Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to also take part in this debate on Bill C-44, which the Bloc Québécois fully supports. Admittedly, there is an emergency and, as a farm producer keeps telling me, all this is not the workings of the Holy spirit.
Listening to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food who spoke earlier, one got the impression that the government is taking action today to solve a problem that arose just yesterday. That is my greatest fear in this situation because, while we support Bill C-44, the government must certainly not assume that the problem is solved, that it can wash its hands of it and that all is said and done.
The optimistic remarks of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food had me fearing the worst. Just this afternoon, the worst did happen at a meeting of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. With the help of opposition members on the committee, I managed to get a motion approved, asking that the chair of our committee send the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food a letter urging him to respect the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food concerning the crisis in the livestock industry. But the Conservative members, the government members of the committee voted against this motion, arguing that this bill would solve the problem. Far from it. Just because we support the bill does not mean that we believe the livestock crisis is completely over and that there is no longer any problem. It was really pathetic to hear the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food earlier try to persuade us that all is fine again, that everything has been fixed and that the government did all that with its magic wand. That is not true, and we must be very careful.
We definitely have some reservations. We have some questions about this bill. Will the government follow up on the recommendations in the unanimous report I mentioned earlier by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, which was behind the emergency debate I instigated on February 13?
Will there also be consequences for Quebec since this bill falls under the agricultural policy framework?
And how much of the $80 million is new money?
It is all well and good to broaden the definitions, but if at the end of the day the producers are sharing the same amount, no one benefits. According to some sources, this is not new money, but an interest rate reduction instead. We must remember that a loan is still a loan, and we do not want to increase the debt load of producers.
Earlier, I heard cries from the government side when I spoke about the committee's unanimous report. What happened this afternoon does not make any sense. All the members of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food unanimously adopted a report to help resolve or at least alleviate the crisis in the livestock sector, in the pork and, particularly, the beef sector. All the committee members voted in favour of this report and agreed that long-term measures were needed to alleviate this crisis because they acknowledged there was a crisis and that solutions must be found.
Bill C-44 is not the ultimate and only solution. I think it is completely inconsistent and cynical of the government members to have voted against a motion today in committee that would have had the chair of the committee call on the minister to take action to ensure that the committee's recommendations are adopted. I will list them later on, so we can see how the committee, including members from the government, had a clear view of the situation and were prepared do something to propose logical solutions, demanded by the producers themselves.
Today, because a bill has been introduced, all that is going by the wayside. But the Bloc Québécois will not give up, just as we did not give up when I joined the agriculture committee, which was grappling with the supply management issue. We obtained a unanimous motion to protect the supply management system.
The same is true of our call to use article 28 to restrict milk protein imports. Government representatives and bureaucrats told us that we were going to be crushed by countries like the United States and New Zealand, which would tell us that we had no right to use article 28 and that it made no sense. The country would be put in an embarrassing position, and there would be plenty of problems. Then, out of the blue, the Minister of Agriculture at the time came to the annual meeting of the dairy farmers of Canada and told them that he was invoking article 28. It was no good when the Bloc Québécois was calling for it, but when the government feels an election coming or a demonstration on Parliament Hill, it makes the necessary decisions.
We have to put things in perspective.
On a positive note, I will say that I am glad the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food introduced this bill, which would change the eligibility requirements for the advance payments program, in response to the emergency debate the Bloc Québécois requested on February 13 about the crisis in the livestock industry.
As I said, the government still has a long way to go to make livestock producers more competitive. There was a reason we asked for an emergency debate. Livestock producers are at the end of their rope and have to take whatever help they are offered. That is why Bill C-44 helps matters. But as I told the minister when I spoke to him last Friday, the government still has not responded to the six recommendations in the unanimous report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, entitled “Study on the Collapse of the Beef and Pork Sector Revenues”, which was tabled in this House on December 12.
The report recommends that transitional measures be put in place to alleviate this crisis, along with longer-term measures to improve the competitiveness of the industry. The government does not seem to understand that we are looking for longer-term measures. As with any problem, we have to look beyond the end of our noses. To resolve a problem, we have to ask what can be done in the future to have solutions that ensure the sustainability of a certain sector. That is what we tried to do with this report.
The Bloc Québécois has been very aware of the problems of livestock producers for a long time now. In November 2006, I invited pork producers from Quebec to come testify in the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. A year later, in light of the government's inaction, we had to raise this issue again and put the livestock crisis back on the agenda. I also had to request an emergency debate on this matter because nothing was being done.
As I was saying earlier, to listen to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, we get the impression that the Conservatives only found out there was a problem yesterday and today they are taking action and resolving the problem. We have to go back much further than that. My colleague, the hon. member for Malpeque, has already listed everything the opposition has done in this matter. For a very long time now, alarm bells have been ringing and it was high time the government took action.
I do not know whether it is because an election is in the air, but perhaps some matters will get resolved a little more quickly now. Mind you, I am not complaining. This does not bother me. In any case, when we achieve success for the producers and the people we represent, we are always prepared to hold our heads high in our ridings and throughout Quebec and tell people that we did something good for them. That is not a problem. The minister can also say he got things done with Bill C-44, and I would be the first to recognize that he finally did.
Yet, it took threats of demonstrations on the Hill—which, farmers told us, were in the works—as well as the possibility of an election, before we saw any action. This government has been in power for two years and could have taken action long ago. Members here in this House have expressed their agreement with what I just said.
Some very interesting recommendations were adopted by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. I would remind the House that the report was unanimously passed. The first recommendation states:
The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food recommends that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada deploy ... a special transitional measure that will provide cash flow in the form of interest-free loans to be paid back over a period of three to five years, and bankable cash advances to hog and cattle producers.
The report also states:
The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food recommends that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, in partnership with the provinces and territories, payout the remaining percentage owed to producers under the CAIS Inventory Transition Initiative (CITI) and respect the federal-provincial funding agreement.
Another interesting recommendation states that:
The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food recommends that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) hold formal discussions with the Minister of Finance to show the impact of the strengthening Canadian dollar on the food producing and processing industry in Canada and to examine ways to relieve the pressure on the industry from the rising Canadian dollar. AAFC officials should report back to the Committee on the result of these discussions.
Of course, this would have allowed us to participate in the debate that arose in all the sectors affected by the sudden surge of the Canadian dollar.
It is our duty to examine this situation and determine to what extent it affects our sectors. In addition, given that pork and beef producers are exporters, it would have been important to study this.
The fourth recommendation states:
The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food recommends that measures be taken to improve the responsiveness of BRM programs when a liquidity crunch arises in the farming sector. Examples of these measures include, but are not limited to:
allowing producers, for the purpose of reference margin calculations, to use the better of the Olympic average, the average of the last three years, or a five-year rolling average;
eliminating the viability test, which requires that producers show positive margins in two of the three years;
increasing the annual contribution limit in the AgriInvest program;
fast-tracking the federal $600 million Kickstart program for producer accounts in the AgriInvest program, so that funds can start flowing earlier than initially planned.
Another recommendation states:
The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food recommends that the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food conduct a complete review of regulatory measures susceptible of putting the Canadian meat industry at a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis other countries, and that this information be shared with the Committee.
And the final recommendation states:
The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food recommends that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada review program funding available to beef producers, processors and renderers to help them with the disposal and storage costs of ruminant specified risk material (SRM).
Those are the six recommendations. Because I only have 20 minutes, I will not read the entire report. However, I can tell you that it is an excellent report that was adopted unanimously. We would have thought that government members would join us in continuing to exert pressure on the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to respond favourably to these six recommendations. Unfortunately, we did not have this opportunity because the members of government are under the impression that Bill C-44 has fixed everything.
However, not everything has been fixed yet. This is evidenced by the fact that, in a press release issued today, the Canadian Pork Council says that it is pleased to see the bill being passed quickly. At least, this is what it hopes, and this is what will happen, because all the opposition parties will ensure that we go through the various stages very quickly, so that the bill comes into effect. However, while the Canadian Pork Council is pleased with this situation, it also makes the following comment, through its president, Mr. Clare Schlegel:
...while the troubles in the industry will not end soon, the federal government and the pork industry must continue to work together to find improvements that help to guarantee the long-term competitiveness of this important Canadian livestock industry.
That pretty well sums up what I said earlier. We are of course pleased that the government has finally decided to take action, but we are concerned about guaranteeing long-term competitiveness, and we are saying that the troubles in the industry will not end soon. The producers themselves just sent us a very important message. That is why we, on this side, will continue to ensure that the recommendations made in the report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food are implemented once and for all.
I should also point out that the producers' demands have not all been met. Obviously. One might argue that every industry has specific demands but does not always get everything it asks for. The fact of the matter is that this bill does not solve the majority of problems experienced in the beef and pork industries.
Just last Friday, I met with representatives of the Fédération des producteurs de porcs du Québec at my constituency office. These are people from my region, central Quebec. They came and presented their problems to us. Every member from Quebec received a small pamphlet in which the federation asks the federal government to implement several solutions to help pork producers. The hon. members will see that Bill C-44 does not solve everything.
For example, the Fédération des producteurs de porcs du Québec is asking that the $1.5 million cap under the AgriStability and AgriInvest programs, as well as the $3 million cap on the start-up fund, be raised.
It is asking that the reference margins to provide appropriate support to producers be adjusted in light of the unique nature of the crisis and the persistently poor market conditions.
It is asking that the Canadian product labelling rules designed to ensure that consumers can clearly identify where products come from be tightened up.
It is also asking that a new envelope be set up to support shared cost programs, allowing for regional flexibility in the next generation of agricultural policies.
As we know, Quebec farm producers are calling for agri-flexibility in addition to the AgriStability and AgriInvest programs. We are therefore looking for a much more flexible program for the producers and for the provinces as well.
The advance payments program, which was recently expanded to include stock production, should not use the business risk management program as collateral, thereby forcing producers to pay back advances when they receive payments.
All the MPs from Quebec received a visit from the pork producers in their region pushing these demands. Obviously, I would like to take advantage of this speech to pass this along to the government and make it realize that Bill C-44 is not going to put an end to all this and shut everyone up. Of course the government would rather see the opposition remain quietly seated and not say another word, but since we represent our people we will continue to speak up. It is with a great deal of vigour that I, personally, will continue to defend not only the pork producers, but the also the beef producers who are going through this crisis.
I must say that it was not so long ago that the Conservative government sang a very different tune about this crisis. I am referring to the emergency debate that I requested and obtained on February 13. I agree that some Conservative members made good, realistic presentations. In any case, one such member, the chair of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food and the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake, was even cited in the Canadian Pork Council newsletter as having delivered an eloquent and interesting speech.
It should be noted that the news release did not cite the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food because he had his rose-coloured glasses on. He came here, and all he did was put down the opposition parties, saying that it was all a bunch of garbage, that money had been pumped into the pockets of agricultural producers, and that all was well in the best of all possible worlds. As a result, the Canadian Pork Council did not quote him as having given a speech that addressed the producers' grievances.
It did mention me, the member for Richmond—Arthabaska—I cannot say my own name—because I was the one who called for and got an emergency debate. It also said that the comments made by the members for Malpeque and British Columbia Southern Interior were especially notable. I would add that the Bloc Québécois members for Montcalm, Beauharnois—Salaberry, and Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot also gave speeches recognizing the seriousness of the crisis.
On the government side, we heard from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, and especially from the member for Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière. I promised him that I would print copies of his speech to give to agricultural producers because it was so appalling, lamentable and sad to hear him say that everything was fine in the livestock sector. And that is exactly what I did.
On Friday, when people came to see me to talk about this crisis, I gave them a copy of the speech. After reading a few lines, they were very disappointed in this government member, who refused to acknowledge just how serious the crisis had become. Yet, even his minister realized that something was happening, given that we are now studying a bill that was just introduced.
There was a problem at that time. Fortunately, the opposition is here to make the government understand what is going on. Otherwise, we would still be stuck there and nothing would happen.
All that to say I am very pleased to see this bill fast tracked, so that our farmers may get at least a bit of a break.