

I wrote a letter to Oscar Lathlin, the minister responsible for conservation in the province of Manitoba, asking him why we could not have cyanide for the use of controlling wolf populations. Again, it is only used when a problem arises such as the killing of livestock at a given time. The killing may only happen for a week. If we can control it right away and kill off one or two of the wolves, it would be finished. However if we do not take some action and eliminate a couple of wolves out of the killer pack, we end up having them kill for maybe a month or two before they finally move on through their own natural volition.

The minister in Manitoba wrote back to me on July 20, 2000, and said that the existing permit was apparently cancelled because documents forwarded to the federal government were misplaced.

I come back to talking about a health minister who made a series of mistakes and mix-ups, which I guess I should not go into right now, which cost Canadians a massive amount of money. This includes ramming the old gun bill down on us in the west, in the east and in central Canada, which we all resent.

Oscar Lathlin said the federal government misplaced these documents. He alleged that a renewal of the permit was being considered as part of the department's review of all predator control initiatives currently under way. He added that the review would provide recommendations for future programs.

The problem is that the NDP minister and the Liberal government are still wondering what to do while ranchers, farmers, conservation and police officers, and people of average common sense are telling them to bring back the use of cyanide for predator control. It would not be used by individual farmers but by professional conservation officers who are used to dealing with predator control problems.

I have identified the problems. Inevitably, like many other situations in the country, the problem rests right over on that side of the House. It especially rests with the health minister. I will not go into his whole sorry history as a member of the House, but in my opinion we need a new health minister to get on with the corrections that are required in the pest management review agency.

Kevin Sorenson Crowfoot, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is again an honour to stand in the House and debate issues that are of concern to the people of Crowfoot, to western Canada and I am sure to all Canada.

The picture is a serene one. The picture is one of a lake, the sun setting and the call of the loon whistling out over the twilight and through the calm of the day at the close of sunset. It is the song of peace and happiness as well as of western Canada and Alberta.

The song of the loon is not the song that has the people of Crowfoot worried. The song that has the people of Crowfoot worried is the little squeak of a gopher or Richardson's ground squirrel. It is a beautiful little tune, is it not? For some that little tune is not one of beauty but of horror with increased frequency. In fact not only is it sung by the gophers, but by hundreds of farmers who sit in their trucks trying to whistle a gopher up a hole so they can rid the world of one of the worst pests the agricultural sector of western Canada has.

For me to stand in the House and try to create a picture of the threat of the Richardson's ground squirrel or the gopher on farming communities would not bring justice to it. I would not do a good job.

This past year was my first year as a member of parliament. I live and work as a farmer and have cattle on my little ranch. I have spent a lot of my time in Ottawa and throughout my constituency. I have not obviously spent the time on my farm that I would have liked. One of the very first things I realized when I went home in the spring was that we had a huge gopher problem. This is not something new. It has been around for a long time. We know the damage the Richardson's ground squirrel or the gopher can do on an agricultural operation.

In the fall or spring when we walk out on our farms and see the huge patches of crop or pasture that have been eaten down and destroyed, we realize that we have a problem. This is not a problem of little animals. It is a problem of economy. This a problem of the bottom line, margins and trying to make it. When we see literally hundreds and hundreds of gophers in a very small pasture, we recognize we have a problem.

Why do I say hundreds and hundreds? When a person buys a box of 22 gauge shells there are 50 in a box. When that person puts four or five boxes in the ashtray of his or her pick-up truck, continuously loads the rifle and runs out of shells after having shot 100 gophers, that person realizes there are probably three or four times that many that are never seen. It is a huge problem.

I thank the member for Lakeland for being so adamant in bringing this bill to the House. I went around my constituency calling on many municipal governments. As a new member, I wondered what the concerns would be of municipal governments or counties like Provost or Flagstaff or many of the special areas in my riding. It was not going to be housing so much. A lot of it was the family farm and agricultural concerns. When I visited those municipal counties, offices and governments, by far the largest issue brought forward was the problem with gophers and the fact that the strychnine poison, or gopher poison as we call it, had been taken off the market.

There was a recess in the debate on the bill. The government eventually came forward with strychnine last year but it was a little too late. Although there was some definite advantage to having it, the farming community needed the strychnine poison at the right time, which was when gophers were breeding and the young were being raised. This was the concern that my constituents and councillors in many different counties brought forward.

We stand in the House many times and we talk about bills. We bring forward evidence that we use to build a debate. We use evidence to bring forward our arguments.

When we go to Motion No. P-3 and the decision of the government to remove the 5% strychnine from shelves across western Canada, we look for evidence. We ask the government, why would it remove poison that the farmers and those involved in agriculture depend on? We would say, show us the science.

The member for Lakeland has continually brought this problem to the House. I asked him to please show me the science and the reason that the government gives for pulling the use of strychnine. The concern the hon. member brought forward was that there just is no evidence. Science has not proven that there is any huge risk to the environment, but the government pulled it regardless. This huge decision was made but no evidence was brought forward.

We look at issues. We look at bills. We look at legislation that hurts. There are many different pieces of legislation the government has brought forward. I will go back to Bill C-68. I do not believe there has ever been a bill that has divided urban and rural like Bill C-68 has. It has hurt the farmer, the rancher in central Alberta and all across Canada. It has hurt them. Bill C-68 has given the farmers and ranchers the feeling that the government believes they are the criminals in waiting, so to speak.

The government said Bill C-68 was going to cost $85 million. It has ended up costing $685 million. My constituents ask why does the government not care? Why does the government not care about what is happening out west?

Now there is Bill C-15B regarding cruelty to animals. Bill C-15B will put at risk my constituents, the farmers, the ranchers, the individuals who raise cattle and hogs and the individuals who make a livelihood from that. Different individuals have come forward as witnesses and said that the bill will allow prosecutions to come against the agricultural sector. It is another knock, another hit, another concern that our farmers have.

I applaud the government for listening. I believe it will make amendments because I cannot believe for one moment that the government would allow the bill to pass as it is. Even the Liberal government must understand that it is absolutely saying goodbye to the west and a lot of the industries: the cattle industry, the chicken and poultry industry. It is causing much concern there. I believe the government will make amendments that will to some degree satisfy my party. I hope the government will accept our amendments.

There is no reason that the government should not be able to say that we will bring back the strychnine poisoning that would help the farmers and ranchers in dealing with one of the big threats to their crops and their economy. It would be a gesture of goodwill and good faith. I hope the government will move in that way.

I remember one day in my previous life my brother and I had to treat a sick calf. We did not think the calf could react quickly and we had to employ the rope horses that we have on the farm. Both of us went out through the pasture and began to look for the calf which had taken off into the trees. All of a sudden in a flash out came the calf. My brother spun his rope horse around and took off after the calf. He brought the rope out and all of a sudden down went the horse. Luckily I was there. My brother was not hurt, but the horse was hurt. The horse did not break a leg, but the horse was hurt. Why was the horse hurt? Because he had stepped in a badger hole.

As we watch the gopher population rise, the unfortunate thing in the part of the world where I come from is that the badger moves in and digs holes that cannot be seen by cattle and horses which step in them. For the Liberals sitting across the way, in the space from in front of the Clerk's table to that desk in the aisle for example, there could be 30 or 40 gopher holes. We are not talking about a small number.

This is a concern for the people of Crowfoot. I am out of time, so I thank the member for Lakeland for the opportunity to speak to this issue. I ask the government to please bring back the strychnine so that we can rid our farms and ranches of a huge problem.