House of Commons photo

Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was agriculture.

Last in Parliament October 2017, as Conservative MP for Battlefords—Lloydminster (Saskatchewan)

Won his last election, in 2015, with 61% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Questions Passed As Orders For Returns September 18th, 2000

For each of the fiscal years from 1994 to 1998, what were the infrastructure expenditures under the Canada Agri-Infrastructure Program (CAIP), including but not confined to: (a) contractor; (b) location; (c) nature of work undertaken; and (d) total moneys awarded including supplementary funds if any.

Return tabled.

Gun Registry June 15th, 2000

Mr. Speaker, the justice minister's political assets have been saved again. The supreme court upheld her flawed gun registry.

The minister claims her registry has stopped hundreds of undesirable characters from obtaining firearms permits.

One of those undesirables was from my riding. He was repeatedly rejected because his name appeared on too many files where firearms were involved. The computer did not realize this applicant was an RCMP corporal and the firearms verifier for his detachment, hence his name on the firearms files. I know that I will sleep better knowing the system will not licence an RCMP officer's sporting rifle.

The minister's outrageously expensive outreach program is another sham. A quick check of her Internet site found shopowners and individuals who received cartons of registry files in the mail from the minister with no explanation as to what was expected. That is a lot like the heritage minister's flag fiasco.

The registry budget has skyrocketed and public support has plummeted. The Canadian public is aware that this whole exercise is more about saving political face than public safety. The majority of Canadians say “Just scrap it”.

.CAPS. Le Baluchon Alternative School

Agriculture June 14th, 2000

Mr. Speaker, the government is continuing to prove that it is big on press releases and promises and real short on delivery.

Less than 30% of the $2 billion promised to farmers has gone out while the further $400 million in transportation assistance for Saskatchewan and Manitoba will be clawed back from any future AIDA payouts in those two provinces.

The only help the Liberal government has given to farmers is that everything it touches turns to fertilizer. I ask the minister how many times can the same promised money be recycled through the same failed programs?

Agriculture June 1st, 2000

Mr. Speaker, earlier today we saw the government deny a simple request to table the report on our assistance for struggling agricultural producers.

This report is the result of 70 public meetings, and that means open to everyone who wanted to come, across the country which heard from nearly 4,000 farmers about the issues that affect their livelihood.

What is the government afraid of? Is it the fact that the minister's AIDA program is a flop? Some 90% of farmers told us that, or is it that the Liberal government is seen more as the cause than the cure of our agricultural problems? In other words, are the Liberals afraid of facing a grassroots report card on their failing grade agricultural policies?

Committees Of The House June 1st, 2000

Mr. Speaker, talk about the Jurassic era. We just heard from it. The member talked about the thirties and forties. Agriculture has grown and changed since that time. People are marketing on their own now.

Has the member heard of crops like lentils, peas, canola, mustard, canary, spices and everything else? Those are not wheat board crops but they are doing very well. They are not having any problem marketing their products. They are not having any problem getting those products to port and not being charged demurrage on them.

There is definitely a need for a wheat board. We never said to destroy the board. We are saying make it open and accountable to the people it serves. There will be elections again this coming fall. We will see more open market people elected to that board.

Committees Of The House June 1st, 2000

Mr. Speaker, both of the member's questions are very pertinent.

When it comes to supply management he is not reading our policy statement properly. We have never said to destroy supply management. This government has moved from a quota to a tariff base that is designed to come down over the next little while that will destroy supply management. That is exactly true. That is the government's policy.

Our policy is let us get the rest of agriculture up to that level. There has to be some return on the investment. We are not seeing that in any other agricultural sector. Good for supply management. They figured out the formula and they are trying to make it work. Good for them.

We have never said to do away with the Canadian Wheat Board. We have said to make it optional. If it is good it will continue to function. It is saying it will fall apart if it does not have a monopoly. No monopoly anywhere lasts forever. People will rear up and say they have had enough and will not go to it.

We see far less acreage dedicated to the Canadian Wheat Board now than we ever have before. We only have to look at its annual report which just came out. It shows that sales are way down and administration costs have gone through the roof. The wheat board does not have the anticipated acreage coming from producers that it had before. People are voting with their feet and growing different crops. We are seeing all sorts of things being developed to try to obtain cashflow.

We are also seeing organic grains being held back by the wheat board because it wants to control them but does not want the responsibility of marketing. There are many niche crops from which the wheat board could back off and allow these folks to fulfil, such as the pearling markets, the specialized feed wheats and all those types of things that could be grown.

We know they can do that. I do not know a producer who would not sign a contract to be taken out of the wheat board for five years. Producers will sink or swim on their own. They are doing that now.

Committees Of The House June 1st, 2000

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to the ongoing agricultural crisis in the country. As we see from the co-operation we are getting from the government side of the House, agriculture's biggest problem is that it is 90% politics and 10% production. Of course that goes to the root cause of what is happening out there now. There is a sad lack of cashflow due to government inattention and government cuts.

Since the government will not seem to co-operate and allow us to table this report, I will spend my 10 minutes on the 13 policy suggestions from farmers. These are primary producers. Some 3,500 to 4,000 primary producers came out to our town hall meetings and told us what they thought. We went straight to the horse's mouth, if you will, Mr. Speaker, rather than the other end that we see here in the House.

Policy suggestion number one: Farmers demand that promised disaster assistance be delivered on time. Of course that has not happened. The agricultural income disaster assistance program, AIDA, did not accomplish this goal. Less than 30% of the money allocated for 1998 got off the cabinet table out to the kitchen tables.

Emergency compensation programs must be structured in such a way as to target assistance to all farmers who need help. Again AIDA failed miserably.

Policy suggestion number two: National farm safety net programs must not only be maintained, they must be improved. Any long term safety net program must include an income disaster program, a crop insurance program and an income stabilization program such as NISA. The problem we had earlier on was that the agriculture minister, backed up by his colleagues, insisted that crop insurance and NISA were more than adequate to handle the problem. We knew otherwise.

An effective farm safety net would ensure long term stable protection for farmers and would eliminate the need for ad hoc programs such as AIDA in the future.

Policy suggestion number three: The majority of farmers are calling on the federal government to become more aggressive in trade negotiations. They want better access to world markets. Farmers have stated that the Canadian government has lowered its agricultural support much faster than other nations and much faster than we agreed to in the trade negotiations in the Uruguay round.

Farmers are demanding that the government not lower agricultural support any faster than our trade competitors and no faster than agreed to.

Policy suggestion number four: Governments must clearly define the future direction for agriculture policy in Canada. Is it sustainable? Do we need a good safe secure food supply? Of course we do. As part of this, government must define who falls into the category of farmer. This would help to decrease uncertainty in who qualifies for farm safety net programs and would reduce conflicts with farm income tax provisions.

We also saw this flaw clearly in the evidence in the election for the wheat board. Folks who were landlords from the United States got ballots. An immigrant lady who had been in Toronto for one week received a ballot. There were a lot of things like that. If we had a clear definition of who was actually farming, it would certainly go a long way to help the government define farmer.

Policy suggestion number five: Farmers suggest that the federal government lower user fees charged by the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business just completed a study. The findings indicate that farmers are another casualty of the government's cost recovery policies. It says that the government is adding to producers' problems with huge user fees, rising input costs, government debt and deficit reduction, which of course has hit the agriculture sector harder than anybody else, government regulations and the paper burden. Sixty-eight percent of those that replied to the survey say that one of the most heinous jobs they have is the paperwork that is required in sending all of this stuff to Ottawa when it does not seem to do any good.

Policy suggestion number six: Farmers suggest that the federal government immediately lower farmers' costs by enabling a competitive commercially accountable grain handling and transportation system.

That will go to the heart of what we are going to hear later today when the transport minister introduces Bill C-34 redoing the grain transportation act.

Policy suggestion number seven: Farmers are calling on the federal government to immediately allow producers to improve their income by moving up the processing chain. This would require the government to remove the regulations slowing direct farmer involvement in value added processing.

Prairie pasture producers wanting to create 100-plus jobs in southern Saskatchewan, wanting to upgrade the value of durum here at home rather than shipping it to the United States or other places to be processed, are the types of incentives we need to see. That is rural development. That is the type of thing the Secretary of State for Rural Development should be talking about in this House. It goes to the root cause of why farmers are not making any money. They are not allowed to handle and market their own product.

Policy suggestion number eight: The majority of farmers believe that western Canadian farmers should have the freedom to market their grain independently of the Canadian Wheat Board. Most farmers do not want the wheat board to disappear but believe it should be one of their marketing options that also includes but is not limited to marketing directly to farmer owned new generation co-operatives or any other access they find.

The problem we have with the wheat board is it is a monopoly. It is a closed shop. It is also spreading its tentacles into areas such as organic farming which is just starting to come on big in the west. That goes to the government's bill on pesticides and that type of thing. Organic farming is definitely part of the answer. The wheat board does not really want to handle the product because it is a niche market and it is too small for it. Yet it still wants to control the pricing and have the buyback provisions. It is absolutely ludicrous.

When we see a farmer from southern Manitoba in shackles and chains because he marketed his own product across the line, it is absolutely abhorrent that type of thing can happen in a democracy such as Canada.

Policy suggestion number nine: Most farmers believe that overall farm income would increase if interprovincial trade barriers were removed. They are calling on the federal and provincial governments to actively pursue free trade within Canada.

It is great to have trading negotiations going on with all the countries in the world, but we have huge trade distortions within our own country from province to province. Numbers put that disparity at about $6 billion a year. It is a horrendous amount of money that should be in producers' pockets.

Policy suggestion number ten: Most farmers maintain that any endangered species legislation must respect the property rights of landowners. That is a big item. There has to be adequate compensation and respect for the property owner. And it must include compensation for land if the habitat must be taken out of production. We have not seen that in any of the legislation that has been brought forward. It has to be there.

The majority of producers believe that the government could achieve more through co-operation with farmers and ranchers than through threats of punishment. We know how well that is working with the gun registration bill.

Policy suggestion number eleven: The majority of farmers demand that any legislation aimed at reducing greenhouse gases must not reduce farmers' income.

As we see, farming and agriculture in Canada is the only industry I know of that buys retail and sells wholesale. Any costs that are incurred by any one of the suppliers and so on are passed on to the farm gate. They cannot be added to the product price and shipped back out again, as we see in every other industry.

The environmental taxes that are now being collected not only hit the farmer himself but they also hit the machine dealer and the fertilizer dealer. Everyone else passes them on in increased costs to the farmer who must eat the increased cost and cannot pass it back in any way, shape or form. It is not fair.

Policy suggestion number twelve: Most farmers support giving Canadians the ability to choose and not to consume food that contains genetically modified organisms. Most farmers acknowledge that this will require some form of labelling on food containing those GMOs.

We are saying that it cannot be a mandatory type of system. It just will not work. Voluntary should work quite well as it has in other jurisdictions.

Policy suggestion number thirteen: Farmers are asking for all levels of government to ensure that adequate counselling, support programs and such are available for farm families suffering through this farm crisis. That seems to be something government can intervene in and also be there to backstop farmers.

There has been talk of an escape clause for people who want to get out. In my home province of Saskatchewan the average age of farmers is approaching 60 years. These farmers are working away at their equity, shortening their retirement values and so on. It is just not right and it is not fair.

Thirty percent of the AIDA funds for 1998 are all that escaped from Ottawa and got out there to do any good. We are now seeing headlines that the 1999 program may not have enough cash in it. It is absolutely ludicrous. When family farms are not receiving the cash, where is the money going? Administration costs cannot be that high.

Huge rallies have been held in western Canada with farmers going out in their tractors, trucks or whatever to become part of a convoy. The very first one was held out west in my riding of Battlefords—Lloydminster in which 400 units took part just to show some support.

We are also finding a lot of intervention from past the farm gate suppliers. These fellows are carrying huge debt loads and farmers cannot afford to pay their bills. Bank credit has dried up. Farmers are asking for some long term, low interest loans as farm credit's mandate originally was. It has now become a quasi-judicial board separate from the government which those folks like to do to hide responsibility. We are not seeing the type of financial package the agriculture industry will need to sustain itself in the next millennium.

The farmers out there are in trouble. They are looking for some sort of leadership from the federal government and from their provincial governments. They are not seeing a whole lot.

Motions For Papers May 31st, 2000

Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Motions For Papers May 31st, 2000

Mr. Speaker, it seems a little onerous that the government can fund projects like this and then send us down the road to Regina to look at the results. I guess I would have to take that with a grain of salt, but I withdraw my motion. Or, do I understand that since the government will not table my motion, I could ask that it be transferred for debate?

Petitions May 31st, 2000

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour today to present a petition on behalf of my constituents of Battlefords—Lloydminister regarding the tax situation in Canada.

The petitioners ask the federal government to take a look at the examples set by Alberta and Ontario and the great economies that are booming in those provinces. They say if the federal government followed their lead, the whole country would be better off. It is a very timely petition since we will be back on the budget this afternoon.