Lorne Nystrom

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, the NDP in Saskatchewan has done an awful lot. Otherwise it would not get re-elected. I am sure the member across the way will respect the wisdom of the voters of Saskatchewan. The NDP has been in government there for most of the time since 1944 and we have had to fight this very far right wing tendency in our province over the years. We have usually been victorious in fighting that tendency.

Here again we have a far right wing party that wants to cut back on all kinds of government support. It is against any kind of subsidy or support coming from the federal government. It is against the Canadian Wheat Board, or at least the member across the way made it very clear that he wants to get rid of the Canadian Wheat Board. He wants the wheat board off the backs of Saskatchewan farmers. I can tell him that about 80% or 90% of Saskatchewan farmers would disagree very strongly with the member for Cypress Hills--Grasslands. The Canadian Wheat Board is an institution that has been supported very strongly by Saskatchewan farmers over the years. The member knows that. His party is supposed to be a democratic party, a party based on the grassroots and input from ordinary citizens, yet it does not listen to the ordinary people.

The farmers want the wheat board. The farmers have supported the wheat board. My riding, which is half rural, is extremely supportive of the Canadian Wheat Board, supportive by adding more crops under the Canadian Wheat Board. That is the position of most of the producers in the province of Saskatchewan.

It is parties like his that say there should be smaller government, fewer government programs, fewer government supports and fewer government subsidies. Now of course this is happening in terms of the federal government. That party is getting its wish because part of its agenda is being implemented and it is devastating rural Saskatchewan and devastating rural Canada.

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

As my friend from Vancouver East has said, it is a nightmare that ordinary people are facing.

Let us get our priorities straight. The country needs a vision by a strong federal government, a national vision that includes all Canadians, including rural Canadians. We need a strong federal government that will take on the Americans in terms of their trade policy. We need a strong national government with a national farm support program to make sure that farmers get back their costs of production as a minimum plus a decent income on which to live. That is the kind of vision we need.

We need a federal government that is committed to use some of the national surplus to help the farmers and rural people. Yet the federal government was so spooked before the last election campaign by the Alliance and by the brand new leader of the Alliance Party that it made a commitment to the biggest tax cut in the history of our country, some $100 billion over five years, at the cost of cutbacks to the farmers, at the cost of cutbacks to our national health care system, and at the cost of cutbacks to transfers to the provinces for public education.

Where is the Liberal Party of old? Where is the Liberal Party of Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau? Where has that party gone? Sitting across the way is the most conservative government in the last 40 years.

As I said before, program spending now by the government is the lowest it has been since 1949, when comparing program spending to the GDP. That is not the Liberal Party of old which would pick up ideas from the CCF and the NDP, such as national medicare, social programs, a mixed economy, the CBC, the Canadian Wheat Board. Where is that old Liberal Party? The old Liberal Party is gone.

Hopefully some Liberals will get up in the House of Commons today and give us a national vision of where we should be going. If we do not do that we will lose rural Canada and the farmers.

I see another friend of mine across the way from New Brunswick. I hope he also gets up in the House. He represents a rural riding and talks about the devastation of the economy in rural New Brunswick and what has happened there since the Liberal Party has come to power.

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

No wonder the Liberal from rural Ontario is hanging his head in shame. The federal government has an accumulated surplus of some $43 billion in the EI fund, yet the majority of people do not even qualify for employment insurance. That is the Liberal vision. No wonder people are becoming alienated with the political process.

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

What the federal government has taken out of Saskatchewan since 1993 is absolutely incredible.

There has been the abolition of the Crow rate and all the money has gone out of the province of Saskatchewan. The highways are being destroyed. The farmers are not moving their grain by rail. All across the prairies there are thin membrane paved highways. When big trucks are put on those thin membrane highways the highways are destroyed. Those highways have been destroyed by the big trucks as farmers truck grain into the towns instead of by rail. Now hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent to build thick membrane highways that can carry the big trucks.

That is what has happened in the 1990s. There has been a lack of vision by the government across the way. That is why there are very few rural members from western Canada sitting on the government side of the House. There are very few because of the total negligence by the government to rural Canadians that live in the western part of our country.

I am asking members today to vote with us. I am asking the Liberal members across the way to stand with us in asking for some real money for a real vision. Where is the vision the country is supposed to have, a national vision of building a stronger country and a stronger foundation?

If the farmers are better off, then we all will be better off. If the farmer spends the money, it will stimulate the economy in the towns and the cities and there will be a job for every Canadian right across the country.

That is one of the problems in rural Canada. When we lose our rural infrastructure, we lose our rural hospitals and the rural health clinics. The post offices are pulling out. The small towns are losing their stores and shops. The whole thing is falling by the wayside because of the lack of leadership and the lack of vision.

I also turn to rural Canada when I think of softwood lumber. I think of many parts of my province.

People think of Saskatchewan as a flat prairie province but over half of its land area is full of trees. Softwood lumber is a very important industry to our province and to British Columbia, yet the American government has put a duty of some 27% on softwood lumber. It is the same American government that expects us to co-operate fully in the war on terrorism, to co-operate fully in Afghanistan and to support it all the way in the so-called northern command and to have a joint customs union. However the Liberals across the way are not even talking about a common currency because they do not want to upset Uncle Sam.

Why are we being boy scouts in these dealings with the Americans? The Americans would not be doing this to themselves, yet the Liberal government across the way seems to be afraid of its own shadow when it comes to speaking up about what is good for Canadians and Canada.

We need a farm support program. It is very ironic that today the Alliance Party is talking about additional aid for farmers. It is the same party that spoke against government support for farmers and farm support programs years ago. There are many quotes in the House where the Alliance opposed farm support programs. There are many cases in the House of Commons where the Alliance Party has talked about government being too big, having too many programs, too many grants, too many subsidies and too much money going out, and the Alliance has wanted to cut back on spending and on programs. We already have the smallest government spending in terms of GDP since 1949. That is what the Alliance Party is doing but it should go exactly the opposite way of what the Alliance is doing.

The Alliance once again today is calling for the weakening of the Canadian Wheat Board. We do not need a weaker Canadian Wheat Board. We need a strong Canadian Wheat Board, a single purchasing agent on behalf of all Canadians.

It is very strange. The Alliance Party talked about grassroots democracy, referenda and plebiscites. Every time there is a referendum or a plebiscite on supporting the Canadian Wheat Board, the farmers of our country and my province overwhelmingly want a Canadian Wheat Board that is strong and which is there on behalf of all farmers of the country. Every survey seen among the farmers of my province show that people want a very strong Canadian Wheat Board.

The Alliance Party wants to throw it open to the so-called open market, to the Cargills of the world and to the big multinational grain companies that are based in the United States. The Alliance pretends it is speaking up for the ordinary farmer of Saskatchewan. That is total rubbish. It is exactly the opposite direction to where we have to go.

It is about time we had a rural vision, a vision that would put money into the rural infrastructure, into the hands of the Canadian farmers, a vision that would have strong marketing boards for our products and a strong Canadian Wheat Board that would fight on behalf of the Canadian farmer. We need a Canadian government that will fight against the Americans' new national farm bill. We need a Canadian government that will take a strong stand in support of our softwood lumber producers.

A lot of things need to be done for rural Canada. I was in Newfoundland just a few days ago. There is a byelection going on in Gander. My friend from Pictou was in Newfoundland the day after I was there. We can see the rural devastation when it comes to the outports and small communities of Newfoundland. They have been devastated by a lack of vision by federal governments over the years. The fishery has been gutted, again because of a lack of vision and a lack of planning by governments over the years. It goes back well before 1993.

Year after year we in the House of Commons are ignoring the important issues that face rural Canada. I also think of the unemployed. In Canada there is a tendency to have more unemployed in rural areas than in the larger cities. I think of places like Bathurst and the Acadian peninsula in New Brunswick. There is a large number of unemployed people in that part of the world. Yet the government across the way is cutting back on employment insurance benefits and making it more difficult for legitimately unemployed people to qualify for benefits.

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

That is a wonderful idea across the way. I hope the member from rural Ontario gets up and makes that public in the House of Commons, that Saskatchewan needs $1 billion.

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

Of course our deputy premier is over there right now.

The government has cut back on farm support programs since 1993. It has done that to a much greater degree than it had to.

Once again there is a huge surplus in the federal treasury. The finance minister tabled a budget a couple of months ago and talked about a surplus of $1.5 billion. Now we hear from the Department of Finance that there is likely to be a surplus of between $7 billion and $10 billion. The money is there for a couple of billion dollars for an emergency farm program to help the farmers.

I would like to see the Liberal members across the way get up on their feet and join the debate in a call for an emergency farm bill to help keep some of our farmers on the land. The Liberal Party has a rural task force which has been around the country. The agriculture committee has been around the country. They have been to Saskatchewan and right across Canada. I am sure they have seen firsthand the problems the farmers are having.

If farmers continue to go bankrupt it will hurt the country very badly. It is a very big economic issue. It is extremely important that the House unite and make this one of its priorities. There is nothing more important than the economic well-being of the country in terms of having a society that is happy and healthy. Now we see more and more people in the rural areas suffering from all kinds of problems. We see an increase in suicides. We see an increase in frustration. There is an increase in family violence, bankruptcies and the dislocation of family life in small towns and villages. Driving through the countryside, people can see the towns that were once thriving are thriving no more.

Where is the vision? We in this country have a surplus of $7 billion to $10 billion in fiscal 2001 and fiscal 2002 with a projection of a bigger surplus next year. Let us channel some of that surplus back to the farmers.

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I want to say a few words on this very important debate before the House today about the vision we have for rural Canada and the lack thereof by the federal government.

I have been around the House for a while and have seen various government policies over the years and there has been a real lack of national vision regarding rural Canada and what will happen to the rural part of our country.

It is getting worse all the time. Recent evidence of that is the American farm bill which is in its last week of winding its way through the American government process and will give a subsidy of $171 billion to American farmers. That will be absolutely devastating to the farmers of this country. That is $171 billion over 10 years. They have already had a massive subsidy. The Canadian farmer now gets about 9¢ on the dollar from the federal government, while the American farmer has been receiving about 35¢ on the dollar from Washington. Of course when it gets to Europe it gets even worse. The European farmer receives about 55¢ on the dollar from Brussels.

On top of those things, we get the American farm bill, which is another $171 billion. I do not know what the calculation of that will be but it will certainly be very devastating to the farmers of our country. It is a national farm bill. It applies to British Columbia right through to Newfoundland. Pulse crops will be included for the first time now.

I was on a plane on Friday with a Saskatchewan farmer who said that the American subsidy now for a bushel of peas was about $5.95. It is just absolutely incredible in terms of having any of our producers even survive this kind of devastation that is hitting our country. Therefore I consider this a very important debate here in the House today.

When I look at the prairies and at my own province of Saskatchewan I worry about another problem, the problem of drought. The year 2001 was Saskatchewan's driest year in recorded history. It was dryer than the 1930s. I think the driest years in the 1930s were 1936, 1937 and maybe 1938. The devastation to rural Saskatchewan, the rural prairies and rural Canada has been incredible. We had very little snow during the winter and very little rain this spring. When I fly over the prairies it is brown. A disaster is coming down the chute and obviously the minister across the way is aware of it.

We have drought and we have low international prices caused by massive subsidies in Europe and in the United States compounded now by the ever increasing subsidies by the Americans under the American farm bill. Those are recipes for an absolute disaster.

This is a human tragedy. One just has to look at the census results across the rural prairies. Even in the province of Alberta, which has tremendous revenues because of oil, gas and bigger cities like Edmonton and Calgary, many of the smaller towns and villages in the rural areas are disappearing. Since 1995 almost every single riding in Saskatchewan has suffered a population loss and that is before the American farm bill has even been passed.

It is a strange situation when we hear George W. Bush and the Americans talk about the importance of free trade and how they are champions of free trade and yet we have greater protectionism by the government of the United States than we have seen since the 1930s with the American farm bill, softwood lumber in British Columbia in particular and the subsidies now in the American steel industry. It goes on and on.

It is a very important economic issue for Canada that our federal government take a very strong stand with the Americans. This is not just an economic issue for the prairie farmers or the rural people in the small towns and villages, it is a national economic issue of great importance to our country. We must stand up and fight as hard as we can to make sure we protect the farmers of Canada.

The second thing that is very important is that farmers need help. The federal-provincial agriculture ministers from across Canada are meeting today and tomorrow at the Marriott Hotel in Ottawa. I am sure the federal minister will hear from all the provincial ministers about the need for help particularly on the prairies. The federal government has reduced price support programs since 1993. It has cut back on price support programs in accordance with the WTO.

[Excise Act, 2001, April 30th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I want to say a few words on the bill before the House today as well. Bill C-47 is basically a technical bill that applies to duties regarding wine, spirits and tobacco products.

It is a bill we support. It is not a bill of great significance in terms of a lot of change. We support the amendments from the finance committee regarding microbreweries. My friend from the Bloc Quebecois just mentioned the problems of microbreweries and I agree with him wholeheartedly as well.

While we are talking about this important tax bill I want to say that we need a debate about a fair taxation policy that would be fair and just for the ordinary citizens of Canada. It has been a while since we have had that kind of debate. The last time we talked about taxation was during the 2000 election campaign when the Liberal Party made a commitment to a $100 billion tax cut over five years. We had that debate during the campaign but there has been very little in parliament itself in terms of a debate about a taxation policy that might be of benefit to Canadians.

When I think of the bill before us and our taxation system we must look at two or three different changes. I remember talking to people in my riding on the weekend in Indian Head, Saskatchewan. People were talking about three priorities: the need for more investment in the public health care system, the need for greater investment in public education, and the need for an investment to deal with the farm crisis that is extremely dire now right across the prairies and indeed right across the country.

Not many people realize this but according to statistics, 2001 was the driest year in the history of the province of Saskatchewan. The 1930s were very dry years. In particular 1936 and 1937 were extremely dry years. They were the years of the great drought and the great depression across the prairies. However last year was the driest year in recorded history.

These are the priorities of the government. We must talk about a taxation system that is fair enough to meet the public's agenda and priorities and do what is best for the common good. In addition to this we have concerns about the lack of infrastructure in the big cities including rural Canada, the national highways policy, environmental cleanup and ensuring that we have a safe water supply.

These are all issues that require a great deal of public investment, which in the last number of years has been curtailed radically by the federal government. We have to talk about a taxation system that is both fair and provides enough money to ensure we have public investment for the good of all Canadians.

When we look at these we think of the projections the Minister of Finance has made time and time again. Every year he has made projections and underestimated the revenue available to the Government of Canada. We now have surpluses that go strictly into the national debt.

Last year, at the end of the year, the federal government had a surplus of $17 billion. That was applied to the national debt automatically, except for the $101 million the Prime Minister decided to spend on Challenger airplanes on the last day of the fiscal year. The money went entirely to the national debt.

I am suggesting we give ourselves as parliamentarians some flexibility to decide where we spend these unexpected, non-anticipated surpluses that are not budgeted for. In Saskatchewan, and in some other provinces, we have a fiscal stabilization fund. It is a fund that governments pay into during good times and draw money out of in difficult times to balance the budget, to meet public expenditures, public expectations, and to meet a crisis like the farm crisis and so on.

If we were to have a fiscal stabilization fund that the $17 billion would have gone into instead of being applied automatically to the national debt, this parliament could have had a debate as to what to do with the $17 billion surplus. We may have decided to spend it in four or five different ways. Perhaps some of that surplus would have been spent on paying down the national debt.

I am sure in all likelihood the majority of that surplus would have gone into investment, public health care, public education, environmental cleanup, infrastructure, housing and the farm crisis, and other issues that are facing Canadians. After all every parliamentarian that goes back to his or her riding gets people lobbying on behalf of those very important causes. However, today, because we do not have a fiscal stabilization fund, parliament is not just handcuffed it is absolutely impotent in terms of deciding where to spend this unexpected, non-anticipated service.

I appeal to the House that we look at ways and means that will allow parliament to make the decision over the expenditure of taxpayers' money after debate in the House of Commons instead of allowing all of that money to go to the national debt by default. That is what has happened and it will happen again.

Two months ago, the Minister of Finance projected in his budget a $1.5 billion surplus for the fiscal year 2001-2002.

More recent projections by the finance department put the surplus at somewhere between $7 billion and $10 billion. Many members, including Bloc Quebecois members, have said in the House that, if a bill is not passed, all of the surplus will be used to pay down the national debt.

We are not against paying down debts. In fact, the debt to GDP ratio in Canada was much too high in the mid-1990s when the debt represented 70% of our GDP. We were the second highest indebted country in the G-7 next to Italy. Now the debt to GDP ratio is down to about 50%. That is considerable progress. We are roughly in the middle now of the G-7 nations.

Instead of automatically applying all of that money year after year of unexpected surpluses to the national debt, let us set up a mechanism in the House where we can have a debate in parliament to decide where that money will go. This is not a partisan issue as I look across at my friends on the Liberal side of the House.

What role does parliament have that is more important than scrutinizing taxpayers' money and deciding what is best to do with taxpayers' money? There are three things we can do with taxation revenue: first, is to pay down the national debt, second, is to reduce taxes in the case of a surplus, and lastly, is to put more money in terms of public expenditures on issues of concern like health and education.

What has suffered in the last few years since the 1995 budget of the Minister of Finance? Less and less money has been proportionately going toward investment into programs for people.

I have seen many frustrated Liberal backbenchers over the last few months who have expressed a concern, because of the rules of parliament, that the government is now being run by the Prime Minister's Office, a few bureaucrats across the way in the Langevin Block, and the Minister of Finance and some of his people without any input from the ordinary member of parliament. They are so right when they say that.

This is something that parties in the House should unite on and ensure we have a mechanism in parliament such as a fiscal stabilization fund. When we have that unexpected surplus the money would go into the fund and parliament would have a debate as to how the money is to be spent.

Is it a radical idea to call for a public democratic debate and call for transparency in terms of how we spend taxpayers' money? That is my plea in this debate, that we in parliament have a debate over where that surplus would be going for this fiscal year. We should have had a debate over where the surplus went in the last fiscal year when $17 billion was applied to the national debt. These are some of the things that should be done.

During the minute I have left to conclude, I would like to talk about the report the auditor general made public three or four weeks ago.

The auditor general stated in her report that we have $7.1 billion now invested in six or seven different foundations and none of them are subject to an audit by the auditor general. Once again this is an issue of accountability and transparency over how the public's money is spent. The auditor general must have the right to audit all these foundations. I hope the House will agree with me and help me make these representations to the Minister of Finance and others.

[Foreign Affairs, April 26th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, what concerns me is the Liberal track record. I remember their campaigning against free trade, getting elected and then implementing free trade back in 1993.

This morning Mr. Axworthy also called for a full parliamentary debate on the whole issue of the northern command. I would like a precise answer from the Deputy Prime Minister to this question. Will he give a commitment today to a full public and parliamentary debate in the House of Commons with a free vote before the government implements the ideas of the northern command?

[Foreign Affairs, April 26th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. It arises out of the press conference held this morning by Lloyd Axworthy, the former minister of foreign affairs, and the current member for Don Valley West. They claimed that the debate over the northern command is as important now as the debate in the 1980s over free trade. Mr. Axworthy also expressed the concern that trade is now trumping sovereignty, something we in the NDP have been saying in the House for the last few years.

I ask the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or the Deputy Prime Minister preferably, does he accept the analysis made by Mr. Axworthy this morning, or is it the government's intention once again to sell out the country like it did during the free trade debate?