Madam Speaker, I rise today knowing full well that the private members' business item was brought forward before the events of last Tuesday. I echo the comments of the member for Lakeland that this does unfortunately seem somewhat insignificant in the big picture of things. However business must go on in the House, it does go on in the world and it goes on in the fields and the farms of western Canada. Therefore I will not be as sanctimonious as some members who suggested that it should have been pulled, because it should not have. It should be brought forward because it was a piece of business that was meant to come forward at that time and I will speak to the issue before us today, Motion No. M-13.
I talked to the member for Lakeland because the motion itself is not specifically to increase the concentration of liquid strychnine from a .4% concentration to a 2% or a 5% concentration. The motion suggests that there should be compensation given to producers who have suffered through a rather large proliferation of the rodent, the Richardson ground squirrel, particularly over the last year. The motion says that because of damage done to livestock and crops, farmers should be compensated. That has not been the tenet of this discussion. It seems that we are going on about the concentration or the use of concentrated liquid strychnine and I will speak to that.
First, I should suggest that I would not support the motion based on a compensatory package. I do not think that is where we should be heading. I do appreciate where the discussion has gone with having other alternatives and certainly perhaps even the reinstatement of the 2% solution so to speak.
Canadian producers and Canadian farmers are not pesticide crazy. They do not simply use pesticides on every animal that is in their jurisdiction. That is not the case.
As a matter of fact, Canadian producers are very cautious when it comes to pest control and certainly using pesticides. We are probably as good as any other jurisdiction in the world. When Canadian producers come forward and suggest that there have to be other solutions, they are doing so simply because they have run completely out of solutions and options and would like to see something put back into place.
It was mentioned earlier that since 1992 the 2% solution has been reduced to .4%. It has been proven and obviously the proof is in the pudding. If we went out to western Canadian farm yards, pastures and fields, we would see that the pest control program is not working. It has been a very dry year in western Canada and across the country and be assured that there are more pests right now than there have ever been. That is why we have to look at some sort of a control.
There are some options, but they are difficult ones. It is obvious to anyone who has ever trapped a gopher that he or she can get a few of them but it is very difficult to get a lot. We talked about gopher hunting. That in itself does not eradicate the problem, so we have to look at other options.
The best option right now is the suggestion that we go back to a special regulation for the PMRA. There was a special call for the use of the 2% solution and it was granted for this year. An extension of that would be the first step as to where we should be going.
I do not think most urban Canadians fully appreciate the concerns that producers have. It was mentioned earlier that gophers can consume quite a substantial amount of product. To a farmer and a producer, that is their livelihood. They put seeds in the ground and they harvest those seeds in the fall. The cash they generate out of the sale of that commodity is what keeps them and their families going. That is an animal that can reduce those yields.
It has been suggested that up to $1,000 per quarter section of crop could be consumed. A thousand dollars per quarter section seems to be the number. It has been suggested to me by the author of the motion that it is higher. It may well be. Unfortunately, I do not have those numbers. They have not been forthcoming. It would nice to have the actual numbers.
That is why when it was suggested that there be a compensation package, I would suggest that it is hard to compensate when you do not have a real handle on what the real number is. It can vary between jurisdictions.
Let us assume it is $1,000, perhaps higher, per quarter section. That is only the financial impact. There is a financial impact as well on cattle producers. I do not know how many people in the House have actually walked through a pasture before but I can say that when cattle do walk or run through a pasture there is a terrible opportunity for them to trip, to fall or to break a leg in a gopher hole. It happens on a regular basis. With the price of cattle today, that poses a substantial financial impact on the producer.
This is going to come as a real shock. Even in the urban sectors there is an impact when there are too many of these rodents in the schoolyards, the soccer fields, and the baseball diamonds. They have to be controlled in these environments as well. This affects the urbanites, who, heaven forbid, seem to be more important at this point in time than a lot of the agricultural producers.
There are other options. There are some interesting innovations out there. I am not going to blame the government specifically, but I do think it is terribly regulatory in its demeanour. The government likes to regulate. Heaven forbid that someone should have the opportunity to put something in place themselves without having to be told to by the government. The government has decided that this should not be done for producers and unless it can tell the producers what to do, then it is obviously not good for them. That is a government ideological philosophy which unfortunately I do not think is going to change. I wish it would in this case, but unfortunately that is the way the government operates.
Other options are being developed. One which I mention tongue in cheek is a thing called the gophinator. It puts anhydrous ammonia in the gopher hole in the ground. It has not been approved yet. I do know whether some of my producers have used it, but they have some concerns about it as well. I do not know if the member for Lakeland has heard about it, but it is a rather interesting innovation. Producers and businesses should be looking at other ways when trying to control the gopher population.
I wish this were a votable motion and that we could go back to a simple solution with a 2% concentration. It seems that solution would suffice for the time being but that is not going to be the case because the government is not going to allow the motion to be votable.
I hope that we do not get involved in a compensation package and it seems that we have gone off of that. I believe that the motion as it reads now will not be supported by my party. Certainly I think we could, if it were changed to incorporate the concentrated strychnine.
In closing, I would just like to say that it seems to be an insignificant issue.
As I said in my opening comments, this is the first time I have had an opportunity to stand in the House since we returned, and since the events of Tuesday past. On behalf of my constituents in Brandon--Souris, I would like to pass on our condolences to the victims, the families, the firefighters, the rescue workers, and all of the people not only in the United States but in the free world who have been affected so severely by the events of last Tuesday. Please accept those comments from the Progressive Conservative/Democratic Representative Coalition.