Wayne Easter

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2002]

The hon. member says I signed it. No, I did not sign it. I was not asked about it.

I would not use a prop, especially this report and the recommendation because it would be a bad prop. However it clearly says other members who participated, which includes me. The day I participated was the day officials from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada were at the committee. I went there to outline my concerns about the way the deputy minister, officials and others were handling the agricultural file. They were not taking seriously enough the low incomes of producers in Canada. I hope that will turn around and there will be a new package to assist farmers. The Prime Minister talked about it extensively last night.

The hon. member tried to refute the Gray study. He should go back a few years and look at the Hartley Furtan study and others done in the 14 year period that ended in 1996 or thereabouts. The Hartley Furtan study and two others concluded that the wheat pool account increased returns to primary producers by $265 million per year versus the open market. These guys are trying to take money out of farmers' pockets and give it to the grain companies. It is hard to believe. The hon. member had better go back and look at the record. He could read some of the debates of the House concerning the Canadian Wheat Board.

I cannot imagine that the hon. members opposite do not believe in democracy. I have concerns about spending in terms of Canadian Wheat Board elections because there are not enough rules. The grain companies buy advertising to get their people elected. It is an electoral process where primary producers are elected to the board. I have always thought that when primary producers are in charge they should be allowed the right to govern their agency and do their marketing. In light of its recommendation, this crew obviously does not think farmers should be in charge of their own destiny through an electoral process. I am surprised.

The hon. members talked about value added. Value added is extremely important. The Canadian Wheat Board recognizes this and is working toward finding ways to improve value added in western Canada. However we do not want the flexibility to be such that we end up with lower prices for primary producers. I am a strong supporter of adding value. However one of the difficulties with the value added situation is that instead of adding value to the raw primary product it lowers the price of the primary product which in turn lowers the return to farmers.

Farmers should be paid their production costs plus a reasonable return on their investment. That is what they need. This would make the economy and the country more healthy. Value could then be added to that. However because of the monopoly power of the retail and wholesale trade and the grain companies they end up backing down the prices to primary producers. That is not the answer. We must find ways of adding value, but in the process we must add income for primary producers. Doing this would result in a better economy and better lives for those in rural Canada.

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, there were a lot of questions in the hon. member's little speech. I will clear the record a bit. The hon. member for Cypress Hills--Grasslands said my name was attached to the report. I will clearly state for the record that I am not a member of the committee. I was not involved in the discussion of the recommendations. As a member of parliament it is my right--

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2002]

The member opposite is trying to say that the problem is the wheat board. That is the kind of game they have been playing. It is misrepresentation of the facts. I would recommend that the member opposite read the Gray report and understand that the position members over there are taking is going to take $160 million out of western farmers' pockets, and they claim to represent them? Come on, give me a break.

The other fact is that realized net farm income is at a low of $13,700. Neither you, Madam Speaker, nor any member of the House would want to live on $13,700. Why should farmers in this country be asked to live on that kind of low income? There are ways and means. One of the good ways and means of increasing that income would be to deal with the international trade wars that are going on right now, to negotiate through WTO and to get the kinds of arrangements in place so that we would not have these ridiculous subsidies.

Another one of the ways would be to strengthen supply management even more. I hope the member will move a motion to this effect to extend the Canadian Wheat Board to all of Canada. Canadian farmers are responsible for a great percentage of the GDP in this country. We need to accept most of the recommendations in this report. We need to maintain the current safety net program. We need to keep in place the freeze on cost recovery. We need to share the costs with the consumers for food safety and environmental protection. We need to have targeted assistance for organic farmers. We need to strengthen the ability of organic farmers in terms of research and development and assistance for the marketing of their products. Where we can, we need to be using centres of excellence to improve the research in the country.

There are a number of other good recommendations. The report states that we should invest more in the road system in western Canada. Definitely we should. I have fought this issue in the west. The railways basically said let us do away with those branch lines, let us get rid of them and we will go to bigger, high throughput elevators. What have they done? The roads have been worn down to the point where people think they are on a roller coaster on western Canada's roads. Did the railways return any of that increased profit they made as a result of farmers hauling longer distances? Of course not, but I expect those members likely supported that too.

Agriculture training is talked about in the report. That is of high importance. Advances in technology are important. The agricultural industry is one of the most technological in the world.

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I would appreciate a two minute warning when I get that far.

This is indeed a very serious issue. I spent so much time on recommendation 14 because of the seriousness and subtlety of it and, I think, the ingenuity of the grain trade to find a way through the Canadian Alliance to undermine grain farmers, especially wheat and barley producers, to find another way in which to lower their incomes to the advantage of the grain companies. It is sad indeed, and I am saddened that some members on our side also supported that recommendation. I do not know how they got the wool pulled over their eyes, but they did.

However, the advantage is that western Canadian grain growers can now see directly how far the Canadian Alliance Party will go in terms of misrepresenting their interests and undermining their ability to have decent incomes. It is all smoke and mirrors from the Canadian Alliance Party most of the time.

The rest of the report, to a great extent, is very good. It is too bad that this one recommendation, which is against the farm community, is undermining the report as a whole.

Recommendation 3 states that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada establish a permanent compensation fund capped at $1 billion. This would form a contingency fund to provide farmers registered for crop insurance with full compensation covering the loss of the estimated gross revenue. The annual minimum contribution would be $500 million, subject to a ceiling of $1 billion.

That is an extremely important recommendation, because we talk to farmers in western Canada, we look at the newscasts these days and we have heard for years about the problems of drought and the problems of flooding in some cases. Farmers are the staple of this country. Maybe I should give the facts, because all too often Canadians do not realize how important farmers are to the foundation of the country. It is too bad that Canadians do not want to pay them decent prices for the food they produce. The industry is in serious trouble and we should not hide those facts.

The census showed that employment in agriculture is down 26% since 1998. That is the largest decline in 35 years. We have also seen in the last three years the largest decline in practising primary producers themselves. Although farm income is up, it is up only slightly. It was up to $2.6 billion in the year 2000 and that is a fraction of the high of $11.1 billion that was in place in 1975.

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2002]

Is the member saying that we should extend the Canadian Wheat Board to all of Canada? I am in favour of that. If he wants to make a motion to that effect in the House I will welcome it because other farmers in the country need the opportunities the Canadian Wheat Board can give them.

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I was hoping I would get the opportunity to raise another question but the member for Crowfoot said that my first one was so bad why would I get the opportunity to ask another.

I will say that in his loaded question to his colleague from Cypress Hills—Grasslands he talked about the issue of freedom and freedom of choice. The party over on the other side, the Canadian Alliance, always talks about law and order.

With respect to the individual that the member for Crowfoot talked about, he was arrested of course because he broke the laws of the land. We cannot have it both ways. When we have a law, we have a law. The laws are decided for the majority of the people. The law was broken and of course the legal authorities had to act.

I want to talk a fair bit about the report but I also want to get into recommendation 14. However, before I do that, the member opposite basically suggested that I do not have the right to speak on western agricultural issues. I refute that allegation.

Just for the record, I spent 17 years in the farm movement, 11 of them as president of the National Farmers Union with its head office in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. There is hardly a community in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Peace River block that I have not been in. I have fought over the issues of grain transportation and marketing for most of my life. I continually keep in contact with western farmers. I am disgusted with what the Canadian Alliance members bring forward as if they are representing western Canadian agricultural interests. They are not representing the majority.

The other thing I should point out has to do with the hon. member's remarks about the board of directors of the Canadian Wheat Board being here for what he called lobbying. Do farm leaders elected to a board of directors give up the right to come in and talk to the minister of agriculture and leaders of the country in terms of the interests of the industry they are supposed to represent? I hope not. I am sure the member opposite is not saying that the grain companies should not come in here to lobby and try to undermine the Canadian Wheat Board. He certainly would not be applying the same principles to them. He tries to let on that it is a principled party over there.

I want to now deal with recommendation 14. I am not a member of the agricultural committee but I wish I had been on the agricultural committee when this particular recommendation had come forward because I would have fought tooth and nail against it. I cannot understand how the Canadian Alliance, in bed with the big merchants of grain and the grain companies, in its ability to give greater profits to the grain companies and less profits to farmers, managed to bamboozle the members of that agricultural committee into accepting this kind of recommendation.

The recommendation is worded “on a trial basis, a free market”. What a myth. Once we let the genie out of the bottle it is out of the bottle forever. The Canadian Wheat Board would be virtually destroyed.

The Canadian Alliance members have found another way. They have been talking for years about the fact that we need a dual marketing system and choice. When farmers strongly support the Canadian Wheat Board as a single desk selling agency they do so on the basis that they know a single seller in the marketplace can maximize returns back to primary producers.

It is difficult in these kinds of times when the European community, the United States and others, through subsidies and through export enhancement programs, are driving the price of grain down. When the price of grain is driven down then there are less returns for farmers.

The party opposite and the opponents of the Canadian Wheat Board try to make it look as though it is the Canadian Wheat Board's fault. It is not the Canadian Wheat Board's fault. The Canadian Wheat Board is able to maximize what is in the marketplace but it is not able to turn the marketplace on its head.

Let me make a couple of important points about the Canadian Wheat Board. I am glad we are having this debate today because I, for one, as a member of parliament and as a former farm leader, will be arguing strenuously with the government to absolutely reject recommendation 14 of this report. It destroys the Canadian Wheat Board marketing agency that farmers support.

Earlier in a question to the member, I said that we had a standing committee on agriculture in the first term of the government which I sat on. We held hearings about the Canadian Wheat Board across western Canada. We compromised and decided to put in place a board of directors that would be elected by the farmers in the country so they could determine their destiny and have the authority over the management and the governance of that particular board.

The farmers should be determining their own destiny. However, because those members over there are in bed with the grain companies, they are trying to undermine the ability of the elected farmers of western Canada to do their job. Those members are trying to confuse the issue. They are trying to undermine the ability of the Canadian Wheat Board's duly elected board of directors to do their job. That is sad. I thought they believed in some democracy but I guess I was wrong.

In his remarks the member opposite did talk about the Ontario Wheat Marketing Board. Yes, the Ontario Wheat Marketing Board does have greater flexibility but it has no real authority as a single desk seller. It does not have the authority to maximize returns to primary producers. The farmers who would give up the Canadian Wheat Board to move to an Ontario Wheat Marketing Board type would be able to enjoy greater flexibility, yes, and for the satisfaction of being able to do that they would enjoy lower returns.

I want to see farmers receive higher returns. I sat on the Prime Minister's task force on agriculture, which I will talk a little bit about in a moment, but what farmers really need out there is income.

This recommendation, supported and fostered by the Canadian Alliance, would undermine that. It would lower the returns for farmers. I cannot understand that kind of thinking.

The Canadian Wheat Board decided to do a benchmark study. This has been in dispute by opponents to the wheat board for a number of years. When there is an open market out there and there is a single desk selling agency it is difficult to determine what the best prices are.

The Canadian Wheat Board decided, which it has done in the past as well, to do what it called a benchmark study to try to determine the value the single desk marketing systems adds for farmers. It is interesting that the member opposite never spoke about that.

In 2000-01 the board initiated a process to help determine the value of the monopoly for wheat producers. The board focused the process initially on the wheat pool itself. The board hired Dr. Richard Gray, an economist and professor of agriculture economics at the University of Saskatchewan. He developed the methodology, et cetera.

The board had it audited. I do not want to spend a lot of time on this point but the important point is how financially valuable the Canadian Wheat Board was in the year 2000-01 to primary producers, to wheat growers. The benchmark showed that the value added by the current single desk system in western Canada was $160 million.

What does recommendation 14 really mean? We have a committee and a party talking about increasing income and using other programs to increase income because farmers direly need the money and they came up with a recommendation that will take $160 million out of farmers' pockets and give it to the grain companies? I do not think that is helping primary producers one bit, not at all. They should be ashamed of themselves for coming up with that kind of a recommendation.

They talked about flexibility. As I mentioned a moment ago, there is no evidence at all that the flexibility granted to the Ontario Wheat Marketing Board has increased prices. No studies have been done. However, as I said earlier, there is an opening here for the grain companies, those that do not give a hoot about primary producers' income, to use parties like the Canadian Alliance to subtly undermine the Canadian Wheat Board by saying to some of the primary producers that prices are low and they should blame it on the wheat board.

The real problem, and everyone knows it, is the international grain subsidies, the United States farm bill and the common agricultural policy in Europe. That is what they should be trying to address rather than destroying an institution that assists farmers in maximizing returns that are in the international marketplace.

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, we have been travelling across western Canada for many years--

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I am really not surprised by the member's comments especially with regard to recommendation 14.

The Canadian Alliance in its policy and the member opposite have been trying to undermine the ability of the Canadian Wheat Board to do its job ever since they came to the House.

The member said that for nine years the government has done nothing in terms of the Canadian Wheat Board. He said that 60% to 80% of farmers want changes to the wheat board. Those facts are wrong.

When I was a member of the agriculture committee the committee held extensive hearings on the Canadian Wheat Board. We established an elected board of directors made up of farmers in which they would be given management and governance authority. It is up to the board of directors made up of farmers to decide what it wants to do about the Canadian Wheat Board's future. It is not the place for the committee to be making those recommendations.

I know there are opponents trying to undermine the board. We knew this would happen when we passed the legislation. They wanted to weaken the board at that time.

We put in place a board of directors in which farmers would have the opportunity to elect their own to that board of directors, which they did. Of course pro wheat board people were elected. Even the open market people when they were elected to the board recognized the value of the board and became strongly in support of it. Now they are trying to find sneaky ways to undermine it further through the recommendation of the committee.

I have a couple of questions to ask the member in this regard. The recommendation states:

--that the board of directors of the Canadian Wheat Board authorize, on a trial basis, a free market for the sale of wheat and barley, and that it report to this committee on that subject.

Could the hon. member tell me how long this trial basis would be? Can he assure me that when it is proven, as it will be, that the open market returns less to the primary producers than does the Canadian Wheat Board, that he will then commit his party's support for the Canadian Wheat Board? Will he ensure that once the trial basis is given up, his party will come fully on side and support the Canadian Wheat Board in terms of its marketing initiatives?

I am a strong supporter of orderly marketing of which the Canadian Wheat Board is and I am a strong supporter of supply management. The hon. member did not speak about his position on supply management. Basically he is asking for a trial basis which will ensure the Canadian Wheat Board is done away with over time.

There is no such thing as dual marketing when it comes to open market and single desk selling. We cannot have both.

Is that party really in effect not asking for the same thing when it comes to supply management that we do that on a trial basis as well?

[Economic Development, June 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, economic development is vital to my riding of Malpeque with its mix of large and small communities. Community economic development is a priority of ACOA. The $135 million strategic community investment fund is designed to help communities create an environment that encourages the development of strategic sectors.

In my riding alone, three projects will have a positive impact on the economic well-being of the communities of Cornwall, Kensington and North Rustico. The town of Cornwall will acquire a fire rated water supply to service its light industry. The town of Kensington will build a new industrial complex to encourage business investment in the area.

I am proud that the Government of Canada is investing over $1.15 million from the strategic community investment fund. It will assist the long term prosperity of Prince Edward Island and the Atlantic area.

[P.E.I. Business Hall of Fame, June 12th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate three Islanders inducted into the P.E.I. Business Hall of Fame on June 5.

Ralph Callbeck operated the first superstore in P.E.I. Callbeck's Limited sold everything from groceries to auto accessories. He was well known for extending credit and underwriting farm crops on the basis of trust alone. The award was accepted by his son Bill.

Keith Rogers was instrumental in bringing wireless radio to the island and in 1924 CFCY officially received its call letters and has been providing Islanders with news ever since. The award was accepted by his granddaughter Kathy.

Joseph Gaudin, following World War II, became instrumental in the credit union movement as well as working with the North Rustico Fishermen's Co-operative. His community work earned him membership in the Credit Union Hall of Fame.

I wish to congratulate Joseph Gaudin and the families of Ralph Callbeck and Keith Rogers for receiving this honour. It is well deserved.