David Anderson

[Contraventions Act, March 8th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I have a question. Was the unparliamentary language the word “incompetent” or was it the word “corrupt”?

[Contraventions Act, March 8th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Provencher for his speech. It was a tremendous wealth of information and knowledge. I was dismayed, as I looked across the way, to see that there was only one Liberal who was even paying half attention to what he had to say.

The message he shared earlier is very important. The people who are trying to make the decisions, as my other colleague pointed out, will be whipped in their vote very shortly. They need to listen to what the member for Provencher had to say about the issue of marijuana decriminalization.

We are debating Bill C-10, which will amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act with respect to the possession and production of marijuana.

What is the objective of the legislation? As I look through it, the objective is really not clear. What should the objective be of legislation dealing with drugs in our society? The best objective would be to remove the influence of addictive substances from people's lives as much as possible. That would be a noble goal if we were writing legislation dealing with addictive substances.

What do we do with addictive substances in other areas? An obvious example would be tobacco. Over the last 10 or 15 years we have seen what the government has done to the tobacco industry. It basically destroyed the industry. It spent billions of dollars trying to stop people from smoking cigarettes. It applied heavy taxation to the industry in order to ruin it. In many ways it has been successful. That was a good goal: to get people away from smoking.

The second example is alcohol. The government has a program, which is not as extensive as that of tobacco. The objective is to restrict the consumption of alcohol to some extent. It does that through taxation and restrictions on advertising.

When it comes to soft and hard drugs, we seem to have a different situation. When we look at hard drugs, the experiments we have been conducting in Vancouver have been a failure. The member for Langley—Abbotsford is familiar with that.

I found it interesting that even the United Nations is calling our small drug plan a failure. In fact, the International Narcotics Control Board condemned the experiment that is going on in Vancouver. It took aim at us in a number of ways, particularly the lack of a drug strategy in this country.

I want to talk a little bit about its criticism of the government initiative that was launched. It argued a couple of different things. First, the Vancouver safe injection site, which opened only last September, violated the fundamental principle that elicit drugs should only be used for medicinal or scientific purposes. It went on to talk quite a bit about that.

When drug abusers can acquire elicit drugs and take them into premises which are managed by the state or the town, there is definitely complicity. It could not accept that under the international drug control convention. That is the United Nations speaking, which is definitely not a Conservative organization.

Second, it took issue with the proposed changes that the government was making to the federal marijuana laws. The government claimed it would contribute to the mistaken perception that cannabis was a harmless substance. The United Nations was concerned about the type of leadership the government was failing to show.

The board was also opposed to the medical use of marijuana, which has been another failed experiment of the government, until its efficacy as a treatment could be determined. When we look at what the government has proposed so far, even the international community sees it as a complete and total failure.

We move on from hard drugs to marijuana use. What is the government doing in terms of marijuana? Its policy looks just as schizophrenic as it is in other areas. On the one hand it is trying to leave the impression with the public that it is fighting drug use, but with its legislation it seems to be saying it really encourages it.

I want to talk about some of the provisions in Bill C-10 and discuss where the bill will be taking us. The bill amends the law with respect to the production of marijuana. Apparently the production of marijuana is an offence that will be punishable by up to seven years imprisonment.

We will hear a lot about “up to” in a few minutes. The proposed legislation breaks down the sentencing in two or three different ways. One of the things that it says it that an individual found growing just one to three plants will face summary conviction with a fine of not more than $500. Four to 25 plants would constitute an offence punishable by up to $25,000 and/or 18 months in jail. Growing 26 to 50 plants would result in a sentence of up to 10 years and the growing of more than 50 plants would be 14 years.

As we have said this afternoon, and we will continue to say, one of the problems is that there are no minimum sentences in this legislation. We have seen this in so many other pieces of legislation that the government has brought forward. It has happened one more time here. Basically, with no minimums, we are sending no message. We get things like conditional sentencing, house arrest, and small fines. The penalties are just not appropriate for the crime that has taken place.

I think that in a lot of ways the government has just given up. It really has. It has decided that it will not fight this battle anymore. What this society does not need now is one more way to get high. It is not as if this society is not being provided with enough options as it is.

The bill provides a whole new system of fines for the possession of marijuana. The possession of between 15 and 30 grams of marijuana is left up to the police officer as to whether a ticket will be issued or a summons for a summary conviction. With no minimum sentencing, we would expect that police would likely turn to whatever the judges were enforcing. It would seem to be that police would be just giving out tickets and nothing more because the judges would not enforce it if the police did anything more than that.

Possession of one gram or less of cannabis resin would be punishable by a fine of $300 for an adult and $200 for a youth. That sends a tremendous negative message to our youth. It actually encourages them to use drugs. It encourages adults to use our youth to use drugs as well. Those are maximum fines. The younger people would be encouraged then by the older people to carry the drugs and have them in their possession because their fines would be less.

Possession of 15 grams or less of marijuana under this legislation would be punishable by a fine of only $150 for an adult and $100 for a youth. Again, those are maximum fines, so it basically wipes out any penalty at all for using marijuana.

This legislation is really flawed. Despite what people say, we all know that marijuana is a gateway drug. If young people are going to start using drugs, marijuana is the drug of choice. It is the drug that they are usually first exposed to and the drug that they use to begin to get high. This legislation sends the wrong message to our young people.

Penalties for the production of marijuana have actually decreased. That is not something we want to have happen and that is something that the government is claiming is not true. However, where small amounts of marijuana are being produced, which would probably be most of the local, homegrown operations, the penalties are decreased. It encourages people to get involved in it.

One of the concerns that I have, and we heard about it this afternoon as well, is that there are a lot of young people who do not want to use drugs. They feel they are being put in a tough situation. Peer pressure comes into play, the other kids are saying they can use it, it is not a big threat, the government and adults do not seem to be worried about it, so they go ahead and use it.

I have young people who tell me they do not want to be using drugs. They are living in an environment where more and more younger people around them are trying to push them into it. It is not as if they do not have enough peer pressure to take up some of these choices as it is. Therefore, it is not wise for the government to be setting up a situation where our young people are actually being pressured into using more drugs.

One of the problems with the bill is that it provides absolutely no resources for police to begin to track down organized crime. We all know that organized crime is involved with a lot of the grow operations. It is making billions of dollars off this industry. The government has come out with legislation that basically decriminalizes marijuana possession, but it does not give the police anything in terms of being able to enforce the legislation.

The fines set out in the bill are low to begin with, but one of the other problems is that they do not increase with subsequent offences. There is no incentive for people to get away from dealing drugs and living in that environment. Repeat offenders must face more serious consequences if they are going to continue to break the law.

There are no law enforcement tools in the bill. The Liberals have gone ahead and liberalized our drug laws without providing the police with the tools they need.

One of the areas where police will not be able to do their job is in roadside assessments. If we are going to have people driving around and doing drugs, we need to determine at some point if they are impaired or not. This legislation gives absolutely no direction or help to the police when they stop people to see whether they are impaired.

That is one of the points that the Canadian Alliance made and, now as the Conservative Party, continues to make. There needs to be some way of determining whether someone is impaired at the roadside before we take a look at changing our marijuana laws.

The bill also encourages trafficking. By decriminalizing possession of 30 grams or less, the Liberals have made it easier for traffickers to operate and have removed the fear of any real sanction on these people when they move their drugs. Thirty grams of marijuana can provide as many as 60 joints. That is certainly enough to make a fairly good salary if people are selling them to their friends and neighbours. We just see that everything about this bill encourages our young people to move in a direction in their lives in which they do need to move.

Another big concern is that the Liberals do not have a national drug strategy. There is nothing in place to enable them to deal with the problems that would come out of decriminalizing marijuana,

We understand, and I hope they do as well, that there will be consequences to this decriminalization. There will more drug use. There will be consequences within families and consequences within communities. I suggest that we will see an increase in crime as well. The Liberals do not have a strategy to deal with that. As my colleague from Provencher mentioned earlier, if they do have a strategy, they are keeping it secret from all of us. The last thing we need is for the Liberal government to be keeping secrets on any level from anyone.

Another interesting issue is that there has been no legislation developed to curtail financial institutions from funding mortgages relating to grow ops. There are companies that are well aware that grow ops are concentrated in certain areas. There are financial institutions that are willing to finance those buildings because they understand they will get their money back fairly quickly. Something needs to be done to deal with the financial institutions. If they are aware of what is going on in those houses and buildings and they are not turning people over to the police, then we need to have some legislation to deal with that.

One of the other problems has been the judiciary. We need a commitment from the judges that they will begin to enforce the legislation as it stands. Unfortunately, with the lack of minimum penalties, the judges will not be enforcing this in any way that will bring any kind of fear to anyone who is involved in this activity.

No provisions have been made to deal with the increasing toxicity of marijuana. Over the years marijuana has become stronger. The drug the government thinks it is decriminalizing in fact is not the drug that it is decriminalizing. It has become much more toxic and much more addictive over the years. The government needs to be ready to deal with the problems that arise from that. Added to that is the problem of the marijuana and methamphetamine being mixed together.

The Conservative Party has some solutions. We are opposed to the open-ended decriminalization of marijuana. There are things that need to happen in this country with regard to marijuana. One of them is that the use and possession of marijuana must remain illegal. Possession of more than five grams of marijuana must be considered a criminal offence.

Fines for possession of marijuana should increase significantly for subsequent offences. If someone insists on going back to the well, that person should pay an ever increasing price for doing that.

One of the key things is roadside assessment. We need some way to determine if people are impaired. We know that if we decriminalize marijuana, people will be taking it and likely will be driving their vehicles. We have to give our law enforcement officers the tools they need in order to do those assessments before we change this law. We do not have those tools or that ability to determine impairment at the roadside. The government should put this law on hold until they have those tools and the police are given the resources that they need.

The Canadian Alliance was consistent throughout its history. We had a good position. Our new party has a very similar position, which is that possession of greater than five grams of marijuana must be considered a criminal offence.

We want fines specified in amounts and increased significantly for subsequent offences. We need to vigorously enforce fine payments. We need appropriate roadside assessment practices. We need improved and stronger prosecution and sentencing practices, agreed upon between the federal government and the provinces. It has been good to see that the Conservative Party is taking a strong stand against this legislation.

I need to ask the question, why are we here? Is this an issue that is spellbinding for Canadians and holding their attention? It really is not. There are a lot of other important issues that need to be dealt with and the government seems to be setting those aside. Unfortunately, it seems to have no direction. The only legislation the government has brought forward in the last few months has been reworked legislation from prior sessions. The government does not seem to have any real goal or direction.

Fortunately, the official opposition has taken the leadership in a lot of areas. One of them is agriculture. We have waited almost 10 months for the government to do something about the BSE problem in this country. The government has basically done nothing. It came out with a couple of programs. The money was absorbed. It disappeared and we really do not know where it went. We have sat through this session waiting for the agriculture minister and the department to make some commitment to people and to farmers who are stressed and there has been nothing.

The opposition has stepped forward in many areas but particularly in agriculture. We have come out with a good plan. I am sure members are interested in hearing some examples of what the opposition would do if we were government. There are a number of things the opposition would do.

We would top up CFIP. In the last few years the government has shorted farmers. It told them it would pay them so much money and when the time came, it shorted them of their money. We would put in enough money to pay out 100%.

We would top up the new CAIS program to try to make it work for farmers. We do not believe it is a good program, but maybe with some more money in it and some of our suggested changes, it could possibly be a good program for farmers.

We have suggested things like putting some money into increasing processing capacity. We have called for a cull of cows. That needs to be done to bring the numbers down to a place where the market can begin to respond.

Agriculture is just one of the areas on which the Conservative Party has taken a strong stand and shown some tremendous leadership.

I am disappointed in the government. I look to it to lead the country. We heard this afternoon in question period that sponsorship money has disappeared in two more places. The Bluenose has been a Canadian icon. For some reason the government committed money to it but the money never showed up. It disappeared. Today the minister said he does not know where it is. The government is going to launch legal action but it has no idea what happened to the money. We heard later in question period that the government committed money to the Pan Am games in Canada. Did the cheque get there? Only a very small part of it was received.

It is frustrating for Canadians who are facing the issues every day, paying their taxes and being threatened if they do not. Over the last year and a half we have seen, particularly with EI and the GST, people going after ordinary folks if they have not received every cent from them. Those folks are paying their taxes, living their lives, trying to get ahead, and the government continually disappoints them.

Defence issues arise weekly. We have submarines that do not immerse. We have planes that do not fly. We have trucks that do not move. We just heard today that the government sent troops on a training exercise, gave them their $50 per diem and after the training exercise, turned around and told the corporals that they would just get $17 a day. At the same time the bureaucrats on the other side are dining out. There are no restrictions on what they are doing but those poor soldiers are required to pay the money back. We would expect the government to at least listen and do something about that.

The government is not dealing with the issues of leadership in this country right now. It is foundering. It is incompetent. It is corrupt. It is disappointing to see that it has pushed ahead with legislation like this--

[Contraventions Act, March 8th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments from the member for Prince George—Peace River. He talked about the fact that the government does not seem to be interested in debating this issue at all. We sit here with only the official opposition taking this issue to heart and thinking it is important. It is also interesting that we consistently see their leader out campaigning. He is not interested in being around here and governing and doing his job as Prime Minister of the country.

I would ask a question about the fact that the government is setting aside so many things. The government has set aside every issue that has come up and has challenged it. I think of Maher Arar and how they put off that issue. The government is trying to bury that issue until after an election, which it is planning.

We see things with the sponsorship scandal and the government not coming clean at all. Every day it is like going to the dentist; we have to keep pulling one tooth at a time, until finally these people will be as toothless as they appear to be.

There are changes to the gun registry that should have been made a long time ago. We hear rumblings that the government might tinker with it, but interestingly enough, the review will come back after the election. It is one thing after another. We see this in other areas as well, with defence issues and with various issues that were raised today.

The Liberals are definitely a tired government. They clearly have no direction. They have no motivation to govern well here. I would ask the member for his thoughts on this. Is this the government that should be bringing forth an important issue such as the issue we have been discussing today when it is clearly not interested in discussing it or dealing with it?

[Petitions, March 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am presenting five petitions from a variety of citizens across Canada.

The petitioners indicate that marriage is the lasting union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of others and it cannot and should not be modified by legislative act or a court of law. They are requesting that Parliament take whatever action is required to maintain the current definition of marriage in law in perpetuity and to prevent any court from overturning or amending that definition.

[Sponsorship Program, February 27th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, this whole mess just stinks. We know that even while the money laundering scheme was being shut down, cabinet ministers were still working the program, lining up at the trough.

Now we hear that the current president of the Privy Council wanted the government to continue to give him sponsorship money based on “verbal agreements”. How much sponsorship money was doled out on what cabinet ministers refer to as verbal agreements?

[Sponsorship Program, February 27th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, there is absolutely no transparency in the government's account of this whole affair. We have documentation from the Treasury Board's assessment to cabinet that refers to this whole sponsorship program as “money laundering”.

Will the government admit that this was in fact nothing more than a money laundering scheme that has cost Canadians $100 million?

[Supply, February 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member and I disagree on a few things to do with agriculture, but I think we both agree that it and farm families are important. On that we can agree and see eye to eye.

I want to ask him a question about packing facilities. The border is partially open. It is not open totally, but it is open to boxed beef for animals under 30 months of age. One of the things that the government has failed to do is really take the initiative in developing the capacity that we have in this country.

Does he think the government should be taking an active role in developing slaughter capacity for that boxed beef under 30 months that goes to the U.S., in order to protect our packing industry but also to protect our feeder industry in Canada?

[Supply, February 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the issue of value added is an interesting one. Over the last few years I have found that the leadership on this issue is coming from our small communities. The leadership is coming from local people who have the gumption to get up and get together, and put companies together and go out and do something.

Unfortunately, these people have waited years for the government to do something and it has not happened.

Regarding the BSE crisis, there are a couple of places where the government could show some real leadership in this value added area. One area where the government could show leadership is in the area of slaughtering animals and packing. We have sat here for almost a year now. We have last year's group of cull cows that are not marketable. The government has sat and waited. This group of cows is still out there.

We have now come to the second cycle. We now have two years of cull cows. The government has not taken the initiative and put a couple of plants in place to deal with those cull cows. The government has not insisted that the Canadian fast food companies use those cull cows. The result is that we have two years of cull cows.

There is also a problem with the feeders. The slaughter companies have decided that they do not know if they can put extra packing lines in place. They do not know what the future is and how long those lines would be operational. The slaughter companies are hesitant about investing money when the government has not given them any direction about how long they will have to wait to recover their investment. These are a couple of areas.

We must move those cull cows out of the system. It looks as though we will end up having to rationalize those animals. I do not think there is anyone who wants that to happen. If it happens, it will be because the government has completely failed to show leadership over the last year.

It would be a terrible situation if we lost the market for those younger animals as well. One fact that has not been mentioned too much today is that the border is still open to animals that are 30 months and under, as long as they are packed and in boxes.

There is an opportunity for us to move some of that beef through the slaughter plants, freeze it and ship it to the United States. We have a market for it. However, we need that extra slaughter capacity and we need it quickly, or we will lose that market. We will lose our feedlots. Those people are on the edge of a bad situation right now.

[Supply, February 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague for Calgary Northeast was speaking, I was thinking that the motto for the government seems to be “give a nickel, steal a billion”, and then expect people not to say anything.

We are here today to talk about agriculture, which is in a crisis situation as many of us who have rural areas in our riding know. I am glad to see that once again the opposition is leading the way on this issue. We have a government that is saying very little about it. It does not seem to understand the crisis we are in. It is hard to find government members in the House who are even concerned about agriculture. The opposition has carried the day and it has been good to see that.

We all know the story about BSE and what happened in this country. One cow was found in Alberta and the CFIA was able to trace it back to its source. We thought the industry was going to get back on its feet after having the border closed for months. Just when it seemed the United States was going to open the border, a second cow was found in the United States and it was traced back to Canada.

Our industry is being driven into the ground and it is frustrating for ranchers. I have received a lot of calls over the last month as people have realized that this is not going to be a short-term problem. It will last longer than they expected. They are almost at the end of their first year of trying to deal with this situation.

This is not just affecting ranchers. A lot of other people are being affected as well such as truckers and auctioneers. Up until Christmastime, retailers did not seem to be affected that much, but in talking to them since Christmas, a lot of them have expressed concern.

Farmers do a lot of shopping in the fall. They buy machinery and that kind of thing. Ranchers tend to do a bit more of it in the spring. When the season stopped for farmers, there was nothing, and ranchers did not pick up the business. A lot of the agricultural implement dealers are feeling the stress and strain as well from this crisis. There are others as well such as farmers who grow feed wheat. They find themselves in a situation where ranchers cannot buy that wheat from them. It is tough.

Over the last few weeks I have noticed that more people are calling and the calls are more desperate. Before, they were concerned, but now, we are getting to the situation where young people are starting to look at losing their property. Young ranchers are being told to go back to the oil patch and to work there in order to save their ranches. That is not the long-term answer for these folks.

One of the problems that I have had through this whole situation is the fact that the government has completely failed to plan or to lead the ranch and farm community through this problem. They have received many promises from the government. We heard again today from the minister. He is good at saying how much he feels our pain, but he is not so good at getting anything done.

The government has failed in a whole number of areas. One area I can think of is feed regulations. The government has refused to deal head on with the issues of what to do with feed, how to regulate it, and how to regulate the companies that are making it. The government has not taken the initiative there.

Opening the border is obviously a very important issue. The government seems to be doing nothing. Something may be going on behind the scenes, but ranchers do not understand what it is. The government is not talking about it in the House. That is unfortunate because the border needs to be opened quickly for ranchers to do well.

I had a big concern last summer with the government's commitment of $500 million to ranchers and the ranching community. That money seems to have evaporated into thin air. I know it was spent. The problem is that none of the ranchers I know received any of it. They are paying the biggest price. They are suffering the most and they needed that money. It disappeared into thin air. Someone received it, but it was not the ranchers.

The government now has a $200 million program with regard to feeding culled cows through the winter. In my part of the world, that has turned out to be a disaster too because the provincial government cannot come to any agreement with the federal government about how to administer the program. As of the end of January, farmers were not able to get access to the money from the federal program.

It is unfortunate that there is an NDP government in Saskatchewan because it seems to be drilling our province into the ground. Our province is getting in worse shape. The Saskatchewan government is unable to cooperate with the federal government. And we have a federal government that is not able to put a plan or program together that will work for farmers.

Another area the government has failed is in setting the regulations for testing in Canada. Farmers and ranchers do not have any idea what the government plans for the future. I honestly do not think the government has any idea what it wants to do either.

We have heard from the minister. Producers have been very patient with him so far. He seems to be saying the right words, but producers are going to get impatient very quickly and will get tired of hearing promises and nothing else.

It is not just the ranchers that are in trouble. The grain industry is in a deep hole as well. The prices are at not all time lows but they are very low right now. There are shipping problems with the railway strike that is going on, but also a lot of problems with the whole grain marketing system in western Canada and most of it is focused on the Canadian Wheat Board.

Farmers have not recovered from the disaster that they had in 2002 and 2003 when they pulled out of the market when it was at its highest because they did not want to sell grain to the board. It had not done any planning for the future. It had not locked in any futures, missed the high, came back into the market at the low, and set the initial price too high and ended up with an $85 million deficit in the pool accounts. Thankfully for the farmers but not so for the taxpayers. The taxpayers had to make it up.

It was incompetence on the part of the marketing done by the Wheat Board and it ended up costing a lot of money.

The Wheat Board, as we know, limits opportunities for grain farmers in so many ways. We have organic farmers coming to us now that are protesting the buy-back. In the past, they have been allowed to sell their own wheat and they have been able to do that very well. As soon as they started developing a successful market and a successful industry, the Wheat Board stepped in and said that it needed its share, and that it had to take a cut too. Now it is starting to drive the organic farmers into the same situation as it has done with the rest of the farmers.

My biggest concern with what is happening in western Canada in the grain industry, and it is tied again to the Wheat Board, is the fact that farmers are not allowed to process. I have a lot of small communities in my riding. The people want to survive and thrive. They would love an opportunity to process the product that they grow the most of and that is grain.

Unfortunately, even though we have 125 speciality crop plants in our province because people can process their own products there, we have less than 20 flour mills in the province that mill grain and most of those are owned by two American multinationals.

I heard members on the other side say that they were on the side of farmers, but they were defending the millers and the Wheat Board more than they were the farmers when they insisted that the system stay the way it was.

The sad part of it is that farmers do not have control of it. The minister still has control of the Canadian Wheat Board. If farmers had control of it or had control of their own destiny, many of them would be marketing their own grain and doing well at it, as eastern Canadians farmers have been doing over the last year. Once they got the freedom to go into the Ontario Wheat Board or stay out of it, it is interesting that they have done very well going into the United States with their own wheat.

Therefore, we look for some opportunities. Unfortunately, in many ways the government is restricting those farmers, particularly in western Canada.

I want to speak a little about CFIP, the farm income program and what a disaster that it has been. Unfortunately, from 2002, the government paid out about 75% to many of the farmers. Now it is clawing money back from the producers saying that it needs to claw some of their money back, so that it can get everybody up to 60%.

It is the position of our party and our agriculture critic that we would commit to ensuring that 100% was paid out. The government will short the farmers by 30%. We are not prepared to do that. We would like to see farmers get what they are supposed to receive. We would step forward and certainly do that for producers. It is unfortunate that the government does not do that as well.

The new CAIS program does not look like the answer that everyone thought it would be and that is unfortunate.

One of the other things I want to talk about is an issue that we thought there was a lot of hope for. We had an application for an ethanol plant from Shaunavon which is in my riding. The guys put a lot of work into the project and put a good proposal together. They waited patiently to see if the government would approve their project. Ten days ago the government informed them that they were not going to get the funding.

Instead, one of the projects went to a multinational company that made $350 million in earnings in the fourth quarter and made $1.8 billion last year. It apparently needed that $14 million from the federal government for its project, while our local community group, that could have used that $14 million to get the project up and running, did not get the funding.

It is unfortunate to see once again that it looks like the backroom boys who have been in charge of the political connections received the money. Meanwhile, people in our small communities are not able to move ahead because the government is restricting them.

I would like to see the government support agriculture as much as it has supported our Prime Minister as he continues to pay 2% taxes while the average Canadian pays 50%. The government does not seem to be willing to stop that.

The government has supported the EI program as it has taken $7,000 per family in extra premiums over the last 10 years. The government has also supported the gun registry to the tune of somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion.

I wish the government would support agriculture with that same kind of enthusiasm.

[Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, February 4th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, I appreciate having the opportunity to be part of this tonight. There are a lot of problems out there in rural areas. We know about that. There are some sheep producers at home that are in desperate straits. They have been in worse shape than the beef industry over the last eight months because they have not received any help at all.

Farmers actually are in tough shape. Our wheat prices have dropped right off to nothing. People are trying to get by on $1.85 or $1.95 wheat that is being marketed very inefficiently and poorly by the Canadian Wheat Board.

I want to ask the member a question. It seems consistent. The government does not have an understanding of rural issues and the problems that exist there. I am wondering if he can give us a few of the reasons why he thinks the government finds it so hard to deal with rural issues and to address those problems.