Madam Speaker, it is a privilege and probably an honour to stand in the House and speak to this borrowing bill.
I have heard a number of comments from the Liberal side and also from the hon. Bloc people. During my speech I will point out that sometimes we in the west also feel that we are mistreated and we have some reasons to gripe about things.
By now we are probably all aware that Liberal governments of the past owned the patent on borrowing. It has become clear that they know how to borrow and they love to borrow.
My brother who is a medical doctor always tells me that when you have a problem with a patient and you cannot pinpoint what exactly his ailment is you should look back into the medical history of that person, a generation or two, and see what the family history tells of their previous problems. After looking at the Liberal government we start to realize that it has a borrowing problem, probably called spendingitis. It seems to be more or less the system that it used during the seventies and early eighties.
I would like to go back to a few comments on Liberal governments of the past so that we can put into context why we are having this problem.
When I came home from the Soviet Union in 1981, where I saw my $3.50 wheat was being sold for $20 a bushel to the citizens there so they could keep their livestock alive, it bothered me. What bothered me more was seeing in the local paper shortly after I got back that the Soviets were applying for credit from the western nations to a tune of $40 billion for a period of 30 years at 4 per cent.
I thought that sounded interesting. The Liberal government at that time in 1981 were trying to bring down inflation and we were saddled with 24 per cent interest rates in the farming community. I wondered how the Soviets could try to coerce us into borrowing money at that rate.
I thought it might be interesting to read through Hansard and see what really happened with that request. This is what I found. This is the hon. member for Winnipeg-Assiniboia speaking on Bill C-130, an act to authorize continual financial assistance to be provided to certain international financial institutions. This is from Hansard , so it is recorded in history and will probably stay there for all time. It states: ``I have considerable experience with CIDA and foreign aid going back to 1975 when the Liberal government tried to conceal information regarding loans to Cuba. It provided public information that the loans were being made at an interest rate of 6 per cent and higher.
However, I obtained internal documents which showed that it was concealing the interest rate being charged on loans to Cuba which was zero and 3 per cent. Also we are well aware of the low interest rate loans to the Russians for the building of a gas pipeline.
The Liberal government is borrowing money at 17 and 18 per cent and lending it to the Russians at 12 per cent. This is a great loss to the Canadian people. In addition loans are being made for the building of statues in other countries.
In 1975 I presented a motion to the Standing Committee on External Affairs and and National Defence calling for a full scale investigation into foreign aid. I did this because of all the secret documentation which had come into my hands with regard to hidden loans, hidden percentages with regard to Cuba. This of course was defeated by the Liberal members on the committee. The last thing they wanted was an investigation into CIDA. I certainly commend you, Mr. Speaker, because you were the lone Liberal to vote with the Conservatives in the committee calling for a full scale investigation into CIDA".
Does that not remind us all of what we have been hearing in the House the last while? Spend more, borrow more, try to justify it by covering it up a bit.
When I hear the Bloc members today complaining about the bad treatment they have had in the east, I would like to remind them that during the Liberal regime of the seventies, which was called the just society, we very quickly learned in the west that it meant just the east, not the west. One hundred billion dollars of national energy money was siphoned from the west into the east. If that is mistreating the east, I cannot really say where that theory came from.
Not only was the Liberal government not too concerned about the west, but to give us a goodbye it aimed its guns at the Crow and killed it dead. However it felt a little regret so it gave us the WGTA, which I consider as the Liberal vulture of this century. What did this Liberal vulture do for us? It gave us subsidies that guaranteed railways a return on investment and also a return on operations, no matter how efficient they were. That is why today we have strikes like the one presently going on.
During this era the railways siphoned off $7 billion in subsidies. These subsidies did not go into the pockets of farmers. They probably went toward purchasing rail lines in the U.S. Today they own more track in the U.S. than they do in Canada. The CN and the CP can deliver grain on their tracks all the way to Mexico.
The WGTA allowed the railways to enter into contracts with its workers where after eight years of work for the railway there was a lifetime guarantee of a job and pay. I wonder where the farmer has been considered and where these subsidies have gone.
During all these years of Liberal and Conservative governments, we borrowed and borrowed. That is what we are debating again today. As farmers in the west we had to contend with the dusty red grain beetle. Today another insect has entered our grain bins. I want to call it the red book worm.
This red book worm is not just eating up the grain, it has taken our bins, our machinery and our land. How we are going to exterminate it, I do not know. I do know we have to put up with it for at least another three years.
In 1984 when the Liberals turned their patent on borrowing over to the Conservatives, the national debt was $200 billion. During the nine years of Conservative government, it was increased to $450 billion.
It is interesting. I do not think the Liberal members in the House did too bad at that time. For their troubles and their efforts in the House, they somehow continued to build up MP pensions which today are worth $120 million, according to the National Citizens' Coalition.
Is it any wonder that we have to borrow and borrow instead of paying some back? It makes me wonder when the taxpayer is finally going to stand up and say: "This is enough". We heard quite a bit of that recently. Maybe it is sometimes wise to let a symptom grow until it finally busts a vein or kills the whole system. That is probably what we will experience in the next Parliament.
Last session this Parliament was controlled by a party that can now get into a Honda Civic. Soon we may have another one that only needs a table for one. It is almost enlightening to witness that.
During 1993 we in the west heard so much about this tremendous Liberal machine, this red book machine that was going to change things around just like the Mulroney government was going to do. The Liberals claimed they had the people, they had the plan: jobs, jobs, jobs. I wonder what those at the research station in Morden say after losing 40 per cent of their jobs and PSAC losing 45,000. The plan got sidetracked a little bit.
The Liberal ticket in 1993 was to jump on board; get on the Liberal train. "This is the train that is going to board at the land of opportunity and take you to the promised land of milk and honey," as the Quebec members would say. After two budgets, I think we should rename the train the Liberal train to ruination. Board at Fantasyland; pass through Hooterville and Never Never Land; final destination: Poverty Point, the land without milk, bread or money.
I had the pleasant experience of getting a phone call just before the break from the Manitoba dairy farmers and milk producers. They wanted to talk to me all of a sudden. During the election all I heard was to vote everything else but Reform. All of a sudden, these people wanted to talk to me.
I made the effort and said I would talk. I appreciate visiting. I asked them what was the concern. They said that during the election they heard the Liberals promising how they would
protect article XI and how they would support the dairy farmer, and how they would make this thing as golden as they could for all the dairy producers. I was told that the Liberal dairy policy kicked the farmer's milk bucket over into the gutter.
They have lost 30 per cent of their subsidies. That is protecting the dairy farmer. They told me I had warned them that subsidies would have go to, that they would have to go tariffication. It makes me feel pretty good that once in a while I do seem to side with the right people. It is not very often when you are a farmer, but in this instance I was right.
What the dairymen told me was astounding. They said they did not mind losing 30 per cent of their subsidies but the Liberal dairy policy took its dirty ugly tail and hit them another swipe right in the eyes. The Liberals did away with the funding for the genetic recording and milk allocation programs, while the United States increased the program by $600 million. This is the level playing ground that the Liberals are giving to the dairy policy.
I can assure you I think these people will make an x twice before the Liberals in the next election, striking out the name and not voting for it.