Debates of April 17th, 2008

Government Response to Petitions

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to four petitions.

Health

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Health with respect to the new organ donor regulations.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109 the committee requests that the government table a response to the report.

Agriculture and Agri-Food

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the first report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food with respect to the beef and pork sector income crisis, presented to the House on Wednesday, December 12, 2007, be concurred in.

[Chuck Strahl]

Is this the Easter report?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

The member opposite asks if this is the Easter report. If the government would just take the Easter report, read it and enact it, farmers would be much more profitable, but the government continues to ignore the farm community.

This was a unanimous report by committee members and it was undertaken out of the dire and unprecedented income crisis suffered by the beef and hog farmers in this country.

Canadian farmers, who are among the most efficient farmers in the world, were then, and still are now, finding themselves facing serious financial trouble and, in many cases, financial ruin. Third, fourth and fifth generation farmers have all done what provincial and federal governments have asked, which was to increase production, increase efficiency and increase exports, and now, in their time of need, the Canadian government is basically leaving them in a lurch.

Believe it or not, the farm community has always been at the cutting edge of technological change. In fact, agriculture leads all sectors in annual production growth, better than manufacturing, construction, transportation, trade, finance and many other sectors. However, farmers are not retaining the income and the benefits of all that productivity growth and all that efficiency. The government, although it talks about acting, has failed to act in their interest.

The real reason for this concurrence motion is that the committee wrote a very good report and it was done in a non-partisan sense. I think government backbenchers on the committee felt that the government might actually do something but we now have before us the government's response.

I am sorry to say this but the Minister of Agriculture's response is absolutely pathetic. Actions speak louder than words. The minister talks about putting farmers first but actions speak, not words. I hate to think what would happen if the minister were to ever say that we would put farmers second, because his first is very far down the line.

The minister talks about putting farmers first but let us look at some of the facts. It is really just an illusion. We know that the Prime Minister and the governing party are very good at creating illusions. Everything from transparency and accountability is just an illusion.

However, it was not an illusion when we saw the police raid the Conservative Party of Canada's office. It was not an illusion yesterday when I raised the fact that the minister was trying to violate the Privacy Act in terms of getting information on individuals so he could attack them over his ideological drive against the Canadian Wheat Board.

I will now turn to the Department of Agriculture's own estimates. The government has been spinning a line that it is putting money out there for farmers. The cost of the production program that the Prime Minister announced has no relationship with the cost of production whatsoever. In fact, I have letters from farmers who have indicated that they have received as little as $1.28 an animal. It has no relationship with cost of production. It is just an illusion.

The previous minister of agriculture announced the family farm options program, which was going to help farmers in financial trouble. What did the government do a few months later? Without notice, after the fact, it withdrew the program, taking hundreds of millions of dollars out of farmers' pockets. However, the Canadian public actually thought the government was doing something. The government gave it and then took it away.

Let us look at the department's estimates. What really matters is what the government is putting out there in terms of actual cash to the farm community in program payments. I will go to the estimates. On program payments, from the minister's own documents, it states:

Overall, program payments are forecast at $4.0 billion in 2007, compared to the record level of $4.9 billion reached in 2005 and a drop of 12% from 2006.

Those are the real numbers. The government tries to leave the impression that it is doing more for farmers than the Liberals did but who was in government in 2005? The Liberals were. When we really look at the numbers, comparing 2005 to 2008, the current government is $1.2 billion short of where the previous government was.

The hog and beef industry has never faced the kind of crisis that it is facing right now. The tobacco industry is in crisis. The government broke its promises in that regard as well.

What we get from the government are illusions, smoke and mirrors, and no real actions.

It is no illusion that in the last election the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, who is heckling, and his cohort, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, promised tobacco producers an exit strategy. I met with tobacco producers last weekend and they are in disarray. They are discouraged and disgusted that the government broke its promise to them. However, that is not unusual for the government. It is pretty good at breaking promises.

The bottom line is that the government should shed its illusions and actually do something about the farm income crisis. In other words, the government talks but does not act.

I will go back to the first report that we are moving concurrence in today. The introduction reads:

The beef and pork industries are currently buffeted by what could be considered a “perfect storm”. Decreasing prices, increasing input costs, a strengthened Canadian dollar and regulatory compliance costs are all elements of this storm.... Although both the production and processing sectors are affected, the crisis became acute this fall for hog and cattle producers, who are struggling to meet even their immediate financial obligations.

Let us look at what some of the witnesses had to say. Mr. Curtiss Littlejohn from the Canadian Pork Council had this to say:

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 their input suppliers, face financial ruin.

I will turn to another statement by Jim Laws, the executive director of the Canadian Meat Council. He stated:

Canada's federally inspected meat processing industry is the most regulated of all food processing sectors. It's estimated that federally inspected meat processors collectively pay over $20 million per year in fees--fees such as inspection services, export certificates, label approvals, etc. This constitutes a major disadvantage to Canadian processors. ...and Canadian provincially inspected processors, who are not subject to these same additional costs. To create a level field internationally, the fees should be removed immediately.

That was said in November 2007 and the committee asked that those fees be removed.

As well, when I was in Ontario last weekend, on Saturday I met with the president of Gencor Foods, a company that was processing older cattle. It has just gone broke and is in bankruptcy, which now denies Canadian producers a market for about 700 cows a week. There were 120 people laid off. Since the government came to power, there have never been as many plants shut down, not in a long time, whether it is in manufacturing or agriculture, because the government is failing absolutely to act.

There were a lot of good points in this report, a lot of background data, and good recommendations. I just cannot understand how backbenchers over there can sit on their hands when this tragedy at the farm level, this loss, is occurring as it is, but they continue to sit on their hands. They take the speaking notes from the Prime Minister's Office and away they go.

Do those government backbenchers not realize that they were elected to represent their constituents and that they should be speaking out? They should stand up to thePrime Minister. They should stand up to the Minister of Finance, who has basically made bare the financial cupboards of the country.

The government uses the excuse that there is no money to do what ought to be done. There are only two people who are responsible if there is no money available in this country to do things for manufacturing, agriculture, the tobacco industry and many others. Those two people are the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister.

It is hard to believe that in two short years the Conservative government has taken a country that was seen as the financial envy of the western industrialized world and recklessly spent 2% of the GST on basically nothing, taking away the ability of the federal government to do what it ought to be doing. Thus, the minister is doing very little.

Let me go to the response. As I said, the response of the government to this report is just absolutely pathetic. The government starts by saying:

The Government agrees with the spirit of the report and shares the Committee's commitment to addressing the needs of the beef and pork sector facing serious pressures on its short-term liquidity and long-term competitiveness challenges.

The “spirit” is not going to keep Canadian farmers in business. The minister and the government have the power and the authority to act, but they are failing to act.

As I mentioned a moment ago, yes, the Conservative government has the treasury of the country basically broke, but that excuse is not good enough. We are losing rural Canadians. We are losing productive farms. We are losing our ability to have food sovereignty in this country. As for the minister, he basically sits on his hands.

The government goes on regarding a number of other areas in this report. Let me come to a key point it makes. It states:

The Government recognizes the need to support industry in dealing with serious pressures, but--

There is the big word “but”.

--is also conscious of the need to do so in ways that do not mask market signals and are consistent with our international trade obligations.

There is one thing I will say about our major competitor, the United States. It does not put its primary producers second to international trade obligations. It does not put its primary producers second to its financial reserves. It puts its primary producers first.

I talked about the Gencor plant going under. The real reason why that plant went under was the specified risk material fee, which put that plant at a competitive disadvantage to those in the United States. When the United States did not come along with its international obligations as it was supposed to, the Government of Canada should have recognized that it needed to act with financial resources and assist those plants so they could stay in business.

The report covers a number of areas, but here is the worst statement in the government's response. It says that those sectors, the beef and hog sectors, “will need to adjust to the realities of higher feed grain prices and a stronger dollar”.

One of the reasons why there are higher feed grain prices in this country is due to the government's policies in a number of other areas. We support an ethanol and biodiesel policy, but the fact of the matter is that if government subsidies to one area are going to distort the feed costs for another area, then the government has a responsibility to assist in that regard.

Before I run out of time, I will make a number of recommendations that the government should listen to. If the government would like, I could table them.

We had the opportunity in the Liberal Party of Canada to have a task force that put out a report entitled “Canadian Farmers: Targeted Action for Results”. This report went to a real leader, the hon. member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, the leader of the Liberal Party. In that report, there are a number of recommendations on how to deal with this immediate crisis facing the livestock industry. I will run through a few of them, but I want to emphasize that these are recommendations the government needs to act on now.

The government did come out with a $3.3 billion loan and advance payment program, which was announced by the minister on December 19. The parliamentary secretary said in early February that “the money is flowing as we speak”. That was not the truth. It was not flowing as we spoke.

Action from our party in March forced the government to finally move the legislation through this House so the money would actually flow. Primary producers lost three months while the minister had this $3.3 billion loan program. One cannot borrow oneself out of debt. It cannot be done. The government had the loan program, but it just did not work. After the legislation passed, that program went into effect.

However, let us look at the cost to the government. Before committee, officials from the Department of Agriculture admitted that the additional costs in that program are only $22 million a year. The Government of Canada and the minister, although they use these huge figures, are really just putting in a pittance. The government is not supporting the industry to the extent it should.

Let me go through some recommendations.

First, the government should put cash in the hands of beef producers immediately by making a special 2007 cash advance payment of up to $100 and up to $150 for feeder cattle.

Second, the government should put cash in the hands of hog producers and immediately implement a short term loan for Canadian hog producers to improve cashflows as markets adjust. However, now we have to go well beyond that recommendation.

Third, the government should put on an immediate priority basis the 2006 CAIS payments and 2007 CAIS targeted and interim advance payments for all hog and beef producers.

Fourth, the government should work with all parties to determine how the advance payment program could be improved and accessed by hog and beef producers, including amending the security requirements, unlinking CAIS payment offsets with advances given, and extending time restrictions on advances. There I would add, although I personally have favoured caps on the CAIS payments, a suggestion that we could suspend those caps over the next interim period so that some of the larger operators can get that funding out of CAIS as well. That is how serious the crisis is.

Fifth, we need to also allow all hog and beef producers to be given the option of having the top 15% of CAIS, or the new AgriInvest program for at least 2007 and 2008, and maintain the $600 million AgriInvest kickstart already announced.

Sixth, we need to defer the interest payments, but also the clawbacks, on CAIS overpayments to hog and beef producers.

There is a number of recommendations--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Sorry, but the time has expired. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Mississauga South.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I must say that when an hon. member rises in this place and I hear loud heckling and jeering from any other place in the House, I have to wonder whether those members just do not want to hear the good words that are coming from that hon. member. I think this is the case. As we know, the member for Malpeque is one of the most knowledgeable people in this place about agriculture.

I heard one of the members yell out, “But there are no farmers over there”. It was a former minister of agriculture who said that and he does not even realize that 70% of the agricultural industry is off farm gate. It is an important industry to Canada. It is important not just on farms, but also because it involves a lot of people and a lot of jobs.

The member laid out from the testimony in the committee that there were problems with the prices going down, the costs of production going up, the costs of regulation increasing, and also, if I recall, problems with the high Canadian dollar having significant implications.

The minister decided to give his advice during the member's speech and in his response to the report, saying that somehow the farm community is going to have to adapt to these realities. It would appear to me that in these circumstances farmers are not going to have many choices other than to just go out of business.

I would ask the hon. member if he would like to amplify a little further about the pressures and about the options, which may not even be available to the beef and hog producers. In my view, it is not going to be acceptable simply to say that they have to adapt.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, it is just not enough for the government to say that basically the industry should adapt and be competitive. Our industry is competitive. There is no question that at the moment we are dealing with a surplus of pork around the world. Is the government going to just sit idly by while the pork and hog industry in this country deteriorates and vanishes?

Pork and hog producers are a major part of our rural landscape. They are a major economic contributor. They are going through tough times. They need the government to stand by and back them up.

There is a raft of areas making our industry non-competitive with our competitors south of the border, including inspection fees, specific risk material removal costs and the regulatory regime. Even labelling does not identify for Canadians whether they are buying U.S. pork or Canadian pork.

When the beef industry was in trouble with BSE, the Canadian consumer population bought Canadian beef at that time because of the promotion programs. Our consumption went up. There is a lot that the government could be doing to assist the hog and beef sector, but it sits idly by.

Let me read for members the headlines from yesterday's press, while the government and the minister sit on their hands and put less program dollars out there than were put out in 2005. In some sectors, we are in a worse crisis now.

The Winnipeg Free Press of yesterday stated, in a story about the pork cull and whether it will go to the food banks: “Amount of pork headed to food banks unknown”.

The Vancouver Sun stated: “Hog farmers look at options to cover record feed bills; Slaughter of breeding stock and piglets one route, but humane alternatives sought”.

The Windsor Star stated: “Pig farmers paid to cull their herds; Pork industry in such a crisis, piglets given away”.

Do the minister's department and the Prime Minister just not see these headlines? Do they not understand that behind every one of those farms is a farm family?

I met a guy on Sunday who said that his losses were $2.5 million. He is one of the most efficient farmers in this country. One of the reasons why he is having those losses is that he made the capital investments governments asked him to do so that he would have an efficient operation. Now, when there is a downturn in the industry, the government says, oh well, the markets will decide the answers.

In terms of food security, food sovereignty and a healthy rural economy, I call on the government to act, to not just give us words but to actually act and come out with some programs that work.

[Joe Comuzzi, Conservative, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me comment on the remarks of the member for Mississauga South about the eloquence of the speaker this morning. He stated that the member for Malpeque was perhaps the most knowledgeable person that he knew when it comes to agriculture. Sometimes I may want to agree with that, but the member should have continued and said “but sometimes the member for Malpeque is often misguided”. That is what we have heard here this morning.

Let me explain--

[Joe McGuire, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Be nice.

[Joe Comuzzi, Conservative, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

That is the comment that we have always had when he and I were colleagues on the same side.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Give an example now.

[Joe Comuzzi, Conservative, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

He still insists on heckling. He does not want to listen.

One of the comments that I have is when he said that “Do you not understand that members of this side of the House are elected to represent their constituents?” I refer him to the speech by his former leader given at Osgoode Hall in 2003, when he said in eloquent terms that “It's time that we elected members to the House of Commons who represented their constituents”.

That was pretty well the tone of the leadership race that the Liberals just went through. We have to elect members of Parliament who represent first and foremost the constituents that elect them to office.

I would like the member to comment on the statement he made because what he is saying now does not show in the results. What they say and what they do are not the same.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right if he is applying the remarks “what they say and what they do” to the leader of his party, the Prime Minister of Canada. I do not want to get into misguided, but my personal opinion would be to the member who just spoke that he was terribly misguided when he lost vision and opportunity, and looking forward, and went to the dark side over there, but that is his choice. We all make mistakes and sometimes we regret it.

The most knowledgeable people in this industry are clearly the people who work on the ground, the primary producers. In the report that I said we would make available to the government if it desires it, is really a report by primary producers. They are the ones who are the generators of wealth in rural Canada, but they are the ones who are now suffering because of their efficiencies and their productivity.

The government has to be there to support them. When I was in southern Ontario last weekend meeting with hog and beef farmers, meeting with tobacco farmers and others, they cannot understand where their backbench members are. They do not speak out. Are they scared to challenge the PMO?

I will go to what these farmers said on the areas that are yet to be done. The small step of the government is not enough. Farmers have told me that the government needs to realign Canada's regulatory inspection fees and cost-recovery fees such as those applied to border measures, traceability and food inspections to be competitive with Canada's major trading partners. They need that done and they need it done immediately. Next month or the month after that is too late.

As well, reference margins do not work under CAISP and for those who have had circovirus, they need to eliminate that endeavour and give them a proper reference margin, so that the CAIS program or the safety net program really works for them. Bottom line, the government needs once and for all to stand up for the hog and beef industry in this country.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, listening to that tireless rant that we hear constantly, I am not sure where to begin. I do know where to end.

I know to end with producers and the direction that they have given us over the last months as we formed government. The member for Malpeque spoke glowingly of his own report. His own party actually put that in, with the cobwebs and the dust, in the bowels of this operation somewhere, and right away they commissioned him to run out and do another one.

While the member for Malpeque and a few of his sidekicks go out there and waste time with study after study, we actually acted. I am proud to stand here and say that we do have the support of primary producers.

If the member for Malpeque and his colleagues over there decide that we do not, there is a little thing called an election. We can sort this out on the ground. We can go out there and actually consult with producers on the ground and find out exactly who they think is in their camp and on their side.

I will work through a few of the points that the member opposite made.

I did read this report as the former chair because some of this work began under my chairmanship and of course before that while the Liberals were still in power. The biggest difference is that there has always been a lack of respect for the primary producer over the years. We have turned that around.

The member talked about the inadequacies of the CAIS program. I think anybody checking the historical documents does not have to go back very far to find out which party put that in place, which party blackmailed provinces to come on board with that, and which party would not address the shortfalls of the CAIS program for over a decade when producers kept telling them they needed something different.

We have addressed that. We have actually gone beyond this report. We have actually taken that as a challenge and moved beyond that on so many other fronts. I believe we have gone point by point and addressed that.

The member opposite brought up a few of them. He talks about the regulatory regime. We have moved beyond that. We did a study. He also knows that under the government--

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

You did a study?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Wait a minute. We took that study and gave it to the industry and said, “You decide which parts of this you want to harmonize with the U.S., our major trading partner in red meats, which parts you want to change, and how we involve food safety at the border”. They are in the process of giving us some tremendous response on that.

The first thing we found is there is not a smoking gun when it comes to differences. Certainly, we do things differently than the U.S. but it is a different system. We have a little thing called sovereignty here, but we are more than willing to harmonize our systems back and forth across the border.

We found a couple of instances, mostly on the export and importation of live animals and genetics, where our regulatory regime might be a little bit prohibitive. We are addressing that and we will adjust it.

The CFIA has been under a cost recovery moratorium for a number of years and it is capped at 15% recovery. We are actually at 11% cost recovery with the CFIA and if we have to go to zero, we will, in order facilitate that trade. We will take a look at it. That work is ongoing and is ready to go. The member said it has to be done this month. We are already way past that. While he fiddled, we got out there and did the job.

These political rants that I constantly hear might be crowd pleasers but the unfortunate part is, we keep track of where the member is because we always go in and gain a lot of votes afterwards. The crowds that he draws are very small and disgruntled groups, usually the same folks.

I was at a meeting last night with 250 producers sitting in a room. We had a great meal together that farmers produced on the ground. It was a fantastic meal of beef and pork, and all the trimmings that go with it. I had a great dialogue with them for about an hour, taking questions from the floor. They are pleased with the role of this government.

Whether we are talking supply management or producers in beef and pork, and the grains and oilseeds sector, they are happy with what this government is doing, because they are involved. They are helping us to develop the new programs. We did not arbitrarily go out and hammer on them and say, “This is what you get”. We went out and said, “How can we best serve you?”

We did that with the livestock sector. As they plummeted down into this crisis, we went to them and said, “How do we best serve you?” They came back and said, “Let us look at some practical solutions. Let us make sure this is not countervailable and that it gives us the liquidity to carry forward”.

The member for Malpeque says we cannot borrow our way out of trouble, but then he lists his own recommendations where he talks about loans. It is pretty shortsighted. He has a pretty short memory. We did that. We took a loan and we created it into a situation where it gives them the liquidity. We took second chair when it came to security, keeping the financial institutions on line.

We have created a cash flow situation that will see them through this downward cycle and if we have to adjust, we will do more. They know that. We are in discussions with the livestock sector constantly as to what is happening and how it is working.

Band-aid solutions will not solve the problem. Ad hoc programs that the Liberals were famous for announcing but never really delivering only really reinforce the status quo. With their programming over the years, all they did was mass market signals. They did not allow the market to adjust. The Liberals have maintained a certain rigid focus. They wanted them farming the mailbox but we do not.

We want them drawing their moneys from the marketplace. That is why we are seeing differences in the money out there from the government. The money is still there, but we have not had to deliver it because grains and oilseeds are finally getting their return out of the marketplace.

That is a wonderful thing. That gives us the freedom to move over and help the livestock sector in a more fulsome way and we have done that. We have made unprecedented amounts of money available to them. I do have the power and I have done that. The member said that we should not claw back the money. We made those changes. We did not just think about it or talk about it or rant about it. We did it.

As the minister I have the power, in conjunction with the finance minister, to absolve people of their repayments for up to a year where they are looking at just paying the interest. We can even take that away and give them time to get back on their feet. We did it. The Liberals did not even have that in their plan.

We are making changes to the farm improvement loan so that more people can qualify. We have changed the disaster component under the Agricultural Marketing Products Act. Where it used to be capped at $25,000, it has now been changed to $400,000, with the first $100,000 interest free. That is tremendous liquidity. That provides a tremendous opportunity for the sector to move ahead, and it is. The market is going to drive it. Producers are adapting to it. We are starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

The member went on and on about a number of different things that really are not pertinent to this. It was more of a political rant. I am happy to have a debate any time those members want to go to the polls.

The member brought up the issue of Gencor. While we do feel for the company, it is alive and well in certain other sectors. It is a big multinational company. We certainly feel for the people who have lost their jobs and the producers who do not have access to it.

The good news is that this government rebuilt the trade situation in the U.S., and rule 2 is in place which means live animals and animals over 30 months can cross over the border. Cull animals, and cows and bulls have seen unprecedented value, more than ever seen since BSE. That is what drove Gencor out of business.

The member opposite talked also about the SRM removal and the feed ban and so on. Guess when that started? That happened on the Liberal watch. The industry asked for those types of things to get the border back open. We are now looking at every issue listed under SRM and removing them as we get agreement with our import nations.

We have since made some tremendous moves on getting some of those SRMs out of the system. We have taken away a lot of the regulatory costs on the feed ban. We are looking at on farm mixed feed, which is regulated by the time it gets there, so why would we do it again?

We are listening to producers. We are getting the job done. The opposition cannot seem to get it through its head that we are doing the right things and producers are accepting that.

The member for Malpeque talked about CAIS and how bad it was. He said it did not do this or it did not do that. Guess whose program that was? It was a Liberal program. In 2006 we campaigned on getting rid of it. We have done that because it did not serve producers in any way, shape or form.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

And you are using it Gerry.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Don't sound angry.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

You're using it Gerry. You didn't scrap it.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Listen to the hollering over there, Mr. Speaker. I must have hit a nerve. I am going to hit a few more and continue to do that right through the next election until there is less than a dirty dozen over there, and you are going to help us do that, Mr. Speaker. I know you are.

The CAIS program never delivered for livestock.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

I would urge the minister to stop trying to drag the Chair into the debate.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

You just look so intense up there, Mr. Speaker, I knew you were hanging on every word and agreeing.

The CAIS program never delivered for livestock. It never really delivered in any way for grains and oilseeds. In the new programs that we have delivered and are going forward, we are working with our counterparts at the provincial and territorial levels in an unprecedented collaborative way, and we have also included industry. There has been a fulsome discussion on what is needed to be in the new programs to make them user friendly. There is no sense developing programs as we did for years under the previous government that missed the mark, that never sent the money where it needed to go. It was eaten up in administration as it went out, was clawed back and changes were done.

We have made changes in the new program. We actually altered the last year of CAIS as much as we could without provincial collaboration. The provinces wanted to hold it as it was; so be it, that is their decision. At the end of the day, we delivered more money in a different way through the old CAIS program than ever would have been thought of because we listened to producers, and we did it without using ad hoc and band-aid solutions that mask the market signals.

Certainly producers are going to have to adjust, but they have to have time to do that. They have to come to grips with the dollar that is up, which this government does not control. They have to look at the instances of input costs going up. There are a lot of things driving that, right back to the cost of fuel in delivering the grain to the elevator.

We have made unprecedented moves to deliver different livestock feeds. There is a biofuels program. The member opposite says he agrees with that, and I welcome that, but his old colleagues from the NFU are going coast to coast on a government grant--figure that one out--saying how bad that is.

Biofuels are the best thing that has been announced for rural Canada in a generation. They are going to reinvigorate rural Canada. They are going to bring communities back onside with the extra jobs. It gives farmers a different place to deliver their product, which helps bring the price up on their products. It is a good news story all around, because it is also very good for the environment to start moving away from fossil fuels and getting into green energy. There are major changes coming on that as we move to cellulosic as opposed to feed grain stocks.

There are a lot of stories out there, and the NFU has fallen for this, that somehow we cannot do both food and fuel. Maybe the way its members farm from the 1940s they cannot, but it will only take 5% of our production to cover off the three billion litres of ethanol that we are calling for with our program, only 5%. The other 95% stays in the food line, in the export line and everything else. Weather systems account for more than 5% in variables, Mr. Speaker. You know that, I know that, everybody in this place knows that. It is a good news story and the crazy stories out there saying that we cannot do both are ridiculous, to say the least and stay polite within the political language that is allowed here.

On trade, my seatmate, the hon. Minister of International Trade, is doing yeoman service. We are out there making bilateral agreements with countries that are looking for the quality that we have in our dairy, our beef, our genetics, and our grains and oilseeds sectors. They are clamouring for them around the globe.

I have had the great opportunity to travel to some of those countries, and I will be doing some more over the break week coming up, to reinvigorate the trade that those guys let slide. The Liberals slagged our major trading partner to the point where we were losing out to the Americans. The Americans did bilateral trade agreements with a lot of the countries that we used to deal with. They are now eating our lunch because those guys looked the other way and did not get it done. On so many levels, the Liberals did not get it done. We have reinvigorated trade.

I have made a move as the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to get rid of KVD, kernel visual distinguishability. The only jurisdiction left on the globe that uses KVD is the Canadian Wheat Board area of western Canada, the only one. What that has done has stopped us from developing innovative varieties of grains that would feed the livestock sector in a better way than they are doing now.

There are grains and so on available to producers in North Dakota and Montana that were developed at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon because they could not do the ground testing in western Canada because of KVD. That is gone. We are not going to allow those types of things to stymie trade.

The member quoted a few articles from the paper but he did it in a cut and paste editorialized way that those members like to do. The reality out there is there are other good news stories. The value of farmland in Canada is up almost 8%. The only jurisdiction where it is down is in the member's own province. People should talk to him about that. Maybe he should get on board with some of our programs.

I have an excellent working relationship with Neil LeClair, the minister of agriculture there. We have done some great things for livestock on the island.

[An hon. member]

Name one.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

We have reinvigorated ABP, Atlantic Beef Products, to the point where it can stay open and keep the feedlot industry in Prince Edward Island. That is unprecedented. It was built at the end of the Liberals' reign of terror and was faltering. We have made it last. We are helping those farmers out. A member said to name one. That is a shining example.

Even the Premier of Prince Edward Island is happy with that one. We know that. I have talked with Premier Ghiz personally. I know the member for Malpeque got his wrist slapped because he was pushing that one too hard.

We are also talking about major changes to the labelling system in this country. For years under the Liberals, labelling was perverted to the point where it was all based on cost, not on content. We saw product of Canada perverted to the point where as long as it was 51% of the costs, including the packaging, labelling, or whatever else they wanted to add in, made it a product of Canada.

We are changing that. Right now we are in the consultative phase with industry. Producers are thrilled with this. The horticultural industry that has faced imports from around the world that may not be safe or secure as ours are is ecstatic about this. The product of Canada label will only be applied to content that is virtually all Canadian. That is a good news story. That gets a round of applause from every producer out there, because the producers know they can compete on a level playing field with anybody in the world. We are the best, bar none. This will give them the opportunity to maintain that level playing field when it is based on content, not on cost.

I would point to any number of things that we have done to fulfill that report. I would point to other issues where we have gone beyond that report. I could read quote after quote from the cattlemen's and livestock associations about how they like what we are doing, how they support what we are doing. They are ready to march in droves behind this government. They have had enough of the promises and empty rhetoric from that side.