Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Brant.
I am pleased to speak in response to the Speech from the Throne in this second session of the 39th Parliament. However, much like the original first session throne speech, there is a lot of rhetoric but little substance. Even worse, the new government has completely failed to live up to its billing in its first throne speech. I need to mention a couple of those points.
One of the reasons that I believe I need to mention that is because we really need to see specific legislation because the words of the government mean little other than to try to manipulate the public minds, in which it tries to leave the impression it will do something and does not do it. I will give a couple of examples.
In its highly publicized and propagandized Federal Accountability Act, the public appointments commission never came into being and yet Conservative political patronage just about flows like molten lava, frothing against what seems to be a brow-beaten federal bureaucracy and the appointments go through. I cannot understand how many of those appointments that are going through are strictly political patronage appointments coming out of former premiers' offices.
On accountability itself, the new government finds itself under three investigations and the Prime Minister fails to answer questions on those matters. Question period is dominated by the Conservative in and out scheme, in which the Conservative Party padded its last campaigns to the benefit of its national election spending.
Increasingly, there is evidence of the Prime Minister for the new government saying and doing two very different things. Nowhere is this more evident than the government's response to primary producers, the farmers of this country.
One of the new government's greatest failures is in agriculture. I want to spent a little time on that subject as agriculture critic for the official opposition.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will remember the Prime Minister, in April of 2006, standing in this House and promising farmers cost of production. He even promised cash before spring. That cash never did come through. Did farmers see cost of production? Is a $720 cheque on a $60,000 loss meeting cost of production? No, I certainly think not.
The Prime Minister in fact broke his word and he cannot be trusted.
The former minister though did cancel the family farm options program that took $246 million directly out of hard-strapped farmers' pockets. Again, the Conservatives broke their commitment to hard-pressed farmers in this country.
The Prime Minister did in fact keep one commitment. He did not have the right to make that commitment, mind you, and he attempted to do it illegally. He attacked the Canadian Wheat Board and its duly elected farmer board of directors. The only thing that stopped the Prime Minister from his ideological attack on the Wheat Board was that the federal court ruled that the Prime Minister, the Government of Canada, broke the law of this country. That is a Prime Minister who claims to talk about law and order but, against the advice of the Department of Justice, he went out there hoping that farmers would not challenge him in court, which they did, and he was stopped by the Federal Court of Canada for trying to do an illegal act.
Obviously, the bottom line is that the Prime Minister cannot be trusted, especially when it comes to the farm community. He cannot be trusted on accountability. The evidence is in. He cannot be trusted on his word to farmers because he failed to meet cost of production. He cannot even be trusted on law and order because the federal court has basically claimed that he was involved in an illegal act.
The throne speech absolutely fails to address the agricultural concerns of our country. The government has failed to follow through on its commitment to farmers in the last election. The throne speech has failed to demonstrate any concern for the plight of beef and hog producers facing historic low prices. It has failed to address the unfair trade practices used by our competitors internationally. It has failed to bring in more aggressive safety net programming to deal with low farm incomes and high debt. It has failed to propose implementation of an all party agriculture committee recommendation to deal with the farm crisis.
That all party committee made 36 recommendations, any number of which the Government of Canada could have picked up. For example, it could have ensured that a product in a box was a product of Canada. The government failed to pick up that recommendation. It could have ensured that imported food met the same standards as those that Canadian farmers have to meet. It failed on that one and failed to pick up on 34 others.
If the Conservatives really wanted to go a little further out on a limb, they could have gone back to a report that I drafted in 2005 called “Empowering Canadian Farmers in the Marketplace”. They could have picked up on any number of recommendations in my report, such as strengthening the Competition Act so farmers had some protection or policies to help farmers receive decent prices from the marketplace. Again, they failed in that regard.
Let me mention where the government has tried again to manipulate the public mind through the throne speech.
The throne speech claims support for supply management. However, with the government's targeted attack on the orderly marketing of the Canadian Wheat Board, which appears in the very same paragraph, it is demonstrating complete hypocrisy and an absolute contradiction of its stated support.
Actions speak louder than words. The Prime Minister stated “he will enact market choice” for western grain farmers. This completely undermines collective marketing through either the Canadian Wheat Board or supply management.
Let me be clear. The alleged support for supply management in the throne speech is an absolute and complete fraud, nothing less, nothing more. We just need to look at the paragraph. If there is choice in one marketing system, it has to be allowed in the other. It will undermine collective marketing, which empowers farmers in Canada to receive decent returns in the marketplace. Obviously that point is in the throne speech for consideration only.
Let me come back for a moment to hogs. The hog industry is in terrible trouble. Let me quote a letter from a person in my riding:
I'm not angry, just resigned to the fact that the Canadian government is stepping away from small independent production models in agriculture.
Perhaps if that is going to be the policy they can help farmers exit with some dignity and maybe their house.
In P.E.I. alone, in the last several months producers accounted for some 2,500 sows that went out of business. That is the equivalent of 80,000 hogs. This industry is in trouble, yet there is not a word in the speech about the hog industry and hog production.
There is not a word about beef either in the Speech from the Throne. Beef producers find themselves in the situation where they are receiving around $900 when they were receiving $1,400.
I would love to get into the government's failure in terms of coming up with a safety net, but let me conclude this way.
The throne speech sets out the government's vision for the near term future of our country. There are only 60 words in the speech that are devoted to the government's vision for an industry that provides the food we eat each and every day. Only 60 words have been given to the industry that provides jobs and sustains communities. The Conservatives spend more time attacking a marketing institution than talking about a vision that would put income and returns in the pocket of farmers.
The throne speech is absolutely unacceptable. The government is an abject failure in terms of what it is doing, or not doing, for the farm community.
