moved:
Motions Nos. 16, 17, 18 and 39
That Bill C-17 be amended by deleting Clause 15.
That Bill C-17 be amended by deleting Clause 16.
That Bill C-17 be amended by deleting Clause 17.
That Bill C-17 be amended by deleting Clause 32.
Madam Speaker, although we do not mention names in the House, I would like to clarify that the name is Gouk. I would not want people to think we have 53 members in the Reform Party just yet.
We have moved this amendment to allow us to address the various parts of the bill. When I first spoke on this I pointed out that it was an omnibus bill. The nature of an omnibus bill is something that presents so many different parts that may not closely or even relatively link to one another that it is impossible to pick and choose what you can support and what you consequently have to reject.
If there are things in it which are totally unpalatable and one cannot support then one has to reject the entire bill. The reason we have moved this amendment is so that we can address the individual parts of the bill in debate.
With regard to the transportation subsidies, as I said before that is one portion which I can agree with at least in principle. I also suggested at the time that the government had not really done its homework on these issues. Had it done so it would have found that there were many areas, both in the western grain transportation subsidies and in the Atlantic regional subsidies where other costs could have been cut that would have achieved the same or a higher level of saving for the government without penalizing the people of the region that these subsidies were initially designed to serve.
It could be done in such a way that the subsidies could be reduced and the local people would still realize a saving in money if we got rid of some of the waste and inefficiencies. I suggested this was a lack of homework on the part of the government. I have seen very little in the ensuing period since I last spoke on this issue to suggest that the government is yet ready to do this work.
Much of this can be resolved in committee. I believe that is what committees are for. It is unfortunate that the government sees fit to take all these different aspects of things generally relating to the budget, lump them into one omnibus bill and then suggest that we have to accept or reject the bill in its entirety.
We have seen the folly of this under such things as the Charlottetown accord. The Charlottetown accord was probably the most omnibus piece of work that has ever come from any government. It was rejected by the majority of Canadians who reviewed it and said: "While there may be some things in there that we support, there are things in there that we cannot plug our nose and vote in favour of as the previous Prime Minister suggested". Consequently the majority of Canadians in their own best interest rejected that.
Forevermore, from the previous Prime Minister to the present Prime Minister and all his cabinet ministers, every time we try and raise an important issue for Canadians we hear that we rejected that. We hear: "We offered that to you and you rejected it under the Charlottetown accord. Never, ever bring it up again".
Using that same rationale, it brings to us Bill C-17. In Bill C-17 there are probably some good things we would like to see through. We are told that the government has to reduce its cost and yet every time it tries we reject what it is saying. We say there are things in here where we can save money and we support that. Transportation subsidies is one area which in general principle we can support.
An example of something I personally cannot support tied into the same bill is allowing borrowing by the CBC. It is not bad enough that the government borrows more than it can ever hope to repay and cannot even pay the interest on, but now it wants to farm out those rights to its various crown corporations so that they can borrow. In that way it is not seen as part of the government's national debt.
With regard to the transportation subsidy I would support the reduction in grain subsidies but I couple that with a request if not a demand that the government at the same time look at the inefficiencies of the transportation system. It has been proven that simply pumping money into the transportation system does not get the grain moving and that is what the farmers require.
By all means we can reduce the costs but at the same time we have to get rid of the inefficiencies. I suggest that if we got rid of all inefficiencies we could get rid of subsidies almost entirely without any penalty to the farmers who are in dire straits because of government inaction.
With regard to the Atlantic regional subsidies, again the same situation. There are many areas where the government could reduce subsidies if it would improve certain other areas which penalize the Atlantic region. One that I mentioned specifically was the icebreaking services provided without cost to the shippers in order to keep a frozen port open while ice free ports remain underutilized. This is penalizing the Atlantic region.
As I mentioned, I have no problem with keeping that service available but shippers should pay the cost of providing that service which costs $20 million a year. This would more than offset the type of subsidy it is looking to reduce and which is actually penalizing the Atlantic region.
I also mentioned the economic development grants. Those could be reduced as well if at the same time the government would do something about interprovincial trade barriers which costs the Atlantic region more than its entire economic development grants.
On the basis of breaking this up, I will support with my added remarks the transportation subsidy portion. But until the bill is broken up and the parts dealt with individually so that the ludicrous parts can be eliminated, it makes it very difficult to support.