Leon Benoit

[Agriculture, November 5th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the government has stood by and watched for months now as the top brass at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have prevented the Blue Mountain packing plant from opening. Cattlemen desperately need this plant. It is ready to go. Inspectors on the ground have said so. The government continues to be part of the problem instead of the solution.

In fact, how many plants has the CFIA approved in western Canada in the 18 months since the BSE crisis hit? The answer is none. Why is that?

[Supply, October 21st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the member said she had a problem with what was in the preamble. I am going to read the preamble. I do not see the problem. I would like her to explain the problem.

Before I read the preamble I would like to comment that the member sort of supported the military in her statement. However, the bottom line is, and this is so common in that party, when it comes to actually committing the resources necessary to provide the kind of support that we are talking about, its members will not do it.

I want to know specifically what the member finds offensive or unacceptable in the preamble which states:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government's national defence policies are seriously out of date and funding has fallen dramatically short of what is needed to meet defence commitments,--

That is pretty clear. How can she argue with that? That is a fact. It goes on to say:

--the combat capabilities of the Canadian Forces have been permitted to decay and the government is continuing this trend by proposing to raise a peacekeeping brigade at the expense of existing combat ready forces;--

That is the preamble. What part of that would she argue with? Would she argue that the government's commitment of 5,000 peacekeepers who would not be combat capable troops, that there is no problem with that?

I would like the member to explain why that would be? Does she think it is okay to send people into harm's way when they are not properly equipped, when they are not properly trained, and they may have to deal with a combat situation when it arises? Is that what the member is saying?

[Supply, October 21st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that I did represent that part of the constituency which the member is representing now with the Cold Lake air base and I did hear from a lot of personnel over the years about some of the difficulties they were facing in trying to keep our jets flying. I did hear about the strain on the families due to over-deployment and so on. That certainly was there then, as it is now.

It is amazing to me that for the 11 years we have been here in the House we have heard that our equipment overall is continuing to deteriorate and is simply inadequate, yet so often when Canada goes to various trouble spots it is recognized as serving extremely well. When we look at why that is, I think the reason is obvious, but I would like to ask the member about his thoughts on this.

It clearly is not because they have state of the art equipment generally, and it certainly has not been the case in the past. It is because of the ingenuity and the excellent training of our military personnel. It is the people themselves who are so capable, so proud and so committed to doing a good job on behalf of our country and making our country proud that they make up for the dreadful inadequacies of the equipment. I would like the member's comments on that.

[Supply, October 21st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, actually I have not seen the poll. I have not even heard about the poll, but it must have been at least 8,000 or 10,000 people in total, and that is a huge poll. This will accurately reflect what Canadians really believe. I am not surprised by that.

It may sound like we are blowing our own horn, but what parliamentarians have said again and again over the past five years in particular, is that the need to have a combat capable military is sinking in with the general public. They are thinking about it and they have come to understand what the government will not acknowledge. The government understands it. I do not believe for a minute that the government does not understand what is necessary, but it is simply not willing to make the tough decision when it comes to how taxpayer money should be spent. It is just unwilling to make those tough decisions and that is the saddest commentary. As a result, it says the peacekeepers are good enough.

As the member said, we absolutely owe our serving men and women, at the minimum, the capability to defend themselves under any imaginable circumstance that may come upon them. The one thing that is predictable about going into an extremely unsettled situation is unpredictability. Let us give them all we reasonably can to defend themselves and to be safe in whatever situation.

God willing, when they go into a situation that they think is a peacekeeping situation, whatever that means, that it will be that, but too often in the past it has not. It has been a combat situation. Combat is necessary to stabilize the situation, and so many times that provides for people of that area, that country, some stability they have not seen for an awful long time, a chance to move ahead and a chance to become a free and democratic nation. Let us give them that and let us give that to the countries we are out to help as well.

[Supply, October 21st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am really pleased to speak in the debate today. I think I should repeat the motion that our party has put before the House so that members will know where my comments are coming from. The motion states:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government's national defence policies are seriously out of date and funding has fallen dramatically short of what is needed to meet defence commitments, the combat capabilities of the Canadian Forces have been permitted to decay and the government is continuing this trend by proposing to raise a peacekeeping brigade at the expense of existing combat ready forces; and accordingly,

This House call on the government to commit to maintaining air, land and sea combat capability by ensuring that members of the forces are trained, equipped and supported for combat operations and peacekeeping, in order to enhance Canada's status and influence as a sovereign nation.

The one thing I would like to say is that whatever members of Parliament from all parties, and that goes for Canadians from all parts of this country, believe about the Canadian military, they believe one thing and support one thing. If we are going to send our serving men and women into harm's way they deserve the people and the equipment necessary to do the job on our behalf as safely as possible. Canadians right across the country agree with that. The members of all political parties agree with that. There is no argument about that.

I believe the facts have to be looked at, the facts on what has happened over the past 11 years with the Canadian military. It has to be examined and it has to be differentiated from the statements made by various ministers of the government and by members of the Liberal Party throughout this debate and over the past couple of weeks. I think it is really important to look at both and to see the differences that we have.

To provide our country with the people and the equipment that we need for them to do their job safely, we have to increase spending. There is no other way of doing that. We have to do others things, but we have to increase spending.

The Liberal government keeps repeating that it has done that. Even though it keeps repeating the line that it has increased funding to Canada's military, it does not make it so. Let us look at the facts.

First, the government has cut $20 billion from defence spending over the past 11 years. Second, in terms of personnel, when that government came into power we had a military of roughly 80,000 effective strength. Now we have 52,000 effective strength. That is a fact, no matter what the government says.

Yes, our forces been provided with some new equipment, but while they have some new equipment, there are glaring shortfalls in the equipment they have. We tend to point to the most obvious examples, such as the Sea King replacements, the problems with the refurbishing of the subs and the lack of supply capability, supply ships and so on. We tend to point to those types of things, but a part of that equipment deficiency, which is much less obvious but every bit as important, is the maintenance and repairs needed to ensure that the other equipment, which is often extremely old, is safe, usable and in reliable condition. That is rarely referred to and rarely talked about.

As I said, to do all that requires money. The Liberals say that they are spending all the money needed. By the military's own calculations, the money that the Prime Minister has promised, $7 billion roughly, is only one-quarter of what the military itself says is needed.

As we know, the top brass in the military answers to government. They will not be going around saying things against the government, the elected representatives of the people. In spite of that, the number the military gave, the minimum needed to provide what is necessary, is four times what the Prime Minister has promised, not that he has delivered but that he has promised. Clearly, there is a huge gap of many billions of dollars.

The fact is that we need the money. Let us look at Canada relative to other NATO allies. I think that is a good measure of where the Canadian military is really at, a good measure of what the Prime Minister, the parliamentary secretary and others on the other side have said.

Canada spends about 1.2% of GDP on its military. The NATO average is somewhere over 2%. That is a huge gap. The Prime Minister, the defence minister and others have stood in the House and said that Canada is one of the largest military spenders in the world, but what they do not say and what the facts are is that Canada, in terms of percentage of GDP, is in fact the second lowest of all the NATO allies. That is the truth but we do not hear that from the government, which is unfortunate.

The money is important because of what it provides. What it provides, what it could provide and what it will provide when we form government is the people we need and the equipment they need to do their jobs as safely as possible on our behalf because they work on our behalf.

Is it only the Conservative Party that says the money being provided is very short of what is required? Not at all. I was a member of the House of Commons committee that tabled a report about a year ago or so. The majority of members of that committee were Liberals, including the former defence minister. What did that report say? That report said almost exactly what the Conservative Party says, that we have to move spending toward the NATO average. It said that right in the report. The Liberals, Conservatives, all parties agreed to that.

Within the last two years a Senate committee said virtually the same thing, that government simply was not providing what was necessary to give us the military that we needed to do the job that we were asking them to do year after year on behalf of our country.

The military itself has said that it needs more. We need only look at its proposals laying out what it needs to provide just what the government said should be provided on behalf of our country, in the 1994 white paper and in some more recent statements than that.

There have been various other independent studies that have said exactly the same thing. The government simply is not spending the money necessary to give us the people and the equipment that can provide what we ask our military to provide. I do not think there is any doubt about that. That is simply a fact.

I will quickly mention this new 5,000 member peacekeeping force that the government talks about. This sounds really good. The problem is, the money has not been provided. The problem is, we cannot send people who are not combat capable and trained and with the equipment they need, into harm's way. We have done it too many times in the past. How many times does it take before we all learn? I think we on this side have learned. We cannot afford to do that any more. We need our people to be combat trained, ready and equipped whether they go into combat or not. At the very minimum, we owe them that.

Many members in the House have been taping a Remembrance Day message today in the Centre Block. Many members have gone out and said how they support the Canadian military, how they remember and give thanks to those who have served our country in the past, and I believe every member says that from the heart. However, just the words are not enough any more. We all must provide our current military with what they need to protect us and to serve us as we ask them to do.

[Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, October 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill, although I am somewhat concerned that I have spoken on it in the past all too many times. We have had similar legislation brought before the House on a number of occasions and it has never been passed by the House in spite of there being quite a bit of support from the government side as well as the opposition side.

I will talk a bit about how that has changed now. I do have some hope that this time we can bring about meaningful and effective whistleblower legislation. This is to be seen. We are working in a new territory with the type of minority government that we have.

I would like to start off talking about why our party will support this legislation if certain key changes are made. I think we are supported in these changes by certainly most of the opposition members and some government members, as we have heard in the debate that has taken place so far. That does lead to some hope, but there are some serious problems with this legislation as it stands right now.

The first, and it has been talked about before, is the need for an independent commissioner. The way the proposal is laid out in Bill C-11 the public service commissioner would handle complaints, but only after they have gone through a proper process. We are concerned about the process, but we are also concerned that the public service commissioner is not the right person to be reporting to.

I want to make it clear that I think the current president of the Public Service Commission is a very capable and competent person. Maria Barrados has proven that she is very capable and willing to do her job, and do it well, but that is not the issue. The issue is that the trust of the members of the public service simply is not there for the Public Service Commission.

I was a member of the government operations committee in the last Parliament when we dealt with this legislation. The point was made again and again that the public servants simply do not have the trust of the public service commissioner that is needed to make this legislation work effectively. We are calling for an independent commissioner to be put in place to handle these complaints, and to have an independent office similar to that of the Auditor General for handling these complaints.

There has been concern raised, and I share that concern to some extent myself as do other members, that we do not want to be establishing too many of these independent offices. They have been effective. The Auditor General has been extremely effective. We all know that. Having a similar office for this purpose is needed, but we do have to proceed with caution.

If we were to establish too many of these independent bodies, a couple of things could happen. First of all, the government could be handcuffed so that it simply could not do the job effectively. I do not see that as a concern in this particular case though.

The second thing that could happen is that we will get so many of these independent offices set up that pretty soon none of them will really be effective. The public will see so many of them and will be talking about what is happening before these independent bodies so often that pretty soon the effectiveness will wear off.

We do have to proceed with caution. However, I do believe in the importance of having a whistleblower process that works, the importance of protecting our public servants when they wish to report wrongdoing, and the importance of saving the money that has been lost through wrongdoing.

We all know about what is going on with ad scam, the sponsorship scandal, and that is just one example; $100 million wasted that could have been caught had a whistleblower been allowed, through a proper process, to report this wrongdoing. We all understand the importance of having this process work. Having an independent commissioner is a critical part of changing the process so it works well.

My party and I have concerns that under this legislation the cabinet would be allowed at any time to make changes to the legislation to exempt agencies, departments or crown corporations.

We should think about that a little bit. If a scandal is boiling, cabinet may say we have to put a lid on it because it does not want whistleblowers to report what is going on. If I sound a little cynical, forgive me, but we have seen so many cases of that happening over the past 10 years that we must head that off.

Now, under this legislation, all the cabinet would have to do is say that this agency, department or crown corporation is exempt from whistleblower protection and the scandal has a lid put on it. Clearly, that has to be changed. I believe that it will be before it comes back to the House.

The third thing is that the disclosure process that is in place now is more geared to control or to contain disclosures than to accommodate them and that must be changed.

Rather than talk about the content of the legislation I would like to talk about the fact that there is hope in this Parliament to actually make these changes that are necessary. Why? Because we have a minority government, 135 government MPs out of 308 members. That offers hope.

On the government operations and estimates committee, which is the committee that will be receiving the legislation very soon, we have a majority of committee members from the opposition side. We had a meeting about an hour ago where I, an opposition member, was elected chair of that committee. I have further hope because the government vice-chair, the member for Mississauga South, has just given a presentation in the House recognizing the need for that independent commissioner.

I know that many other members of the committee support the changes that we in the Conservative Party have been proposing here today. Because we have the majority, because we have the opposition chair in the committee, I think we really are into a new time in parliamentary history. I believe that we have an opportunity like we have probably never had before to make some real changes to the legislation before it comes back to the House.

I cannot prejudge what the committee will do, but knowing the members of the committee, knowing the fact that the committee has operated very well over the two years of its existence, and adding the effectiveness of having a majority from the opposite side so that government cannot block the way without some support from opposition, it really does lend a lot of hope for changing the legislation and bringing it back to the House in a format that can be supported by all members of the House.

It will be so fascinating over the next couple of months to see whether that happens and how it happens. One thing could happen that could prevent this process from leading to an effective bill. After the committee examines the bill, and I am confident the committee will make changes which will make it a good piece of legislation, the government could prevent the bill from coming back to the House for third and final reading. It can do that.

Unfortunately, that possibility is still left in the hands of government. I am hoping that will not happen because of support from government members, because of the nature of the House, and because of the cooperation that will be required to make the House operate well in the years to come. It will go through committee, come back to the House, and we will have a piece of whistleblower legislation that will protect the members of our public service. It will also protect taxpayers' dollars by having whistleblowers point out wrongdoing that currently costs millions and millions of dollars every year.

I am looking forward to working with all member to make the legislation work.

[Agriculture, October 12th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, first of all, I do not think any of us have said that the rhetoric from government members, including ministers, was the reason the border closed, but it was certainly the reason that we did not have an open channel to discuss this with the Americans and perhaps reach an early resolution. That is where the problem comes in. If we had maintained a reasonable relationship with our American friends and neighbours, then we could fight them hard on this issue and probably have some success. The way it is now, they are not listening. That is the position we have taken on that.

When it comes to the position of new packing capacity, the member is sleepwalking into a disaster if he believes that any new capacity is a sure thing. There have been some announcements that expansions might take place at the two big American plants in southern Alberta. It could happen. It is not a done deal. None of them are done deals.

I spoke with key players in two of the major proposed packing plants over the past few days and I have spoken to them as things have gone on. They said that when the government made the announcement of its so-called $68 million, which is really $38 million, that it caused their lenders to back off. That hurt them more than it has helped them. That is a fact. That is what they are saying and they know what they are talking about. These are the people putting their money into these plants trying to get the capacity we need so our cattlemen can sell their beef and make money.

[Agriculture, October 12th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, the topic that we are dealing with tonight is an extremely emotional subject and for that reason from time to time partisan comments are made. I know from our side the reason is because we know our cattle industry is facing an extremely serious problem.

The government talks about what it has done, the programs it has announced, and the promises it has made. What we are interested in are the results of what the government has done. What has the government done to date that has actually made things better for our cow calf farmers right across the country, the dairy industry, the elk industry, the bison industry, and all the industries that have been hurt by what has happened here?

Before 2003 the beef industry was as close to a free market industry as could be found. The cattlemen did not depend on government for much. They developed the markets, produced their livestock and marketed it pretty much on their own. Things were good in the industry for the last 20 years. Most of the time it was a good industry.

Before I get too far along here, I want to say that I will be splitting my time with the member for Wetaskiwin.

Then we had one case of BSE found in our herds. What happened? The result was the closing of the border. Was that right? That was wrong. The Americans were absolutely wrong in what they did to our industry. There is no doubt about that. American protectionism hurts us and it hurts us unfairly. It hurts our cattle industry unfairly. What the Americans did was wrong and let there be no doubt about that.

The problem of course was exacerbated by comments made by members of the government when it came to dealing with our closest trading partner, the United States. Comments they made hurt the relationship and tarnished the relationship so badly that when it came time for us to be negotiating with the Americans on this issue, they simply were not ready to listen.

I do blame the government for that. That has made this a very difficult issue to deal with. That has to change because those comments continue. As long as they do, we are not going to get results.

The parliamentary secretary today said that the Liberal government has worked hard on opening the U.S. border. What have the results been? In the past several months nothing has happened. Working hard does not solve the problem. It simply does not. There have to be results.

The parliamentary secretary talked about all the money the government has promised to the cattle industry through various programs. The fact is that money has not found its way to cattlemen, the primary producers. Much of it, in the first ill thought out program, went to the packers instead of going to cattlemen. That simply did not solve the problem.

We have heard a lot of promises for a lot of money since then. How much of it has actually gone to help our cattlemen? I would suggest that it is very little to date. The results are quite different from what the government says it is doing and that is very unfortunate.

The set aside program in the early stages is the one thing that really seems to have some good potential. We will see how long it works. We will see if the government is ready to adjust that program should adjustment be necessary along the way because that is going to be very important if this program starts to fail a little bit as we move along.

There are two issues which were dealt with, one quite a bit and one very little. The first is interprovincial trade in livestock. I have heard very little about this. In fact, the government has done almost nothing on interprovincial trade since it passed the agreement on internal trade back in 1996. As a result, we can have meat inspected in each province by capable inspectors and that meat cannot be moved across the border. That is killing our small plants that have a great opportunity to expand. They would expand if the government could find a way to move that meat across the border.

The second of course is more important than any other issue and it deals with increasing the capacity in packers and in processors. The government has simply not dealt effectively with this issue. The government's promise of $68 million is roughly $38 million.

Let us look at results again. How many packing plants are going to go on stream as a result of this program? There have been none to date and I would suggest that there will be none in the near future. That program must be modified.

I would welcome comments from members opposite and members of the government in their questions and comments. I would like to hear what they are going to do to make that program work, the program that will assist our producers in establishing new packing plants and new processing plants in our country.

[Agriculture, October 12th, 2004]

Madam Chair, I am pleased to have time to say a few words on this and to ask a question of the member opposite.

He rightfully acknowledged that his government blew it when it came to the program on delivering money to cattlemen which ended up going primarily to the packers. That was a good step forward but he went on to say that he found it morally reprehensible that the packers were reaping such huge profits.

I would ask the member what the most effective thing the government could do to help solve that problem? I would suggest that it would be to help create competition, to really have some money flow that would allow and encourage new packing plants to get on stream as soon as possible.

The government has said that it has $68 million or some such figure that will go to that. In fact, it is about half of that. However we find out how from the provinces that the money will not flow for at least three months.

On the one hand the member says that he finds it reprehensible that the packers are making this kind of profit. On the other hand, his government has done nothing in a year and a half to put even one new packer in place. As of right now, no government money is going to help a packing plant start up. That is a sad commentary on this government.

Could the member explain to us and to the cattlemen in particular why it is that the money has not done the job in helping even one packing plant start up?

[Agriculture, October 7th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the closure of the American border to Canadian beef has caused the worst crisis seen in beef and related sectors in the past 30 years.

These industries had done well in an almost ideal free market environment, which included the United States, with very little in the way of subsidies. This has all been destroyed by U.S. protectionism, which is simply wrong.

Not only has our government's undiplomatic treatment of Americans contributed to our border remaining closed, but the Liberals have done little to deal with the problem.

The government must do better. It has to figure out that simply having the border open will not solve the problem, because the industry will remain vulnerable to future closures. What must happen is the quick expansion of packing and processing capacity to allow processing of all of our beef and related animals here in Canada. This will re-establish a competitive market and allow us to take control of the industry once again.

It is long past time for the government to act. Talk is no longer enough. Our cattlemen need action today.