Garry Breitkreuz

[Supply, February 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I have been following the debate all day.

I have also been attending the agriculture committee meetings that have been taking place regarding the BSE crisis. At the last agriculture committee meeting that I attended, the value added processors that came to the committee were upset with some of the issues surrounding this.

In probing this further, I point blank asked them, what is the key problem when it comes to resolving this in Canada? They told me that there was a lack of leadership in dealing with this. I asked them what they meant by that? Who is not providing this leadership? The processors said there was only one person in the whole country who could provide that leadership and that is the agriculture minister. It is our government that is responsible for bringing it together.

They explained that we must bring together the various sectors of the industry. We must have a strong representation at the international negotiations, especially with our American neighbours in promoting beef around the world and developing other markets. They said that is not happening.

This was an extremely serious indictment of the government when the processors pointed out that there was no real leadership here. We see the Americans defending their farmers. The Canadian government does not do the same.

The Conservative Party has put forward a proposal. People know that I have been working here in Parliament on the gun registry. People also know that the gun registry has been ballooning now to not just $1 billion but is now approaching the $2 billion mark.

I would ask the hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands, what kind of support would he like to see farmers getting? What kind of changes should the government be making to our agricultural programs? What positive suggestions has the Conservative Party made regarding farm programs, especially in relation to the BSE crisis? I would appreciate an answer to these questions.

[Supply, February 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, if I were to trade places with you for even just a day or two, you would realize how absolutely devastating the BSE crisis is in my riding. Day after day, producers are calling my office. They have done everything they can to possibly save themselves from the devastating effects of this. They have rationed feed. They have sold animals for next to nothing just to pay a few bills. They have cut back on veterinary visits which is harmful to their cattle. They have begged the banks for loans and the banks have said that they cannot lend them any more money because of the uncertainty of the situation and the fact that the government is not coming forward with some kind of announcement of assistance. There is nothing else that they can do.

Brian Patron is a producer from the Goodeve area in my constituency. He has been told by his bank to give up. He said that the bank told him to go to the Alberta oil patch and work, that there is nothing the bank could do.

Judy Holod of Langenburg is selling cattle for about half as much as she would have received one year ago.

Greg Hemmings from Esterhazy said that the difference between selling cattle in December and February is like night and day. That is a matter of two months. In December Mr. Hemmings sold six head and received $6,000. When he sold six more on February 3, he received $1,801.65. The difference in just a couple of months is absolutely staggering.

We do not realize how the BSE crisis is compounding. On a daily basis it is becoming worse. Producers in Saskatchewan are receiving about half as much for their cattle as they were compared to a year ago.

Would the member agree that this collapse in the agriculture industry is not only affecting the farmers of the country but it is also affecting Atlantic Canada? Do we not have to do something now and quickly?

[Privilege, February 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, on February 19, I raised a question of privilege and accused the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness of misleading the House. During my remarks, I provided you with an account of the events as they were related to me by officials at the CBC, an account that differed from the explanation provided by the Deputy Prime Minister in her point of order on Friday, February 20.

On Tuesday, February 17, the producer of the Zone Libre show at CBC assured me by phone and e-mail that no one had called from the Canada Firearms Centre or from the minister's office.

After I informed her that I was going to raise the matter in the House of Commons, she double-checked and, in another e-mail received on Wednesday, February 18, the CBC producer assured me that they had not received a call from the government asking for their calculations. Based upon this information, I sent you notice and raised my question of privilege in the House on Thursday, February 19.

Since the Deputy Prime Minister provided her officials' versions of the communication between her department and CBC last Friday, I asked CBC to check their records again.

Yesterday the CBC producer of the Zone Libre segment on the gun registry provided the following explanation. I would like to give you this quotation and read it into the record:

Irene Arseneault, media relations for the Firearms centre, left a phone message on Anne Panasuk's office voice mail Sunday February 15th with questions regarding Zone Libre's content.

Anne P. picked up the message on Monday morning on arriving to work. Ms. Arseneault's message did not refer to [the Deputy Prime Minister] nor the urgency of Monday's question period so we did not associate this call with the Deputy Prime Minister.

Anne and I received no other calls from the government on Monday. Anne P. was unsuccessful in reaching Ms. Arseneault on the phone so she responded by e-mail Monday afternoon, (i.e. after question period). And we have not heard from Ms. Arseneault since. But this may be the call to which [the Deputy Prime Minister] was referring.

We have never objected to giving the details of our calculations and indeed have done so in the days that followed specifically to the office of the Deputy Prime Minister, when the request was clearly made by her office on the following Wednesday, February 18th.

That is the end of the quotation.

Now that the full facts are known about the exchange of the phone calls and e-mails between the CBC, the Canada Firearms Centre and the Deputy Prime Minister's office, I revisited the statement made by the Deputy Prime Minister in response to my question on Monday, February 16. It is clear now that someone from the minister's department did call Zone Libre and left a message, so the minister was correct on that point. It is also clear that CBC's Zone Libre never did refuse to provide their calculations of the $2 billion expenditure on the firearms program.

Given the confusion over the communication between the CBC and the department and the minister's office, I am prepared to concede that the minister's officials may have simply used a poor choice of words when advising the minister about why they did not have the CBC's calculation by the time question period started.

Given that mistakes were made on all sides, I am prepared to concede that the Deputy Prime Minister was answering my question with the best information available at the time, just as I was presenting the most factual information I had available at the time I raised my question of privilege. Had CBC provided me with the information that they had in fact received a call from an official in the firearms centre on Sunday, February 15, I would not have raised a question of privilege.

Consequently, I withdraw my question of privilege. I apologize to the Deputy Prime Minister, to the Speaker, and to the House of Commons. I am sorry.

[Firearms Program, February 20th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the Minister of Public Safety did not have her facts straight. I would like to quote what the minister said:

In fact, we have asked Radio Canada to provide us with its numbers and its calculations which to date it has refused to do.

The producers of CBC's Zone Libre said that no one from the Canada Firearms Centre or the minister's office ever contacted them.

My question is very simple. Why did the minister mislead the House? Why?

[Income Tax Act, February 19th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I could spend 10 minutes rebutting much of the information just given. I do not want to mock the member, but yesterday they admitted to over $120 million more than she gave in the answer today.

The government does not know from one day to the next what the answer will be. It has complete disregard for Parliament. It does not give us accurate information.

It was clear, and I made it clear in a statement earlier today, that the $2 billion that has been spent and is projected to be spent on this program has already been documented by Radio Canada, the CBC. For them to deny this without even asking Radio Canada where it got its numbers and how it did that, is irresponsible.

I am upset that they continue to claim that the system works. Not one charge has been laid under the Firearms Act and they claim it is a success. Smuggling and illegal firearms are on the increase. Everything this member has said is virtually false.

[Income Tax Act, February 19th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, February 9, 2004, I asked the government, for the 22nd time, “How much is the gun registry going to fully cost to implement and how much will it cost to maintain?”

For the 22nd time, the minister in charge of the firearms fiasco failed to answer the question.

I specifically asked, “The Firearms Act has already cost taxpayers $1 billion. Taxpayers want to know, when will it become $2 billion?”

Instead of answering the question, the Deputy Prime Minister defied the conclusions reached by the Auditor General in her December 2002 report and the financial reports released by the minister's own department. The minister said that she had been absolutely clear year after year about the cost of the firearms program.

That is simply not true. If she was being absolutely clear, why did the Auditor General make the following statement in paragraph 10.1 and 10.3 in her December 2002 report on the firearms fiasco? It says:

10.1 The Department of Justice Canada did not provide Parliament with sufficient information to allow it to effectively scrutinize the Canadian Firearms Program and ensure accountability. It provided insufficient financial information and explanations for the dramatic increase in the cost of the Program.

10.3 In 2000, the Department of Justice estimated that by 2004-05 it would spend at least $1 billion on the Program and collect $140 million in fees after refunds. This amount does not include all financial impacts on the government. The Department also did not report to Parliament on the wider costs of the Program as required by the government's regulatory policy.

That is what the Auditor General had to say. It is absolutely clear. Do we doubt her word?

Did the minister not remember that she was in charge of this firearms fiasco in 2000? Why did the minister force members of Parliament to wait two years before this information was provided to them? Why did we have to get it from the Auditor General and not from the minister?

The minister was the very person keeping Parliament in the dark then and she's doing it again now. The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same.

Here are some additional gun costs that have been uncovered through 430 access to information requests that I have submitted and some excellent research done by the parliamentary research branch.

Here are some additional costs to the $1 billion already noted: enforcement costs, $1 billion; compliance costs could be anywhere from $367 million to $764 million; privatization costs, $371 million; and economic costs are still a cabinet secret we are told.

The cost benefit analysis is still a cabinet secret, hidden by the present Prime Minister. There are indirect costs still unknown for the following departments: Treasury Board, Foreign Affairs, Environment, Canadian Wildlife Service, Fisheries and Oceans, Natural Resources, National Defence, Parks Canada, Correctional Service Canada and the Canadian War Museum because this information was left out of the Liberal's performance report on the firearms program presented on October 31, 2003.

The government has failed to disclose these costs to Parliament or to the public. Consequently, the cover-up on the true costs of the gun registry continues.

For the 23rd time, I ask the Liberal government to tell us the truth. How much will the gun registry cost to fully implement and how much will it cost to maintain?

[Privilege, February 19th, 2004]

No, she said she had already contacted them.

[Privilege, February 19th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I will go through this as quickly as I can. You are familiar with the arguments that I have made previously.

On Monday, February 16, in response to my question about a CBC report on spending on the firearms program, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness said, and I am quoting now from page 613 of Hansard :

Mr. Speaker, let me be absolutely clear. We do not accept that number referred to in the report referred to by the hon. member. In fact, we have asked Radio Canada to provide us with its numbers and its calculations which to date it has refused to do.

On Tuesday officials with CBC Zone libre provided my office with the following information. I want to quote it, but I have to be careful because names are mentioned.

I was surprised to read that [the Deputy Prime Minister] did not get a response to a request for information regarding the numbers cited in our report. I have not received any request for information on Monday from her because, of course, we would respond.

This is from the officials at that program.

Yesterday these same CBC officials advised, and again I quote:

We are so surprised by [the Deputy Prime Minister]'s claim that we did refuse to speak to her since [the Deputy Prime Minister, the former solicitor general], Bill Baker, Morris Rosenberg all refused our requests for an interview to discuss the contents of our research and that our requests for visuals in Miramichi and the Edmonton site were refused.

Mr. Speaker, you have heard all of my arguments and I will not go through why misleading statements by ministers in the House should be treated as contempt. I will not use up any more of the House's time by repeating them, but suffice it to say that the Deputy Prime Minister made a statement that was factually incorrect. This error misled me and every member of the House.

In order to perform my fundamental functions in the House, I have always insisted on accurate and truthful information. That is why the making of erroneous and misleading statements in the House may be treated as contempt.

Let me summarize briefly. The Deputy Prime Minister said that she had asked Radio Canada how it had arrived at its conclusion that the $2 billion was being spent on the gun registry. We find out now that in fact this is patently false. She did not even contact Radio Canada.

Democracy cannot function if we are not told the truth. I ask you to investigate, Mr. Speaker. This is the minister who said, 17 times in the House, “We have nothing to hide” and “we will get to the bottom of this”. In light of what I have just revealed, how can we believe a word the government says?

I am prepared to move the appropriate motion should the Speaker rule that the matter is a prima facie case of privilege.

[Points of Order, February 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, a document that we just tabled was accepted and it was not translated. Why would there be a difference?

[Agriculture, February 17th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to share a nightmare being lived out daily by farmers and ranchers across our country. While the government tries to cover up its scandals, these people are struggling just to get through each day.

Mr. Brian Patron, a young cattle producer from my riding, is on the verge of losing everything he owns. He needs financial help to keep his cattle but is being told no by lending institutions. If he were to sell his cattle today, he would lose $600 per calf. On a herd of just 75 animals, that is a loss of $45,000.

The bank advised him to just give up and look for work on the Alberta oil fields. Without support from the government, that will be his only option. He, like countless other farmers, will be forced to leave his home, his family and his livelihood.

The food providers of this country are desperate for financial aid now. When will the Prime Minister get serious about governing this country?