Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in this place at the first moment we are back to do the business of Canadians. Mr. Speaker, I want to wish you well in your duties of presiding over the House. I hope that you enjoyed a productive summer and had some rest and relaxation over the past little while. Now we are here to get the work of Canadians done. We are here to get right down to business, to talk about pressing issues for all Canadians.
Obviously, Mr. Speaker, you will know that there are all kinds of issues we need to talk about that are not on the government's agenda. We have to talk about the question of the CBC and the lockout that is approaching its eighth week. We have to talk about softwood lumber and the failure of the government to respond to the United States. We have to talk about the situation facing farmers. We have to talk about the privatization of health care. I look forward to a session that will deal with all of those issues that threaten the very survival of the country as we know it.
Now I will focus on the private member's motion by the member for Vegreville—Wainwright. The motion deals with a nuisance problem in our farming communities, that being the presence of gophers, or as we call them in Manitoba, the prairie dog. That animal is actually part of our heritage and part of our natural environment. Certainly it is one which we celebrate in terms of our history and prairie culture. I do acknowledge, as the member who brought forward the motion said, that there is a problem in the overpopulation of gophers. It is to the point where farmers are faced with some real difficulties and very serious challenges.
I do agree with the spirit of the member's motion which is that we ought to do something finally about the problem in a real and an environmentally sensitive way. That is where I believe we part company. The member is suggesting that we actually increase the strength of the strychnine solution as a way to rid our farmlands of this rodent, the Richardson's ground squirrel and/or pocket gopher.
The real debate today is what can be done about the problem in a way that is environmentally safe and is not a threat to Canadians' health and well-being while still being responsible to the farmers who have a serious problem. I suggest to the member that we should put our efforts into holding the government to account for doing nothing in the last 10 years when this problem became so apparent. The onus ought to be on the government not to simply stand in this place through a private member and suggest that there is something wrong with the member's motion without providing an alternative solution to a problem that has been identified for over a decade.
I want in particular to refer to the debate we had in the House way back in 2001 on the very same topic. The very same issues were raised and the same solution was provided. In that space of four years there has been ample time for the government to come forward with a plan to deal with the problem. Have we heard anything? Has there been any conscious effort by the government to deal with this issue sensibly and with sensitivity to the environment, with concern for Canadians' health and well-being? Unfortunately the answer is no. There has been nothing from the government. We are left once again debating a proposition that is not acceptable to anyone. It is not acceptable to farmers, not acceptable to the environment and not acceptable to Canadians who are worried about their health.
It is not acceptable because we are talking about a very serious, dangerous pesticide. We are talking about something that is deadly. We are talking about a substance that has been used in the past for suicides and for killing neighbourhood dogs.
The member for Vegreville mentioned this and acknowledged the problems and said that there were ways to get around them. I do not think anyone in the House or Canadians understand how we could get around that kind of problem. This substance gets into the grains, the ground and our environment. It is very hard to prevent it from coming into contact with other animals and human beings.
Indiscriminate use can result in wildlife deaths, including that of raptors, the main natural predator of ground squirrels and gophers. It is a time sensitive, labour intensive solution. It is only effective in early spring before weeds sprout. Once it is used, the area must be monitored daily for carcasses which then must be buried to prevent accidental poisoning. Needless to say, this is not a solution. We have to defeat it. We must put the onus back on the government to come up with a solution that works.
I want to refer to some comments made by my colleague, Dick Proctor, back in 2001 when this matter was last debated in the House. Dick Proctor was the member for Palliser, a fine member of the House. He was a member who was devoted to working on behalf of farmers and doing what was in the best interests of his constituents. He spoke out repeatedly on behalf of the public interest and public policies that served the public good. He said:
We too have some environmental concerns that were indicated by the government spokesperson. We are concerned about what has happened to the population of swift foxes and bald eagles over the past decade as well as burrowing owls which are very important in the Moose Jaw area. There was a story in the local newspaper within the last month about how the number of pairs of burrowing owls had declined rapidly in recent years. Dog poisonings have also been mentioned. In the volume of work in this area a couple of suicides were reported. All of these seem to be impacted by the use of strychnine.
Those comments were made by someone, a former member who served with integrity, a hardworking individual who was in contact with his community and the farmers, who knew the impact of the use of strychnine on the environment. His comments must be taken seriously.
My good friend Dick Proctor also went on to chastise the government for not doing its part:
I remind members, in the words of David Suzuki, that the human race is the most predatory animal in the history of the world. We have a phobia about eliminating anything and everything that gets in our way. Some day that is going to come back and cost us in a very large way.
This is a problem and I do not want to minimize it, but I think we need to and should look at alternatives. The issue has been around for 10 years. The government has absolutely failed to develop alternatives that would work as a replacement for liquid strychnine.
Some reports suggest that the 0.4% solution is effective. This might have been mentioned by some of my colleagues that it should on its own be offered as the solution. The fact that we are having the debate today and the fact that members who represent rural constituencies and farmers across the country from the prairies, tell us that there is a problem, that the 0.4% solution has not worked. In this debate we have to say the government solution is not an answer. To fall back on the 0.4% strength of strychnine is not a solution. There have to be alternatives.
The Conservative opposition's idea of increasing levels, of strengthening the potency of this poisonous and terrible pesticide is not the solution.
We are left with trying to find the appropriate solution. We have to defeat this motion and convince the government to come back to the House with a positive alternative.