Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the motion by the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex and I support it. I will repeat the motion so it is on the record again:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should ensure that production management tools available to Canadian farmers are similar to those of other national jurisdictions by considering equivalent scientific research and agricultural regulatory approval processes by Health Canada, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
I support the motion, but it should be understood that the motion does not really change anything. On the positive side, it might give a little more impetus to moving it a little faster to some equivalency, especially with the United States in terms of not total harmonization, because we have to protect our sovereignty as well, but to more harmonization in areas that make sense and that would allow our producers to be more competitive.
As I said, it might move it along. The motion only asks the government to do something. When the House asks the government to do something, the government does not listen very well. The record is, when the House is really strenuous, forceful and taking on a very serious issue, the Prime Minister might just close the place down. We have to recognize this is the reality of the world. This is only a motion, coming from one of the Conservatives' own backbench members, almost pleading with the government to do something, and I can understand that.
Today the chief government whip got up in the House on debate on the budget. When he was asked a question about why there was not a dime for primary producers in the budget, he bragged about there being a little over 100 rural members. That is a wonderful thing, but they are 100 rural members in the backbenches who are not listened to. When they suggest something is falling on deaf ears, that does not do anything for rural Canada. My point is this is a motion and while it is important and I support it, we really need something that will force the government's hand to actually move.
I certainly congratulate the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex for providing some leadership on this issue because leadership has been absolutely lacking from the minister. At least we are getting a little leadership from the backbench. Maybe we are getting none from the front bench, but we are getting a little leadership from the backbench and that is a good thing.
What would the motion do? The intent of the motion is to allow Canadian authorities to approve products already used in other countries if their regulatory process and their research methods to produce the data are deemed equivalent to those of the Canadian system. That is a very important point because we need that to happen.
As the member explained, and I will give a little summary of what he said, we have all kinds of instances where a Canadian producer is producing Canadian products. However, because maybe our regulatory system is slower sometimes, maybe the applications have not come in from the companies, or for whatever reason, the product, whether it is a pesticide, a herbicide a veterinarian medicine or whatever it may be, has not been approved in Canada. I believe there is a production plant in the member's riding.
Sometimes these products are even produced in Canada and may be more effective and cheaper. They are for sale in the United States but one cannot buy them as a Canadian producer and they may make that producer more competitive. Therefore, we are waiting for a regulatory system to move and approve the product but while we are waiting our producers are actually in a non-competitive position.
This is something that the government could move on very rapidly in other ways. The interesting thing is that the food, whether it is a crop or whether it is an animal product, produced with using that herbicide, pesticide or veterinarian medicine that is not allowed in Canada because it is not approved but is allowed in the United States, ends up on Canadian grocery store shelves and Canadian consumers consume them and our producers are not competitive. It just does not make sense.
That is just a summary of what this motion would really do to help Canadian farmers if the government listens to the member's motion and does something.
If the truth be known, the move toward bringing some equivalency and assisting our farmers in being competitive has been a long time coming. It started as long ago as 2002 when the global joint review was brought in by the PMRA, Pest Management Regulatory Agency.
We have had many battles, as the member knows, with PMRA at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food trying to convince it to get rid of the backlog, get products approved and through the system so that they are available to producers.
However, I will say, in fairness to Health Canada and the PMRA, that I think they are getting rid of the backlog. I do not know if it is completely gone but they have moved some distance in getting rid of that backlog. I congratulate them on that.
What really needs to be done? Pesticides, herbicides and veterinarian drugs that are available in the United States really need to be available for Canadian farmers on a competitive basis.
I do not believe the member mentioned the whole area of seeds, seed registration, fertilizers and so on. Although we like to think we are the bread basket of the world, and we are great producers and efficient producers of high quality products, when a big company is looking at producing a seed, a herbicide or a chemical, it tends to produce it where the big mass market is which is often the central and western United States. A big company is not willing to invest money in research to get into a smaller market like Canada.
What this motion would do, if the government moved on it, is put our producers at a more competitive advantage. As a result, it would not put the companies through the same huge costs in order to register a product in this country, which would be a good thing.
A number of other things could be done and I want to mention a couple beyond this motion. CFIA needs more inspectors. One of the problems that is not allowing our producers to be competitive is that the products that come in from all over the world do not meet the same requirements that Canadian producers must meet but it ends up on our grocery store shelves. The government needs to spend money to hire inspectors to ensure that products that come in here do not disadvantage Canadian producers and come in under the same standards as Canadian producers must meet.
It is the same in terms of security measures that are being imposed on our Canadian agriculture retailers. We are imposing a cost on them that is actually paid for by the Americans in terms of their fertilizer and chemical suppliers. Those costs go back down to primary producers. The government could be doing the same as the U.S. and paying those costs.
The government could be doing a number of things beyond this motion. My only problem with the motion is that there is no way of forcing the government's hand. To date, without the Conservatives' hand being forced, they have absolutely failed the farm community. It is a good motion but their failure speaks for itself.