Mr. Chair, I rise for the first time in this great House. I am very honoured to be here and pleased to have the opportunity to speak on behalf of my constituents in the fine riding of Simcoe—Grey.
As we heard last Thursday evening and many times during tonight's take note debate, Canada's beef farmers are in a desperate state, yet the government continues to fumble around for answers and solutions. In fact the government had a decade to prepare Canada for an eventual case of BSE. It had a decade to prepare a plan to deal with a single case of mad cow yet it did nothing and we have all had to suffer the consequences of this inaction.
The government continues to fail our cattle producers to this day and it is certainly not limited to its inability to get our borders fully open to export. Of course in my riding of Simcoe—Grey we have many cattle farmers.
Today I spoke with a friend of mine by the name of Kandy. Kandy is--sorry, Kandy was a seed stock farmer and 75% of her herd were American sales. She has sold off a registered herd that she spent all her life developing. With the border closed, she had no choice.
I also heard from Mr. Doug Patton of Adjala-Tosorontio. Doug farms with his son Jim, who is the fourth generation Patton to be farming in Adjala-Tosorontio. They used to keep around 120 head of cattle. They are trying to sell off the remaining 10. They want to get out of beef completely, but guess what? Nobody wants to buy them. In fact they lost $1,000 a head on the last cattle they sold. Doug has not received any compensation because he did not qualify under the rules of the Liberal plan.
The cattle were grazed on rough land that is no good for crops. Now it is not used at all. Perhaps this will be another family farm sold to a developer. Maybe if this land is developed into a city, the government will pay attention to it.
Doug is not the only farmer that I have heard from. Many have called to tell me that the banks are not lending operating lines of credit to farmers or anyone whose business deals are primarily with farmers. The only way for a farmer to get operating funds is to mortgage his or her land. This is another direct attack on the Canadian farmer.
Mr. Patton has questions, as do many farmers. They want to know why the government directed a majority of compensation money to the processors. The price of beef is up in the stores but processors are still buying from the farmers at 50¢ on the dollar. Farmers want to know what is being done to ensure this does not happen again. What is being done to ensure that the money will be put in the hands of the farmers?
Another farmer I have spoken with is Mr. Doug McCormack of Beeton which is a small town in the southeast part of my riding. It is a great little town, home to a wonderful councillor by the name of Richard Norcross. Doug is a fifth generation farmer. His family has been farming cattle since 1845. He is a farmer who specialized in purebred registered beef cattle and at one time he had a commercial feedlot with 800 steers. That is all gone now. Doug has just sold more than 100 cows at a tremendous loss.
It is time that the government took the time to speak directly with these small farmers. We will hear time and again that it is completely impossible to operate a business in this environment.
In closing, I would like to comment that there is widespread frustration with the new CAIS program. Why did the government close down the NISA program before the CAIS program was fully operational? I attended not one but two information systems on the CAIS program. This was provided to local farmers in my riding. I found the sessions severely lacking in information and severely lacking in advice for the farmers. Many walked away more confused than when they had entered the session, myself included.
Why in such a desperate time did the government reduce the support for farmers? Why at such a desperate time did it decrease the access to support for farmers?