Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the motion brought before the House by the NDP caucus. I will take its details on trade and various other issues and put them into the context of history so that New Democrats understood why the motion cannot be supported by virtually anyone in the House except dyed-in-the-wool socialists.
When we look at the history of trade around the world since recorded times, we see that the most prosperous countries ever to exist had gigantic trading patterns with their neighbours and countries other than themselves. They did not only trade internally, hoping to become more prosperous and have better lives for their citizens as we see in this motion. The Greeks and the Phoenicians relied on trade as do Japan, the U.S. and even Canada today. The motion before us would in effect slam our borders shut until such time as we could dictate to the world what the trading patterns and the details of them should be.
I refer directly to the motion which starts off by saying in the first paragraph that this government has sabotaged Canadian democracy. Does that make everyone feel good when trying to deal with trade issues and negotiate with partners?
The second paragraph says that the government should not negotiate any further liberalization of trade or investment, and it goes on to talk about the WTO and the FTA. If that does not apply to agriculture, which is trade, I do not know what does. Probably the biggest complaint I have about the motion is that we should stop where we are, not move forward and not improve matters for farmers.
As the chief agriculture critic I will make a few more comments about agriculture than other trade issues. As I have pointed out, New Democrats say to the world that either it does as they say on trade agreements or they will not help improve conditions for Canadian farmers or third world farmers through greater trade liberalization and negotiations.
The last paragraph of the motion says:
That the government should take action to remedy its overzealous and irresponsible pursuit of greater trade liberalization, which has caused extreme hardship for Canadian farmers—
When we look at the benefits of trade liberalization for Canadian farmers we know they are better off because of the greater number of exports. Cattle is a great example, as are grains such as canola. Everything is just that much better by having liberalized free trade.
In the last paragraph of the motion the New Democrats are trying to say that Canadian farmers have hit upon a hard time. They had better not be blaming trade liberalization for that. They had better be blaming this government and the previous Conservative government and the signing of the trade treaty in 1993.
It was a start, but when they came home they totally destroyed domestic support programs for agriculture which farmers needed to compete on a level playing field with our neighbours to the south and Europeans. They maintained their domestic support and we slashed ours and put our farmers into bankruptcy. That can only rest on the heads of the Liberals and the Conservatives.
However, the solution according to NDP members would be to stop everything and seal the border. I am paraphrasing a bit because trade would continue, but in essence they want to stop everything and start to talk about getting their way and dictating to the world how things should be before Canada continues with the negotiations.
Reform has been taking good actions and doing what it can in Ottawa. We certainly have solutions to the farm crisis to which the NDP alludes. In the short term domestic support has to be raised with the idea of keeping our farmers competitive with our trading partners who are distorting the market through their domestic subsidy practices.
Also the safety net programs have to be repaired or made current to meet today's conditions. We have seen the failure of AIDA to address the primary needs of many full time producers on average farms. The AIDA program has not served them. This is not a fault of trade. It is a fault of the current government which is more worried about the budget and what the voters think in non-farming areas than it is about farmers who are trying to feed the nation.
One pillar of the Reform Party is that we must have free and fair trade abroad. It is time, as I said, for the government to launch a concerted action to reduce and eventually eliminate foreign subsidies. I know our negotiators will talk about it in the trade negotiations, but what would be the matter with the Prime Minister getting on plane, taking probably the agriculture and trade ministers with him, going to Europe to meet with the Europeans and telling them point blank that enough is enough and they will fight them to the end in this regard? That never happens.
The government, as part of the solution to the hardship experienced by the farmers, could reduce the costs it imposes on farmers out west, in Ontario, in the maritimes and in B.C. For instance, the four cent federal excise tax on every litre of fuel adds up to a lot of money. Many of us still tend to think in terms of gallons. If we multiply that by five it amounts to 20 to 30 cents cents a gallon which farmers are paying. A tractor running in a field burning up 20 gallons an hour soon runs up to a lot of money. Our government could be taking action in that area.
We could help farmers if we would look at letting them do more value added. We have the case of prairie pasta producers who are trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps by further processing their durum wheat into pasta flour and products.
What happens is that the Canadian Wheat Board says that it is the controller on behalf of the federal Government of Canada of the wheat trade in the country and that farmers will either deal with the board or be thrown in jail, unless it happens to be Frank Hurley who gets a slap on the wrist.
The average farmer in Manitoba and Saskatchewan will go to jail under this government for selling his own wheat. If it is the last thing I do before I leave this parliament, I guarantee that it will be a voluntary wheat board where a farmer has a choice as to whether or not he is in there participating and sharing in pooling the money he receives for his grain.
I will talk for a minute about the movers of the motion, members of the NDP who aspire to be in government. Certainly the Canadian public and voters do not intend to give them that opportunity. To compare what the NDP has done in parliament with what the Reform Party has done, we only need to look at the Address in Reply to the Speech for the Throne. The leader of the NDP said three little sentences on agriculture. The leader of the opposition from the Reform Party said approximately five or six paragraphs with some real meat and some real understanding of agriculture in Canada. That is the importance we place on it.
In the Standing Committee on Agriculture members of the Reform caucus presented motion after motion which initiated action and got inquiries going into the income crisis. We have had supply day after supply day on agriculture, not on some phony trumped up motion on trade that sets out a manifesto for the NDP with which nobody else agrees. I invite any questions that anyone might like to ask of me.