Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to speak on this issue today but I have heard a number of comments and I thought I would just add a few thoughts on this issue.
When I heard the hon. member from Fraser Valley talk about how his farmers were short of grain, it really astounded me. I look at statistics and see that the turnaround of a grain car in 1908 to the port at Vancouver was 21 days and today it is 19.5 days. That is one and a half days less.
I know the trains are going about four or five times faster than they used to. I know that elevators load cars about three or four times faster as they used to. Why do we have only a one and a half day shorter turnaround?
I am astounded when I hear that the farmers in British Columbia are suffering just like the grain farmers in Manitoba because they cannot move their product. The farmers in the Fraser Valley cannot feed their animals to produce money or to increase the economy. It astounds me when nobody talks about $1 million a day demurrage charges for ships sitting in port which is due to somebody's ignorance, mismanagement or inefficiency.
How can a country continue to prosper when we have this type of economy? What the government reminds me of is that if it had a spoke come out of a buggy wheel, it would shoot the horse. That is the way this government solves problems.
The government passed laws doing away with transportation subsidies, saying that everything would go smoothly from here on. Do you know something, Mr. Speaker? I had nine miles of hopper cars sitting empty in my constituency all summer and fall. No grain was being moved. Tell me why. We have a record carryover of feed grain on hand right now. Why did those chickens in B.C. not get that grain when they needed it? I wish somebody could explain that to me. The CPR agent came to see me. He said: "Jake, we had 50 miles of empty hopper cars sitting around all summer up till the harvest time".
We had a record carryover of grain and the chickens are starving in B.C. Is this something that we in the opposition are creating or is this something the government is not looking after? I would like to know. If we run our country in this direction we will not even have a dead horse to shoot. It will die before we get the gun out.
It is important that we finally realize that trucks move six or seven times faster than they did in the early 1900s. Grain cars can be loaded faster. Trains can move faster. There is a problem somewhere. Somebody is not doing his job using these implements or these tools. Who is it? It is not thin air. It has to be either management or labour.
The people who produce the products to be moved have increased their production 10, 15 and 20 times. They are not getting rewarded for it, nor are the farmers who are producing in the value added industries like chicken, dairy and hogs.
I wish the government would start realizing that farmers vote. If we do not have farmers, the other people who vote will not be eating very long and might not be voting either. It may not just be a matter of debating this issue in the House, it is a matter of doing something. The grain is there, the vehicles are there and the special value industries are there but something is not working. We had better find the problem.
I know in my farm operation if the tractor or the combine is sitting it is because the guy who is supposed to drive it is not around. That is what is happening to all our industries that are supposed to move the grain. Somebody is not around.
When I hear in my constituency that the railway workers have to be brought by limousine half way down toward Winnipeg and then the train sits for six or seven hours waiting for another limousine to come from Winnipeg to bring out another crew, I can see why we do not get anything moved. This is the reason we are having problems.
It is high time that we started realizing that if these value added industries are not going to be successful, like my hon. friend from Fraser Valley says, they are going to move. They are not going to stay around. When they move there will be no more taxes for the government to collect and no more industries providing jobs. Let us get on the ball and do something.
Why are we not succeeding? I would say it is because we have a Liberal government on that side and Reform on this side. However, that will change in the next election. Then things will start running smoothly. We will move grain and feed the chickens and we will not have to shoot the horse any more to solve the problem.