moved:
That, in the opinion of the House, the Prime Minister should convene and lead a multi-party delegation including representatives of the industry to Washington at the earliest possible date to discuss with officials of the Congress and the Government of the United States all possible means to fully reopen the U.S. border to shipments of Canadian livestock.
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time this morning with my colleague from Dauphin—Swan River.
I think it is very unfortunate that I feel compelled to rise today to speak on this motion, a motion that surrounds a situation of tremendous importance to Canadians. I should not have to and the fact that I do is very unfortunate indeed.
Currently Canada is suffering from a major crisis in our agriculture community. Farmers, some of them fourth and fifth generation, some of them in my riding of Perth—Middlesex, many of whom I consider friends, are facing financial ruin, too many of them. At kitchen tables and at county fairs, these hard-working and proud people are telling me that they may not be able to get past this issue.
We have a disaster on our hands in Canadian agriculture. As if disasters are not bad enough, we also have a government that is not willing to take the appropriate steps necessary to help address this issue.
But the Liberal government does not take that action because the country is also suffering another crisis: a profound crisis in leadership. Instead of proactively addressing the challenges facing Canadian farmers, the Liberals choose to concern themselves with waging internal party battles, settling old scores and placing their interests within the Liberal Party of Canada ahead of the best interests of the nation.
The Prime Minister chooses to focus on legacy issues like same sex marriage and Liberal leadership, and stories regarding the shadow prime minister headline the front page of the major dailies across the countries. The media all too often, it seems to me, get caught up spending most of their time on these issues. Unite the right is another example, Mr. Speaker, and please forgive me for this as I am not a journalist, but it seems to me the issue of this crisis in Canadian agriculture has virtually been ignored as the Prime Minister and the media focus on other issues, issues that it seems to me are of far less importance than the decimation of a domestic industry, and more than an industry, a way of life that the country was built upon. This issue promises to ruin lives, tear apart homes and throw small communities in rural Canada into economic chaos.
Instead of opening a dialogue with our friends and neighbours in the United States, the Prime Minister has elected to mock them with disdain and scorn. Just yesterday the Prime Minister went to New York to the UN and took cheap shots and lobbed thinly veiled attacks at our American friends. Such actions do not go unnoticed by the powers that be in Washington, D.C.
While the Liberals play these games, it seems the same cannot be said of my colleagues in the caucus of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. Our leader, the hon. member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, has been out in front on this very important issue like a true leader, championing this cause.
I want to thank my friend, the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, for pointing out in the House on numerous occasions how the Liberal government has chosen to ignore this crisis and, in doing so, how our Prime Minister and his cabinet have elected to take the path of least resistance and abandon Canadian farmers, abandoning the very people who entrusted them with the authority to govern their lives.
I also want to acknowledge several of my hard-working colleagues in the Alliance, NDP and Bloc, who have tried to shame the government into action. There are also several Liberal members who have shown courage in trying to convince their masters in cabinet to do the right thing and help Canadian farmers.
Sadly, because of the pattern of Liberal government inaction on this issue, those fourth and fifth generation farms I mentioned earlier are unlikely to produce fifth and sixth generation farms.
It has taken 100 years or more to build a proud, vibrant, Canadian agricultural industry and it is likely the history books will one day report that it took the Liberal government about a decade to completely destroy all the hard work; all that Canadian innovation, determination and perseverance under some of the harshest conditions faced by any people anywhere in the world. This looks to be the legacy of our two current Prime Ministers, who may be trying to distance themselves from each other now but who have walked hand in hand down the aisle of Canadian economic disaster orchestrating their ill-advised policy decisions as the Bobbsey Twins of grit governments.
It is sad, terribly sad.
All we hear about lately is our Prime Minister. I apologize to my colleagues and to you, Mr. Speaker. I need to clarify that remark. I am now talking specifically about the Prime Minister who is currently living at 24 Sussex. All we hear about is his concern over his legacy. If things continue down the same path his legacy will be the elimination of the family farm in Canada and, considering our state of relations with the United States, perhaps an end to Canada's positive balance of trade with the Americans.
What of the concern for the humble farmer in rural Canada who wishes only the legacy of one day turning his family farm over to his son or daughter?
As a small business person I can tell members firsthand how important it is to have good relations with one's best customers. I can say with total certainty how important it is to do business with people who have money. The Americans are great customers and they are wonderful friends. They also have wants and needs for which they can pay. They not only pay their bills on time but they have a history of bargaining in good faith with Canadians; good faith that sadly the Liberal government has not shown toward our American friends during debates over recent foreign policy issues.
Those are issues that have witnessed Canada abandoning our traditional allies, allies like the U.K., Australia and, yes, the United States, and seeing Canada aligning ourselves with nations like Russia, France and China.
At least the current Liberal regime shows some consistency. It has taken a prosperous cattle industry, which has taken 100 years to develop, and promptly set to work destroying it within the timeframe of about a decade. It then takes over 100 years of noble Canadian diplomatic tradition and completely rearranges our strategic international alliances.
Alas, an examination of the last decade shows that the current Liberal government has not been treating the Americans like good customers and best friends.
One would think that with two Prime Ministers currently, one of them could find time between fundraisers for the Liberal Party of Canada to lead a delegation of top level political, diplomatic and industrial officials to Washington, D.C. to sit around a table with Americans and talk through some of these issues. Is that unreasonable? Roughly 85% of our exports wind up in the United States, paid for by valuable American greenbacks. What could possibly be of more importance than insuring the maintenance of a strong relationship with the Americans?
After spending time working on this abroad I can tell the House that our counterparts in the U.S. congress echoed many of the concerns I have raised here in the House today. When I asked one congressman about opening the U.S. border to Canadian beef he said “If we make an error, is it not safer for us to err on the side of caution?”
I appeal to the sense of fairness and decency I truly believe exists within the hon. members of the House. I appeal to my colleagues to do the right thing and to take action at the highest diplomatic levels, to travel to Washington, D.C. to engage our most important trading partner, most reliable ally and, frankly speaking, our best friend so we may sort this out and save the livelihood of Canadian farmers.
