Madam Speaker, on September 17, I called on the Minister of Agriculture to address the crisis destroying our hog industry. That was two months ago and the situation has only deteriorated.
Since that time, we have seen the crisis in our hog industry only worsen. Instead of the government doing its duty and providing the assistance required, the evidence will now show that during the worst hog crisis in Canadian history the government has allowed the moneys in the business risk program to decline by, as the minister acknowledged I believe yesterday, $961,400,000. This is unacceptable.
There are ways that program could have been re-profiled to get the money into the producers' hands.
Does the minister and the government have any appreciation of just how ineffective they have been with their program?
I will quote from the testimony of Leza Matheson-Wolters, who appeared before the agriculture committee a couple of weeks ago. She and her husband are among P.E.I.'s most productive hog farmers and the current crisis quite literally is throwing them out of business. This is how she described the minister's program:
Currently, we have the HILLRP program, the hog industry loan loss reserve program, and the HFTP, the hog farm transition program. Neither of these programs will help, or save, the existence of my farm. The HILLRP program lends $85 per hog. I would first need to find a bank that would agree to consolidate my loans for a term of 60 months or less; but it would be at a higher interest rate than I have now, with the stipulation that I would pay off my APP first.
In other words, pay off the government first. This is security for the government, not for the hog industry.
She goes on to say:
But with our size of operation, it would mean that I'd first have to find a bank that would agree to this, then I would have to take a higher interest rate and pay off my APP, and then I wouldn't have any money left over. Therefore, the program is of no use to my operation. The result is that it will make things worse, not better, for me.
That is the sad reality for many hog producers.
As I said, under the business risk management program there could be solutions if the government only had the political will. It should drop the viability test, change the reference margins and let money flow under the business risk program. It has now allowed $961,400,000 less than the year before and that is less than previous years. I would ask the minister to not allow our efficient hog industry, among the most efficient in the world, with the best genetics in the world, to lapse and be replaced by the American hog industry.
My question remains the same. How can the minister and the government even pretend to have the best interests of farmers in mind when they fail to deliver on the promises and, worse yet, cut critical spending?