Mr. Speaker, Canada's farm industry is fighting mad over the Liberal government's Pest Management Regulatory Agency, the PMRA. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Prince Edward Island Federation of Agriculture, the Ontario Soybean Growers and the B.C. Horticultural Coalition are just a few to be named. Producers are angry too.
Producers are angry that the PMRA's bloated bureaucracy has ballooned by 100 per cent. Producers are angry that it takes 11 PMRA bureaucrats to register one product in Canada. Producers are angry that the government's own studies show that almost one-third of currently registered pesticides will be withdrawn under the PMRA. Producers are angry that the PMRA proposes to re-register all of the 900 farm pesticides now on the market, and do so every three to five years.
Once again the Liberal government is putting bureaucracy ahead of common sense. What the PMRA should really stand for is "producers made really angry".