Charlie Angus

[Agriculture, April 6th, 2006]

Mr. Chair, I welcome you in your new position.

I always feel like what the great Tommy Douglas said: that there is something about a fight that makes me want to get up in the morning. People here know me as someone who likes to get at it, but I have to say tonight that I really have to move beyond that because I am tired of this debate.

My very first debate in the House was on this crisis, and we have had so many since then. I really do not want to be here two or three months from now replaying the same thing over and over. I have a sense that we all know what the problem is, but the question is, where are we going to go with it?

I can give members an example. I represent the great riding of Timmins—James Bay. We have an amazing agricultural base there. I think it is the promised land. And there is still promise in the promised land. We were talking with farmers the other day about encouraging farmers to come over from Europe and settle because the land is still fairly cheap. We have wheat, sheep and a great dairy and beef industry, and it can be sustainable, but what we are seeing is the problem of farmers who are now slipping under. And these are the most efficient farmers in the world.

I got a call at home on Sunday night; people know I am at home on Sunday nights. A man said, “Mr. Angus, I don't want to bother you because I know you're a busy man”. Of course he could bother me, I said. He said he needed something to help him. He said he did not have enough feed, that he had not made it through the winter. He said, “I can't feed the cattle snowballs any more”. He said, “There's got to be a government program that can get me through just to spring”.

I asked if he had tried CAIS. He said he tried but got nothing out of it. I asked if he got the cattle set-aside. He said he got a little bit from that but it did not get him any feed. I said the only choice would be Farm Credit, but he cannot go to Farm Credit. Nobody is going to give him any more credit.

The story I have is the story that each member who is here tonight has. We know CAIS does not work. We have talked about it a thousand times. We had farmers from across Ontario show up at the Ontario legislature two weeks ago. They surrounded it, like they have done here. They surrounded it for four days. They said they wanted action.

We saw that government down in Toronto stand up during its budget with its government members slapping themselves on the back and telling the whole province what a great job they have done for farmers by telling farmers to go to Ottawa, because Ottawa is their problem. That is not leadership. And here, tonight, we cannot tell our farmers that we have a problem with CAIS because the province of Ontario or the province of Saskatchewan or every other province does not want to help. We have the will if we want it.

I would like to suggest that in the 39th Parliament we do something fundamentally different from what we ever did in the 38th Parliament. I would say that we have unanimous consent: we know that program does not work. I would refer to parliamentary precedent. The great member for Elmwood—Transcona told me about the time the debate was going on about the bill on the firefighters' pension. He stood up and said, “What are we all arguing about? We all agree and we can get unanimous consent”.

I would like to say that we could get unanimous consent tonight such that within a year we are going to have a risk management program that works. If the provinces do not want to come along, we will defy them. We can do that as a Parliament. We can make that commitment to our farmers that we will go through with it. Of course, the minister cannot stand up and say he can deliver it, but what he can say is that they will try to get this into this budget.

If we sent that message, we would send a message that this Parliament is committed to actually doing something about the farm income crisis. Because I really have to say that I do not want everyone here putting out our 10 percenters saying that we stood up and fought for farmers while knowing that nothing changed.

We can do it tonight. I am asking the minister to make that commitment. I am asking each party to work with us. Let us put it aside. Let us get it done. We have a year to get a risk management program that works. We will stand up to the provinces if they do not want to come along, because we know what it is about. We know it is about passing the buck so that no one has to pay the cheque at the end of the day. That is my recommendation for this evening. I am asking for action on it.

I have a few other comments that I would like to make in terms of the overall direction, and we have had some interesting promises. I am concerned about the belief that we can move to a market-driven solution. Our farmers are the most efficient in the world and yet they are failures because we know that there is no such thing in agriculture as an open market. There is no such thing as a fair market and there is no such thing as a free market.

We have to address those fundamental inequities, internationally and domestically, and we have to be realistic about our ability to deal with that. There is no fair or free market when it is controlled by Cargill, Tyson and ADM. When farmers in my region in northern Ontario bring grade one canola down to the crushing plant and it gets dumped by ADM and there is no place else to sell it, that is not a free and open market.

My good friend from Sackville--Eastern Shore pointed out the lack of access for our domestic producers to get into the grocery stores. When we set up a milk co-op and it is successful, we know that it will be shut down because not a single independent grocer or other grocery chain will touch it when it is a local product. We have to address that.

We cannot talk about the market handling the problems at the domestic level because farmers are in a fundamentally unequal relationship. The question is whether there is a desire to deal with the problems of the agricultural crisis because agri-business is making better money now than it has ever made. That has to be confronted at the domestic level.

When we talk about the international problems, we have to be realistic. Again, I am trying to do this in a conciliatory fashion where we can bring change in the 39th Parliament. There is no way we can have a market-driven response when Ontario wheat is sold into Egypt and we cannot sell because as soon as France finds out, it throws a subsidy on its wheat and undercuts us. It is not possible to have a market-driven response when U.S. corn is coming across the border, subsidized at $2 a bushel. We cannot compete and we should not have to compete because it is fundamentally not right.

I have faith that our minister will go to the WTO and represent our interests, but no one should suggest for a second that the E.U. or the United States will drop subsidies on their rural programs. It is not going to happen. That would be the quickest ticket to political oblivion in the United States today. We have to be realistic in facing that.

What is happening with the subsidies is not just damaging us on the domestic market, it is wreaking havoc with the international economy. The economies of developing nations are being put under. Countries like Jamaica are being flooded by the E.U. What is being done to promote the farm economies of the E.U. and the U.S. is fundamentally wrong for anyone who believes that a producer should be able to take their goods to market and sell them. We can say with pride in Canada that we have not gone out to undermine third world agriculture. We have not gone to bury them with a Wal-Mart approach. We have taken our domestic markets and tried to make them work. Because we are successful, we are suffering attacks at the WTO.

I have to suggest to the minister that we need to have an articulated plan B. As much faith as I have in his willingness to go fight for us, the U.S. is not going to play on a level playing field nor is the E.U. Without a level playing field, there is no talk about a international market response. It is not going to happen.

I will leave it at that. I would love to speak for my full 10 minutes and I usually try to squeak out an extra few minutes. I feel tonight that we have had a lot of talk. I ask the minister and I ask for all-party consent to come out of tonight with an agreement that within one year we will bring back to the people of Canada a fully funded risk management program that works and we will tell the provinces that we want them to sign on or they will face the wrath of the farm community of Canada.

[Agriculture, April 6th, 2006]

Mr. Chair, I feel as though we are in a strange situation here, because we are all agreed. We are all agreed that agriculture is going down the tubes and that in fact it might already be there. We are all agreed that CAIS does not work and we are all agreed that supply management does, yet we never seem to get anywhere.

Our poor producers went to the Ontario legislature a few weeks ago and asked for help. The Ontario legislature looked at them and said, “We have done our share. Go to the federal legislature”. They showed up here. We cannot send them the message that we would like to help them but the provinces are not stepping up to the plate. It is incumbent upon us as the federal House of this country to come together.

It is fairly straightforward. I think this is one area where we would have all-party unanimity. We need to work together as four parties and say that we have to take action now. We have to take action now in the area of supply management. It is fairly straightforward in regard to what our message is and terms that are negotiated. In terms of a basic floor price, we have to look at that. We have to look at practical things that can be put in place now.

I would like to ask the hon. member why he thinks it is that we are all standing around here, all of us caring passionately about agriculture, and arguing with each other when we just need to do the job.

[Agriculture, April 6th, 2006]

Mr. Chair, over the last 10 years, we have had more emergency night debates on agriculture than on any other subject. I have said before it is like the scene from the movie Groundhog Day. We always end up playing the same scenario. There are a few new actors in this, but we always end up with there will be a meeting three months from now and something will happen, or we are waiting to get CAIS fixed. Meanwhile our farmers are going under.

Patience is not good enough at this point. We have gone beyond the point of patience.

I would like to ask the member this, particularly in light of the recent meeting with the President of the United States where our government announced that he was our best friend. This is great, but best friends do not put their best friends out of business. That is what is happening now with the dumping, particularly in corn and other products. What concrete steps does the member expect the government to take this year, not next year, to stop the dumping which is putting our farmers our of business?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, April 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I was impressed with the member's comments about the high cost of developing ignorance in our young people. I would like to point out that every child in the country, if they have special needs or learning disabilities, has the right to the adequate support they need in education, unless, of course, one is a first nation child because under the former federal Liberal government's policy we were not getting the kind of funding that we needed for special education on reserves. People from our region are being moved to non-native schools to get that funding and it seems to be a position that the present Conservative government wants to maintain.

What does the hon. member think about the fact that a large first nation population in the country is not being given adequate funding for special education needs under federal government funding?

[Mining, April 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, last week we learned that the Holloway gold mine near Matheson, Ontario, is shutting down. Over 150 mining families in Matheson, Kirkland Lake and Larder Lake will be affected, because these communities, like mining communities across Canada, are dependent on increasingly aging ore bodies.

It is time for a coherent policy for mineral exploration in this country. Let us take the super flow-through program as an example. That one worked. It was geared for the needs of exploration companies out in the field. Yet the Paul Martin Liberals killed the program and sent a very clear message that the needs of northern Ontario just did not matter.

The NDP has fought for mining in Canada. We have fought for northern Canada and we will continue to fight. We are calling on the Stephen Harper Conservatives to stand up today, reinstate the super--

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, April 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say at the outset that I hold you in such high regard, and when I am throwing vitriol and righteous indignation through you at the other members it is strictly a reflection of the parliamentary system, not anything I hold toward you personally on those matters.

I would like to ask the hon. member about issues of accountability and debt. I represent the Mushkegowuk clans of the James Bay coast, who have been suffering from years of absolutely disgraceful systemic negligence. As we are talking about debt, I will give members an example in regard to the people of the James Bay coast: up to 30% are not even registered under health insurance plans. The federal government has been aware of this. No moves have been made. My office staff fly to these communities regularly to hold birth certificate clinics to get these people on plans, but what happens is that the first nations health branch will not cover the costs for people in isolated communities who are being treated with emergency medical treatments.

The branch is accusing health officials in the hospitals on the James Bay coast of being irresponsible with the growing debt. That debt is created from the refusal of bureaucrats in the first nations health branch to deal with this issue. The hospital is trying to service people. It has an obligation to service people.

First of all, in terms of the debt being faced by our communities in the first nations through underfunding, will the government act on it? Second, in terms of accountability, will we get some accountability on the bureaucrats at INAC and the first nations health branch who have to deal with the communities and who keep these communities continually under their thumb?

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, April 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, we were very interested in the Speech from the Throne, particularly on the position of UNESCO. The problem right now, underlying what is happening at the GATS negotiations in Geneva, is that the government has been given a mandate to trade away basic issues in terms of foreign ownership restrictions on broadcast and telecom. As well, at the same time we are receiving an audio-visual request to trade away fundamental protections for our domestic cultural industry.

My concern is that Quebec might have a seat at UNESCO and Canada might have a seat at UNESCO but the government under trade deals is trading away right now the fundamental benefits that we receive on cultural policy.

Where does the hon. member stand in terms of keeping the government honest and of protecting the important programs that we have for preferential tax treatment for film, domestic content quotas and cultural quotas that are part of UNESCO and part of what we have maintained in this country?

[Supply, November 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House once again and speak on a matter of grave importance for all Canadians, particularly to constituents in my riding of Timmins—James Bay, which is the issue of supply management.

I would like to commend the member from the Bloc who brought this forward because something very important is happening here. If we were to get all parties to agree on a very simple set of negotiating principles that we will stand by supply management, it would send a message, not only internationally but on our domestic front.

People across rural Canada are worried. We have seen a disintegrating rural economy. We have seen the disappearance of opportunities right across rural Canada. We see our young people leaving rural Canada because they believe there is no hope.

I have met farm leaders who tell me that they believe that rural Canada has been abandoned by the government. Now we are going into a very crucial stage in the WTO talks. We believe, as the New Democratic Party, in the need to end the price distortions that have come from heavy subsidization by the EU, and the U.S. in particular. We believe that markets have to be opened up, but we are looking at this in a very pragmatic light.

When we go to the WTO ,what else can Canada put on the table? What is on the table for us now? There is the Wheat Board, supply management with over-quota tariffs, and the 5% de minimis. There is not much else we can give in order to cut into the EU and U.S. subsidies. We know that even if we put all of this on the table, there will still not be any significant change in the distortion happening in commodity prices because of the heavy subsidizing.

The question is, where do we stand in order of supporting our domestic rural economy? We need to send negotiators a firm message that we are backing a system that works. Supply management works. The rural economy of Canada is broken right now.

Our producers right across the board are suffering, but one area that works is supply management. It does not distort prices. It is not based on subsidies. The New Democratic Party will stand by the right of farmers to choose the means that they choose in order to market domestic products in a fair and equitable manner, and no foreign body will tell us and our farmers how to market their products.

We also stand by the right of any nation to have a fair system to feed their own domestic markets. Unfortunately, that is not happening with the EU and the U.S. right now. I will use the example of Jamaica. It was forced to open its dairy markets under liberalization regimes brought in, not by the WTO, but by the World Bank and the IMF. The member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex mentioned earlier about the memory of hunger. Well, we are seeing how hunger is being caused by the EU's targeting of third world countries.

In Jamaica, 67% of the milk going into Jamaica or being bought in Jamaica now is from the EU, which is the most heavily supported agricultural regime in the world. In fact, it is paying $4.9 million U.S. each year to subsidize milk going into the Jamaican market. In the last 10 years Jamaican farmers have seen their market share of local milk slip from 24% to 4.2%, and in 20 years Jamaica has gone from 4,000 farms down to 100 farms.

The EU and the U.S. were found guilty for anti-dumping, but the Jamaican government was not able to stand up for its farmers because it thought it would take a bigger trade hit. So in a larger sense this is what we are seeing in Canada. We are seeing our government not giving very clear instructions that it will stand up for our domestic economy because we know that it wants concessions from the EU and the U.S. in other areas.

We have a system that works. Yet, we have not had from the minister a clear enough signal that he will stand by a very simple principle, that when it comes to supply management, we will not trade away our over-quota tariffs because they are one of the fundamental principles of supply management.

We have been told that this will move into the sensitive products box. That sensitive products box will have to hold about 11% to 14% of the rural economy and who is kidding whom? The U.S. will never put up with us moving 11% to 14% of our economy into a sensitive category. The U.S. is offering us 1%.

Even before we get to the negotiating table, we already are establishing the principle that we are willing to trade away. If union negotiations are held and the union leadership says something will have to be given up so it will give up between 10% to 90% of its rights, we know that negotiations will collapse. This has been pretty much the Canadian basis up to now. We are musing out loud about what we are giving away.

What we are doing here tonight in Parliament is sending a signal to the world and to our farmers that Parliament and the Canadian people are standing resolute. We are standing up for supply management and we are going into the next round of the WTO sending the firm signal that our farmers have the right to choose the means to domestically market their own products.

[Supply, November 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her once again fine defence of rural Canada. She has stood up many times in defence of farmers. I commend her for her commitment to rural Canada.

I want to make sure I heard correctly that she and her party would be supporting the motion. Is that what I heard?

[Supply, November 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions arising out of the hon. member's speech.

First, he praised the fact that agricultural trade has never been higher. However the fact is that farm gate revenues in Canada have never been lower and farm debt has never been higher. It seems that no matter what we put on the table there is no indication that the EU or the U.S. will substantially reduce the massive trade distorting subsidies. Therefore, at the end of the day, for all the international trade we have managed to develop in agriculture, our farmers are worse off than ever.

I would like to follow up on something else he said. He talked about Africa, about the developing world and about the need to work with them. We have a government that has basically written agriculture off. The Liberals do not know how to spell it. It is not in any of the mini-budgets they have brought forward. They have come forward with no substantive action in terms of agriculture with one exception. The government has approved the terminator gene patent that has made Canada an international pariah. We know there is great concern in the third world among domestic farmers about the World Bank and IMF pushing terminator technology. While the Canadian government has basically been the terminator of farm revenue across the country, it is going after the very seeds in the ground.

Could the member tell me why the only thing the government has to stand on in terms of international trade and agriculture is its recent decision to adopt this very destructive technology?