Mr. Speaker, thank you for granting this emergency debate on what is definitely an emergency situation in my riding of Bruce--Grey--Owen Sound and across Canada. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the member for Battlefords--Lloydminster for initiating the motion on this debate.
With due respect to my colleagues across the floor, I would like to express my thanks to the minister and the deputy minister for sticking around until the wee hours of the morning, so to speak.
I welcome this opportunity to share the thoughts and concerns that have been raised by my constituents. I have been hearing horror stories galore. As I have said before, my riding is a very agricultural riding. Whether it is beef, sheep, elk, bison or anything else, they are all being affected by the BSE crisis.
I have experienced something I never want to see again and that is people I know declaring bankruptcy. They are neighbours and friends, and they are fighting as hard as they can to make a living but they are getting hammered every time they turn around.
The latest nail in their coffin came just last week when a federal judge in some ranching community in Montana took it upon himself to decide that if the border were to reopen to Canadian cattle, “The threats are great. Delay is prudent and largely harmless”. We all know our beef is safe here. It is known around the world. This is politics at work again.
I would like Mr. Justice Richard Cebull to know exactly how harmful this delay is and will continue to be to Canadian cattle producers. It is the obligation of the government to deliver that message.
Producers across the country are losing millions of dollars and the government is doing little or nothing to help. The CAIS program has long been identified as flawed and deficient. There is $640 million right now sitting in an account somewhere. Producers who cannot put food on their tables borrowed that money. They put it up front and they need it back, and they need it back now.
The Liberals voted against our motion to drop the CAIS cash deposit and now they say they want it gone. As the member for Selkirk--Interlake pointed out, they have agreed to put it in the budget, and I do thank the minister for that, but it is still a long way from being gone.
Today we heard there will be a national CAIS committee to review appeals. With all due respect, we do not need another committee and we do not need any more consultations. Farmers have said loud and clear that the program does not work. The Liberals also say that they will develop alternatives to the program but no one seems to have a clue where to start with it. It is a comedy of errors that no one finds funny.
The Liberals have never been able to address the issue of older cows, but those are the animals that would not even be included even if the border were reopened. In light of this court injunction that we just heard about, producers, in my riding at least, are leaning more toward a cull program than ever before. The government must address this issue now.
More and more producers are telling me that they just want the $200, the cash that they can get out of it and they will cut their losses and ship the cows to market. The feeling that seems to be out there is that we can get rid of some of these and maybe get the market back to where it is going.
It is also imperative now, more than ever before, that the government provide tax incentives to support investment in Canadian slaughter capacity. We note that its current efforts in these areas have been grossly inadequate and ineffective thus far.
It is clear that Canada has to help itself and that we need a made in Canada solution. The 2005 budget did very little to address this. There are no tax deferrals and the loan loss reserve program got an additional $17 million, but according to the Canadian bankers who we just talked to at the agriculture committee last week, they say there is no loan loss reserve program because they cannot agree with the government on how it can and should work.
Both the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the USDA recently submitted reports indicating that Canadian beef was safe and that our feed supply was governed by sound science.
After standing with his hands in his pockets for over 21 months while the border stayed closed, the Prime Minister, in going back to an old line of a Kenny Rogers' song “You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille”, finally picked a fine time, opened his mouth and give the U.S. a reason to react to the border just one week before it was scheduled to open.
I am not naive enough to think that is the total reason. As some of the speakers tonight have said, there is no doubt in my mind that this influenced the senators on how they voted last week. Our relations with the Americans is at an all time low and members of the government continually say things, and I would like to think they are not with full intent, that upset our neighbours. The timing could not have been worse.
I know some gains have been made as far as the beef issue, but we have a long way to go. If it were milk, it would be barely enough to cover the bottom of a pail. We need to work together as politicians and producers, as the Deputy Prime Minister said earlier, to do what is necessary, to do it right and to do it yesterday.
I believe the minister's heart is in the right place, but ministry staff told us today at the agriculture committee that the deposit requirement was not placing any hardship on farmers. With that kind of attitude, no wonder no improvements to the CAIS program have been carried out thus far.
The message the minister could take back to his staff is that there are hardships out there. The CAIS program is not working. Let us get a good attitude and frame of mind so they can go to work and make the necessary improvements.