Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and address the emergency debate this evening with respect to the crisis in agriculture. In this case we are talking about BSE but I do want to talk for a moment about the crisis in agriculture in general.
I want to thank the member for Haldimand—Norfolk for her leadership on this issue. I want to thank the member for Battlefords—Lloydminster for sponsoring the debate tonight. I also want to thank the member for Lethbridge whose spot I am filling tonight. He represents a riding where there are 900,000 cattle and feedlots. He is also a leader in this area. Those are big cowboy boots to fill, but I will do my best to do that tonight.
I will start by pointing to the fact that the government has not taken the crisis on the farm seriously. A couple of weeks ago the finance minister stood here and delivered a budget speech on the economy. He did not even mention the fact that farmers today are facing probably the worst crisis that they have faced since the Great Depression. That is not an exaggeration.
In 2003 farm incomes went negative for the first time since the 1930s. Interestingly that same year when the CAIS program came in, $1.4 billion was allocated but it still could not be triggered. Even though farmers were in this terrible income crisis, it still would not trigger payouts to all kinds of people who were losing tremendous amounts of money.
I want to argue that the minister is wrong when he says that the CAIS program is working. I want to argue that this crisis affects everyone in agriculture, not just cattle producers. It is a serious problem. The best way to make the point is to read an e-mail I received today from someone in my riding. It says:
This time of year when a farmer should be getting the “spring fever itch”, I'm getting depressed because there is no money left in any of our commodities and our expenses are going through the roof, our margins are rapidly shrinking. These are things I know you are aware of...hence why I'm sending you this e-mail.
My brother and I are second generation farmers, this farm has seen many changes in the last 10 years to accommodate the growing numbers the farm has to support, and falling prices. Our debt load is at its absolute max. and with the futures on many different crops, it's not looking good.... I'm not looking for sympathy, I simply wanted to explain our situation to you to give you a little history and to bring up a few points.
He goes on to say:
I am 32 years old and losing hope in my career and my country very quickly. I know there is no magic cure to turn things around, but I feel as a last ditch effort you in some way carry hope for the farmers in Alberta--
He says flattering things about me which I appreciate, but there are many people in this place on all sides of the House who care deeply about farmers. In the face of all the evidence that the government is failing farmers on the CAIS program, and in terms of getting some resolution when it comes to getting the border open, I do not understand why the minister a few minutes ago stood there and defended his actions. His actions and their lack of results are indefensible. That is the point. We have an obligation and a right to stand and criticize the government when it is not doing its job. The Liberals are not doing the job for Canadian farmers today.
Even though the minister does not like to hear the criticism of his department and the things that they do, we have an obligation to stand up for farmers on these issues. That is what we are going to do tonight.
I want to talk for a moment about the border. Not long ago the Prime Minister, knowing that the border was due to open on March 7, because he was afraid of the debate about missile defence at the Liberal convention, went out before the convention and announced his decision not to support missile defence. In other words, for political reasons he decided he would jeopardize goodwill with the Americans, knowing the border should be opening on March 7, simply because he did not want to have to face the music at the Liberal convention. In other words, he put his concerns ahead of the concerns of Canadian ranchers and cattlemen. That is simply disgraceful and the result has been borne out.
I am not going to argue that the judge in Montana took that into account, but I know those senators did when they voted to get rid of the rule that would open the border.
In fact, not long ago there were some Canadian parliamentarians who went to Washington. They had a discussion with a Senator Smith from Portland. I looked at the minutes of the meeting and he absolutely tied the security issues and Canada's lack of support on security issues with the problems affecting trade in cattle and beef together.
The minister and the Prime Minister can duck, dodge, dive and weave all they want but I am telling members that senators on the other side of the border are saying the two are tied together.
In the United States, security trumps trade, and we are seeing it happen again in this situation. It is time for the government to wake up to that reality and to start addressing some of these concerns the Americans have about whether we are true allies in so many of these situations.
They are tied together. I do not know how many times I have heard that in the last little while. When I go back home people are saying that the relationship between how we treat our American friends on these security issues and the problems in trade are tied together. Farmers and ranchers know they are connected but somehow the government seems to think there is no connection at all.
I touched for a moment on the CAIS program. I just want to emphasize how frustrated farmers are with this program. It is not doing the job. We can have a situation where people have lost money every year for the five year period that the formula applies to for the CAIS program and if in the last year they lose less money than they lost the year before they will not trigger a payout. They will be losing money. However, if in four years out of five years they make money and in the last year they lose a little bit of money or make less money they will trigger a payout. It is crazy. We have a situation where people who are in dire economic straits, on the cusp of losing their farm, will not get a payout on this program. It makes absolutely no sense and yet the minister stands in this place and defends the CAIS program.
Without naming names, I can look across the way and know I have heard similar criticisms coming from members on the other side. There is no question that the minister has to get his act together and straighten this out.
The minister says that we are making partisan points. Well let me make an offer to the Minister of Agriculture. I know I could ask members who are sitting here today if they would be willing to work with the minister on a good faith basis to get that fixed and to get payouts to farmers in a timely way, in a way that makes sense based on their income, and I know we would be prepared to do that. We would be prepared to sit there and help get this thing fixed. We are here to make a difference. We want to make this minority Parliament work and if we can make a difference, and the minister is willing to do that, we would be thrilled to do it. However the minister claims that the program is not broken. He claims that it is working fine. We cannot start on a basis where the minister will not admit that there are serious problems in the program.
I want to talk for a moment about what I think is a fundamental shortcoming of the government: the need to increase packing capacity. I know there has been some additional capacity but we are talking about almost two years now since the border closed and we still are way behind the curve in terms of getting more animals slaughtered. The only way we can get cattle south of the border now is to send muscle cuts, boxed beef, into the U.S. We need to get more packing capacity.
This loan loss program is just a joke. We would be prepared to work with the government if it were willing to work with us to make more money available so that we can get more slaughter capacity. However we need to see some admission from the government that the current situation is not working but it does not seem to be willing to admit that.
I think I heard the minister say something positive about the possibility of a cull program. Over a year ago the member for Battlefords—Lloydminster argued that we should be doing that and we have advocated that position ever since. If the government is considering doing that we would certainly support it.