Dick Proctor

[Question No. 54, November 28th, 2001]

With respect to Canada Pension Plan disability benefits, in total, in each HRDC regional office and for each of the years 1990 to 2000, inclusive: ( a ) how many individuals applied for such benefits; ( b ) how many applications for benefits were approved at initial application and at each level of appeal; ( c ) how many individuals, and what percentage of individuals, appealed the denial of benefits at initial application and at each level of appeal; ( d ) how many decisions that went against the government at the review tribunal level were then appealed by the Minister to the Pensions Appeal Board; ( e ) how many of the Minister's appeals were rejected; ( f ) what was the average length of time for HRDC to process a disability claim at initial application and at each level of appeal; and ( g ) at initial application, and at each level of appeal, how many disability claims took (i) less than 8 weeks to process, (ii) from 9 to 16 weeks to process, (iii) from 17 to 26 weeks to process, (iv) from 27 to 52 weeks to process, and (v) more than 52 weeks to process?

Return tabled.

[Petitions, November 28th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have an important petition to present to the House this afternoon involving some 300 Saskatchewan women whose husbands were killed on the job prior to 1985. They were denied workers compensation benefits for a period of 14 years.

After the provincial government rectified the problem in 1999 with a one time tax free compensation payment of $80,000, the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency clawed back federal income tested program benefits for many of the women including old age security. This effectively reduced the one time payment by about $5,000.

The petitioners call on parliament to request that the federal government take appropriate measures immediately to ensure the CCRA does not consider the one time payment as income for the 1999 tax year and issue a remission order.

[Anti-terrorism Act, November 27th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate although I too want to register my objection to the fact that on such an important issue we are having to debate this under very significant time constraints. I do not think it augurs well for this relatively new parliament that we are heading in this direction on something as important as Bill C-36.

The announcements on the changes by the federal justice minister last week overall were disappointing. The minister proposed that two of the most controversial powers in the bill, namely investigative hearings and preventive arrests, would lapse unless specifically renewed by parliament every five years. That could probably be summed up by “a sunset clause if necessary, but not necessarily a sunset clause”.

The minister also offered to tighten the definition of terrorist act in Bill C-36 to ensure that it could not encompass activities such as illegal strikes. Although it did not go as far as I would have liked, they were certainly headed in the right direction in terms of the changes that the minister indicated she was prepared to make.

I submit that people who are concerned about freedom of speech, preventive arrests and human rights have every reason to be apprehensive that the powers in this bill have not modified or changed and are therefore very much at risk.

For example, a couple of weeks ago in Ottawa, even though Bill C-36 is obviously not yet law, civil libertarians were highly critical of the way in which the Ontario police broke up a peaceful march in the nation's capital by wading into the crowd, singling out people who were dressed in black and detaining 41 of them, only five of whom were subsequently charged. That in itself was very unfortunate, although it is amusing to see the signs festooned on lampposts around Ottawa in the aftermath of that incident suggesting that people should wear black because the Ontario police think it is an arresting colour.

People of the Canadian Arab and Muslim community are particularly disappointed by the failure of the government to modify the preventive arrest component because they believe their people and communities will be targeted, as the previous speaker and others before him have indicated.

I will take a minute to congratulate the editors and the writers of a book that was published in very quick order. The University of Toronto press produced and published a book entitled Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada's Anti-Terrorism Bill . The book was largely written by 25 Canadian experts in law, criminology and political science. I believe the member for Mount Royal, if I have that correct, was one of those essayists. It is a very impressive feat when one stops to consider that the anti-terrorism bill was only brought in on the October 15 and a 500 page book was produced in time for all MPs to be provided a copy before the Minister of Justice came back to the committee with proposed amendments last week.

According to the editors of that book, the challenge for lawmakers in this piece of legislation is to design arrangements that equip the nation to deal with terrorist threats without undermining our democratic core and values. Looking at that test, I submit that the changes suggested by the justice minister have failed to meet that high standard. Unfortunately experience in other countries in response to the threats to security has not been encouraging.

One of the essays that I paid particular attention to was written by Janice Stein, whom we sometimes see on national television, especially post-September 11. She noted that countries tend to grossly overstate the risk of terrorism and that they have in the past. She alleges that in such a heightened environment citizens are willing to accord state officials greatly expanded emergency powers.

Unfortunately these become the baseline for even more rights and liberties to move from the citizen to the state. That is one of the key points that we have been trying to make throughout this debate, especially the member for Winnipeg--Transcona, who has taken the lead for our caucus on this.

He did get an editorial in the Vancouver Sun which pointed out that he was correct in noting the pitfalls of legislation which is done quickly. As the editorial said, what may now appeal to Canadians when images of the World Trade Center are fresh may six months from now seem to be inappropriately extreme invasions of privacy.

Without question, we have gone too far in one direction on this legislation. In short, I do not believe it is balanced. It has been alleged that one senior RCMP official said in an unguarded moment that the provisions in Bill C-36 were greater powers than it ever dreamt it would have acquired.

Last month our caucus had the opportunity to meet with leaders of the Arab and Muslim communities. I was particularly impressed with and remember vividly one grandmother who immigrated to this country many years ago. She said she would not dream of living anywhere else and insisted that the first time she saw the snow-capped Rocky Mountains she knew she was in heaven.

However, most disturbing was her comment on Bill C-36, the provisions of which she believes will make Canada no better than the countries that she and other people fled to come to Canada. We are obviously talking about the racial profiling that was raised eloquently by the previous speaker.

In the wake of September 11, people said that giving up their lifestyle and way of life would mean that the terrorists had won. The same can surely be said for our laws. If the state can make a convincing argument that our laws must be circumscribed to deal with a particular crisis, then it should be allowed to proceed with emergency powers, but those powers should not remain one second beyond the point at which the threat has passed.

As others have noted, there have been incidents in the country where civil liberties have been overridden at times of crisis. They pointed out the Ukrainians in the first world war, the Japanese-Canadians in World War II and French-Canadians in the province of Quebec and the War Measures Act of 1970. In all cases the general public loudly applauded these actions at the time. In each and every case the general public decided later that the country made a terrible mistake.

Canadians need to work and stick together to maintain human and civil rights to the greatest extent possible. Otherwise, if we do not, I am reminded of the powerful words at the entrance of the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, which I had the privilege to visit last year. They go like this:

They came for the Communists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Communist;

They came for the Socialists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Socialist;

They came for the labour leaders, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a labour leader;

They came for the Jews, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Jew;

Then they came for me - And there was no one left to object.

[Agriculture, November 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of agriculture. In the most optimistic scenario post-Qatar, it is going to be another eight years before those international subsidies begin to decline. That is eight more years for Canadian farmers, many of them on the short end of the stick, in terms of trying to sell their product into an international market.

My question for the minister of agriculture is, what plans can he tell the House that he has to enhance the position of Canadian farmers between now and 2009?

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, November 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to make a few remarks about the private member's motion presented by the member for Yorkton--Melville. The New Democratic Party has always been a supporter of orderly marketing so it will come as no surprise to anyone in the House that we would be opposed to the motion before us today regarding the Canadian Wheat Board.

The board has been operating for more than 60 years, as the member for Yorkton--Melville pointed out. Currently it is the marketing agency for wheat and certain barley.

The mover of the motion mentioned that the board exists only in three provinces. He is factually incorrect. The wheat board operates in parts of the province of British Columbia together with the three prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

The hon. member said the way the board is structured it would not be allowed in any other jurisdiction. He mentioned the legal community. While I would not associate myself with all the remarks of the parliamentary secretary who just spoke, there have been votes in the last few years on the board of directors of which the results are pretty clear. The individuals being elected to the Canadian Wheat Board are supporters of the board. They do not favour a provision for dual marketing or a voluntary board.

We heard a lot of these arguments in 1997 and 1998 when Bill C-4 was before the House. The bill led to the election of 10 of the 15 members of the board of directors. We heard about maximizing returns for producers.

I will take a moment to share with the House a conversation I had several years ago with a person in Chile who was an adviser to the minister of agriculture in that country. I asked him about his views on the Canadian Wheat Board. At the time I was a newly elected member of parliament and Bill C-4 was before the House and the standing committee.

He made two comments I thought were interesting. First, he said he disagreed fundamentally that people who defied the board should end up in jail. We heard the member for Yorkton--Melville talk about that today.

Second, he said that in his travels as an adviser to the minister in and around Santiago he would meet with millers in Chile and ask them why they continued to buy their product from the Canadian Wheat Board when they could buy it more cheaply from Archer Daniels Midland Co., Cargill Inc., Louis Dreyfus Canada or some of the other big grain companies of the world.

The comment he heard most frequently from the millers was that it was reliable to buy through the Canadian Wheat Board. They said they could sleep well at night knowing the product they were getting would be as advertised in terms of protein, nutrition and other things that are important to millers for the different kinds of flour, bread, pastries and other items they produce.

The millers were prepared to pay a premium to buy Canadian grain because it was reliable. They said Canada was known for being a good marketer and delivering what it said it would deliver.

There are plenty of these kinds of examples around. Virtually every analysis that has been done shows that while the wheat board has not always achieved the best returns it has been ahead of the market most of the time in terms of maximizing returns to producers. As an aside I would draw attention to the KPMG study that was done several years ago which we debated when Bill C-4 was before the House.

The second part of the motion says there should be an opting out mechanism that would allow producers to remove themselves and the grain they produce from the board's jurisdiction for a period of two years. We in the NDP think that would weaken the ability of Canadian farmers to compete in the international market.

The wheat board has introduced mechanisms for farmers to manage risks and undertake pricing options beyond the well established pool accounts. Fixed price and basis contracts off the Minneapolis grain exchange provide flexibility to farmers in managing business risks. For these and other reasons we continue to support the board.

We note in passing what Justice Muldoon said in Alberta a few years ago regarding the Alberta charter challenge against the board's authority as a single desk marketer of barley. He said a dual marketing system would do away with the wheat board and simply be a transition to an open market.

As I tried to indicate earlier, farmers have shown what they think of the board and single desk selling. In 1997, 63% of barley growers voted to have the board continue to market their crop.

In conclusion, it is not up to members of parliament to decide if some producers should be allowed to remove themselves from the board's jurisdiction. That is up to farmers to decide. They do that through regular elections to the board of directors of the Canadian Wheat Board.

We in my party fundamentally believe that the future of the wheat board is a debate for farmers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and parts of British Columbia.

[World Trade Organization, November 5th, 2001]

Mr. Chairman, I congratulate the member on her speech. The difficulty I had with it was the notion that world trade would benefit all countries. I know that was the essence of her speech.

J. S. Woodsworth said “What we desire for ourselves, we wish for all”. Our party has a different view on this. We are more skeptical that world trade will bring the same sort of benefit for everyone.

I recently read an article by Jeffrey Sachs, director of the center for international development at Harvard. He was talking about landlocked countries and the difficulty for them to further their cause and get ahead. He pointed out that Japan, coastal China and countries in North America and parts of South America really account for about 52% of the world's gross national product.

He could only identify two landlocked countries that were actual success stories. His rationale was that both those countries, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, were surrounded by well off countries of western Europe.

It is difficult to envisage how through trade we would have an economic policy for Eritrea, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is very difficult to have an economic policy if one is not close to navigable waterways or an ocean because it is so expensive to ship one's goods to other countries. Would the member have any comment about those special challenges for certain countries of the world?

[World Trade Organization, November 5th, 2001]

Mr. Chairman, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his question and his kind words. What he is asking is how we should pay our farmers. There have been a couple of programs, for example the AIDA program which did not seem to work very well. The Canadian farm income program, which is now underway, may be slightly better received than the AIDA program.

A farmer from my community was in my Regina office last Friday. He was beside himself because of his inability to extract anything out of the system that could help him and keep him and his elderly father on the farm that his dad started many years ago.

I do not know what the answer is. I know that in the United States it appears as if the big corporations receive the vast amount of the money that goes out. In Canada farmers are frustrated. They feel the system is heavily administrative because cheques are not being sent out to every farmer. It is on the basis of need. The government devised that system because, as it says, it comports to Canada's international trading obligations and arrangements.

I do not have the answer to the member's question per se. However I do know that the safety net agreements are up for review this year and it is extremely important that we try to get this right. It seems to me that crop insurance is not working as well as it should be. There are certain farm groups and younger farmers who are not benefiting from the NISA account. The CFIP and AIDA programs do not seem to be entirely satisfactory. We do need to have a complete review of safety nets. We need to have good input from the farm community itself on how best to develop these programs for the future.

[World Trade Organization, November 5th, 2001]

Mr. Chairman, it was said in the House earlier today by the minister responsible for international trade, and it is a phrase I have heard repeatedly from our own minister of agriculture, that our pockets are not as deep as the Americans or the Europeans.

It is unfortunate and I am glad the member raised it because there is a certain mindset if we accept the logic of that. I could not agree with the member more. We are a rich country. We are not lacking in resources. What we often seem to be lacking is the political will to make sure we are representing our farmers, workers and companies to the very best of our abilities.

I would go one step further. It links back to an earlier question and answer exchange with the member for Brandon--Souris and the minister responsible for international trade. Even if we have an agreement next week at Qatar, it would be five or seven years before it would be implemented.

The member also wanted to know whether our farmers could withstand another five or seven years of low payments while the other countries that were heavily subsidizing their farmers were phasing them out.

I would suggest to the member for Malpeque and the other members in the House that at that point Canada will have to step back into the picture and increase support payments to our farmers to the level that farmers in other countries are receiving. Everyone could then come down together on their subsidies and support levels.

I do not think our farmers can stand another five to seven years of low payments as a result of the high subsidies being offered in other jurisdictions.

[World Trade Organization, November 5th, 2001]

Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to take part in the debate leading up to the negotiations of the WTO.

I listened carefully to all the speeches, particularly to that of the Minister for International Trade. He made the point, fairly emphatically, I thought, that the WTO has been useful in resolving bilateral disputes, disputes such as softwood lumber, one presumes, and changes to the Canadian Wheat Board, disputes that we have with our American neighbours. They have been ongoing disputes for many years.

I would say at the outset that I think there is a fundamental difference in the reaction of our country versus the United States vis-à-vis rulings on trade. For example, if there is a ruling that seems to go against Canada, we tend to comply fairly quickly and change our rules. Whereas it seems to me, and more important, I think, to a lot of Canadians, that when rulings go in the other direction the Americans, the big guys, tend to simply ignore those decisions and continue without making any significant changes.

Parenthetically, I would also observe that I do not think we as a country are very aggressive in challenging those rulings. As I say that I recognize that in the trade agreements between our countries, especially in agricultural products, a lot more of our produce is going to the American market than there is American produce coming this way. There may be a downside to that, but I often think we are far too cautious when it comes to not challenging decisions made by our neighbour to the south and indeed by other countries with which we are involved when there are inconsistencies and when there is material action being taken that is demonstrably unfair and against the rules, so to speak.

I wish to touch on the two areas of the softwood lumber dispute and then turn to agriculture in the few minutes I have available in this take note debate. I think it is fair to say that the dispute over softwood lumber exports to the U.S. threatens to undermine and disrupt Canada's largest single source of export earnings and our largest source of employment. In fact, the lumber trade between Canada and the U.S. constitutes the largest single item of trade between any two countries in the world.

Ten thousand woodworkers, and today in question period we heard 12,000 and maybe 15,000, now have been laid off at least temporarily as a result of the 19.3% duty imposed by the United States in August. There is now an additional 12.3% in dumping that has been added to that.

The ability of the American lumber coalition to harass Canadian exporters and hold to ransom our company workers, governments and communities indicates one of the major weaknesses in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Again, I have listened about how the WTO has helped resolve bilateral disputes. We have a dandy one going on here. The U.S. has retained the right to unilaterally protect companies that lose market share to Canadian producers, as long as those American producers cry subsidy loudly enough in the hearing range of a large enough group of congressional representatives.

We are concerned about the exports of Canadian raw logs. We want to see more value added in this country and that is not what we are getting. We continue to be the hewers of wood and drawers of water in not doing that value added which would mean so much to our economy and would probably help stabilize our declining dollar.

Let me now turn to the agricultural issue. As Canadians knows and as the Chair knows, we have been bedevilled over the last several years by what has happened to our farm economy. After the GATT Uruguay round there was a bit of an agreement on farm issues for the first time ever in GATT, which was not formalized as such.

When Canadian officials returned from the GATT they said they would eliminate, not phase out, the Crow benefit immediately, and a number of other areas similarly. As a result of the changes, over the past five years our farmers in certain sectors, especially the grains and oilseeds sector, have been tremendously hurt.

The government has taken the position that our pockets are not as deep as the Americans or the Europeans so we have reduced our support payments to Canadian farmers dramatically in contrast to the European Union and the United States in particular.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Washington, D.C. and in New York City on September 11, we are hearing stories that the Americans are concerned about food security being included in that. Last month the house of representatives overwhelmingly approved a major expansion of federal farm supports of some $170 billion over the next 10 years.

The parliamentary secretary to the minister of agriculture has just said that it has not gone through yet. We are aware of that and know this is just a proposal on the floor but we also know it was many times larger than what was originally proposed on the books in the house of representatives. Yes, it is not law but it is of concern. This is an additional $170 billion over what the farmers in that country are already receiving.

The headline in the October issue of the Economist read “Just plant dollars”. It was referring to what it called the loonie solution that the Americans are into. The subtitle read “They grow without the farmer having to do anything”. To put it another way, they farm the mailbox just waiting for the cheque to come in.

These are the concerns that our farmers and our workers in the wood industry and in many other sectors are concerned about.

Yes, we realize we are a very small partner in the North American Free Trade Agreement but it seems to us that there is this notion, as Bruce Johnstone put it in the Regina Leader-Post on Saturday:

--“Blame Canada for everything from low grain prices to the bankruptcy of U.S. forestry companies.

Johnstone went on to say that the reality is that recurring trade actions like the softwood lumber dispute or the recent challenge of the wheat board are just a smokescreen for domestic political wrangling and lobbying by powerful industry groups.

I will conclude by pointing out that there are some significant differences on lumber in that 94% of our timberlands are publicly owned as compared to 42% in the United States.

The Canadian Wheat Board has gone before a tribunal now and Canada has won nine consecutive times. I guess we are now going for the tenth. All I point out is that one of these times we are going to lose on a technicality or something else and then we need to be terribly concerned about the wheat board and its future as well as the other support payments that we need to have for our farmers, especially in western Canada.

[World Trade Organization, November 5th, 2001]

Mr. Chairman, it is clear from the minister's words and actions that he is very optimistic as he heads to Qatar this week. Here is what he is up against.

The agriculture commissioner for the European Union, Franz Fischler, said recently that references to phasing out agricultural export subsidies in the World Trade Organization draft agenda were unacceptable. He went on to say that the union could not accept such a pre-negotiation of an outcome which was unacceptable to the union.

We are working with the Cairns Group and others but between the Americans and Europeans there are difficult problems to resolve. How does the minister intend to do that?