Madam Chair, I am happy to have the opportunity to discuss the ongoing crisis facing the livestock industry in Canada. It is important to have an open, frank and factual debate on the current situation and to continue to discuss ways to help the industry.
Canadian farmers in all sectors are feeling the negative impact of BSE at this time. As the government and as the member of Parliament representing the riding of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, in which agriculture is a primary industry, it is our duty to take any and all possible steps to make sure this sector regains its position as a world leader in beef production. This government is here for our farmers and we will continue to act in the best interests of the industry.
The beef and livestock industries have changed drastically as a result of the BSE crisis, in both Canada and the United States. The once highly integrated single market with an invisible border has become a stone wall. Since beef products from both countries have been shut out of international markets, we need to work together to convince the international community that North American beef is safe.
North America is a highly integrated beef industry and has functioned as a single market with an invisible border. In the last five years, two-way trade totalled $13.6 billion for 7.3 million animals. Canada exports about half our total production to the United States and 97% of all live cattle imported to the United States come from Canada and Mexico.
Slowly, U.S. cattle producers and government officials are starting to realize that if they want countries such as Japan to open their borders to U.S. beef they first have to allow Canadian beef into their country. They cannot expect another country to open its borders when they themselves are keeping borders closed to Canadian livestock for the same reason.
We are still awaiting the United States department of agriculture's decision to clear the way for the U.S. border to reopen. In August, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association in the U.S. passed a resolution urging American officials to work toward the normalization of beef trade in recognition that it is unlikely that a major importing nation will reopen borders to the United States until trade issues between Canada and the United States are resolved and their election is held.
The number one priority for all levels of government, industry and producers in Canada continues to be that of convincing the international community to completely reopen borders to Canadian beef and livestock. It has been extremely disappointing that the international community, including our neighbour to the south, is basing its continued border closure on politics and trade protectionism rather than proven science.
As members know, on July 18, 2003, new measures were introduced by Canada which required that specific risk materials be removed from cattle at slaughter. The effective date for these regulations was August 23, 2004. However, in federally registered establishments, a CFIA directive required SRM removal as of July 24, 2003. Since the infected cow found in Washington State, the United States has now taken similar action.
In order to help convince the international community that our beef is safe we are implementing additional measures to ensure that another BSE case is not discovered in Canada. On July 9, 2004, the Government of Canada announced the introduction of new animal feed restrictions to further strengthen Canada's safeguard against BSE. This measure will add an additional level of security to Canada's current feed ban, which has prohibited feeding cattle with ruminant materials, including SRMs, since 1997.
The government has been consulting extensively on a series of regulatory and policy enhancement options with the provinces, stakeholders and key trading partners since the case of BSE was reported in May 2003.
On September 28, 2004, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency released a detailed information paper outlining an array of potential regulatory enhancements the agency is considering. Interested groups have been invited to comment as quickly as possible. At the same time, the CFIA has been drafting a set of regulatory amendments to Canada's existing feed restrictions. It is anticipated that a proposed set of regulations will be published by the government in the fall of 2004 and implemented by the spring of 2005.
One of the possibilities being considered would see the elimination of SRMs from all feed. This would ensure that there is no cross-contamination between ruminant and non-ruminant feed. The removal of SRMs from all feed could be an expensive endeavour, but if it leads to reopening of international borders it would be worthwhile.
We do need to ensure that the potential economic impact of imposing this new regulation is not placed solely on the shoulders of livestock producers, who are already confronted with economic hardships. Far too often it is the primary producers who are most negatively impacted. For instance, the government program was designed to assist livestock producers but instead appeared to result in meat packers taking advantage of the situation and benefiting from the same.
To this day, I still do not know why my hon. colleagues from the official opposition refused to support the report of Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food to allow two meat packers that refused to provide the committee with their financial information to a forensic auditor to be fined $250,000 per day. I should note that the committee took the necessary steps to assure that all meat packers would have their privacy protected, and I certainly agree with that.
Without the financial information from the meat packers, we will never know how much they benefited from the federal government program. As a member of the agriculture committee under the 38th Parliament's first session, I will work to ensure that this issue is reviewed once again as well as ensure that federal programs are addressing the financial problems our primary producers are facing.
It is unknown when the international borders will completely reopen to Canadian livestock. Therefore, we need to find out why prices at the retail levels have not lowered despite the fact that cattle prices have been reduced drastically. We need to ensure that a fair share of the money that consumers are paying for the beef is getting back to the primary producers.
I would like to point out that without the continued support of the beef industry by Canadian consumers, the situation facing our primary producers would be considerably worse. Not too many countries could find a case of BSE and still have their beef consumption increase as much as 60% to 70%.
Far too often, primary producers do not receive their fair share of money for their finished product. This has to stop. Producers cannot afford to farm much longer if this continues. We need to ensure that any assistance provided by the government is getting into the hands of the primary producers, because they are the individuals most affected by this crisis.
If there is anything to be learned from the BSE crisis, it is that we need to expand our processing facilities in Canada and become less reliant on the United States. This is not to say that we completely shut our borders to the United States. Rather, we need to work to balance the amount of livestock we produce with the amount of processing facilities we have in Canada.
The U.S. livestock producers have suffered since the international borders have closed to their product, but certainly not to the extent our Canadian producers have. We produce approximately 60% to 70% more beef than we can consume, while the U.S. consumes all it produces. BSE is therefore not hurting them as much as it is us. If we had more processing facilities we would be able to continue to export the boxed beef products instead of having a backlog of close to a million excess cull cattle.
That is why the federal government recently announced a strategy to help the livestock industry reposition itself to ensure its long term viability. The plan is geared toward enabling sustainability of the industry through the following measures: by creating a loan loss reserve to facilitate the increase in domestic slaughter capacity for ruminants; by providing cash advances on CAIS for certain breeding animals and other ruminants until domestic capacity targets are reached; by introducing set-aside programs for feed and feeder animals to manage Canada's current oversupply of cattle; and by establishing additional technical experts to focus on strengthening relationships with regulatory agencies in export markets.
As export markets expand, the increased ruminant slaughter capacity in Canada will provide greater value added opportunities for the industry and will reduce its reliance on live animal exports.
CFIA is committed to streamlining the process for establishment reviews and the approvals of new plants under the Meat Inspection Act. As well, governments will examine existing regulatory processes to identify opportunities for streamlining in order to allow expansion or construction of facilities to begin sooner.
Despite the international standards set by the OIE, Canada was able to regain access to the United States, Mexico and Russia in just over 100 days as opposed to the recommended seven years. No other country--and I emphasize that--hit by mad cow disease has been able to reopen its borders so quickly.
This proves that the international community has confidence in the surveillance and testing we have in place and that the efforts by the federal and provincial governments, along with those of industry, have been more successful than those of most countries. We need to also revisit our international standards to ensure rules meet today's technical information.
To date, the federal government has committed $1.9 billion in assistance to the industry. We will continue to work with the industry and producers to find solutions to address their situation and ensure the viability of the beef and livestock industries.
I would like to say to the farmers and to all Canadians listening to this debate tonight that we will continue to do everything in our power to convince the United States and other countries to open their borders to our proven safe Canadian beef and livestock.
