Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this very important issue in Canada. My party and I thank the hon. member for Brandon—Souris for bringing this important issue to the Speaker's attention so that we can rise and debate on this issue.
A lot of people are asking why someone from Nova Scotia would be debating the issue of foot and mouth disease. In the Musquodoboit Valley I have many dairy farmers who are extremely concerned about what would happen to them if this disease ever came into Nova Scotia, and for that matter, the rest of Canada.
We heard a lot of facts and figures about the costs to Canada if the disease came in. It was anywhere from $20 billion to $26 billion. Those figures are just on estimated losses from the producers themselves. Everyone tends to forget what this would do to tourism and other aspects of the economy. In fact the losses would be immeasurable. It would be absolutely scary to see what would happen. We heard that school groups throughout the country have cancelled or plan to cancel trips into England and other parts of Europe. That also figures into economic losses.
I echo the sentiment of many speakers here tonight who said that we as a parliament, we as a country, must do everything we can to prevent foot and mouth disease from coming into Canada.
Members spoke about the stories they have heard or the e-mails, faxes or phone calls they have received from various people who have gone through customs at airports at various points of entry into Canada and the lack of attention to detail that various customs agents have portrayed.
As a former airline employee for 18 years at the Watson Lake airport in Yukon and for 8 years at the Halifax airport, I can assure the House that the customs people there do an excellent job of trying to prevent not only drugs and illegal immigrants from coming in but also those various diseases that should not be coming in either through meats, cheeses or other contraband items. The problem time and time again is that our customs agents just simply do not have the resources in terms of human personnel or finances with which to do it.
We understand tonight that the minister of agriculture is working very diligently in this regard. He has said very positively in the debate tonight that they will do all they can to be extra vigilant at our points of entry throughout the country to try to prevent the disease from coming in.
The minister should be congratulated on his words tonight. We will work with him as a political party, the New Democrats, along with our other colleagues in opposition to ensure that various agencies throughout the country have the human and financial resources to do the job they would actually like to do.
As a former airline employee I would also like to say to the House that tomorrow I will be calling the airlines, Air Canada and others, to see if it is not possible for them to institute a total 100% refund policy for anyone who cancels a trip overseas because of the fear of spreading hoof and mouth disease.
I believe the airlines could do this as a sign of goodwill. It is also good business practice. I do not believe they need an act of parliament to be able to do it. As an airline employee I will be calling my contacts tomorrow to see if indeed airlines like Air Canada can take the lead, become good corporate citizens and do their bit to help eradicate the disease in the country.
I should also like to send kudos to our agricultural critic, the member for Palliser, on his comments tonight on the disease. He and other members come from the prairie provinces. I come from a area with small farming in Musquodoboit Valley. For western producers it would be absolutely scary to see what they would go through. I can only imagine, as was mentioned before, that many of them are not getting very much sleep at night worrying about their livestock and what it would mean in terms of losses.
A few weeks ago we had an emergency debate on the farm crisis in the oil and grain seeds sector and what was happening to our farmers and other producers. We talked about the ramifications of trade deals, their losses of revenue, people leaving the farm by the thousands, and the young people not taking up agriculture. Can anyone imagine now what the livestock industry is thinking about and what it is going through? Again it makes anyone kind of wonder why a young person would ever get into agriculture of any kind.
We encourage young people to take up agriculture because it is a wonderful career and a great livelihood. It is something they can make money at and actually help feed the rest of the nation forevermore.
I also wish to say on behalf of the people of Nova Scotia that we have a tremendous amount of people coming from various points such as Iceland, England, Europe, the United States and other areas into the Halifax airport.
In a private conversation the member for Windsor—St. Clair suggested that many people in Windsor actually go to Detroit to fly overseas. When they come back to Detroit it is just a matter of getting in their cars and coming back again.
My suggestion to the government would be to ensure that it is extremely vigilant on all travellers coming in from the United States. We tend to have a fairly porous border where a lot of people come back and forth. To prevent the disease from coming into Canada, we must be extremely vigilant with all those entrants from the United States. A lot of our exports go to the United States. If hoof and mouth disease came into this country we know that border would be shut down in a heartbeat, which would have a devastating effect upon agricultural producers in beef and cattle.
We as a parliament must do everything we can to ensure that we convince and give confidence to our producers that we will support them in every effort we can to prevent the disease from coming in.
Any person with a heart would have to send their love and prayers to the people of England right now. There are horrific pictures of thousands upon thousands of what look like healthy animals being crated up with backhoes, put in a pit and burned. That is just not what is supposed to happen, but that is the only way they can prevent the disease from spreading.
Those are the types of pictures and newscasts that we do not want to see in this country. We should be doing all we can to assist the people of Britain to ensure the disease does not spread. It is already in other parts of Europe. We should be doing everything we can to ensure it does not spread any further.
Education equals prevention. It has been said before that we must tell our embassies and consulates around the world to be ever vigilant in telling people what they must do when they come to Canada. Every person coming into the country must take responsibility to ensure they do everything they can to prevent the disease from coming in.
Again I wish to thank the member for Brandon—Souris for bringing forward this important debate. I also thank the Speaker for allowing us the time. I know we cannot take any questions or comments, but I want to thank you, Madam Speaker, for being here with us to listen to this important debate. By working together I am sure we can keep this terrible disease out of Canada.