Diane Finley

[Supply, November 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I think there is always every opportunity for progress if we do work together. Unholy alliances are merely names that are given to things. In fact, much of this country has been built through alliances that have benefited the entire country.

[Supply, November 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, without a doubt any time there is disruption it is the cause of great problems for the farm family. Lives are upset and new sources of income have to be found. If in fact they get to keep part of their land, often it is disrupted by roads going through it which prevents the efficient operation of a farm.

It is really a shame that this had to be done. Twelve thousand people's lives were disrupted and for what? So that the government could use less than 5% of the land that was expropriated. It is totally unacceptable that so many families had to suffer.

[Supply, November 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Nepean--Carleton.

Before I address the substance of the Conservative motion that we are debating in the House today, as the agriculture and agri-food critic for the official opposition, I would like to take this opportunity to honour the men and women of this country who, day after day, work tirelessly to produce and process the food that we eat.

The value of the work of these men and women not only often gets ignored, but to add insult to injury, over the last few decades numerous levels of government have made life for producers on the farm more and more difficult. Whether it be through burdensome regulations, misguided legislation, flawed assistance programs, or simply being completely ignored in times of crisis, Canadian producers and farm families have suffered greatly at the hands of the Liberal government.

In spite of the Liberal government's legacy of disrespect for the agriculture community, Canadian producers and processors continue to produce the world's greatest and safest food supply.

In spite of being largely ignored during the current BSE crisis, cattle and livestock producers continue to press on with a resilience and a determination to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In my riding alone, many producers with whom I have spoken and visited have conveyed to me their increasing frustration with the bureaucratic and regulatory nonsense that they have to endure at the hands of the Liberal government's gross mismanagement of the agricultural file.

Agricultural producers have a unique and demonstrable relationship with the lands they own and farm. For many farmers the lands that they own have been passed on to them by their ancestors, dating back several generations. This passing on of the family farm from generation to generation has long been the reality for many farm families. Unfortunately, due to the lack of support and respect that the Liberal government affords to Canadian farm families, the dream of passing on the family farm to the next generation is fading for all too many Canadian farm families.

To have this dream shattered by government mismanagement and poor public policy is a wrong that needs to be addressed by the Liberal government. Canadian farm families deserve respect from all levels of government. Rural issues continue to be ignored by the Liberal government. My constituents are tired of hearing of the Liberal urban agenda and gas tax for cities. They demand better from their government.

My constituents demand a government that will be responsive to, and dare I say this, the rural agenda. It is this lack of attention to rural Canadians that has led to the increasing polarization of rural and urban Canada. That is a shame.

To address the subject of our motion today, a prime example of Liberal mismanagement and disrespect of the agriculture community is evidenced by the situation that Quebec farmers had to face when their farmlands were expropriated by the Liberal government for Mirabel.

Before I go on, I find it highly ironic that Mirabel airport was in large part the baby of the former prime minister, the right hon. Pierre Elliott Trudeau. In spite of this, it is the height of irony that the other airport in Montreal currently bears his name. Perhaps this was the Liberal Party's attempt to hide the legacy of the former prime minister who gave birth to the Mirabel white elephant, but I digress.

There is a common principle of justice in this country. It is called making amends for past wrongs. For example, the Liberal government recognizes the need to right past wrongs that the federal government has unjustly imposed upon Canada's aboriginal peoples. In so doing, the government is doing the right thing.

With regard to the injustices suffered by Canadian hepatitis C victims at the hands of the Liberals, the government recently agreed to compensate them. In this regard, I would like to commend my hon. colleagues in the Conservative Party who have been unrelenting in their pursuit of justice for those hepatitis C victims. Principally, I would like to commend our health critic, the member for Charleswood--St. James--Assiniboia; the Conservative member for Yellowhead; and the former member for Macleod, Dr. Grant Hill, for their tireless work for justice in this regard.

The Liberal government's capitulation on the hepatitis C compensation issue was the right thing to do. We in the Conservative Party applaud the government for its recent actions in this regard, however overdue its response may have been. Nonetheless, the Liberals continue to stall on other files where they so clearly made poor policy and poor management decisions.

It is no secret that the Liberals told Canadians to trust them with the gun registry. They said it would only cost taxpayers $2 million. We know that the Liberals were never good at math and that their projections for the total cost of the gun registry were off the mark by only a couple of billion dollars.

The Liberals should be ashamed for having treated the public purse with such disregard and disrespect. On behalf of my constituents, I demand that the Liberal government acknowledge its complete and utter mismanagement of the gun registry, do the right thing, and scrap it altogether.

Turning to the matter that we are debating in the House today, the incredible sense of attachment and belonging to the land that farmers feel is precisely what makes what happened at Mirabel such a disgrace. To have displaced 3,200 farm families from their land to the tune of 97,000 acres, an area equivalent to two-thirds of the city of Montreal, is beyond comprehension.

This mass expropriation displaced almost 12,000 people. Much of this displacement occurred through force. Many houses were torn down, stores were displaced and families were thrown out. The Department of Transport virtually wiped out the economic life of 10 villages. Former owners were asked to lease their own heritage for indeterminate periods.

To highlight the complete and utter mismanagement of the Liberals on this file, of the 97,000 acres expropriated for the purposes of the airport, Mirabel never used more than 5,000 acres for its airport operations. That is less than 5% of the total area expropriated.

It was not until a Conservative government was in power that the wrongs inflicted by the Liberal government on these farm families were largely addressed. In the 1980s, 80,000 acres of the original 97,000 acres were ceded back to their original owners. This was thanks in large part to the hard work of Conservative MP Lise Bourgault and the support of the then minister of public works, Roch LaSalle.

We are again caught in a situation that proves once again how poorly the Liberals manage public funds. Mirabel airport is a white elephant, a monument to Liberal arrogance, waste and mismanagement.

The farming families living in the area want to turn the page and go back to a normal life. It is high time the Liberal government take responsibility for this white elephant and apologize to the families that were so badly treated throughout this entire matter.

So unless the Liberal government can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that it is necessary to keep the 11,000 acres of unused land in Mirabel, it should give them back to the farmers.

On this side of the House, we understand the suffering of these people and we feel for them. I hope that the Liberal government will recognize its wrongdoing, take responsibility and make amends.

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, November 24th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, day after day, the minister repeats the same refrain. The dairy producers of Quebec have had enough of being held hostage by a single slaughterhouse. They are forced to sell their animals at terrible prices to a virtual monopoly.

Is the minister dragging his feet in this file in order to protect the interests of the Colbex-Levinoff group, because they contributed $45,000 to Liberal coffers?

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, November 24th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are getting bogged down in the mad cow issue and leaving the dairy farmers to fend for themselves.

Today they must resort to radical actions in order to get the attention of the contemptuous Liberal government.

Why is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food letting the situation go from bad to worse and taking no action on the crisis?

[World Trade Organization, November 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize.

We as Canadians should not allow ourselves to be baited into this false controversy of arguing about which sector must be sacrificed at the Liberal altar. These producers must realize that it is the Liberals themselves who are weak in their support of producers.

With regard to the motion at hand, the Bloc asks that this House agree to ask the Liberal government not to agree to any concessions at the WTO that would weaken collective marketing strategies or the supply management system, but the real issue at stake here is that we are hearing talk of concessions at all.

What negotiator goes into arbitration talking of concessions? Is this what they are saying in Geneva? How can they possibly expect to achieve their objectives if they have already admitted defeat or have given up the fight?

The Conservative Party of Canada knows that this is not how to govern. Canadians expect more than a government that gives up before the fight is over. The Conservative Party is disgusted that the government would rather encourage divisive debate on which farmers have to lose their livelihood because the Liberal government cannot be bothered to live up to its commitments.

Conservatives know that producers have no appetite for these battles. No producer wants to gain at the expense of his or her neighbour.

The Liberals have promised Canadian producers that by joining together and crafting and negotiating a mandate the efforts of the Canadian whole will be stronger than its parts. Before the negotiations are even over, we have a government that is trying to get out of delivering on its side of the deal by playing one group of producers off another in order to discredit them all.

Regardless of the sector, agriculture or other, Canadians deserve to be treated with respect by their government. They should have confidence that their representatives will stand tall for them and stay true to their commitments. We will not be drawn into a discussion of the merits of one sector over another. This boils down to accountability. The Liberal government has abdicated its responsibility to live up to its own negotiating mandate.

We support this motion because it is unacceptable for the Government of Canada to consider concessions that would inevitably cause producers to believe that they had to fight against each other just to survive.

[World Trade Organization, November 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak in the House today to this important issue. My colleagues from Quebec raised the subject of government accountability. I would like to take this opportunity to talk about this subject that truly matters to Canadians.

During this past summer's federal election campaign I was greeted at doorsteps with an unprecedented level of cynicism. People told me that they did not respect politicians any more. Their trust had been violated one too many times. They had heard the Liberal promises, put their faith in the government over and over again and waited for action, only to see the Liberals continue to break promises, ignore Canadians and further demean elected office in the eyes of the Canadian taxpayer.

The arrogance of the government has grown to such heights that it has forgotten that government, minority or otherwise, brings not only the privilege of the fancy seats on the other side of this chamber but also the responsibility of governing on behalf of Canadians.

I am proud to join with the members of the Bloc to call on the Liberal government to do its job, to honour commitments made to Canadian producers and to negotiate in good faith with the WTO.

Canadian producers from all sectors of agriculture were snookered into thinking that they knew what to expect from their negotiators at the World Trade Organization. Prior to the launch of the Doha round of negotiations in 1999, the Liberal government and the then agriculture minister, Lyle Vanclief, made the following statement on August 19, 1999:

Over the past two years the Federal Government has been consulting closely with the industry and the provinces to determine how Canada's initial negotiating position could best reflect the interests of the entire Canadian agri-food sector.

The statement went on to say:

Another theme raised by many stakeholders is the need to maintain Canada's ability to continue orderly marketing systems, such as, supply management and the Canadian Wheat Board. The Federal Government is committed to preserving the ability of Canadians to operate the orderly marketing systems necessary for stability and profitability. Decisions regarding marketing system choices will continue to be made in Canada.

Why are we here today? The negotiations continue and producers in all sectors should feel secure that their concerns and priorities are being kept in mind by their government.

The Liberals claim to have sought consensus of the industries through stakeholder consultations, convincing producers that they had input into creating the trade negotiations mandate. However the Liberals have violated their trust. They have leaked their willingness to make concessions and deals, and even sacrifice one sector for another. The government has abdicated its responsibility to live up to its own negotiating mandate.

It is clear that the Liberals have just tried to distract Canadians and producers from what is really going on in Geneva. For years the Liberals have pursued a divide and conquer strategy with Canadian agriculture. They have pitted producer against producer and region against region.

The Liberals have been very good at this. The issue of supply management, in particular, is often used by the Liberals to redirect producer anger over uncertainty at the WTO. This is a devious ploy that falls flat in the face of reality.

During the federal election campaign this past summer, our leader, the member for Calgary Southwest, expressed his strong support for supply management by signing a declaration in support of this system. Our party is on the record supporting supply management and also in support of the three pillars of supply management as expressed in the declaration which reads:

--the Canadian supply management system, which is based on planning production to match demand, on producer pricing that reflects production costs, as well as on control of imports--

The Conservative Party will continue to stand by dairy, poultry and egg producers. We have been clear that a new Conservative government will ensure that industries under supply management remain viable.

We will support supply management and we will work to protect it in international trade discussions. Mr. Harper said this in speeches from Regina to Belleville during the election campaign, and I am proud to repeat it in the House of Commons today.

[Agriculture, November 4th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is the structure of the loan loss reserve program does not encourage investment in new abattoirs. Even with the border opening, cull cows will still not be accepted by the United States.

Why will the Minister of Agriculture not aggressively promote the building of slaughterhouses for cattle over 30 months of age?

[Agriculture, November 4th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, with the U.S. border still closed to Canadian livestock, increasing slaughter capacity should be a priority of the government. However, $38 million allocated for loan loss reserves is not getting shovels in the ground for even one processing facility, let alone stimulating an entire industry.

When will the government provide real incentives for increased slaughter capacity so the Canadian livestock industry can process Canadian ruminants?

[Agriculture, November 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, 532 days have passed and the border is still closed to Canadian livestock. All the while members of the Liberal government have given insult to our most important trading partner. Now they have alienated themselves from the new Bush administration by expressing their support for John Kerry.

How does the agriculture minister plan to get the border reopened to our livestock in light of the damaged relations that his government has created?