House of Commons photo

Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was industry.

Last in Parliament November 2005, as Conservative MP for Peace River (Alberta)

Won his last election, in 2004, with 65% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Canada Grain Act December 9th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today to speak on Bill C-51, the amendments to the Canada Grain Act.

This bill covers also the Canadian Grain Commission. It is designed to reduce the Canadian Grain Commission's responsibility in a couple of areas. Today I would like to focus my attention on government control over the whole grain industry, including that by the Canadian Grain Commission.

We have one of the most controlled industries in the world, the grain industry. No other industry I know of has the level of government control this industry has. As an active farmer, I believe this is not in our best interest. I am going to be pointing out some of the reasons for that later.

We also have a body, the Canadian Grain Commission, heavily controlled by the federal government but does not have the funding from the federal government. In other words, 92 per cent of the budget of the Canadian Grain Commission comes from producers. Only 8 per cent comes from the federal government, yet it wants to maintain in effect exclusive control. I do not think that is a good thing. We also have the same thing with the Canadian Wheat Board where it is a producer funded body and yet the Canadian government maintains control and I believe not in our best interest.

I understand the need to maintain standards. Canada is one of the most reliable exporters of grain. It has a very high quality and we have maintained a very good standard, one that could easily be done by having the Canadian Grain Commission have exclusive control through an elected board of directors rather than appointed as they are now by the federal government.

If producers are paying the bill they should have control. They should have an elected board of officers. This could easily accomplish the same goals of trying to maintain very good standards in order to maintain our customers abroad.

This bill reduces the responsibility of the Canadian Grain Commission in a couple of areas. Setting upper limits on tariffs is one area where it is going to be backing off on controls. The other is reduced payment of losses to the level of the bond of the Canadian Grain Commission on the companies that are required to post a bond.

The Canadian Grain Commission by maintaining this system of bonds must maintain and monitor that these bonds are actually effective. When a grain company is required to post a bond, if it fails the Canadian Grain Commission's liability is only to the level of the bond.

I have information from some industry people that grain dealers who post a bond only have to get back to that level at the end of every month. It is not uncommon for smaller under capitalized grain dealers to be four or more times over exposed to their bond level.

What message are we sending out to producers? That these people have a bond which may be up to four times less than what is really required? We should be sending a message of buyer beware. They should check out these companies and see what their reliability is and not give a false sense of security to producers when they are dealing with companies by believing that there is a bond in place to take care of the problems should the company fail.

In the past there have been cases where companies have failed and there has been heavy exposure by the taxpayer. That is not in our interests either. We need a situation whereby producers deal with companies based on their merit and historical performance. Let them know they have to check out these bonds. It does not have to be done by the Canadian Grain Commission. A false sense of security is being put in place.

My main concern is that the regulation of our whole grain industry is far too high. I talked about the Canadian Grain Commission but it also applies to the Canadian Wheat Board. The previous speaker talked about the Canadian Wheat Board and how important it is. I agree. We are also calling for a democratic election to the board of the directors of the wheat board rather than appointments to the board. This would bring responsibility back to this body which is very badly needed.

In this heavily controlled industry, including the Canadian Wheat Board, a farmer who is producing his own wheat is required to establish a mill on his farm to grind it into flour. The farmer has to buy his own wheat back through the Canadian Wheat Board and apply for permits to do that. This is ludicrous in a time when people are looking for opportunities to expand their business. This is the kind of heavy handed tactic we would see in Russia.

The Western Grain Transportation Act is another area of overregulation in the industry. It is a heavy government hand where it is not required. Grain is being shipped to Thunder Bay, back to Regina and then south across into the United States. It is called backtracking. It costs the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars to continue this practice just to qualify for the Crow benefit. It is absolute nonsense. We would have expected this type of thing in Russia 10 years ago.

These are the kinds of controls we see on the Canadian grain industry. As a grain farmer I know others believe this is very much a business where we can compete very well by government getting out of our faces and letting us get on with our job. We will find the markets. We will find the most effective way of getting it there at the lowest cost.

As long as we have a heavily regulated industry like we have in the three areas I can think of offhand, the Canadian Grain Commission, the Canadian Wheat Board, both of which by the way are undemocratic, and the western grain transportation authority, it shows that we have some serious problems. In fact we do not even comply with the new World Trade Organization regulations. There is a better system outside of our country than there is internally. Things have to be resolved.

I want to take a moment to talk about the Canadian Wheat Board advisory committee and the recent elections. The member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake talked about how this was a very important body. That is not how it is regarded in my constituency nor is it generally throughout the industry.

The Canadian Wheat Board advisory committee is just that. It is an advisory committee. It has absolutely no authority and no power. In the industry it is really seen as a very minor player in the whole scheme of things. It is seen as a public relations exercise for the Canadian Wheat Board. If the government put as much stock in the idea of having elections for the Canadian Wheat Board directors as it does for the Canadian Wheat Board advisory committee then we would be getting somewhere.

We have to apply the same principle. How can there be an elected advisory committee and not an elected board of directors of the wheat board? I think some of the reason is that the Canadian Wheat Board commissioners do not want to open up

the books, which is something that should be required. Let producers see what is happening in the Canadian Wheat Board, see if there are any inefficiencies taking place or any areas where we can make some changes.

Producers do not want to get rid of the Canadian Wheat Board. What I have heard from many constituents is that they want to open up the board and have it elected, effective and accountable. That is the most important thing.

When members talk about how important this election was to the Canadian Wheat Board advisory committee, that is certainly not what I am hearing throughout the country. Less than 40 per cent of farmers voted in this election. It was actually one of the higher ones, but generally it is not regarded as an effective board. People just take it as a joke and that is the reason we are not getting good turnouts. If we had an election for Canadian Wheat Board commissioners themselves I think we would see a very high turnout.

I will close by saying that with this heavily regulated grain industry in Canada we have to ask the question: Who is asking for this? It is certainly not the farmers I am listening to. People are saying to open up the process. These producers want to do more than grow grain. They want to have more control in saying how this grain is marketed and transported. They do not want a regulated industry. They want deregulation.

I believe that Canada and Russia passed in the night about two or three years ago. At least Russia is going in the right direction. It is trying to deregulate its industry while we are still going in the opposite direction. I encourage the government to open up the process or at least start by making these institutions democratic. That is the very least we can do.

Canada Grain Act December 9th, 1994

Trying to protect his $175,000 a year job.

World Trade Organization Agreement Implementation Act November 29th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the comments of the member for St. Catharines. Having worked with the member on the foreign policy review, I know that he supports free trade and the move to the World Trade Organization.

I would like to ask this question: Does he also recognize, and I believe he does, there is considerable work that needs to be done at home to improve our domestic environment for business in terms of our internal trade barriers and how that is limiting our ability to trade and to give our small and medium size businesses an opportunity to develop so they can also become part of the international trade environment?

World Trade Organization Agreement Implementation Act November 29th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member who just spoke. I understand his concern for the adjustment that is required for the industries to make the jump to free trade.

The question I have for the member is which would he prefer, the phase down of tariffs over a 10 year period through NAFTA as he talked about earlier, or the system that is currently in place with the GATT where there is a tariff that will be reduced over a period of time? Which would be better for the supply management sector in his province that he is referring to? I would like an answer to that.

World Trade Organization Agreement Implementation Act November 29th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today to support Bill C-57, an act to implement the World Trade Organization under GATT.

I think it is a tribute to this House and to Canadians that we have all-party agreement for this to move forward. We recognize there are some problems that have to be worked out as a result of this trade deal as it applies to internal policy in Canada, but Canada needs this deal very badly. We have been a world leader in trade promotion and trade rules since the second world war.

In 1947 Canada was one of the early leaders in proposing a rules based trade arrangement with the GATT that took place. We have also been working very hard in the last seven years under the Uruguay round to bring about international trade rules that bring sectors such as agriculture and the service sector under international trade rules for the very first time. These sectors have been operating without these international trade rules and we believe they are very important.

We in the Reform Party are very supportive of the implementation of the GATT and the World Trade Organization. We are looking forward to the organization getting organized and up and running quickly.

Canada needs a rules based trading relationship. We will benefit. We have a small population in a big country; we have a lot of resources. About 30 per cent of our GNP is directly related to trade. Unlike some countries for example the United States which is far more self-contained, Canada needs to trade and we are a world leader in terms of trade.

One reason we need this is we have had a trade war going on in agriculture for approximately the last 10 years. We have seen how destructive this can be to the economy of the industry affected. Without the Uruguay round we were in danger of this expanding into other sectors, something Canada could not have had happen. It was very important to us.

We cannot play the game if everybody is playing by different rules. That is what we are saying by trying to get international trade rules. In that way trade is very much like a game. We always hear the term level playing field and there is a reason for that. It means we need to have rules that are equal and every team has the same opportunity under those rules.

To use an analogy, for me it is very much like hockey. Hockey is my favourite sport. It is a sport that Canada invented. We have set the rules for hockey over the years. We are very good nationally. We need to work as a national team when we go abroad. We have to recruit the very best players and we have to train those players. To that degree, it is very much like the Uruguay round. We need international rules in hockey as well as international rules in trade.

We need a neutral referee in hockey and in trade. The World Trade Organization is going to be that neutral referee applying the rules fairly. The Acting Speaker who was in the chair earlier will certainly know something about refereeing. He was in the National Hockey League as a referee for a number of years. The one qualification referees need is good eyesight. They have to be very vigilant and that will be the role of the World Trade Organization.

Canada is a trading nation and will benefit greatly by trade liberalization. Canada produces a surplus of many goods and services in demand around the world. Yet Canada cannot possibly produce the full range of goods and services that Canadians need. In that way it is to our advantage to export those goods and services we produce best. We do produce a lot of these very well, just as it is to our advantage to import those goods and services that other countries produce best.

In 1993 Canada exported $181 billion in goods and services totalling about 30 per cent of our gross domestic product, very high. For every billion dollars in new exports, over 1,100 new jobs are created. It is very important to Canada that we continue to be good traders.

With more liberalized trade the overall prosperity of Canadians will be enhanced. In Canada trade accounts for one out of every four jobs generated. In my riding of Peace River we are very dependent on trade to provide jobs.

The Peace River area of Alberta is booming right now. The economy is very strong. Agriculture is doing well. The oil and gas sector is booming. The forestry sector is booming as well. It is the good fortune of my riding that all of these industries have healthy export sales and it is no more evident than it is in the Peace River riding of Alberta.

We do have some problems in making this trade deal work. Some of them are right here at home. In that way I compare it with our national team playing hockey. We have to work with our players to make this deal work effectively for Canada, the players in this case being the business community and provinces, and we have to work together.

If I may continue with my analogy for a moment, if we cannot practise together how can we learn to play the game? Young players start by playing locally in the neighbourhood rink. If you are limited to your backyard, however, where do you get your expertise and where do you learn how to make the moves necessary to move on to the next level?

Recently GATT has rebuked Canada for having too many internal trade barriers. I think we have to pay attention. Having minimum compliance and getting Bill C-57 established and getting it into effect is the right approach. We want this agreement to be in effect very quickly. To do that we have minimum compliance. That means amending approximately 31 acts to bring us into minimum compliance.

It shows that we have some serious flaws in our domestic policy that have to be addressed. I hope that the manager of the team, the coach, the federal government, will be working to pay attention to those problems. Some of them are concerns over transportation regulation, transportation subsidies, government regulations, regional development. All of these things are really slowing us down in terms of competing effectively abroad.

There are many categories of barriers. In agriculture and the food processing industries there are over 100 of these barriers. They include marketing boards, production quotas, quality and packaging standards and transportation and stabilization subsidies.

In the liquor and wine industries we have provincial production requirements, local bottling requirements, differential markups, quotas, packaging requirements and marketing favouritism.

In the transportation industry we have different licensing requirements in different provinces, size and weight requirements, safety regulations, provincial transport board discretionary powers and varying fuel and sales taxes. It has been said that we have more barriers to trade internally than in all of the European Union. That is something we have to work very hard at to overcome.

In the area of government procurement we find explicit and implicit preferences for local suppliers and requirements for locally produced materials. With government procurement expenditures exceeding $100 billion per year, approximately 20 per cent of our gross domestic product, this is by no means insignificant.

In the area of labour mobility there are different licensing requirements for professionals and tradepersons from province to province. These barriers parade significant impediments to people wishing to move to other provinces since skilled workers have to meet additional licensing requirements.

Then there is the area of capital mobility where industrial incentives, local investment funds and local tax incentives are barriers.

Such barriers are often used for regional development and create an inefficient allocation of financial resources. The cost to our nation of these and other internal trade barriers is in the neighbourhood of $6.5 billion per year, something that simply is not acceptable and which we have to work on.

Interprovincial trade barriers have fragmented the Canadian marketplace and hindered Canada's ability to compete internationally. Furthermore, these barriers give competitive advantages to large firms that can afford to comply with the stringent rules imposed by government. At the same time they hinder small businesses from reaching their market potential. Unless we can improve competition within our own borders we will never be able to reap the rewards of these expanded trade opportunities.

Yesterday an interesting item was reported in the press. Garth Whyte, director of national affairs at the Canadian Federation of

Independent Business, says that he finds it ironic that Ottawa and the provinces appeared to work so well together in Asia but cannot agree on bringing down interprovincial trade barriers back at home. This is something I have mentioned many times in the past in this House and something that is really tying one arm of our business people behind their backs in their ability to trade internationally.

Mr. Whyte goes on to say that many members of the CFIB, which represents 85,000 small and medium size businesses across Canada, do not even dream of tackling foreign markets because they cannot expand into next door provinces that would allow them to grow big enough to compete abroad. It is one of our Achilles' heels. It has been recognized in our foreign policy review that we need to create a better international business environment at home, giving small and medium size businesses the opportunity to compete.

Most of our international trade is done by about 100 companies in Canada. There is much opportunity for small and medium size businesses to compete but we have to start opening up these trade problems and barriers at home to allow them to get a bigger share of the domestic market so they can use that as a chance to expand into the international field.

Our national team has some problems. We are not working together as a team. That is the job of the coach, the manager of the team on the other side. Team Canada has to work more effectively at home so we can do a better job abroad.

I see some problems coming as well with the implementation of the World Trade Organization and how it will affect us in Canada. It is something we have to work to resolve. There will be some disputes ahead that need to be settled by this government. To get back to my hockey analogy, if we slow down the game too much with too many penalties it does slow the game down. In this case it is tariffs and interprovincial trade barriers.

I believe that some of the problems we are facing are tariff rate quotas, the allocation of them. We have some problems with our supply management sector that have to be worked out. We have some problems under the Western Grain Transportation Act that will have to be resolved as a matter of the implementation of the World Trade Organization, and the export volume caps that are going to be imposed.

I would hope that government would work very closely with industry and the provinces involved to make this a very easy adjustment to be phased in so that eventually we can phase down quotas, subsidies and tariffs all across the country and Canada will be a free trading nation.

I want to quote a couple of examples, one of them being the beef industry. We are getting representation from both sides of that issue, which may be good or may be bad. One group is saying that the tariff rate quotas are high enough and it does not want them lifted. The other side of the industry is saying that they are much too low and it needs better access. I can see some problems coming. There will even be a market trade in tariff rate quotas which I do not believe is necessarily a good thing.

We heard earlier today from the parliamentary secretary, the critic for the Bloc and us. Everyone is looking at what the other major team, Team U.S.A., is doing. It is trying to change the rules of the game, adding many requirements and regulations as a part of its implementation legislation. It is not the right approach.

I believe that the referee, in this case the World Trade Organization, will look at that very closely when considering the disputes brought forward before the World Trade Organization. All of the relevant factors will be taken into account and we will have the weight of 123 member countries behind us when these rulings are made in favour of whatever party.

I would welcome very much that we move quickly to the implementation of the World Trade Organization, allow some of these disputes that have been lingering in Canada for some time such as the wheat dispute in western Canada. We all know about the amount of cases taken to the dispute panel in the United States with regard to steel. Those are two that should be moved quickly to the World Trade Organization to be resolved and have the weight of all of the member countries behind them.

What happens in the United States is of principal interest to Canada because currently it accounts for about 75 per cent of Canada's two way trade. We have a strong relationship with the United States which has allowed Canada to become the seventh largest trading nation in the world, even though we have a population that only ranks 31st in the world.

In conclusion, we in this party support moving quickly to the World Trade Organization, the full implementation of the GATT. We think we can do quite well. We are going to have a neutral referee with good eyesight, I hope. We are going to rely on the things that we do best, skill and agility. We are not going to resort to the tactics of some teams that tend to get the enforcers in place. We think we can do quite well based on skill. We can trade well with any country as long as we have a level playing field.

Let us get on with the game, let us get on with implementing this as quickly as we can and let Canada continue to take a leadership role at the World Trade Organization as it needs to be changed in future reforms. Let us at home continue to work hard, be diligent to resolve some of the problems that we have in terms of trade barriers. Let us be diligent at home with regard to getting our debt and deficit under control because we know that is one of the biggest costs in business. It is one of the reasons that we do not compete well internationally. We have a very high

tax rate. We think we can win the game if we look after that and do very well in trade.

We believe that Team Canada can hold its own with any team in the world, given the same rules.

World Trade Organization Agreement Implementation Act November 24th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, we are being asked in Motion No. 10 to consider factors such as dumping, foreign subsidies and putting extra regulations into Bill C-57, an act to implement the World Trade Organization.

I am afraid I am going to disappoint the member for Verchères who has asked us to support the motion. It is not that I am unsympathetic to the discussions he outlined about the steel industry or any other industry undergoing trade actions.

The bill calls for minimum compliance to try to move these disputes forward quickly to the World Trade Organization. It has better mechanisms to resolve these disputes than is currently available in the Canada-U.S. trade agreement for steel, for example. A lot of regulations have been built up over the last several years and we still had several dozen trade actions on steel alone last year. Surely that is not the best approach.

The best approach is moving disputes to a forum such as the World Trade Organization where all factors will be taken into account by a panel that hears disputes. The panel will not just take into account things like unused production capacity, increases in exports and inventories. It will consider all relevant factors as it should.

We should not try to build up a big regulation wall. The steel industry said at committee that it wants us to build a big regulation wall like the United States is doing with the ultimate goal of tearing it down at the World Trade Organization. We should not take the same kind of action that the United States is taking. The World Trade Organization panel will consider the type of regulations that are being built up in the United States in its implementing regulations. The panel will take that into account when it hears these disputes.

There is a process. It is a better process. We have to put our faith in it. It is going to work. Placing undue emphasis on the factors that were outlined just a few moments ago by the hon. member for Verchères might put undue emphasis on factors that would benefit things like supply management. It would also cause injury in some other sectors of our industries.

That does not say we do not have some problems. I outlined them during discussion of Bill C-57 at second reading. Those problems are internal trade barriers, high debt and deficit, our inability to trade. The Western Grain Transportation Act needs revision. There are problems with the tariff rate quotas. I do not believe we should have them. There is the problem with the sale and allotment of quotas but that is for a different day. Those problems have to be worked out in the next few months.

What is important is getting through the minimum compliance and have the World Trade Organization come into effect. Let us start hearing some of the disputes such as the wheat dispute that has been bubbling for the last year and the other disputes that have been talked about such as steel. Let us put the World Trade Organization to the test and it will come out with flying colours.

World Trade Organization Agreement Implementation Act November 24th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, this is an interesting motion, one that in spirit I would agree with but in practicality is going to be very difficult to deal with. That has been recognized by the countries that have been negotiating this GATT agreement for the past seven years. That is why it is not in the current GATT agreement.

The intent of this amendment is certainly good. It is to end child exploitation, especially in third world countries. The difficulty is that a multilateral trade agreement is not the forum for this. Children's rights are protected under the International Convention on the Rights of the Child through the United Nations.

Some of the difficulties were outlined by the member for the Battlefords-Meadow Lake when he said that individual countries do not have the resources to police this kind of intervention.

I would like to pose a question for the member: Do we have the resources? In other words, on every article of clothing or textiles that come from some third world country, how would we prove that this is not made using child labour? It is very, very difficult. I think we have to work through the International Convention on the Rights of the Child and encourage these individual countries to stop the exploitation in those areas.

Just another interesting little sidelight. It also raises some questions about practices that we have at home, practices that I think are actually quite good.

I have a grain farm. We have four children who all worked on that grain farm prior to reaching the age of 16. They learned responsibility at a very early age. They learned how that business worked. There are literally hundreds of thousands of businesses in Canada that have children of the owners working and learning the system, learning how to conduct business in those businesses. Would that not also raise the question of our own practices at home? I do not think those are bad practices.

I have to oppose this. The spirit of it is I think right, but we have to pursue it through the proper avenues.

World Trade Organization Agreement Implementation Act November 24th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in opposition to Motion No. 4.

Why single out milk marketing? Dozens if not hundreds of industry groups would like to have government fund their studies. In fact we are dealing with Motion No. 5 here as well as the two tie together.

Motion No. 5 asks for an annual report from the World Trade Organization. Those reports already exist under GATT. In a moment I want to read an article in today's Globe and Mail that deals specifically with the biannual reports from the GATT.

These reports exist. The minister can be asked to table them in the House. Why cause extra work? It is more bureaucracy. It is something that the NDP sort of like, I understand.

I want to read a quote from today's Globe and Mail regarding Canada's involvement in the GATT. It states: ``Canada's trade policy and practices receive generally high marks from the members at the GATT council during a two day discussion of a biannual report but the council criticized Canada's tariff system and interprovincial trade barriers''.

The party that wants to have a review of the milk marketing board might be quite surprised with the outcome.

Members opposite would be well advised to listen. The people at the GATT meeting today are the people who are making the report reviewing Canada's interprovincial trade barriers and our present milk marketing system. They are saying that the council criticized the complexity of Canada's tariff system and questioned the exceedingly high tariff rate quotas in the agriculture sector-and they are referring specifically to supply management-with an average of 205 per cent which will only go down to 174 per cent in the year 2000.

They are critical of this. I am quite surprised they are asking for a review because a review would not be very kind to the supply management sector. It is an area that Canada is very weak in. Our position is that we have taken a minimum reduction in tariff in the supply management sector of 15 per cent. I think it is recognized worldwide that we have a problem that has to be cleaned up. If we talk about free trade, let us practise it here at home.

In addition, members talk about the need to clean up interprovincial trade barriers. The three provincial governments in the country with NDP governments are the ones that are co-operating the very least in trying to get Canada's house in order in terms of cleaning up our problems at home, the trade barriers.

We have more barriers to trade internally in Canada than in all the European Union. That is a disgrace. How can we compete internationally when we cannot even compete at home? Let them put their money where their mouths are and co-operate to try to get trade barriers reduced internally to give our businesses a chance to compete without one hand being tied behind their backs. Let us put Canada on the same level nationally as we do internationally in these trade agreements.

World Trade Organization Agreement Implementation Act November 24th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose Motion No. 3. I believe the trade agreement must be allowed to overrule protectionist domestic laws both here and in the United States. We must act within the spirit of the agreement that was signed by the 120 member countries after seven long years of negotiations in the GATT Uruguay round.

If we adopted the amendment proposed by the NDP we would not be achieving the move to free trade which benefits a lot of us, and particularly those in agriculture who did not have rules regarding trade in agriculture under the GATT. They are now being brought under it for the first time. I believe protectionist laws may be developed in some provinces that would handcuff the ability of the federal government to work within the World Trade Organization and the GATT.

I believe it should be defeated and therefore oppose the motion.

World Trade Organization Agreement Implementation Act November 24th, 1994

It needs to be undermined.