- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Cypress Hills—Grasslands
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $112,746.42
- Government Page
- Sep/20/23 3:50:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to present a petition signed by the great people of Cypress Hills—Grasslands, who have been facing consecutive years of drought.
One of the many ways the Liberal government has made life difficult for farmers is that it banned strychnine for dealing with out-of-control gopher populations. The petitioners are calling on Health Canada to reverse the decision and support the province of Saskatchewan and the province of Alberta, which have both spoken against this, because there is already sound scientific evidence proving that strychnine is effective and also safe to use when used properly.
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- May/3/23 8:45:04 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-6
Madam Speaker, that is a great question because, too often, big government comes in and ruins it. It consults with the wrong stakeholders. When consultations were being done, the government website said that there was a lot of emphasis put on online participants. We do not even know where those online participants were from. They could have been from Europe, for all we know. Would they have the best interests at heart for the land, for the ranchers, for the producers, but also for the species at risk there in the park? Absolutely not.
The local people know what the balance is there. In this particular instance and many other instances, a hands-off approach by the government would be preferred. It would be way more beneficial, both to the species and to the producers.
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- May/3/23 8:43:49 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-6
Madam Speaker, the point that the hon. member raised is actually a very important one. If we are going to implement recovery strategies, local knowledge is of utmost importance, and there is no more important local knowledge than that of the indigenous people, whether it is up in Nunavut, or in the northern part of the Prairies, or even in the southern part of the Prairies. They have been on the land for centuries, for a very long period of time. Again, getting back to that local knowledge, people who have been there and have a long history of being there have seen how species change, how species can adapt, how the land has transformed and changed over the years, and what the delicate balance is there.
I think it is extremely important that we rely on local knowledge. The member has that part of it right, absolutely.
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- May/3/23 8:30:45 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-6
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time this evening.
I am going to use a lot of my time to talk about something that is really important in my riding, so much so that it is even included in the name of my riding, which, of course, is Cypress Hills—Grasslands.
In southern Saskatchewan, we are blessed to have one of the most ecologically sensitive areas in the entire world, and that is Grasslands National Park. If people are wondering how it all relates to a government bill on federal regulations, I can assure them that it does.
In part 3, clause 85 of Bill S-6, it deals specifically with the issue of species at risk. That is where the bill makes reference to an organization named COSEWIC, which the government has identified as the only organization to be used for determining whether a species belongs on a list and to determine what level of concern there should be. This is the type of issue facing Grasslands National Park. For the moment I will try my best to fill everyone in on the background story that is involved in this.
To say the relationship with local stakeholders and producers has been rocky at best would be an understatement. During the park's early days, in classic big government fashion, the government booted the local ranchers out of the park and refused to let them graze the grasslands, stating that they were doing so to protect species at risk but also to protect the native prairie grass.
However, over time, the number of species in the park dwindled and declined, and the quality of the grass deteriorated. Researchers began to notice that all of the species at risk had relocated themselves out of the park to the other side of the fence and into the private ranchers' pastures. Why would that happen? Well, without a true keystone species to graze the grass, many of the smaller species became easy targets for their predators to eat.
Of course, it used to be the case that buffalo were the keystone species for that area. When that changed, it was possible, in their absence, for cattle to replace them as the main grazers and managers of the land in the park. That is what happened until the government decided to put a stop to it.
Once all of the bureaucratic interference was removed and the ranchers were allowed to graze in the park once again, the grasslands began to flourish and the vibrant species all returned to the park along with the cattle. It showed that there is a very delicate balance to be maintained between nature and human activity. They can work together and they can benefit each other.
There was a good balance in the grasslands until some people from the government decided they knew better and needed to fix something that was not broken. It sounds very familiar to many issues that we face today. Let us fast-forward to present day and see what is happening in the park.
As I mentioned earlier, the government has appointed a group named COSEWIC, which stands for the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, through the Species at Risk Act, as the official designator of species at risk by making recommendations to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
At the time, there seems to be no accountability mechanisms for the actions of COSEWIC, and Bill S-6 is not changing that. To add to this, the adversarial role the government has taken toward the local stewards of the land has become a growing disaster once again in Grasslands National Park.
The difference is that the ranchers have a built-in incentive for taking the absolute best care not only of the grasslands, but also the species that exist within and around the fences of their pastures.
COSEWIC has identified the black-tailed prairie dog as a threatened species. It is not yet listed as a schedule 3 species at risk but the fact that it is even on such a list makes one wonder why that is.
The black-tailed prairie dog is a species that thrives not only in Saskatchewan but all the way down through the United States to the Mexican border and probably even further into Mexico itself. A quick Google search would actually verify that all the way through the United States there is a very vibrant population of this prairie dog.
Despite the readily available information, does COSEWIC take that into consideration? Does the minister even bother to check into it himself?
Again, we have the issue of human interference with nature by COSEWIC and other scientists.
For example, anyone who has ever lived in Saskatchewan knows that when there is a drought or dryer conditions, gophers and these prairie dogs thrive and can rapidly overtake an area. I have seen entire quarter sections of crop and hay land completely disappear within two years or even less. However, this is what COSEWIC's website states:
The Black-tailed Prairie Dog is a burrowing and colony-forming member of the squirrel family and is confined to only 12 square kilometres of grassland habitat in southern Saskatchewan. Initially assessed as Special Concern by COSEWIC in 2000, increasing threats posed by droughts and a bacterial disease could rapidly eradicate this species.
This is where local knowledge is vitally important, yet COSEWIC refuses to utilize it. The prairie dog is not confined to 13 kilometres. Ask any rancher around the park. The species has spread and is continuing to spread in the regions the researchers apparently have missed.
Those involved on the agricultural side are more aware of what is going on. This is something one has to get right if one wants to properly manage the local wildlife.
Remember what I said earlier about the effects of grazing on species on the park. I will now bring up another more recent example. The prairie dog and the sage grouse are intertwined with each other. The prairie dog eats the roots of sagebrush as they are tunnelling in the ground, but the sage grouse needs the same plant for shelter and to protect itself from other species that would be looking to eat it. If the prairie dogs overtake the park, it is going to eliminate their shelter and chase the sage grouse out of the park.
The problem can turn out to be different depending on whether there are too few prairie dogs or we are at risk of having too many. How does nature control populations of mammals in the animal kingdom? There are two main ways. There are others, but the two that are most important are predators and diseases.
However, COSEWIC is interfering in nature's natural course, everything from dusting for fleas to hand feeding prairie dogs, which is causing them to not gather food and get themselves ready for winter as they become reliant on humans to feed them. With all this, it seems like history may be repeating itself with Grasslands National Park. If we do not act with accurate information and if we do not try to maintain the right balance, this organization will mess with and continue to ruin a delicate ecosystem.
The most frustrating part is we have seen this kind of thing happen before. I heard many people share their concerns about it for a very long time. The government's own website admits local stakeholders have a difference of opinion, but the department and its activists do not care.
The people of southern Saskatchewan demand accountability and they demand respect from the government. These are multi-generational ranchers who have seen to the sustainable development of grasslands for over a century, and this rogue organization with no government oversight is causing problems. There is no need to get in the way of ranchers' way of life, especially when doing so will put more species at risk onto the list.
The park is important both environmentally and economically, and those interests go together. If it is not maintained well enough due to errors made by the government, the local municipalities will also suffer from the lost revenue. We are dealing with an imbalanced approach to the environment that is showing signs of failure.
In many ways it is similar to the problems we are seeing with developing our natural resources, which is also mentioned in Bill S-6. It is nice for a change to have a government bill that wants to reduce regulatory burdens instead of expand them, but the changes are too small compared to what is really needed.
When one thinks about the bigger picture, we are not yet seeing a full-scale reduction of over-regulation when it comes to our energy or agricultural producers. Right now, there are still farmers who are afraid that at any moment the government will restrict their use of fertilizer even though they are doing the best they can to use less of it while growing more food to feed the world. At the same time, if the government is going to do that, it is also pushing ahead with a fuel standard that creates more demand for the same crops required for food and for biofuels. The last thing those farmers will need is higher demand while being able to grow less of their product because of government regulations.
There are also some incoming electricity regulations which the Premier of Saskatchewan is deeply concerned about. These new regulations keep coming along while the Liberals want to pretend they care about efficiency with Bill S-6.
I will also say time and time again the Liberal government's signature policy of impact assessment has been stopping resource development across the board. This has definitely been the case for pipelines in the oil and gas sector, but it is a lot more than that too.
In my work on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources or in meeting with energy stakeholders, I keep hearing about different projects left in jeopardy because the impact assessment is unnecessarily burdensome. We are talking about not getting ahead with critical minerals, which the Liberals always try to boast about. For example, we are not on track to source enough lithium for EV batteries in terms of our trade agreements. They have been ignoring this problem for years.
Impact assessment prevents mining projects from getting started because they will take too long. It can create problems with forestry. More recently, there has been talk of potential problems coming up for nuclear energy as well. This is about investment coming into our country and over-regulation in a lot of these areas, which a bill like this should be addressing but is not.
Our Canadian prosperity was built on natural resources. That will remain true for the future. At the moment, the Liberal government's policies are getting in everyone's way. It is managing to destroy our successful industries while also getting in the way of any future industries it says we need to support.
Sadly, Bill S-6 is yet another missed opportunity on the part of the Liberal government. It does not go far enough with removing gatekeepers or improving the lives of Canadians.
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- Oct/24/22 12:18:03 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park is a very unique and diverse ecosystem. It plays a very important role, obviously, in many industries in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. What is interesting about it, though, is that it is right in the heart of the Palliser Triangle. The Palliser Triangle is an area of the country that, when the country was being developed, was deemed to not be suitable for humankind. Drought is not something new. It is a naturally dry area of the country.
Cypress Hills generally gets more snow and rainfall than most other regions of the province, because of its unique nature. There is definitely drought in the areas right around it, for sure, but looking at the average snowfall, there is a lot of moisture there. We had a blizzard come through just this past weekend. At least we are seeing a good shot of moisture coming into the area.
We cannot control the weather, unfortunately, but again, having policies in place that will enable our producers to manage the grasslands and manage the forests helps prevent disasters and crises from happening in these ecosystems. Grasslands National Park is a perfect example of that, where the government in the eighties banned the grazing of the pasture land and we saw all kinds of issues in the ecosystem. Once it was opened up for grazing again, the balance was restored, and they have thrived ever since then.
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- Oct/19/22 4:53:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to present a petition on behalf of the citizens of Cypress Hills—Grasslands. They are concerned about the government's arbitrary ban of strychnine for the use of the control of Richardson's ground squirrels, otherwise known as gophers. They cause a lot of damage to farmland and to grassland, and they do damage to both the economy and the ecosystem. Therefore, petitioners are signing to ask the health minister to repeal the ban of strychnine use for the control of Richardson's ground squirrels.
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- Apr/27/22 2:21:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, farmers have begun to plant their crops for the year in western Canada once again.
Western Canada was built on a hope and a prayer, and today it is no different with farming in Cypress Hills—Grasslands. There has been below-average moisture for multiple years. I know farmers are already praying for timely rains this year. They also need the Prime Minister to quit punishing them with ridiculous policies based on false claims about their industry. First it was the carbon tax, and then the clean fuel standard and harsh emission reductions for fertilizer production. Uncertainty and sky-high input costs come from an out-of-touch Prime Minister. Now he wants to go after wheat growers as a supposedly high-emitting sector. Arable farmland sequesters over 9.5 megatonnes of CO2 every single year in Saskatchewan alone. Enough is enough.
Producers across this great country just want to be left doing what they do best: produce food for a hungry world while taking care of the land and the communities that we all love. Thanks to the Prime Minister and his continued attacks on the west, it is becoming impossible to do either one.
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- Mar/28/22 4:19:39 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, it was a pleasure to serve with the member on committee in the last Parliament. I really appreciate his question, because it is important to know that great water and grazing practices are extremely important to the survival and the revitalization of our native prairie grass. We saw in Grasslands National Park a number of years ago that there was a move to remove all grazing from the park. The problem was that the species at risk left the park too, because there is a very important relationship there between keeping grass grazed and providing the protection that those species at risk need from the predators that are trying to get them.
When it comes to species at risk, the grasslands and grazing practices are so important. They sequester more carbon. They do a better job of that, and the biodiversity that exists there is better supported when we have modern grazing practices, not by removing them from the land.
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