Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to appear again in front of this full House of all my colleagues who have come to listen to this speech. I realize it is standing room only. I will try not to be it too long because the time is getting late. I will leave the eloquence to those who spoke before me.
Before I talk a bit about my reaction to this bill, I would like to underline what my colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska said about our committee.
The motion he had today was very logical. It was something to the effect that we ask the chairman and the committee to respect all of the recommendations that were voted upon.
We underline once again for the government and the minister that these are important recommendations and it would seem kind of bizarre that the government side, the Conservatives, voted against this motion. I did not quite understand that but being new in politics there are a lot of things I do not understand.
I kind of looked at this as an insurance. We have this bill today but we have this insurance to see that all those recommendations are followed. Actually, had we acted and followed all those recommendations in due time, we probably would not be here speaking tonight. Nevertheless, I thank the minister for his action.
I had a conference call on Friday with him, the deputy minister and Mr. Clare Schlegel, the president of the Canadian Pork Council, who was also on the line. As we talked, the minister outlined what he was proposing. My basic question was for Mr. Schlegel and I asked him what he thought. He said that it was a good bill and that it was a good move. I told him that was fine with me because we were there for the producers. The minister had been in contact with someone from the livestock and cattle sectors and they said that it was a good move.
In a sense, I am glad that we are finally moving quickly, that we do have the political will to move and that we have the support of all members in the House. This is a cooperative effort.
Since I got into this business, I have always maintained that I do not care who gets the credit as long as we do something and the fact is that something is getting done. Election or no election, so be it, but at least we are getting out there to help the producers.
However, it is important, as we talk and as we listen to this debate, to put this into perspective. The crisis did not start yesterday. The crisis did not start two weeks ago and we have a reaction today.
We heard from the cattle producers and the pork producers late last November and there was indeed a crisis. We knew all along but we were wondering what steps were being taken and finally we had an emergency meeting. As a result of that meeting, the committee made recommendations, which all parties supported. It would have been logical for those recommendations to have been followed as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, as often is the case, nothing really happened. A lot of words were said and we got the spin that a lot of help was getting out to folks but when they came back to our meeting in January, we heard that this was not the case and that they were still hurting.
There were press conferences and press releases. I wrote a couple of letters to the minister. I must say that when I write these letters I do them in a cooperative tone. It was just a letter telling the minister about the meeting we had and that I would like to once again emphasize that there is a problem and I would like to see what action we are taking.
Many of us asked questions. I asked a question in the House on February 1, which reads:
Mr. Speaker, pork and cattle producers told the agriculture committee that the government has basically abandoned them. Some have called today, February 1, black Friday and others are calling the government's funding promises a cruel joke.
Farms are foreclosing, rural communities are dying and yet no immediate assistance has been committed.
Then my final statement was this. When is this going to end? When is the government going to stop leading Canada down the road to agricultural suicide, which is the term I used?
As we can see, there was a cooperative approach. There was pressure, press releases, questions and the debate that my hon. colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska was able to get in the House. Then we laid out what was happening in consultation with our friends in the pork and cattle industry.
It is important perhaps to underline and note some of the correspondence that had gone back and forth over these last few months. I will quote from a letter from the president of the Canadian Pork Council, Mr. Clare Schlegel, to the minister on January 23. He stated:
Over the last four months we have been working with you and your officials to find solutions to the “perfect storm” facing hog producers across Canada. After much debate within our industry, we put forward a series of reasonable requests to respond to the financial dilemma. We do appreciate the speeding up of payments within CAIS or (AgriStability). But, as you are aware, that alone does not come close to responding adequately to this crisis. This has been pointed out to you in the cash flow statement when we met in December.
He went on to say this:
We had asked for unsecured loans to help producers facing serious liquidity problems. We recognize that a loan must be secured, and we have changed our request accordingly. We need your department to immediately provide loans that come after those of secured creditors.
In its current form, the advance payments program is not very useful, because it only serves to put off current loan contracts. The program should be significantly changed and most of the changes would be legislative or regulatory. Could that be done quickly?
He asked, “Could that be done quickly?” He continued:
In addition, none of the suggested improvements to the AgriStability program have been introduced, except for faster payments. This is threatening the survival of some of our best businesses.
I want to emphasize that he said, “This is threatening the survival of some of our best businesses”. The letter went on:
As you know, the Canadian pork industry is a modern, world-class industry. But our future is problematic because of the strength of the Canadian dollar compared to the U.S. dollar. Pork producers are prepared to adapt to the new reality, but they cannot react fast enough.
Mr. Schlegel finished his letter by saying:
Difficult decisions are being made now on the farm. False hope does not help, as your announcement before Christmas created. While many of the provinces have stepped in with individual programs, they await your leadership. It is time for the Canadian government to step up to the plate.
We see this happening little by little. As I go through the file and I see what has happened over the last few months, I wonder why it has taken this time.
I have a very high regard for the officials that work in the Department of Agriculture. They are professionals. They can get the job done. The minister himself told me, “We are not going to go political with this. We are not going to tie it to the budget. Let us do it quickly so that just in case there is an election my officials in March can get some money out to farmers”. We know that the minister can act quickly. The reason this has not been happening is not because of them. It is that somewhere along the line these quick and important decisions were not being made.
There are a couple of points in the provisions of this new bill which I think are really important. For example, the bill expands the circumstances for which an emergency advance can be issued to include severe economic hardship if the Ministers of Agriculture and Finance jointly agree that the hardship exists.
This is a tremendous point. It gives a little flexibility to the minister to say that there are economic hardships. In this case it is the Canadian dollar, but whether it is a rise in the biofuel industry or the world situation, at least the decision can be made to start getting some help flowing to our farmers.
The interesting thing is that the farmers are not asking for aid and handouts. All they are asking for is a little help to give them some security and stability so that they can get loans and weather this perfect storm. They do not want their farms foreclosed. They want to continue to farm until the world situation improves and there is a better situation at all levels.
On November 15 a communiqué came out from the Canadian Pork Council and I will quote a couple of paragraphs. I said that I did not want to speak too long. I want my colleagues to have a chance to go home early and get up bright and early tomorrow so we can get on with another day. The communiqué says:
Canadian hog producers are facing a financial crisis that is unprecedented in terms of cause and unparalleled in terms of negative outlook. Simply put, prices are collapsing, input costs have increased dramatically and cash losses are mounting at such astonishing rates that entire communities including producers and input suppliers face financial ruin. Most disturbing is the observation that no positive market correction in the foreseeable future seems apparent.
That is an interesting point. We should emphasize that for those who think that the market can regulate everything, that the market will make sure that everything works out well for producers. At times we see that is not the case. I firmly believe that we need an intervention from government, not necessarily in the form of handouts, but in this case we need to assist our primary producers.
The second paragraph says:
The situation is critical. The rapid increase in the value of the Canadian dollar relative to the U.S. is having an effect that is akin to a major system shock. For 25 years, Canadian pork producers faced a steadily declining dollar. They responded by building an industry that became a world leader in terms of exports and overall competitiveness. That advantage has vanished in a few short months driven by forces completely outside their control.
We talked about the pork industry, but the conditions are relatively the same for the cattle industry. We have probably the best producers in the world. They are faced with hardships because of the rise in the dollar, because of what is happening in the world and also because of the biofuel industry. We have to come to grips with those problems.
If prices are increasing and helping one segment of the agricultural community, which is good from the point of view of agriculture, then what about the effect it is having on another sector? Somehow we have to mitigate that. By working together we will probably be able to do that.
I and my party support Bill C-44. It is a positive step. I am a little disappointed that we have not acted on all those recommendations. I hope that as a result of our support for the bill and as a result of the motion that we had in committee today, we will see quick action by government to implement all the recommendations so we can help producers across the country who are hurting. They deserve no less.