Mr. Speaker, I support my colleague from Lakeland in his request for information on the studies of strychnine that led to the ban of the 2% and the 5% varieties of strychnine poison used against the Richardson's ground squirrel or gopher.
I spent the weekend in Ottawa and in my area of the city I noticed a tremendous number of squirrels. The little fellows were gathering nuts and burying them. I did not get that close to them, but I want to compare them to Richardson's ground squirrels or gophers.
Tulips were planted this weekend on Parliament Hill. If each one of those little Richardson's ground squirrels ate a tulip it would be a problem in the city of Ottawa. If we look at one pasture in Saskatchewan or Alberta gopher holes are as close as the tulips that were being planted. Members should imagine the kind of devastation that is created for a farmer, rancher or whoever owns a property where gopher holes are as close to each other as those tulips.
The hon. member talked about badgers. Badgers move in and create huge holes that cause extra problems because wildlife falls in them. There are fawns, antelope, horses and cattle with broken legs. This creates economic problems for the farmer or rancher.
My colleague from Lakeland is only asking for information from the government proving that studies were done before strychnine was removed. All that we have received are seven letters. The government removed a product from the market, which is causing great hardship to Alberta and Saskatchewan farmers.
The Government of Canada and the provinces compensate agriculturalists if they have waterfall damage or if deer and elk cause problems on their farms.
Concerns have been raised regarding the impact on other wildlife and the use of strychnine. A fox, wolf or coyote would have to consume 40 to 50 gophers or poisoned animals at one time to be affected. There are also concerns for birds picking at the gophers. They would have to consume approximately 5 to 15 animals. Any of the birds at home could not consume one gopher let alone 5 to 15 of them to be affected. I have concerns about that.
We want the studies and the information. The hon. member for Lakeland wants to know what kind of studies were carried out by the government.
The Richardson's ground squirrel has become an epidemic on the prairies. The gopher or the Richardson's ground squirrel is very well known. The mascots of the Saskatchewan Roughriders are gophers. Gainer and Leonard are the most popular thing on the field in Saskatchewan right now because our football team is having a hard time, but we love the gophers. Gainer and Leonard can be pests at football games because they tend to sneak up behind people and scare them, and they make a lot of noise when we score a touchdown. However the real pests are a great concern to Saskatchewan farmers.
The hon. parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Health said that there are products on the market to control these pests. There are no products at all on the market to control the Richardson's ground squirrel, therefore we are asking for help. There is no proof that non-targeted animals have died because of the use of strychnine. The information from the hon. member for Lakeland showed that the animals that lost their lives were targeted by criminal activity. If there is scientific, absolute proof, we would like the government to release those findings.
We looked at the economic problems that a gopher can cause. We said that 123 gophers, and this has been studied, can consume up to a tonne of feed, which translates into damages of $15,000 to $16,000 per quarter of land. Total losses to farmers are reaching into tens of millions of dollars in Alberta and Saskatchewan. It is a huge problem.
In studies that were done by the Alberta Cattle Commission, and this was another thing that the hon. secretary brought up, in regard to the use of strychnine, the commission used test markets and the values that they were supposed to use. There were eight tests. In one test, it was as low as 11% effective. That is what they were doing in Alberta. For the highest number ranchers had to do three applications of the strychnine mixture and the result was 75%.
Imagine planting those tulip bulbs on a quarter section of land or 160 acres or tens of thousands of acres like a lot of our ranchers have and going into a field with a little bucket of strychnine and oats and dropping it down a gopher hole over and over. I should have counted how many people were planting tulips out in front of the building this weekend. Imagine one farmer or his family out covering let us say 10,000 acres with a bucket of oats. It just does not work. We are not getting effective and real progress from the government in getting help for western Canadian agriculturalists.
We are asking for information, and that is what the hon. member for Lakeland is asking for.
Farmers in Unity, Saskatchewan, have created a gophinator which will look after the gopher problem. It uses anhydrous ammonia, which farmers apply right across Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan every spring. It is a fertilizer.
If I went out with my cultivator in the spring and cultivated my pastures with an anhydrous tank behind my cultivator I could get rid of the gophers, but who wants to cultivate pastures? One just does not do that. It is not natural. If the gophinator could be patented and used properly, that would be done.
I am just asking for the people in the House to approve the hon. member for Lakeland's application for information. That is all we are asking for. On behalf of farmers and ranchers in Alberta and Saskatchewan, I ask that the House do that.