David Anderson

[Livestock Industry, February 13th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, if the member wants to look, he can see that the apparent PMO notes are written in my own handwriting.

I would like to address his issue about the Minister of International Trade, because what has struck me about our caucus, and particularly our cabinet, is the way that people are able to work together. The Minister of International Trade and the Minister of Agriculture have a great respect for each other and are able to work together on these files. I know that is something NDP members do not understand because they will never form the government of this country. They do not need to even try to understand that, because they will never have to deal with it.

That has been one of the great things about working with this group of people on this side of the House in our caucus. It is the way that we work together and the way we work together to represent the interests of western Canadians and the rest of Canada's agricultural producers.

[Livestock Industry, February 13th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I want to address the first issue and use the Canadian Wheat Board as an example. Sixty-two per cent of our producers voted in favour of opening up marketing choice for barley in western Canada. The opposition parties here have decided that they do not want to listen to western Canadian farmers and producers.

I do not know what I am supposed to do when I am continually told by those members that they are not going to let us represent the interests of western Canadian producers. I know the member personally and I know she would not let me tell her how to handle issues in her riding.

Those members should recognize the fact that western Canadian producers have spoken. They want marketing choice. I would invite the Bloc to join with us and support that.

[Livestock Industry, February 13th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, that is another indication of the lack of understanding on the part of the Liberal opposition about what is happening on the farm.

The gopher issue is a huge issue in my riding. I know that my constituents do not appreciate being mocked, because they have to try to contain this problem. Some of them have fighting this for seven years. They fought for the first five years with no help at all from the member's government. We have at least stepped forward to try to find some solutions. We continue to work on it and on research projects in trying to find alternative ways of dealing with this issue.

I do not know if he understands the devastation that is caused on farms and ranches by these animals. They have completely wiped out quarter sections. People cannot even hay them. It is a situation in which they are short of feed and then they get hit by this as well. I wanted to make that point.

In terms of bilaterals, I do not think he should be mocking this because the Liberal government did not move on it. We think bilaterals are important. We also think the WTO is important. This is clearly a trading country. We need to be able to do that. Western Canada in particular depends on exports. We need to be able to move on those.

With regard to the money issue, I would like to point out some specifics.

On September 27, 2007, $1 million was given to the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance to help it implement an international marketing strategy.

We gave $2.6 million to Alberta's agri-processing industry to improve operations and help it remain competitive on the world stage.

We have given funding to the Canadian Beef Export Federation to help to boost beef exports. We have given money to the Canadian Cattlemen's Association to support its project, which tries to enhance the marketplace.

I also need to point out that $4.5 billion was spent on programming in 2006.

Another $600 million is going to AgriInvest kickstart and $400 million is committed to cover farmers' increased input costs.

It is not like there is no money going out. There is a lot of money going out. This government is very proud of the programs it delivers.

[Livestock Industry, February 13th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite seems to be willing to heckle me about that. I am not sure if he does not like the program or what, but $600 million in my part of the world is a lot of money and producers are thrilled to see that beginning to roll out for them.

I should point out that $160 million of those funds are going to hog and cattle producers. That is not an insignificant amount of money. In total, cattle and hog producers are expected to receive--and I expect a heckle from across the way when I say this as well--nearly $1.5 billion through jointly funded business risk management programs from late 2007 through 2008. Maybe the opposition is applauding us and maybe I mistook it for a heckle, but even the opposition has to recognize that $1.5 billion going out to this sector is a large amount of money.

The government has added an additional $1 billion in loans available to the livestock sector through the federal advance payments program. That is a good program. We have worked quite a bit on the cash advance program. The opposition actually agreed with us on that and helped us to pass the legislation regarding those advances. Again, an additional $1 billion will be available in loans through that program. The additional funding for the advance payments program will provide the sector with a total of up to $2.3 billion in loans that will be available to livestock producers. A number of provinces have also stepped up and developed programs for the industry as well.

We are continuing to work with industry representatives to find ways of helping the industry position itself to be competitive in the long term and they include a lot of other efforts as well. I am going to talk more about some of those in the next few minutes.

One of the things that struck me is that the Liberal government never made good agricultural choices. That is probably because there has been such a disconnect between the Liberals and the rural areas. Earlier this evening we heard, as one of my colleagues mentioned, a love-in among the opposition parties. It seems that they have very few people from rural communities, but they are willing to slap each other on the back and say how much they care. We know they have a passion for these subjects.

I was reminded of something I said yesterday at committee which is that in hindsight the opposition members can see a gnat from 100 yards, but when it comes to accuracy they could not hit an elephant at that distance. That is really what we are talking about, their knowledge about the agricultural industry. It is disturbing they have as little knowledge as they do. We trust that they are willing to learn and we trust they are willing to listen and to try to understand.

One of the subjects that has come up a couple of times tonight and one of the places that clearly the opposition does not have a good understanding of agriculture is the Canadian Wheat Board issue. I would like to take a couple of minutes to talk about that, because this is an area where we could actually bring prosperity to the agricultural sector and the opposition seems dedicated and completely committed to making sure that does not happen.

Right now western Canadian farmers are sitting with their pool return outlooks somewhere under $10 for the wheat they have turned over to the Canadian Wheat Board. The market in Minneapolis is approaching $20. It seems that if the Canadian Wheat Board is saying it is only going to return $8 or $10 to the producers in western Canada, either it has completely failed to market the grain properly this year, which is possible and may be likely, I do not know, or it is hoarding a big chunk of farmers' money trying to keep it back so it can be delivered all at one time to make itself look good.

I would like to know what it is. Unfortunately, because the board is as secretive as it is in what it does, western Canadian farmers cannot find that out. What they do know is that the barley markets should be opened up. Sixty-two per cent of producers voted to have more marketing choice in their repertoire and the opposition is bound and determined to deny them that opportunity.

It is funny because the Wheat Board says it cannot offer marketing opportunity to western Canadian barley farmers, but I have to tell the opposition members this because they do not seem to understand it. It has already offered that marketing opportunity to the organic producers. Last year it tried to run an organic program where it was trying to get producers to buy into its system. It was such a complete failure that this year it turned around and said, “Well, we would like to open up the organic market. We will let the organic guys buy back their grain for only 8¢ or 10¢ and then they can sell it for whatever they want.”

One of the most fascinating things that I have seen about this is how the president of the NFU has disappeared on this issue this year. He is an organic farmer. If the organic farmers in my home town are telling me the truth about what they are getting for their grain, he is making twice the money the other farmers who are held captive to the Canadian Wheat Board marketing system are getting. Organic producers have told me that they were taking bids for $13 to $18 for their spring wheat. They were getting in the range of $10 for Canadian soft spring wheat and they were looking for over $20 for their durum wheat; this at the same time that regular producers are held in a system where they are getting less than $8 a bushel for their grain.

I find it interesting that organizations would take a position when their own presidents of the organizations would be in a different situation than what they expect the rest of the Canadian public to have to put up with.

My NDP colleagues always quote the NFU because they seem to be fairly closely connected and they take their advice from them. However, they really should go back and ask them some questions about why one of their lead people would be taking a buyback of 8¢ and making $20 a bushel on his grain while he and his fellow members in that organization expect everybody else to take less than half that for their grain. There is a lot of concern over that.

I want to move on to some other fronts and some of the other things that have been affecting the livestock and the pork trade and also some places where we see some opportunities arising from some of those things.

As I talked about earlier, we have been able to get the borders open. This government has moved on this issue and farmers have been able to thank us for getting the borders open.

We also know that our standards are higher than anyone else's in the world, particularly our neighbour across the border. We know that we have a good product.

This government has moved on bilateral agreements. That was a huge frustration for us when we were in opposition, trying to tell the Liberal government it needed to get moving on bilateral agreements because WTO may take a long time to settle. The Liberals sat there and said, “No, no. It is okay. We are not going to initiate anything. We don't have the resources for that”. We sat and we sat and we sat and we had no bilateral discussions going on at all, I do not think, maybe one in 10 years, while the Americans settled about 35 of them. And we wonder why we were starting to fall behind.

Earlier tonight I heard the member for Malpeque seem to imply that it would be okay if we were to throw out aid that was actually countervailable, that maybe we should say, “Damn what happens at the borders; we are just going to go ahead and give money out”. I hope he is not saying that because that would be the height of irresponsibility. The industry has told us time and time again it does not want whatever aid it gets to cause it trouble at the borders.

Clearly, we continue to work at WTO. There are several things that must be accomplished there. We need to expand market access around the world for products. We need to work to eliminate export subsidization. Thankfully, there has been agreement that that can take place. We need to drastically decrease the market distorting domestic support.

I see my time is drawing to an end and I am actually sorry about that. I would like to speak quite a bit longer on this.

Our Prime Minister has promised to restore Canada's position on the world stage. This government is delivering on that promise for Canadian farm families. We are opening new international opportunities. I am proud of the fact that our minister has been going around the world opening up markets for our producers. He has been responding to producers. We can see success in this industry because of the initiative that this government is taking.

[Livestock Industry, February 13th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak again tonight.

I guess as I sat here this evening it struck me again that the opposition really does not have to come up with practical solutions to the problems. The government does and we are doing that.

I was struck earlier by a couple of comments made by some of the opposition parties. I think they can afford to dream in technicolor or they can afford to come up with whatever statements they want. They do not have to be practical.

I was interested to hear my colleague from the Bloc actually try to take credit for the fact that the government had brought in article 28. As the House knows, that was requested by the supply management industry some time ago.

The Liberal government would not move on that at all. It never even made a move on it. The Bloc certainly cannot take any credit for that because it was this government that made the move. As with so many other things, the Bloc members would like to engage in that hyperbole that says that they can actually do something here in Ottawa. However, as we have pointed out time and again in the House, they really do not. They cannot.

In the time that they have been here, they cannot have results. They are like the NDP members. They are consigned to perpetual opposition. As such, they are not the ones who are going to be able to bring change or bring success to the agricultural industry.

I also had to reflect on the dream that my colleague from Malpeque seemed to have had when he claimed that the Liberals had 11 programs to deal with BSE. He seemed to think that they had worked. If they had 11 programs, no one noticed 10 of them and the other one ended up funding the big companies. There was quite a conflict over that early on in the BSE crisis as well.

The Liberals cannot pretend that they have actually done anything successfully for farmers in the last decade that they were in power.

I was interested to hear the NDP critic tonight really complaining about the fact that we are trying to integrate markets. The NDP members seem to be stuck in some paradigm from 100 years ago where they think that Canada can exist without any type of trading with other markets. Clearly, if we are talking about beef and pork, those are two items in which we have to trade internationally.

I do not know if the member has not travelled to see that or what. Clearly, the NDP solution, which is not to integrate, not to trade with anyone, would bring complete and total disaster on to our agricultural markets in this country.

I hear one of the NDP members heckling me and I understand he is from an urban area. I do not know exactly what he knows about farming, but he is certainly willing to talk here. Now I notice there is a heckle from across the way from one of the urban Winnipeg ridings. I am sure we are going to hear later how important it is from the heart of Winnipeg that western Canadian farmers have no choice in marketing their grain. I will probably talk about that a little later.

However, I am really concerned about the fact that the opposition does not have to come up with practical solutions. The government does. The minister has been leading the way in finding those solutions. I will talk about that a little later.

My connection to the BSE in terms of agriculture in the House goes back further than most people here. I see a couple of other members here who have been on the agriculture committee for a number of years. They will remember the call that we received in 2003 when Lyle Vanclief, the minister of agriculture at that time, called and told us that we had a BSE case in this country. All of us knew that it was going to have serious consequences for the beef industry in Canada and of course it has.

Over the last few years there has been work to try to get the borders reopened. The Liberals were unsuccessful in being able to do that, but thankfully ministers have been able to do that over the last couple of years.

Markets have opened for Canadian beef around the world. I would like to point out some of the places where we now can move our beef that we were not able to when the government came to power. Of course, we need to trade as I mentioned earlier. The markets are open in Japan, Mexico, Hong Kong, Egypt, Russia, Macau, the Philippines and the United States.

I need to point out that this was something that the Liberals completely failed to do. The Liberal critic was criticizing us earlier because we took a little time to get that border open with the United States. The Liberals took years and never did get it open. It took a change in government and the ability of the government to be able to work with the Americans on the other side of the border in order to reopen the border.

Canadian livestock producers know full well who has been working for them. They know it was not the previous government.

I want to talk about some of the other things that have contributed to the problems we find today in the livestock sector. I have a couple of specific things in my own riding that I would like to bring into this. They may be small things but they are things that the government has worked on and brought some successful resolution to.

The first one is the issue of gophers. For many people across this country, it is not an important thing to them, but I have an area of my riding that has been overrun by Richardson's ground squirrels. Farmers have been battling this problem for six or seven years now. They came down and tried to talk to the Liberals about it and they got nowhere. The Liberals were not interested in helping them out. These are people who find themselves on a weekend going out and shooting up to 3,500 rounds of ammunition trying to get these little animals under control on their property, and they are not able to do it. We clearly needed a better way to control the squirrels.

My colleague from Vegreville—Wainwright has worked on this issue for years. We said that we needed access to strychnine once again, and my colleague was able to show that the government had removed strychnine from the market without doing any studies about it. It just decided to take it off. This past summer, with the hard work of the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Health, we were able to reapply strychnine in its form on the Prairies and begin hopefully to control this problem.

The reason this is important to livestock producers is that entire quarter sections of pasture have been destroyed by these animals through their burrowing and the fact that they were eating the grass off the land, especially in areas where there was drought. That is one small thing that this government has been able to do for producers, and we continue to work on that.

The second issue that has taken place in my part of the world is that we have had drought. There has been one particular area south and east of Swift Current, Saskatchewan where a lot of the folks have had drought for three years. They had drought in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Last year we actually did have some rain through the first half of the year and then it went to about 100° for 10 days and we had no rain for the rest of the year. A lot of the crops and the pasture disappeared in that heat.

I really wanted to do something for those producers, and the federal government and our minister at the time were willing to do that. One of the frustrations I had is that I went back to my province and I asked the government there to work with us. I said, “We have a drought situation here. We need you to work with us. We need you to recognize the problem for what it is”. The province said, “No, we do not consider that there is a drought here. We are not interested in helping out the producers in that area”.

I have to say that I am thankful there has finally been a change in government in Saskatchewan, and we have been able to move away from that NDP disinterest in rural Saskatchewan. The NDP had no interest at all in the rural areas. We seem to have a provincial government now that is willing to work with us and is showing new interest in rural Saskatchewan and in trying to make rural Saskatchewan work.

That has been a tremendous change, because clearly, as we know in this House but some Canadians may not realize, the NDP has completely lost touch with its roots. At one time it was a populist based party, but now it is urban based and union supported, and really it does not have that support or that connection with the rural areas. We know that people are very disheartened by the fact that the NDP has moved so far from them.

Provincially the NDP could not help us. We know that federally, the NDP is not able to help farmers either, and so the rural communities look to us for leadership and we have been providing that.

I also need to point out that we made an election commitment to improve the farm programs, and when we went to do that, we heard clearly from the provinces and from a number of farm organizations that they wanted to see a reference based margin program continue in the group of programs that we were running. We would have preferred to change that, but they were insistent that we maintain that as part of our programs. It has been fun to watch two agriculture ministers in succession here work and put together a suite of programs that are really going to work for producers.

Members of course are familiar with the agri-stability program, the agri-invest program, and the new agri-recovery program. We have been able to work with the provinces to bring them to completion and put them in place. They will be very good for farmers. I want to talk a little about some of the help that farmers have gotten through those programs and through this government. It is going to be a fairly long list. The opposition probably does not want to hear it, but again it is indicative of the great commitment this government has shown to producers.

We want to mention that our business programs are getting the advances out, they are getting payments out, they are getting loans out to producers. Specifically, we are beginning to deliver $600 million to kickstart agri-invest accounts.

[Medical Isotopes, February 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, now the member is beginning to focus on the real issue here. The real issue was why the regulator was not willing to work with everyone else to protect the health of Canadians. One of the witnesses yesterday said:

There never was, and there does not exist, a substantive nuclear safety risk at the NRU reactor at Chalk River.... Parliament's swift actions averted imminent harm to patients and the well-being of Canadians. I remain proud of the way that was handled by Parliament.

I too am proud of the way that issue was handled by this Parliament.

[Medical Isotopes, February 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, unlike the Liberal member, at least that opposition member was at the committee, so she would know full well that the timelines the minister gave and the ones that MDS Nordion gave were identical.

The reality is the opposition members cannot have it both ways. They cannot say to us one week that we should not have acted and then come back the next week and say that we did not act soon enough. It just makes no sense.

Canadians are thankful that this government showed leadership and acted and they are thankful that Parliament supported us in that decision.

[Chalk River Nuclear Facilities, February 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, that is the same information that the minister gave. MDS Nordion pointed out, as the minister had, that right up until the end of November everyone expected that the reactor would start in early December. When we found out that was not the case, this government acted and it acted quickly, and it acted with the support of all of Parliament.

I would like to quote Mr. Malkoske from MDS Nordion when he said, “I think the government was doing what they could, frankly”.

[Chalk River Nuclear Facilities, February 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding his cute attempts at quips, in reality the timelines they were given yesterday were the same as the minister gave.

Actually, what Canadians should be shaking their head at is the lack of leadership from the opposition side. The opposition cannot continue to have it both ways.

One week members of the opposition say that we should have acted sooner and then the next week they say that we should not have acted at all. Canadians are tired of that. They are glad that we moved when we did. They are glad that Parliament supported that.

[Frank Hamilton, February 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is easy, as time passes, to forget people who have given their time and energy to our communities. Those of us who are younger can easily forget what and who went before us. Last weekend, I was reminded of that when I heard that Frank Hamilton had died.

Frank was a farmer from Mazenod. He was an airman in World War II who served with distinction. Throughout his life, he was a community-minded person.

He was also the Progressive Conservative member of Parliament for our area from 1972 to 1984, serving again with distinction in agriculture, defence, transportation and veterans affairs.

I did not know Frank, but when I asked about him, I found out some things. He was highly respected by those who knew him. He was a good MP who always worked hard for his constituents. He was a salt of the earth, unassuming man who did not need the limelight to know that he had done well. He and his wife, Wanda, made a great team.

We thank Frank for his many years of service to southwest Saskatchewan.