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Madam Speaker: The government House leader did not ask for leave to move this ahead, so I will ask or the honourable member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) will ask.
Mr. Steve Ashton (Opposition House Leader): Perhaps if I could be of assistance, there is agreement between the House leaders. We would like to ask leave that Resolution 35 be read today and that Resolution 33 will hold its place at the top of the list.
Madam Speaker: Is there leave to deal with Resolution 35 today and leave Resolution 33 standing in its place on the Order Paper? [agreed]
"WHEREAS the Government of Manitoba has enacted Provincial Land Use Policies; and
"WHEREAS there is evidence that the Provincial Government has not implemented these policies; and
"WHEREAS the Provincial Government has adopted the Round Table on Environment and Economy's 'Principles and Guidelines for Sustainable Development'; and
"WHEREAS the majority of Rural Municipalities in Manitoba have no development plans, nor are they members of a regional planning district; and
"WHEREAS the Provincial Government has not ensured that many rural communities are adequately informed of or properly consulted with respect to location and development of large livestock operations; and
"WHEREAS the Provincial Government has vowed to double hog production in Manitoba by the year 2000; and
"WHEREAS there is currently a large amount of conflict surrounding the locations of hog and other livestock operations; and
"WHEREAS the Provincial Government has exhibited poor planning with respect to hog production in Manitoba and has not taken any responsibility for the conflict that has arisen in many Manitoba communities.
"THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba urge the Provincial Government to conform to Provincial Land Use Policy Regulations and the Principles and Guidelines for Sustainable Development to ensure adequate planning and sustainable development of large livestock operations; and
"BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this Assembly urge the Provincial Government to consider immediately consulting with, cooperating with, and providing guidance and expertise to Rural Municipalities to ensure proper planning of large livestock operations; and
"BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this Assembly urge the Provincial Government to consider providing leadership in ensuring communities and nearby residents are an integral part of any pending proposals for large livestock developments, and also ensuring that these communities are adequately consulted."
Motion presented.
Ms. Wowchuk: Madam Speaker, in beginning with this resolution, I want to say that I want to recognize how important the hog industry is for this province and certainly that we are going to see a growth of this industry in this province. For that to happen, we have to have planning, and we have to have assurances from the government that, when this is happening, it is done in a sustainable way.
We have seen, with the announcement of Maple Leaf and changes that have just been made with the ownership of Schneider's, that there is going to be a great demand for hogs in this province. We know that many Manitoba farmers are looking for alternate uses for the grains that they grow. Especially since the change with the Crow benefit and increase in transportation costs, there is just no way that some of the crops that were grown previously can be grown if they have to be shipped to a foreign market if they cannot be used within the province. That is why we are having a growth in the industry.
There are many parts of the province where there is increased hog production, and it is going along very well, but we know that there are many parts of the province where there are very serious conflicts. I think about the announcement of Maple Leaf in Brandon, and we have heard of several communities where there have been proposed barns. The communities have been very upset, and they have rejected these barns coming into these areas. What we are looking for from the government in this resolution is for government to show more leadership, to do more planning and to give people supports that they need when it comes to having an understanding of the livestock industry.
Now, Madam Speaker, I have talked to many people in rural Manitoba who have said that they do not oppose the industry, but they feel that the government is working along with the proponents of hog operations without giving the support and the tools to those people who have concerns, people who want more information. For people to ask questions about the hog industry does not mean opposition, but many people are concerned. In many cases, they are concerned about water quality, and I think that is a very legitimate concern. Many people are also concerned about odour. I guess if you live right next to a hog operation, that is a concern, but I think that those of us who have grown up on farms, those of us who live in rural communities understand that is part of the operations.
Now, I know that the department, through Manitoba Pork and through funding through this government and some funding from the federal government, there is research being done on how to eliminate odours, so that will not be such a big problem. I think that eliminating odour is only one of the issues because you may eliminate the odour, but you can still have an awful lot of problems with water.
The real issue is how do you manage the waste? There has to be much more work done on that part of it to look at new and innovative ways of managing the wastes and disposing of it. Now, I know that the government has brought in their waste management guidelines, livestock manure and regulations, and that is a help, but there are also some concerns that had been raised by some people with those guidelines, that there is a fair amount of leniency in them and that the minister has quite a bit of discretionary power to make amendments for people who need amendments.
The real issue, Madam Speaker, is planning and looking at how we can have this industry grow in this province. As I said, we know it is going to grow, but there has to be leadership on the part of the province. We have lots of ability there. We have land. We know where all the water tables are. We know where all the different soil types are. I think it would be very helpful if the government took a leadership role and looked at the province and designated areas, because there are areas in this province that are not suited to hog production, and there have been some serious mistakes made as far as the expansion of the hog industry.
We only have to look at the Interlake where there are some areas where hog barns were built where planning was not done properly, and that has put a bad light on the whole hog industry in this province. Had there been better planning done, had there been more consultation done with the public, had there been more consideration given to the fact that the water tables are very high in those areas, there might not be the conflict.
The other area that I think about are the people in Netley Creek, as another example where people are very frustrated because of lack of consultation and their inability to have input. Here was a group of people who said that there was a proposed hog barn in their area; they were concerned about the water tables. They were concerned where the lagoon--how they were going to be disposing of their waste and the amount of land that was available for waste disposal. They went to the Minister of Environment (Mr. McCrae), I believe they went to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns), and raised their concerns saying, look, we are not opposed to the industry, but we want to ensure that a very sensitive area here is not going to be destroyed. They talked about fish habitat, streams in the area, and they were worried about contamination. Again, they could not get the support, and they feel like they are being shut out from government.
Today, we talked to people who are just out of Portage la Prairie, in the Elie area, again where there is a proposed hog barn. The people who live in the area feel that the operation is too big for their area. They feel that there is again a risk to their water. In each case, when people come to us, they have said we are not opposed to hog production. I think the minister has heard this as well. People who have questions to ask are not opposed to the expansion, but they want to ensure that it is done sustainably.
Granted, there are going to be those people who are going to say, sure, let the hog industry expand, but not in my backyard. There will always be those, because it does not matter what kind of industry you are going to do, people may say, yes, I support it but not in my backyard.
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Most of the people who have been talking to us are concerned about the water supply. I think that we have many municipalities that are not doing proper planning. There are no planning districts. They do not have zoning by-laws, and I think that is one of the things where government could show some leadership, where they could be saying, well, yes, there is going to be growth, different kinds of things happening in the province. The municipalities should take the responsibility of planning for this. Then we would avoid many of the conflicts that we have, because what we have seen in many areas is one area has zoning by-laws but another one does not, and they just end up being outside the area, outside of that particular municipality, and again we run into conflict.
So what we are asking for out of the government in this resolution is that this government take more of a leadership role, not that you just say, yes, we are going to have the hog industry expand, and there is money available for hog expansion--that is one side of it--but plan for the future to ensure that 20 years down the road, 30 years down the road, we have not created problems that will result in water being contaminated.
The other issue we talk about is the spreading of manure on the land and the risk of too much nitrate being built up. What we have to do is ensure that we have the proper staff within the Department of Environment to monitor that lagoons are operating properly, that we do not have the nitrates building up in the soil. We raised this issue with the Minister of Environment (Mr. McCrae) during environmental Estimates, and he agreed that this government, after having cut the staffs of the Department of Natural Resources, Department of Rural Development, is going to have to put more staff into place to ensure that we can do the proper monitoring.
Madam Speaker, I would also encourage the government to work with municipalities but not to use a heavy hand on it. Give them supports that they need to develop, give them the direction that they should be going. A concern that has been raised, brought to our attention, is that when municipalities are doing their zoning by-laws, doing their planning, they are given direction from the Department of Rural Development that they should not be passing by-laws that are going to curtail the expansion of hog barns. So we have to give the municipalities the tools that they need, give them the ability to put by-laws in place, but do not try to restrict them when the by-laws and the regulations that they put in place do not conform with the ideas of the provincial government.
I think that the hog industry will grow and it can be done in a sustainable way but with leadership from government. The government will take the leadership role when barns are proposed that they will, if they are not in the right area, just take a leadership role and ensure that they are not building there.
The Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay) talked about dual marketing being leadership. I am sorry, I would have to disagree with the minister. I would have to say that move by the provincial government was a move backwards, and I have to say that had it not been--
An Honourable Member: Everybody is happy.
Ms. Wowchuk: The minister says "everybody is happy." The producers are not happy, and were it not for the strong leadership role that Manitoba Pork is taking and ensuring that they could still offer some protection and some guarantees for producers, even though the government had tried to dismantle any protection that the producer had because, you know, you cannot just think about producing more hogs for the packing plant, you have to think about the producer.
In every area, Madam Speaker, it is always the farmer at the bottom of the line who does the most work for the product, who ends up getting the lowest return. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns), members of the government have to think about this group of people who produce the food in the country who are ending up not getting a fair return. We have the grain producers who are not getting a fair return for their product because of changes to the federal government that have made high costs for transportation. Then we have this provincial government who speaks as if they support marketing boards and orderly marketing, but even though a majority of the farmers said that they wanted the single-desk selling maintained, they proceeded on their path to take away single-desk selling. I have to say that we did not support them on that issue, and we will not. That is one of the issues that we will agree to disagree on.
Certainly, on the issue of planning there is the opportunity for the province to take a real leadership role and ensure that we have sustainability. At the present time, it seems to be going. Although we have waste management regulations, there are other areas, there is much more that we could be doing with planning and that we could ensure that the industry grows.
One of the things that I think that I want to mention in closing, Madam Speaker, is that we have to look at ways that we can sustain the family farm. All operations do not have to be large operations or megabarns. The statistics show us that megabarns are not good for communities, they are not the big job creators that people would like us to believe, but family farm, smaller operations have the least negative impact on communities, whereas very large operations have much more negative impacts on communities.
I think that the government should think about the population in your rural communities, the lifestyle of people in rural communities, and ensure that those people who choose to live there have the ability to make a living and continue to live in a safe environment and an environment that will be sustainable for many years to come.
The hog industry will grow. Let us work. Let us see some planning from this government that will encourage smaller operations and work along with municipalities and, rather than restrict municipalities in what they want to do and the by-laws that they want to bring in, make sure that they give them the tools, but also do the research and zoning and planning of the province to ensure that we do not end up with operations in areas that are very sensitive.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Hon. Harry Enns (Minister of Agriculture): Madam Speaker, I am truly thankful to the honourable member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) for this resolution because, regrettably, I say regrettably, we do not have frequently enough the opportunity to discuss the most important activity that goes on in the province and in the land.
There would be no hospitals to talk about, there would be no personal care homes to talk about, no schools or universities to talk about or worry about whether they are being funded properly if, as the honourable member for Swan River said, we did not do such a basic thing. We as farmers produce food.
The whole question of civilization as we know it comes from when the first surplus food was being produced. For the better part of the odd two million years, if you go by Leakey's Lucy, when we started roaming around this world, you know, we spent all our waking hours gathering roots and berries to feed ourselves and our immediate little family and clan. It was only when we started producing some additional maize or corn, some additional livestock, probably something like that, that we had the time to develop philosophers, educators, doctors, poets, musicians, and the like. So I welcome this opportunity.
Madam Speaker, unfortunately, though, the member, I have no desire to be unkind to her, because she is a decent person and I believe tries to represent her constituents as best she can. I am a modest Minister of Agriculture, although the member for Interlake (Mr. C. Evans) likes to put a crown on me once in a while and taunt me with phrases of King Harry or Prince Harry and this kind of stuff, but the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) knows that is actually not true, that I am very modest.
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You know, I seldom blow my own horn about some of my accomplishments, and now she forces me to break that self-imposed rule because at least she could have stood up and acknowledged that I have created possibly the best situation for hog producers that they have ever seen in this province by bringing together two massive companies like Smithfields and Maple Leaf to create the competitive situation that all producers could only wish for their products and that can ensure the best possible price for their pork.
Madam Speaker, it was not that long ago that we had hog farmers up in the public galleries concerned about the leadership that I was exercising. I am told there were even some hog farmers, Conservative hog farmers, that found their way into the New Democratic Party Caucus room to express their rue There were some of them that for a moment thought maybe that they were losing faith in the government and the Ministry of Agriculture and the course that they were embarking on. Where are they today? They are busy doing what they do best, producing the world's finest pork in ever increasing numbers.
Now, what the honourable member for Swan River does not acknowledge with her resolution is that in the province of Manitoba, unlike the Carolinas, unlike Taiwan, unlike Holland, unlike Sweden, unlike Denmark, where they grow a lot of hogs, we are probably world leaders in ensuring that we do it in a sustainable way. The one area where she could have been supportive, and I would have supported her--and that is what these debates are supposed to be about--she could have called on us and called on government to give the Department of Environment more resources.
I want the Department of Environment to be strengthened. I want them to have a greater capacity to ensure that the regulations that we are passing in increasing numbers and that the farm practices that we are imposing in some cases, and some cases by education, on our farms and our producers, that we have a stronger monitoring, a stronger enforcing, a stronger policing, if you like, capacity. That would have been a legitimate position for a responsible member of the opposition to take this time in the House to call upon me to try to convince my colleagues to keep on leaning on the Minister of Environment (Mr. McCrae) and support him when he asks for these kinds of additional supports. That would have been a helpful addition to this kind of debate.
But let me just for the record indicate what has happened in the last little while. The Planning Act is presently undergoing review. She talked a great deal about the need for providing the municipal governments with additional planning capacity. We have, as she acknowledged, just recently passed additional livestock waste regulations under The Environment Act. We have had, and it is really just getting started and getting more effective, a farm practices guideline for hogs, beef, dairy and poultry producers that has in place legislation and a quasi-judicial board; a Farm Practices Protection Act, that provides the board with a means of dealing with legitimate complaints that neighbours bring up from time to time.
Madam Speaker, it is not always hogs. I know we tend to profile hogs. One of the current complaints that is before the board right now is coming from a potato farmer for having spread some potatoes after cleaning out the culls of his barn in a manner that is unacceptable to a neighbour, and the board is looking at these kinds of complaints. That board was not there prior to that legislation being passed just a few years ago in this Chamber by this government and by this--no, I was going to say by this minister, but, in fairness, it was the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Findlay) that passed that.
We have set up, established formal regional technical review teams that put the best of our expertise in the Department of Environment, in the Department of Rural Environment, in the Department of Natural Resources, in the Department of Agriculture, to review these plans for the industry and to provide that information to local and to municipal governments. We have, of course, in addition to that, specifically challenged the industry to establish a manure management strategy for Manitoba with the stakeholders providing most of the dollars for that. Those are just some of the things that we have talked about.
Madam Speaker, just in the few minutes remaining to me, let me understand and let me appeal to honourable members opposite. It is so important. It is a creator of over 12,000 or 14,000 or 15,000 jobs. Manitoba Pork, I congratulate them. They just in the last little while are putting out of their own dollars over $200,000 to train. We are looking desperately for 120 or 125 or 150 people to establish into the hog industry with the necessary skills to run these new barns.
I am not oblivious to the fact that the honourable members say that large is not the answer for everything and that there is room for the smaller barns, but I am not living in a totalitarian state. She likes the idea that government should be planning everything. People make their own decisions. You know, we do not have anybody in the province with 300 or 400 or 500 chickens laying in their barns or 300 or 400 or 500 broilers in their barns. They are all megathousands. Why is that? They are all working under supply management. They are all working under the single-selling desk.
When the single-selling desk was established for our hog farmers in the province of Manitoba by an NDP administration in 1972--a voluntary one was established by a Conservative administration in '64 and '65, but it was made a single-selling desk in '72--we had 5,000 hog farmers in the province. In the intervening 24 or 23 years, when I took the single-selling desk, we were down to 1,700 hog farmers. What happened?
I will tell you, Madam Speaker, what happened. It is lifestyle choices that rural people are making. Rural people want the same kind of lifestyles as our urban cousins want. They want weekends off, they want regular holiday time off, and that is what is driving this move to largeness. The only way you can do that is by having the larger units where people have regular work hours, have regular holidays, have regular kinds of lifestyles that then can accomplish that. That is not going to change. That is not being driven as an ideological position by this minister or this government. That is simply a matter of fact.
Madam Speaker, I commend this resolution to honourable members. I refute that it is not indicative of any sense of awareness of what really is going on there, but it is kind of, and she confirms it by her hidebound insistence that dual marketing is still a mistake, that it is still not, you know, good for the industry, that given a chance her group or her party would roll back the clock to yesteryear.
So, while I welcome this opportunity and I hope other members will have an opportunity to discuss this very important issue, I have to reject totally the principle behind the resolution before us because it simply has not taken account of what is really happening in the hog industry, what the Ministry of Agriculture is up to, and what the other departments of government are up to.
We are determined that we can provide this very important economic opportunity for not just our hog farmers, but for our rural residents, in the first instance. Surprisingly, you know, some of us received the electoral maps recently which shows kind of the pluses and gains in population on the map. You can tell the rural municipalities that have gained 10 or 12 or 14 percent of population by the number of livestock units in the electoral district. You can tell those that have lost by the fact that they do not have--and the member for Brandon East (Mr. L. Evans) knows that in the southwest, even in my constituency, which moves to central, I lose 5 percent of the population because I do not have enough livestock units in my barn. It is just that simple.
So, if we want a reasonably healthy rural setting, if we want to create the kind of economic background that can reasonably support our educational systems, that can reasonably support our health systems, that can reasonably provide the roads and transportation infrastructure needs that we need in a big province like that, then it is criminal, Madam Speaker, to neglect the opportunity that the hog industry provides, the pork industry provides, and the livestock provides, generally speaking, in the province.
The carefully worded resolution that is before us that talks about lack of leadership in this area, that talks about the concern of the sizes, that talks about putting more regulatory power in the way of taking advantage of this thing like that, is not one that can be looked upon as one that is progressive in this day and age.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.
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Mr. Leonard Evans (Brandon East): Well, I always enjoy listening to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns). He always has an interesting tale to tell. I do not always agree with him, but on a lot of things I do agree with him. We are all agreed in this House that we need to have a secure, stable and growing supply of hogs to support, hopefully, a growing and thriving hog processing industry creating jobs for Manitobans in urban areas and in the rural areas as well.
But my colleague the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk), I do not think at all has been negative in proposing this resolution, and by no means was she suggesting that we should not do everything in our power to enhance the development of hog production in Manitoba. Far from it. What she is doing, in a very positive way--maybe we do not know all the great things that the government is supposed to be doing because the minister did ream off a number of initiatives being taken in his department and the Department of Environment, and maybe we are not all that familiar with some of those detailed developments; but I think what the member for Swan River is doing is expressing a legitimate concern that there are some problems out there, particularly at the municipal level.
I get calls from all over Westman, as the MLA for Brandon East, on many issues, and I have been getting quite a number on the hog farm problems. I do not even know these people. I do not know what their politics are, and that is beside the point anyway. I mean, I think probably most of them vote Conservative, I would imagine. In Westman, most people seem to vote Conservative, unfortunately.
An Honourable Member: It is a blue map out there.
Mr. L. Evans: Yes, Brandon East is like a little island in there, in a sea.
An Honourable Member: Well, we are working on that one.
Mr. L. Evans: Well, you have been working on it for 30 years.
So I get these phone calls. I got one a few days ago from a lady from Hartney, and she was really upset. I do not know whether the Minister of Agriculture's (Mr. Enns) office also got the same call, but they were concerned about what the municipal council was doing. Again, they were not opposed to pig farming. They were not opposed to that, even though she lived nearby. She was concerned about the conflict of interest, I would think, of one of the councillors who also had an interest in the pig operation that was being proposed or that was being developed. So that is a legitimate problem of government, I suppose.
Maybe it is a separate issue, you might say, one of conflict of interest, but I think that is an example of some of the problems we have got out there at the municipal level; small communities, small numbers of people, it is easy to be involved. Incidentally, she was not critical of her council. She thought her council was pretty good, and they were doing a fair job, but she said, look, there is this problem here. This one fellow is involved in the process, and he is on the decision-making body of our local R.M. So there is that problem of conflict of interest.
I think the other problem we have at the municipal level is they do not have the expertise. I suppose they could go out and hire consultants. That is a possibility.
An Honourable Member: We provide them.
Mr. L. Evans: You provide them? Well, it seems to me that some of the--again, I do not have all that detailed information. If you do that, that is great, but it seems to me that was the failing, that some of the municipalities were making decisions because they did not have as much information as they should have. Again, I do not think anybody is being negative about this. It is a matter of doing it properly. I mean, you want to ensure a growing, long-term supply of hogs in the province, but you do not want to create animosity among the public so that you get pressures from the public that would perhaps in the long run cause government to play an inhibiting role. You do not want that. So it is a matter of good planning; it is a matter of good public relations.
In countries--and again, I do not know much about what goes on in Holland. The minister referred to Holland. I hope we are going to do a better job than they have done, but there is a lot of animosity. Mind you, they are a very crowded country. I think they have the highest density of population of any country in the world, believe it or not, and that can create problems. But the people are very unhappy about that, and I guess some of their hog farmers are looking at possibilities in Manitoba, which is good. I am glad. I would hope we can get some of those Dutch farmers because they are good farmers. Nevertheless, there is a real public relations problem there and, perhaps, major environmental problem, and you do not want to get that here so that people would become negative on that.
You know, there are people that are bringing forward petitions. I saw one earlier today, a copy at least, signed by hundreds of people in Brandon. They were talking about environmental regulations and the need for better regulations. They were not referring to the hog--well, they were referring to the hog plant being developed in Brandon, but they were also referring to the pig farming, to hog farming, about these matters that we are talking here.
So what I am saying is that the people out there have concerns. I would say if there are two issues that seem to be growing around rural Manitoba in terms of dissent and concern, one is health care and the other is hog production. People are beginning to rumble. They are certainly not happy with health care. I mean, I read letters to the editor in the Brandon Sun from all over the Westman area, people complaining about what is happening to health care in their area. I get phone calls from people in various communities--Killarney, Wawanesa, and so on--expressing complaints about the health care situation in their area, whatever it might be, whether it is what is going to happen to their hospital or whether it is medical supply or whether it is having to hire private nurses to go into a nursing home because the nursing home does not have enough staff, whatever, but I am getting the same type of thing developing with hog farming. People are becoming concerned. You read it in the papers, you hear it on the media, and we get the phone calls. So I suggest to the government that these are two areas of political concern and should be a political concern to everyone in this Legislature.
I agree with the minister, if you want to sustain rural population, you have to have economic operations. What has happened, even though some of us are unhappy about the Crowsnest Pass Agreement being abolished, that certainly has had a positive effect in terms of causing farmers to look for other markets to maximize their return. As a result, as Mr. McCain of Maple Leaf Foods said in his speech in Brandon, you know, one of the main reasons for choosing Brandon as the hog plant location was that this would be the epicentre. Western Manitoba would be the epicentre--I do not know whether that was exactly his words--of hog production because of--well, of course--the ability of the land, because of the Crowsnest Pass rate and all the implications, the transport costs and all that, and that this was a great area of great potential and that was a sound economic reason for locating it.
Yes, they liked government incentives, but beyond government incentives, you have to have a good, sound economic basis for choosing. Wherever you are choosing Winkler, Morden, Brandon, Winnipeg, wherever you are going, you have to get your economic facts straight and know where you are going to minimize your cost so that you can maximize your profits.
I agree with the minister. I was pleased to hear the minister say that we need more environmental regulations. I do not know whether to go again on all the details here, but I think he was pleading for more leadership from the Minister of Environment (Mr. McCrae) in this respect.
I listened to a friend of mine. We had a meeting in Brandon a few months ago, and my colleague the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) was there, and we were talking about the whole area of hog production and so on. One of the people present was Dr. Bill Paton of Brandon University. He has written a lot on regulations of the hog industry in protecting the environment and so on.
He told a story about this very successful hog producer in the United States, in Pennsylvania. He had a hog farm, and he had such a terrific operation the way he did it that he even got a medal from the state, an environmental award. His neighbours are very sensitive people. They are lawyers, they are community activists and so on, but everybody was happy with him because he had a really great operation. He was a successful hog farmer, but he did it in such a way that there was no problem in terms of the environment. The community was happy. The state recognized his contribution.
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So that is the ideal. It would seem to me, if I could be so bold, that it might be easier to cope with environmental concerns if you had more small units, lots of smaller or medium-sized units rather than huge conglomerates. It seems to me just the size, you have a few conglomerate type of operations, you are going to have more environmental problems than if you had many, many small or intermediate size operations. I think that is sort of a fundamental rule.
Of course, someone who is more expert than I might say, yes, but we are going to have better controls, we will have better disposal of waste and all the rest of it, but it seems to me, therefore, that it might be in the public interest to do whatever we can to provide as many incentives as we can for the small operators so that we do get the adequate supply of hogs from more small operators.
I do not know exactly what the definition, again, I do not know that much about it. I have some friends who are in the hog growing business, but I do not know exactly what the magical cutoff is between small, medium and large. I mean, you can argue that one way or the other, but it seems to me that that is a way for government to go, to do everything possible to provide incentives for smaller and medium-sized farmers.
As I said, Madam Speaker, my colleague the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) has put this forward in a very positive way, simply calling for adequate planning and sustainable development of livestock operations. We have been talking about hogs, but this goes beyond hogs. It goes to all types of livestock. Although I have talked about hogs, and that is very important, nevertheless, we have to recognize the beef industry as well and the entire livestock industry.
So I am not sure whether the minister is going to support this resolution or not, based on his speech. It did not seem he was totally negative, maybe on one side this, on one side that, but, nevertheless, it would seem to me that it is a resolution worth supporting, calling for adequate planning and sustainable development. The minister may feel exasperated because, as he said, well, we are doing all these great things. He enumerated some of them, although he did say that maybe we should be doing more in Environment and we need some more regulations, we need to be more active there, and I guess we would agree with him as well.
So I guess it is a matter of being concerned about the problem and doing everything possible that we can to maximize hog production but, at the same time, ensuring that we are protecting the environment so that the people of Manitoba can, as they say, have their cake and eat it too. You know, we can have the production, but we can have it in such a way that people are relatively satisfied and appreciate the fact that this is basic to our agriculture and that our agriculture is basic to our economy.
So, Madam Speaker, with those few words, I would hope that the members opposite could support the member for Swan River's (Ms. Wowchuk) very positive resolution on this very important matter. Thank you.
Mr. Jack Penner (Emerson): Madam Speaker, I have been listening with significant interest in the debate on this resolution. I am not going to be quite as kind as my honourable colleague the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) was to the mover of the resolution. I think this is one of the most mischievous pieces of documents that I have seen come before this House, and I will tell you why.
It says here, it calls into question virtually every process that the province of Manitoba has put in place. It calls into question the independence and the integrity of the municipalities dealing with development. It calls into question The Planning Act. It calls into question the Department of Environment, and it calls into question the land use policies that this province--and I am not so sure whether it was this government or the previous administration that, in fact, drafted the land use policies, but they are calling into question the adequacy of the land use policies and the principles and the guidelines of sustainable development.
Well, it was this government that had not only established the principles and the guidelines under sustainable development; previously, there were none, Madam Speaker. I do not fault them because it became politically in to develop and talk about sustainable development. I am not so sure whether the Conservative Party, in fact, did not coin the phrase "sustainable development," and I was a member of the round table when we started seriously discussing sustainable development and the principles under which that was enshrined.
The interesting thing is that this resolution does three things: it identifies government, No. 1, as the enemy; it identifies clearly the pork packing industry as the enemy; it identifies aggressive agricultural people as the enemy. That is what this document does, and then it identifies those people that we have elected in rural Manitoba as the enemy because these councillors and reeves that we elect locally to make our local municipal, local government decisions are now being called into question by this document and by the NDP party in this province as the enemy because they are not doing their job.
Ms. Wowchuk: On a point of order, Madam Speaker, the member who was just speaking has just said that in this resolution we are outlining the packing industry as the enemy, the government as the enemy and a municipality as the enemy. I would like you to call him to order and actually have him realize that he is inaccurate.
That is not what the motion is saying at all. What we are asking in this motion is for leadership, some plan for sustainability, co-operation between various levels of government, and I would ask him to speak to the motion, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker: The honourable member for Swan River did not have a point of order. It is clearly a dispute over the facts.
Mr. Penner: Madam Speaker, I recognize the sensitivity amongst the socialists of dealing with this kind of resolution. As I said at the outset, this was the most mischievous resolution that I have seen come before this House because it allows anybody now to take this document and put it on the Internet and somebody else coming along and taking these little excerpts out of this document and going out in public and quoting from the document. That is what the problem is with these kinds of resolutions.
If the honourable member and the NDP party in this House would have been responsible, it would have wanted to have dealt properly with the issue of hog production and proper planning and the proper identification of the lack of, if you will, regulations and/or livestock waste management. I think they could have said it. I think they could have pre-empted this whole debate by saying we recognize that the government of Manitoba has done a tremendous amount of work in the last six months in bringing forward good waste management policies, good manure management policies, putting forward farm practices guidelines for not only hog production, but beef production as well as poultry production. It has put in place a farm practices act that is second to none in all of Canada, and it has really put in place technical review committees for which, when I attend municipal meetings in rural Manitoba dealing with hog operations, they are very thankful that they have that kind of expertise to draw upon to help them make decisions.
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Madam Speaker, I find this document interesting because this document really calls into question whether we should allow municipalities the right to make decisions for their people in their own areas. That is what this resolution really does. I think that calling into question the provincial land use policies, which I believe have gone very serious reviews over the last while, and if we still had the Land Use Policy, I think that, quite frankly, the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk), and I am not sure whether she drafted this resolution but must have read the old NDP land use policies that were in place before 1994, because we did make some very significant changes to them.
I want to say one other thing. This whole issue of increased livestock production in this province of Manitoba was not initiated by the Province of Manitoba. This increase in livestock production was brought about by necessity. It was necessary for farmers to look at ways to utilize a product that had become almost valueless simply by one decision of a federal minister, and that was to do away with the support of transporting feedgrains out of this province. That support was a value of $750 million to western Canada, which has now been taken away in perpetuity, which was by the way promised by the then Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and put in place into perpetuity, and that means, in my words, forever we would have Crow benefit. That has been eliminated, so that means that the grain that farmers once were able to put into export position out of this province is no longer feasible to do.
So that means that those farmers that we want to retain in the agricultural community at all in this province, we must look for alternatives. That is exactly what our farmers have done. They have become innovators, and they said out of this adversity appears an opportunity. So they created an opportunity out of an adverse situation. They started looking at livestock as the alternative. Those of us that toured the province a couple of years ago looking at value-added initiatives or for ideas, and the honourable member for Turtle Mountain (Mr. Tweed) was certainly there and so was the honourable member for Morris (Mr. Pitura) were on that tour, and we heard time and time again the reflection on the huge cost that grain farmers now would have to bear if we were still wanting to only do as we had done previously; that is, grow it, box it, and ship it. I am referring to our grain products. Yet, they said, no, we do not have to do this. We can start doing things for ourselves. These are farmers. These are not large corporations taking over the hog industry. These are farmers taking over the hog industry.
We were very fortunate in being able to demonstrate to corporations such as Maple Leaf that we, in fact, in this province could raise enough hogs or attract enough hogs into this province to attract a world-class hog processing facility such as Maple Leaf into Brandon, Manitoba. I noticed how carefully the honourable member for Brandon East (Mr. L. Evans) worded his remarks today just to make sure that he was not in conflict with his colleagues, yet very supportive of the building of one of the class acts in hog production in Canada, which will happen in his town, as a matter of fact, in his constituency. I know how appreciative his constituents will be because they will be able to find jobs at home now, and that is really what we are talking about. That is really what the honourable member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) is drawing into question, whether we should, in fact, try and encourage our young people to stay at home to raise hogs on their farms and to become partnerships in this hog processing and producing facility or industry and, in fact, become investors in the livestock industry in this province.
Whether we like it or not, Madam Speaker, this industry of agriculture is changing and changing dramatically. It is about time that we as a government got on, jumped on the same train that the farmers are on. They know they are having to change whether they like it or not, and some of them do not.
But there is another issue at stake here. That is that many of the complaints that the honourable member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) has heard, many of the phone calls that she is getting are not from farmers. They are from people living in rural Manitoba that chose to move into the rural communities and live beside farm communities that never had a hog or a cow or any other livestock. They were grain producers. They lived right next door to them, and they said that this is just where we want to live.
Now they are facing the situation where these grain farmers are having to make dramatic investment changes, and all of a sudden the air smells a bit different in the morning. Those are the complaints they are getting. That is what we as government have to deal with. Are we going to allow farmers to maintain their industries in rural Manitoba, or are we going to allow and bend to the whims of those that choose to live out there but not participate in the agriculture community, live there and try and drive the policies for agriculture?
If that is the case, if that is the NDP policy, and if that is their move towards rural diversification, then I say they are on very weak and soft ice. I would suspect that, if they take too many steps forward, they will plunge into very cold, cold water.
I do not think that this kind of resolution is doing the agriculture community any favours at all. This is a slap in the face to municipalities and the decision-making process that goes on in every municipal council chamber. The autonomy that we as a government, as a Progressive Conservative right-wing government, are intent on keeping in place, is the ability for those municipalities, municipal councillors, and rural people to be able to make their own decision.
That is what this document calls into question, and I think that is deplorable. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Environment): Madam Speaker, there is an old expression that goes like this: either lead, follow, or get out of the way. You know, listening to the debate this afternoon, I am pretty sure the New Democrats--well, I am positive the New Democrats are not in any position to lead; they do not know how to follow; and the farmers and environmentalists and everybody else in this province are saying to them: get out of the way, because you are simply--nobody understands what is going on.
It is a good thing there is leadership on this side of the House, because the air is clear in Manitoba thanks to sustainable development policies of this government. Production is very much expected to increase significantly, and it will happen in a sustainable environment thanks to the policies of the government on this side of the House. The production would not be happening if it were not for the forward-looking thinking of the agricultural part of our caucus and cabinet, most especially the Minister of Agriculture; but, in order for all of this to happen, in order for all this growth to be happening, to do it successfully so that we can be doing it, this generation and the one that comes after us, it has to be done in a sustainable way.
Now, I have seen over and over and over again New Democrats standing in the way of development and using--
Madam Speaker: When this matter is again before the House, the honourable Minister of Environment (Mr. McCrae) will have 14 minutes remaining.
The hour being 6 p.m., this House is adjourned and stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow (Thursday).