Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for putting this issue on the agenda this evening. It is a very important debate. It is especially so to producers in terms of if there are any added incentives or extra solutions we can bring out of this debate tonight.
The focus of the debate should be kept on where the responsibility for the latest crisis lies, and that is with the United States. I have to add a caveat to that, which is that United States President Bush and Secretary of Agriculture Johanns are on our side on this issue. They are fighting with us in terms of trying to get the border open. However, a single judge in the state of Montana and a group of protectionist producers are clearly responsible for this additional dilemma in which the Canadian producers find themselves. That is a fact.
As was heard in a question earlier this evening, I personally believe the way this was handled by a judge in Montana is an affront to common justice. The facts were not allowed to be put on the table in terms of the science that had been done by this country. When one reads the 27 page transcript from the judge, it is clear that the transcript was written well in advance and reeks more of politics than it does of law. That saddens me when I look to our neighbours to the south and think that justice in this case does not prevail. In fact, there has been a serious injustice done to Canadian producers, and over the long term to American consumers and probably American producers over the longer term as well.
It was summed up pretty well in an article in The StarPhoenix on March 4, entitled “Science, law victims of BSE”. I will quote a couple of sections from that article:
The judgment is specious and ignores both the rules of law and science. And, as if to trump Cebull's myopic injunction, the U.S. Senate followed the lead of a protectionist North Dakota Democratic senator in proposing a bill that will punish consumers for the short term and producers indefinitely to continue the ban.
The article goes on to state:
The U.S. economy with its huge trade deficit is increasingly in danger of becoming isolated from the world, and made irrelevant. Canada, for example, is pushing to process its own beef and battling to find markets in Asia and Europe -- anywhere outside the Fortress USA.
At least the editor of this article recognizes something that the opposition party tonight has tried to avoid. The opposition has tried to get into the political rhetoric without at least acknowledging some of the things we are doing. In the debate tonight we should be adding ideas on top of that so that we can in fact do better for producers in terms of opening up markets.
For once, instead of playing political games the official opposition should be prepared to take a position it may wish to avoid. Namely, it should stand with government members in condemning the United States Senate for adopting a protectionist, anti-trade, anti-science based assessment motion which effectively keeps the border closed.
As I stated a moment ago, the continued closure of the border is the result of a United States judge in Montana accepting the narrow protectionist arguments of R-CALF, a splinter group of U.S. producers determined to keep the border closed in order that they will be able to inflate prices to their consumers and really damage the whole idea of an integrated marketplace in North America and the whole idea of free trade.
It is the knee-jerk reaction of a protectionist U.S. Senate as well that talks free trade and practises protectionism.
As it was with the United States Senate, it was apparent in the decision of the United States District Court in Montana that the issue is not safety. The issue is clearly protectionism.
I will say that we have some allies in the United States Senate as well. On the floor of the United States Senate, Canada and its food inspection system had its defenders. I want to mention a few of those examples. It is important to hear what some senators in the United States are in fact saying.
Senator Bond, who is a Republican from Missouri, had this to say about the call for the border to remain closed to Canadian beef by his colleagues in the Senate:
We just heard a defence of protectionism. Let me define what protectionism is. Protectionism is, in my view, the use of scare tactics, the use of unfound scientific information, in an attempt to protect our markets. In this case, I believe sound science dictates it is time to open the border.
Let us turn to Senator Allard, who is a Republican from Colorado. In response to the motion to ensure that Canada's beef products are kept out of the United States, this senator said:
Frankly, the Canadian border is already open. Boxed beef is coming across the border from Canada in record numbers, numbers higher than they were before BSE was discovered in Canada.... U.S. beef imports from Canada set a record in 2004, approaching 1.2 billion pounds, a 12% increase over 2002 levels. During 2005, beef imports from Canada are expected to total 1.2 to 1.3 billion pounds.
At least that senator recognizes what the opposition fails to admit, that we have made progress with beef products.
Yes, we want to make progress with live animals under 30 months and eventually get to exporting into the United States breeding stock again from both dairy and beef. We have some of the highest quality breeding stock in the world and that border should be open to those stocks as well.
Senator Allard called attention to the support of the scientific community on the safety of Canadian beef. He went on to say that the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis has stated that there is no body of scientific evidence indicating there is any potential risk to the American consumer in allowing live Canadian cattle under the age of 30 months to enter the U.S. marketplace.
That backs up everything the government, the livestock industry in Canada, and indeed the opposition in this case have been saying, that there is sound science behind our livestock industry, that we have some of the safest food in the world and the border should be open to the sale of those products.
Senator Chambliss, who is a Republican from Georgia, had the following to say concerning the work of the USDA inspection team, which reported on January 24:
The inspection team found that Canada has a robust inspection program, that overall compliance with the feed ban is good, and that the feed ban is reducing the risk of transmission of BSE in the Canadian cattle population.
The USDA report continued by stating:
The Canadian feed ban is not substantially different than the U.S. feed ban.
Then he continued by pointing this out and I agree entirely:
--the Food Safety Inspection Service, FSIS, has audited a number of Canadian plants and found them to be in compliance with U.S. BSE requirements, including SRM...removal.
The powerful National Cattlemen's Beef Association sent a delegation to Canada in January. Senator Chambliss quoted them in his remarks in the Senate:
The Canadian feed industry appears to be in compliance with its feed ban, based on visual inspections and multiple annual audit reports.
The consequence for the United States of the border closure to United States beef by the Japanese has been as frustrating as is the continued closure of the U.S. border to Canadian producers. That is a recognized fact. United States producers are frustrated with the closure of the border by Japan and Canadian producers are frustrated by the closure of the border by the U.S.
In that regard, though, the U.S. senators pointed to the hypocrisy of the U.S. Senate calling for the scientifically unjustified continuing closure of the Canadian border while demanding that the Japanese open their border to the United States on the basis of science. Nothing could be more hypocritical than that.
The fact of the matter is that we have an integrated North American beef industry. It is the most integrated industry that we have between our two countries. The Americans should understand they are going into the Japanese market only when they treat us the same way they expect to be treated themselves by the Japanese. It only makes sense and it should be based on sound science.
Over the long haul, this decision by the Montana judge is going to hurt the American livestock industry in its ability to move forward.
Senator Roberts, a Republican from Kansas, had this to say about the continued closure of the Japanese market:
The international science...says our cattle under 30 months of age are safe and not at risk for BSE. Still that market remains closed to the U.S...The market is not closed because of scientific concerns. It remains closed because of internal Japanese politics....
Senator Roberts continued by saying that keeping the Canadian border closed without a scientific justification is counterproductive for efforts to open the Japanese market. In the last quote I will read to members, he said:
The same international science and guidelines that say that U.S. beef and animals under 30 months of age are safe also say that the beef and animals in Canada under 30 months are safe as well....That is the sound science standard.
I raise all those points because I think it is important to note that we did have a lot of allies in the United States Senate in terms of the debate that occurred there. Yes, the motion went the other way and some are trying to put a ban on the USDA decision to allow our products into the U.S., but it is important to note the argument these senators made. They were making their argument based on sound science. They were making it out of a belief in the terms of the integrated market that Canada and the United States have, and they were looking at the systems we have in place in Canada and recognizing the good systems that we in fact do have in place.
I raise those quotes just to point out to the opposition that yes, there are allies, and I would encourage opposition members here tonight to ally themselves with the government in terms of moving forward instead of using political rhetoric, instead of using the example of the border closure as a way to attack the government. On this issue the House should be united and working together to force the border open, to find other markets and to stand with beef producers and the farming industry in their time of need.
The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food has understood for a long time that regardless of whether the border opens or not we need to do what we can within our own domestic industry to move forward. On September 10 he provided, through the Government of Canada, a repositioning strategy for the livestock industry in this country.
This national strategy, with measures totalling $488 million, quickly began helping the industry move forward toward operating on a sustainable basis, not as profitably as we would like, certainly, but moving forward. That strategy includes continuing efforts to reopen the U.S. border. It included taking steps to increase ruminant slaughter in Canada. As has been mentioned, and I will not go through the numbers again, the numbers are in fact increasing. We want them to increase more.
It includes introducing measures to sustain the cattle industry until capacity comes on line. That was the fed cattle set-aside and the feeder set-aside program and it did have the success of bumping up the price and returning more from the marketplace itself. Yes, that came crashing down when the Montana judge made his decision, but maybe it can assist in the future again.
Finally, it includes expanding access to export markets for both livestock and beef products. This is an area in which the minister has worked very aggressively. He has been very hard at it. The Deputy Prime Minister announced earlier tonight that the opening up of the Hong Kong market is a result of the minister's efforts in that regard.
As for slaughter capacity, I am happy to report that where we were once processing 65,000 animals per week, we are now processing 83,000. The minister has said he would like to increase that capacity to about 100,000 per week because he knows that Canadian producers deserve the opportunity to have their cattle processed in Canada.
So we are in fact moving ahead. We are using the repositioning strategy. As members back in this corner where the NDP reside, they tried to leave the impression that we were not doing anything in that regard. We in fact are and it is having some success.
The Minister of Agriculture has listened to the needs of rural Canadians. He has tried to move forward quickly on that front.
There is no question about it: there is a cashflow and liquidity issue in the country. It has come up and we would expect it to come up in this debate tonight. There is a cashflow and liquidity issue in the country. There is this issue, and it has been admitted that the Canadian agricultural income stabilization program, or CAIS, the new program that it is, has not exactly responded as fully and as aggressively in returning incomes to producers as the government would have liked, but it in fact has been able to roll money out to the agricultural community in record levels.
We have to recognize that. Let us not try to slough it under the rug. We have admitted this. Yes, there is a cash income crunch out there, and the minister has asked me to hold consultations across the country on farm income. I am in the process of doing that. We have held meetings in every province now. We will be trying to focus that into a plan of action. The numbers are severe, there is no question about it. The market has not been returning to producers the kinds of incomes needed to cover their cost of production and a return on their labour and investment. We need to focus on that problem as well as this one.
The fact of the matter is that record amounts of dollars have gone out from the Government of Canada, with $4.8 billion in 2003. There are record amounts of dollars going out to the farm communities to assist them in terms of a safety net capacity and to assist them in their incomes. Of course it is not making them money; it is there as a safety net. We have to try to address that other concern in farm income.
The bottom line is that the minister and the Government of Canada have shown they are aggressively working on this issue through the repositioning strategy, through the programs that are in place and through the additions we made in the budget.
As the minister said earlier tonight, we will stand with producers in their time of need. I would look for some positive suggestions from members of the opposition for a change, things that we can look at, analyze and really use to assist the livestock industry.
