Wayne Easter

[Committees of the House, February 15th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, there is one thing that the parliamentary secretary is absolutely right about and that is the government's record, which she said is better than others, but it is sad that where it is better is in being a record of destruction on policies and programs that matter to people.

I do not know whether she was listening earlier when I talked about how the government is trying to destroy rural Canada through the loss of individual mail delivery, through destroying the Canadian Wheat Board, through undermining the Canadian Grain Commission, and by default on hogs and beef. The government is destroying our international reputation--

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, February 15th, 2008]

I wish the minister would take the blinders off, Mr. Speaker. The minister has authority to act under the Family Farm Protection Act, but seems intent on destruction, destroying the Canadian Wheat Board, eliminating the interest of farmers in the Grain Act, allowing the tender fruit plant in Ontario to die on the vine and missing in action on livestock, allowing beef and hog producers to face financial ruin.

Is the minister only interested in destroying rural Canada, or is the real reason for not acting due to the incompetence of the Minister of Finance to handle the finances of the nation?

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, February 15th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, Wednesday night, during an emergency debate on the livestock industry, the minister had an opportunity to propose concrete immediate action, but incredibly, he remained voiceless. Might it have been a prime ministerial gag order?

The minister's minions spouted the same old lines about the useless December announcement. In fact, the Canadian Pork Council called that plan “a cruel joke to our producers”.

Today, Statistics Canada has confirmed what the government refuses to hear. We are losing our livestock industry. Will the minister come out of hiding and act today?

[Canada Grain Act, February 15th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the well-researched remarks by the member for British Columbia Southern Interior.

I agree with him when he stated that the government moves rapidly in areas such as trying to destroy the Canadian Wheat Board, which it is attempting to do, in terms of trying to weaken the Canadian Grain Commission, and now the minister's ridiculous announcement to do away with KVD by August 1, which industry, the Canadian Wheat Board, nearly everybody in the system, except the right-wing friends of the parliamentary secretary over there, claim should not be done until 2010 or it will completely disrupt the industry. It will in fact put Canada at risk in terms of supplying the quality grain it has a reputation of supplying around the world.

When it comes to responding to the beef and hog crisis, the government is absolutely missing in action. Why can it not move rapidly in that area?

Let me turn to the specific bill we are talking about, Bill C-39, on the Canadian Grain Commission.

We see that the Conservative government is undermining the authority of farmers. The original Canadian Grain Act has in the mandate that it is in the interests of producers. The new bill takes that out. That crowd on the other side is not really interested in doing anything in the interests of producers and it shows. The Conservatives are undermining them with the Canadian Wheat Board. They are undermining them with the Canadian Grain Commission. They are missing in action on hogs and beef. The Conservatives are turning over the authority of the Canadian Grain Commission to the interests of industry rather than producers. I would like to ask the hon. member his point of view on that.

There are other problems with the bill. The Conservatives are taking away the appeals tribunal. There were 2,000 appeals last year. There is nothing about reporting to Parliament in this bill. That right is being taken away and Parliament will not know what is going on with the Canadian Grain Commission and the Canadian Grain Act. They are taking away the necessity of grain companies having to post a bond to protect producer interests.

I would like to get the member's comments on that critique of the bill and certainly the critique of a government that is missing in action when it comes to developing real solutions for farmers in this country.

The Conservatives like to say that they put farmers first, but everything they are doing is putting farmers absolutely last.

[February 14th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that I do indeed know my riding and I know Canada Post is closing down post offices for postal boxes. I know that for sure.

The parliamentary secretary used a number: 1,400 employee complaints. I have applied under access to information for those complaints. I already know this: about 800 of those complaints are not for safety at the mailboxes but for ergonomic damage when the employee's arm gets tired from reaching out the passenger side window. This is obviously the way that the parliamentary secretary is like many of the others in getting his talking points from the PMO and using figures to try to bamboozle the public.

The bottom line is this: we are losing individual rural mailbox delivery. We want it back. There was a motion passed in this Parliament to say that we should have it. It passed a while ago. It is the minister's responsibility to live up to that motion, which means individual rural mail delivery. We want the minister to see that it is done.

[February 14th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, on February 11, I asked the Minister of Transport, the minister responsible for Canada Post, why the government was allowing the elimination of individual mail delivery in rural Canada.

It was the Minister of Transport's memo of December 13, 2006, that, instead of forcing Canada Post to hold the line in terms of individual mailboxes, seems to have given the impetus to intimidate rural Canadians into giving up their right of service, a right they have had since the horse and buggy days.

This review by Canada Post will cost $600 million nationwide over five years. What is this review for? Is it to anger rural Canadians? This amount of money over six years is criminal. This issue could have been solved at the local level between the individual mailbox holder, the driver and the postmaster. However, we have this national program that is angering and frustrating rural Canadians and intimidating them to move toward community mailboxes.

There is no question that we will hear from either the minister or the parliamentary secretary about the safety issue. Yes, we, too, are concerned about the safety of rural drivers, but when I asked the people in Prince Edward Island how many safety concerns they had about drivers, there was but one.

What would happen if we turned over the management of school buses or garbage trucks to Canada Post? Would they be forced off the road too?

Other approaches could have been taken rather than the approach being taken by Canada Post. The point is that there are other ways. What is wrong with the people in the minister's office? Can they not find a sensible way to solve this problem and maintain rural delivery?

The result of this review is leading to the elimination of individual delivery. We know that for sure. I can show members road after road where 20% to 50% of residents are not getting individual delivery. We also know that more cars are being forced onto the road with the greenhouse gas impact. We know there will be litter from these community mailboxes. We know there is greater risk to human safety by increasing the potential for accidents. One box on Rustico Road in Milton holds the mail for 31 people, which means that 31 cars are now on the road where previously there was one. What do those individuals have to do? They must turn around somewhere and go back, increasing the risk of accidents.

What about congestion at these boxes? People stop on both sides of the road. It is an accident waiting to happen. What about human safety? These boxes are not located in urban Canada where there are street lights beside the boxes. These boxes are sitting on dark, rural roads where people sometimes have to get their mail after dark. What about rural safety?

It is time the minister and the government were concerned about rural Canada and started looking after the interests of rural Canadians.

I have one other point to make. The intimidation should not be allowed to happen. The minister needs to act.

[February 14th, 2008]

They did not do it.

[Livestock Industry, February 13th, 2008]

I rise on a point of order. That was a different program. The $800 million was before that one.

[Livestock Industry, February 13th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to be quick because I know another member wants to ask a question. Maybe we could go over the debate by five minutes.

I ask the member to look at the record and the eight proposals I made earlier this evening. In addition, we have the proposals from the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. He will find that none of those proposals are countervailable.

We heard earlier in the evening a lot of rhetoric, mostly from the various parliamentary secretaries, on what old Liberal programs or new Conservative programs do.

In terms of the balance in industries in crisis, under the last Liberal program, $800 million was targeted for the grains and oilseeds industry. The parliamentary secretary talks about the kick-start program as the next best thing to sliced bread. What will it do for the hog industry? It will put out to the hog industry $60 million.

The previous government put out $800 million targeted at grains and oilseeds. The Conservative government is putting $60 million out to the hog industry as a little share of that kick-start program. Does the member think that is balanced? Does he think it will deal with the crisis?

[Livestock Industry, February 13th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the sincerity of the last two government speakers, the member for Selkirk—Interlake and the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound. They came across as very sincere in their remarks, different from many of the government speakers earlier who tried to portray the government announcement as something more than it really is.

The member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound talked about markets opening up, as did the previous member, and that is all well and good and it must be done. However, the real problem right now for our hog and beef industry is a question of financial liquidity. The real question is whether they will have the wherewithal to survive from now until there is a bright light and they can at least break even mid-summer.

What is the government going to do, whether it be cash, loans or other means? I made eight suggestions earlier. Will the government move in order to accommodate this question of liquidity so farmers will have the wherewithal to survive until there are better times ahead?