David Anderson

[Sponsorship Program, October 20th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker,

In '95 during the fallWhen the PQ cast a pall,

The PMO said, “Stand Tall!We'll go to the wall--There'll be money for all! You don't have to crawl--Just give us a call”.

And so, Mr. Speaker, some had a ballCollecting cash, what a haul!

And so it went well...all in allUntil it hit the fan (or the wall).

Word got out. “We have to stall!Hide the stuff, no one will fall”.

“I'm mad as hell!” we heard in the hall.“I knew nothing at all.And what I do, I can't recall!”

Now it turns out he's had a ball.A million dollars--that's quite a haul!Well, old fundraisers, we helped them all.

But the question remains--and please don't stall--who really made the call?Was it Paul?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 19th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, earlier the Minister of Social Development had a chance to speak and talked a bit about the new child care program that he is pushing. I had some concerns about that and I would like to ask the member a question in a minute. We have a multi-billion dollar program beginning and a number of us have great concerns about it. We would like to see people make a choice as to what they do with their tax money, how they support their children, how they find day care, and whether they need it or not.

I have a bigger concern and it is about the rural areas. We see billions of dollars going into these programs, often into building facilities, administrations and bureaucracies, and the rural areas are usually left out. I know that the member is an advocate for rural areas and rural development. I would like his thoughts on whether he feels that a national day care program will treat rural areas fairly or if once again they will probably be left out in this government's treatment of rural areas.

[Agriculture, October 7th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague from Saskatoon—Humboldt. As we know, he is one of several young MPs who have come into the House from Saskatchewan. We are proud to have him here.

Obviously, those of us who come from that province understand the deficiencies of the Saskatchewan government. We have unfortunately had to live with an NDP government for far too long. Basically, it has run the province into the ground and it shows up in the aid programs that it cannot provide for our farmers. We watch other provinces that provide a large amount of aid to their farmers. Unfortunately, the Saskatchewan government does not seem ready to step up to the plate and do that.

In fact, when this program was announced, as the minister would know, the minister of agriculture in Saskatchewan embarrassed all of us by threatening first of all to sue the federal government over the program. He found out how ridiculous that was, backed off and now the provincial government is trying to provide a bit of aid to farmers. It has been inadequate. Since 2000 one of the problems we have had is dealing with the provincial government and getting it to fully fund the farm programs that are in place there.

[Agriculture, October 7th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, that is an important thing to note because there are other industries. Elk and buffalo have been brought into this. It is not fair to those producers because the BSE problem has affected the beef but these other producers have been brought in as well.

I do not think the government has been aggressive in dealing with this issue with the United States. The discussion about the beef can go on and will go on, but there has not been much talk about what has happened to these other folks. There has not been much talk about taking care of them or doing something for them. They need to be remembered in the discussion about this issue as well.

[Agriculture, October 7th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, I thank the minister and the parliamentary secretary for staying for the debate. We have had late night debates before and we have not always had the attendance by them. Although, when I look across and I realize the amount of room they have, I think we might hear the duet “It's Lonely Out Tonight” .

I want to take a minute to thank my riding for my re-election and the opportunity to come back and represent the citizens of Cypress Hills—Grasslands on the issues that are important to them. Right now there is no issue more important than BSE.

As I was preparing for this speech, I was thinking about the times we have been here to discuss this. I think this is probably the third or fourth time we have been here late at night to discuss this. How many speeches have we given, I do not know. I cannot think back to the number of times I have spoken on this subject.

I was the question period coordinator last spring for our party and we asked enough questions on BSE and on agriculture. At times I think the agriculture critic was getting tired of being asked to ask questions. There has been a multitude of statements made on this, and the problem persists.

We all know what happened in the spring of 2003 and the problems that resulted from that. Actually, the minister admitted tonight, and I think it is the first time I have heard this, that there really was no long term planning right from the beginning.

There were some of us who immediately called for packing plants to be built immediately. I do not know why any of us were thinking at the time that this would be a short term problem. Momentum seemed to build that this would go away in a few minutes or a few months. That was never realistic right from the beginning. It was not possible for that to happen.

Think about the reaction other countries had to us and the reaction we had to other countries with the same problem. It was not going to be a short term responsibility. The government failed producers miserably when it pretended it was. It never acted in the long term interest.

Since then many things have happened. There have been at least two failed programs. The government was six to eight weeks late in getting money to the farmers and the ranchers. Both times the markets were beginning to stabilize and both times the money collapsed the market which collapsed the prices for producers.

Our plan last spring was one of which we were proud and it was a good one. It called for a billion dollars to be spent on this issue, with $400 million going to top up programs, $350 million towards the cull, $75 million for packing plants and other money allocated for things such as trade and establishing testing regimes.

This September the government came out with its program. I have heard lots of discussion tonight about that. The member for Lethbridge has done an excellent job of talking about the problems in which we find ourselves. He has also talked about possible solutions.

Some producers in my riding, who are not beef producers, have also been affected. I want to talk a bit about them tonight. One family farms sheep and has stayed in touch with me over the last year. I will read a section of a letter that he wrote me in the last couple of days. He has been brought into this, inadvertently I guess, and has paid a price as big as most of the beef producers have. He says:

The impact that BSE has had on us has been very tough and financially challenging. Our lamb trade here in Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba has been north-south with the USA. Just 100 kms to the south of us, feeder lambs that go into a feedlot to be fattened are currently selling for $.95 to $1.18 USD per pound. We are currently being offered $.60-.65 CDN per pound. That's less than half of what American sheep producers receive.

Most of us are not familiar with why that happened. However, he goes on to say:

The problem is that because of the closed border, there is no American competition in the marketplace, only one packing plant for lambs in Western Canada and hundreds and hundreds of kms to get to a market in Ontario.

The main reason for low prices in the sheep business is lack of competition for buyers. With no American lamb buyers competing for our lambs the western packing plant,...only has to bid the already low price western lambs receive at auction in Toronto...

That is one reason why the lamb producers are suffering.

Then there is a problem with packing. The minister asked for suggestions tonight, so I will read his suggestion. He states:

The first order of business should be to have CFIA lift the ban on USA imports so that we show to them how ridiculous their ban on Canadian lambs is.

We have heard tonight from the member for Macleod. He has said that there is a continuing problem with anaplasmosis and blue tongue in cattle coming from the United States to Canada. The lamb producers feel some of that same pressure on what they see as a ridiculous ban on lambs coming into Canada.

We need to get the border open. These folks have been brought into this through no fault of their own. I understand that the government is meeting with them tomorrow. However, we are 18 months into the problem. That border should be open to those folks. The government has not been aggressive enough in dealing with that problem and it needs to be solved.

[Agriculture, October 7th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, I have had the opportunity to work on agricultural issues for the last four years in the House of Commons and it has been a great privilege. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and I have debated the issues a number of times.

I want to mention tonight that in the last couple of BSE debates that we had with him he seemed to say, and fairly stridently, that we needed to play hardball with the Americans. He was speaking out strongly against them. The World Series is coming up and I was reminded of that comment tonight. On several occasions he talked about how we needed to deal with the Americans and make sure that we dealt harshly with them.

I do not know if he knew it at the time, but over the last year or so that has involved several different facets. As our leader mentioned earlier tonight, they are things such as slagging the American president on an in-flight news conference about his domestic policy, and calling Americans different names in various places and on different occasions. But probably the greatest failure of the government is that it has left the American Congress uninformed about the issue, so that when we do go down to Washington we are told by them that they actually thought that the border was open.

I am reminded of another comment and that is one which is used by Dr. Phil when he says, “How is that working for you?”

I would like the member to comment on the total failure of the course suggested by the parliamentary secretary and the resulting consequences it has had for Canadian agriculture.

[Health, October 7th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, health care in my riding has become like housing in communist Russia: it's free, but there isn't any.

The government has supposedly rescued the health care system. That is not true.

This summer the Saskatchewan government decided to shrink health care in my riding by closing down facilities and removing ambulance service. One affected area involved the communities of Val Marie, Bracken, Climax, Frontier and Claydon, an area of about 2,500 square miles. The government in its wisdom decided to lay waste to the only health care facility in the area and make it an eight hour a day clinic.

The local people have responded. They tried to negotiate with the provincial government. No chance. They have appealed to the federal minister. No response. They have now raised hundreds of thousands of dollars privately to keep their public health facility open. What we need is a commitment from the federal government to protect our right to access and a commitment from the provincial government to keep the facility open.

Is it not ironic that health region number one, the birthplace of medicare, will be using private money to keep the public health system operating?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 7th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, congratulations on your new position.

It is good to hear that we have one more guilty Liberal on the other side. I want to ask him a specific question. I have a situation in my riding regarding health care. He talked a little bit about northern health care and the fact that many of his people have to rely on planes and those kinds of things to receive health care. He should probably be thankful for that because in one section of my riding people are not even going to be able to have that level of health care themselves.

This summer the provincial government, taking federal money and putting into health care, decided it would shut down a number of the health care centres in my riding and remove ambulance services in other areas. One of the areas involved affects communities along the border. This is an area that involves Val Marie, which has Grasslands National Park near it, the communities of Bracken, Climax, Frontier and Claydon. All told it is an area of about 2,500 square miles.

The government has basically decided that it is going to shut down the only health care facility in the area. The local people have desperately tried to do something to maintain their health care. They went to the provincial government. The provincial government refused to negotiate with them. My constituents have actually appealed to the new Minister of Health. They have not had a response from him.

Instead, my constituents decided they would do something themselves to preserve their health care. In this small rural area these folks have now raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep the public health care facility open.

We have talked in this place a number of times about two tier health care. We see it showing its face in Saskatchewan. We have an area where health care is being denied to people. These are rural folks, farmers, some manufacturers, and business people. Some of the rural municipal governments are involved in raising money for their own health care facility.

I would ask the member, why is there no accountability in rural areas for health care? Why is it that in health region number one, the birthplace of medicare, people are now having to raise private money to keep their public health care facilities open?

[Member for Cypress Hills--Grasslands, May 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, in 2000 I had the privilege of being elected to the House of Commons. The first session is still a blur. There is no apprenticeship program for this job, which is akin to stepping onto a 100 mile per hour treadmill.

The three and a half years have gone quickly. For two and a half years I worked with the member for Selkirk—Interlake primarily on our agriculture team. He was the mentor that this rookie MP needed.

For most of the last year I have been privileged to be intimately involved with the question period team as director for the official opposition. I have had the enjoyment of sharing that position for the last few months with my capable colleague and seatmate, the member for South Shore.

I want to recognize the tremendous sacrifice my family has made. Before we were elected, not one of us knew the price our families would pay. I want to recognize my wife Sheila, daughter Amy and son Andrew. Many time they have gone the extra mile and paid the price so that I could be here.

I want to recognize the great folks of Cypress Hills—Grasslands, the best riding in this country. I hope I have met their expectation. I look forward to the opportunity of returning and continuing to represent them.

[Agriculture, May 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the government has failed farmers. When one lonely, renegade U.S. producer group headed to court to block Canadian beef imports, what was the government's response? Nothing. There was no legal intervention, no outcry, nothing.

Instead of defending our producers, the Prime Minister cowered out of sight, hoping that the U.S. government would protect the interests of our producers. That did not happen and Canadian producers are once again under the gun.

Why did the government put the fate of Canadian producers in the hands of the U.S. government?