News Release

October 1, 2002                                                                                                          For Immediate Release

THRONE SPEECH IGNORES PROBLEMS IN AGRICULTURE

“Spending spree proposals ignore farmers.”

OTTAWA – Garry Breitkreuz, MP for Yorkton-Melville, reacted with dismay at the speech from the Throne given by the Governor General yesterday in the Senate Chamber.  The most disheartening fact for Breitkreuz was that agriculture was hardly mentioned during the entire speech.  “Our lame duck Prime Minister has been so preoccupied with creating a “legacy” of his term in office that he neglected real problems facing real Canadians.  We’ve had one of the most devastating droughts on record, coupled with infestations of grasshoppers, but during the entire speech agriculture was only mentioned in passing,” stated Breitkreuz.

The Speech, which was mostly the same old promises made since 1993, was an opportunity for the government to address the needs and concerns of Canadian farmers.  The Agriculture Policy Framework, which was announced in June and again mentioned in the Throne Speech, does not fully address the problems facing agriculture such as high input costs, foreign subsidies, and natural disasters.

“Rural Canada got the short end of the stick from this throne speech.  The agriculture Policy Framework, which the government said it will keep implementing, has not been signed by either Quebec or the country’s largest agricultural producer Saskatchewan.  The government has been giving empty promises along with its failed recycled ideas.  Farmers are fed up with government proposals,” said Breitkreuz.

All Canadians, not just Rural Canada, were short-changed in this throne speech.  Here are some of the important items that were missing:

• Reduced taxes for individuals, small to medium sized businesses, and farmers
• The implementation of a “Made in Canada” alternative to the Kyoto Protocol that takes into account the impact on our economy and agriculture
• An agricultural crisis management fund to help producers when natural disasters strike
• A concerted attack on the debt so that programs in the future can be adequately funded

“Today's Throne Speech has no plan, no details and no price tag.  Most of what was in today's speech was simply recycled from past Liberal agendas.  Many of the government's "new" showpiece initiatives have been tried before in one form or another - and have failed miserably.  The Liberal Government's so-called legacy seems to be the repackaging of past failures,” stated Breitkreuz.

“The Prime Minister is under the belief that you can spend your way into the consciousness of the Canadian People, but what he has done is ensure that he will be remembered for squandering the hard-earned money of Canadians.  If he really wanted to leave a legacy he would have been much better off to allow ordinary Canadians to decide how to spend their own money.  I don’t know why we even had a Throne Speech, because there was nothing new in it.  The country cannot afford the same old ideas outlined in it.  I hope Liberal M.P.s will join us in rejecting the Speech,” concluded Breitkreuz.

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