moved:
Motion No. 1
That Bill C-25, in Clause 5, be amended by replacing lines 12 to 18 on page 2 with the following:
“services and products to farming operations and to those small and medium-sized businesses in rural Canada that are businesses related to farming. The primary focus of the activities of the Corporation shall be on farming operations.”
Motion No. 2
That Bill C-25, in Clause 5, be amended by replacing lines 32 and 33 on page 2 with the following:
“that complement but do not directly compete with those available from the private sector, or that complement but do not duplicate those provided by other publicly owned institutions;”
Motion No. 3
That Bill C-25, in Clause 5, be amended by adding after line 44 on page 2 the following: f .4.1) dispose of farmland acquired by it, provided that the disposal is at fair market value and is done as quickly as possible, and in any case no longer than five years, after the acquisition.”
Mr. Speaker, again it is a privilege to stand in the House to debate some amendments to Bill C-25, an act to amend the Farm Credit Corporation Act.
It was my privilege to attend committee meetings and to hear the witnesses. We were fairly apprehensive as we went into the exercise of looking at Bill C-25. After the committee meetings we were even more apprehensive and maybe more concerned about some of the legislation that was being brought forward in this change.
The first amendment is designed to address one of our party's most serious concerns about Bill C-25, that the corporation would lose its focus of providing service to farmers because of its involvement in off farm businesses.
One concern of the Canadian Alliance and other members is that the Farm Credit Corporation would move away from being directly involved to the extent it is now in the family farm into a new realm that is currently controlled or benefited by other corporations. Consequently we believe the legislation would allow the Farm Credit Corporation to fund, help and provide service to larger businesses.
According to the current wording of the bill, the FCC could loan money to any agricultural business no matter how large or lucrative. For example, if an application were made by the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool to the government, the government could conclude that the FCC could help with the financial requirements the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool would be after. The amendment would ensure that any services offered to non-farm operations would only be given to small and medium size businesses and not to large corporations.
In committee the FCC and government officials said they would have no reason to fund the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. That would move beyond the FCC's mandate. However the legislation as it is would not limit or prevent that from happening. If that financing began to happen we would soon see that the family farm would be put on the back burner and would lose another opportunity for funding.
The second amendment is designed to ensure that the federal government does not actively compete with private financial institutions, banks or credit unions. One of the interesting facts that came out of our committee meeting was from representatives of Canadian credit unions. They made very clear that in a number of instances the Farm Credit Corporation was directly competing for business the credit unions had already had.
In one instance the Farm Credit Corporation after hearing what interest rate percentages the credit union was offering competed by lowering its interest rate.