Mr. Chair, in eastern Ontario our beef producers are mainly cow-calf operators, that is, we either stock other herds with calves or we sell our cull cattle, the animals that no longer breed.
Since this single case of BSE was discovered, the trade crisis in the meat industry has caused the downward spiral in prices to the farmer. I emphasize that this is a trade crisis; there is no epidemic of BSE going on here. For example, last year at this time, stocker calves were going for $1 to $1.15 a pound. Now they are down to 75¢ a pound. That is 25¢, so one might say big deal, but if we multiply that by 500 pounds in the animal and then even to just 10 animals in the herd, that particular farmer is out of pocket by $12,500. So not only is the family farm not making a living; it is costing them money to stay in business.
Where the insult to injury comes from is the fact that consumers are still paying top dollar for their meat. Most consumers are oblivious to the fact that the people who raise the food they are eating off their plates tonight are being forced into bankruptcy because the money that consumers are paying for their food is going to those who are using the Liberals' flawed system, and they are getting very rich off that.
The farmers are losing money by keeping their animals alive. They have to feed them and house them, but by selling them for less than they bought them for they lose a whole lot more money all at once. Yet the price in the grocery stores, aside from the weekly specials, remains the same.
Somewhere between the auction barn and the grocery shelf, someone is pocketing a huge chunk of change. These people, the companies and the shareholders, are profiteering off the hard work of those who make enormous sacrifices to ensure that we have safe, wholesome food to eat.
Canada is constantly on the international stage, championing the cause of third world farmers, but why is this government allowing our own people to be exploited? Once we take the time to see who is making the big money off the family farm--because it certainly is not the farmers--then maybe we can compare this list of profiteers to the list of Liberal campaign contributors and see whether or not there is any overlap there. Maybe it is payback time for the people who helped this government get into power.
There have been announcements about hundreds of millions of dollars going into farm aid, but that is all they are: they are just announcements. The money never got to the people who needed it. For some people, some family farmers, even if the money ever came through, now it is too late.
Right now we are seeing the trickle down effect in job losses from the sectors that service the agricultural industry. Just today, farmers in my riding received a letter from a local equipment salesman announcing that the company was closing the Pembroke branch of its supply store. And in a county where jobs are hard to come by, we notice every job that is lost. This is expanding far past the farm.
Even dairy producers, who have the benefit of supply management, are defaulting on their payments. The meat producers who have off farm jobs can only handle putting their off farm income into their losing proposition with cattle farming for so long. For those who depend entirely upon livestock for their income, the situation is desperate, and desperate people do desperate things. These hundreds of millions of dollars going into food safety would be going to waste if uninspected meat gets into our food chain.
In Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, we have several committees going. The warden, Bob Sweet, is leading the “Save Our Beef” committee; its members have dubbed themselves the SOBs. They are pressing for every animal to be tested. Right now we do not have the infrastructure to do that. If we did do it, our U.S. counterpart would freeze us out of the market because we would be too far ahead and they would never catch up. They do not even have the animal identification in place.