Ken Epp

[Business of the House, March 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I want to do this prior to the member for Palliser beginning his speech. There has been consultation and I believe you would find unanimous consent of the House for the following motion. I move:

That private member's Bill C-386 be dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence.

This is a bill in the name of the member for Calgary East, who as you know has been ill and is not able to be here..

[Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act, March 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, this is a very insightful question. Again it impinges on those broader principles. We can look at the details in a country like China where their people do not have anywhere near the freedoms that we have, but as I said earlier, before we go over there and pretend to have all the answers for them, we need to look at ourselves. There is absolutely no question in my mind that under the dictatorial government in Ottawa, not just under the Liberals but under the Conservatives before them and the Liberals before them, we have had a government granted monopoly given to some people, thereby totally taking away the freedom of some people.

For example, I grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan and later escaped to Alberta. I have a lot of acquaintances in agriculture in all three prairie provinces and I get both sides of this. Some say they want to keep the wheat board and it should be compulsory. Others say they grew the wheat, and if they can sell their lentils wherever they want, why can they not send their durum wheat wherever they want? They say it is their property and how can the government have the right to tell them what to do with their own property strictly for commercial purposes?

I hear over and over again that we need to reach a balance here. I remember many years ago facing this question in my own profession. In our group at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology where I taught, a small group of people wanted to have a dental plan. Some of us in the math department did the computations on it and came to the conclusion that it was very costly. A philosophical question then arose. Is it correct to force everyone to pay for something they do not want in order to provide the few with the ability to get it at a cheaper price? I say no, that is not defensible, nor is it defensible to force farmers to sell their grain only to a government agency.

[Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act, March 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I were both a foreign affairs critic and a foreign affairs expert in order to answer the member's questions. Certainly my colleague has raised some very important issues.

I have followed the issue of persecution of people around the world based on their beliefs quite carefully over the years. The main reason is that members of my family escaped from Russia because they were not allowed to express their faith and live their faith in an open way in that country. They were not willing to be participants in the revolution and hence were considered to be enemies of the revolution. Many of our people were summarily killed because of that.

I cannot believe that in our world there are governments that think it is their moral right to suppress people's thoughts. In Canada, the United States and most of the western world, people enjoy a large degree of freedom, although even then it is attacked. For example, during the last election in our own country statements were made by our political adversaries which really went over the top and unfairly attacked people of faith. We had better be careful before we arrogantly say that we in Canada are in a position to tell China how to run its affairs unless there is some improvement in our own country in that regard.

As we build a relationship with China I hope that more and more we will interact with the Chinese and our values will hopefully catch on. That is the best way. Values are caught, not taught. It is much more important for people to see what they can do. At the same time however, I am certainly supportive of sanctions as appropriate.

I think of a country like Sudan. The oppression of its people is immense. Why we are not rising in international protest against what that government is doing to its people is a mystery to me. That certainly is part of it.

The member also asked how this trade agreement would actually affect the ordinary folks of China. I am not terribly knowledgeable about this, but it is my impression that probably the most oppressed people in that country are the agricultural people. In many cases they do a lot of very hard, physical, tedious work without adequate equipment for a very low income.

In our trade agreements perhaps we could sell China some of our farm equipment. Perhaps some of our manufacturers could go over there and design equipment especially for the fields in China. That would help the Chinese by easing their workloads and hopefully improving their income.

Nothing should be automatically assumed. It ought to be monitored. As our relationship grows with China it will give us more and more moral right to be in there and to speak up when we see abuses and different parts of that society being suppressed and oppressed.

[Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act, March 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-50 is a bill of no small proportions. It is a bill which we should all, as members in the House, pay very close attention to because of its implications.

Having introduced it in this way and peaked the interest of members, I now need to say what it is about because everyone will be wondering what this important bill is that we are debating on Friday morning with the attention of all 301 members of parliament fully at hand.

We are debating a bill that will establish and increase our ability to trade with the People's Republic of China. It is a very interesting bill because we already have a great deal of trade going on with China. For many years we have exported, among other things, grain to China. For many years we have given it good credit conditions so it could buy our wheat and hopefully pay for it a little later. We are all aware of the fact that many items which we purchase are made in China.

I was intrigued to notice that my little timer clock was built in China. Many computer things we use are built in China. I had the opportunity the other day to do a little home repair and lo and behold, in big clear letters on my pliers it said “Made in China”. Over and over we see this. I have an electronic daytimer, which I hesitate to take out of my pocket. I am totally dependent on my auxiliary brain which is made in China.

One reason that trade with China is so important is the fact that it has such a huge population. It really boggles the mind to think of how large our target is in terms of doing trade with China. I anticipate that as we bring China fully into the World Trade Organization the impact on many economies, including Canada's, will be even greater than it is now.

The bill we are dealing with today is a housekeeping bill. It does not really talk about issues. That is one of the failures of the government. It often brings in legislation that is housekeeping in nature, the purpose of which is to amend certain bills, motions and agreements so that these trade deals can proceed. However I do not recall, at least in the eight some years that I have been here, that we have ever had in the House or even in committee a good philosophical debate about how we should handle trade with China.

Over and over many members of the House raised, shall I call it, the red flag of human rights abuses in China. Some members, and I think a lot of Canadians, think that we should put increasing pressure on China to reduce human rights abuses in their country. All of us probably have etched into our mind the history of Tiananmen Square and how the People's Republic of China really did stifle in a very high handed manner what appeared to us, at least in the way it was reported, to be a legitimate political protest. In Canada of course we feel that to protest on a political basis is almost a right. In China it is not a right. The people there do not enjoy anywhere near the freedoms that we do in this country.

It is interesting to know that our total imports from China at this stage are worth in excess of $11 billion per year. That is a significant number. Many of those goods are brought into this country competing with products which are produced in Canada. It is very important that when we enter into as trade agreement with China that we have a mechanism to balance the impact that volume of trade can have.

The whole idea of free trade and trade under the World Trade Organization is to increase the economies of both countries in the agreement.

What we are looking for is one of those win-win situations where both countries involved in the agreement benefit. As the Parliament of Canada, we should ensure that safeguards are built in to prevent the very populace and the huge country of China from totally overwhelming little old 30 million population Canada. We really are vulnerable when we are talking about a population that has over one billion people and we have 30 million. It is very disproportionate. Therefore it is important that our rules and regulations be such that we reduce at least the probability of us being overwhelmed economically by trade with China.

We should look at not only the human rights implications in trade agreements that we have but also the large economic spin-off that occurs when we enter into trade agreements with such a large country with an overwhelming economy.

At this stage it would be accurate to say that parliament's involvement, the people of Canada's involvement via their parliament , in setting up these trade agreements has been woefully inadequate. We just do not have the opportunity to debate.

One thing that really bothers me is that our negotiators often go out to these different organizations, whether it is a trade organization or whether it is the United Nations, and unilaterally carry with them Canada's position without that position ever having been debated and established by parliament. This is particularly annoying when there are some things which are obviously to our detriment and parliament could have, if it were permitted to fulfill its role, alerted the negotiators to the implications, and some of the problems could have been averted and resolved in advance.

We believe parliament should be involved and should ratify these agreements which establish a new economic relationship with other countries. This is a huge missing link in the work of parliament. Sometimes I wonder what the role of parliament is. I told some people in the riding not long ago that we were getting more MPs, and that is great. However I said what was the purpose of having more MPs since under the present regime the MPs who were here were not even allowed to think for themselves. They cannot even choose for themselves their choice of a chairperson of a committee. That is orchestrated by the Prime Minister's Office.

In my view there should be much greater consultation with Canadians through their parliament on these agreements. The agreements should be brought to parliament for scrutiny and for ratification. To me, that is a given. It is so obvious I cannot even proceed to build an argument for it. I cannot think of a single argument against that, so how can I not proceed to argue for it by refuting those arguments against it. There are none. We should just be doing it.

Another thing which I think is important for us to know is some of the details of Bill C-50.

I would point out there are some safeguards in the bill which seem to at least be going in the right direction. It is called a products specific safeguard. This could be applied to any good originating in China that was causing or threatening to cause injury to Canadian industry.

I know that the people in Ontario are more interested in car manufacturing than we are out west. We have no manufacturing plants for vehicles in western Canada. We should have. That is another one of the flaws of Canada. We have totally concentrated the industrial development mostly in the province of Ontario and somewhat in Quebec. Out west we are basically hewers of wood and haulers of water. It is unfortunate that we are not permitted to develop industry which is relative to our natural resources.

This is a bit of deviation from the particular bill, but I would point out that the Federal Government of Canada has primarily put the big barriers against us being able to do things like establish a pasta plant. That is again so eminently obvious.

Saskatchewan is almost the breadbasket of the world with all the agricultural products which are produced in the prairie provinces. Why should we simply take our raw materials off the land and ship them over to China for processing there and then buy some of them back after they are processed? That is nothing short of simply shipping jobs out of our country. There is no excuse for that.

It would reduce unemployment. It would give us a much greater sense of independence. It would help us in terms of international security to have a truly independent food supply since we would be set up not only to produce it but also to process it and get it table ready. I will continually press for more of such economic activity out in the regions. It boggles the mind why the government would continue to oppose that and not allow Canadians out west the freedom to market and to process their own product.

Bill C-50 has in it a safeguard which would limit the intrusion of Chinese products into our country if those products would threaten or cause injury to our industry.

There is a diversionary safeguard, which is interesting. It would prevent goods that are shut out of one market from overflowing into Canada. The most obvious example would be if the Americans were to put up a trade barrier so that the China was unable to deliver its product to the United States. This safeguard would, at least it appears to us, put the brake on that. It may not stop it entirely but at least it would prevent dumping of any product that is produced in China from overwhelming the Canadian economy. Basically it is like anti-dumping legislation.

There are specifically safeguards related to textile and clothing. We have factories across this country that produce textiles and clothing. I happen to frequently buy clothing that says “made in Montreal”. It is one of the few areas in which we are permitted to trade within our country. That would be another diversionary speech that I could give on all the trade barriers we have within our country. Recently of course there has been quite a bit of publicity on the barrier between Quebec and Ontario.

Obviously this is something that the two provinces have to work out. I would like to see the federal government take a larger leadership role in bringing these parties together for meaningful negotiations and to open up our interprovincial borders for trade.

Bill C-50 is meant to improve our trading relationships with China without detrimentally affecting our own industry and our own economy. I sincerely hope that is what will happen with the passage of this bill.

We ought to be aware that there is another little element. I will not get into it in depth, but there is a question about the adjoining state of Taiwan. We also have certain trading arrangements with that country. As we proceed into a trading relationship with China, we have to make sure that no barriers are put up to our trade with other countries which also have a great impact on our country.

I would like to read a page from our policy book. It is one of the things our party has always emphasized, as we did with the previous party before we became the Canadian Alliance. We are the only party that starts with basic principles. We used to have 21 principles and on those principles were built 75 policies. Those overriding policies drive our responses to different legislation.

I would like to read an item into the record. It is important for Canadians to know that the Canadian Alliance is a party that thinks through these things in a broad sense and on a principled basis prior to getting into individual pieces of legislation. Item No. 56 from our policy book states:

We support a foreign policy that protects Canada's sovereignty and independence, promotes our national interests (political, economic and strategic), contributes to collective security and defence, promotes democratic principles and human rights, and assists in international development. We will pay particular attention to maintaining good bilateral relations with our most significant trading partners.

There is one thing which totally puzzles me. There is no doubt that our most significant trading partner is the United States, yet I am appalled at the attitude which is sometimes displayed by the Prime Minister toward it. I wish that greater efforts would be taken toward building a solid co-operative relationship with it, particularly pertaining to trade and all the border issues. The Liberal government is altogether too lackadaisical in looking at these issues and their importance.

There is no doubt that because of China's size it has the potential of also becoming another of our very significant trading partners, even much greater than it is now.

Tonight when everyone puts up their feet and flips on their TV, they should look at the back of the remote control. It was probably made in China. The label on the back of the television will probably indicate it was made in China. A lot of the tools in our toolboxes were made in China.

Our trade with China is inevitable. It would be a huge error to enter into trade with a country without working agreements that safeguard Canada's interests. In that regard I believe the bill goes in the right direction. Perhaps there are some minor things which need to be adjusted.

Certainly I would like to have a broader debate sometime in the future in which we look at the bigger picture of what this means to us politically and economically around the world. We need to do more of that.

Meanwhile the bill is one which deserves our support. It is my intention to support it and probably most of my colleagues will as well.

I do not want to remind the Speaker of his job, but I have gone about 30 seconds over my time. I am willing to give the floor to the next person who I am sure will have even more interesting things to say than I did.

[Corrections and Conditional Release Act, March 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, this is another one of those occasions where I have not been scheduled to speak. I did not think I would speak but I was listening to the debate and it has put some thoughts into my mind. I did hesitate to see if someone else wanted to speak because I do not like to hog the scene here, but at any rate I appreciate this opportunity.

This issue is of great importance. Since I have been a member of parliament I have picked up on something in the justice area which is that there is no law we can pass that can make people good and that the purpose of the law is to restrain those who are not. I cannot claim that is an original idea. I heard it from someone else. I do not remember the name of the person but it rang a bell.

Certainly one of the reasons for my joining the then reform party, now the Canadian Alliance, and having stayed with the party all these years, is that its members believe that the protection of law-abiding citizens takes precedence over the rights of those who break the law. I have often thought that as well. Those people who choose to break the law, who step outside the circle of law and order are incorrect when they claim that the rules of law and order should apply to them. They were not willing to apply them toward their own victims. This is an issue of great importance.

Another thing occurred to me as the debate was going on here this evening. Unless a person has been sentenced to life, where life means that one will be imprisoned until one dies, it follows that the person will serve that sentence for a certain time, after which the person will be released back into society. If the purpose of the law and of our justice system is to protect the law-abiding citizen, then we must do something with criminals while they are incarcerated which will change their attitudes, which will change their degree of respect for other people and for other people's property, so that they will not repeat the offence. Otherwise our system has failed. As has been mentioned, the rate of recidivism is an indication that our justice system is a failure in this area.

I have spoken also to people who have worked in the prisons and with prisoners. They say that there is not a great deal that happens inside the prisons which will change that very internal conviction and knowledge of what is right and wrong and which will convert the person into a law-abiding citizen while they are in jail. Usually it is efforts that go beyond that which will produce that change.

I remember the old saying that a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. If a person is held in prison against his will and is told that if he behaves in a certain way he will get some reward, he may be behaving in that certain way only motivated by the reward, be it early release or be it some other benefit that he gets while in prison, without actually having changed his inner attitude and convictions.

Bill C-252 is important because it addresses that principle. If we put a person in jail, the sentence having been for 10 years, and the person knows that in two and a half years he is going to get out, the person does not need to take any personal responsibility and can just do the two and a half years. In essence what has happened is that the sentence of the judge has been nullified to no advantage.

That is what is wrong with the present system. When the judge says 10 years, the criminal really hears two and one-half years. That has a double effect. It means that the prisoner needs to do nothing in prison in order to get out in two and one-half years. An even more devastating effect is that minimizing the sentence the judge handed down says that what the criminal did was not so bad. It reduces the degree to which the person takes responsibility which landed him in jail in the first place.

I believe very strongly in the concept called truth in sentencing. I believe that when a judge says a person will be serving 10 years, the person should serve 10 years. The person may still appeal the sentence before it is carried out. There are all sorts of appeals open to people who are convicted in the country and rightly so. However when that final judgment is made that what the person did was serious and objectionable in our society and an affront to law-abiding citizens and the person is going to serve 10 years, it should mean 3,650 days. It should not mean 3,640. It should mean exactly what it says.

Notwithstanding that is how long the criminal would be in prison, throw into the mix that an earlier release could be earned if during the time in prison the person eagerly and voluntarily attended courses, sessions and seminars which are offered inside prison to correct the person's attitude and thinking. The person would have to show an exemplary attitude in being part of the society within prison in terms of doing his share of the work required.

Our prisons are missing one very important aspect. Too few of them are attached to a farm. The best thing that could happen to people to give them a normal perspective on life would be to realize that even things as basic as shelter and food require human effort.

All of us do that. Some of us work in different areas and we trade our credit. For us it is the money we earn in our line of endeavour with others who have worked in agriculture and on the farms to produce food. It would be very worthwhile for prisoners to work in an environment where they actually have to get out and cultivate, hoe and do all of the work required to grow the food that would be used to feed them. Just doing that work is special. It connects people to the relationship between human effort and the standard of living we expect.

I visited the Edmonton max not too long ago. It has a very fine gymnasium. I thought what a waste of energy. All those guys have trouble restraining themselves anyway and they are given the opportunity to pump iron and really get strong so that when they get out they will have great ease in overpowering anyone who does not do what they want. It is not exactly the kind of training I would give them.

When I saw all the energy being expended in those weights going up and down, on the treadmill and all that other stuff, I asked why do we not get those guys to use that same energy to produce something? That would give them a sense of worth, a sense of connection to the human effort that is required in society, and a sense of respect. That is what is needed.

In conclusion, we need to do some lateral thinking about what we can do to correct these people's minds before they are released. The initiative taken by my colleague today says that early release is a reward which can be earned because we have observed proper, voluntary behaviour showing that the person is eligible and less likely or even unlikely to be a risk to the rest of society when released. It has to be the good way to go.

I am actually astounded that the Liberal members opposite and the Liberal government cannot see through such a very simple principle.

[Species At Risk Act, March 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been no consultations on this, so I am appealing to the collegiality of my colleagues. Could we ask for unanimous consent to revert to presentation of petitions for about 30 seconds on behalf of my colleague from Skeena who was unable to be here this morning and who has a set of petitions of some urgency?

[Species at Risk Act, March 21st, 2002]

It is three-tenths of 1%.

[Species at Risk Act, March 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to stand in the House of Commons to represent not only the people of Elk Island and Alberta but the people of Canada.

As members know, I am mathematically oriented. I just did a calculation. Today is the 3,069th day since I was first elected. What we have accomplished here? I like to think we have had successes as the opposition. We have had some influence on government policy. However I am increasingly frustrated that the work of committees and parliamentarians is continually being stifled in this place. We see it again in Bill C-5.

When we look at Bill C-5, the species at risk act we are debating today, we see a number of amendments. It distresses me more than anything that the government has chosen to put forward amendments which would undo some of the work of the committee. It is regrettable.

How do we hold a government accountable when it has a majority as the Liberal government does? I think even the Prime Minister and members opposite want to do what is best for Canada. How can that happen if the government routinely ignores the sage advice of expert witnesses from the scientific world and members of parliament who report the concerns of the constituents they all serve? When members of parliament work hard in committee to come forward with amendments and the government reverses the amendments at report stage we must shrug our shoulders and ask what we are doing here. What is the point?

We have made the presentation. Why does the government not accept some of the amendments? Why does it not use common sense instead of the bull headed approach it insists on using?

We are addressing a number of the Group No. 3 amendments today. We need to listen carefully to what the witnesses and technical experts have said. One thing that concerns me is that information coming to the committee has been ignored, especially information from technical experts. I am concerned that the bill's definition of wildlife species would be amended by one of the government's motions. Bill C-5 currently defines a wildlife species as:

--a species, subspecies, variety or geographically or genetically distinct population of animal, plant or other organism, other than a bacterium or virus, that is wild by nature and

(a) is native to Canada; or

(b) has extended its range into Canada without human intervention and has been present in Canada for at least 50 years.

This is the definition accepted by scientists and most thinking people as acceptable and workable. This was the thinking of the witnesses and the recommendation of the committee.

Lo and behold, when the bill came back to the House the government put forward Motion No. 9 which would go back to the generic, mushy definition of “biologically distinct population”.

What does the government mean when it says biological? I do not know if hon. members remember the biology they studied at university when they were young or whether they did. I distinctly remember studying biology in both high school and university. One of my goals was to become a researcher in neurology. It was one of the things I thought might do although I subsequently changed my mind. As members know, I became a mathematics instructor.

When I was studying biology it was the big group. The term biology includes the animal kingdom and the plant kingdom. Biology means any life. That is what it is. It is about biological organisms. It is not a definition. It is a wide, sweeping scope that does not define anything.

I am going strictly from memory. I did not bother writing this down. I am reaching back 40 years or more since I graduated from university. I cannot believe the years have slipped by so quickly. I distinctly remember that after the term biology in terms of specifications we had a kingdom, then a phylum, a class, an order, a genus and a species. I hope I remember it correctly. My biology teacher would be downright proud of me for having the subclassification system correct after all these years.

When defining organisms we need to get right down to the species. We must be precise in our definition of endangered species and wildlife species. Otherwise we will swim around in a vast sea of the unknown and courts and lawyers will have a heyday trying to figure it out.

I am distressed about another element which would come about as a result of Bill C-5. Farmers, ranchers and other people with an interest in the habitat of endangered species would be harassed. If they went on fishing expeditions they could be charged with destroying the habitat of endangered species. They would have to defend themselves whether it was true or not.

Over and over in the House we from the west have tried to get it into the heads of Liberal members, those who control the government, that there is a major crisis in agriculture in western Canada. It used to be that farmers were struggling to make ends meet with margins of 3%, 4% or 5%. When that margin disappeared the profit level was gone. The ability of farmers to earn a living for their families disappeared. Today more farmers than not are struggling with negative numbers. Their input costs exceed their income due a whole bunch of factors.

Can members imagine the distress our farmers feel? They are being threatened by species at risk legislation which could put them in jail, fine them and cause them to incur huge legal costs to defend themselves. At the same time the legislation before the House lacks clear and precise definitions.

The fact that government bureaucrats came up with the wording four or five weeks ago does not mean it is automatically right the first time. When witnesses in committee advise us of better ways of doing things why do we not humbly accept their advice and make the changes? The committee tried to do so. The all party committee agreed. The bull headed government then said no. It said it would undo it even though it was not there to hear the arguments or listen to the expert witnesses. I find it distressing.

Mr. Speaker, you are signalling me that I have eight seconds left so I have to wind down. I have appreciated the time very much.

[Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, March 20th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I have all sorts of things going through my head when I rise to debate a bill such as this. As humans we have so many interactions with animals. It is just a matter of fact that we share planet earth with many different kinds of creatures. This ranges all the way from a friend of mine who is in love with his cat to other people I know who have dogs that are more precious to them than perhaps the value they have husbands, wives or children.

Not long ago a close friend of mine suffered the experience of having to put his dog down, as the phraseology goes, because he was very ill and beginning to suffer a lot. When his dog left the earth, I guess is how one would put it, he grieved as much as I had seen some other people grieve on the passing of a fellow human. There is no doubt in my mind that we sometimes have close relationships with animals.

I grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan many years ago. We had domesticated animals, dogs and cats. We had the dogs and cats to kill the rats to maintain a bit of an ecological balance on our farm.

I distinctly remember the day when my dog was killed by a truck alongside the road. My dog foolishly went after the truck as if to catch it. I never did ascertain what my dog intended to do with the truck if he was successful in catching it, but he had this habit of chasing vehicles. One day he misjudged or tripped or whatever and was killed by the truck. I remember how I grieved.

I remember also as a young man on the farm observing my parents sometimes involved in butchering animals. I can assure everyone it was never an occasion for delight. It was always an occasion where we realized that life was precious and even for animals it was life.

To have animals subjected to cruelty is of course very offensive to by far the majority of us. I for one have no problem whatsoever with a bill that would enhance the penalties for those who wilfully caused cruelty to animals.

I know of one case not long ago where a woman in Edmonton had a whole house full of cats. There were 70, 80 or 100 of them in one house. She did not look after them and many of them died and just rotted there. Apparently it was a dreadful place. Obviously this was a person who was, I believe, mentally ill. One does not live in a house with decaying dead animals unless there is something seriously wrong with one's psyche.

That is not what we are talking about. We are not talking about trying to reduce the care with which we should protect animals from unnecessary and deliberate wilful cruelty. However there are many things in the bill which cause us legitimate concern.

I think again of the different practices, which some of my colleagues have already mentioned them, that are utilized regularly on the farm. When I was a youngster we used to dehorn cattle. I do not know if anyone has ever seen that. I will tell members one thing, and that is one never wants to be on the business end of a bull that has horns. That could be fatal. In fact, every year certain numbers of farmers and ranchers who die because of encounters with animals.

Taking their horns off is a matter of safety. I remember my father had a great big tool that he used to dehorn animals he purchased which had not been dehorned when they were young. That had to be at least partially painful to those animals. They seemed to indicate that, although usually they brushed their heads off and carried on with their lives. In our family my dad made a point of putting dehorning paste on young calves when they were born which prevented the horns from growing. It was much more humane. That was long before any rules or laws which said that had to be done. It was natural.

It is not to a farmer's benefit to cause animals unnecessary pain because, as we all know, whether it is a human or an animal suffering pain will always cause reduction in faculties. A dairy cow's production of milk will be reduced if she is subjected to unnecessary pain. With a beef animal the production of meat, the conversion of hay, oats and barley into good roasts and good steaks, will be reduced if the animal is suffering from pain. It is in the farmer's best interest for animals to have the least amount of pain.

A law that attacks farmers and ranchers in this stead is unnecessary because there is no farmer or rancher who would deliberately cause his or her animals pain. There is nothing in it for them.

We are dealing with those people who are what I would call sickos that get pleasure out of causing pain to animals and in some cases to other humans. They are the masochists and the sadists. Of course we need rules in society to limit their behaviour.

I think of one of my friends who had a pork factory. He built a massive structure many years ago. He told me one day that his pigs lived better than he did. He pointed out, for example, that his house did not have air conditioning. In summer when it was hot his house got as hot as the sun provided the heat. On the other hand the pigs in the barn had an automatic, thermostatically controlled air conditioning system. When the temperature reached a certain level the air conditioning kicked in and these pigs were living in the lap of luxury.

He provided for them the very best of balanced diets. He provided medicare for those animals from birth to death. He looked after them very well. They were kept clean. They were well fed. There were regular inspections. It is also true that at the end of each week a truck rolled up to the far end of the production line and took a truckload of pigs off to market. It is true that at the end of the truck trip those pigs were put to death to provide bacon, ham and all those other goods things that we enjoy come breakfast and other times.

I do not know how we can get around that. Of course it must be done humanely. There is no question about it. However it is wrong to put laws into place where the animal rights activists can harass farmers and cause them to go to court to try to defend themselves, which we have reason to believe will happen with the legislation before us.

Why should we put that barrier in front of hog and beef producers who are simply trying to do their best and who are committed to not giving their animals any unnecessary or undue pain? Why should we then put those same farmers to the task of having to go to court, hiring lawyers and cutting into their margins, which are very close at the best of times these days with the Liberals government and its farm policies? Why should we do that and cause these farmers to go to court to defend what is just normal practice?

The amendments we have put forward are meant to correct the anomalies in the legislation. Yet I have a suspicion that at the end of the day, since they say Canadian Alliance on them, Liberal members will probably vote them down. However a substantial amendment in this group put forward by the Minister of Justice will probably carry because it says Liberal on it. Because we want to improve legislation and because the amendment looks perfectly fine to me we will probably support it. I wish the government would do the same with regard to our amendments.

[Committees of the House, March 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I do not have notice of this. If the parliamentary secretary were to tell us what it is we could decide instantly whether or not to support it.