Charlie Angus

[Canadian Livestock Industry, March 8th, 2005]

Did the minister get it?

Farmers back home are going to the banks now. They figure they have to give back their CAIS cheques so they can be part of next year's round. This has been going on for two years. Everybody has talked about the CAIS problems. We have talked about them in committee until we have turned blue in the face. There are three weeks to go and we are still waiting to hear from the provincial ministers. I do not think it is the provincial ministers' fault. I think it is the government that has not wanted to sit down and plan for the long term.

[Canadian Livestock Industry, March 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, far be it from me to make this a political issue. I would simply respond with what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture said the day after the budget was delivered. It said that once again the minister has offered farmers hollow words and no action. End of story.

Of course the minister has to sit down with the provincial governments but here we are again at the last minute. It is less than three weeks away from the next fiscal year and we are being told that the government has not managed to phone all the provincial ministers to see if they will agree to change the CAIS deposit.

[Canadian Livestock Industry, March 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise here tonight and speak to this issue. I am sharing my time with the member for Burnaby--Douglas.

We are here for yet another emergency debate about agriculture. In fact my very first speech in the House was in an emergency debate on agriculture. At that time I made the point that there have been more emergency debates on agriculture than on any other issue that has come before the House in the last eight years. I am beginning to wonder why we continue to have these debates because nothing seems to change.

In light of this latest R-CALF move, we have crossed a political Rubicon here. This is the move we have been waiting for and fearing. We saw this move coming for a long time and now it has arrived. We are going to be bogged down in a long and nasty protectionist battle, just like we have been bogged down in a battle on softwood.

The question tonight is whether we are positioned, as the government says, to rebuild our domestic economy for beef and to move forward with a long term domestic solution for agriculture. The fact of the matter is the answer is no, zero, nothing, because the government has played its hand. The Liberals presented the budget in the House just a few days before the R-CALF decision came down and we got to see what their five year plan for agriculture was. It was a big zero.

I have to say, as I mentioned in a question previously, anyone remotely interested in the cattle issue in Canada could have seen that R-CALF injunction coming. We knew it was coming, yet the government seems to have been caught completely without a plan. It just crossed its fingers and hoped for the best. Anyone remotely interested in the viability of rural Canada could have said that 2005 is expected to be the year of bankruptcies across Canada, because of two years of this crisis coupled with commodity problems right across our sector. Equities have been burned up and farmers cannot hold out any longer.

We have the R-CALF injunction coming down at the same time as a five year plan in a budget that has made no attempt to address the long term issue of agriculture in Canada. If I were a tycoon or a foreign investor, I would probably be dancing on Bay Street right now, but to the rural farm families of Canada the budget has offered them nothing. Here we are coming through the deepest agricultural crisis since the dust bowl and all we are getting from the government is platitudes.

I had hoped that we were moving forward and that the government were serious, but having seen the government's response to this, I am beginning to think that our poor agriculture minister has become the cartoon character, Mr. Magoo, of the BSE crisis. I do not think he or the government would know rural despair if they fell over it, and that is what we are talking about. People are giving up. They were looking to the government for a solution.

When we talk about extras on the loan loss guarantees, that is not good enough. In the face of this crumbling rural economy, the government continues to stall for time. It is crossing its fingers and hoping for the best.

I will give for the record the response of our august finance minister. In today's National Post he summed up his government's response:

We've begun to analyze the exact nature of the government response that's required here.... I think it's still too early to say exactly what the nature of that response must be but it's under active consideration.

If we read the subtitles, that is no plan, no backbone and no desire to do anything to help the farm families across Canada. In fact this has been the same lame bleat that we have heard from the government for the last two years on this crisis, that it is repositioning our industry, that it is restoring a domestic economy, yet there was absolutely nothing in the budget to address the mounting agricultural debt that families are facing.

There was nothing in the budget to encourage young families to take up farming. We see right across rural Canada the rising stress levels of an aging rural population and young people have absolutely no incentive to take up farming.

In my own region in the north we are trying to maintain a healthy northern rural economy. Because all the farmland in southern Ontario is becoming too difficult or too zoned in to farm, my region would be a perfect region in which to expand. The only thing the government came forward with was that it was going to cut the agricultural research station in Kapuskasing. That was its commitment to northern agriculture. Obviously it is not worth the government's time to invest in winter hardy crops that are needed in the north.

Then we fall back on the one thing that was in the budget, the loan loss guarantee. I would love to say that this has been a fantastic solution, but it has not been. When we are talking about the increased numbers in slaughter capacity, let us be honest. The numbers are coming from the big packers. We have known for the last 10 years at least that the farmers' margins have been decreasing because of the increasing power of the packers. They are more powerful now than they were at the beginning of this crisis. If we are talking about ramping up capacity, where is the vast majority of this ramp-up? It is coming from the big packers.

We have been talking with the Beef Initiative Group from Alberta. It is trying to set up a plant. It has been waiting and trying to meet with the minister about a feasibility study to move forward. There is a lot of frustration. It seems to me it is the same frustration we see whenever rural Canada tries to meet with the government on issues to move forward. The government makes it sound as though it is moving heaven and earth, but out in farm country things are dragging on.

We have seen this with the CFIA in terms of its plant inspections and attempts of farm producer operations to get new plants. The CFIA continually pushes the plans back and changes things.

The Beef Initiative Group is trying to get a feasibility study agreed to by the government. It is beginning to wonder about the continual foot dragging. I would like the minister to make a commitment tonight that this feasibility study will go forward.

Unfortunately, I am beginning to think that the real problem is that the government has been flying by the seat of its pants and hoping for the best. A good example is that we are now three weeks away from the end of the fiscal year and the government still has not been able to address the issue of the CAIS deposit.

I know the minister will jump up and say that an answer will be coming very soon, but we are three weeks away from the end of the fiscal year and now we are scrambling to see whether or not producers are going to be told they have to come up with this coming year's CAIS deposit. There is $640 million in farmers' equity sitting in the CAIS deposit accounts. That is $640 million that had to be taken out in bank loans with the hope and prayer that CAIS would deliver.

We are going to hear lots of numbers about how CAIS is delivered here and CAIS is delivered there and CAIS is delivered everywhere, but the fact of the matter is when we talk to farm families it has not given them the money they need at the farm gate. Meanwhile $640 million in their own money is sitting in government accounts and we cannot even get a commitment from the government whether that money is going to be returned to the farmers.

The big issue is the government wants to insist that these men and women and farm families across Canada are somehow actively engaged in risk management. After surviving two years of the worst agricultural crisis in Canadian history, I would say these people are actively engaged in risk management, to the detriment of their own health and the future equity of their children.

We have come here once more to see what is the plan for rural Canada. Unfortunately we have seen the plan for rural Canada. It is laid out in the budget, and there is nothing there. The best we are going to get from the government is another quick fix. The best we are going to get is some kind of contingency support. That is not a long term repositioning of the industry. That is the problem with the government.

[Canadian Livestock Industry, March 8th, 2005]

I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the hon. minister when she became aware that R-CALF was going to do this. Was it a last minute thing that shocked her? Everybody in cattle country saw this coming a year ago.

[Canadian Livestock Industry, March 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member said that at the very last moment R-CALF stepped up to the plate. Well, the people in cattle country knew R-CALF was going to do this a year ago. I would like to ask the minister when were you aware, when did it dawn on you that R-CALF was going to do this to--

[Industry, February 23rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Industry has never come across a Canadian job he did not think would be better done overseas.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government continues with its plans to buy up the mines and smelters of Noranda Falconbridge and this Liberal government has no plan for the fact that the Chinese government is nationalizing our resources.

What steps has the Minister of Industry put in place to ensure that the interests of the mining towns in northern Canada are protected if this Minmetals deal goes through?

[Supply, February 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I was very upset to hear that she thought we were accusing her party of being an apologist for the auto industry. I think it is fairly clear what we were saying. The government stands up in the House and says that it loves little children, dogs and balloons, as we all do, and, therefore, why do we not all make the world a happier place?

We are saying that the government has absolutely no intention of coming through on anything to do with Kyoto. It would have us talk about the one tonne challenge and how we should not open our cans of paint because it would spend more than driving my car to Vancouver and back. I will go home this weekend and paint to see if that is true.

I like the idea of voluntary standards. For example, why do we not have a voluntary gun control registry? With the hundreds of millions of dollars we have spent, I think a lot of Canadians would like a voluntary gun control registry. No, the government said that it could not have voluntary standards. What about voluntary drinking and driving regulations?

How about if we take the voluntary drinking and driving regulations and turn it into this idea of credits? If people are sober, then they should be able to sell their drinking and driving credits to people who are drunk. With the logic of the government, what a fantastic idea. If I drive nine times sober, I should for the tenth time be able to drive through drunk because I can buy a credit from someone who does not like to have a couple of shots before he goes home from work. That is the idea of voluntary credits.

I would like to ask the hon. member this. Where in this world have we ever seen voluntary emission standards? The government brought in voluntary labelling of genetically modified foods, and we have not seen a single company comply. When we talk about mandatory, it so we can get something done. I would like to see if we will get it done.

[Alzheimer's Disease, February 16th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, it is a real honour for me to rise tonight and speak on this motion.

I would have thought that there were certain issues in this House beyond the cynical take the money and run politics of the separatists, but obviously not. I do believe that this is an issue that rises above party politics. It rises above the provincial bickering that we see time and time again, because we are speaking about an issue that we need a national strategy for. I do not think it is a strategy that we are talking about putting a name to simply to say “we support this”. We need a comprehensive strategy to deal with Alzheimer's. It has to bring together the provinces. It has to bring together the national government.

It strikes us on so many fundamental levels. For example, a national strategy must look at pharmacare. It must look at the access to drugs, especially for low income people.

It has to look at accessibility to home care and the lack of home care we see in communities where old people are left without anyone to come in and see them.

We have to talk about tax credits. We have to talk about the financial impacts on families, which they are suffering day after day. Tax credits are part of that strategy.

We also have to talk about research. Research is something that we do need on a national level, because the impacts of this disease and the cause of this disease are what we have to look at.

I would like to say that for my own part in my riding of Timmins--James Bay I have been very active, as has my provincial counterpart, with the elder abuse awareness program in the Cochrane district, because we know that the devastating emotional impact Alzheimer's has on families is intricately tied to elder abuse.

In our region we brought together numerous stakeholders. I think it is a good example of where we can go in terms of who has to be brought into this. We are working now with the VCARS organization, community home care, the Red Cross, the Ontario Provincial Police, Timmins Community Policing, and the Golden Manor, which is an old age home in our region.

We have the legal clinics involved now. One of the fundamental aspects of elder abuse is financial abuse because elders are no longer able to look after their own resources. Now we are asking to bring in the banks, because it is a fundamental job of the banks, a fiduciary obligation, I would suggest, to play an important role in protecting the assets of people suffering from Alzheimer's and dementia.

We are trying to coordinate a strategy at our local level with these various groups. My office is very active and involved. I would support in any way I could moves by the government to bring in a national Alzheimer's strategy.

I would like to speak about this from a personal level. I spent my afternoons sitting in a room where the lights were always on, a room that smelled of cleanser and madness and loneliness. I spent those days with my grandfather, who was probably one of the biggest figures in my life, a man who had no formal education but a fantastic intelligence.

My grandfather spent 40 years working in the McIntyre gold mine in Schumacher, Ontario, where they pioneered the principle of forcing men to breathe aluminum dust every single day they went to work as a condition of employment. The aluminum dust was sent into their lungs as a way of coating their lungs; they said it was to protect against silicosis, but we knew that was not true. We knew that the coated lungs did not show up on the x-rays.

Thirty-five thousand miners across Ontario were forced to breathe aluminum dust for a period of 40 years. What are the effects of that? We do not know. I do not know if the damaged syntaxes in my grandfather's mind had anything to do with the aluminum he was forced to breathe, but again, this is where the area of research is so important.

In my short life, I have seen people die. I have been there for many people I have known, for family and friends, but I have never seen a death as lonely as an Alzheimer's death, because with Alzheimer's one lives alone and dies alone. It does not matter how much of the family is there; one is left alone because of the condition of the disease. With my grandfather, the worst was that he never succumbed to the balm of forgetfulness. He was acutely aware every single minute of the day of where he was: he was not where he should be.

My grandfather would sit in the old folks home and watch people sitting in chairs waiting. He wondered what they were waiting for. They were waiting to die. He used to think I was his cousin, and we were working on the day shift at the gold mine. One day he thought he was sitting in a bus station. He thought we were in Sydney to see the family and we were on our way back to Timmins. I saw him rifling through his pant pockets because he realized he did not have a ticket, nor did he have any money. He was in terror. He lived in terror in his final years and months because he never knew where he should be.

We see the effects of this disease on the family. I saw the effect it had on my grandmother and my mother, who spent so much of her life looking after this man. There was very little support. Fortunately we had a very good hospital where he finally ended up, but it was very difficult for our family to even send him there.

For families who do not have two caregivers at home or who do not have the financial support, the effects of this disease are devastating. We know that as the population ages, it will get worse. We know the change in our families with our 24/7 lives. We know we do not have the community supports that we had before to handle people with dementia.

When we talk about a national strategy on Alzheimer's, we are talking about a need to address a fundamental obligation of our society to protect and respect our elders.

I worked in the first nation communities of northern Quebec. I saw how important the elders were in that society. I see that among the people of the Mushkegowuk Cree where I work now as a member of Parliament. Respect for elders is a fundamental principle of their society and it should be a fundamental principle of ours. No one should be left alone to die of a disease like this, and no family should be left without supports.

Is this simply a matter of giving money to the provinces, then letting them go off and do their thing? I do not think so. We are dealing with a much bigger and broader issue. We need to come together on this. The New Democratic Party supports a national strategy for Alzheimer's. We need to work and bring as many people together as possible to make this work.

[Petitions, February 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I would like to present a petition today from people concerned about the plans to begin taxation of post-secondary funding for first nations people. We know how difficult it is for so many first nations students to get post-secondary education. The petitioners are very concerned about the efforts to tax them.

[National Defence, February 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. Minister of National Defence has become Canada's number one cheerleader for participation in star wars. He talks about our international reputation, our international commitments and our international obligations.

I would like him to tell that to the people of the James Bay coast who have been waiting for Canada to live up to its obligation to clean up the contamination his department left behind in the abandoned radar bases in northern Canada.

For 40 years the people of Peawanuk First Nation have been living with exposures to PCBs and chemical contamination. Nobody told them of the risk when DND walked away from those people.

We talk about deadbeat dads. DND is a deadbeat ministry. I am calling on the minister not to be a walkaway Joe. He has the fundamental, moral and fiduciary obligation to clean up the contaminated hunting grounds of the Peawanuk and Mushkegowuk Cree.