Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the House of Commons I expressed my concern and outrage over the pending loss of the Crow benefit.
As far as a great number of Saskatchewan farmers and I see it, the federal government's abandonment of its responsibilities under the terms of the Western Grain Transportation Act is the single most damaging element of this week's federal budget.
In fact the headlines in Saskatchewan newspapers this week bear this out. The Regina Leader-Post states it best with its single word headline Devastated'', followed by the subheadingBudget leaves farm leaders reeling''.
In today's newspaper the premier of Saskatchewan, Mr. Romanow, is quoted as saying:
If this goes through in the next four or five years we will see the most massive restructuring of rural Saskatchewan with respect to trading patterns, towns, villages, cities-since 1905.
We all remember it was the Liberal Party that originally began the process of getting rid of the Crow rate. The names Otto Lang and Jean-Luc Pepin still bring out emotions full of hard feelings on the prairies.
Although the Liberals failed originally to destroy the Crow, they did succeed in weakening it enough so that today just one decade later they could finish it off. This is absolutely horrible.
The loss of the Crow benefit is bad enough by itself, but the government has compounded our prairie anger in two other ways. First, it has abandoned the farm economy without any plan or structure in place to help the economy recover. Second, it has offered a one-time payout which is not only inadequate but is inappropriately targeted only to land owners.
I have already argued elsewhere that loss of the Crow benefit without a long term plan to replace it could lead to the erosion of land values, a loss of farmers and farms, a reduction in the rural tax base and therefore a reduction in the support for the maintenance of the rural infrastructure, and with this a further loss of quality of life in rural Saskatchewan.
The Crow benefit just two years ago was providing a net annual benefit to the province of Saskatchewan of $400 million. It will take a pretty hefty investment in diversification and value added production to replace that $400 million just to remain economically stationary.
The Liberals have made no provision for that investment. Our problem on the prairies has never been the Crow rate. It has been a lack of investment capital. The will has always been there for value added production but the money to make it happen has been absent.
The fight to save the Canadian Wheat Board has not been considered in all of this and if the supply of wheat is threatened then so too is the future of the board. Can we consider this in our long term equation?
I want to know if the federal Liberals have taken any time at all to properly think out the long term implications of this decision. If they have, I want to see their documented evidence and reasoned conclusions. If they have not, shame on them.
At the same time I want to note that the Liberals are preparing to pay out $1.6 billion in compensation, even though they know that $7 billion to $9 billion is required if there is to be any fairness in the system at all.
Not only has the government failed to meet this fairness test, but it has also said that the money will be paid only to land owners. Does the government not realize that about one-third of the seeded acreage is currently under lease to banks or other financial institutions including the Farm Credit Corporation?
The people who have been paying and will continue to pay the freight costs of grain sold for export and are leasing their land from a government owned corporation will not see a single cent of this payout, no matter how important it is.
The Liberals have demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the prairie farm economy. With this single move in the budget I hope they are prepared to reconsider now what they have done before it is implemented and before the ultimate damage is done.