John Solomon

[Supply, October 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to provide the member with that information. Reading might give him a new dimension in terms of the facts. The Canadian Petroleum Products Institute provides this information which shows all the provinces across the country. Saskatchewan is about the fifth lowest when one considers all those that have gasoline taxes. I think it is very important for a member like him to start reading some of this.

[Supply, October 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am always happy to answer questions about the provincial government in Saskatchewan, although this is not the correct forum.

The member raises a number of issues. He talks about credibility. I have some little quotes by him and other colleagues of his in the House of Commons from various policy books about how the Reform Party wants to eliminate the agriculture subsidies faster, harder and quicker so that there is not even the six cents on every dollar the farmers are receiving now. Reform wants them to have nothing, not just six cents.

What Reformers are looking for in this forum are tax cuts because it is the honourable thing to do. They talked about their priorities. They are so busy cashing CNR and CPR dividend cheques that they do not have the interests of the farmers at heart.

There are some tax situations in Saskatchewan that are higher than most. I remind the Reform member that it was his coalition of Reformers, Liberals and Tories who bankrupted Saskatchewan in the first place. They were elected in 1982. They took a province that did not have one dime of debt and $2 billion in heritage funds, and in nine years put the Saskatchewan government $16 billion in debt for one million people. Now they are saying there are high taxes. They should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves. They are the ones who put the people of Saskatchewan in this pickle, along with their colleagues across the way.

Let us talk about credibility. The member for Yorkton—Melville says that Saskatchewan has the highest fuel tax in the country. He is not only incorrect, he is wrong. Saskatchewan actually has the fifth lowest tax regime on fuel which should be directed more into the agriculture situation. Out of the 15 cents a litre that is collected in Saskatchewan on gasoline, about 80% goes back into the transportation programs such as highways and roads. Maybe it should use the whole 100%, as I have advocated here that the federal gas tax should be used 100% on rural transportation in rural Canada, not just in western Canada.

I want to point out for the record that it was their government that gave away the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan in 1980 which provided $100 million a year in revenues to the Province of Saskatchewan. That was for potash that was sold outside the province. There was new American and foreign money coming in with high wages, high production and great revenues, plus another $150 million a year profit that it was making. They gave that all away. Guess what? Jobs were lost and the debt increased. They left the debt with the taxpayers and gave away all the assets.

We now have Chuck Childers, the now retired president of the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, going around the country saying what a great success this privatized corporation is. There are no more revenues going to the province. His salary is paid in U.S. dollars. He will not take Canadian dollars. He hired American vice-presidents to work with him and they are getting paid in U.S. dollars. I am not saying that is good or bad, I am just outlining this as fact. That is the way it is now under a Reform kind of crown corporation system.

I think the people of Saskatchewan would look at that in a very negative way. They did not support this in 1991 or 1995. I do not think they support it now.

[Supply, October 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary dealt with two issues, the first being that the New Democratic Party has had a very strong agricultural program in every election since, as I can recall, 1952. We have program cards. I was looking at one the other day that was from the 1953 or 1954 federal election. In every campaign since 1953 or 1954, we have supported the Canadian Wheat Board and have said that we would fight to retain the Crow benefit. That has been in every one of our policies including our policy of the last election. However, the Crow benefit is gone.

In response to his second question, yes, we do believe the WTO is an important organization for our country and all countries, but the problem we have had is not with the hon. member opposite but with his colleagues before him who were trade ministers and gave away the farm. They had no strength with which to negotiate. They said that 20% was a good idea but that they were going to do 100% because they were good. And they were good, really good. They were so good that they have sacrificed half of our farm population in western Canada, and that is bad.

What we are looking at here is an organization that does have opportunities for us. We have to go to Seattle and try to get the subsidies on agriculture readjusted so they are more fair. In the interim until that happens, because it will not happen overnight and will probably take years, I would suggest to the parliamentary secretary that he stand with us and with the farmers. The member represents a rural constituency and he knows the importance of these sorts of programs. He should stand with us and help our farmers out west to get what they need to survive at least another year. It is certainly what they deserve.

[Supply, October 25th, 1999]

It is almost as big as the Moosomin World-Spectator . It is probably bigger than that.

There are some very serious implications. I said earlier that it is not just the farmers who are hurting. Let us look at the spinoffs. Just imagine if half of the farmers are out of business in the next 12 months in western Canada. What will happen to the co-operatives, the credit union boards and those businesses? What will happen to the hairdressing salons, the cafes, the gas stations and all of these other businesses and small businesses in the communities? The A & W in Davidson, for example. I guess that is going to be gone. There are all kinds of important implications to this.

When that happens, the tax base is lost and, voilà, we end up with no transportation system at all, or one that is crumbling faster than it is now. We end up with an education system that is at risk and potentially will not withstand the upcoming disaster. We will see our health care system totally collapse in rural districts. It was a way of life that many people preferred to choose.

I have letters from all kinds of people. A few are from children who are in school. They are students in grades 7 and 8. A student from Creelman, Saskatchewan wrote to the Minister of Finance, saying:

Farmers need financial assistance soon or many will go bankrupt. Without farming many other people in agriculture related jobs will also be without work. Rural Saskatchewan as we know it will not exist. Please help our farmers. In doing so you will be saving our province.

I have letter from another student. He talks about being a fourth generation farmer.

The possibility of me farming is very slim. Both my parents work off the farm and have rented their land out.

The purpose of my letter is to discuss the farming situation in western Canada. I live in southeast Saskatchewan. In the past four years, our family has had poor crops, poor prices, and escalating costs of machinery, fertilizer, chemicals, and fuel. Every cent they had went into the farm.

Here we have a young generation that will not be farming because of these agricultural policies initiated by the government opposite.

Companies such as Flexi-Coil, which used to employ 1,800, is now employing 350 or thereabouts.

What do we need? Farmers need immediate cash. In Saskatchewan alone the number is at least $1 billion.

Second, we need stronger representation at the WTO to have other countries reduce their subsidies in the longer term.

Third, we need tax cuts on fuel, fertilizer and chemicals. We need to address those sorts of taxes.

Fourth, we need to cap the freight rate on our transportation system for grain.

Finally, we need a fully financed AIDA program which will be there as a whole farm income plan in the event of future disasters.

[Supply, October 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House of Commons today to discuss the farm crisis in western Canada and other parts of the country. This country has a farm income crisis that is unprecedented and has not been seen since the depression of the 1930s.

I represent an urban rural constituency. There are 37 rural communities and a number of farm families who live in and between those communities. They are having a very traumatic time with respect to their industry, their livelihoods and their futures.

I want to say a number of things today about what has transpired and what may transpire in the future. I want to focus on the priority of helping farm families and keeping our agricultural way of life. I want to talk about that and the four reasons that we are in this situation today. Everyone knows why we are in this situation. I want to elaborate on a few of the reasons. There are four major reasons.

One is that the commodity prices are in the dumpers. They are way, way below prices that we have ever seen before. Today farmers are getting for grain what farmers got in the 1930s, the same dollar, not the same dollar value. That is a very serious situation.

Two, we have seen a huge reduction in subsidies and supports for farmers while other countries have maintained their supports.

Three, we have seen large increases in huge input costs over the last two or three years. They have gone unfettered in terms of taking away farmers' potential earnings and so on.

Of course, the fourth reason is natural disasters. There have been a lot of natural disasters. We will get to all of them, but I want to talk first about the crisis.

It is my view and the view of the farmers in western Canada that the Liberal government has abandoned western prairie farmers. There used to be the Crow benefit, a transportation subsidy. It was provided to our western farmers in perpetuity by law because of the $14 billion to $20 billion in assets that we gave the railway companies to provide that Crow benefit.

What have we seen over the years? Successive Liberal and Conservative governments have allowed the railways to spin off all those assets, the mining companies, land companies and all the other assets that were given to them to subsidize some of that grain transportation. Governments have encouraged them to spin these companies off. They have left the railway companies all by themselves trying to make a profit on the farmers' backs. On top of that governments have deregulated the railway industry to a degree where they have allowed the railways to do whatever they want concerning branch lines. They have abandoned branch lines all over the place.

The government is abandoning its obligation to support western agriculture after successive governments have allowed billions and billions of dollars to be sucked out of the western agricultural industry.

Four years and four months ago I was at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France. I went there as a delegate of this parliament. For members who do not know, all the European countries meet four times a year. Their members of parliament go there to talk about issues which are common to their countries and common to the world, actually.

I went to the agriculture committee. I asked the members of that committee in Strasbourg, France what they would be doing with their subsidies for agriculture. At the time the Liberals said that WTO makes it mandatory and we have to eliminate our subsidies for farmers. That is what farmers were told. The Liberals eliminated the transportation subsidy. Those farmers from Europe told me “We will not reduce our subsidies for farmers. We have five years to address the subsidy issue for our farmers. If you think for one moment we would sacrifice our farmers for the U.S.A., you are gravely mistaken”. That is what they told me. It is in their Hansard .

Here we are four years and four months later, the only government out of the 38 members of the Council of Europe, the U.S.A. and Canada that has abandoned its farmers. The only country is Canada, the best place in the world in which to live, for everybody except farmers.

Here we have one of the major reasons for the crisis out west. There has been nothing in terms of supporting that.

The second reason is the drop in commodity prices. Commodity prices are dropping because every other country has received subsidies. My colleague from Palliser spoke this morning about the subsidies. The Americans have committed $23 billion to their farmers plus another $13 billion, for a total of $36 billion to the American farmers. That is supporting their farmers.

Are our Liberal ministers going to the states saying “This is GATTable. This is against the WTO. This is terrible”. Not a peep, and on top of that not a dollar for western grain farmers. The Liberals talk about the AIDA program and the $900 million they are giving. Everybody got it, except Manitoba and Saskatchewan farmers and some Alberta farmers as well.

When I was in Strasbourg, France, four years ago talking to the farm oriented members of parliament for Europe, they told me that their subsidies were in the vicinity of 55 cents to 60 cents on the dollar. Ours with the Crow benefit was 19 cents, and the Americans at that time were at about 42 cents.

Now we are getting six cents on the dollar for every dollar farmers earn and the Europeans are getting 56 cents, almost 10 times more than Canadians, and the Americans are getting six times more at 38 cents on the dollar. Is this how our government has negotiated?

My colleague from Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys made a speech in the House not long ago when he showed Canadians the negotiating position of the Liberals. He was on his knees for most of the speech because he was talking about the Liberal negotiating position.

We have seen a betrayal in terms of the loss of subsidies to our farmers. It is totally unacceptable.

One farmer told me that in this current world of the Liberal agricultural policy he feels like a kamikaze pilot with a two ship quota. That is what all western farmers are feeling right now because of the ineptitude, the betrayal and the purposeful abandonment.

For the first time since the 1930s we have seen the Liberals encourage farmers to demonstrate and to protest how they have been treated by the federal government. They are demonstrating across western Canada.

My fear, and farmers tell me this, is that if continued betrayal happens we will not have demonstrations, I fear there might be violence. I do not want to see that. I tell my farmers not to do that. I do not know what they will do until they get some support from the government.

What do farmers get for their commodities? When we go to the grocery store and buy a $4.50 box of shredded wheat, farmers get less than four cents out of the $4.50. Where does the money go? It does not go to farmers. That is part of their problem.

The third reason we are in this pickle is because of increasing input costs. There is a fuel tax on diesel fuel for farmers. The federal government takes about 12 cents a litre on that tax and it does not spend a dime on roads or transportation in western Canada.

My advice to the government is that when it is looking at how it deals with western farmers maybe it should put some of the fuel tax into an agricultural support program.

We have seen transportation costs skyrocket. I talked the other day to a farmer near Craik in my constituency. He sent three carloads of barley to the marketplace. One carload of the three was for his transportation costs. Now we have serfs in our country working for the railway and grain companies. All the farmers want to do is make a living for their families. They are prepared to pay their fair share, but they want some respect and dignity from the government opposite.

We have seen fertilizer, chemical and pesticide costs increase. Taxes on those should be reduced or eliminated for our farmers.

The most incredible increase in costs has been the downloading of equalization payments and moneys to the provinces in health care and education. They have been downloaded directly to the farmers. They have to pay higher costs for education and health care from their properties, businesses and family farms because the government was, in the words of the minister, continuing to defend the interests of farmers. With friends like that we do not need any enemies in western Canada.

The farm crisis is totally invisible to Ottawa. The throne speech did not have one reference to the farm crisis. We are hoping that there are some people opposite who are prepared to support our rural farmers.

The fourth reason we are in this pickle is because of natural disasters. We have seen floods, frost, drought, hail and pestilence, but the greatest natural disaster has been the Liberal government opposite. It does not seem to understand how to put an agricultural emergency program together.

Some 13 months ago I raised the question of assistance for farmers in the House of Commons. We called for an emergency debate. The government opposite turned it down. About 18 months ago my colleague from Palliser, our agricultural spokesperson, raised questions in the House about the impending crisis. It fell on deaf ears because the Liberals were too busy doing other things. We see a Liberal government opposite which does not have an understanding of what agriculture is all about.

I was at the airport the other day when a cabinet minister came up to me and said “What is it you have in your hand?” I said “What do you think it is?” He said “Is it rice?” I said “No, it is grain. It is wheat”. He did not understand what wheat was. I found that quite incredible.

We need an agricultural program like AIDA which has to start covering negative margins. It has to start covering a longer term, not just three years but over five years. The government would be well advised to take the advice of the farmers out west who say if we are going to have an emergency agriculture disaster assistance program, then maybe it should help agriculture producers directly.

We have seen in Saskatchewan and Manitoba that less than half of the farmers are qualifying for AIDA. I had a call from a farmer just last week who was in tears because he has had a negative income for the past two years. He received a call from AIDA in Winnipeg saying “We can't give you any money because you don't qualify”. He told me that he will be finished by next spring. Unless he receives emergency aid his farm will be gone.

That is one of hundreds of farmers with whom I spoke over this last summer. These farmers are desperate. Their eyes are gaunt. They look like they have been abandoned by the federal government. All they want is an opportunity to play on a level playing field in order to produce a product which is necessary in this world, food. That is all they ask. They do not want to be subsidized all the time. They want to have a fair, level playing field.

We have a government that does not seem to get it. Instead it sends Mr. Kroeger around, who says that what we should do is take the cap off the transportation of grain. We have already seen transportation costs triple since the Crow benefit was eliminated. The government, in the words of the parliamentary secretary to the minister of agriculture, continues to defend the interests of farmers in international trade negotiations.

The government is really doing a great job. Railroads are expanding in the United States and we are helping them. We have two railroads in this country, one that we paid for but never owned and one that we used to own but never paid for. Now we have two railroads that we have paid for in both ways and someone else owns them and they are expanding everywhere. When I asked the railroads if they would give the farmers a break on their transportation costs because they are making all of this money, they said “Maybe, but maybe not”. Now the government is asking for the freight rate cap to be taken off.

The NDP is the only party in the House of Commons, and in this country, which supports the retention of the cap on freight rates. There should actually be a rollback to make farming more affordable for these people.

We have three kinds of farmers in Saskatchewan. One-third of them are making it year by year. If they have a bad year they might make it to the second year with certain supports. For the middle third, if they have a couple of bad years in a row they can still make a go of it. The other third does not have any land or equipment debt. That is the structure of the agricultural community in Saskatchewan.

What is tearing at my heartstrings and what I am pleading with the government to listen to is that I am talking to more and more farmers in that top third who have no land debt and no capital debt who are telling me they may farm one more year and then they will be gone because they now have to borrow on about one-third of their property assets to put in the grain next spring. They have to buy fertilizers and other inputs. They are going backwards.

If the top third are in jeopardy, or contemplating leaving, what is happening with the other two-thirds?

I am told by many sources that up to half of our farmers in Saskatchewan alone, in Manitoba and probably Alberta as well, may be out of business in the next 12 months if something is not forthcoming that is fair to them in this competitive world.

I talked to members of the co-op boards. This does not only concern farmers. We know that the Liberals wanted to restructure agriculture. When the member for Wascana, the Liberal natural resources minister, was parliamentary secretary to Otto Lang from 1974 to 1979, he and Otto Lang tried to get rid of the Crow benefit. The member for Wascana, who was re-elected, came back and did it himself single-handedly, thanks to the good training of Otto Lang. The only party that opposed that move was the NDP in the House of Commons.

Here, unfortunately, four years and five months later we are saying that it has been a disaster, as we said it would be. We are asking the government to reconsider that approach and to help our farmers as soon as possible.

I spoke to a farmer near Govan, Saskatchewan. He has 10 quarters of land that he has been farming for 30 years. There is no debt on the land. His equipment is paid for. His children have moved away from the farm. He told me that he may have one more year left to farm and then he is out of it. That is a very serious situation.

If the Liberals are not listening to these points, I have one more they should pay attention to. A former federal Liberal candidate in the 1984 election who farms in my district said to me that last July or August he sent in his Liberal Party membership card. He was a colleague of government members. He ran with them shoulder to shoulder in an election campaign in the past. He is a farmer and he is saying that he is sick and tired of the Liberals. They have abandoned, betrayed and butchered farmers and he is done. He is no longer a Liberal card carrier. He sent his Liberal membership back to a cabinet minister.

There are some very serious situations. I do not know if the dramatic situations that farmers are talking about will materialize. However, in local newspapers, such as the Davidson Leader , which is a newspaper in my constituency and in that of one of my colleagues in the Reform Party, the headlines say that the minister of agriculture should resign. The Davidson Leader is a very important newspaper in the rural community that I represent.

[Supply, October 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, in the parliamentary secretary's remarks earlier he said, “We will continue to defend the interests of farmers in international trade negotiations”. That is what he said.

Four years ago when the WTO said that countries should start looking at a 20% reduction of subsidies in their agricultural sector, the Liberal government, as the parliamentary secretary said, defended the interests of farmers by not taking 20%, 30% or 40% off the subsidies in Canada. It took 100% of the subsidies with respect to grain and oilseeds production in western Canada.

Does he sincerely believe what he just said, that he will continue to defend the interests of our farmers in the future? They are reeling from the Liberal policies of the elimination of the Crow benefit and other subsidies. How can he possibly hurt the farmers any more? We would like to know because the farmers should be getting ready for the onslaught and the butchering of their agricultural life by the government. Can the parliamentary secretary answer how he is going to continue to defend those types of attacks and persecution of our farmers?

[Supply, October 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, through the AIDA program I think we have seen some very significant payouts to other parts of the country, excluding Manitoba and Saskatchewan. I suppose that AIDA provides farmers in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada with some substantial subsidies, but we have a huge problem.

The hon. member for Chatham—Kent Essex may not know this, but in western Canada approximately 46% of our farmers are grain and oilseed farmers who may not be in business a year from now because of the policies of the Liberal government.

Could the hon. member share with us the secret with respect to the AIDA program that pays such great amounts of money to farmers everywhere except in Saskatchewan and Manitoba? Why is the AIDA program targeting and persecuting farmers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba while helping farmers in other parts of the country?

[Petitions, October 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am very pleased to present a petition on behalf of the constituents of Saskatchewan, in particular Prince Albert, Saskatoon, Regina, Moose Jaw, Weyburn, and parts of my constituency as well, communities such as Duval, Strasburg, Davidson, Craik, Tugaske, Eyebrow and other places.

The petition calls upon the House of Commons to take a very important measure. The petitioners are unhappy with the fact that the Senate is undemocratic, is unelected and is unaccountable to the people of this country. They are really, really unhappy with the fact that two senators who have been charged and found guilty of fraudulent matters are continuing to receive huge paycheques from taxpayers through the Senate. The petitioners ask that the House of Commons abolish the Senate immediately.

[Gasoline Pricing, October 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the consumer price index shows that the price of energy, the linchpin of our economy, is driving inflation hard. Overall energy costs are up 13% over the past year, but gas prices are at record highs.

These high energy prices are driving up rail and trucking costs and reducing the disposable incomes of Canadians while giving big oil companies record profits.

Why has the Minister of Industry ignored the competition problems in gasoline retailing when the clear result has been record high gas prices, higher inflation and the potential for higher interest and mortgage rates? When will he start protecting consumers instead of big business?

[Grain, October 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, 82% of Saskatchewan farmers support continued regulation of freight rates and 63% want the wheat board to keep its role in the grain transportation system.

However, the Liberals are pressing ahead with their crazy plan to deregulate the rail transportation system. Deregulation has been a colossal disaster for the airline industry, but deregulation in the grain transportation sector is even worse.

Freight rate costs to farmers have tripled since the Liberals cancelled railway cost reviews and killed the Crow benefit, while rail service to branch lines was cut back. The result, railway profits have doubled and thousands of farmers are going bankrupt from skyrocketing input costs, record low grain prices and cruel Liberal policies.

Justice Estey, Mr. Kroeger and the Reform Party want the Liberals to remove the freight rate cap, but it will cost thousands of farm families their livelihoods.

The NDP is the only party fighting for farmers to keep the cap on freight rates.

When will the Liberals stop this economic insanity of persecuting western farmers?