Mr. Chair, the topic that we are dealing with tonight is an extremely emotional subject and for that reason from time to time partisan comments are made. I know from our side the reason is because we know our cattle industry is facing an extremely serious problem.
The government talks about what it has done, the programs it has announced, and the promises it has made. What we are interested in are the results of what the government has done. What has the government done to date that has actually made things better for our cow calf farmers right across the country, the dairy industry, the elk industry, the bison industry, and all the industries that have been hurt by what has happened here?
Before 2003 the beef industry was as close to a free market industry as could be found. The cattlemen did not depend on government for much. They developed the markets, produced their livestock and marketed it pretty much on their own. Things were good in the industry for the last 20 years. Most of the time it was a good industry.
Before I get too far along here, I want to say that I will be splitting my time with the member for Wetaskiwin.
Then we had one case of BSE found in our herds. What happened? The result was the closing of the border. Was that right? That was wrong. The Americans were absolutely wrong in what they did to our industry. There is no doubt about that. American protectionism hurts us and it hurts us unfairly. It hurts our cattle industry unfairly. What the Americans did was wrong and let there be no doubt about that.
The problem of course was exacerbated by comments made by members of the government when it came to dealing with our closest trading partner, the United States. Comments they made hurt the relationship and tarnished the relationship so badly that when it came time for us to be negotiating with the Americans on this issue, they simply were not ready to listen.
I do blame the government for that. That has made this a very difficult issue to deal with. That has to change because those comments continue. As long as they do, we are not going to get results.
The parliamentary secretary today said that the Liberal government has worked hard on opening the U.S. border. What have the results been? In the past several months nothing has happened. Working hard does not solve the problem. It simply does not. There have to be results.
The parliamentary secretary talked about all the money the government has promised to the cattle industry through various programs. The fact is that money has not found its way to cattlemen, the primary producers. Much of it, in the first ill thought out program, went to the packers instead of going to cattlemen. That simply did not solve the problem.
We have heard a lot of promises for a lot of money since then. How much of it has actually gone to help our cattlemen? I would suggest that it is very little to date. The results are quite different from what the government says it is doing and that is very unfortunate.
The set aside program in the early stages is the one thing that really seems to have some good potential. We will see how long it works. We will see if the government is ready to adjust that program should adjustment be necessary along the way because that is going to be very important if this program starts to fail a little bit as we move along.
There are two issues which were dealt with, one quite a bit and one very little. The first is interprovincial trade in livestock. I have heard very little about this. In fact, the government has done almost nothing on interprovincial trade since it passed the agreement on internal trade back in 1996. As a result, we can have meat inspected in each province by capable inspectors and that meat cannot be moved across the border. That is killing our small plants that have a great opportunity to expand. They would expand if the government could find a way to move that meat across the border.
The second of course is more important than any other issue and it deals with increasing the capacity in packers and in processors. The government has simply not dealt effectively with this issue. The government's promise of $68 million is roughly $38 million.
Let us look at results again. How many packing plants are going to go on stream as a result of this program? There have been none to date and I would suggest that there will be none in the near future. That program must be modified.
I would welcome comments from members opposite and members of the government in their questions and comments. I would like to hear what they are going to do to make that program work, the program that will assist our producers in establishing new packing plants and new processing plants in our country.