Charlie Penson

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustmentact, 1995, June 20th, 1995]

It was very interesting that we had a lot of Liberal members in this House talking about the Ontario election about a month ago, but they got fewer and fewer as the weeks passed and it was obvious that the Conservatives were going to win in Ontario.

Of course, to Mike Harris's credit, he did borrow some of our ideas and policies. We applaud him for that.

Another Reform policy in this area is that government should give careful consideration to filling vacancies as they occur in the Senate with province-wide elections. These elections should be conducted in the same manner as the one in which the late Senator Stan Waters was elected, thereby having some popular support in the province. In Quebec, where the senators actually represent defined constituencies, the election would only have to take place in that constituency.

The official Liberal position is that they support an elected Senate. In our caucus we go even further. We believe in what we call a triple-E Senate, one that is equal, effective, and elected. A Senate where there is true representation by region would provide the people of the less populous provinces with an effective voice in the second chamber of Canada's Parliament. A triple-E Senate would give an equal voice to the smaller, less populous provinces and give them the clout in Parliament they have sought for so long.

It is not as if Canada would be breaking any new ground here. Other countries have two democratically elected chambers: the United States, Germany, and Australia. I realize that creating the kind of Senate of which I speak would require constitutional reform, but in the interim this government could hold senatorial

elections in the same way it did when it appointed Stan Waters as a result of that election.

To date, the Prime Minister has ignored his own official Liberal policy and has chosen to fill Senate vacancies with the usual assortment of party hacks and cronies. This is in direct conflict with the stated Liberal policy.

Since Bill C-69 does not bring about substantial change to the redrawing of the boundaries and to the whole democratic process of true representation, I say let us revert back to the old process. Why would I say that? It is because we have already spent $6 million on that process. Hearings have been held in a lot of those ridings. They understood what was going to happen in terms of what their new boundaries would be. It was well along before it was interrupted a year and a half ago.

I say let us change the whole kit and caboodle. Let us bring in true representation by population and bring in true representation by region or else leave the process alone and revert to what it was before. We had quite a good process in place, one that recognized that there are people who move in the country from time to time, one that recognized growth in regions and therefore recognized that the boundaries have to be redrawn from time to time. That process is one we should revert to. The Senate recognized it, with some minor changes. I believe we would be wise to drop Bill C-69 and the mismanagement that has followed it and revert to a process that has worked well for us in the past.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustmentact, 1995, June 20th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I would like to say that I welcome the opportunity to speak on this whole matter of electoral boundaries, in particular Bill C-69 and the amendments before us this evening.

It seems we have been dealing with this issue ever since I got to this House, and in fact I guess that is the case. Bill C-18, the Liberal government's attempt to disband the Electoral Boundaries Commission, was one of the first bills brought forward. In fact the first time I saw closure used in this House as a new member was on that very bill. This evening we see closure being used again to limit debate on Bill C-69.

The member for Vancouver Quadra talked about the changes that were made at the Senate and the reason we are back here this evening to debate those. Many of those amendments were ours. The quotient that he talked about from plus or minus 25 to 15 I think was a good one, but I think the thing that marks the whole business of Bill C-69 and the electoral boundaries is the mismanagement of this whole issue. We have been working on this for a year and a half, and in fact it may now revert back to the old boundaries commission if it does not get through this week. That shows how badly mismanaged this whole issue has been. I think it has been a tremendous waste of time in this House.

This is the government that was going to do things differently. We have closure on Bill C-69 tonight so that we have to vote at eleven o'clock. We had closure on Bill C-41 just this week on the hate crimes bill. We have had closure being used or time allocation on Bill C-68, gun control, and again on Bill C-85, the MP pension plan. What is this all about? I know members want to get back to their ridings, but it seems to me that this is not a very reasonable approach to limit debate in this very important Chamber.

Bill C-69, should it receive royal assent by the end of this week, will make some adjustments to the Electoral Boundaries Adjustment Act, which was first enacted in 1964. As far as I am concerned, this bill should not be passed. The changes being proposed are not substantial enough to warrant the interruption of a perfectly good process.

The process that was in place before was fine. It is a process that was almost complete in any case. In fact the Canadian taxpayers had already spent around $6 million on a process of redrawing our electoral boundaries before the Liberal government decided to change this through Bill C-18 and now Bill C-69. In fact hearings were held in a lot of ridings in Canada.

If this bill is not passed, we may go back to the original boundaries commission and pick that whole process up. People who have been waiting to make their case patiently are waiting to see what this new boundaries commission is going to be. It has been a year and a half, and I think time is of the essence because we may be only two years away from the next election.

What is the process that was interrupted a year and a half ago? It is a process that occurs every ten years or after each census. But last year there was considerable concern by the new Liberal MPs from Ontario that changes to their riding boundaries would hurt their re-election chances. This was the party that was going to be different. The member before me talked about what used to happen in the old days with gerrymandering. This smacks of the same type of thing.

If this government is unhappy with the results of the boundaries commission when they were allowed to complete their work, it should bring forward some substantive changes. In fact it has not done that. By substantive change I mean true representation by population in this House of Commons and true representation by region in the Senate.

My riding of Peace River has been in place since 1925. It has a population of almost 107,000 people. Of the 13 large ridings in Canada, mostly northern ridings, that have areas of over 100,000 square kilometres, the Peace River riding rates up there at about ninth.

What do we have in this country? Do we have representation by population? We are not even close. The quotient the hon. member before me talked about is going to bring it closer, and it certainly needs to be. We have some constituencies that have populations as low as just over 30,000 people. We have others in downtown Toronto that are in the 230,000 range. This is too big of a spread. I believe we need some substantive changes, not tinkering in this House.

In our minority report to the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act we called for changes that would make sense in this House of Commons. The key change is that we would like to see the number of seats reduced. Our proposal would create a House with 265 seats based on the 1991 census. This would be a decrease from the 301 that will come into effect under the current formula.

One thing we have heard a fair amount of in the last couple of years is that we are a country that is overgoverned. If we look at the United States, which has a bigger population by far, they have far fewer elected members. I believe we can never get to the situation they have unless we make substantive changes, but we can start the process in gear. The decrease would be spread among the eight provinces and would maintain representation by population as it is at present but with a fairer share for both Ontario and British Columbia.

If this government would only care to listen to what the people want, it would hear that Canadians want less government and fewer politicians. Look at what happened just recently in the Ontario election. Mike Harris promised that he would reduce the number of seats in the Ontario legislature by 25 per cent. It was one of the contributing factors to his election, I would think. And of course he won against considerable odds.

[Canadian Dairy Commission Act, June 20th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak to Bill C-86 today.

I certainly appreciated the comments from my seatmate, the member for Lisgar-Marquette, about the need for a healthy agricultural economy in Canada. Like him, I operate an active grain farm and know that we contribute very much to the economy of Canada in terms of providing a good food supply at a very reasonable cost.

I want to premise my remarks today on Bill C-86 by saying that what I am trying to do and our party is trying to do today is to outline what we think is the need for leadership to provide the environment for opportunities for those farm industries that operate under supply management, how they can make the change, how they can adapt to go into the 21st century and be productive members of our society, keep their farms and operate on a very sound economic basis.

Bill C-86 is an attempt by the government to change the present levy system for industrial milk by implementing a pooling system for all industrial milk among six provinces. This bill's purpose is to enact the obligations of the Uruguay round of the GATT.

The present levy system is considered an export subsidy under GATT and is not permitted under the agreement. The new system will pool all earnings for industrial milk and will take the cost for exporting excess milk from those earnings. The revenues the farmers receive will remain unchanged.

This bill simply keeps the present supply management system in place. The government openly acknowledges that this is the case. But supply management and free trade are very much opposing systems.

The last time I checked, the trend in the world economy was in the direction of a more open trade. Supply management is totally out of step with the times. It is like a horsedrawn buggy and it needs a redesign so we can move as quickly as the rest of the world.

Recently our quotas for products made with industrial milk ended due to GATT and were replaced with astronomically high tariffs, 351 per cent in the case of butter, which is the highest. They are all in that range of some 250 to 350 per cent.

Members will probably know that the United States is presently challenging our sky high dairy tariffs. They are viewed by the United States as a violation under NAFTA and the United States has called for a NAFTA panel to hear arguments on this issue during the summer. So the process has started.

A challenge under NAFTA takes between two and five years. If Canada loses the transition time for the elimination of tariffs, domestic quotas would have to be negotiated. The chances of Canada winning the present challenge to the new dairy tariffs are questionable, in my view. Our American sources are quite confident they can win this one.

Even if Canada feels it has a good case, the future for the pooling system cannot be ensured. Many would like to believe that the pooling system can solve all of our problems in this industry, that it can make supply management secure. That is not realistic. What we need is some realism here. The future of an

entire industry cannot be focused on such a weak system. The time has come to move on and to move this industry beyond supply management.

NAFTA negotiations to include Chile as a new partner have already begun. These new negotiations will be an opportunity to resolve old issues. Our partners in NAFTA want to finalize those old issues before admitting a new member and signing a new agreement. The supply management dairy issue is one of those.

The United States has good reason to push for an end to our present supply management system. The Americans want to have access to our markets for dairy products. On the other hand, Canada has a chance to end the notorious back door subsidies the U.S. hands out to its farmers. This is an opportunity, and I stress it is an opportunity that cannot be lost, to push for an end to all United States subsidies, which totalled over $10 billion U.S. per year in 1993.

We can also shape the time period for phasing out our present supply management system in Canada. We have to seize this opportunity to do some hardball negotiations where Canada says yes, we will give up some of our high tariffs on the supply managed industries, but only in exchange for you reducing your subsidies that you do through the back door. Then we would have the level playing field my colleague from Lisgar-Marquette spoke about, the need for this level playing field.

I believe that our farmers can compete with anyone as long as they have the same conditions. In fact, I believe that with the high population base in the United States and with most of our supply managed industry located within this 100-mile corridor we can function very well. I believe we can make the most of opportunities. We cannot lose this important opportunity that has been presented with the United States challenge to NAFTA to say yes, we are willing to give up something, but only in exchange for your backing off your subsidies.

I think we should work toward a continental free trade zone for dairy products, a sectoral approach. One sector may be able to move faster than others, and I believe this is one of them. This will place all dairy farmers on an even footing. No one farmer will have an unfair advantage based on the country in which he lives or produces. I believe that is to the advantage of our dairy farmers.

The world is moving to a new open market. There are 130 countries that signed the Uruguay round of the GATT agreement and there are more countries that want to get in. Canada is part of that free trade world. The time has come for government to recognize that a transition to a free market in this hemisphere is important to all of us. The government needs to help dairy farmers to make the necessary transition, not hold them back.

The industry needs time to adjust. Dairy farmers have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in their operations. The government must negotiate a new deal for farmers or all their hard work could be lost in the blink of an eye. I for one know of the hard work that is involved in running any type of farm operation, but in a dairy farm operation, as my colleague has just said, seven days a week is the norm. We must take this opportunity to give them some kind of a future, not one where we have the blinkers on and pretend the system will always be in place, but one where we can help them to move to this. Many of these farms have been handed down from generation to generation, and farmers want that to continue. It is a way of life they enjoy.

This industry needs to develop an economy of scale to compete with producers from other countries. The industry must develop into a system that increases efficiencies and lowers the cost of production. For example, the diversity of herd size and yield in Canada is not set up to meet that need. The same holds true for the United States. The average size of a cow herd in Canada is 47, and in the United States it is 45. But in British Columbia, the model province in the industry, the average herd size is larger, at 78 milking cows. They are starting to make the adjustment. As a result, the yield in B.C. is over 20 per cent higher than that in the rest of Canada or the United States. The industry in British Columbia is considered to be the most advanced in North America. But under the present system the industry cannot operate at full capacity. The B.C. quota is not high enough.

I believe it is ludicrous that the provinces that are the most efficient cannot benefit from this efficiency. The supply management system is only coddling the inefficient producers and hurting the industry as a whole.

The U.S. dairy industry is not making the transition to free trade either. Farmers in the U.S. are paid to keep their herd sizes down. This policy is meant to limit output. U.S. farmers receive more subsidies from the government than their Canadian counterparts. In fact, dairy farmers are the most highly subsidized in the United States.

In Canada, subsidies for industrial milk were decreased in the February budget by 30 per cent over two years. There is even a possibility that the entire system of direct government subsidies will end in the near future. The rebate to manufacturers using Canadian dairy products will end in August. This is due to our GATT commitments. We need to continue the trend.

I know that Canadian farmers need to stay one step ahead of their American counterparts. The phasing out of internal quota would be a next logical step. There has been discussion that one possible option would be a partial buyout of the quota. Farmers should be fully functioning members of a free enterprise system and should stay ahead of the competition. They would not lose all the time and money they have invested by taking this approach.

With the negotiation of a new deal for NAFTA they would be able to compete.

Canada needs to take this further in the next round of the GATT as well, in five years. But first we must start with the new opportunity I spoke of earlier that is presented by the NAFTA talks and any possible expansion to include other countries.

I understand the fear of the dairy industry and dairy farmers. Grain farmers went through about 15 tough years when there was a massive trade war on in agriculture. Trade rules have really helped. The World Trade Organization and the GATT have really helped. As long as we can phase down subsidies worldwide we can compete with anybody.

A new system would be open and entirely different. There would be no guaranteed price for their product but some farmers would not be able to adjust. They would have to go. As a whole, the industry would have to benefit.

The economy has changed and the way to do business must change as well. If the dairy industry does not change, I fear it will be harmed very substantially. This would hurt all Canadians regardless of which province they live in, regardless of the level of dairy production in their area.

We do have a very important example of an integrated economy in agriculture, the beef industry. It is a North American integrated market. The next logical step for Canada is to do the same thing with the supply managed industries, specifically the dairy industries.

If we can negotiate subsidies down in the United States and our tariffs, Canadian dairy farmers can compete. Members of Parliament have an obligation to ensure our dairy industry can compete. We need to help the industry to survive and prosper. The industry needs direction for the transition. If we do not lead in the Chamber, who will? We need to give guidance to the industry of intentions to negotiate a better solution.

To ignore the reality and lose it in the end makes no sense. The time for change is now before it is forced on this industry. I want to help dairy farmers make this adjustment for the future.

The government needs to broker a better deal during future negotiations. I want to see them be a success. Governments should want to see them succeed as well.

Let us not bury our heads in the sand and ignore reality. As a farmer and a believer in the free market system, I call on the government to lead dairy farmers and the supply managed industry into the 21st century.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, June 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to follow my colleague from Beaver River. I would like to raise many of the same points but it is important that I have an opportunity to speak on Bill C-92, an act to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act. The bill is very near and dear to my heart. It affects many of the people in my riding. The Peace River riding has a large and very dynamic agricultural community. We are watching with great interest what will happen today as the bill is amended.

By way of background, the bill amends the Canadian Wheat Board Act to change the pooling points on which the initial payments are based from Thunder Bay and Vancouver to points in Canada designated by regulation of the governor in council. The bill also amends the Canadian Wheat Board Act to establish a deduction from the initial payment that supposedly reflects the relative transportation cost advantages of each producer.

The way the system works now shipping charges are determined by the distance a farmer has to ship grain to its designated pooling point of Thunder Bay and Vancouver. In my riding of Peace River approximately 95 per cent of all the grain produced in that riding is shipped west to the Pacific coast although one of our designated pooling points has been Thunder Bay. This means farmers in Peace River and other farmers in the western prairies have subsidized part of the costs of farmers in the eastern prairies through the freight pooling system the Canadian Wheat Board has implemented.

My understanding of what is being proposed is a system of four catchment areas. Each area will have a different deduction for transportation to a new designated pooling point. There are few specifics in the bill so I can only speak to the larger concept of what is being proposed.

The changes will result in higher grain prices for farmers in Alberta and western Saskatchewan and lower relative grain prices for producers in eastern Saskatchewan and Manitoba once deductions for transportation are made.

It is thought that the bill which becomes effective August 1 will raise wheat prices in the west by an average of about $5 per tonne and feed barley prices by about $6 per tonne. Similarly prices in the eastern prairies will drop. This is part of what we call a rationalization that needs to take place in the total transportation industry and grain industry so that farmers can be effective, efficient and able to compete on the world market where they must compete. We must get transportation prices in line and this is a step in the right direction. It goes part way to addressing some of the distortions caused by the blanket pooling system and replaces it with a bunch of mini-pools.

However I have a problem with the whole concept of straight pooling no matter how it is done. As a farmer I do not want anyone to subsidize my freight costs. I certainly do not want to subsidize anyone else's either. I propose that we pay the real cost of moving our grain from point a , in my case the Sexsmith area, to Vancouver or Prince Rupert and let the producer who lives somewhere else pay his or her real costs.

I am opposed to any type of freight pooling system. My preference would be to move to an open user pay system where farmers can decide where they want to ship their grain and where the market decides how much it would cost.

The changes proposed in the bill seem to maintain the control the Canadian Wheat Board has enjoyed in past decades. Just as a bit of history, the board was established first in 1917 for the war period and then again in 1935 to ensure the orderly sale of grain when western Canada faced economic and environmental disasters. In its original form the Canadian Wheat Board was a compromised tool for increasing returns and stabilizing incomes. Participation by farmers was voluntary. I stress very clearly that it was voluntary. It was not the way it is now where it is compulsory on all export grain.

In 1943 when supplying food to Canada's allies once again became an important national goal, the participation of farmers in the Canadian Wheat Board became compulsory. Unfortunately that did not end when the war ended, although that is the time it should have ended.

The board's chief mandate is to market wheat grown in western Canada in the best interest of western Canada's grain producers. Its designated areas include the three prairie provinces and a small part of British Columbia. The board is the sole marketing agency for export wheat and barley and the main supplier of the grains for human consumption in Canada.

Canadian feed grains for domestic consumption could be marketed either through the board or directly through grain companies. The sales of the Canadian Wheat Board fall between $3 billion and $6 billion annually. The board is administered by a chief commissioner, an assistant chief commissioner and three other commissioners. All costs of the board's operation are paid for by western grain producers. It is a user pay system and will lead to the concept that we should have control over the board.

An advisory committee was touted in the House last year elected from the producer group. It would advise the board on policy but would have no real power. It is just an advisory committee. However it has a very important function; it was democratically elected.

I have run through a bit of the background because I want to point out that the Canadian Wheat Board did not always exist in its present form. There was a time when farmer participation was optional. I also want to lead into some other changes that are necessary to bring the Canadian Wheat Board into the times.

The Reform Party has been saying for a long time that commissioners to the board should be democratically elected. Producers should have a real say on how the board operates and what kind of power it has. Only if commissioners have to run on certain platforms in certain designated areas can producers truly have a say in the board's operation.

The government is willing to allow an elected advisory committee, which is what has taken place for the last several years. Why not extend the same democratic process to where it really counts, to the people who run the Canadian Wheat Board themselves, the commissioners? I would like to see a dual system of marketing so that it would be the same for export grain as we currently enjoy on domestic grain in Canada. That would mean there would be a Canadian wheat board type of system where farmers who wanted to pool would be allowed to do so and those who did not would be allowed to sell on the open market.

I would like to give two examples of situations that are nonsensical but exist because the board is not accountable to the people it is supposed to be helping. These two examples are of farmers who have been trying to diversify. The very thing we want is for farmers to diversify however both of them have been frustrated by the rigid structure of the Canadian Wheat Board.

First there is the story of Bob Numweiller, a Saskatchewan miller who lives close to the U.S. border. He wants to mill his own wheat, let me emphasize his own wheat, into flour and sell it from his farm. The board says he cannot do that. First he must sell his wheat to the Canadian Wheat Board. Then he can apply to buy it back but he must also pay the board's price and its administration fee even though he does not go through the Canadian Wheat Board. Then he has to wait a year or more to find out how much money he got for his wheat, his wheat, which he so-called sold to the board. It sounds like something which could have happened in Russia 20 years ago.

There is an absurd twist to the story. Now that the Canadian Wheat Board can no longer control imports because of the passage of Bill C-57 which brought us up to speed with the World Trade Organization, that farmer has discovered he can cross the United States border, buy American wheat and bring it back and mill it on his farm but he cannot mill his own wheat without going through this rigid structure. Something is obviously wrong.

Then there is the story of a farmer in my riding who is a friend of mine. He has gone on to diversify and has started to grow organic wheat. However the wheat board does not sell organically grown wheat. As such it has to be pooled with conventional grain where of course it loses all of its advantages and its distinctiveness.

The board deals in boat loads. There is not enough production at this time to fill a boat and it is too much hassle for the board to administer a container load, or so it seems. The question is: Is Mr. Schmidt allowed to do his own marketing? Only if he goes through the Canadian Wheat Board first. He has to do his own marketing but he has to apply to go through the board first.

Here are the steps he must take: First he has to go to his own local elevator to sell his grain on contract. The elevator writes out the sales ticket. Mr. Schmidt writes out a buy-back cheque for $36.94 a tonne. He also has to pay the elevator a $5 per tonne administration fee even though he does not use it. Now he owns his own grain. I have to emphasize that at this point he now owns his own grain. How absurd. He can sell it as he pleases. However he has to wait a year to get his original $36.94 per tonne back or he may not see it at all depending on how the pool did that year.

If he tries to bypass the Canadian Wheat Board he commits a criminal offence and must pay a penalty of $12,000 and spend two years in jail. What kind of a system do we have in this country? This gentleman has gone out and found his own market for a product which we are trying to encourage, organically grown grain, and the system which we use is inhibiting him and many other farmers who want to diversify.

Those are just two examples of why the Canadian Wheat Board needs an overhaul. I would start by ensuring that the commissioners are democratically elected by producers. After that the board would change its ways and meet the needs of the farmers of the 21st century in a hurry. Otherwise they would not be re-elected.

Today's new generation of commercial farmers want to substitute their management skills for the collective approaches which have dominated the system for the past few decades. They see new opportunities and hot new products such as organic grain. Using their own skills and their own comparative advantages they want to be free to grow new crops and market them themselves. That seems a reasonable approach to me and one which has to be worked out. Otherwise the Canadian Wheat Board will lose in the end.

My experience in my riding is that the farmers who are questioning the Canadian Wheat Board's approach to a single desk marketing agency are those of a younger age. Unless the board adapts they will be gone. These new farmers are not knocking on the government's door asking for new subsidies. All they are asking is for government to get out of their way to let them do business. I hope the government is listening.

[Canada Pension Plan, June 16th, 1995]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-334, an act to amend the Canada pension plan (cancellation of benefits).

Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the bill I am introducing today and which I wish to table is to fill what I consider a gap in the Canada pension plan.

The bill will allow people who became disabled after they started drawing a retirement pension to cancel that benefit at any time before the age 65 so they can apply for a disability pension.

As the Canada pension plan reads now, a person receiving a retirement pension, which can be received as early as age 60, can cancel the plan only within six months of plan start up. My bill seeks to amend that.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)

[Members Of Parliament Retiringallowances Act, June 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I submit it is a dangerous thing to try to be a career politician. That particular type of member will do whatever is necessary to stay here and vote exactly the right way so that at some point down the road they will become a parliamentary secretary perhaps, and maybe even a cabinet minister. I think the government is really misdirected in that approach.

I think the Canadian public wants to see a fair pension plan. I know it does not rate up there with the pension plans of university professors, but we did make a choice to come here; we did make a choice to run. I made a conscious choice that I was going to try to do something about reforming this MP pension plan.

In the face of what we see today in this poor legislation, I have decided to contribute by opting out. I invite the members on the other side to do the same thing, until a reasonable pension plan can come into force in this House with a one for one contribution that is on a level with business and the public sector. Then I think we will have acceptance from the Canadian public, and that is the only time it should happen.

Who will be the judges in the end? I submit it is not going to be the people in the House today. We can debate this for a long time. The ultimate judges are going to be the Canadian people in the next election. This is going to be an issue which is why I say this government is misdirected. I hope it will reconsider, but obviously it will not. It is trying to ram it through with time allocation. We will have to wait for the will of the Canadian people on the MP pension plan. I think we are going to see it expressed very loudly in 1997 or before.

[Members Of Parliament Retiringallowances Act, June 16th, 1995]

Yes. My colleague just reminded me that I am using that term loosely.

I want to outline my concerns of what I think the public has to say on this issue, especially the public in my riding. The main issue in the last election campaign in my riding was MP pensions. It was not MPs' salaries. There were a number of other issues, but one of the main issues and one that was brought forward at every public meeting I attended was the MP pension plan. People asked: "Why would the MPs award themselves a pension plan four or five times more generous than the average pension plan in Canada? Is this not a double standard?" I had to agree that it was a double standard in my view.

The question came up several times: "Why do they have the power to award themselves their own pension? Should it not be put out to an independent commission and the power be left with the Canadian public?" I had to agree with that as well.

The public understands very clearly that there is a double standard here, a public standard they are not prepared to accept. I do not think this can be sold to the Canadian public. Even this revised plan is twice as generous as any public sector plan. How can that be sold to the Canadian public at a time when we are facing cutbacks? We are trying to inspire people in Canada to do with less to make our country competitive again to get it back on the rails and here we are in this very House of Commons, where we need to show leadership, going in the opposite direction. It is a very bad tactical move on behalf of this government. It cannot be sold to the Canadian public.

I want to take a moment to examine some of the clauses in Bill C-85. We still have a plan that is put forward here. They have changed the eligibility. MPs do not have to serve two terms or six years. Now it is going to be that MPs will be eligible to start collecting at age 55.

Pension plans through Canada pension and old age security start at 65. There is quite a bit of talk they may have to be rolled back to maybe 66 or 67, as they cannot be sustained. Here we have another double standard. At 55 years of age an MP can start collecting a pension. It is going in the opposite direction from where the public is going. As I said before, it is still twice as generous as any other plan out there.

Why is the opt out provision only available to current members? That seems like a little sleight of hand, a little smoke and mirrors. Yes, it is just for us, and I am happy to take it, because I simply could not live with my conscience and I could not sell it in my constituency. I would suggest that there are a lot of members on the other side who are going to find out in two years that they cannot sell it in their constituency either. I am happy to opt out.

Our party surprised the President of the Treasury Board when he made his big announcement and tried to put us in a very difficult position by either taking this overly generous plan or using the opt out provision where we get nothing. At least the members on my side of the House and my party said that if that is what the government is offering, we simply will not take it. We are opting out of this plan. We look after ourselves. We do not want anything, rather than put up with something that is obscene.

If there is going to be an opt out provision, and I think that is a good way to go, why is it not extended from here on in to future members? The door is being closed very quickly. It is a window of opportunity for us, but it is certainly not a window of opportunity for any future members. There again it is out of the old bag of dirty tricks.

What is the real issue here? The real issue is salary. I have heard it from numerous members on the other side of the House or from the Liberal benches. When we started talking about this MP pension plan, they said that is part of their pay, that they are not getting paid very well and that is how they compensate. It is a very poor method. If we want to talk salary in this House, let us be upfront and open with the Canadian public and talk salary. I have enough faith in the Canadian people that they will do what

is right in terms of salary. I heard that during the last election campaign.

What we have is a group over on the other side that are not prepared to be open and forthright with Canadians, so they bring around through the back door what they are not prepared to do through the front door. They bring in an MP pension plan that supplements their salary. We have seen other provisions where they have special privileges, and those privileges are not going to be accepted by the Canadian public.

If it is really an issue of salary, let us get to that debate at some point and set an independent commission that can travel across the country and ask Canadians to tell us what an MP should be paid. I am prepared to live with the recommendations they make. Some people suggest they would say we should just pay the MP a dollar a year. That is nonsense. I have faith in the common sense of the common people. They have enough sense to elect members to this House and they expect those members to operate on the same premise they have to operate on. If they have to tighten their belts, they expect members of Parliament to tighten their belts.

We are getting a lot of chatter from the other side. I think it is one of the career politicians we have generated in this House. That is the danger we have when we have these kinds of MP pension plans: we get career politicians, exactly the opposite of what the Canadian public wants.

I have found in travelling in my riding and other parts of the country that the way most Canadian people would like to see their MP come forward to the role of MP in this House is to succeed at something else they have tried first. Whether it is a farmer, as I am, a businessman, whatever, they should have some type of successful career first and bring those experiences to this House. Unfortunately, with that carrot dangling, we have had a lot of the other type who have tried to make this a career which is a dangerous thing in itself.

[Members Of Parliament Retiringallowances Act, June 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have the opportunity to speak today on Bill C-85, commonly known as the MP pension plan.

I first have to express my extreme disappointment with this government for using time allocation on a bill such as this. The obvious question we have to ask is why the government did it.

Why did it impose limits on debate on a bill such as this? What is the hurry? We have two years, under normal conditions, before an election is called. Why does the government have to ram this through before the end of this Parliament?

I submit that the Liberals want to get to the bank before the end of the day to cash in and make their big deposit to take advantage of what they just awarded themselves.

What did they award themselves? They awarded themselves an obscene pension plan. In the red book the Liberals outlined that they were going to be reforming this MP pension plan to bring it into line with what the average is in Canada. That simply has not happened here.

I also want to examine the role of the official opposition of Canada in this particular bill. Why would a party whose main goal is to leave this country by separating from Canada want an MP pension plan? They must have some idea that maybe this is going to fail and they are going to be here for a lot longer than they originally expected. As a matter of principle, should this party not say that they are going to use this opportunity to opt out? They want to opt out of Canada but they want to stay within the MP pension plan. Talk about double standards.

We have double standards from the Liberals on the MP pension plan, but I would say there is a complicity here with the Bloc. They also co-operated in the vote on time allocation on this bill. I am really disappointed with Her Majesty's official opposition, or loyal opposition I should say, which is what the word actually is.

[Trade, June 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is reassuring to know we do not have Jesse Helms setting Canadian trade policy. However Canadian companies like Lantic, Redpath and B.C. Sugar may be targeted as early as tomorrow because they buy raw sugar from Cuba.

What is the minister doing to protect these interests today? These are interests that have to be looked after at this very moment.

[Trade, June 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for International Trade.

It looks like the Clinton administration may prohibit Canadian companies that do business with Cuba from exporting to the United States. Such a move would infringe on our sovereignty and would violate key provisions of the North American free trade agreement as well as the WTO.

What is the minister doing to ensure that Canadian companies continue to have access to the U.S. market?