Debates of June 1st, 2000

Canada Transportation Act

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Qu'Appelle, SK]

Madam Speaker, I want to make a brief comment and then end with a question.

One of the concerns I have about the bill before us today is that the powers of the wheat board stay intact and the wheat board remains the single desk selling agency for the grain of the Canadian farmers. That is extremely important. Having been born and raised in Saskatchewan, having seen the plight of the farmers over the years and having heard the stories of my grandfather many years ago about the fight for the wheat board, it is extremely important that we maintain the wheat board as a single desk selling agency.

One concern I have is that the new forces of the extreme right in the country, the Reform Party, which now calls itself the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party, wants to put an end to the Canadian Wheat Board as we know it. It says it wants to allow competition. I read in the Regina Leader-Post this morning that Tom Long who is running for the leadership of the reform alliance party is saying he wants to “put an end to the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly”. We heard the same thing repeated in the House this morning by members of the Reform Party.

That goes against what Canadian farmers have fought for, believed in and have lived for, for many years, that we have a very strong Canadian Wheat Board that is a single desk selling agency that markets all the wheat for the Canadian farmers across the prairies.

I want to ask my colleague whether or not he shares the same concern I have about this extreme right-wing movement of the Reform Party, the Canadian Alliance party, that wants to gut the Canadian Wheat Board in effect by allowing competition to the Canadian Wheat Board, and end the Canadian Wheat Board in the role we have always known which is to protect the farmers of this country.

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle for his question. I say to him that I am proud to belong to a party that has always believed, as the member himself indicated in his comment, in the power and the need for the Canadian Wheat Board to assist farmers and ensure that there is price pooling at the best price available to them. It is something the farmers in western Canada have fought for for decades.

The notion of a voluntary board is heresy. It is impossible to envisage how that would work. I find it difficult to swallow the idea that the Canadian Wheat Board is falling out of favour after seeing the election results a couple of years ago. I expect when we see the next round of elections the folks that were elected in those elections by farmers were by and large very strong supporters of the Canadian Wheat Board and I think that will continue in the future.

[Howard Hilstrom, Reform, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Madam Speaker, certainly the extremist NDP is quite clear in that central planning and socialism is the way to accomplish things. That the NDP has never become the official opposition in parliament throughout its long history is testimony to the fact that Canadians do not buy into a central planned economy the way the NDP would have us believe.

If 75% of farmers want to be involved and sell their grain through the Canadian Wheat Board, I have no problem with that. But why would we force the other 25% who do not want to market their grain through the Canadian Wheat Board to do something that is against their economic best interests? Can the hon. member explain that to me? Why would they be put in jail for doing that?

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is an interesting question but it needs to be dissected.

For example, if a person lives in Lethbridge, Alberta or somewhere along the border between Canada and the United States, there may be a lot of good arguments for that person wanting to market his grain himself perhaps south of the line. If a person lives in northern Saskatchewan or in Debden, Saskatchewan, it is a much more difficult thing. That is what the Canadian Wheat Board has always been about. It is about price pooling and getting a fair share and a fair return for people regardless of where they live in western Canada.

In terms of whether it is 75%, there is a majority government sitting over there that was elected with 38% of the vote, so let us talk reality on this topic.

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

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-34, amendments to the Canada Transportation Act.

This bill has a great potential to influence the income of western Canadian farmers. It is in this context that I wish to begin speaking to the bill.

We know that the incomes of western Canadian farmers in the past couple of years have been at Depression era levels. It was distressing to learn within the last couple of weeks that in Saskatchewan the income in the early part of this year dropped a further 10%.

When we look at where farmers spend their money, we find that grain farmers spend at least one-third of their gross income from grain on transportation. Any improvements that can be made to help them on the cost side in transportation are very important indeed.

The legislation does offer farmers a break on freight rates. In that respect it is very important. I might add that this is a break the railways can very well afford. CP Rail announced for the first quarter of 1999 profits of $187 million on rail. That is a 33% increase over the previous year. Can the railways afford to give farmers a break on transportation costs? You bet they can. This legislation promises that but the question we have to ask ourselves is at what cost to these same farmers in the medium and long term?

We heard from my hon. colleague from Palliser about the Crow rate and the Crow benefit. When the Liberal government took away the Crow rate it did something very similar to what it is doing here. It said it was going to give farmers a payout. The government gave them a payout for one or two years and took away the Crow rate in perpetuity. Farmers are huge losers on that score. In Saskatchewan we estimate it is to the tune of $320 million every year in perpetuity scooped out of our economy.

That is what we fear here. The government is giving us a carrot. It is giving farmers a carrot of $178 million in freight reductions next year, but we ask ourselves what is going to happen in two, three, five, ten and twenty years? It is for that reason the NDP caucus is going to oppose this bill as it is currently written.

I would like to explain our parliamentary rationale for this. It goes to the heart of our role as an opposition party in the parliamentary system. We believe that this is flawed legislation. It is our responsibility to point out those significant flaws and to try to get some improvements in the legislation. That is what we are going to be doing. It is not simply for parliamentary reasons.

This bill has the potential to affect farmers' income for many years to come. We believe that it has to be as good a bill as possible. That is the reason, as a parliamentary opposition party, we feel disappointed with the bill. We will oppose it at this reading. My colleague from Palliser has indicated that we will not try to delay this process, but we want and are obligated to point out the flaws in the bill because it is in the financial interests of tens of thousands of Canadian farm families.

My colleague from Palliser has spoken about how squeezed and telescoped this whole process is. It was two and a half years ago that Mr. Estey was appointed to study the whole matter of grain freight rates. We have come to the point now where we have two or three weeks left before the parliamentary summer break. This is when the government decided to introduce the legislation, in the full knowledge that it will not receive a thorough airing, and that the committee process, which is often where amendments and improvements are made, will be severely hampered. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for the opposition parties to squeeze any decent concessions out of the government on the most important aspects of the legislation. We are keenly disappointed by that.

My colleague from Palliser has talked about some of the big problems with the legislation. I want to give a bit of context and background. Mr. Estey did his job and was followed by Mr. Kroeger. From our perspective, Mr. Estey listened to the last best offer of CP Rail and put it into his report, saying that it would freeze freight rates for six years, that it did not want them dealt with in the longer term. There has been a rate cap in place. My colleague has indicated why it has been so important over time to have a rate cap in place. The railroads did not want that. It was our observation that Mr. Estey gave the railroads almost everything they wanted. Interestingly, it was pressure put on the government by members of this party and farm groups which led to a mini revolt in the Liberal western caucus at the Liberal meeting last spring, which began to wring out a few concessions. I believe that is why we actually have a decrease in freight rates rather than a simple holding of the line.

I might also add that the railroads are always talking about the need, as do our colleagues in the Canadian Alliance, for competition. They do not want regulation; they want competition. They do not want regulation when it applies to them, but they do not want competition either. We were calling for open running rights, where anybody who could put together a rail company could use these lines, just as we all use the telecommunications infrastructure. Of course the railways did not want that because that would introduce competition. I note in this legislation that we do not have that. We will have somebody look at open running rights in the long term.

Let us be clear. The railways do not want regulation; they want competition, or so they say. What they really want to do is maintain an oligopoly, which they have done for the last 100 years. That is precisely why the government has to intervene with some form of regulation. We are in a situation, which will not change, of monopoly and duopoly. In this type of situation, if we cannot introduce competition, which so far has not happened, the government has to play a role.

In the remaining few minutes I want simply to talk about the two or three things that are most important from our point of view about this new legislation. First, it significantly removes the Canadian Wheat Board from its role in co-ordinating the transportation of grain for export. We believe now, as we always have, that removing the board from a transportation role will erode the power of farmers within the system and will undermine and cripple the board's ability as an exporter of grain.

I will not go into more detail on that because I want to get to what is the single most important thing, and that is the replacement of the current freight rate cap with an annual revenue cap. The are two problems, which my colleague from Palliser outlined. We saw this happen, if I might say, this past April when the railroads were granted a 4.5% increase in freight rates based on the cost of things like fuel. That is fair enough. What did not happen is that we did not look, and the Canadian Transportation Agency is no longer mandated to look, at what are the railways' real costs.

As my colleague mentioned, they have made great savings through efficiencies. They have fewer and fewer elevators all the time, so farmers have to bear the cost of hauling the grain farther. The railways save money. The farmers pay more money. However, when it comes to the rates, that is never reflected.

That is the single most important problem. We have a situation set up where there is a revenue cap, but the government will not look at what efficiencies the railways manage to capture, and they do not have to share those with farmers. If we set up a system like that for the long term, farmers will be set up in perpetuity as losers.

My colleague has mentioned that the estimate is that since 1992 the railroads have saved approximately $700 million in efficiencies. They did not want to share any of it. They are now having to share $178 million. When we look ahead, they will win in perpetuity and farmers will lose in perpetuity.

I might simply say in closing that when the Estey report came out our colleagues in the Reform Party, or the Canadian Alliance, came out with a news release saying “Do it all and do it right away. We cannot do it fast enough”. I wonder why they always end up on the railroads' side. I wonder if that could have anything to do with the fact, for example, that, in the last year I looked, Canadian National donated $70,000 to the Reform Party.

It is people on this side of the House, people in our party, who are looking out for the best interests of farmers, and I dare say not those groups who are taking funding from the railroads, the banks and probably the international grain companies as well.

We believe this is flawed legislation. We cannot support it at this time. Our interest is in the income of farmers and the health of farm communities.

[Howard Hilstrom, Reform, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it never ceases to amaze me that the New Democrats end up not ever speaking on behalf of farmers or representing farmers. I believe from their speeches that they represent the National Farmers Union, which they believe to speak for farmers, and the Canadian Wheat Board, which is a government organization.

I would like to quote a portion of a letter to the minister:

It is now time to move forward on these recommendations and create an environment that fosters competitiveness so that we can achieve our potential in international trade. If you do not act on these recommendations we can only expect ongoing regular disruption of the transportation system. This will result in continuing damage to our reputation as a reliable exporter, and the continued loss of international market share trade. We must have the vision to act now to ensure a better future.

It is signed by Neil Silver, president of Agricore, Leroy Larsen, president and chairman of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, Ted Allen, president and chairman of the United Grain Growers, among others.

These people speak for farmers. What do you have to say about that?

[The Deputy Speaker]

What does “he” have to say about that?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that question.

I believe that people in the farm organizations are looking at this and saying “We do not like this, but it is the best we think we can get at this time and we will settle for it”. I respect them for doing that.

It seems to me that our role as an opposition party would be to squeeze as much as we can out of the legislation for farmers. I am quite surprised, frankly, that the Canadian Alliance members are not trying to do the same thing. I wonder if this is not because they have an ideological predisposition which hampers them.

Every time we get into any situation where we want to support farmers, all Canadian Alliance members can talk about are tax reductions. As a matter of fact, to use another example, the New Democratic Party caucus on the farm income issue has been arguing strenuously for the last two and a half years that we have to support farmers in their time of need.

The Canadian Alliance, which was until now of course the Reform Party, in its taxpayer budget of 1997—and I have it in front of me, but I will not hold it up because that would be using a prop—would take $1.2 billion out of the departments of agriculture, forestry and fisheries. This is how those members want to help farmers.

When we ask who speaks on behalf of farmers, I am not about to say that we speak on behalf of farmers, and I would hope members of the Canadian Alliance would not say they speak for farmers, although they always do. I think the question we might want to ask is, why are they not proposing the kinds of policies that would help farmers? That is a question they should ask. I ask again if it might have anything to do with the corporate friends they keep, including Canadian National.

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will get an opportunity to talk to this, but I would like to ask a question of my colleague from Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar.

He talked about ideological predispositions. I recognize that the NDP certainly believes in a different role for the Canadian Wheat Board than perhaps do I, my party and certainly the Reform Party, but I would ask a very simple question.

I recognize and understand the member's desire to keep the Canadian Wheat Board as a single desk marketer. He and I will argue about that point. However, why is it that the Canadian Wheat Board sees the necessity of controlling the transportation of that commodity when all it is looking for is to be a single desk marketer? It needs to sell the commodity. Why is it that it must have control of the transportation in order to simply sell it and market it internationally?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that simple question.

Perhaps I could answer by way of discussing, and my colleague knows this situation well, the case which was brought before the Canadian Transportation Agency within the last couple of years about whether or not the railroads were fulfilling their obligations for moving western grain. Without going into all of the details, after a lengthy process in which everybody had a chance to say their piece, it was deemed that the railways were not meeting their obligations to move western grain.

I believe that the railways would take any chance they could to improve and increase their leverage. That is what we saw in the kinds of recommendations which came out of the Estey report. I argue now, as I have argued in the past, that if we take away that entire function from the Canadian Wheat Board of marshalling cars to move its own grain, we will severely cripple its ability to market grain on behalf of Canadian farmers.

This legislation already takes away much of that power and authority from the Canadian Wheat Board. I would ask my colleague, who will speak next, how much of that authority he wants to strip away from the board.

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will open my comments by answering the question from the hon. member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar. I would suspect that smarter people than I, Mr. Kroeger and Mr. Estey particularly, have indicated that all of the transportation component should be taken away from the Canadian Wheat Board. That is not coming from me; that is coming from learned people who understand the system certainly better than I and the member.

First, let me say to the people who are listening to this debate that it is not a terribly sexy debate. It is not terribly romantic. It does not have a lot of real substance to it with respect to eastern Canada and people in Ontario and Quebec. It is a western Canadian issue. However, this is terribly, terribly important to producers and farmers in western Canada. It is all about getting more money for a commodity produced.

It costs producers in my area of western Canada one-third of the total commodity price to transport their commodity from point A to export markets. One-third of what they receive for their commodity is eaten up by transportation costs.

We are speaking of the opportunity of a savings on that horrendous cost. Those savings will not go into some frivolous netherland. The savings will go to pay bills that farmers and producers have acquired over the last growing season. The savings will pay for shoes for their children, gas for their automobiles and for ongoing living expenses that a lot of people in this great country of ours take for granted with a paycheque that comes in every two weeks.

This is an uncontrollable cost that producers have to face every time they put a bushel of grain on a railcar. They cannot simply go to the shipper and ask to pay less or negotiate a lower price, because they do not have the ability to do that. What they have, unfortunately, is a control that is thrust upon them, and in this particular case a control that is put on by the government.

Let us talk about grain transportation. This debate has been going on for decades. The government had a golden opportunity to put into place some changes that would actually benefit the producers, the growers of that commodity. It lost that opportunity.

Unfortunately the Minister of Transport knuckled under to the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board. He knuckled under to the minister of agriculture for whatever reason. He knuckled under to self-interest groups that still believe there must be 100% control of the Canadian Wheat Board in transportation.

He made a serious mistake. He is now putting forward to parliament a piece of legislation that is truly flawed. He holds up the $178 million potential savings, and I underscore the term potential, to producers. We will support any amount of money that can be saved and passed on to producers. However the $178 million is simply a proposed amount that can be saved by producers. We will talk about that a little later.

The minister came here this morning with quite substantial crocodile tears and apologized on behalf of the government for putting the opposition in such a position where it had to deal with this type of legislation in a very short period of time. Between now and when we rise is about two weeks. It is unheard of to put a piece of legislation through the House in that short timeframe.

Why is it being forced upon us as the opposition in such a short timeframe? The minister said that he did not have time to bring it to the House. Mr. Estey and Mr. Kroeger, in particular Mr. Kroeger, tabled the report on September 29, 1999. We now stand in the House on June 1, 2000.

What happened in that timeframe? Why was the legislation not put before us so that we would have the proper amount of time to take it to committee to listen to the stakeholders the minister said he listened to and talked with. He had the opportunity of taking into consideration and bringing into play all their opinions before putting the legislation forward. We as the opposition, we as the heart and soul of parliament, should have have had the same opportunity. Unfortunately we did not because the three ministers, the troika, put their hands together and said they should just wait until the final moments of the House to bring forward the legislation and really stick it to the opposition.

They are really sticking it to farmers. They are sticking it to the producers in my area. In a very short period of time we will try to put forward some amendments to the legislation to make it better and more palatable to the producers we would like to see being served by the piece of legislation.

Mr. Kroeger put forward a report. The report was very specific. He said that grain rail transportation should be commercialized. It was pretty simple. It should be commercialized, taken out of the hands of the Canadian Wheat Board. However, what we have in the legislation is something totally outside what Mr. Kroeger wanted to attempt to put into place. If Mr. Estey and Mr. Kroeger were here right now they would be biting their tongues for not speaking against what the government has put forward.

The efficiency of the grain handling and transportation system in Canada, which moves $6 billion worth of grain to market each year, has been the subject of debate for many years. Many contend that the current system cannot continue to operate as it is to maintain the competitiveness of the international world market.

In the past inefficiencies in the management of the Canadian grain transportation system have caused serious damage to the Canadian grain export industry and the prairie economy. Delayed 1997 shipments, primarily of wheat contracted to international customers, resulted in demurrage charges of $65 million, paid for primarily by producers.

It has been estimated that an additional $35 million were lost in potential sales because of Canada's inability to deliver. Not only is the reputation of my producers in western Canada affected. All of Canada's reputation is now being affected internationally.

The reports came forward and we wanted to change the inefficiencies that were built into the system, particularly in 1997. The cornerstone of the legislation before us is the $178 million which the government has held up and said must get through by July 31, August 1 being the new crop year, or farmers will lose $178 million.

It is a projected $178 million, as I said earlier. It is based on a revenue cap on the railroads of $178 million less, based on the transportation of 30 million tonnes of grain last year. We only moved about 26 million tonnes of grain. The $178 million is a projected saving that may be slightly higher than what the actual saving may well be with that revenue cap.

It is also not quite understood as yet whether that $178 million will translate into producer savings. We do not know where that $178 million will end up. It may end up in the grain companies. It may well end up in the bank accounts of the Canadian Wheat Board, but it may not end up in the pockets of Canadian producers. We must confirm where the dollars will end up.

The legislation speaks of 25% of the contracts being tendered to railroads. That is a very good step. Mr. Kroeger decided that 100% should be tendered as a commercial system, but 25% is being proposed in the legislation. It will be 25% commercialized tendering next year. It will be raised to 50% tendering three years from now.

The Canadian Wheat Board will enter into a memorandum of understanding with the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board that will set the parameters, the constraints the Canadian Wheat Board will follow with respect to the 25% tendering.

There has been some conflict. The minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board said that they have not quite negotiated the MOU. Now we hear from the Minister of Transport that the MOU may well be available to us tomorrow. I hope the Minister of Transport is correct. It will be very difficult to deal with the legislation in committee next week if we do not understand what the role of the Canadian Wheat Board will be with that 25% tendering capability in the system. We need that MOU. We hope to get it for next Monday when we head into committee.

The government also says that even with the Canadian Wheat Board having an influence in the 25% tendering, there must be for room the board to manoeuvre. It decided to contract an arm's length third party to monitor the 25% commercialization of the system. That is a wonderful step but I would suggest two points.

First, the terms of reference of the arm's length monitoring of the system should be dealt with by committee or by parliament so that we recognize what the terms of reference will be. We would then know exactly what the the company that gets the tendered contract is looking for to make the system work.

Second, the company doing the monitoring should report to parliament, not to the three ministers. Heaven forbid, if some of the information that came forward suggested perhaps the Canadian Wheat Board was not doing its best to make this system work, perhaps that information would not become public. The information should be public. Any reports from the monitor should come directly to parliament. Then we would find out how the system is operating or whether there is some manipulation to make it fail. That is something we could certainly talk about when we are discussing the legislation.

I am happy to see the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board here. I know he will listen to me very carefully when we debate the bill in committee next week and make the necessary changes to the legislation so that Canadians will be comfortable that the system will be given a very good chance to succeed.

If the minister had been here earlier he would have heard me say that I am not quite convinced $178 million is the right number. It is a projected number based on a fictitious number. Maybe we should consider placing a real number in the legislation so that there will be guarantees that $178 million is the amount to be passed on to producers. Maybe that is something we should look at.

As part of the little carrot dangled by the three ministers on May 10 was a suggestion that $175 million be placed into rural roads. The government neglected to mention that the $175 million would over five years. The government has a tendency not to come out with that kind of the information. That amounts to $35 million a year.

I stood in the House not many months ago and suggested that the government should put into place a rural roads strategy. The amount of $175 million over five years is not even close to what is needed for rural roads. The Minister of Transport, the minister from Toronto with his crocodile tears, stood to say he was sorry that he did not have an opportunity to bring forward the legislation earlier. He also said that he understood rural Canada. He does not want all people to live in major urban centres and knows that there is a need for rural Canada. The minister from Toronto would not know rural Canada if it bit him on the nose.

Rural roads are absolutely vital to the lifeblood of rural Canada. Everything we do comes down to transportation on our roads in most cases. Our roads are currently being beat up, almost to the point where they are impassable, because the railroads have abandoned rail lines and grain is transported on rural roads to inland terminals.

Based on the legislation $175 million over five years is a pittance, a drop in the ocean. Not only that. There is no method by which it will be implemented. Let us take that with a grain of sale from the three ministers. They are dangling a carrot so that they can suggest there should not be any opposition to their legislation, that it should just go through because it is the best thing since sliced bread.

The Canadian Wheat Board's control of the rail car allocation is probably the most serious factor in the whole legislation. Having only 25% of the rail transportation tendered, or commercialized as it is known in the industry, allows the Canadian Wheat Board an opportunity to sabotage the whole process. The Canadian Wheat Board has total control of the system right now. It has the opportunity of allocating rail cars to certain grain companies and to certain areas of the provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta. It unfortunately has a lot of control that no one can really understand, particularly the producers of western Canada.

They would like an open, honest and transparent transportation policy so they can negotiate with shippers and know who was at fault if a product does not get delivered where it is supposed to get delivered. Right now there are so many fingers in the pie and so many people pointing fingers at each other that there is no accountability within the system. That in itself is part of the downfall of the whole transportation system.

We in the Progressive Conservative Party would like to make three points. First, we will not prevent this piece of legislation from going forward between now and committee and third reading stages. Second, we wish to put forward many amendments to make it a much better piece of legislation than what is before us today.

Third, I will say right now, because I may not be here in three, four or five years, that I can assure the House the legislation will be coming back. This does not solve the problem. It will exacerbate the problem. Ultimately producers will stand up and revolt. They will say, in unison, that they do not want to have these controls placed on them because they are not working. Producers will not work forever for no return on their investment, which is exactly what is happening right now. It is happening because there are too many governmental controls on what it is they can and cannot do. This is just the final straw that will break the producer's back.

This piece of legislation will be back in the House in the very near future. It will have to be debated and dealt with again. Eventually the government may get it right. Better yet, there may be a different government and a different party on that side of the House that will in fact do what is right for producers in western Canada. I do hope that I will stand on that side at some time and have the opportunity to have the input that is necessary.

The Minister of Transport stood up and said that change is difficult to embrace. He quoted the fact that there was nothing to fear but fear itself. Why did he not embrace that change? Why did he not fear fear itself and put forward what Mr. Kroeger wanted him to, what Mr. Estey wanted him to and what was right for Canadian producers? He cannot have it both ways.

The official opposition was right. The minister was spooked by the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board. He was spooked by a couple of members sitting in Winnipeg who would not know the difference between a field of canola from a field of wheat. He was spooked and he did the wrong thing.

I hope I will have the opportunity to make the necessary changes to this piece of legislation that will make it better for all producers in western Canada.

I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to slag this particular piece of legislation. In saying that, we will support having it go forward to committee so that we can look at the MOU to see just how the negotiated settlement between the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board and the Canadian Wheat Board have decided how they are going to control transportation.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Brandon—Souris, in his rather lengthy and long-winded address, raised a number of points, some of which actually had some merit. However, I would like to ask for some clarification and comments on a couple of those points.

The hon. member raised a very legitimate and valid point about the state of rural roads in the prairie provinces. Both coming from the prairie provinces, we share the concern of the state of rural roads. He pointed out that $175 million has been allocated for the prairie provinces over five years. Is this to be equally distributed among the three prairie provinces or is it just for one prairie province?

We all know that the federal government collects literally billions of dollars per year in fuel taxes. When these fuel taxes were introduced to placate the critics, the promise was “Yes, we are going to charge you a tax on all the fuel you purchase, but we are going to reinvest that into the road and highway systems of the country”.

I have a question for the member, even though I run the risk of allowing him to talk longer. With $3 billion per year in revenue and $175 million paid out over five years in road construction, is there not something fundamentally wrong with this picture? When I take $3 billion a year, that is $250 million a month in fuel taxes that the federal government takes in, and, in its largesse, it will give us on the prairie provinces $175 million. Would the hon. member comment further on what he knows about that?

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made mention that I was speaking long-windedly and that perhaps I did not have a lot of substance. He asked me the same question three times. Perhaps the next time he could be a bit more detailed.

There are actually two questions. How is it to be distributed? It is my understanding—and I certainly will not hang my hat on this—that it is to be distributed based on a percentage of the grains that are being transported from the provinces. I will give a percentage breakdown. As I understand it, of the $175 million, $35 million per year for five years, Alberta will receive 19%, Saskatchewan will receive 62%, Manitoba will receive 18% and B.C. will receive .4%. This is how it is to be allocated for western Canada.

As for the excise taxes on fuel with respect to dollars put back into the highways of western Canada, it is absolutely deplorable the billions of dollars taken out of our economy and not put back into the road systems. I have stood in the House many times and asked for a long term, well thought out, well financed plan to work tripartite with municipalities, with provincial governments and with the federal government to put dollars back into the rural road infrastructure.

The government, unfortunately, does not see that expenditure in rural Manitoba or in rural Canada as a priority or even a requirement, which surprises me because the Minister of Transport has said that he is now an expert on rural Canada. I suspect that he would recognize that is a bigger issue than the $175 million over five years.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there was one more point that came to mind after I listened with great interest to the member's lengthy address. I made note of one comment he made, which I agree with. He said that Bill C-34 was being sold to us as a bill that is supposed to benefit producers. That is the guise under which it was introduced and the face the government is trying to put on it.

However, would the hon. member not agree that over the past decade the federal government has done the following things: It eliminated the Crow, which was supposed to benefit producers; it repealed the Western Grain Transportation Act, which was supposed to benefit producers; it changed the grain car allocation process in the guise of benefiting producers again; and, it privatized CN? All these major restructures were supposed to result in a benefit. Why would we believe the government now about Bill C-34 to radically change the aspects that it will be changing?

Does the member for Brandon—Souris have any confidence that Bill C-34 will in fact benefit producers, and will the $4 per tonne that the government is talking about even translate into a benefit to producers that will help the family farm survive on the prairies?

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as a small clarification, it is $5.92 a tonne that is being expected to translate into savings to producers.

I agree with the hon. member. I do not believe that the $5.92 will find its way into the pockets of producers. I feel, somewhere between the railroads, the grain companies and the Canadian Wheat Board in particular, that a lot of that $5.92 may well disappear. I am not so sure that the $5.92 a tonne is the real number. I am not sure if this $178 million that is being held up as the rationale for pushing the bill through the House so quickly is the real number.

The government has not convinced me that this $178 million is there, although it does say that it is an 18% reduction in the revenues. I appreciate that but I am not so sure it will get to the producers.

As for his question on whether I believe this will help producers, the member obviously did not listen to my lengthy debate. I said that was not going to happen. I do not believe this legislation will in fact help producers.

We disagree on the rationale for that. The hon. member believes it will not help producers because 25% of the control will be taken away from the Canadian Wheat Board. I feel it will not help producers because enough of that control has not been taken away. I feel it should be a truly commercial system. There should be competition within the system. There should be main line access by other competitors. It should be open because that truly would help producers.

We disagree on the reason and rationale, but I think both of us agree that it will not help producers.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[An hon. member]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In my opinion the yeas have it.