James Bezan

[The Budget, March 7th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I want to take exception to some of the comments made by the hon. member in his speech on the budget. He said, “everybody likes the budget”, but he failed to mention that the Canadian Federation of Agriculture is very disappointed with the budget. The Canadian Cattlemen's Association and the Grain Growers of Canada were very mute in the prospect of what is left in agriculture with this budget.

The member even mentioned that he is concerned about what is in the budget for the crop sector. The crop sector has gone through some devastating years. There has been drought after drought in Canada. There are now terrible prices in commodities for all grains and oilseeds. Farmers do not have the money in their pockets today to put the crop in the ground.

The member mentioned that the minister was making headway in removing the premiums in the CAIS program. Unfortunately, the federal and provincial ministers at their meeting which was held just this past week in Ottawa decided to leave the premiums in place. I was hoping the minister would follow through on the promise made, but it is a promise not kept in eliminating the CAIS premiums. All they are doing is delaying the time to put premiums in and that is unacceptable in the farming industry today.

I am a farmer and a cattle producer. The reality is that the border is still shut. We do not know when it will open. Although President Bush and Secretary Johanns are onside with us and want the border opened, the U.S. Senate is not. We have very little input on how the rule making process will be handled in the U.S. Senate and Congress in making it a reality that the border will open some day. In the interim, we have to continue making an investment in the agriculture industry.

The loan loss reserve program has not been used yet. It cannot be used because there is no agreement in place between the lending institutions and the government. The Canadian Bankers Association said just two weeks ago at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food that the agreements are not in place. If the program does not exist, how can we use it to benefit anybody in the industry? We have to expand plants, build new plants, and deal with the mature animals and it has to happen today. It should have happened months ago. We are 22 months into this problem, and we still do not have adequate capacity to deal with the problems.

I would like to know how the government is going to carry through on the promises that are laid out in the plan. Like the member said, the Canadian Diabetes Association is applauding the government this year. Last year it was pointing the finger and saying that the government had promised back in 1999 that it was going to give it support and it never did. Now the association is saying it is in the budget.

How is the government going to ensure that it carries through on its plans not just for the Canadian Diabetes Association but for agriculture as well?

[Correctional Service Canada, February 25th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, recent media reports state that Stoney Mountain Penitentiary just ranked third out of 54 federal prisons for weapon seizures.

Corrections officers confiscated nearly 1,200 weapons across Canada during 2004. Corrections officers put their lives at risk every day but the government will not supply them with stabproof vests. As well, the government has continually delayed coming to an agreement with the officers union. They have now been without a contract for three years.

When will the dithering government settle this matter and make sure our corrections officers work in safe conditions while being compensated properly.

[Government Appointments, February 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said it was no longer going to be a matter of asking who one knows in the PMO and that he would put an end to cronyism.

He soon appointed John Harvard as Lieutenant Governor to make way for his star candidate Glen Murray who failed to win. However, Murray has been given a plum patronage position. It is time to get the scores of defeated Liberals and their friends' heads out of the trough and off the gravy train.

If the Prime Minister is as serious as he said last year about condemning to history the practice and politics of cronyism, will he allow Parliament to select the best people for the job?

[Agriculture, February 11th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the agriculture minister is back from his BSE mission to the U.S. but it appears he came back with half the deal he went there with.

The U.S. said that it would open the border to live animals and boneless meat from mature animals on March 7. Now it is only opening it to live animals under 30 months of age.

I am glad the minister came home when he did or we might have lost the entire deal.

Canadian producers have, for far too long, been hearing empty promises and getting false hope from the government. Will the agriculture minister guarantee that the border will open on March 7 for live animals--

[Natural Resources, February 4th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Province of Manitoba is currently in a legal dispute with the United States over water diversion from Devil's Lake in North Dakota. This diversion could potentially devastate Lake Winnipeg's water quality, fishing stocks and cause greater flooding along the Red River.

It has been suggested that foreign marine species, bacteria and disease could be catastrophic to Lake Winnipeg's ecosystem, affecting the tourism and fishing industries.

Will the government conduct its own review of the impact of the Devil's Lake water diversion on Lake Winnipeg and Manitoba's Red River?

[Supply, February 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, yes, farmers are very frustrated. There is no doubt that taking out the deposit requirement will allow farmers to keep more of their dollars which will allow them to put crop in the ground, pay for the fertilizer and continue on with their farming operations until this blows over.

[Supply, February 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, as a party policy we believe in producer participation in whole farm insurance. The difference here is that the CAIS program is being used to deliver disaster assistance. We firmly believe that disaster assistance is the sole responsibility of the government. If the disaster assistance that is currently being delivered through CAIS was taken out and delivered in a more effective manner, we could go back and look at producer participation and sharing in the whole farm risk management program.

I do not have a problem with that principle, but the program has gone through a metamorphosis. It has gone from being whole farm into disaster assistance. It is trying to do too much. That is why we are starting to see the wheels fall off it. It is time to look at making some changes. The Olympic five year average is something that we hear a lot of problems about. Maybe we need to look at a longer term. A 10 year rolling average would probably be more effective for producers. It is one which would recognize that there would be some bad years but there would be good years which we need to recognize too. In Olympic averaging that does not happen.

Let us balance it better. Let us take it over a longer term to be more reflective and more realistic of the big picture in agriculture. Let us take the disaster part out and deliver that more specifically to the commodities that need it on a per unit basis. Let us make government responsible for those things that happen outside the norm.

[Supply, February 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Lethbridge.

I want to thank the Leader of the Official Opposition for giving us the opportunity today to debate agriculture, which far too often is missed out in the banter that exists in the House as we go through our speeches. In all the issues that we debate for Canada, we often lose sight of how important agriculture is to Canada. I want to thank our agriculture critic for bringing forward the motion which gives us the opportunity to debate the CAIS program and how it has not functioned well for producers across the country.

I am a farmer. The riding I represent is agriculture based. Our constituency office has been overrun with complaints. Producers are looking for solutions to all the problems they are experiencing with the CAIS program. There have been nothing but delays since the program was announced. People are still waiting for their cash advances going back to 2003.

We know by talking to administrators of the program that they were originally trying to get forms completed within 60 days. That stretched out to 90 days. Now we are hearing that new clients are still looking at a turnaround of 120 days if there are no problems. If there are problems, if there are any questions or things do not quite line up or reconcile with the producer's income tax filing, the whole thing is delayed even further. That is completely unacceptable.

Producers are extremely frustrated with the program. When they talk to people in the CAIS administration on the phone, they continually get different answers. The misinformation is creating so much confusion, producers do not know which way to turn. Producers have similar problems when they phone CAIS and get different answers. It just does not seem to line up. That is why the program has not been working. It is dysfunctional.

The other complaint we hear is that it is too complicated. The process is complicated. It requires expert accounting advice to get the forms done. Producers are taking out money to pay accountants to file their CAIS applications. They are paying fees in the $500 to $2,000 range, depending upon the size of the farm, money which would have been better left in the hands of the farmers. The joke around town is that CAIS actually stands for the Canadian chartered accountant income stabilization program. The accountants are being well-served by the program.

At the same time it costs the government a lot of money to administer the program because of the lengthy time it takes to process applications and the extra administrators required, which takes money out of the program. That money could have been better used to service the producers.

The other problem we hear about is inventory evaluations. The inventories are set at the end of the year by a very standard level that does not reflect what is the actual value on the farm. I know producers who have livestock and those mandatory values that are put in place do not represent the actual value of the animals they have on hand. We have even had problems with some of those numbers.

An example is that at the end of the year, the steer and heifer prices for 2003 were mixed up. The heifer price was at the steer price and the steer price was down at the heifer price and it screwed up the evaluations of those inventories for the eight-weights. That has created quite a problem. At least it got acknowledged, but it had already affected a lot of producers, and if they did not pick up on the discrepancy, they got shortchanged because of it.

There is also the complication for producers who have year ends that do not coincide with the calendar year. If their year ends occur in the middle of the crop year, crop on hand and crop in the ground mess up inventories again. Producers are really struggling with that, especially when farmers have cattle on feed and heifers on grass, and again, not having a true evaluation of how those inventories are working.

We are here to talk about the removal of the deposit program, which makes a lot of sense. Ever since the program was announced, the deposit requirements and the rules have changed continually. First producers had to put their money up front. They could take their NISA funds and transfer them over to match their deposits into the CAIS program. Then they were told that they only had to put a third in and they would get two-thirds back. These rules continually changed.

The cleanest thing to do especially for the individuals who put in NISA money and wanted to get that money back to pay taxes at the end of the year when the two-thirds refund was available is to cancel the deposit requirement completely. Let us make it a lot simpler.

We should allow producers to keep that money in their own hands. It is not giving them any benefit by having it in the CAIS program. With the dire needs today in agriculture, let the producers keep that money on hand to pay off some bills, to invest in next year's crops, to buy fertilizer, to buy fuel, to be better prepared for next year.

It is not just the opposition that is suggesting this. Keystone Agricultural Producers and the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture have also announced that they would like to see an end to the deposit. It is something that does not make a lot of sense anymore considering the situation in agriculture today.

One of the things the Leader of the Opposition announced today is that we do not believe the disaster assistance part of CAIS should have been put into the whole farm approach. CAIS was meant to be there to average income over the whole farm aspect. When there are disasters such as BSE, such as dramatic falls in commodity prices because of trade actions, we need to take those problems out and not lump them into the CAIS program. The delivery is too slow. Producers need help quickly. Disaster programs should be set up as a third tier and should be available from the government standpoint to support the industry. That is something we believe in dramatically.

I realize that when BSE compensation was being bantered about in trying to figure out how to best deliver it, there was advice from the industry to the government that it should be delivered through CAIS. As a member of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association and as a producer, I am thoroughly disappointed that the recommendation ever came forward. It was poor planning.

I realize that the Minister of Agriculture has only been in his job for the past seven months. I realize that he inherited these problems from past ministers. However he has the power to make the changes necessary to implement the program that would work for the agriculture industry, that would support the family farm. As the House has heard today there has been a great amount of hurt on the family farm.

My family loves farming. My children and my brother and his kids all want to have a future in agriculture. We need to make sure that we build programs and support an industry so that it can grow and prosper and be an industry that we can continue to be proud of. As a farm family we are going to fight to make sure that opportunity exists for future generations. This is the time for the government to take action, to take the bull by the horns, as is said, and make the necessary changes.

There have been many comments made about how many government dollars have gone into the industry and how much support has been there. I have said in the House before that I know through the BSE crisis the losses that I have suffered on our farm have come close to $400 per head. The total government support available to me so far has been $45 a head.

It is a huge disproportionate loss over things that are not at all related to management or markets. It is about a complete reshift in what has happened through trade action because of one cow, although it is now up to three cows, with a disease that is not necessarily being evaluated on science. Hopefully we are getting there and we are making the strides necessary to make sure that all decisions and rules that are being brought together will be reflective of the science and the true problem of the disease.

In conclusion, it is great that we are able to debate such an important topic as the Canadian agriculture industry today.

[Canada Elections Act, February 1st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I concur with the parliamentary secretary that we have to rehabilitate and reintegrate our violent offenders and our criminals. and ensure that they go through the proper process. However, the current system that we have today is not working. The government has failed on keeping tabs of its violent offenders who are out in the public. That is why we have the crimes that were committed in my riding. The proof is in the pudding.

The Deputy Prime Minister, when I questioned her, made a statement, and I want to ask if it has been followed up on. She said:

However, I have indicated that I am willing to undertake a review of aspects of our parole system. The parole board may need more resources to do its job. I am more than willing to have the justice committee of the House of Commons take a look at this issue. I have been very clear that our goal is public safety.

When is this review going to take place of the parole system and Correctional Service Canada so that we--

[Canada Elections Act, February 1st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am following up on a question I asked back on November 26 to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

Essentially, on November 7 a murder was committed in one of the cities in my riding. A young man was beaten to death by two individuals. One of those individuals was out on parole and the other was out on conditional release. On top of the death and the murder of which they are accused, one of the accused has multiple unrelated felonies which he committed during his conditional release.

We really have to take a hard look at how our parole system works and at how public safety has not become paramount to every decision that has been made. We need to ensure that people on the street are protected from these violent offenders.

We need to get down to the bases of how Parliament and the government has made some bad decisions and on how the entire system works. The Liberal experiment on conditional sentences and on parole hearings has failed, and we have to revamp the entire system.

I also want to follow up with this. Just recently we had two inmates walk out of the Rockwood Institution, a federal minimum security facility in my riding. A total of five inmates have walked out of that facility in the past 12 months, and a total of 15 in the past five years.

Public safety has to be paramount. Correctional Service Canada has a great staff and good management. I am very proud of the job that they do, but they have to do it within the mandate and the regulations presented to them by the government. However, again they are working inside another Liberal experiment.

I ask, when will the government put public safety first and fix the parole system in Correctional Service?