David Anderson

[Petitions, December 13th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present nine petitions signed by 723 constituents of Cypress Hills—Grasslands. The petitioners call upon Parliament to protect our children by taking all necessary steps to ensure that all materials which promote or glorify pedophilia or sado-masochistic activities involving children are outlawed.

[Agriculture, December 13th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Wheat Board minister wrote the legislation for himself. The Wheat Board is not the only government agricultural wreck. The government said that the new agricultural policy plan was a five year plan. We did not think that it meant it would take five years to implement.

Here we are a year and a half later and still nothing for farmers. Last year farmers had to do with second rate farm programs. Now we are less than four months from seeding time and instead of having a plan in place, the government is still fighting with the provinces.

Why has the government been so intransigent and so incompetent in its farm planning that farmers will once again be left with inadequate coverage?

[Queen's Jubilee Medal, December 13th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure today to recognize the Queen's Golden Jubilee medal recipients for Cypress Hills--Grasslands.

They are: Mr. Myrle Clark; Captain Trevor Davies; Mr. Lenard Ellis; Mrs. Mary Findlay; Mr. Joseph Gervais; Mrs. Helen Gilchrist; Ms. Mabel Hobbs; Mrs. Peggy Koethler; Ms. Sandy Larson; Mr. Clem Millar; Mr. Robert Norton; Mrs. Dorothy Saunderson; Mr. Bryan Tallon; Mrs. Pat Thistlethwaite; Mrs. Judy Voth; Mr. Dan West; Mr. Wilfred Wright; and the Swift Current Old Time Fiddlers.

These individuals were nominated in recognition of their outstanding achievements or distinguished service to their neighbours, their community and their country.

I would like to wish my colleagues a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

[Prebudget Consultations, December 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have to take great exception to the comments that the member just made. I would like to point out for her information, since obviously she does not have this, that in fact homicides involving rifles and shotguns, which have been specifically targeted by the Liberal gun law, have accounted for the biggest share of the drop in firearms murders under the old law.

The number of murders committed with long guns actually dropped from 103 in 1991 to 46 in 2001. Handguns have been registered and controlled since the 1930s, for decades, and the number of handgun murders dropped from 135 in 1991 to 89 in 1999 but then increased over the next two years to 110 in 2001. In fact, the gun law that the member is so proud of, that should be such an embarrassment to the government, did not come into effect until those decreases had already taken place.

I would just like to ask the member if she is aware of that, and if she is not, to make herself aware and please make those comments in the context of being accurate.

[Kyoto Protocol, December 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the members for Calgary Northeast, Crowfoot and Dewdney—Alouette. I had the opportunity to speak before on Kyoto and its effects on agriculture. I may get back to that although the time is short tonight.

Tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians which has been passed on from generation to generation says that when one is riding a dead horse the best strategy is to get off. We heard all day about the dead horse that is Kyoto. Tonight, for Kyoto, I have some suggestions, a list of what to do when one finds oneself riding a dead horse.

Number 13 is that one can find a stronger whip. We saw that today. We had members in the House on the Liberal side, including the member for LaSalle—Émard, seemed to indicate that they would not vote for closure. The Prime Minister went out and found himself a stronger whip and was able to ensure that they fell into line.

Number 12 is that one can always change riders after finding oneself on a dead horse. We heard that all day today. We saw the riders changing on the other side but riding the same horse, using the same Liberal talking points all throughout the day.

Number 11 is that a committee can be appointed when one finds oneself riding a dead horse. I am surprised the government has not done this. It did it with other bills, particularly the species at risk bill where it shipped the bill off to committee. When it came back with some good recommendations, it completely gutted it and ran the bill through anyway. It is not prepared to appoint a committee to take a look at what would happen with Kyoto.

Number 10 is that if one finds oneself riding a dead horse, one can always arrange to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses. I am sorry to say that our government did that. It went to Japan and came back with a dead horse.

Number 9 is that the standards can always be lowered so that dead horses can be included. Today we heard that the government would lower the standards for industry by cutting costs, but it would not answer the question of who would pick up the big bill. We know who it is. We have seen example of who pays the bill through the gun control bill, Bill C-68. The taxpayers will pay the bill.

Number 8 is that the dead horse can be reclassified as living impaired. I think we saw that in Johannesburg.

Number 7 is that outside contractors can be hired to ride the dead horse. I am sure we will have no shortage of that. We know that the Liberals have friends and they have rewarded them many other times.

Number 6 is that several dead horses can be harnessed together to increase the speed. It then goes the same distance we would have got anyway. We have a government that has gone nowhere and the debate today has gone nowhere either.

Number 5 is that additional funding can always be provided and/or training to increase the dead horse's performance. We expect to see multi-billions of dollars put into this bad protocol to try to increase this dead horse's performance. We already know that the cost is over $1 billion and we know that the government will put many more billions into it, although it will not tell Canadians how much that will be.

Number 4 is that if one finds oneself riding a dead horse, one can always do a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance. We see that the government has been trying to make deals with the provinces. There was a 10 point plan. The provinces tried to agree on seven of them. The federal government has changed most of the plan. The minister in charge in Saskatchewan said that people now do not even recognize the points to which they did agree. The government has tried to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance. It is not going anywhere.

Number 3 it that since a dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly. It carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses. We see that with this accord.

Number 2 is that the expected performance requirements for all horses can always be rewritten. We see the government's ever changing plan.

Number 1 is that should the government find itself riding a dead horse, that dead horse can always be promoted to a Liberal cabinet position.

[Kyoto Protocol, December 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the member who asked the question is from Manitoba, and agriculture was not one of the sectors studied. In fact the government's modelling was so bad that we were told that one of its main assumptions was that petroleum producers could not even pass their costs onto farmers.

In 1998 a study conducted by our largest trading partner, the U.S., determined that implementing Kyoto would increase farm expenses by 32%, diminish agricultural exports, and put farmers out of business. They called the Kyoto protocol “the single biggest public policy threat to the agricultural community today”.

Is it not true that the reason the government has hidden its results from farmers is because its conclusions confirm the results of the U.S. study?

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, December 3rd, 2002]

Madam Speaker, the bill is not the be all and end all of the nuclear energy industry in Canada. All it does is correct a clause in the Nuclear Safety and Control Act that prevents debt financing in the nuclear power sector. Only the government has been involved in this up to this point and the amendment is to remedy that.

Lenders such as banks and other financial institutions are refusing to consider investing in the nuclear power sector due to a clause in the act, the clause which we are talking about today. The clause would make lenders liable in the case of a nuclear spill. The clause is not contained in other Canadian environmental legislation. That is an important point.

Subsection 46(3) currently says that anyone with an interest in contaminated land or facilities viable for environmental remediation and mortgage lenders and persons advancing funds and taking security on land are deemed to be persons of interest.

Those of us who have businesses, farms, et cetera things and who have had to go to the banks and financial institutions for money quickly realize that the banks and financial institutions do not take liability for the way we run our businesses or for the decisions we make in that sense. I understand that the member is strongly against the nuclear industry. That is fine. However I do not think this place or this bill is where we should solve that problem.

Normally Canadian law generally limits lender liability to the people who are in charge or in control of the secured assets. Investors regularly factor this into their liability. They put it into their agreements when they make them. Due to the unusual amount of liability that is contained in section 46(3), investors in the nuclear power sector are refusing to provide debt financing.

It is interesting that the government then has to become the investor. The way the amendment is presently written, the only the government can put money into this industry. That may be good or bad but I do not agree with the government financing this. At the same time, why should the Canadian public be liable? If the government puts money in and this section remains as is, the Canadian public then becomes liable for any problems that are found in these institutions.

The amendment simply limits the liability to owners, occupants or persons who have the management or control of these facilities. That is an appropriate.

We support the removal of government funding from the nuclear sector. However without this amendment, according to the current legislation, the only qualified investor foolish enough to be invest in that is the government. That leaves Canadians liable.

First, why would the member be satisfied with leaving the Canadian taxpayer liable for whatever charges that might arise from a situation that might occur within a nuclear power plant? Second, why does he feel that it is inappropriate to make the people who manage or control those facilities liable for problems within them, rather than throwing it back on to the government thus back on to the Canadian taxpayer?

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, December 3rd, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it has been a very interesting day as we have spoken about Kyoto first and now we are speaking about the bill to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act.

I guess from my perspective it has been a day of extremism. I am familiar with the environment. I farmed for 25 years. I live in a rural area. I live on the land. Today I have seen a new side of what I would call environmentalism, almost a religious fascination with the environment that goes far beyond what I would consider to be a practical or really sensible approach to it.

I find this bill particularly interesting because countries, like France, have 80% of their power that is being supplied by the nuclear industry. They have used that to begin to try to meet their Kyoto standards. If we are against nuclear power in this country that only leaves us a couple of other choices to find our power requirements. One of them is hydro energy. Often we hear that the same people who oppose nuclear energy are against hydroelectric dams as well because we cannot be damming our rivers. Then we are back to using coal powered generators and those kinds of things, back to greenhouse gas emissions and the problems that come with those.

The member talked a bit about some of the renewable energy sources, the bio-fuels. At this point in their development I really call those boutique energy sources. We are not able to rely on a major part of our energy from them. I live in an area where wind energy is being developed.

I heard what the member is against but I would like to hear what he is for in terms of a large scale power supply for our economy and for our country.

[Kyoto Protocol, December 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned that in the early 1990s a leap of faith was asked for with regard to the free trade agreement. He also suggested that a lot of misinformation about Kyoto was out there.

I would like to point out that he is asking for a huge leap of faith by farmers and agricultural producers.

This morning at the agriculture committee we heard the deputy minister in charge of the research department of the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food say that the department had done no thorough cost benefit analysis of the cost of Kyoto on agriculture. This is the agriculture department that has not done the work.

When I walked away from that meeting I thought the agriculture department was completely incompetent for not having done that analysis, but then I realized there was a second option and one that I think was more accurate, which was the fact that it did not want that information. The department knew the results and chose not to do the work. The information that we do have comes from a study in the United States. It says that farmers will likely be paying 30% more in input costs if Kyoto goes through and that their farm incomes could be cut from 25% to 48%.

Obviously we are looking at higher energy costs if Kyoto is put in place because the energy companies will have to either buy credits or change their technology, which will drive up the costs of fuel, fertilizer and chemicals. Clearly, farmers in Canada will be less competitive. The United States has said that it will not ratify the agreement which will cause us to be less competitive on the world market.

There is no mechanism in place for sinks or carbon sequestration yet and it looks to me like this will be one of the biggest central planning initiatives that we have ever seen in Canada.

The member himself is involved in a sector in agriculture where he can recover his costs by raising prices. I am wondering why he is so determined to hammer the grains and oilseed sector and defend an accord that neither he nor I know the effects of. We know it will have negative effects but we do not know what those effects will be. He is supposed to be representing farmers and producers. Why is he so eager to support the accord?

[Kyoto Protocol, November 26th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

It is getting lonely in here again. I think I would like to see you call for quorum.

It is important that members hear this. What the member for Red Deer has to say is very important. It would be good if the members would come in, listen to what he has to say, continue to take notes and continue to learn from him.