Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on this bill and to congratulate the member for Pickering--Ajax--Uxbridge on the initiative in the matter of the Competition Act. I want to take the few moments I have today to talk about what I think is of primary importance in the need for more competition, and that is the wholesale sellout of the country, particularly to our neighbours to the south.
Just before I get into the substance of my remarks, I want to refute the Alliance Party member who led off this debate and point out to him, and anyone else who might be interested, that, yes, mail could probably be delivered in the city of Calgary for 19 cents a letter as opposed to 50 cents a letter. What would that do for the people in Drinkwater, Saskatchewan, or Pense, or Avonlea, or Mossbank or some of the other places where it costs a heck of a lot more money to deliver services. Part of the rationale of Canada is to have companies that provide services which are standard and not to cherry-pick, which is essentially what the member for Calgary was suggesting.
Since the free trade agreement was signed, 13,000 Canadian companies have been sold to foreigners, the majority to people in the United States. The pace is quickening. The dollar volume of sales last year was double that of the year before, which was itself a record. Recently, some of the largest companies in the oil patch have been taken over: Anderson Exploration Ltd., West Coast Transmission; and now Canadian Hunter Exploration Ltd.
We are soon to be a shell of our former selves. We are witnessing a hollowing out of this country. I predict the day will not be far off, as the oil and gas sector is sold to all of the folks in Texas and Colorado, that Calgary will become hollowed out itself as the head offices of companies move south to the United States because that is where the good jobs are. Young Canadians will be forced to leave Canada to take part and to try to compete for those good jobs. That will put additional pressure on programs of which we are proud and for which we continue to fight, such as our health care system, education, the post office and other essential public services.
Today we have seen another example at the border in Windsor. We are talking about greater integration of our immigration, customs and other laws with those of the United States. I submit that this intrusion into Canadian affairs is totally unwarranted. We can co-operate with the U.S., as we should, but as others have pointed out, there is no reason to capitulate, give up our sovereignty and become the 51st state of the union. However that is the way things are going with our devalued dollar. We are selling off our resources at fire sale prices. We have to stop and consider what the future will be.
I want to talk specifically about competition and mergers in the food industry because there has been a dramatic market power imbalance among agrifood, the multinational corporations and the family farms.
Let us consider the input side of agriculture. We have the oil industry, the fertilizer industry, the seed companies, the chemical companies and the major machinery manufacturing companies. On the downstream side, we have the grain companies, the railways, the packing houses, the processors, the retailers and the restaurant chains. Almost every one of those 10 or 12 areas that I have mentioned is dominated by between 2 and 10 multibillion dollar multinationals.
For example, three companies retail and distribute the bulk of gasoline and diesel. Three companies produce most of the nitrogen fertilizers. Nine companies produce all of the pesticides. Three are major farm machinery companies.
To put it more graphically, in 1998 farm revenue in Canada grossed $29 billion while Cargill grossed $75 billion. The return on equity was 0.3% for farmers in 1998 but between 5% and 50% for agribusiness.
While farmers grow cereal grains such as wheat, oats and corn and earn negative returns, Kellogg's, Quaker Oats and General Mills get a return on equity of between 56% and 222%. To put it another way, a bushel of corn sells for about $4 but a bushel of cornflakes sells for $133.
The corporations that make the product, transport it, package it, process it and sell the food are making billions of dollars along with the corporations that make the tractors, fertilizers and pesticides, but it is not coming down to the farm level. Unless and until that happens the country is in a bad way.
We see it with oil and gas, as I mentioned earlier. The Americans will take all that. They will not take the softwood lumber. They will not agree to that. They seem to be dumping steel products in Canada. We have a dispute going in that direction so in Canada we need to sit down and have a major look at where it is headed, because it is headed to the United States. That is where we will end up if we do not take action and take it quickly.