Debates of Feb. 25th, 2000

Committees Of The House

[Charlie Penson, Reform, Peace River, AB]

It is the same money.

[Jay Hill, Reform, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague from Peace River said, it is the same money. They just keep announcing it over and over again.

Farmers are not fooled. One of the reasons that the official opposition, the Reform Party of Canada, launched its own series of grassroots agricultural meetings across western Canada was to get input from farmers themselves at small townhall meetings, not by blowing into Regina, Saskatoon or Calgary and talking to a select group of witnesses who appear before the standing committee. We wanted to go out and talk directly to the producers who were most affected by the government's lack of agricultural policy.

My colleagues, who are agricultural critics for the official opposition, instituted a plan to travel across western Canada and set up meetings called assistance for struggling agricultural producers, ASAP. The acronym could also be “as soon as possible”. As soon as possible we need to help farmers in Canada. It is important for Canadians to ask themselves a very serious question at this juncture of our history: Do we want to have a viable agricultural industry in Canada? If the answer to that is yes, and I suspect it is, we want a healthy and secure supply of food in our nation, then we must give farmers the support that is necessary and the certainty to conduct their business.

We have been holding these meetings all across western Canada. By the time they are done, around mid-March, my colleagues will have conducted over 60 small townhall meetings scattered across western Canada. In my riding we held one about half way through the north and south Peace River agricultural regions in a small little community called Farmington. I suspect this is one of the few times members will hear that name in this place. It is not a big community but it is a very important agricultural community in my riding of Prince George—Peace River.

The meeting was held on January 11, a cold winter night with blowing snow and blizzard conditions in the Peace River country in northern British Columbia. We expected maybe a few dozen farmers to show up. When my colleague and I went to the meeting we were not sure just how many people would brave the cold, the wind and the snow that night but over 100 farmers came out to that meeting, these were men and women who realized their livelihoods and the very security and future of their family farms were at stake. Some of them travelled dozens of kilometres and, in some cases well over 100 kilometres, to attend the meeting that night.

My colleague from Peace River held similar meetings in his riding of Peace River, Alberta, the adjoining riding just immediately to the east of my riding. He held meetings in Grande Prairie and Peace River and the response was the same. If we lump the two meetings together, we had well over 150 individuals show up to air their concerns.

Following the meeting we had in Farmington, one of my constituents undertook a unique journey. Nick Parsons, from Farmington, a small community just north of the city of Dawson Creek, at mile zero of the Alaska highway, took it upon himself to undertake a combine odyssey to Ottawa. He decided to drive his combine right here to Parliament Hill.

[An hon. member]

To send a message.

[Jay Hill, Reform, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Exactly. He wanted to send a message and he is sending a message. He is a little over halfway in his journey, a journey of some 3,000 kilometres. I know this because I have driven it, but I was not driving a combine. It took me about four days by car as compared to his four to six weeks to drive his combine down here.

Members would be amazed at the support this farmer has received during his travels. When I was talking to him via his cell phone the other day he told me that his journey is one of tears and fears. The fears of Canadian farm families are being expressed to him as he travels across western Canada; the fears that the industry is dying and the fears that there is no hope.

Can anyone imagine being a farmer in western Canada today? The reality is that the government has given them no hope for a future. This is being expressed to Nick Parsons every day as he continues his journey across western Canada. Every day individuals stop Nick's combine and hand him $20, $10 or whatever they can afford to assist him in his journey across western Canada while he tries to draw attention to the plight of the farm family and farms in Canada. He wants everyone to know that no matter how hard the farmers have struggled, they cannot make ends meet. No matter how efficient they have become over the last number of decades, the reality is that they cannot make ends meet because international subsidies have driven down the price of their product to the point where they cannot pay their bills. They are now on the verge of losing their farms and their homes.

I have to try to convey the tragedy that is occurring on farms across western Canada to the urban public who perhaps might be watching the proceedings today. What is happening is a national tragedy.

Farmers are looking to the government for something more than having money thrown at them, money that never reaches them. In the last year or so I have often made the comment that no matter how many announcements, how many photo opportunities the government has to announce the same money over and over again, all the money in the world sitting on the cabinet table does the farmer and his family absolutely no good until it is on their kitchen table.

Of the money that was announced, even before the most recent announcement yesterday, around 25% has actually reached farmers to help them. This is a tragedy.

It is unfortunate that my time is up because I could, on behalf of farmers all across Canada, go on speaking about this all day.

[Dennis Gruending, NDP, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is referring to the agriculture committee report, which was just tabled as a result of hearings held in December 1999. I note there was an earlier report in December 1998. These two reports indicate that there is a problem. Members of the agriculture committee understand there is a problem and they want to do something about it.

After reading the report, I agree with much of the analysis and much of the analysis has been provided by the member who just spoke.

The New Democratic Party caucus disagrees strenuously with at least one conclusion in the report. Our agriculture critic, the member for Palliser, tabled a minority report, an addendum to the report, in which he stated that the committee suggests that Canada is so impoverished that it cannot afford to invest in our grain farmers to the same extent as other countries.

The report indicates that Canada cannot compete with the treasuries of these countries. My hon. colleague, the member for Palliser, says that Canada certainly has the financial resources to compete on a comparative basis with the United States and Europe. The problem is that the Canadian government has decided it does not want to compete. We know that it has cut support to farmers since 1993 by roughly 60%, so my colleague in this minority report is saying that we in fact can compete.

We have been on to this issues, as has the Reform Party. The NDP caucus has and will continue to support farmers in rural communities in the ways that they are attempting to put bread on their own tables in addition to putting it on ours.

[Jay Hill, Reform, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the New Democratic Party for his comments and his intervention. He certainly raises a very valid point. What I was trying to drive home during my brief remarks is that I think it is incumbent upon all Canadians to look inside themselves at this juncture in our history to decide what priority they place on our agriculture industry.

The hon. member was referring to the level of support that other countries give to their agricultural sector, whereas in Canada, especially in the grain sector, we have seen a diminishing level of support from the federal government over a number of years. We could debate all day how much our national treasury can afford to support an individual sector of the economy.

The member referred to his party's minority report on the report of the standing committee. Our agricultural critics also put forward a minority report in which we listed eight positive things, other than just an ad hoc propping up of the sector, the government could undertake to assist farmers.

The farm safety net programs must be reformed to ensure long term stable protection. That was one of the things that we put forward, something that a lot of farmers have advocated for a long time. A lot of farmers have been involved through their local producer organizations in promoting an expanded NISA program, the Net Income Stabilization Act.

The federal government could lower the costs it imposes on producers by giving general tax reductions, lowering user fees charged by the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food and reducing federal taxes charged on the manufacture, transportation and sale of agricultural input such as fertilizer and especially fuel.

We hear members raising the issue of the high cost of fuel in the House every day. That is something the government could move on. It could do something about that. It could bring down the taxes on fuel. It would have a direct impact on the input costs of farmers as they do their planning for this spring's seeding.

As well the government could further lower the costs of farmers by enabling a competitive, commercially accountable grain handling and transportation system. Many parliamentarians from all parties have talked about changes to our transportation and grain handling system, yet very little is being done.

The official opposition, the Reform Party of Canada, has identified a whole raft of things in our minority report, as have other parties, that the government could be doing to assist farmers. Yet we see nothing but a photo op and government members saying they will throw another couple of hundred million dollars at it. Maybe it will eventually get to the farmers and maybe it will not, but they will throw it at them in the hope that it solves the problem. Farmers especially know darn well it will not solve the problem.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Reform, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I travelled with the committee as it made its tour of the three prairie provinces, so essentially I will be reporting on that.

I would like to acknowledge the fact that we cannot pin a label on all the people on the other side. Some of them are willing to step out of the mould. I would like to acknowledge especially the fact that the member for Broadview—Greenwood in Toronto has done his share in trying to profile the plight of prairie farmers when he organized that rally. Back in November the Reform had a supply day.

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Broadview—Greenwood, ON]

Bob was also there.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Reform, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Yes, there were more members, but I acknowledged the member for Broadview—Greenwood because he helped organize it. The point I am trying to make is that the more we can get people from the other side joining together with us to show this is a non-partisan issue and to communicate to the people in the cities the plight of farmers, the better off we will all be.

There are some real issues we have to deal with in this place and it is very difficult sometimes not to be partisan. It is great to see members on the other side helping us because they do not have elected people on the prairies and in rural ridings to help communicate that message to the cities. There is one cabinet minister from Regina who is strangely silent on the issue, but I am glad to see other members trying to do their best.

As I mentioned, I have been travelling with the committee. Yesterday the Prime Minister made quite a big deal of the fact that $1 billion were being made available to farmers in Saskatchewan. I need to clarify the fact that it was not $1 billion in new money. I hope he does not think farmers are not smart enough to know what has been going on.

We have used the words billion dollar boondoggle in referring to the mismanagement of the jobs fund under HRD. I used the words billion dollar boondoggle to describe the gun registry because in a few years a billion dollars will have been wasted going after the good guys rather than dealing with the real problem in Canada in that regard. We could talk about the billion dollar boondoggle in aboriginal affairs, and I suppose there are other areas. Here we have a billion dollar boondoggle. When we look at all the things that are going on, we are going to be talking real money soon. Why do I call it a boondoggle? It is because the money is not getting to farmers.

The programs are announced. When we listen to the media it sounds like some grand thing has been done. I suppose the impression created in Toronto is that farmers are getting this money. If we listen carefully and we read the fine print, it says that we will know by the end of March how the funds will be disbursed. The farmers need the money. As my colleague from Prince George—Peace River said, it has to be on the kitchen table.

Two years ago Reform said something needed to be done about the crisis developing in agriculture. The Prime Minister said “These things take time to develop”. What have the bureaucracy and the government being doing for the last two years? The Prime Minister went on to say “You know me. I have to do my homework first”. What was announced yesterday clearly shows that he has not done his homework.

This is only a small fraction of what farmers pay in tax. Farmers are taxed to the max. Some of their input costs may be as much as 50% tax. People in the cities do not realize that farmers only get back a small fraction of the money they send to Ottawa back.

Yesterday I had with me a box of shirts from the backs of a few farmers. They want me to make the point with the people here and across Canada that the government has literally taken the shirts off their backs. I wanted to present those shirts to the Prime Minister and the finance minister on behalf of farmers in Saskatchewan, and they would not accept them. Then I went to the agricultural minister who said he would not take them to the Prime Minister. I still have the shirts that the government has taken right off the backs of farmers.

Many points need to be made in this regard. Reform has suggested a lot of good things. I want to let people who are watching know that they can access a minority report on the Reform's position on the Internet. We are limited in time in the House so I cannot go into all the details, but I will briefly summarize what Reform is saying. Canada must aggressively attack international subsidies and trade barriers so that farmers do not have to compete with all the grain being dumped on the international marketplace that forces farmers to sell their product below the cost of production.

[Charlie Penson, Reform, Peace River, AB]

It sounds like the Boy Scouts to me.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Reform, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Exactly. My colleague from Peace River has just made the point that we have tended to be the Boy Scouts at the bargaining table. It is about time we got tough. Our competitors are tough.

What does that do for prices within Canada? Because farmers are caught in the international marketplace they are actually subsidizing the food being eaten in Toronto. People do not know that farmers are being forced to sell below the cost of production and people within Canada are benefiting from that fact. Whatever happens in the international marketplace happens here. That is why our government has to come to the rescue in the short term and reduce taxes.

The government must immediately reduce the burden it places on farmers. Farmers pay an inordinate amount of tax, everything from an excise tax on fuel to user fees. What are user fees? For people watching in the cities, user fees such as grain inspection fees amount to $138 million annually for prairie farmers. Farmers are compelled to pay the cost of agencies that benefit all sectors of society. A good quality safe food supply helps everybody but the farmer has to pay the whole shot. That is not fair. Those fees should be reduced, and Reform is asking for that to take place.

The government should give grain farmers the freedom to market their own grain independent of the wheat board. One may often hear or be given the impression, especially by the minister responsible for the wheat board, that because the wheat board has a monopoly and farmers are not allowed to sell outside it is somehow great for farmers.

The point is that farmers are not even allowed to process their durum wheat into pasta and put it on the store shelf for sale. The wheat board makes them sell their own grain to the wheat board and buy it back before they can process it. Of course there is a big handling fee and they have to buy it back at a higher price and the profit is diminished.

I hope at some future point I will be able to address this problem even more. We need to debate agriculture a lot more in the House. At this point I would like to move:

That this House now adjourn and consider these things.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The request for the House to adjourn is not receivable by the Chair because the House is now under special order on time allocation and the vote on Bill C-2 must be and will be put today at 2.15 p.m. We are still on questions and comments.

[Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, one of the difficulties with discussing agriculture in Ottawa is that there is a pervasive feeling with the Liberals and I believe sometimes with the Reform Party that if it is not grown in the west, it is not agriculture.

The fact is the agricultural crisis and issues which face all Canadian farmers are not western centred. There are significant issues and indeed a crisis in western agriculture, but there are also agricultural crises in other parts of the country.

My riding which represents 50% of the agricultural product from Atlantic Canada, a greater level of agricultural output than all of Prince Edward Island, is in an agricultural crisis. We have had four years of unprecedented levels of drought and destruction. For instance the fruit growers have been virtually pummelled by this.

I am concerned with—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

If the hon. member for Kings—Hants will forgive me, I must correct a statement I made just a moment ago. I want to put people at ease. I said that the vote would be taken at 2.15 p.m. I was in error. The vote will be at 1.15 p.m. We will go into Private Members' Business at 1.30 p.m. Therefore, to be clear, we are under time allocation and time allocation means that the vote will be taken today at 1.15 p.m.

[Jay Hill, Reform, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I ask for further clarification on that.

It is my understanding that the motion to adjourn the House put forward by my hon. colleague from Yorkton—Melville is in order. The reason it is in order is that the House was considering Bill C-2 this morning during the hour of debate from 10 o'clock to 11 o'clock. The House went to Routine Proceedings following question period and we are now on motions.

We are not considering Bill C-2 any longer. We have no way of knowing when we return to orders of the day following Routine Proceedings whether the government will call Bill C-13 or another bill.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that you seek further clarification and a further ruling on this because my understanding is that we are not currently under time allocation that has been imposed on Bill C-2.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

I will be happy to consult with the table and we will make sure that we are doing exactly the right thing.

As members can see the Chair benefits by having a lot of good professional advice at his beck and call. At page 9, chapter III, sittings of the House, Standing Order 25 states:

When it is provided in any Standing or Special Order of this House that any business specified by such Order shall be continued, forthwith disposed of, or concluded in any sitting, the House shall not be adjourned before such proceedings have been completed except pursuant to a motion to adjourn proposed by a Minister of the Crown.

Unless a minister of the crown makes the proposal that the House adjourn, the House will not adjourn and we are still under the provisions of the standing order.

The ruling was correct. We are in debate. We are in questions and comments and we will start the questions and comments period from the beginning. The hon. member for Kings—Hants.

[Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the agriculture industry is in a crisis across Canada and for very different reasons. Frankly a solution that may work in one region will certainly not address issues in other regions. Geographically Atlantic Canadian agriculture faces very different issues from those of western Canadian agriculture. That is common sense.

The Liberal government changed the EI rules in 1995. It had an extremely deleterious impact on agriculture in Atlantic Canada to the extent that Atlantic Canada farmers in my riding last year lost about 30% of their crops because of the difficulty in attracting seasonal workers.

With the short growing season in Atlantic Canada, seasonal work issues are more important than they are in other regions. It is a growing season issue. The government may have thought that if the rules were changed those people would go from seasonal work to full time work. It did not work that way. Many of those seasonal workers are now on provincial welfare rolls because of this misdirected policy.

The Reform Party is positing some solutions for agriculture in western Canada. As a party that purports to be a national party, I would be interested in its recommendations for the seasonal work issue facing farmers in Atlantic Canada.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Reform, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to reply to this question because I spent quite a bit of time visiting farms in that member's riding. I heard firsthand the concerns of those farmers. Perhaps a point that could be made here is that some of the members of parliament from that area should be representing those people so I would not have to be going there.

In order to develop our policy we spent time on the farms in that area. It is interesting to note that the farmers there have concerns that are very similar to the concerns in the west. One is that the federal government does not have an agricultural policy which deals with concerns right across Canada. It is time we developed a comprehensive agricultural policy.

The member says that some of the problems faced by people in his riding are not the same as those in the west. Of course there are individual characteristics but there are common characteristics. One of the things I am finding that farmers and also small businesses face right across the country is that people bear a huge tax burden which they can do nothing about it.

Built right into the farmers' input cost, be they on the prairies or in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, is a high level of tax that farmers cannot avoid when the federal government uses employment insurance premiums as a cash cow that is built right into the product. They are pyramided. Whenever the farmer has to buy something he is caught paying that tax and he cannot pass it on. That is just one example.

[Odina Desrochers, Bloc, Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to say that we in the Bloc Quebecois also oppose this report, because, once again, the policies included in this—

[An hon. member]

Question, question.

[Odina Desrochers, Bloc, Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the floor. Could my colleague opposite respect that?

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The hon. member for Lotbinière, on questions and comments.

[Odina Desrochers, Bloc, Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is such a complicated business, asking a question of those people over there, that one has to start with a brief preamble so that they will be able to grasp what it is all about, and get back on track with reality. They need something concrete.

What I wanted to say, first of all, is that I was against this report that has been made public. In committee, I stated that I had a great deal of difficulty understanding the title's reference to urgency, when all the decisions reached by the government do not reflect urgency or crisis.

I would like to know whether my Reform colleague shares my opinion. Does he agree also that the inertia of this government needs to be condemned?

[Garry Breitkreuz, Reform, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I can put my response in just a few words. Yes it is a crisis. I agree with my hon. colleague from Quebec. It is a genuine crisis. It has developed very quickly because of the drop in commodity prices. However, the farmers would be able to survive if their input costs were reduced. The government could do much to reduce those input costs but it has done nothing, such as tax reduction. Yes there is a huge crisis out there and something needs to be done in the next month.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Broadview—Greenwood. Just before we get to the hon. member for Broadview—Greenwood, the hon. member for St. Albert on a point of order.