Madam Speaker, I will speak for 10 minutes to Bill C-38, the farm debt mediation act. As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food indicated in his remarks, which were similar to remarks he made to Bill C-34, my remarks could be similar as well.
I expect we will have ample time to review the bill in committee since it is being referred to committee prior to second reading and amendments could be considered. Like Bill C-34, we believe Bill C-38 could be approved after hearing witnesses and after having a longer look at the bill. We might be able to put the bill in an acceptable form should the government agree to the amendments.
This bill replaces the old Farm Debt Review Board Act with a mediation act. It is not an earth shattering measure. It will not change the farmscape a whole lot and is not terribly controversial. Similar to my comments regarding Bill C-34 which I suggested was a diversionary tactic, this bill could fall into the same category. Maybe we should call it a stalling tactic in this case.
These are desperate times for the Liberals in rural Canada. They have snubbed the concerns and values of the rural areas with their lack of legislation since taking office in October 1993. One has only to mention Bill C-68 to know very quickly that Liberals are not very popular in rural Canada. Bill C-68, the gun control bill, was an insult to rural Canada. The minister in effect said: "I do not trust you, rural Canada. I do not like your lifestyle and I think I should interfere with it". The Minister of Justice proved that he did not understand rural Canada and the members of the rural Liberal caucus are desperate for some legislation they can put forward in order to say that they are concerned about rural Canada.
Bill C-68 to rural Canada was like telling urbanites they could only buy a certain brand of car. It was like telling people they had to wear a certain style of clothes. This is middle ages stuff which certainly does not go over very well in rural Canada. Rural Canada is not very happy with this Liberal government. The Liberals are grasping at straws to appease some of the bad feelings they have created among the voters in the rural ridings right across the country.
Another piece of legislation this Liberal government thought was a tremendous priority and rushed it through a few weeks ago was Bill C-33. That also did not go over very well in rural Canada. That was the bill the Liberals claimed would prevent discrimination against gays and lesbians but which Reformers said was actually a stepping stone to special benefits for a group in society. We are justified in our criticism of that bill. Just the other day the human rights tribunal indicated that as a result of Bill C-33 spousal benefits were required by employers.
The Liberals say: "We have to counteract this criticism somehow. Let us bring in Bill C-38, a bill to bring in a mediation act to replace the Farm Debt Review Board Act".
There seems to be some unhappy Liberal members when I talk about Bill C-33 so maybe I should mention a couple of statistics. Recently an Angus Reid survey showed what is happening in rural Canada as far as the issue of spousal benefits is concerned. I was going to move on but they seem to want me to talk about this issue some more.
In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, 54 per cent of the people on the prairies, urban and rural-and I am sure it is even stronger in the rural parts of the provinces-are opposed to spousal benefits, and another 4 per cent are undecided. It is strong opposition. In Alberta it is even higher at 55 per cent opposed and 7 per cent undecided. It is a smaller minority that supported the actions of the Liberal government in Bill C-33.
In trying to heal the wounds, the Liberals have brought forward Bill C-34 and Bill C-38. They can talk about the wonderful things they will accomplish with these two pieces of legislation as they simmer on the back burner over the summer. Then we will get into studying them in the fall when we come back.
Why is farm debt a problem? And it is a problem. Farm debt has been a problem for quite some time. Let us look back to what the Farm Credit Corporation did a decade or two ago. It became the lender of last resort.
It made some very foolish loans, loans it should not have made. It actually was the leader that got a lot of banks and credit unions pushed in that direction as well. It was making loans based on unreasonably high expectations in the farm sector.
Then the farm sector was hit with high interest rates of 19, 20, 21 up to 25 per cent interest rates plus falling farm commodity values which occurred during the 1980s. Suddenly a lot of farmers had lost their equity, had a high debt load and were not able to carry that load in their operation.
The Farm Credit Corporation took ownership of the land. The banks took title to the land. The Farm Debt Review Board was put in place to facilitate agreements between the lenders and the land owners to ease the pain that a lot of farm producers were going through when they were not able to make their payments to the Farm Credit Corporation and the other lenders.
The Farm Credit Corporation seems to be back in this business again of offering loans that perhaps it should not be offering. The minister has talked about expanding the role of the Farm Credit Corporation. Again we see land values escalating. We have to wonder if we will retrace the steps we took during the 1980s. This farm mediation act may have more impact in the future than we might wish to believe at the current time.
It is fine and good to look at bills like the farm mediation act as a way to facilitate some of the problems farmers find themselves in when they become cash strapped and unable to make their payments on loans they have taken out.
Let us look at the industry in broader terms and determine why farmers and other businesses get themselves into problems in Canada and we have bankruptcies, foreclosures and land going into receivership. It is because the cost of doing business in Canada is very high.
If the Liberal government would address that concern first before it replaces the Farm Debt Review Board Act with the farm mediation act it would be of far more benefit to producers who are feeling the cost-price squeeze than this piece of legislation which it is using to divert attention away from its lack of action.
Canadian farmers pay high taxes. The Liberal government has increased taxes and seems bent on maintaining a high cost of doing business in Canada. Farm inputs are high. The committee looked at farm inputs. It realized that some of the input costs are high because of the regulatory burden placed on farmers.
We recently had an ag-biotechnological conference in Saskatchewan where the premier of Saskatchewan said one of the high costs placed on that industry is that of high regulation. The pesticide registration act needs to be changed because of the regulatory burden passed on to consumers.
While Bill C-38 may be well and good to debate in the House, and I am sure we will when we come back in the fall, it is not the key critical area that will prevent farm debt from being a problem. It is the high cost of doing business in this country. It is high taxes and high regulations that are the problem.
The other concern we have with the bill is that we do not allow patronage as we saw in the form of patronage appointments to the Farm Debt Review Board. We want to make sure these mediators are appointed or chosen or based on their merit and their credibility rather than on the fact that they happen to hold a Liberal membership. I think that is extremely important.
We look forward to making improvements to the bill when it comes back in the fall.