Monte Solberg

[Gun Control, May 18th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, many times the justice minister has claimed support from frontline police officers for his firearm control bill.

I would like to draw to the justice minister's attention that times have changed. The minister must be caught in a time warp. Not only have Canadians failed to support his firearm control measures but the very frontline police officers he often mentions are strongly opposed to his bill.

The frontline officers of Saskatchewan are against the bill, as are those of Manitoba and Alberta. We all know the Yukon and Northwest Territories authorities are against the bill. The police association stated it had many concerns with the bill. The Canadian Bar Association and aboriginals state the bill is unconstitutional. And today New Brunswick jumped on the bandwagon.

We have been told many times that many in his party are against his bill. They did not bother to come around to vote last time. Now the truth has been spoken I trust we will no longer hear that the minister has full support for his Bill C-68.

[Canadian Dairy Commission Act, May 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has asked the wrong question. He asked if we are in favour of supply management as if that is a long term option. The hon. member should be

completely up front with his own constituents, the people of his province and the people of Quebec. He must know that although the government fought against NAFTA it has signed on to it. It said it did not really believe in the whole thing but it has signed on to it. He must know supply management as it exists today is not a long term option.

We are moving toward free trade so there is no point in pining in some sentimental way for the way things used to be 20 years ago. Tariffs are dropping every year. Ultimately we will see a situation, since the government signed the agreement, in which dairy producers will have to compete more on a premarket basis.

Let us not complain about the way things are and how they used to be. Instead, let us get ourselves ready. The best way to do that is to get rid of the taxes. The hon. member talked about the American system. The one thing I admire about the United States is it has been able to hold its taxes down which gives it a tremendous trade advantage.

We will be in the hole $32 billion this year. By the end of the government's term it will be over $100 billion. The Liberals are adding to it when they reap huge rewards through their MP pensions, but that is another debate.

The point is we have to get a handle on the debt and deficit so we can get the taxes down so dairy producers and all business people will be competitive. Let us not be sentimental about the past. The past is past. Let the dead bury the dead; let us get on with the future and start making the changes we have to make in order to be competitive.

[Canadian Dairy Commission Act, May 17th, 1995]

They did vote for the MP pension. That is notable. They are quite happy to take those Canadian dollars when it comes to pension plans.

There is a third option. It is important for dairy farmers in Quebec and all over the country to note that. Because only when we consider the third option can we make the argument that Canadian dairy farmers can still have a viable industry down the road. They need not fear the American juggernaut because there are ways to make dairy farmers in Canada competitive so they can not only survive, but can thrive in the free market environment.

Let me talk for a moment about that third option. Canadians have been telling us that one of the biggest issues of concern to them is the debt and the deficit. The government has taken some baby steps to deal with that but those steps will not be adequate. The reason that should be a concern to dairy farmers and anybody who is in business is that with every day that goes by, we go another $90 million to $100 million in the hole. Eventual-

ly we have to pay interest on that. Of course taxes have to go up to keep paying the interest on the debt and deficit. Every second that goes by we go in the hole another $1,036. It is $90 million to $100 million a day. Now our total debt is $551 billion and climbing.

One thing that must happen in order to make dairy farmers around the country competitive is we have to balance the budget. We have asked the government over and over again to the point where some people have become weary of it, but it is an important issue. We have asked the government to tell us when it will balance the budget. It has refused to do that. By refusing to do that it sends a very negative message which also hurts dairy farmers and anybody who is in business. The government sends a message to the markets that it is not prepared to deal with the problem seriously. Thus we have high interest rates which again penalize particularly people in the agriculture industry.

Before Canadian agriculture can be competitive with farmers around the world, we have to get those interest rates down. Right now there is an approximate 3 per cent differential with the United States. That is a huge competitive advantage for the United States. We have to beat that down.

If we can get a hold on the deficit and the debt we will slay two dragons. We will slay the dragon of high interest rates and the dragon of high taxes, which make it very difficult to do business in the country and compete internationally.

That is the option Reform is offering. It is one that the federal government certainly has not talked about. Of course, our Bloc friends would just as soon be out of the country so they have not really offered any constructive ideas for dealing with the debt and the deficit.

While we are on the subject, Reform has also talked about the need to pass language and cultural issues down to the provinces. That would solve a lot of concerns people in Quebec have about confederation and federalism as it is today. We are sensitive to the fact they wish to preserve their language and culture. Reform agrees with that. We believe there can be a way of accommodating the desire of provinces to have control over language and culture in a large country such as Canada where there are many different interests.

There are many other things we could talk about and many other arguments we could make for our vision of federalism. I hope those two address specifically some of the concerns that Quebec dairy farmers would have about competing more in a free trade environment.

One thing that is going to be happening in the near future and which the government has talked about is the need to expand the NAFTA.

The talk is that Chile will become involved very quickly in NAFTA. When that happens there are many people who suspect that the Americans will argue for more of an opening up of some of the protection we now provide for supply management. If that happens, if government is committed to expanding the NAFTA agreement as it says it is, there must be some accommodation to some of our trading partners to open these things up. Frankly, I would be surprised if the government denied that it was going to have to open things up a little bit more.

Setting that aside for a moment, we have already talked a bit about the GATT agreement which will be renegotiated in a few years time and undoubtedly tariffs will be coming down more. Given that reality, I say to my Bloc friends across the way that they are doing the dairy farmers in their own province a great disservice by telling them, leading them on and making them think that there is some way we can preserve the status quo. Well there is no way.

The best example of that, which my friend from Kindersley-Lloydminster pointed to earlier on, is what happened when the government made changes to the WGTA. People out west are saying: "Yes, WGTA is coming to an end. We do not have a problem with that, but it would be nice if we could have had a little notice. It would have been nice if we could have made some of the changes that we needed to make to the transportation system so that we could compete in that free market environment".

On the one hand, we are moving away from the free market environment by dumping the WGTA, which is fine, but on the other hand, the transportation system is still not responsive to a free market environment. Unfortunately, in the next year or so at least and probably three years, farmers in the west are going to be caught in that situation. That is unfair and really reflects poor planning on behalf of the government. It hurts people. I believe many farmers in the west may have to go out of business because of that very poor planning on behalf of the government.

Let us not repeat that mistake now by permitting dairy farmers across the country to think that somehow we can hold on to the status quo. The fact is that free trade is coming.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my comments, I do not know a lot about the production of milk but I do know a little bit about the consumption of it. I want to address some of the comments the member for Québec-Est made with respect to how this benefits dairy farmers.

I remind my hon. friend that there has to be a balance here. Consumers need to be considered when we talk about these things. When my friend talks about how dairy farmers in the United States are suffering and this that and the other thing, he should know that consumers are benefiting by the fact that there

is that competition. If anyone doubts that, they need only cross the border and look at the difference in the price of cheese, butter or milk compared to Canadian prices.

I do not think the difference in those prices has to be the difference in profit margin between Canada and the U.S. If we could get our act together by getting our own input costs down, I think our own dairy people can be extremely productive and profitable. However, the key is for us to deal with that debt and deficit.

When consumers have more money in their pockets by virtue of lower prices for things like milk, butter and cheese, they can also buy more of them. However, when they are very expensive because supply management builds in what I think we would regard as some inefficiencies, then people are a little bit more squeezed when it comes to buying groceries and they just cannot buy the same quantities they would be able to buy otherwise. That is something I would like my friend from Québec-Est to consider.

I talked a little bit about the debt and the deficit and the need to offer a third option. One of the things that came up yesterday in debate between the Liberals and the Bloc was the whole idea of the status quo federalism versus separation.

One of the things happening lately with the Bloc Quebecois and the Parti Quebecois is they have been sending out signs that they are moving more toward the idea of sovereignty association and who knows what now. There has been a lot of talk about their having all kinds of internal problems and about some people being perhaps more committed to federalism than they would like us to believe.

We would like to offer a chance to our friends in the Bloc Quebecois to take the extra step, come a little closer and consider Reform's vision of a decentralized Canada in which provinces will have their rights respected under the Constitution, in which we absolutely and completely support their rights to make some of the decisions that affect their well-being but on the other hand still allow them to remain part of one country and have more control of some of the things important to them in terms of international trade by virtue of the fact that they are part of one big country. They are not tiny countries among 150 in the world. They are part of Canada. Canada carries tremendous weight by virtue of its reputation and its size in terms of its economy.

We encourage our friends to consider this when they are talking about international trade. Obviously when we have more trade in the world because of a larger economy we will be able to make better agreements. We encourage our friends in the Bloc to think about that as well.

Any time the government brings forward legislation which brings rules and regulations in line with international agreements it is a step in the right direction. There are still some provinces concerned about the bill. We respect that.

I encourage the government and members of the Bloc Quebecois to continue to move toward agreements that recognize the reality that we must have free trade. It is where everyone is heading.

[Canadian Dairy Commission Act, May 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, no apology is necessary. The mistake was at our end but nevertheless it is a pleasure to rise to address Bill C-86.

Talking specifically to the bill, this is an act to amend the Canadian Dairy Commission Act. The purpose of the bill is to amend the act to provide for the replacement of the existing system of levies with a system of pooling market returns from different classes of milk. The idea of this bill is to bring that levy system into alignment with Canada's international trade agreements.

I am the first one to admit that I do not know a tremendous amount about milk production. I am certainly a milk consumer. I go to the 7-Eleven and buy milk. I put it on my cereal and am happy to drink it, but I have only milked a cow once in my life. Apparently it is all in the wrists, but I had very little luck with that.

I will speak a little on the idea of trade. I will also talk a little from my perspective as somebody who comes from a rural constituency about the obvious need to be sensitive to the farm community and the agricultural community while at the same time recognizing the realities out there.

Certainly the reality today in this country and around the world is that we are moving more and more toward free trade. My hon. friend from Québec-Est has just spoken at length about how Quebec is a sovereign country, and if it should ever become a sovereign country, heaven forbid, how it would somehow turn the tide against free trade or be a hold out to free trade. It would protect itself from free trade as though free trade were like a cafeteria where you could pick and choose the agreements you wanted to make.

Of course, that is unrealistic. It took around 100 countries to get a GATT agreement. I remind my hon. friend from Québec-Est and my friends in the Bloc that coming up in the year 2000, which is not very far away now, we are going to see another round of negotiations where undoubtedly tariffs will continue to fall. More and more pressure will be put on Canada and countries like ours that have supply management systems. We are eventually going to have to open up.

I also point out to my hon. friend that under the NAFTA agreement and certainly under any new NAFTA agreements that would come as a result of allowing countries like Chile and other Latin American countries in, we are going to have to see things open up.

Although I am somewhat sympathetic and I have heard from my friends about how supply management has served Quebec well in the past, particularly individual farmers, I can completely understand how important agriculture is to a province and to a country. It does not only produce agricultural commodities but it also produces a lifestyle. It produces income and people with fine character. That is very important and I believe in that.

We are doing people a disservice if we are not straight with them, if we do not tell them what the reality is. The reality is free trade is coming our way and the best thing we can do now is to begin to make adjustments so that we can survive in that free trade environment.

Yesterday I watched on television as members of the Bloc and members of the government debated back and forth about whether or not Quebec was going to stay in Canada, what it would be like if it was outside of Canada and so on.

People must remember that there is a third option. We do not have to settle for status quo federalism, which not only the people in Quebec are upset about, but also the people in the west. The people in my constituency of Medicine Hat are very upset with it.

We do not have to settle for sovereignty. In fact, I understand my Bloc friends are moving away from sovereignty. Pretty soon, who knows, maybe they will be committed federalists the way they are moving around here.

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, May 9th, 1995]

I thought it was a very good line. I give accolades to the member for Macleod.

Apart from the puns, Bill C-85 has a very serious side. That is what concerns me. Bill C-85 is way out of step on several counts. I want to talk about those for a moment and the faulty premise on which this bill is built.

Two years ago when I was knocking on doors in my constituency, in Brooks, Taber and Medicine Hat-and Medicine Hat in particular because it is a retirement town-one of the topics which people talked about was that they were sick and tired of the MP pension plan.

They did not say: "We are sick of the aspect which says that taxpayers kick in $6 and MPs kick in one". They said: "We are sick of the double standard". They did not say that they wanted 3.5 times instead of 6 times what MPs kick in. They said: "We expect a pension plan like anybody else's, where if the employee puts in a dollar maybe the employer will contribute a dollar, but nothing richer than that".

I took that to heart. Members of the Reform Party took it to heart. However, the government has completely ignored it. It has come up with another form of padding its members' pockets at the expense of taxpayers. It is crazy. This bill is completely out to lunch when it comes to respecting the wishes of the taxpayers. We are here to serve the taxpayers, not to serve ourselves.

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands is sitting over there scrambling to defend his trip to the trough. He is completely out of step with what Canadians are saying.

Another thing that Canadians mentioned to us is the huge debt. The debt at that time was $480 billion. It has now rocketed up to $550 billion. Surely members have some sympathy for the long-suffering taxpayer when they are considering the remuneration which they give themselves. However, no empathy was shown when the government proposed Bill C-85. It is another trip to the trough. It is a minor improvement over what the previous government gave to its members, but it is so far out of step that it defies logic. It defies description.

Medicine Hat to a large extent is a retirement town. In many cases its people exist on pensions. They find this debate absolutely unbelievable. The government will be talking this fall when the finance ministers convene about how to change the CPP to make it actuarially sound. The OECD says that the

retirement age will have to be pushed to age 79 to make it actuarially sound.

However, the government is proposing that we have pensions which are fully payable at age 55 with contributions from the taxpayer which are three and a half times what MPs have to put in. People find that absolutely unbelievable. I defy members across the way to come to my communities of Medicine Hat, Brooks, Taber, Bow Island, Tilley and all the other communities and justify this outrageous pension plan.

One subject which I wish to address is the whole idea of MPs' remuneration. It is well past the time when MPs should be allowed to set their own remuneration package. This bill does not deal with that. It completely ignores that. MPs and elected officials in other jurisdictions are about the only people in the country who are allowed to set their own wages and remuneration packages.

The president of General Motors or a teacher or a business person who owns a business cannot set his or her own wage. Business people are accountable to customers. They have to pay their suppliers. They can draw a wage based on all of that, but at the end of the day they have to depend on their customers and their employees before they can decide what kind of remuneration package they can have.

According to the government, MPs are above that. Bill C-85 makes no mention of it. It suggests that MPs should have a remuneration package which is based simply on the whims and caprices of the government. It has nothing to do with reality. It is an argument entirely in the abstract. The government has no perspective at all when it talks about the remuneration package or at least the member of Parliament pension plan. It is crazy.

One of the things that MPs are supposed to do is to talk to their constituents on a regular basis so they can find out where their constituents stand on these types of issues. It is a fundamental responsibility of a member of Parliament. However, none of that has been done when it comes to Bill C-85.

Instead, the government has decided to eschew the opinions of the public. It has said it does not want to hear from the public on this. It does not want to find out what the public thinks. What it wants to do is set up its own pension plan that is far richer than anything that is available in the private sector. If Canadians do not like it, that is tough luck because that is what the government will do.

When we knock on doors people are so cynical about politicians they will not listen to the first word we say about serious issues. All they believe we are doing is padding our own nest. I cannot argue against that. How can we argue against what the public is saying when it is absolutely true?

It is a well established tradition in this place and the government has done nothing to improve on it despite all of its promises in the red book. It has failed to restore integrity which is important and critical so people will respect and ultimately have faith in their government. This is a necessary step so that people will willing bring forward ideas for the important debates that need to occur so that the government enjoys the faith of the people. It is a very important aspect that the government has, I guess, intentionally ignored. It has pushed ahead with Bill C-85 and is actually now trying to invoke its own form of closure by not allowing a free and full debate.

The Reform Party has all kinds of concerns with this legislation. I want to touch on a fairly technical but still important part of it. The government has really tried, in my judgment, to deceive people by saying it is going to cut the contribution level down from 11 per cent to 9 per cent.

However, as my hon. friend from Fraser Valley West pointed out, there will not be enough money coming in. Reform MPs are opting out. I want to make it very clear that Reform MPs are opting out of this heinous plan. However, because of that the government is going to end up having to draw on more taxpayer dollars to make this thing fly. That is crazy.

The government has failed to consult with the people. It is padding its own pockets, padding its own nest, looking after itself and refusing to go to the people on an issue that is very important to them. It is an issue of integrity.

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, May 9th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to address this bizarre piece of legislation, Bill C-85. I want to paint a bit of a picture for people.

If someone told an ordinary Canadian citizen that he had a great business proposition, that for every dollar put into an investment he would get back $3.50, he would say that it was amazing and great. He would want to do it. Not only that. It would be guaranteed by the Government of Canada. We are not talking about 10 per cent, 8 per cent or 5 per cent on a Canada savings bond. We are talking about a 350 per cent return on investment.

The only problem is that it is not available to the average Canadian citizen. It is only available to members of Parliament. It is disgusting. It is the height of hypocrisy. My hon. friend from Macleod said: "They were not hypocrites but hypo-grits when they proposed this".

[Seagram, April 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, that is an amazing coincidence and probably one without precedent in the country.

The minister has denied that there has been any wrongdoing on the Seagram file. Yet his officials have been in contact with industry officials and are still in contact with and linked to the Bronfmans. Surely the minister has been briefed on the contacts.

Is the minister suggesting that it is appropriate for his officials to continue contacting industry officials who are in constant contact with principals of the Seagram deal?

[Seagram, April 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the process in the Seagram deal stinks to high heaven.

The ADM for heritage responsible for the file is linked to the Bronfmans through family ties. Investment Canada has confirmed that Rabinovitch's people have contacted it on the issue. This is a blatant conflict of interest.

Why does the Minister of Canadian Heritage fail to see that his department's continued contacts with industry officials and with the Bronfmans jeopardize the integrity of the process and of the Liberal government?

[Occupational Health And Safety, April 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, every day Canadians across the country enter a dangerous workplace.

Canadians remember and mourn the 26 miners tragically taken in the Westray coal mine explosion. This disaster only serves to underline the brutal reality of certain types of work.

Today is a day of mourning for persons killed or injured in the workplace. Canadians must learn from the mistakes of the past, take action in the present and ensure their health and safety are protected in the future.

Occupational health and safety should be foremost in the minds of management, labour and governments when decisions are made. A safe workplace translates into a productive workforce and a strong and vital economy. From the farm, to the mine, to the factory, to the lumber mill the Reform Party pays respect to all who put their lives on the line to make ends meet.

[Readjustment Act, 1995, April 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, certainly I recognize there are differences from community to community. To the greatest degree possible boundaries should recognize this and try to embrace communities where there have been traditional boundaries.

However the first principle, the driving principle in my judgment, has to be representation by population. At the end of the 20th century we do not yet have a political system that either serves people on the basis of representation by population or contrarily has a counterpoise through a triple-E Senate. It is time that we started to move toward that.

In our amendments to Bill C-69, the one that called for a 15 per cent variance would have given us a closer system. That has to be the first principle that drives any changes to the boundaries. The second principle should respect trading areas and things like that. We agree with that absolutely. Let us not make that the first principle.

Canadians are democrats first and foremost. I think they would like to see a system that is based on a more democratic type of system.