Dick Proctor

[Agriculture, March 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister, following the disappointing and even pathetic response on the farm crisis that was just announced an hour ago.

Canadian farmers are saying to the government that in 1993 when the government had a deficit problem they were there for the government and accepted huge cuts. Now, when they have a problem, there is no meaningful help forthcoming from the government.

Why does the government continue to ignore the reality that there is a huge farm crisis and fail to do anything about it?

[Species At Risk Act, February 28th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the member for Yukon who just spoke. However I could not help but notice a contrast between what the member for Yukon said, which sounded like he was very supportive of the bill, and what the member with whom he was sharing time said, which was that he had concerns with the bill and was looking to make some changes.

I have a specific question for the member for Yukon. In reading the bill our concern is that it does not cover the federal government's core jurisdiction, especially north of 60, with which the member for Yukon will be a lot more familiar than me. It does not cover the habitat of migratory species and does not apply on federally owned lands north of 60, which incidentally make up about 95% of federal lands.

Would the member for Yukon comment on what I perceive to be a deficiency in the bill?

[Standing Orders, February 27th, 2001]

He is practising.

[Canada Elections Act, February 22nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the debate this afternoon. I have listened to the debate throughout and was intrigued by the comments of the government House leader indicating that they were relatively minor amendments. The member for Regina—Qu'Appelle has dealt with the suggestion of 12 candidates in order for a party to be considered official.

I was more intrigued by the commitment of the House leader that he would be open to much more significant changes to the Canada Elections Act following Jean-Pierre Kingsley's report to the appropriate parliamentary committee having an opportunity to discuss his findings regarding the recent election.

All members of the House of Commons would want to pay close attention to that report and to what Mr. Kingsley, the chief electoral officer, and Elections Canada find as a result of the November 2000 election.

I should like to associate myself with some of the remarks made by the member for Edmonton North. It was a difficult election campaign with the permanent voters list that has now come into play.

While the member for Edmonton North referred to brand new subdivisions that were springing up overnight and to the difficulty of keeping up in her riding, the situation experienced in the riding of Palliser was quite a bit different. We found that low income people and people who moved a lot, probably because they are low income people and students, were being discriminated against as a result of the national registration of voters.

We used to have an enumeration prior to each election campaign. That system worked very well over many years, but it was changed. The last enumeration took place on the eve of the 1997 election and then in the November 2000 election we were into an update.

It was argued at the time that it would be much more effective to use computers, et cetera, so that people could be tracked. We are finding that a lot of the information is not available or not able to be placed into an updated voters list because of our privacy laws. This is why Mr. Kingsley's comments will be so important when they are made. I will give the House an example.

As I was door knocking in my riding I noticed Elections Canada flyers on certain doorsteps advising that one or more of the residents in the household had reached the age of 18 and was therefore eligible to cast a ballot if he or she would fill out a form.

It seems passing strange to me that those names are not placed automatically on the ballot, but apparently our privacy laws prohibit that. If the privacy laws are that strict, and there are good arguments not to change them, we really need to consider seriously going back to a system of enumeration.

As my colleague pointed out, one million people were left off the voters list in the last election. We had one of the lowest turnouts in history. In my riding of Palliser the vote was just over 62%. I make the point again that it was primarily low income people and people who tend to move around a lot.

One can get on the voters list. It is easier to get on the voters list on election day than it used to be, but one still requires identification or must be sworn in by a friend. A lot of times genuine low income people do not have an abundance of personal ID. It is difficult for them to find someone to go with them, hold their hand at the polling booth and say this is Jane Smith or whomever. I think we must look at the whole area, and I am pleased the government House leader has made a commitment on that.

At the same time I want to be critical of Mr. Kingsley for suggesting the answer to low voter turnout was compulsory voting. A lot of our problems have to do with the transition to the permanent voters list from the enumerated list. We need to tidy that up and make it more effective. If we cannot tidy it up we should revert to the enumeration system.

The member for Edmonton North also noted the situation in Saskatchewan, which has not had a political tax credit at the provincial level, and the need to remedy it. I suspect she knows a bill has already been passed but not yet proclaimed in that legislature. I have been given assurances the problem will be remedied in Saskatchewan's new session of parliament which probably begins in a month or so. Then there will be political tax credits in all 10 provinces. We have had a federal tax credit in Canada since the mid-1970s. We look forward to that progressive change in Saskatchewan's legislation.

Another item which deserves to be raised and to which my colleague alluded was the question of third party advertising. I too very much support strict limits on third party advertising during election campaigns. The political parties that participate in campaigns have very rigid spending limits that must be followed. It would be patently unfair for people with deep pockets to be able to subvert or buy their way into the media to effect changes that the political parties do not have the budget to do.

We recognize, and I think the government recognizes, through the legislation it has endeavoured to bring in over the last number of years, that third parties should be able to advertise during election campaigns. However they should spend only a finite amount of money on advertising, less than what political parties are able to spend, because an election campaign is a contest between all the parties, big and small, and not the folks with the big bank accounts.

We align ourselves in the New Democratic Party very much with finite limits on third party advertising, unlike the lead spokesperson in the debate for the Canadian Alliance Party.

To conclude, I would encourage colleagues who are interested to look at a document entitled The National Register of Electors , which raises questions about the new approach to voter registration in Canada. It would take only about 10 or 15 minutes to read through the booklet. It was written before the results were tallied, so it says in effect that the November 27 election serves as the litmus test for the national registration of voters.

It wonders whether the move to a permanent voters list from the enumeration system was done as a cost saving venture. I hope that when Mr. Kingsley and the parliamentary committee studying the legislation looks at this fundamental change to the act, tough questions like that will be asked by the parliamentarians who serve on the committee.

I see my time is drawing to a close. I will conclude by saying that we in my party are supportive of the minor technical amendments in the bill. Far more importantly, however, we are interested in the fundamental changes that the government House leader alluded to when he led off the debate this afternoon.

[Canadian Pacific Railway, February 22nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, from the day it was created 120 years ago, Canadian Pacific Railway has always lived off public largesse. Now we learn that it has been living off the backs of its employees as well.

Using access to information, CP pensioners in Moose Jaw have calculated that between 1937 and 1985 CP Rail collected more than $700 million in employee pension contributions without paying one cent of interest to its employees.

It gets even worse. When employees were terminated and pension money was refunded, CP deducted 1% as a handling fee. Estimates indicate that the corporation and its shareholders benefited likely to the tune of about $6 billion in what amounts to interest free loans over five decades. That is $6 billion that should have gone to CP employees or their survivors.

Before this conglomerate is permitted to separate itself into five companies, it must first be required to pay the interest on this loan to CP pensioners and their families.

[The Environment, February 16th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the attorney general in the United States suggests that even with scrubbers and other anti-pollution devices that are to be installed in some of the power plants in Ontario by 2004, this will not in and of itself be sufficient to reduce the nitrogen oxide emissions and the acidic rain, et cetera, that are spewing into the Adirondacks and that area.

Could the minister comment on that, given what he has said in his previous answer?

[The Environment, February 16th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it was clearly and correctly demonstrated yesterday that Canada has a very different view of the death penalty than the United States. Nevertheless, the states of New York and Connecticut assert that Ontario coal fired power plants are guilty of exporting death through deadly contaminants to residents of those two states.

Last month the environment minister indicated that he would ask the Canadian environmental review agency to review this issue. Will the minister update the House today on the status of this review?

[Supply, February 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite mentioned in his response to the member from the Alliance the unfair subsidies from the United States. I am interested in that comment linked with his earlier comment during his speech wherein he said that trade with the United States had tripled over the last 10 years. I believe his figures were $3.6 billion to something like $13.2 billion.

One cannot help but wonder whether or not there is a relationship between the explosion in trade between the two countries and the fact that the Canadian government, because of that $13.2 billion, does not want to get into any serious argument or challenge to the United States about unfair trade subsidies, which the member and the parliamentary secretary referred to.

I would like him to comment on that development and see if he agrees that it is unfair. If it is unfair, why is Canada not doing something directly about it?

[Agriculture, February 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise in the House on this particular emergency topic of agriculture.

For a number of the participants who have spoken in this debate, there is a degree of frustration being felt in the Chamber. Mine is a frustration of a member who was here in the last parliament. We thought we discharged our responsibilities, as members of parliament from all parties, to raise the subject of this crisis and to point out some solutions for the government. In short, we discharged our responsibilities to the best of our abilities.

Our frustration probably pales in comparison to the frustration that was felt by the farmers who came to Ottawa, who lobbied, who buttonholed members of parliament, who called meetings in their communities and who staged tractor demonstrations to draw attention to the farm crisis.

It does not matter whether it is Saskatchewan or Manitoba, or the corn and soybean producers in Ontario, or the problem that has come to light recently in Prince Edward Island with potatoes. I am sure my colleague from Nova Scotia will be addressing that particular issue later in the debate.

The frustration is aggravated when we hear the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, whose remarks I listened to carefully earlier this evening, acknowledging that there are particular financial hurts out there. He specifically indicated the grain and oilseed producers.

That in itself is not new either. Going back to 1997 and 1998 it was acknowledged even by the agriculture minister that the major hurt was with the grain and oilseed producers. What came out of that, with our lobbying and the lobbying of others, was the agricultural income disaster assistance program, AIDA. Who did it help the least? The grain and oilseed producers.

However, it helped other people. It was based on an Alberta program that was really designed for the red meat sector. It was not designed to help grain and oilseed producers. Why? Essentially, if we plotted it on a graph, the changes are very slight. They have been slight downward changes in grains and oilseeds over the past number of years. If we are dealing with livestock, we see sharp spikes. The up tilt is large for three or four years then all of sudden there is an abrupt drop. That triggers some assistance for those farmers.

It is frustration about that. It is frustration when we hear the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food say he will do more. The question that comes to mind is, when will he and the government do more?

The minister responsible for rural development, or the provincial secretary, says that agriculture is extremely important to everybody here. Please tell that to the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister. With due respect to the agriculture minister and the secretary for rural development, they cannot do that on their own. It has to be a collective effort. It has to be a team effort that involves all of the cabinet, especially the leadership of the cabinet.

On that point, may I quote from an e-mail that most of us who are participating in this debate probably received. It states:

Had the government implemented strategies three years ago to reduce government imposed costs; to deal with growing farm debt; to develop and implement safety net programs which are effective for grains and oilseeds; and to provide targeted assistance where it was needed; you would not likely have been called to participate in an emergency debate tonight on agriculture.

I believe that to be absolutely correct.

I want to take a few minutes to outline where this crisis originated. I believe that if we do not know where we came from it will be much harder to plot any solutions. Essentially, I believe what happened was that 1993 was a very significant year in this entire debate. It was not only the election of the first term of the government, but it was also the coming into effect of the GATT Uruguay round, and it was the first time agriculture was addressed at the GATT. There was an agreement of good faith. All the signatories agreed to reduce their subsidies and domestic supports by 20% over five years.

I believe the government, which had a mantra of eliminating the deficit as quickly as possible, chose to hide behind the GATT Uruguay round agreement and to slash, cut and hack subsidies. They cut supports not by 20% or 30% or 40%, but by 60% over the five year period to the point where our farmers were unable to compete with their counterparts in Europe and the United States.

The classic example from western Canada is the elimination of the Crow benefit in 1995 which costs Canadian farmers in western Canada more than $600 million each and every year. In the province of Saskatchewan alone it costs about $320 million.

Other speakers earlier in this debate have reported on the disparity between supports. I need not do that. It is on the record. I would just point out that it is because of those supports that food freedom day is coming earlier and earlier in the country. We are paying so little for food that is being produced by our farm families.

In the last year, and people may dispute the numbers, the number of farms reported by Statistics Canada that were no longer operating was approximately 6,400 in the province of Saskatchewan. People who know this far better than I will tell us that in good years and bad years, since the 1930s in Saskatchewan, there have always been 1,500 farms that go out of business. There are fewer farms but the ones that remain are getting larger. However, 6,400 is a sharp increase in the number of farms that have gone out of business.

It was acknowledged as well that it was because of the devastating cuts, government officials conceded. Mike Gifford, who used to be the trade commissioner for Canada and reported to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, reported that we could have $2 billion worth of inputs or support payments to Canadian farmers immediately without risking any degree of retaliation.

We had AIDA which did not really work for the group that it was intended to work for in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. They are primarily corn and oilseed producers, but the program was based on the Alberta livestock program. We follow that now with a Canadian farm income program which we believe has less money in it than the AIDA program. As well, we have all of the problems around that with getting payments for farmers to assist with that program.

The Secretary of State for Rural Development said it was important that this debate not be just a litany of the problems, that there should be some solutions. He was encouraging members to come forward with solutions. I submit to the hon. member that there is no shortage of solutions, which have been proposed by any number of farm organizations and political parties.

Agricore, for example, has a number of what I think are workable short term solutions. Agricore is suggesting that AIDA and CFIP will not address the long term price depressions which are now hurting producers. It suggests that the government needs to work with safety net committees to design and implement new ways to support the farm economy, such as a payment through the net income stabilization account directly to the producer, as well as an increased contribution to the provinces for funding of companion programs.

The provinces, under this proposal, would decide how the programs would operate in their respective provinces. Companion programs would work better than national programs because they would recognize the differences that exist in each province and accordingly would have different solutions. The requirement for a provincial contribution would be waived. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture is also proposing companion programs.

In the last election campaign, the New Democratic Party had a whole farm safety net program which we thought required putting in $1.4 billion per year for each of the next four years. That would basically double the amount of money available under our safety net programs and would at the same time provide $100 million for a program to help young farmers get established on the land and a program for older farmers averaging 58 and 60 years of age which would ease them off the farm.

I referred to the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. The federation suggests: adequately funded farm income programs; companion programs that meet farmers' needs on a provincial basis; and NISA rules that allow farmers to withdraw funds when they need them.

If I may just pause there for a minute, Mr. Speaker, that last point is extremely important. It seems to me that NISA is an extremely paternalistic program. I have had farmers tell me that they have taken money out of their NISA account and then decided later on in that year that they would like to take out more money. They had not taken out enough because their crop did not come through to the extent that they thought it would. They were rejected because they could only make one withdrawal in any 12 month period. That is not an adequate solution. These people have to be given responsibility. They know far better than any of us here what their specific problems are. If there is money there and they cannot access it and withdraw it, that surely is another great frustration and one that ought to be very simply dealt with.

The CFA also suggests that we need a disaster program that is structured to deliver funds quickly rather than delay relief for farmers. That is a reference to the fact that only 51% of the 1999 AIDA claims have been paid out thus far.

The CFA goes on to suggest that we need $900 million per year for the next three years to restore safety net programs.

We have numbers ranging from $900 million a year to $1.4 billion to more than that. There are farmers who phone to talk to me. I am thinking of Lloyd Pletz in Balcarres, Saskatchewan, or Murray Downing in Manitoba. I am sure they phone other members of parliament as well to talk about programs and the specific ideas they have for costs of production. They feel that our farmers are simply unable to compete against the high subsidies coming from the United States and Europe.

There are long term solutions as well, not just solutions for the short term. I agree with previous speakers who have acknowledged that we do need a short term program to get farmers out on the land in a month, six weeks or two months' time, but we certainly do need a long term safety net program that is going to work for all of our farms and all of our farm families.

Some of those suggestions include: tax rebates on fuel; cost recovery; and reconsideration of user fees, which shot up dramatically as the government was consumed with eliminating the deficit back in the mid-nineties. I know they have been capped at this point, but I think the government needs to reduce and in some cases eliminate them. In these times of crisis, total farm debt in the last few years has increased by more than 44%, which needs to be addressed as well.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture was front and centre in the demonstration yesterday in Cornwall, if I read the papers correctly, Mr. Speaker, a demonstration you are acquainted with. The OFA talks about the need for safety nets, freight subsidies and other support programs and about restoring that support to the 1993 levels that I talked about earlier in regard to the costs of production, in order to subsidize the gap between farmers' financial capabilities and the average crop production.

We know that the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food will be meeting with his provincial counterparts in Quebec City early next month. We would really like to see some announcements prior to that so that farmers can prepare for their spring planting.

Let me refer to the agreement that was signed by provincial ministers in Regina last week. This was a meeting they requested, without the federal minister and officials being present. In their communiqué at the end of that meeting they said, and I quote:

It is now up to the federal government to fulfill its responsibilities and immediately invest accordingly to address this urgent situation. Provinces agreed to work with the federal government to prepare a framework that is predictable in the long term, effective and fair to all provinces. This framework will take into account a number of factors including the specific features and needs of each of the provinces and the relative economic importance of their agricultural sector in Canada. The ministers hold that integrated risk management in agriculture will require a joint response. This means a substantial contribution from Ottawa. While this urgent situation is occurring in the provinces, the additional funds required are in Ottawa.

Let me close by trying to encapsule some of the messages that the government needs to heed very quickly. We have heard them from different parts of the House during the debate this evening.

The first message is that over time the federal government has gone from taking the major responsibility for safety nets and disaster funding to a position of requiring provinces to pay 40% of the cost. Even though agriculture has always been jointly administered, it is only in the last number of years that the provinces have been specifically instructed that if they are going to have a safety net program they have to pony up 40% of the money. We are in a situation in Manitoba and Saskatchewan where we have a relatively small tax base and a lot of farmland, which is making it extremely difficult for provincial governments to come up with the 40% that is required to have an effective safety net program and effective protection for farm families. That is one thing that needs to be taken into account.

Second, over time, the federal government, going back 5 years and probably 13 or 14 years prior to the arrival of this government, took away major programs that helped farmers, including the two price wheat system, which my colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle will tell you came off in 1988, and the Crow rate in 1995.

Third, farmers have faced and continue to face a number of challenges, such as international subsidies funded by the national treasuries of the European Union and the United States. The numbers have been talked about earlier in the debate in regard to how low our subsidies are in comparison to those trading partners.

Fourth, there are declining margins as input costs eat up more of the revenue, and there are the continued production and price risks associated with farming.

In conclusion, what I am trying to say is that farmers in this country simply need to know whether the federal government is going to stand behind them or if they are going to have to address all of the farm issues by themselves as they have essentially had to do over the last number of years. That is the important question that needs to be addressed tonight.

[Agriculture, February 9th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I think that farmers, provincial ministers of agriculture and even members of the House are frustrated and embarrassed that the minister and the Prime Minister's only solution to our agricultural crisis is to go hectoring and lecturing across the world about the level of subsidies offered to farmers in other countries. That may be a strategy, but it certainly is not a solution to the farm crisis we have at home.

Is the minister prepared to offer at least an immediate federal cash injection so that farmers will be able to plant crops this spring?