Mr. Speaker, the Crow debate has been with us for some time. It is an important debate that has a great deal of meaning for thousands of prairie farmers. It is a debate that these thousands of farmers want to be a part of. In fact, these farmers have already demonstrated that when asked they are more than prepared to participate in the debate.
For example, when the previous government talked about changing the Crow benefit they hosted hundreds of regional and community meetings across the prairies. These meetings were promoted as transportation talks. They attracted hundreds of participants. In almost every case across Saskatchewan the response of those participants was to ask the federal government to maintain the Crow benefit.
Farmers across the prairies time and time again have impressed upon the federal government that the Crow represents economic fairness in the transportation of grain destined for export. Saskatchewan farmers in particular are producing grain on land that is further from port than any other grain farmers in the world. Since the price of the product is based on its port side distribution, obviously the farther one is from port the more uncompetitive the product is for sale to the rest of the world.
The Crow benefit simply recognizes that with the benefit all Canadians receive from the sale of Canadian grain into overseas markets, all Canadians will assist in the cost of getting that grain to its port of sale. Without the national subsidy, and I would argue it is an internal not an external subsidy, the revenue that would return to the prairies from the sale of grains would be much reduced. The cost of the loss of this transportation support to the prairies is therefore likely to be greater than the savings the Department of Transport and the federal government would accrue from the dismantling of the Crow benefit.
The Minister of Transport has toyed with prairie farmers about this issue for months. Last week be betrayed a long held Liberal commitment to prairie farmers and the communities that they support when he announced that it is no longer a question of whether the federal government plans to change the method of payment, it is only a question of how it will be changed.
In making the announcement the minister argues that new GATT rules and the pending world trade organization requires that Canada make the change. This is shocking. At the same time as the Canadian Minister of Agriculture is abdicating Canada's role in making economic decisions for Canadians, the newspapers are running articles quoting American politicians saying that the GATT cannot be accepted there because (a) the treaty is a threat to its economic sovereignty and (b) the new trade organization will have the power to change its national law or regulation and impose fines and sanctions if it wants to.
Here we are in Canada blindly accepting the international treaty without challenge while one of our trading partners, one I might add which is hurting us in the marketplace, is openly resisting the imposition of the terms and the agreement on them.
Canada should be challenging the interpretation of the GATT deal affecting the Crow benefit and we should be resisting making unilateral changes until all the partners to the agreement have taken steps to ensure that a fair marketplace for all exists.
It is obvious to all of us involved in the grain trade that without the Crow benefit and without specific changes to the U.S. export enhancement program, Canadian farmers are left at a significant disadvantage in the international marketplace. I argue that it is an artificial marketplace.
The federal government should stop using the GATT deal as an excuse to cut the Crow benefit. As my friend Mr. Art Macklin the president of the National Farmer's Union has said: "It is apparent that the federal government's agenda is to cut the deficit and they view the Crow benefit as a large budget item".
Mr. Macklin has also said: "If the federal government really wanted to level with the people of the prairies, it would acknowledge that there does exist ways within the framework of the GATT agreement to retain the Crow benefit as a transportation subsidy".
In conclusion, late last week I asked the Minister of Agriculture if he has failed to understand the importance of the Crow benefit to the economic viability of the prairies or has he just decided to ignore the views of thousands of farmers who have made their views known at various times during the past 10 years? For the record, I ask again.