Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for St. John's West.
The throne speech; been there, done that. That is what it was. Canadians want to move on. We were told that the throne speech marks the start of a new government, a new agenda, a new way of working. This is still the Liberal Party and this throne speech could have been copied from any other similar speeches over the last 10 years.
Just to tell members how the throne speech played at home, this letter to the editor on the throne speech, written by Christopher Twa of Saskatoon, was in our local StarPhoenix . It states:
Citizens have obligation to demand accountability
Like many others, I was always comfortable in forecasting political events from a barstool or from the moderate recline of my favourite armchair.
However, I had never seen a throne speech before Monday. It always seemed a great non-event; brave assertions written exclusively to be discarded later.
I watched the usher hammer on the door, MPs exchange handshakes and sly winks in a bizarre courtship and three-quarters of the Governor General's speech before I turned the TV off because of boredom.
Later that evening, as I watched Americans beg for accountability, I felt the first twinge of guilt. While many in Canada are content to dub the U.S. an oppressive regime, we do little to hold our own government answerable for its actions.
Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson had spoken of the need to make politics more engaging just before I turned the TV off. She is right. Perhaps it is us rather than the politicians who need to become proactive.
If we remain mute or only vaguely grumble on every issue, should we not expect our voted representatives to stumble blindly? Accountability only works if we show concern. We are as responsible as the politicians for our nation's well-being.
That is what I would like to talk about today.
We have the same Liberal government with the same members in a new seating arrangement who have tried to rule Canada for the past 10 years. Let us not pretend that this is a new government with a new agenda.
As a proud westerner I am very concerned that even though the new Prime Minister has promised to work toward less western alienation, this Speech from the Throne has left us out in the cold once again.
It continues the Liberal legacy of disregard for a major and essential part of Canada, our bread basket. Farmers are wondering why they have once again been ignored. Little in this speech gives reassurance or concrete assistance to our ailing farms, our hardworking farmers and producers across Canada.
In the vagueness of the speech, the government is supposedly dedicated to Canada's farm economy, but there was absolutely nothing that tells us how or that gives the farmers the hope that they were searching for.
Our agriculture and food sector is the third largest employer of Canadians and one of the country's top five industries. It accounts for more than 8% of the Canadian gross domestic product. Recognition of this importance is nowhere to be seen in the throne Speech.
In the last few years our farmers have been crushed by extraneous circumstances, such as mad cow, drought and floods.
In revealing his vision in the throne speech, the Prime Minister showed his complete lack of understanding of the BSE crisis and his lack of compassion for our farmers, specifically our beef farmers.
Canadians are suffering from coast to coast in every region and province. It has been absolutely devastating. Last night we had speakers on the BSE debate. We had speakers from Vancouver, from Peace River, from Quebec and from Ontario. Every province and every region has been affected.
When I go to my home city stories like this are in the newspaper. The lack of news coverage does not mean the BSE crisis is over. Yesterday's paper reads:
Saskatchewan's feedlot industry is in a rapid decline as producers face the biggest disaster of the nine-month mad cow ordeal, some in the cattle business warned Tuesday.
“I think that we're in the 11th hour of a catastrophe, there's no question”....
“The market deteriorates every day and there's no light at the end of the tunnel to speak of”....
“The feedlot industry is in huge trouble. They're getting to the point where they have no margins left for operating lines and they can't buy cattle.”
The head of the Alberta Cattle Feeders Association warned Monday that Canada's feeder industry could collapse in as little as six weeks if nothing changes for the better.
--the problem is “monumental.”
“Most of us don't have the ability to speculate anymore--we've lost enough equity that either ourselves, our own management ability, or our bankers are telling us no more speculation.
“We've lost all our equity, our collateral.”
They say that the desperation among ranchers is very clear. “They're just grasping at the last straw, trying to buy some time and hope beyond hope this border issue gets resolved.”
The headlines “BSE costs total $3 billion in Canada”, was ignored in Monday's throne speech.
The situation has reached emergency proportions and the Prime Minister, I believe, has to treat it as an emergency. As many of my colleagues said last night in debate, this does warrant an emergency level. I think the Prime Minister would do that if he had a real connection to the agriculture sector or if he had any real sense of the severity of the situation.
Federal alienation in western provinces has become a real problem.
It was interesting to read in one of the papers this week “West says it has got the cold shoulder”. The paper had interviewed Robert Roach, the senior policy analyst for the Calgary based think tank, the Canada West Foundation. He was quoted in the Vancouver Sun as saying that the government should have made a commitment to structural change to give westerners a voice at the federal level. Options, according to Mr. Roach, include reforming the Senate and recruiting senior bureaucrats for the west, even if they do not speak French. As he said, “Bilingualism needs to be counterbalanced by something else, because it's a very practical barrier to westerners”.
Western alienation can be overcome with awareness that all the western provinces are as valuable as the eastern ones. The people living in the west require the same services, financial assistance and respect that those in the east have long been receiving.
The GST relief offered to our municipalities is welcome, but the GST was set up to reduce a debt. Even though the Liberals had wanted to scrap this tax altogether, it is now being used as a cash injection. Also, as many of our communities in Saskatchewan and in Canada are not considered cities, they too will receive a significant piece of the pie.
I am in support of the idea of including municipalities but have grave concerns about how the government plans to include all the provinces in this arrangement. The government could vacate an amount allowing the provincial governments to give to the municipalities a percentage of the gas tax.
My concern is that this money will not be flagged for infrastructure. We need some details on how this money will be spread out. The $7 billion over 10 years, the GST rebate to cities that is mentioned in the throne speech, is really just 10% of the money that Ottawa collects.
The government keeps making these promises with regard to the constituents in my riding. Many of them have written or phoned my office asking for some real results. My constituents, relating to their own experience, are telling me that employment insurance is not working. They are telling me that there are not enough staff to handle peak times, which is often in the fall. They are complaining that it takes too long to start receiving their benefits. If they had a surplus of cash they probably would not have applied for EI in the first place.
The students in my riding who attend university and other post-secondary institutions are really concerned about the process of applying for student loans.
We need a commitment. We need a real effort. We need a government with real integrity and the throne speech needs to have substance.
The government must re-examine and redefine our agriculture sector, our aboriginal issues, our health care system and our cities. It needs to give Canadians real dollars, real effort and real integrity. It has to be a country defined by its citizens, not by the government.