Vic Althouse

[Petitions, May 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is very thick. It is from virtually every resident of the Arborfield, Zenon Park area and represents those who use the Arborfield subdivision of the Canadian National Railway which now serves an excellent grain producing district as well as a large alfalfa dehydrating plant employing some 40 people. Without the line the future of the plant and the village of Arborfield is in doubt.

They ask, therefore, that the Parliament of Canada support Canada's rural way of life by rejecting the policy proposals now before it which lift the prohibition orders on branch lines and instead develop agriculture and rural development policies for Canada in which rural citizens are considered to be necessary humans with spiritual, social and economic needs; not to treat them just as statistics.

[Petitions, May 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present. The first petition concerns the provisions of Bill C-68.

The petitioners wish to express their opposition to the universal registration of long guns, restrictions and controls on the purchase of ammunition and the undue use of regulation by order in council.

They therefore call on Parliament to refrain from passing Bill C-68 as it presently stands.

[Old Age Security Act, May 15th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, on May 8 I rose in the House and asked the Minister of Transport to explain why the government appeared to have changed its policy outlined in the red book of resisting U.S. influence in the economy and in our nation by leaving the share offering that he was proposing in his commercialization bill for CNR open to foreign purchasers.

In the minister's response he said: "I have not seen any major changes in the way Canadian Pacific Railway operates and handles its shipments, as opposed to CNR". With that, he apparently was attempting to justify the fact that on a one time only offering of shares for ownership and control of CNR it would somehow come out with a similar kind of shareholding as Canadian Pacific.

I think the minister failed to recognize that Canadian Pacific began under the guidance of the government of the day and that there was an initial policy of Canadian ownership and control, even though some of the capital came from Great Britain and the United States. That tradition of existing shareholders, ownership, and control continues. It is not very likely that the balance of control over CPR would change overnight, as is possible with the CNR commercialization offering, because the shares will be offered all at once. If there are no Canadian bidders or purchasers it could conceivably all fall into the hands of foreigners, with the only control being that no one purchaser could hold more than 15 per cent.

I noticed that when the group that investigated commercialization for the government looked at it, they were attempting to answer the question of how competition could be encouraged to ensure that pricing and outcomes are not affected by the duopoly nature of railways in Canada. They were also asked to describe how the rationalization and abandonment process could be improved to ensure that efficiency and equity are addressed.

It seems to me that the proposal I put forward of putting the first share offering directly into the hands of farmers, because the amount of money is roughly the same as what is going to be netted from CNR after the brokerage fees are taken off and because the government had already decided to allocate $1.6 billion toward that end-that a different use of those funds would in fact allow for true competition because the users would then be the owners of the railway and it would be in their own interests to keep the prices for the service of the railway as low as possible. This would in fact force a new, never before seen kind of competition onto the rail sector in this country.

I cite as an example the kind of competition that resulted on the prairies in the elevator system in the teens and twenties, when farmers began taking over the ownership of government owned elevators at that time and the elevator system became truly competitive. For the first time in 20 years of buying grain, a truly honest, fair weight and fair pay were given.

This is the kind of thing we could expect if the government would accept the proposition that there are other ways of commercializing CN that would put full control directly in the hands of the users not just of owners.

I stress to the government that the question of control is even more important than who owns CN, the people who decide who will be the board of directors. Those directors would be making the decisions to operate the company afterward. If those directors had to respond and be responsible to the users, the resource industry which in this case would be the farmers, it would be a big step toward true global competitiveness.

The minister has said that he does not think farmers want to own CNR. He said outside the Chamber that he has some doubts they would be able to operate the CNR. I point out that they have a lot of experience outside of farm operations which has proven to be very beneficial to them, their communities and the economy. These have become very much commercial operations. This has held the farming and rural community in good stead.

For those farmers who do not wish to continue to hold shares in CNR, it would be very simple for them to sell the shares. I am sure that other resource users such as mines, timber businesses and sulphur shippers would be interested in buying shares, as would the initial farmer shareholders. As well, some port cities would be interested in owning shares that might become available from the farmers who wish to retire and dispose of their CN assets. There would be quite a diversified ownership of the company.

Most important, because those shares would come on the market slowly and not in 100 per cent blocks as is the proposition the government is putting forward, it would be highly unlikely that foreigners would quickly get to own and control the CNR.

It is especially important that when the east west policy is fully abandoned by the government, the natural flow will be north and south. The proposition of U.S. railroads and shippers ending up controlling the second railway in this country is not a prospect I who represent shippers in western Canada look forward to.

[Auditor General Report, May 11th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, on a day when the auditor general's report dominates the day's news let us not forget some basic realities. Canada is being governed by the bureaucrats, not by elected representatives.

A few examples are all I can give in one minute but there is the Hughes contract with Transport Canada officials, a $377 million contract that got way out of hand. Another Hughes contract is with the defence department which even the minister has not been able to figure out yet. External Affairs transfer costs were identified today by the auditor general.

Instead of acting as spokespersons for the bureaucracy, it is time for ministers to stop protecting management levels. Make deputy ministers and directors general directly responsible for their actions.

Because termination is currently very costly, the system keeps senior bureaucrats on even when they work at cross purposes with elected politicians.

If cabinet is prepared to return to responsible government, Parliament may eventually be able to do its job of protecting the public purse.

[Breast Cancer, May 9th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, a couple of weeks ago I directed a question to the Minister of Transport. At the same time I advanced the thesis that since the government wished to privatize the CNR part of the railway system in the country, he should give consideration to offering that railway to the farmers of western Canada to whom the government has offered $1.6 billion as part of the Crow benefit buyout.

Since the value of the railway appears to be approximately that amount, it seemed to be a very good match. It would have saved the government a considerable amount in brokerage fees and so on. It would have left future prospects for the country much better off, given the users would be in control of at least one of the national railways and would therefore presumably operate it in a manner that permitted and encouraged the continued use and export of products over the rail lines.

I am aware the government is constrained by a report it had created internally by a subcommittee which was set up basically to respond to an offer by CPR to buy out a section of the CN track through northern Ontario.

The committee offered a solution called commercialization to which the minister referred in his response. I submit to the minister and to his department that the concept of commercialization, as proposed in the committee, is terribly out of date even though it is only six or eight months old because since that time the government has made its decision to give the payout of $1.6 billion to prairie farmers. That payout may be considerably less than what was required and what should have been made under the circumstances of the long term, in perpetuity commitment that governments made with farmers almost 10 decades ago.

However, the parameters have changed. The amount of money on the table is equivalent to the value of CNR. It would save the government a considerable amount of dollars in brokerage fees to perform the switch. Farmers who are not interested due to retirement or proximity to the other railway in owning CN shares could take them to the market and get rid of them. Perhaps other resource users such as the potash, coal, sulphur and wood industries would use the opportunity to buy shares.

A system of control to the users makes sense, given the new paradigm of globalism that has emerged with the various trade agreements under GATT, et cetera. If we are to have viable industries and viable communities in Canada, this completes the all too necessary link of control from farm to port or from woods or mine to port that is required. The commercialization option that was proposed by the subcommittee of the Liberal caucus is out of date and no longer applicable. I urge the government to

abandon it and to look at up to date solutions that will have a much better chance of long term viability.

I give the minister and his government the example of prairie grain elevators during the teens when government elevators were purchased. They were all losers. They lost money. The government decided to privatize them. The farmers took them over as a co-operative. By having control of the elevators they have subsequently turned a series of losing operations into a winning proposition and now operate two of the largest worldwide co-operative grain companies.

That same economic ability would apply in the case of the railway. CN is now a losing operation. They could turn it around and make it useful to the whole of the country.

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, May 9th, 1995]

Yes and when we start to collect pension afterward, anyone who collects the pension will be paying tax on it as the money comes back. When we pay into the RRSP we do not pay taxes either and that is the other option available.

I understand from the hon. member who just spoke that his constituents told him they would accept a pension where the member puts in a dollar which is matched by the government and is treated like an RRSP. The point I am making to the House is had that option been open to older members such as myself when we came here, we would have such a large fund accumulated that we could take money out at 8 per cent and we would be taking a larger pension than we will now be getting under this fund.

Our pension contributions have been used to subsidize the operations of government, and I think it is not unfair for government in those few cases, when those members retire, to make up for the fact that it got very cheap money at 4 per cent simple interest over all those years of contribution.

I think we are saying virtually the same thing. I am in agreement with the constituents my hon. friend just mentioned. Had we had that option open to us, those of us who have served 15 or more years would have had a bigger pool of money than using the current fund. The proposition he is offering is actually a richer form of supplementing people who have served in the House of Commons than the old system, and there is leftover money in the fund, which becomes the property of the retired member and becomes the property of his heirs and successors after him.

I can understand the proposal that is being put forward by members of the Reform Party. It is a very good proposal, because it leaves long-term members more money and it leaves a fund for their heirs and successors, which the current fund does not.

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, May 9th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, on questions and comments, I share something in common with the previous speaker. Having served more than 15 years in this House, the legislation before us does not affect me either. It does not affect him because he has not earned a pension. It does not affect me because I have already earned one and this law is not retroactive and does not take away property and contributions we have already acquired.

I note with some interest that his constituents have told him they will accept a pension plan where the government adds one dollar, as the employer I suppose, to every dollar that MPs put into the pension plan. I have done some of the calculations.

In my own case over 15 years, had the government contributed dollar for dollar to my contributions and had we been able to earn the kind of interest that is available through RRSPs, the accumulated value of those funds at 8 per cent would have been more than enough for me to have taken the equivalent to what I

am going to be getting if and when I retire at the maximum amount forever. When I died my estate would still get the bulk of the money.

That is with the kind of contributions that were made in the past 15 or 16 years. The only difference is that the government has not been contributing one dollar each year. Its contributions have had to come willy-nilly whenever the fund runs dry.

The other factor that most of the public and certainly my friends in the Reform Party seem to be missing is that the program we were all forced into when we became members a long time ago pays for the use of the funds that we have contributed. They go essentially to the government to use and spend as it chooses. At the end of each year, it allocates 4 per cent simple interest for the use of those funds. The funds have not been earning market rates of interest. Our pension deductions have been used to subsidize the operation of government.

[Canadian National, May 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.

On page 25 of the red book under the heading "securing new markets" it states Canada must resist Washington's hub and spoke approach to trade by providing political, demographic and economic counterweights to the United States.

Given those ideals, how did the government come to abandon that policy last Friday when it decided to make CN Rail shares available to U.S. interests which will inevitably pull Canadian export products through its economy and to its benefit?

[Rail, May 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to be only those countries with declining economic prospects that are forced to get rid of their national railways. Mexico,

buffeted by the currency traders, is offering its national railway to outside investors. Canada is doing the same.

Yet the American government continues to pour money into its rail and port system. One recent example is $1.6 billion to improve rail and terminal facilities in Long Beach, California, to "enhance export capabilities".

The Netherlands Parliament has just approved an expenditure of almost $6 billion for a 75-mile link to connect Germany's Ruhr industrial belt to Rotterdam.

If the Liberals could see what the Dutch and the Americans see, that trade and transport are intertwined, we would be investing to aid our exporters instead of giving up on the CNR and selling it out.

[Agriculture, May 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, this government and the previous government offered deregulation and competitiveness as the only answers to globalization. Yet the very price of deregulation is making competitiveness almost impossible for global traders like western Canadian farmers.

This government has removed the cost guarantees that went with the Crow benefit and is promising to remove the price ceilings on freight rates by 1999.

Control over farm costs has virtually disappeared. Fertilizer and fuel prices have taken huge unwarranted price jumps lately. Fertilizer costs are up 20 per cent or more over last year. Big fuel price increases are well documented all across the country. Combined with freight cost increases of 100 per cent, how can the grains industry, which has been struggling already, continue to be competitive?

Deregulation theory promised to cut costs, not raise them. Was it all a big lie?