House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2000, with 37% of the vote.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police February 3rd, 1999
Mr. Speaker, the answers that come from the solicitor general are becoming more frustrating all along.
Police detachments have been forced to amalgamate at a time when more police are required on the streets. Rural areas across the country and in my riding which depend on the RCMP have been forced to cut back in detachments and manpower.
Is the solicitor general's intention to continue to cut back on RCMP presence in Canadian communities?
Royal Canadian Mounted Police February 3rd, 1999
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government is destroying one of the most effective police forces in the world. The Liberal government has destroyed the effectiveness and the morale of the RCMP.
Recently Canada's RCMP training academy in Regina had to be closed until spring or perhaps longer. No longer are RCMP officers being trained.
When will the solicitor general reopen the RCMP officer training school in Regina?
Division No. 307 December 7th, 1998
Madam Speaker, on October 28 I posed a question to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. As the House will recognize, that was more than a month ago. I would have hoped that the issue I raised would have been dealt with by this time and that we would have a policy and a program in place that would in fact help the agricultural producers in the country.
But I am very saddened to say that still the government is waffling. It has not put anything concrete forward so that farmers can take some solace in the fact that there is actually a government that cares about agriculture in the country.
My question was quite simple. It stated that producers in the country right now have incomes that are down 55%. This is a huge industry, involving some $50 billion.
The United States at the time dealt with the issue by announcing a $6 billion program the week before this question was posed. The U.S. question was not “When will?” or “Will we put forward support for our farmers?”, it was “How much?” The question of how much was answered the day I posed the question. It was some $6 billion.
It is difficult to say, but Canada is now the second lowest, if not the lowest of the OECD with respect to support for its agricultural producers. Our government seems to be fiddling while farm incomes not only burn, but unfortunately farms are being lost right now.
The reason I tabled this late show is because the minister came back with some very facetious answers concerning the policy and the platform of the Conservative Party in the last election campaign. He talked about the amalgamation of the departments of the environment, natural resources and agriculture.
I mention that because the parliamentary secretary some days later, during an emergency debate that was instigated by the Progressive Conservative Party, took 10 minutes of the House's valuable time to spew nothing but political rhetoric. He did not deal with this very important issue, but only with the political position of his party.
I would like some answers from the parliamentary secretary with respect to what is now happening with the proposed program that is to come forward. Today in the House I asked if the program will be announced before the House rises for the Christmas break and if there will be criteria associated with that program which will allow cash to flow to producers who require it before the spring seeding which will begin in the new year.
In dealing with that I would say that we do have some experience we can point to. The previous Progressive Conservative government put into place the well respected and received NISA program which is still in place for agricultural producers.
In 1991 we also put forward the GRIP program, the gross revenue insurance program, which this government in its wisdom decided in 1995 to do away with. Why did it do that? It did it because there was short term gain for some very long term pain. We are recognizing that today. The pain is now only showing up at the farm gates and farmyards.
If the government had any vision it would have maintained that program or, at the very least, put in a program that would have had the vision to see the problems that could present themselves.
The parliamentary secretary is going to get up now and probably not answer any of those questions or any of these issues. If he wants to talk about policy—
Agriculture December 7th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, if this government and this minister took it seriously, two years ago they could have been looking at support programs, not now when it is a full-blown crisis. The criteria that the minister talks about is money being put into the farmers' pockets. Unfortunately cash will not flow until March 1999.
Is the minister prepared to change the criteria and put cash in farmers' pockets this year so that the farmers can have an early Christmas present and get back on the land this spring?
Agriculture December 7th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food will be going before his cabinet colleagues again with a revised proposal for farm income supports.
Maybe he could use a little ammunition. Since 1995 there have been 1,053 farm bankruptcies. Ironically, that is the same year that the Liberal government started cutting back on farm support systems.
When the minister goes before his cabinet colleagues tomorrow, is he confident that he is going to get a positive response from his cabinet colleagues?
Agriculture December 2nd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, yesterday the minister was in Washington dealing with farm producers in that area. It was nice to see that one country was supporting its agricultural industry. Unfortunately it was not Canada.
In one speech Vice-President Al Gore commented on four programs that were put in place by the United States government. One was a farm aid program on pork to Russia.
Why was our minister not looking at those types of programs for our farmers?
Agriculture December 2nd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food has stood in the House and repeatedly said how he has consulted the provinces, the stakeholders and the producers on the new aid package.
The reality is that very few of those people know what has been presented to cabinet. In fact, our leader met today with the minister of agriculture in Manitoba and he has no idea what is going forward.
Is this the minister's idea of co-operative federalism? I do not think so. How many more premiers have not been consulted about this package?
Agriculture November 30th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I too would like to thank the Speaker of the House of Commons for allowing this emergency debate to take place this evening. I would like to thank my colleague from South Shore for putting forward the motion in my absence.
My colleagues recognize and I am sure the minister of agriculture and members of the government recognize that I spent last week talking and more importantly listening to producers across western Canada. Quite frankly, I have heard too many tales of horror over the last week to recount to this House but suffice to say, this issue is a crisis. It is an emergency. An emergency debate is very necessary in order to put the issue on the table.
On November 4 when the minister of agriculture met with the provincial ministers and agriculture leaders to discuss farm income support, he said that it was a discussion meeting, not a decision meeting. This past Thursday the minister was also supposed to meet with the cabinet's social and economic committee to finalize his proposal to combat the farm income crisis. Still there is no proposal. As of Friday the minister still did not have an agreement in principle on the apparent $2 billion bailout package as reported by CBC last Wednesday.
This week the minister is supposed to meet with cabinet yet again to try to convince his colleagues why they should support agriculture. Yet another meeting in the growing list of excuses is being used to put off making a decision on the farm income crisis. The government was even trying to make last minute attempts to put off tonight's debate. Yet another excuse for the government to put off serious discussions and deliberations.
The minister had an opportunity to show leadership on July 16 this year when he met with his provincial and territorial counterparts in Niagara-on-the-Lake to discuss the agricultural safety net program but refused to offer anything more than was under the current system.
Aside from that particular meeting this past summer, the minister has been aware of this issue since he was appointed by the Prime Minister to lead his department last year. This is an issue that should not be new to the minister or to anyone else in this House.
The minister has had access to departmental information on the farm income situation for over a year. The minister has resources, yet the Government of Canada chose and chooses to do nothing.
It appears to be the policy of the Liberal government to wait until things are in crisis before it attempts to fix the problem, like it did with the helicopter contracts, the department of fisheries and the Canada pension plan, to name a few.
We would not be in this situation if the political will were there. It would appear it is not. As was mentioned earlier, do our competitors have political will?
It took the Americans a very short period of time to put another $6 billion into the pockets of their producers. The U.K. recently announced a $250 million program. I quote the minister of agriculture for Great Britain, Mr. Brown: “I know the industry has been going through a bad patch but I am confident it has a prosperous future. To get there it needs our support now and that is what I am providing”.
This was from the minister of agriculture in the U.K., our competitor in the world marketplace and certainly one which has the political will to put its money where it has to be spent, to the producers.
As we witnessed in October, our neighbours to the south announced a $6 billion package which, on top of the $8.25 billion package in the U.S. federal agriculture income reform act, makes $14 billion into American farmer pockets.
I will be perfectly clear. I am not, nor is the Progressive Conservative Party, suggesting that we match the United States in income support. It would be futile. We cannot compete with the U.S. or the European Union on the same cash level. It would also be futile to think Canada can convince the U.S. or the EU over the next week to reduce their producer support to Canadian levels. They simply would not. But something has to be done.
That is why a short term immediate cash injection is needed to prevent future destruction to the fundamentals of this Canadian industry. With the short term cash injection for this year we must also develop long term solutions. We must try to protect our industry with a two pronged approach, the short term cash injection for this year combined with a long term whole farm program that will not be countervailable by the U.S. in the next round of trade talks.
If we only provide a short term approach we will only have long term problems for our agricultural industry.
I would be remiss if I did not point out that I find it quite ironic that the agriculture minister repeatedly said that he would never resort to an ad hoc program yet that is exactly what we are dealing with right now in cabinet. I do not, nor does any member of the PC party, believe that ad hoc programs are what producers need but unfortunately the government has given the industry no other options after gutting the safety net program. We would not be in this position if the government had the foresight to replace a long term program when it eliminated the GRIP in 1995.
In 1995 the government decided to take short term gain for long term pain. Other provinces did not. Alberta has a FIDIP program, a revenue program, and Ontario has a market revenue insurance program which is similar to GRIP in style but was massaged so it dealt with any countervail problems.
When commodity prices were doing well and everything seemed great on the farm, why would people think they should put emphasis on farm safety programs? The problem with that kind of thinking is that more often than not good times do not last forever. Now we are in that situation. If we had strong federal leadership for the industry we would not be in this situation.
Progressive Conservative provincial governments are making efforts to bridge the gap in the current safety net crisis. On Friday the Alberta government pledged to increase interest free loans for producers to $50,000 from $15,000 for hog producers. Manitoba has offered share in support of a national program, and hot off the press, in Manitoba the agriculture minister, Mr. Harry Enns, has just indicated that he has asked the Manitoba Agricultural Credit Corporation to work with producers on case by case basis where appropriate to defer scheduled payments so that they can keep agriculture on the farm. P.E.I. also recently announced income support for its hog industry.
The time for meetings is over. The time for action is now. Producers are selling at a loss. According to StatsCan net farm incomes dropped 55% nationally between 1996 and 1997.
It was projected to drop another 35% in 1997-98. Next year it is only expected to be worse. This industry is expected to lose $170 million next year, the first negative income figure since the Great Depression.
Farmers cannot wait. They need our support and they need it now. We know there is a problem, now let us get on with it.
I remind the minister of agriculture of his own words on February 9, 1993 in this House: “I want to address this to the taxpayers who wonder why governments spend billions of dollars on agriculture. The taxpayer, like all of us in these recessionary times, finds it difficult to rationalize big expenses. Why do we continue to support agriculture? The answer is because it is worth our support. The cost for farm support is not cheap but Canadians should ask themselves where they want their food to come from. I believe they want it to come from Canada”. I agree with those comments. Let us do something.
I would like to be of assistance in this debate. I would like to make sure the minister of agriculture knows he has our support in the Progressive Conservative Party. I implore him to go to his cabinet colleagues to make sure this program is put into place before the end of the year, sooner than later, so my producers can come back to the land in the spring.
Royal Canadian Mint Act November 30th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the hon. member from the NDP, but I did not hear a lot of relevance with respect to Bill C-41 on the Royal Canadian Mint.
The member alluded to and analysed the Saskatchewan government and how it has been very productive in the province of Saskatchewan. Since we are off on a tangent right now, would the member analyse the two provincial governments, the one of Bob Rae and perhaps the one of Glen Clark?
I understand they were both NDP governments that perhaps had problems with the issues of taxes and job loss and perhaps has a problem right now with a loss of confidence in the voters of those two particular provinces, particularly Bob Rae who unfortunately or fortunately for a lot of us no longer seems to be in the political sphere. Would the hon. member please analyse those two governments?
Agriculture November 30th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, this government has been aware that the crisis situation in farming communities has been there for more than a year. The problem with this government is it waits until there is a crisis situation before it acts. It does not try to prevent the crisis. It is reactive as opposed to proactive. It is like the government did with the helicopter deal, like it did with the department of fisheries, and like it did with the Canada pension plan.
I ask the minister of agriculture, why does the government always wait too long and do too little when there is a problem now in the agricultural industry?