Debates of March 20th, 2001

Presence In Gallery

[The Speaker]

I would also like to draw the attention of hon. members to the presence in the gallery of François Loncle, the president of the French delegation of the Canada-France Inter-Parliamentary Association, and the chair of France's foreign affairs committee.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

Business Of The House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations among House leaders and I believe you would find unanimous consent for the following motion with respect to Ways and Means Proceedings No. 3:

That a division on the motion to concur in the Notice of Ways and Means tabled on Friday, March 16, 2001, be deemed to have been requested and deferred to the conclusion of government orders later this day.

[The Speaker]

Does the hon. government House leader have unanimous consent of the House to propose the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt it?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

Points Of Order

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to complain about a situation and to clarify another, as I indicated earlier.

Yesterday I put a question to the Prime Minister in the House which included conditions, in my opinion, in my text and in the way I asked it and which hinted conditionally at an infringement of the criminal code.

On reading Hansard , I realized that the last part of the sentence did not reflect my thinking. It was not what I had intended to say, and I wanted the sentence to be in the conditional, since I was questioning the Deputy Prime Minister on a hypothesis.

That said, I asked the people at Hansard , as is a regular practice, to correct a part of the sentence I did not consider represented reality, which was not at all the intent of my remarks.

I was given no explanation. This morning I realized they had rejected my correction, and yet, I regularly saw as House leader that substantial corrections had been made to the answers given by the Prime Minister or the Minister of Human Resources Development, for example, to such a point that it was even impossible to raise a question from the blues since Hansard was so different.

At the time it was explained that the changes in Hansard were made more to have the record reflect what the person speaking wished to say, what had actually been perceived here in the House of Commons.

I will say simply that I find it unfortunate I was denied the opportunity to correct Hansard . In this regard, obviously, I have no problem, as you discussed with me, with removing the last part of the sentence of my question since it did not really reflect what I had intended to say, which I had asked, before you spoke to me to have corrected.

It is therefore fitting, both for the Prime Minister and for myself, that this sentence be withdrawn from Hansard . Since you allowed the question yesterday in the belief that it was in the conditional, I too thought I had put it in the conditional, but I realized that it had been put in an affirmative style.

In this context I think you will be satisfied at my requesting the end of the sentence be removed so that my question concludes with “acted in his own interest”.

I do not think the rest is in the context in which I wanted to ask my question.

[The Speaker]

The Chair greatly appreciates the retraction requested by the hon. member for Roberval.

I must admit that I referred to yesterday's Hansard to check what had been said and was somewhat shocked at what I read. I indicated to the hon. member that it was important in my opinion both for the House and for the Chair for there to be a retraction. I greatly appreciate the hon. member's co-operation in this matter.

The editors of Hansard always try to be fair and just in reporting and printing what we have said in the House. It is often difficult to determine exactly what was said.

We work together, the editors of Hansard , the clerks at the table, and everyone who works for the House, to provide a quite accurate and precise text of what was said in the House. We shall continue to try to improve the already excellent service Hansard provides to this House.

I thank everyone in this regard.

The House resumed consideration of the motion and of the amendment.

Supply

[Rick Casson, Canadian Alliance, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I should like to finish this portion of my speech. I was talking earlier about the far-reaching effects of the farm income crisis. We are talking not only about the people who are on the land, the primary producers. We are talking about the communities and the businesses that support the industry and how it reaches into all aspects of our society and all aspects of our communities.

I should like to mention a couple of points besides the immediate influx of cash into the farming community we are talking about today in addition to what the government has already done. This is much needed money which we think should be going out immediately before spring seeding.

The government could do other things in the long term to improve the plight of our agriculture community. Certainly in western Canada one of the things that needs to be done is to maximize marketing opportunities. We need the ability to market our product the best way we see fit and to get rid of the monopoly the Canadian Wheat Board has on certain aspects of our marketing abilities.

This is something that is peculiar to western Canada. Producers in other parts of Canada have the ability to choose who they wish to deal with in selling their grain. Western Canadians do not. Our party has advocated forever that marketing choice should be part of the mix when it comes to curing the ills of the agriculture community.

We also worked an awful lot on the reform of the Grain Transportation Act, the changes to that act when they were before the House last spring. The government had an opportunity at that time to make some meaningful changes and put some market forces back into the costs farmers have to pay to get their product to the coast to be shipped to other countries. It fell very short of what was needed.

I know from personal experience that when grain is taken to the elevator the amount of money taken off the top of the farmer's cheque for transportation and grain handling is huge. We could do something about that tomorrow. We could do something about the wheat board. We could do something about the transportation system. The government chooses not to work on those angles as well.

We talk about increased input costs. Input costs in the last few years have gone right through the roof. Energy costs have skyrocketed. However there is one area the government could act on tomorrow which would leave $100 million in the pockets of producers in Canada: the elimination of the excise tax on farm fuel. This tax collects $100 million that the government could very well leave in the pockets of producers. All these things could be done to add up to a whole that would be better for the community.

We have done some extensive travelling across the country. I remind members opposite who keep insinuating our party has done nothing as far as agriculture is concerned that it was our party which twice asked the agriculture committee to travel into Ontario, the rest of Canada and the maritimes to discuss the crisis in agriculture, and twice we were refused. After the feeble attempt the government made to have the committee travel in western Canada, we took it upon ourselves to travel extensively across Canada to discuss face to face with primary producers the situations they were facing.

One of the things they told us was not to leave them hanging. They said that if it was the policy of the government to destroy the family farm, then let them know. If they knew there was no further support for them, they would not use up all the savings and equity that they have in their land and machinery.

They are asking the government to be up front with them. They are asking the government to be forthwith. Hopefully the government will do that.

In closing, we want to reiterate that on a short term must have basis, we implore the government to top up that support to the farmers by $400 million. That is what we are asking for today.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, it is ironic that through the motion today, not only the speaker who just spoke but all the speakers in the Alliance are now supporting a subsidy. However, they ran a campaign against subsidies of various types.

Canada is involved in subsidies in all sorts of areas. Other countries are involved in subsidies, and we have to match them. Many of the subsidies the opposition spoke against are there because other countries have them. Yet they are inconsistent in this one situation. I made this point before in the House. The reason I did was because it hurts my riding. It needs these subsidies for other things than just agriculture.

We have a town called Faro which has the largest open pit lead zinc mine in the world. The people of Faro want to be heard in the House because they have nowhere else to go now. Their only industry has collapsed, the ore has run out and they do not want to leave their homes. They believe in their land.

I have to compliment the people of Faro. They are very ingenious. They are trying to come up with all sorts of things to improve their economy. The chamber of commerce of Faro, the town council, citizen groups are trying to think of things. Through think tanks, they are also trying to come up with ideas on improving the economy. Without some sort of start up O and M money or capital, they will not be able to get back on their feet.

If we are going to help people we have to have a philosophy that helps people in all parts of this country equally, so that we can all get back on our feet, including the citizens of the town of Faro.

[Rick Casson, Canadian Alliance, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I imagine one of the reasons the member opposite was elected and sent to the House by the people he represents was to work hard for them. I applaud him for fighting to keep the industry in his town open. That is why I was sent here. I will stand in the House every day if need be to fight for my constituents.

He inferred that we did not campaign for farmers during the election. I will read what it says in our Alliance policy. This is misquoted time and again by the agriculture minister and it is very unfortunate that he does that. It states:

To ensure a self-reliant and economically viable agriculture sector, we will vigorously seek free entry of Canadian products into foreign markets. We support and will advocate the phased reduction and elimination of all subsidies, support programs and trade restrictions in conjunction with other countries.

That is where the government has gone wrong. It has gone out ahead of other countries and reduced the subsidies for our producers while other countries receive subsidies. This has put our producers in a very bad situation. They will not agree with that.

A component of what the agriculture community needs on a long term basis is a disaster program that responds to the need and gets the money out quickly. We need a long term income stabilization program to put some stability back into the program. We need opportunities to market our product the way we see fit. We need a government with some guts to go to the United States and the European Union and fight down the subsidies that are killing our producers.

[Leon Benoit, Canadian Alliance, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has in a very effective way presented the parts of the puzzle to solving this agriculture problem by reducing high taxes, unfair user fees, changing regulations that will make the grain transportation system less expensive and getting our product to market more reliably which will increase price.

He also talked about the problem with subsidies. He mentioned subsidies in a broad scope, but the subsidies that drive Canadian farmer prices down most are export subsidies. That is money spent to put a product into the market at a reduced rate. That is what hurts farmers more than anything. We are talking about compensation for that harm. Could the member comment on that?

[Rick Casson, Canadian Alliance, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that is the thing we are advocating. We have to come to the plate to support our producers when their lives are being ruined by forces beyond their control. The export policies of the United States and the European Union are distorting the marketplace. The price our producers are receiving for their commodities is no longer market driven, it is driven by poor government policy. Because of the situation that exists, we have to do something in the short term to keep our farm families alive.

[Scott Reid, Canadian Alliance, Lanark—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in favour of the motion put forward by my colleague, the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake. I will read it for the benefit of members who have missed some of the earlier part of the debate. It states:

That this House call on the government to authorize an additional $400 million in emergency assistance for Canadian farm families (over and above all agriculture programs announced or in place to date), to be paid in 2001—

There is a little bit added on the end about not being a confidence motion to avoid giving the government an excuse to require their MPs to vote against this.

I would like to start by paying tribute to my colleague's dedication to the cause of Canadian farmers, which is admirable. He is my seat mate of course, so I get to see his passion and enthusiasm up close. It has been an education to me, to see the way in which a member can take on and responsibly advocate the interests of a community within Canada. He deserves to be applauded for that.

Almost single-handedly my colleague, the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake, has pushed the crisis in Canadian agriculture to the top of the policy agenda. The very first question that was raised in the House following the Speech from the Throne was raised by my colleague and related to agriculture. In fact, he set a bit of a precedent in asking a question in that manner at that time.

He is assured, along with a few others from this caucus, that the Canadian Alliance will lead the charge on this issue, keeping our traditional place as the most vigorous defenders and indeed as the only serious defenders of the legitimate interests of Canadian farmers in the House of Commons.

It is all too easy to forget, because of the way this has been brought to the fore of the agenda, just how far agriculture had been pushed from the mainstream agenda over the past year. It was almost completely absent from the 2000 election campaign, so much so that when a debate on the subject was finally held in my riding, five days before the election, I felt compelled to begin my remarks by saying “Tonight's debate is about agriculture, the most important issue not being discussed in this federal election”. Well that has changed, thank goodness.

This is partly due to the work of my distinguished colleague and is partly due to the remarkable efforts of farmers from across the country who have met and who have demonstrated in cities to draw attention to their situation.

Last Wednesday an enormous farm rally was held here in Ottawa. I was honoured to attend it. This was the lead item on that night's news. The surest sign that Canadians are finally turning their attention to the farm crisis is this. After having utterly ignored the agriculture issue in the election campaign and in the first three and a half months of this parliament, even the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party was finally willing to ask a question in the House of Commons last Wednesday relating to agriculture.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Where was Stockwell Day?

[Scott Reid, Canadian Alliance, Lanark—Carleton, ON]

A member has just asked where Stockwell Day was. He has asked so many questions, it is hard to keep track. He also addressed that—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

I know the hon. member is new in the House. He should know that we do not address ourselves by our personal names but by the riding or in this case the Leader of the Opposition.

[Scott Reid, Canadian Alliance, Lanark—Carleton, ON]

I thank you for that, Mr. Speaker. The member obviously needs to get some wax removed from his ears because on so many occasions, and it is hard to keep track, our leader has in fact addressed this issue.

I will simply continue now to give a little information on the background of the agricultural industry. I think Canadians forget sometimes just how important this industry is to the country. Agriculture is one of the pillars of the Canadian economy, accounting for just under 9% of our gross domestic product.

The average Canadian farm produces enough food to feed 120 people. One result of this remarkable efficiency is that food prices have dropped to record lows. Canadians were able to eat better and to do so at a lower cost than at any time in our history.

Another less fortunate result of this efficiency is that the number of farmers, as a percentage of the Canadian population, continues to decline. In fact it is in steady decline. This means that increasingly governments are able to ignore farmers and the farm vote and still get elected. Heaven knows the government is proof positive of that fact.

The result of the policy of ignoring the interests of farmers can be seen everywhere. It can be seen most dramatically in the number of dollars that the Canadian government has been willing to devote to farm support. To make this point, in 1997 for every dollar the Canadian government spent on farm support, Japan spent $3.47, the European Union spent $2.14 and the U.S. spent $2.06.

These policies of our competitors have led to a worldwide glut of agricultural product and to dramatically declining prices. Corn prices have dropped from $3.60 a bushel two years ago to around $2.60 at the time of last year's harvest, and soybean prices from around $8.60 to about $6.50. Break-evens on soybeans, incidentally, are around $8.00 per bushel.

This is forcing even more farmers off the land. According to Statistics Canada, agriculture employment in my province of Ontario has dropped by 33,000, or 27%, since the Liberals first came to power in 1993. The facts clearly show that farming in Canada, and in Ontario in particular, is in crisis. It is a simple statement of fact that Canadian farmers are facing their worst income crisis since the great depression. This is made worse by the doubling of fuel costs which have driven up input costs for farmers.

Farmers need a government that is on their side. I would like to describe two of the key elements that would need to be set in place before farmers could really feel that the government believes in them and in their industry.

First, Canada claims to have a strong system of safety net programs, including emergency disaster relief, crop insurance and net income stabilization accounts for the immediate delivery of emergency compensation. Farmers need to know that these programs will be adequately funded and that the funds put into these programs will be genuinely available in a timely fashion.

Canada must launch an aggressive campaign through the WTO and through NAFTA to ensure that our trading partners reduce their subsidies for their farmers so that our farmers can compete on a level playing field. Until that happens, we have to defend fair trade, as well as free trade, and that means that we must ensure that farmers get timely compensation.

In the time I have left I want to talk a little about some of the red tape that is involved in getting access to some of these funds. A farmer in Mississippi Mills, which is a rural township in Lanark county in my riding, described the following mess to me.

Last October the farmer applied for relief under the Ontario whole farm relief program. The terms under which relief money was available was sufficiently vague that he had to acquire the services of an accountant, which of course was not free. He used these services for a full day. At the end of the day neither the accountant nor my constituent were actually sure whether he qualified. The forms were submitted anyway in October and he still does not know whether or not he is getting aid or, indeed, the amount that it would be.

I am describing a problem in an Ontario government program. However, this problem of red tape is hardly unique to provincial programs. In fact it is even worse in federal programs. I have a copy of the application forms for the year 2000 for the Canadian farm income program. There are eight spreadsheets to fill out. There are 13 pages of explanatory material as to eligibility requirements. Even the instructions on how to fill out the forms take up an additional 10 pages.

Moreover, farmers are required to have further documentation in the form of the official Canadian farm income program price list. If they dispute the prices on that list, they have to append copies of receipts. Non-participants in the net income stabilization account program must append to their applications a form called a CFIP supplementary package for non-NISA applicants, and so on.

The point to be made here is simply that when these programs are produced, if they are made so hard to get at, government can forget about promising $500 million. Why not promise $500 billion? The farmers cannot get it. It does not count. That is the situation farmers are faced with.

The money is needed now. It is needed before seeding. It is needed through a non-bureaucratic mechanism. The history of the programs offered by the government over the past seven years has been that they have been exceedingly hard to get.

[Larry McCormick, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad I will soon have the opportunity to address the debate. However, I know the very excellent and hard working member who just spoke would want me to clarify something for the people watching and listening.

It is something he may have omitted, but the fact is that the Ontario whole farm income program is administered by his colleagues at Queen's Park, the Harris government. The money is there and the cash is there to be spent between now and the end of March. I would ask my colleague to speak to those colleagues.

[Scott Reid, Canadian Alliance, Lanark—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I guess I could have made up a story, but the farmer told me a story about this particular program so I cited it. My point was to suggest, and I think accurately, that the problem with filling out these forms and trying to apply for these forms is that they are too bureaucratic.

[An hon. member]

Provincial forms.

[Scott Reid, Canadian Alliance, Lanark—Carleton, ON]

That is why I cited the federal forms; they went on at great length about them. I am sorry that my colleague was not listening to that and I am sorry he cannot put a sock in it and listen now.

I do want to mention that when we look at the amount of money ostensibly available under AIDA for the years 1998 and 1999 we find that fully 38% has not yet been accessed by farmers. That has not yet been handed out to farmers, despite the fact that it was meant to be disaster aid. That forces farmers to pay more for their inputs because they are unable to function as properly operated businesses.

One of the farmers in my riding told me he expects his input costs this year to be pushed up by about 15% because he cannot take advantage of various discounts such as early payment discounts, because his aid, federal aid, is not available to him in a timely fashion.

It seems to me that the federal government is as much at fault here as any provincial government. I would think a great deal more.

[Larry Spencer, Canadian Alliance, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleagues on this side of the House, especially those two who are from Ontario, for joining in this agriculture debate today. Those of us from Saskatchewan sometimes feel like we are the only ones, but we know we are not. Statistics Canada actually has said that 63,000 jobs were lost last year alone because of the agricultural crisis.

The plan announced recently by the government requires the provinces to contribute 40% to the federal programs already in existence. Saskatchewan has already removed all the provincial taxes on farm fuels. I wonder what the government would think if it were forced to match that move. My question to my colleague is this: what does my colleague have to say about the requirement of the provinces being forced to put their money into the federal programs rather than being able to add it directly to their own?