NEWS RELEASE

May 6, 2002                                                                                                               For Immediate Release

THE LIBERAL GOVERNMENT JUST DOESN’T CARE ABOUT RURAL CANADA

“The Liberals are experts at pitting one group of Canadians against another.”

Ottawa – Today, Garry Breitkreuz, MP for Yorkton-Melville, led off the Official Opposition’s supply day debate with a blistering attack on the Liberal government’s neglect of rural Canadians.  “We are a vast country and the vast majority of the people that live beyond the glare of the big city lights are fed up.  They feel neglected by this Liberal government and they are telling us so,” Breitkreuz told the House.  “The Liberals would rather use taxes and red tape until the industries are hurting so bad 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.”

During the debate, Alliance speakers described a range of Liberal action and inaction that are negatively affecting rural industries, jobs and communities including: agriculture, forestry, mining, fisheries and rural development 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.”  Breitkreuz cited three examples to prove his point:

• 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 about animals more than farmers do.
• The Liberals play up to environmental lobby groups by trying to ram endangered species legislation through this House.  But they are dishonest with both environmentalists and with farmers, because the laws they enact won’t protect endangered species, and it will force farmers to abandon their land without being paid fair market value for it.
• 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 data and insurance company actuaries that proves that responsible gun owners are no threat to themselves, their families, their neighbours or their communities.

“Anyone listening today must be starting to see a trend here,” said Breitkreuz.  Last week, Murray Calder, Liberal backbencher from Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey, acknowledged this serious problem in a letter to his caucus colleagues, excerpts of which were published in The Ottawa Citizen:  "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."

“If the government had implemented Reform Party agriculture policies in 1994, many thousands of farmers would not be facing the crisis they are in 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 from the bureaucrats and Liberal back-roomers when the best ideas are right in front of their noses – all they have to do is listen to the people who are on the long-suffering end of their failed policies and programs,” concluded Breitkreuz.

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