Edited Hansard • Number 183
Monday, May 6, 2002
[Supply]
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Supply
Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton--Melville, Canadian Alliance) moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should cease and
desist its sustained legislative and political attacks on the lives and
livelihoods of rural Canadians and the communities where they live.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member
for Medicine Hat.
The topic for today's official opposition motion does not come from us as
MPs but from Canadians. We are a vast country and the vast majority of the
people who live beyond the glare of the big city lights are fed up. They feel
neglected by the Liberal government and they are telling us so. I imagine that
Liberal backbench MPs have been told the same thing by their constituents for
the last eight years, but sadly these common sense appeals from rural voters
have fallen on the deaf ears of the Liberals.
As evidence of this I will cite that over the last couple of weeks a fear
of being dethroned during the next election has been spreading among the Liberal
backbenchers. Some of them have even been brave enough to speak up against the
Prime Minister's dictatorial ways. These Liberal MPs will again accept minor
word changes by the government and consider that a victory. The Liberal elite
laughs at how easily duped they are: A few grants and handouts later, they are
back barking like trained seals.
If the constituents in those Liberal ridings want to see real change,
they should elect Canadian Alliance MPs. We have been in the lead in championing
these issues important to ordinary Canadians for the last eight years. The
government implements our policies, but much too slowly to make the dramatic
changes that are needed to turn our economic engines into economic dynamos. The
Liberals would rather use taxes and red tape until the industries are hurting so
bad that they need to subsidize them.
Only when the Liberals are subsidizing things do they consider their
programs and policies a success. Slush funds and political patronage they
understand; economic development they do not. Slush funds, by the way, are used
mainly to buy votes. If the government had implemented Reform Party agricultural
policies in 1994, many thousands of farmers would not be facing the crisis they
are today. Unfortunately in eight years the Liberals have learned nothing. In
fact they have become more arrogant, anti-democratic and corrupt. They look for
new ideas among the bureaucrats and Liberal backroomers when the best ideas are
right in front of their noses. All they have do is listen to the people who are
on the long-suffering end of their failed policies and programs.
The Liberals are experts at pitting one group of Canadians against the
other and nowhere is this more evident than in the way they have pitted urban
voters against rural voters, the very essence of what we are bringing forward
today. The Liberals play up to animal rights groups at the expense of farmers,
hunters and fishermen. They try to ram animal cruelty legislation through
parliament and make farmers out to be the bad guys when the opposite is true. No
one cares more about animals than farmers do. The Liberals play up to the
environmental lobby groups by trying to ram endangered species legislation
through the House, but they are dishonest with both environmentalists and
farmers because the laws they wish to enact will not protect endangered species
and will force farmers to abandon their land without being paid fair market
value for their land.
The Liberals play up to urban voters by telling them they are doing
something to fight violent crime in the city by forcing millions of law-abiding
citizens to register their guns, this despite data from Statistics Canada and
insurance company actuaries that prove that responsible gun owners are no threat
to themselves, their families, neighbours or communities. Anyone listening today
must be starting to see a trend developing here. Last week the backbencher from
Dufferin--Peel--Wellington--Grey acknowledged this serious problem in a letter
to his caucus colleagues. He stated:
I
believe that unless [the bill] is amended, there will be a perception in rural
Canada that once again a law tailored to urban interests is being thrust upon
the rural community. Those of us representing rural ridings know all too well
the divisiveness and distrust that remains from our government's passage of
C-68, the gun registration law.
That strikes to the very heart of what we are talking about today.
Our speakers will outline failure after failure of Liberal policies and
programs. Today we will describe Liberal legislation and programs that have
failed rural Canadians: legislation like Bill C-5, Bill C-15B, Bill C-68 and
Bill C-4 from 1998, which perpetuated the fiftieth year of the monopoly of the
Canadian Wheat Board. We will describe programs like useless regional economic
development funds and corporate handouts that are really slimy Liberal slush
funds buying votes instead of creating real development opportunities.
We will describe today how rural Canadians have been ignored and
neglected by the Liberal ruling elite while the Liberal backbenchers sit on
their duffs in the House, scared they will lose their perks and access to their
slush funds if they start to really represent the true needs and wishes of their
constituents. We will describe Liberal neglect and mismanagement of trade issues
to the detriment of the softwood lumber producers and the communities where they
live and work, and Liberal neglect and mismanagement of the foreign trade and
subsidy issues to the detriment of Canadian farmers and their communities.
Not only will the House hear a dry, statistical and economic argument
today, it will hear about real people in real communities who are hurting
because of Liberal laws and Liberal neglect.
My own province of Saskatchewan lost 15,000 jobs in the last year alone.
Report Newsmagazine recently reported that the population of Saskatchewan has
dropped by 26% in the last three decades. Saskatchewan should not be a have not
province. Liberal policies and programs perpetuate Saskatchewan's have not
status and it has to stop now. The Liberal failure to allow Canadian wheat
producers to sell their wheat directly to value added processing like pasta
plants is just one glaring example of Liberal neglect and stupidity.
The one area of economic opportunity in Saskatchewan is guiding and
outfitting, but what do the Liberals do? They force every American hunter to pay
a tax of $50 to come into Canada. Many of them stayed home last year, and it
will get worse. Who are the Liberals hurting with this new tax? They are hurting
farmers who are forced into getting into outfitting to help finance the losses
they were suffering on the farm. Again they are at the receiving end of failed
Liberal policies and programs. The Liberals are hurting aboriginal guiding and
outfitting companies, one of the few economic opportunities for aboriginals
living on remote reserves. Liberals would rather pay welfare than get out of the
way and let aboriginal entrepreneurs prove that they can pull themselves up by
their own bootstraps.
What if a farmer needs to go out and buy a new rifle to shoot the coyotes
that are attacking his cattle? The Department of Justice documents put the
regulatory cost of buying a rifle at $279. That is before even buying the rifle
and bullets. That is absolutely ridiculous and the government has the nerve to
say it is not doing anything to negatively impact on law-abiding citizens who
use firearms for their own livelihood.
Before my time is up I want to leave everyone with one last message for
our friends in urban Canada. The Canadian Alliance is not playing the Liberal
game of pitting one group of Canadians against another. We believe that sound
rural and resource development policies create jobs, opportunities and wealth in
urban centres. It is no secret that all the mines are in the north but most of
the money from those mines flows through Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal to
benefit all of the citizens of these cities.
When farmers succeed, the Canadian economy grows and jobs are created in
urban centres. Development of Canada is a team effort. Unfortunately, for the
last eight years the Liberals have been neglecting half of the team.
I predict that in the next election campaign the Liberals will again try
to use labels to smear their opponents rather than discuss the issues important
to Canadians. Today's motion is a key part of the debate that needs to take
place.
Today the Canadian Alliance is saying to rural and northern Canadians
“We know you are fed up and we are not going to let the Liberals get away with
it any more. Like a friend of mine once said “To light a fire you start at the
bottom, and it will spread upwards”. If we want the economy to start burning
we need to get out of the way of our basic resource sectors; we need to stop
pouring cold water all over them and instead get them back on track, be it the
fisheries on our east and west coasts, the farms all across Canada, the forestry
sector, the mining, oil and gas sector, or the tourism industry for hunting and
shooting sports. All these rural based industries are being held back by
destructive Liberal policies or neglect.