These comments are direct quotations from the Hansard
documents.
Slaughter Facilities
Mrs.
Diane Finley (Haldimand—Norfolk, CPC): Mr. Speaker, day after day,
the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food keeps trying to sell us on the
merits of his meager program announced on September 10. Yet it contains
nothing to remedy the great harm done to dairy producers, nothing to
reduce the huge surplus numbers of cull cattle, nothing concrete to open
up the border.
How long will it take before we see any real slaughter facilities in the
east and in the west?
[English]
Hon. Andy Mitchell (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, the reality is that the announcement of September 10 does
contain within it components to build new slaughter capacity that can deal
with culled animals as well. There is a managing older animals program
that is part of the announcement of September 10.
As I have said on several occasions, we feel it is absolutely essential to
deal with the cull animals coming out of dairy operations. I have made a
commitment to work with various political leaders on this with the
industry and we are working toward a specific solution in that respect.
Mrs. Diane Finley (Haldimand—Norfolk, CPC): Mr. Speaker, 532 days
have passed and the border is still closed to Canadian livestock. All the
while members of the Liberal government have given insult to our most
important trading partner. Now they have alienated themselves from the new
Bush administration by expressing their support for John Kerry.
How does the agriculture minister plan to get the border reopened to our
livestock in light of the damaged relations that his government has
created?
Hon. Andy Mitchell (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, it is quite the contrary. Over the last while we have had
over 150 individual interventions with our American counterparts
specifically designed to deal with the BSE issue.
I have met with the minister once personally. Twice we have had in-depth
discussions about this. All members on this side of the aisle have been
dealing with the Americans aggressively to get the border opened. That is
what we have been doing and that is what we will continue to do.
[Translation]
Mr. David Smith (Pontiac, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the cattle farmers in
the riding of Pontiac are experiencing serious problems in making their
operations cost effective, as are their counterparts in the rest of
Canada. One of their main problems is not being able to slaughter cattle
locally.
My question is for the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. Would it be
possible to have our own abattoirs and to sell our meat locally at a price
that would allow the farmers of the Pontiac to make a living?
[English]
Hon. Andy Mitchell (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member makes a very important point and that is the
need to increase slaughter capacity. That is why we did two very important
things on September 10. One was to create a pool of money, a loan loss
reserve, to help in the financing of new slaughter capacity. The other was
to provide additional resources to the CFIA so it could effectively
provide the regulatory framework so that these new slaughter capacities
could be brought on line.
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