Leon Benoit

[Points of Order, October 22nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, in response to a question I asked during question period, the minister of immigration asked me to table the documents that backed up my statement that more than 70% of people who were not approved for refugee status never leave the country.

Those figures are in fact in the minister's own performance documents. I would just like to ask for the unanimous consent of the House to table a copy of the performance report as soon as I can get one.

[Immigration, October 22nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the minister ought to read the performance reviews that come from her own department. That is where those figures in fact came from.

Just last week a man who has been facing deportation since 1997 escaped from government custody. Since 1996 Askan Forsat, who remains at large, compiled a lengthy and violent criminal record while he was a guest in Canada at taxpayer expense.

Why will the minister not make public safety her top priority?

[Immigration, October 22nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we know that more than 70% of refugee claimants who are not accepted by the government never leave our country. The British government has recently pledged to remove more than 24,000 illegal immigrants.

When will the minister of immigration announce her intention to remove people who are in this country illegally?

[Strychnine Solutions, October 22nd, 2001]

moved:

That an Order of the House do issue for copies of all studies that were done prior to the banning of the 2% and 5% solutions of strychnine to show the effect that the banning of these solutions would have on Canadian farmers.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak once again on behalf of Canadian farmers regarding the removal of 2% and 5% strychnine which was very effective in controlling the tens of millions of dollars of damage caused by gophers to farmers' crops and to livestock every year.

The issue was first brought to my attention almost immediately after I was elected in 1993. At that time, the government was moving toward the removal of this product and many farmers were concerned. Many municipal politicians brought the issue to my attention. I wrote a letter to the minister of agriculture regarding the issue at that time.

My involvement in trying to get the 2% or 5% concentrations of strychnine restored to farmers has been a long term one indeed, spanning about 7 years now. I have had motions and bills and have done what I have been able to do to force the issue. I would like to say that I have perhaps had some success because at least this past summer there was an emergency registration of this effective strength of strychnine in Alberta and certain parts of Saskatchewan.

Obviously the issue has been pushed enough by municipal politicians, reeves of counties, councillors, my colleagues from across the prairies and farmers themselves to let government know they cannot afford these losses. I would suggest that these tens of millions of dollars in losses a year have been the final straw for some farmers and have led them to go out of business. It has just been one thing too many that they have had to fight and one loss too much. As a result, I have no doubt that some farmers have been driven out of business and have lost their farms as a result of this order. It is extremely serious.

I wrote a letter to the minister of agriculture back in 1994 asking why the product, which was so effective in controlling Richardson's ground squirrels, commonly referred to as gophers, had been taken away from farmers. I told the minister it would cost a lot of money and would cause serious damage.

Later on I did get an answer to the letter but the answer was not really substantial. Through the House, I then put a question on the order paper for the production of papers and I did receive information on the removal of the product. What astounded me was how little there was in these papers. It was a stack of papers an inch thick but extremely few complaints were made and yet the government decided to remove the product.

Thinking logically that could not have been the reason the government made the decision to follow through on the removal of the product, I assumed there must have been studies done by the department which led to this decision being made.

The order I put on the order paper reads as follows:

That an Order of the House do issue for copies of all studies which were done prior to the banning of the 2% and 5% solutions of strychnine to show the effect that the banning of these solutions would have on Canadian farmers.

I assumed that the complaints certainly would not have sparked this so there must have been studies done. What we are debating today are the studies that must have been done.

I did get an answer from the government and I was asked to withdraw this motion. The answer reads as follows:

No studies were done on the effect (economic impact) on Canadian farmers, of the withdrawal of the registration of the concentrated strychnine solutions (2% and 5%) used by farmers to mix their own 0.4% end-use products.

I am sure the parliamentary secretary will stand up today and ask why we are debating this when there have been no studies.

The reason is it is incomprehensible that this decision, which has done so much harm to Canadian farmers, would be made based on extremely few complaints and without study. Why would a government do this? I believe that there has to be more and that I have not got received all the goods.

I encourage the House to support the motion and I encourage the government, in a very open way, to come up with the information that actually led it to make this decision. The explanation is certainly not in the papers I received.

I will start with a letter I wrote in February 2000 to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, following other letters I wrote. My letter said the banning of the concentration of strychnine effective enough to kill gophers resulted in millions of dollars of losses for farmers who were unable to control the gopher population.

I asked to be provided with the following information. First, I asked for a clear comprehensive explanation as to why an effective concentration of strychnine needed to be banned. As part of the explanation, I asked to be provided with copies of documents and studies which were used as scientific evidence that this effective concentration of strychnine needed to be banned.

Second, I asked for studies that were done to show the effect that the banning of an effective concentration of strychnine would have on farmers.

Third, I asked who specifically was responsible for making this decision to ban this strychnine because it was never clear from the information I received.

Fourth, I asked how much money farmers had lost due to crop losses, since the banning of an effective concentration of strychnine left them unable to effectively control gopher populations.

The response to that was less than complete and did not give an answer to the questions. I was left with information I received before under a request for production of papers. Under the request, I a got a thick stack of papers from the agriculture department that handled the request until it was shifted to the health department.

I will go through a summary of what was in the stack of documents that led to this decision, unless there is more. That is what I am asking for from the government. I want it to tell me what more there is on its decision to ban that effective tool for farmers.

The following complaints were found in the material. There were complaints logged with Agriculture Canada by the Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals. That consisted of five letters with the names removed of course, to Agriculture Canada, and they concerned wolves. There are no wolves in most areas in prairies where strychnine is used, so is a little difficult to see the connection.

There were other letters from Sheila Burgess and Cindy Hunter to Agriculture Canada, again mainly concerning the welfare of wolves.

Some of the letters referred to the same magazine article. In other words, it seemed that these letters were written mostly as a result of this article which said that the strychnine used to control Richardson's ground squirrels or gophers was killing the wolf population as unintended targets. There were also concerns expressed that strychnine should not be banned.

In terms of the information in the stack of papers that I received, that was what I got. The decision to ban strychnine was based on that, unless the government was not forthcoming in the information it sent to me. It is one or the other.

There were also concerns expressed that strychnine should not be banned. It was not a lot, but this was done in about 1995 or 1994. It was quite early in the process. Letters from the reeve of the rural municipality of Hamiota, the vice president of the eastern region of Able Pest Control, that made the product, and my first letter of 1994 were included in the documents. There was also a letter from the administrator of the rural municipality of Shellbrook, Saskatchewan.

There were no complaints made to provincial governments, at least there were no complaints which were included in this material. Maybe there was some reason why the agriculture department did not include complaints from provinces. I would not know what that would be. That is what I received.

It seems the decision to remove this important tool, which has caused farmers tens of millions of dollars in losses every year, was based on that. I believe the tens of millions of dollars would be an extremely low estimate of the damage done to farmers. I have a lot of reasons for believing that.

Some farmers have taken the time, along with some provincial government officials, to prepare an estimate based on examining their particular pastures or their crops. They have looked at the damage done and have put a dollar figure to it. The numbers for these individual farmers were astounding, and I am talking about a lot of loss for particular farmers. These farmers have been left without an effective tool to control gophers.

In fact, a study looked at the effectiveness of premixes of strychnine which were available still through municipalities or through various retail outlets. That chart showed that these premixes were very ineffective.

One study showed that only 11% of the gophers were controlled through use of this premix product. Another showed that even with three consecutive applications of this premix product, it only controlled about 50% of the gophers, leaving 50% to continue to do the damage.

I guess people who have not been involved in this would not understand all of the labour that goes into each application of strychnine to control gophers. It is extremely labour intensive. To do one 60-acre pasture could take a full day of heavy physical work. Many farmers have hundreds and thousands of acres infected now because of the removal of this product.

The damage is enormous. The reason for removing this product is hard to understand. I am asking today for the government to provide information that it has not provided because there must be more. I do not believe that any governmental department would remove a product based on this information. There has to be more.

What I want to see from the government is the production of all the information that led it to make that decision because it is an important issue to farmers who have crop losses due to not having this product. It is an important issue to cattlemen who have animals injured due to gopher holes and the badgers digging in after them. Animals have suffered from broken legs and that type of damage. Horses have had to be put down because they have broken a leg in one of these badger or gopher holes. Also people have sustained injuries because of this.

All of this results from the removal of a product. There just has to be more. I ask the House to support my motion. Most of all, what I am really asking for is to have this product returned to farmers. All the work I have done has been done for that reason. Let us bring this product back so farmers have access.

We had an emergency return of this product last summer. Let us just deal with this, say yes, that we will return this to farmers so they can deal with this serious gopher problem and that we will do it before next summer.

Farmers have told me that they are more than willing to take a half day course, if they have to, on how to use this product safely. However, many do not understand why they would have to because they have used it safely for decades with really very little evidence of any non-target species being harmed.

What I really want is the return of this 2% or 5% solution of strychnine so that farmers can do the job. If the government feels it is necessary to have a training course, farmers are more than willing to take it. So let us get on with it and have the product returned.

[Immigration, October 18th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we fully support genuine refugees. We are talking about people who have been rejected by her department already. They have been rejected. They are not refugees. Her department has said they are not refugees, yet fully 70% of those people who have been rejected stay in Canada.

How can the minister continue to stand and say that security is just fine in the refugee determination system?

[Immigration, October 18th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the immigration minister continues to deny that there is a problem with security in the immigration system. Her department's own numbers show that at least 70% of all claimants who are not accepted in this country are never known to leave our country. They simply disappear.

How is it that the minister can claim that her system is okay when it comes to security when 70% of those who are refused entrance to our country, denied refugee status, are never known to leave the country?

[Operation Apollo, October 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured today to represent the Canadian Alliance as we extend our support and heartfelt thanks to the Canadian forces personnel leaving today in the war against terrorism.

We are pleased that our Prime Minister invited the Leader of the Opposition to join him in Halifax today to show support for Canada's military personnel serving on our naval ships as they head off to defend our democracy and our freedom. As those ships leave today I want to express my admiration for the men and women who serve our country.

It is no small thing to leave family and loved ones behind. Indeed, there will be trying times ahead. Let us make no mistake about it; we are asking these men and women to participate in war. We have no idea how long it will last nor can we be certain what they will face.

As they have been throughout our history, our Canadian forces personnel are proud and anxious to serve our country. It is up to us to remember every day that we enjoy the right to live and work in a peaceful and democratic society because our men and women were willing and are willing to risk their lives and futures to make it so.

Canada is an incredible country and we are all privileged to live in it. We owe that privilege to our military and the men and women who serve. I urge the government to ensure that our soldiers, sailors and airmen will be as safe as possible. While we cannot fully understand the sacrifice made by the families of our proud service personnel, I hope it will provide some comfort for them to know that all Canadians are joining with them in praying for their safe return. They truly are the pride of Canada.

[National Defence, October 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the record of the Sea Kings speaks for itself. The fact is the Minister of National Defence has said again and again that it is unnecessary to purchase the helicopter with the longest range to replace the Sea Kings. He argues that will represent cold war thinking.

Now we are sending our Sea Kings into a hot war in the Indian Ocean. Will the minister reconsider the bid criteria to ensure that we get the best helicopters with the longest range possible?

[National Defence, October 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, no matter what the minister of defence says about the Sea Kings being safe, they are unreliable. They are not able to perform their missions on a regular basis.

Will the minister rethink the bid criteria for the Sea King replacement by eliminating the split contract and recontract based on acquiring the best helicopter for the job with the earliest possible delivery date?

[Supply, October 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is clearly no. The Government of Canada is not spending enough when it comes to our military. That point can be made in many ways.

The government's commitment was laid out in the 1994 white paper. It is not meeting its own commitment. We can start by that measuring stick. The government is falling well short in terms of the number of people and in terms of funding. It has reduced military spending by 30% in real terms. It put a bit back in but the figure of $3 billion is terribly exaggerated. We must have a meaningful increase in military spending along with other changes. I think Canadians would support that.