Madam Speaker, I rise to speak on Bill C-76, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget. I guess one could call this an omnibus bill because it deals with measures regarding the public service, health and social transfers, fiscal stabilization, the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act, veterans, securities, fees for passports, the Atlantic freight assistance program and the Western Grain Transportation Act. That is quite a handful all wrapped up in one bill.
While I have some serious concerns about many of these measures, today I am going to focus on only three of these areas. Being a westerner from Alberta and representing farmers in my constituency, the Western Grain Transportation Act of course comes under serious scrutiny.
The Reform Party has always supported the elimination of subsidies, but we do not see any particular reason why the farming community should be singled out for elimination of all the subsidies in their particular area when everyone else can continue on at the public trough, collecting billions and billions of dollars.
We are seeing the Western Grain Transportation Act subsidies eliminated. That of course raises serious concerns for the grain farmers in the western part of the country.
The Minister of Finance in the budget said that there will be a one-time payment of $1.6 billion to the owners of prairie farmland. While I can appreciate that many farmers rent their land from landowners, it seems rather strange to me that the landowner would be the recipient of a subsidy based on the production of the land when it is the farmer who does the farming who incurs all the costs of growing the grain, fertilizing it, harvesting it, storing it, shipping it. He bears all the risk, yet the $1.6 billion is going to the owners.
It is an unfair way of phasing out this subsidy, one, because farmers are being singled out for the elimination of the subsidy, and two, because this money is going to the landowners and not the farmers themselves.
In my riding we have an alfalfa plant, which has also been a recipient of the Western Grain Transportation Act subsidies. Alfalfa may not be a household name or a product that everyone buys, but they do produce 850,000 tonnes of alfalfa pellets and cubes valued at more than $100 million. Over 90 per cent of their production is exported. The elimination of this subsidy is going to have a devastating effect on this particular industry in my riding.
Alfalfa pellets are a high volume, lower value product than grain. Therefore, the transportation costs make up a much higher percentage of the total cost of the product when it is landed in a foreign country such as Japan, which is one of the major importers of Alberta alfalfa. The elimination of this subsidy is going to have a devastating effect.
Last week we legislated back to work the workers on the railroads. If we thought the elimination of this subsidy was tied to or coupled with the increase in productivity on the railroads, then we would be able to keep the transportation costs under control. I do feel that the alfalfa plant in my riding is going to be particularly hard hit by these measures without offsetting help in some other area through, as I mentioned, increased productivity in the railroads.
Canada as a whole of course is going to suffer. Here is $100 million in export sales that is in jeopardy; there are 1,000 jobs in jeopardy. I think the minister of agriculture should take these things into serious consideration and perhaps make some representations to the Minister of Finance regarding what should happen to the alfalfa industry in western Canada.
In the area of the public service, Bill C-76 implements some changes to the workforce adjustment directive. These changes allow the President of the Treasury Board to declare 45,000 public servants a surplus commodity. As Reformers we have a very deep and real concern for the civil servants and their families who are going to be losing their jobs through the workforce adjustment directive.
Since the election we have talked about the need to get the cost of government under control, that downsizing has to be done. We realize that is important. But we must also remember that the Liberals are the ones who said: "We are not going to touch the workforce adjustment directive; we are going to leave it where it its".
In July 1994, in a letter to the Professional Institute of the Public Service, the President of the Treasury Board stated that the workforce adjustment directive will only be changed through negotiations. I do not think Bill C-76 is negotiating with the public service. This is a big, heavy hammer that is going to say that for the next three years the workforce adjustment directive is set aside and we are going to eliminate 45,000 civil service jobs.
If this is the way the Liberal government negotiates and the way it has handled the economy, the deficit and the debt and when it says one thing and does the opposite, we will have no idea where this country is going. The litany of broken promises made in the red book gets longer and longer every day.
The workforce adjustment directive is only being set aside for three years. I was wondering how the government can honestly say that government downsizing does not require the elimination of the directive altogether. Is this just another empty promise of the Liberal government when first it said: "We are not going to touch it," and now it is saying: "We are going to set it aside but only for three years"? Let us hope that in three years it is not in a position to express an opinion on the workforce directive because it is likely that in three years it will find another reason to set it aside for a longer period of time.
I think this government should do its homework and should come to realize that government should be fundamentally changed and downsized. It should come clean with the public service and honestly say that the directive may have to be eliminated and not suspended.
These short term politically expedient measures with the previous Tory government bought labour peace through granting job security. I think we are seeing another situation where the government says one thing and the long term policy may be quite different.
The government is allowing these people who are declared surplus to stay on the job for six months, with or without work. Then, for 12 additional months after they are gone, if a job is found they can be brought back without putting the jobs out to competition.
We are seeing all kinds of ways that the Liberal government is waving the wrong flag.
We are debating employment equity, where the merit principle is thrown out the window. Now they are saying they are going to reserve the right to bring workers back within 12 months and eliminate the competition for jobs. All these things say that fairness is being flouted and that the Liberals are governing without any real sense of direction as to how to set an example in this country.
In the short time I have left I would also like to register my opposition to the elimination of the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act. It is patently unfair to Alberta because it will bear the brunt of this at $173 million in additional costs to the utility services. It is going to add 7 per cent to the price of electricity in Alberta. In Alberta the utilities are privately owned and they now have to pay federal income tax. But Ontario Hydro, Quebec Hydro, B.C. Hydro, and all these other crown corporations of provincial governments are exempt from federal tax.
Therefore, I would like to be on record as opposing that particular item in Bill C-76.