Leon Benoit

[Question No. 50, September 21st, 2001]

What amounts were paid by government departments and agencies to the McMillan Binch law firm for professional services during each fiscal year since 1991?

Return tabled.

[Terrorism, September 21st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the U.S. ambassador and President Bush have made it clear that the U.S. is looking for military support. Canadians want Canada to commit to the fight against terrorism. The government must answer the call.

When will the Government of Canada join with our allies, the United Kingdom and France, to show a real military commitment in the coming fight? Where is the government's action plan? What exactly will the government deliver to the fight against terrorism?

[Terrorism, September 21st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, like many who watched it, I was cheered to see President Bush last night praising the United Kingdom and its prime minister, Tony Blair, for pledging to fight with the United States.

Indeed, even the president of France, Jacques Chirac, was quoted yesterday as saying that France will be there with the U.S. too.

Will the government work with our friends and allies to build a military force to destroy the military capability of any terrorist of any country that supports international terrorism?

[Canada-U.S. Meeting, September 20th, 2001]

Madam Chairman, it has been 10 days since that terrible terrorist attack on New York and Washington. It has been an emotional roller coaster ride for all of us, for Canadians across the country and for people around the world. Many people still live in trepidation and fear thinking about what has happened and what might happen.

For us in the House of Commons it is time to get back to work. This week we have been back at the business of governing. As the official opposition it is our role to ask the tough questions of government about this issue. It is our role to show support in areas where we see strength and to point out weakness in areas where we see weakness. That is our job and I intend to do my part in fulfilling that role.

The first priority of the federal government is to protect the safety and security of Canadians and our country. When we combine this thought with the fact that the Canadian forces is the largest single security force in Canada, what would we expect to find? We would expect to find a top notch force, a large force, well funded, well equipped, with the people well trained. We would expect to find the best people possible. Would we expect anything less from one of the wealthiest countries in the world? Would we expect anything less from a country with such a proud military tradition? I think not.

Canadians should be prepared to do their part. Canada of all countries should be prepared to do its part to prevent terrorist attacks and to be able to respond effectively to terrorist attacks when they happen. We should be prepared to work with our allies, our friends, and to protect our friends when they need our help. Our national anthem says “O Canada, we stand on guard for thee”. How effective has the government of this country been in that regard?

It is important for all of us to think about what our armed forces do for us. We expect the military to defend against attack, whether it is a terrorist attack or some type of military attack. We depend on our allies to help us. We know we will help our allies should the attack be on them. We expect our forces to meet commitments to our allies through NATO, probably the greatest alliance in military history, and through NORAD, the North American alliance.

We expect our military to meet certain United Nations commitments and they have done so, to protect our sovereignty, especially in our northern waters and northern islands, to deal with any civil unrest there might be in the country, to deal with natural disasters, to provide search and rescue in cases where their help is necessary and to provide disaster relief. We expect a lot from the men and women serving in our forces.

I do not think we spend a lot of time thinking about what our forces really should provide. Why is that? I suggest that part of the reason is that the government does not really believe we need a strong national defence, and it shows.

How often do we hear the government even pay lip service by saying that we need a strong national defence, that our men and women serve well? How many times have we heard the Prime Minister really express pride in our forces and say how important they are to us, say what they do for us, or commend personally one of our best for an act of bravery?

When I think of that, I think immediately of the men and women who served in Bosnia and Croatia in the Medak pocket. They served so bravely that France gave commendations to the whole unit. We expect that Canada and the Prime Minister would show the same kind of support and recognition for bravery and a job well done.

It has not happened. Seven years later it has not happened. That does not really show a commitment to our national defence and the men and women who serve so well.

The recognition cannot be only lip service. The recognition that we need a strong national defence is important but we need more than that. The first responsibility of the federal government is the safety and security of our citizens and our nation.

When we look at our largest security force what do we see? As I have said, we would expect to find a large, well funded, well equipped, well trained force with the best people we can find. What do we find? We do not have a large force. When the Liberal government took office 90,000 men and women were serving in our forces. There are now 55,000. According to the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, the number will drop to 42,000 within two or three years if the trend continues. That is a halving of our forces.

We expect the forces to be well funded. What is the reality? In the last nine years funding to national defence has been cut by 30% in real terms. Is that the commitment we would expect for the largest security force in our country?

We would expect our forces to be well equipped. The auditor general says that if things continue the way they are we will have a $30 billion deficit in equipment by 2012. We all know the state of our equipment now. The Sea Kings are 40 years old. We could go through the list of outdated and obsolete equipment. Ammunition is not readily available. Armaments that we would expect to be there are not.

We would expect to have well trained men and women and in some cases we do. Some of the best men and women in the world serve in our forces. In some cases they are among the best trained. However training is lacking in certain areas. We have not seen brigade level training since this government took office yet we have a commitment to deliver a trained brigade to our NATO allies. Training is lacking in many areas.

As I said, we would expect to find the best people possible. I reiterate again that some of the best people in the world serve in our forces but that is changing because we do not choose people based on merit alone. We no longer choose only the best people. Instead we have let the whole regime of political correctness find its way into our forces. We are choosing based on a group or a gender rather than simply choosing the very best people for the job. While we do have excellent people in our forces, even that is changing.

If one were to look at the state our forces are in right now there is one example that tells it best. Two or three weeks ago Canada was asked by our NATO allies to deliver help to Macedonia. NATO told Canada what it expected from us. What did Canada do? What could we do with the people and equipment we have? All we could deliver was 200 people. Those 200 people went from a NATO commitment in Bosnia to the new NATO commitment in Macedonia. That is like paying off one credit card account with another credit card. That is the state of our forces today but it is not because of the men and women who serve.

Since September 11 we in the official opposition have stated that we are prepared to participate in the war on terrorism within the limits of our capability. There should be no doubt that last week's attack was against Canadians. Forty-five to seventy-five of the casualties were Canadian.

Article 5 of the NATO agreement says that if any ally is attacked it is considered to be an attack on the rest. One of our allies was attacked and that is considered to be an attack on Canada. We must respond and there must be no doubt in our response. Our allies must know that. I am counting on the government to provide that response and to provide it soon.

[National Defence, September 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I can understand why the minister does not want to talk about that.

Defence experts have warned that Canada's armed forces are so depleted that there is not a lot Canada can do to contribute to strikes against terrorist states. The government promised in the white paper to commit two squadrons of F-18s and at the same time meet our NORAD commitments.

Can the minister stand here today and legitimately say that he can meet both our NATO and NORAD commitments?

[National Defence, September 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of National Defence admitted that we have lost over half of our experienced pilots from Kosovo, so we know we are short of experienced pilots. After the attack on September 11, NORAD scrambled U.S. fighters and our F-18s here at home. We are talking about protecting Canadians in our country.

Did Canada meet our NORAD commitments in sending the required contingent of F-18s fully loaded with sidewinder and sparrow missiles?

[Gopher Control, September 19th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate the intervention of the member for Battlefords--Lloydminster. He brought out a great deal of good information on this subject.

I do appreciate as well the member from Brandon pointing out that the motion is about compensating farmers through the crop insurance program for damage done to crops, including pastures, as a result of them not having available the tools to control the Richardson's ground squirrel, or gopher as it is commonly known by farmers.

That is what the motion actually is. The intent of the motion or obvious solution that I was hoping the government would see is not to have to compensate but rather to restore an effective control product.

I can see the headline in tomorrow's paper: government will discontinue the registration of automobiles. I expect it will be there. The government will justify that by the same logic that has led it to discontinue the registration of an effective concentration of strychnine and by the same logic that led it to forcing people to register their firearms and to taking away many firearms whether or not people were using them properly and safely.

In the information I received in regard to my question on the order paper in about 1995, there was all the correspondence. I asked in that question specifically for all the correspondence to the government during the process that led it to make the decision to ban the effective concentration of strychnine and for the correspondence from government, so it was correspondence both ways. In that correspondence, as I said, there was precious little basis for the discontinuance of this registration.

We have a government in which the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health said in his presentation that non-target species are hit. I think he said there were about 25 dogs in Saskatchewan and maybe 15 in Alberta that were hit.

In the case of the information I received, first of all the numbers are even much lower than that, but what it actually said was that those were intentional poisonings. In the logic of the government, it has removed the effective strength strychnine, a move that costs farmers tens of millions of dollars a year, because of the abuse of a few law breakers who chose to use this strychnine to poison their neighbour's dogs.

That is what the correspondence showed. The parliamentary secretary referred to that. Why not deal with criminals firmly for this kind of illegal activity? It is the same kind of logic the government used in taking firearms away from firearm owners and in registering firearms. Because a few people used these weapons illegally, they were taken away from everybody no matter how much they were needed as a tool, and when it comes to farmers, to control gophers, among other things. The logic was to just take it away from everybody or to force registration, which is extremely expensive and does not help solve the problem.

I would suggest that it is that same logic, if the government wants to extend it, that will lead to that headline tomorrow that will say the government will discontinue the registration of automobiles because some people use them in an illegal fashion.

It is the same logic and I believe it is flawed logic in all cases. I hope it will not get to the extent that we will see that headline in the paper tomorrow. It is a flawed approach and it is unacceptable.

The government has taken away this effective concentration and, on the other hand, has done what the member for Battlefords--Lloydminster said: it has not allowed farmers to use their own innovative solutions that do not include the use of strychnine. I am suggesting that they should have the effective use of strychnine returned and that farmers should be allowed to use their creative devices.

The member of the New Democratic Party suggested that the government should develop an effective alternate poison. That is nonsense. Farmers have developed effective alternate ways of controlling gophers.

Let us have the government quickly deal with the registration of those products. Let us allow this problem to be dealt with effectively and have the appropriate strength of strychnine returned. If the government refuses to do that, by gosh then it should carry through on my motion and compensate farmers for the tens of millions of dollars in losses every year.

[Gopher Control, September 19th, 2001]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should compensate farmers for damage done to livestock and crops by gophers resulting from the banning of effective concentration of strychnine thereby removing the ability of farmers to control gophers on their lands.

Madam Speaker, at a time like this with the tragedies in New York, Washington and near Philadelphia, I hesitate to even bring forth this motion dealing with control of gophers. It seems in some ways so trivial compared to the extremely serious issue of this terrorist threat. If this had not been scheduled ahead of time, I would be calling on the government to focus strictly on national security over these next weeks and months because we do have a serious problem in that area. We have to focus the efforts of the House of parliament on national security.

However, private member's motions and bills are scheduled well ahead of time, and this motion is important. We will see how important it is when some of my colleagues speak on it. We saw this by the size of some of the public meetings which were held in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Back in 1994 the government removed the effective concentration of strychnine which was used in controlling gophers, or Richardson's ground squirrels, from the hands of farmers and others who really needed it to control this pest.

To get an idea of what this problem really entails, gophers cost farmers losses of tens of millions of dollars every year at a time when farmers cannot afford the losses.

A terrible drought has hit farmers from one end of the country to another. Because of unfair trade practices, prices have been driven down, in grains in particular. Farmers in many of the grain sectors are hanging on by their fingernails. Quite frankly, the government has not taken the removal of these unfair trade practices seriously. As a result, Canadian farmers have been producing at a disadvantage. However, this has also caused many farmers to lose their land in spite of being very good managers and good farmers. We have also lost some of our best farmers, in the grain sector in particular.

Gophers do not only affect farmers in the area of crops, they also affect farmers with livestock. Acres of pastures have been destroyed. Farmers have told me that they have had large pasture areas completely destroyed by gophers to a point where the cows cannot even graze. Furthermore, there has been damage to livestock through broken legs. People riding horses through pastures with gopher holes and the badgers that follow have sustained terrible injuries.

This is an important issue from a dollars and cents point of view. It is an important issue in terms of animal and human safety.

I was first elected in 1993. Since 1994 I have been working on trying to get the government to restore the proper concentration of strychnine and to allow farmers to mix it with their grain so that they can control gophers. I have had bills and motions on this issue before the House on two or three occasions. I have focused and concentrated on this. I believe that was partly the reason we had a temporary registration on strychnine in a controlled way in the province of Alberta this past summer. It was that important that an emergency registration was put in place last summer. However, farmers say that is not good enough. They need it indefinitely into the future.

Unfortunately the province of Saskatchewan did not manage to get this until later and only in a very restricted way. Farmers from Saskatchewan were looking enviously across the border into Alberta, wondering why they could not have an emergency registration like the farmers in Alberta.

None of this is the solution to the problem. The solution is for the government to restore into the hands of farmers and others who have to control pests, like gophers, an acceptable concentration of strychnine which will save farmers tens of millions of dollars.

Through an order paper question back in 1995, I asked for all documentation from government and to government dealing with this issue. I wanted to know what led to the outlawing of this high concentration of strychnine. It was shocking. I was given a one inch thick pile of paper.

One would expect to have found a study which would have led to the conclusion that it is dangerous for farmers to be using strychnine. There was no such study. Then I thought that I would at least find that the government had seen a lot of cases where pests not targeted had been affected. That was not the case.

This important tool that farmer's desperately needed, the absence of which cost tens of millions of dollars a year, was taken from the market based on complaints from one environmental group. It was a completely unreasonable lobby on the part of a small environmental group, which was not even one of our major environmental groups. I was really shocked to see that. I was also shocked to see that this had gone through the process of the federal government even with some involvement from the provinces.

Farmers are in such need of having this product restored that they are willing to go to the extent of taking a special half day safety course on the use of the product. They are willing to have experts come in and show them how to handle the product to ensure that only the target species would be affected because this is important to them. However, the government has allowed this to fall on deaf ears.

What is shocking to me as well is I have asked to make bills and motions votable on many occasions and not once has that been allowed. It goes beyond any reason why a motion or a bill brought forth by a private member for debate would not to be votable. It is long past the time in a modern British style democracy when any private member motion would not be votable. This has to happen.

I know the government will not act on this. What does it mean to the government to have a few more farmers going broke? A few tens of millions of dollars a year in extra costs to farmers due to crop losses does not seem to mean a lot. We have seen the government's response to the agriculture crisis in the past. It does not seem to be that important, so I do not expect that it will be acted on this time, although I am somewhat hopeful because the province of Alberta and other provinces are now stepping in and telling the federal government that we need this back on a permanent basis.

While I have not seen any reaction from the federal government in the past, maybe the pressure from the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in particular will force the government to reconsider this foolish move it made seven years ago and restore to farmers a concentration of strychnine of 2% or higher so they can effectively control Richardson's ground squirrels and gophers. I believe this is important.

Again, I would like to express that I have some concern talking about this issue when the House should be focusing strictly and in a serious way on our national security. With what happened in New York and Washington and finding out that the targets were much broader than publicly known, we have to focus on that.

However, this issue is important to people in my constituency and it is important to the farmers in Alberta, Saskatchewan and parts of Manitoba.

This is important. It is important to the farmers in Alberta, Saskatchewan and in parts of Manitoba. I hope for once the government will respond to what is really important to farmers. It has taken too many tools away, including the tools for farmers to market freely into other countries, which has cost farmers dearly. Let the government at least restore this one small tool which will save farmers tens of millions of dollars.

I would like to ask for unanimous consent to make this motion votable.

[Committees of the House, September 19th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I almost hate to agree with a member of the New Democratic Party when it comes to defence issues but truly this is too serious an issue to make it a partisan issue. I do agree with the member that it is time to take a really good look at our defence issues from one end to the other and really determine what this country needs in terms of national defence.

I think it is time for a new white paper but not one that gives the government an excuse to reduce spending or to lower its commitment. I am talking about a white paper that will redefine what we really need to meet our commitments both at home and abroad to make Canada a more secure country.

Until we do that I think we should hold off on continuing to put certain things into the hands of the private sector. Certain things really are better left in the hands of the military. Let us have a good look at that before we continue with it.

[Committees of the House, September 19th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the concurrence motion on the government's response to the defence committee's report. I have seen a lot of government responses to committee reports and have seen several reports put out by the defence committee.

I have felt in the past that some of the responses were weak, but frankly I have never seen a weaker response by a government to a report of a committee made up of all parties in the House. I have never seen a weaker response than the one we had to the procurement report. It is completely unacceptable.

It is clear that the government does not hold national defence as a top priority. The Canadian forces are the largest security force we have in the country. Yet we see the kind of weak response we got to the committee's report on procurement. It is completely unacceptable.

When we see this kind of response we know the government does not believe we need a strong national defence. If it did it would give a serious response to a report like this one. It can be well demonstrated that the government does not place national security and defence as a high priority.

We can start with the commitment to the number of personnel in the forces. Since the Liberal government took office the number of personnel in the Canadian armed forces has dropped from 90,000 to 55,000 and is still dropping. According to a report put out a few months ago by the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies the number will reach 42,000 before the government can stop it. It will have gone from 90,000 down to 42,000. The government is more than halving armed forces personnel. That is completely unacceptable.

I hope and pray the government finds a way to stop this rapid slide. We are losing some of our best people. This kind of drop in personnel shows a lack of commitment to national defence.

The second point is funding. Money is not everything but it could certainly be spent much better. There is a great need for better management and in some cases better leadership in our defence department. We need these things. The money we have could be quite a bit better spent .

Some of the contracting is suspect. Some of it, such as single source contracting and that kind of thing, is completely unacceptable. We are paying more than we should for equipment in some cases. We know what happened with the Sea King replacements. The Liberal government cost the taxpayer money by backing out of the deal put in place by the former government. We cannot afford to lose that kind of money. In spite of all that, the government has cut spending to national defence by 30% in real terms since it took office. That is the kind of commitment the Liberals have to our national security.

What is the top priority of the federal government? What should it be? It should be the security of our nation. It should be the protection of the citizens of Canada. Yet the government has cut military personnel from 90,000 to 55,000 and it is still sliding. The government cut the budget by 30% in real terms.

In his last report the auditor general said the government was $30 billion short of meeting its procurement commitments. In terms of procurement it will be $30 billion short by 2012.

Because the government is not planning and does not put a high priority on defence, it will be $30 billion short by 2012. Does that sound like a government that puts a high priority on the security of the nation and on national defence, the largest security force the country has? It does not. That is a sad commentary.

I do not say this with any glee because the issue should be non-partisan. It is too important to be a partisan issue. I am looking to all members of the defence committee from all parties. I think members will see the importance of this now that we have had this terrible act of terrorism.

I think members will agree to debate the issue in depth and have a good discussion. Hopefully we will get a meaningful response from the government on national defence. We cannot wait any more. It is too late to deal with the situation in terms of immediate reaction.

I asked the minister today what Canada would be able to contribute to a NATO force striking back against terrorism. That was my first question and he gave no answer.

I asked the minister a second question. The minister always refers to the F-18s and what we did in Kosovo. He points to this as our great strength. I asked him how he would find pilots to fly the F-18s when we have lost more than half our experienced pilots who flew in Kosovo.

Our government has allowed it to happen. It has allowed the airlines to steal our best pilots. They did not leave because of money.

I did a survey in Esprit de Corps magazine which I have not yet talked about in public. It asked why people have left the forces over the last several years. They said they did not leave because of money or low pay. They left because they felt the government did not believe their role was an important one. They felt the government did not believe national defence to be a high priority when it comes to the security of our nation.

We have wonderful men and women serving in our forces. They want to be recognized as playing an extremely important role. We have among the best in the world. We truly do. All they want is to be recognized as carrying out an important function. If the government recognized that it would give them proper equipment so that when we sent them to the font lines they would have the best. Right now they do not.

If the government respected the work these people do it would treat them well when they came back injured whether their injuries were physical or psychological. Post-traumatic stress disorder has become a terrific problem. We are losing a lot of our good men and women because of it.

A common complaint is that the government does not do enough to help soldiers who come back injured. Whether it is a mental or a physical injury makes no difference. It sends a message to the men and women who serve that we do not care, so of course they leave.

The air force probably has the highest morale of any of our three forces. Yet in spite of that they are leaving. Most of our experienced pilots who could take part in an operation like Kosovo are gone. The men and women who are left are extremely good but do not have the experience to step in and play a meaningful role.

What do members of the government think the answer will be from our NATO allies and friends like the United States? What will the reaction be when they ask for a serious commitment and we say we cannot give them one? What do government members think the reaction will be?

An extremely important conference of NATO parliamentarians will be held in Ottawa in early October. While attending these conferences during the past four years I have consistently heard that Canada is losing respect among our NATO allies because we can no longer meet our commitments. That is a sad commentary.

It is time the government took national security and national defence seriously. It can start by giving a serious response to the procurement report. Everyone from all parties recognizes that the response the government has given is unacceptable.

I call on the government to give a serious response to the procurement report as soon as possible. I believe that is what all members of the House want.