Madam Speaker, as my colleague from Medicine Hat said, on this day it is very difficult to speak to this topic but I want to assure the House that for a million or more Canadians out there this is a very important bill. The bill is so important to them that they are waiting and waiting. Most of all, those who follow the House recognize that the bill takes away my right as an elected MP. It disenfranchises me because of its complexity. I will explain.
If I vote yes to the bill I am telling a million people out there that I am turning over the definition of cruelty to someone who lives in Toronto or Vancouver and who is far removed from the animals we raise on farms. If I vote no to the bill then I am saying no to regulations on pornography, disarming a police officer and so on.
Canadians need to know that the bill is well designed and well planned, not for now, but let us say we have an election in June 2004. Every member of the opposition will be accused either of voting for something or voting against something. It can be used in a very political way. It is meant to hurt everyone who has been elected to the opposition in the House.
A man in Saskatchewan invented what he called a gophinator to control those pests, gophers. He wanted to patent the machine. It uses a very simple procedure of shooting gas down the hole; the animal dies instantly without any pain. I said to others that it would never pass because some animal rights people would not allow it. That night on a phone-in radio show a man from Vancouver phoned to say that the machine should not be registered because people in the west do not understand that gophers are good for them. They aerate the soil.
That should give the House some idea of why the cattle industry, the animal industry and even other industries are so concerned that all of these things have been put into one bill. If we vote yes we are damned, if we vote no we are damned and if we abstain we are damned. It is a no-win situation for us in the opposition and the government knows it. The government has planned it, not for now but for the future.
Surely to goodness if the government would talk to people, those people would say to split the bill into sections and let people debate them.
There are people out there who will tell those engaged in the chicken industry that it is cruel to have those hens locked into cages. We have all heard that. They will say that the pork industry must abandon its procedures. The industry that really is concerned is the cattle industry, and not just in my area. As I said during statements by members, and as my colleague from Medicine Hat mentioned, those farmers out there right now want to put in dugouts so they hopefully can catch the next spring runoff, but the government has run out of money through the PFRA. That is understandable, but when the government needs money for various things it can throw a million dollars anywhere. All the farmer gets to put into one of these collecting systems is one-third.
We have ignored the industry and now these people are facing this stupid legislation. It is stupid. I have heard animal rights people say it is cruel to castrate a calf. The government will abide by the rights of these people. That will come. What will also come to the industry is that branding will be prohibited. What will come is a huge cost to the industry to survive.
Not only that, there was the last time I went to a rodeo, which is a big sport in the west, the challenge of man against beast. I saw the animal rights people with cameras right up close. I talked to them. They said there are two events that will have to be removed from the rodeo and they will fight until they are. The first one that they say is cruel and has to go is calf roping. The other one is bulldogging or steer wrestling. The biggest target these people have in this country is to some day block out the Calgary Stampede. They have stated this publicly.
Here we are, wanting to destroy, with a bill in regard to which legitimately elected people are faced with the choice of voting yes, no or abstaining. As my colleagues have mentioned there are some good points in the bill. How will I vote? If I abstain, the government will say I do not have any guts. If I vote yes, then I will be saying to the whole cattle industry across Canada that we are going to let some crackpot decide what cruelty is. If I vote no, then the government will say that I approve of child pornography and all of these things.
This is a lot more serious than we think in a democratic process. If the government gets away with the bill, if it does not break it down, we will see more and more complete disregard for my colleagues who have been elected from across Canada and who sit in this opposition. Make no mistake about it, the bill is a bill that disenfranchises every member who sits in the opposition.
Let the public know that. We will be disenfranchised if the bill passes in its present state. Democracy goes out the window completely because we cannot support the bill in its entirety as it is presently before us.
I plead with the government to let its individual members look at this, to let them examine what they are doing to the concept of free and open debate. Let them examine what they are doing to the opposition members who have to go back to their constituents and try to explain why they voted or abstained.
The bill is wrong, and I know one thing: every single member opposite in the Government of Canada knows it is wrong but they are using the bill in its entirety as it is being presented before us here. We will find out what the motive is but right now we just do not know.
In conclusion, the government should pull this bill, break it down, preserve democracy and have some respect for the humble people over here who happen to sit in the opposition.