Dick Proctor

[Agriculture, September 22nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the minister of agriculture will know that the blockade of Canadian trucks carrying grain, livestock and other commodities which began last week in South Dakota has now shifted and spread to some other mid-western states thus destroying utterly the minister's claims that this was electioneering, posturing by one U.S. governor.

Could the minister advise the House what he is doing to resolve this dispute and to protect western Canadian farmers, truckers and their commodities?

[Petitions, June 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition with 72 names from the residents of Palliser expressing ongoing concern about the multilateral agreement on investment, on which we have already heard from my colleagues for Winnipeg—Transcona and the member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre.

[Petitions, June 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is on behalf of my colleague, the member for Yukon, and consists of 344 names.

The petitioners call on parliament to instruct the government to re-evaluate its policy with respect to undocumented convention refugees in Canada class and consider implementation of the 1996 recommendation of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on this matter.

[Petitions, June 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and privilege today to introduce three petitions.

The first one is on behalf of my colleague, the member for Vancouver East. It relates to the Middle East and specifically requests that there be a recall of all Canadian military personnel and equipment now taking part in the blockade of Iraq and use all possible diplomatic pressures to urge the United Nations to end the sanctions against Iraq. This petition has been signed by 224 Canadians.

[Mexico, June 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I was a member of the parliamentary delegation in Mexico last month. I think all of us were pleased to hear the minister of the interior of that country assure us that his government would never resort to violence to end the insurrection in Chiapas. However, deaths of nine more Mexicans on Wednesday shattered such bland assurances.

My question is for the Minister of Foreign Affairs. When will the Government of Canada show some intestinal fortitude not only by condemning publicly its NAFTA ally, but also by suspending its export credits and other agreements unless there are ironclad commitments immediately against the Government of Mexico to stop this war against its indigenous people?

[Income Tax Act, June 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-227, an act to amend the Income Tax Act regarding income deferral for farmers who must sell or destroy livestock in the case of a natural disaster.

I congratulate the member for Athabasca for taking the time to investigate the Income Tax Act and to isolate some of the problems that farmers encounter when natural disasters occur.

In congratulating him I certainly would not want to agree with him about his comments and would want to disassociate myself with the comments he made about the Canadian Wheat Board. If he wanted to refer to the Crowsnest Pass freight rate agreement and the dissolution of the Crow benefit a few years ago, he would be on firmer ground and enjoy more support from this caucus.

This bill would allow farmers to defer income for 12 months if they have to sell off livestock or destroy livestock because of a natural disaster. This would give the farmer time to rebuild his or her livestock once that natural disaster was over.

Furthermore, in a case where Agriculture Canada orders livestock to be destroyed, any taxation on compensation would not be included in the farmer's taxes for a 12 month period. Again, this would give the farmer time to rebuild once the disease had been eradicated.

In the bill before us, Bill C-227, the hon. member is referring specifically to the aftermath of a flood in the Lesser Slave Lake area, but the bill would clearly apply to other areas where natural disaster has occurred. We think of the Red River flood, the Saguenay flood and the ice storms in eastern Ontario and Quebec of last winter.

The disaster financial assistance arrangements have been in place for some time. I believe they have been in place for 28 years. The program provides assistance when disaster strikes. It works, accordingly, that the federal government may be requested by a provincial government to help out financially. This assistance is provided through the disaster financial assistance arrangements and the payments help those governments to meet the basic costs involved.

This financial assistance arrangement has been in place, as I say, for almost three decades and is administered under guidelines ensuring that federal financial assistance is provided in a fair and equitable way across Canada. The amount of this federal compensation is determined by a formula based on provincial population and other criteria.

With reference to the ice storm of 1998, despite the existence of the arrangements under DFAA, problems did occur. I know that we received calls and letters from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture following that severe ice storm and we were told that the provisions of the DFAA applied to some situations but not to others.

The federation told me that federal and provincial legislation covered capital losses but not the loss of income. For example, if a farmer had to throw out milk because the truck could not get to the yard to pick it up, he or she was compensated. On the other hand, trees in a farm orchard which were injured or stressed from the storm meant that the farmer was not compensated for lost productivity resulting from that.

In addition, there were problems with the definition of farmer for purposes of compensation. Many people who are forced to work off farm to support their operations were then considered to be hobby farmers and not eligible for assistance under the DFAA, although I think eventually there was an exception made for farmers affected by the ice storm and so-called hobby farmers were included back in January and February.

We know that off farm work has become the exception, not the rule, and that farmers work to subsidize their operations.

There is a need for a more detailed look at the DFAA as it relates to the loss of income and who is eligible for compensation. I know that the bill of the hon. member for Athabasca relates to the Income Tax Act, but what we are talking about is a measure of protection for the income of farmers.

Any discussion of protecting farm income must also take into account the government's lack of support for the agriculture and agri-food sector. The support has declined drastically throughout this decade. It stood at $6 billion in 1991 and it had been reduced to less than $2 billion by 1997, a decline of $4 billion, and this year's budget confirmed even further cuts.

Farmers and other rural dwellers have sacrificed enormously in the fight against the deficit. One might well ask what the agriculture minister is doing to represent the interests of rural Canadians at the cabinet table. We believe the government is doing too little rather than too much to support farmers facing difficult circumstances.

I want to refer briefly to an opposed vote in the supplementary estimates printed recently in the Order and Notice Papers. I would have liked to have spoken to this the other day, but time allocation did not permit it, so I will make reference to it now.

It involves the member for Prince George—Peace River, who was opposed to the federal department of agriculture spending $13.8 million on crop reinsurance for Saskatchewan. I want to go through this because I think it was perhaps a shortsighted, mean spirited approach. I just want to give a little bit of history to back up the point.

In the 1980s the provincial Conservative government of Saskatchewan set up a number of farm insurance programs.

Members will recall that there was a serious drought in Saskatchewan at that time and indeed some action was needed. Ottawa got involved. It was probably one of those late night phone calls between then Premier Devine and then Prime Minister Mulroney. In any event, they hastily devised ad hoc programs and carried so much debt that they drove the cost of farmers' premiums through the roof.

Following the 1991 provincial election in Saskatchewan, the incoming government moved to remedy the situation. The federal and provincial governments both wrote off a portion of the debt in these programs to put them on a sound financial footing.

Saskatchewan made a payment to do away with the debt and Ottawa did the same. As I understand it, the money involved in this vote is to be used for that purpose, namely, to retire a debt that was driving premiums not only up for farmers but out of sight.

Therefore, I cannot understand why the member for Prince George—Peace River would want to prevent this money from going to Saskatchewan farmers and I am sure the farmers in that province would not understand it either. I notice in passing that the member for Prince George—Peace River has asked the minister of agriculture on several occasions over this session to provide assistance to farmers in the Peace River area where crops had been lost due to rain and flooding.

I too have spoken out in this House, urging the minister of agriculture to do more to help the farmers in Peace River. So I am disappointed that the Reform Party member who wants assistance for Peace River farmers would ask that Ottawa turn its back on farmers in Saskatchewan. It seems to me that it is yet another example of that party picking and choosing who it is going to support and who it is not. I am sure this will not go unnoticed by farmers in my province.

In conclusion, I congratulate the hon. member for Athabasca for his private member's bill and assure him of my support for it.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, June 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the member for Wild Rose, and I want to correct something that I am sure he did not intend to say but said it nevertheless. He talked about the fact that 66% of Alberta farmers voted against the barley vote in 1997, which is correct. But without a blush he segued that 66% of Alberta vote into a vote by western farmers against the barley vote when we all know that the overall vote in western Canada was 62% in favour of retaining barley under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Wheat Board.

I wonder if the member for Wild Rose would acknowledge those are the facts.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, June 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Lakeland said a few minutes ago that it is an old speech he had from the member for Malpeque. If new content were required for all these speeches we would have been mute on this point about October 15 because there has been nothing new on this debate since about the first week of the debate. It has been downhill every since.

We are here tonight again in part because of the amendments that have been brought forward by the member for Prince George—Peace River. The Senate has pronounced on Bill C-4. Following hearings in western Canada earlier this spring senators have proposed three amendments and made two recommendations.

The process as amended by the Senate has now returned to the House. That the government is introducing it into the House means it approves the bill as amended or that it at least accepts its provisions otherwise it would have chosen not to reintroduce it.

The bill as amended will be debated in a package, one debate, no splitting off to discuss and vote on each amendment separately. There will be one vote only.

If the vote passes, and the government will ensure it does, the bill will then be ready for royal assent. It will not return to the other place for a further vote.

The Senate amendments include the deletion of the existing inclusion and exclusion clause. There remains a mechanism for having the inclusion or exclusion of a grain but the reality is that it leaves the initial decision in the hands of the minister. In the bill's earlier stage the decision to include to exclude would have been triggered by a farm group or groups.

It is one more indication for us that the bill does not do what the minister has been saying constantly that it was going to do which was to put grain farmers in the driver's seat. Every time they get into a narrow corner they say they have to give the control back to the government or in this case the minister. Instead of putting them in the driver's seat, as the minister responsible for the wheat board has been saying, it really puts grain farmers further into the back seat.

The minister has to consult with the board of directors and hold a producer vote on inclusion-exclusion. In addition, parliament will now have to pass specific legislation to include or exclude a grain. We believe that essentially this is a capitulation of the business and the right wing farm lobby which wanted both clauses to be deleted from the bill. It did not really want the exclusion clause deleted, but we are prepared to take that in order to get rid of the inclusion clause.

From our point of view the inclusion clause was one of the only redeeming features of the bill from the point of some wheat board supporters, including the NFU as has been noted by the previous speaker and the wheat board advisory committee.

With regard to point two of the Senate recommendations, the Senate amendments stipulate that the minister consult with the board before appointing a president. The minister did not have to do this under Bill C-4 but said he would have anyway so in reality it is not a big win.

On the auditor general and access to information point, the amendment from the Senate says that within two years of the bill coming into force the auditor general should commence an audit of the corporation. The question of the wheat board's transparency was a big issue for the Reform Party and wheat board opponents. The minister responsible for the board was reluctant to allow the auditor general in but has now obviously agreed.

The senators do not suggest that the board be open to access to information laws. They say the new members of the board will have access to all relevant information and they should decide what is and what is not made public.

In addition to those three Senate amendments there are two recommendations. Of the ten elected members of the board of directors, Saskatchewan would have five, Alberta three and Manitoba two.

Second, the regulations stipulate the contingency fund will be no larger than $30 million. This is a small step in the right direction but the CEO of the wheat board thought that the contingency fund could be as high as $575 million.

Third is that the contingency fund be separated into three accounts defined by their uses, guaranteeing initial payments, providing for losses from pool accounts, and providing for potential losses from cash trading.

The Senate also observed that farmers should vote for directors on a one farmer, one vote basis rather than on the basis of volume of grain delivered, which was a suggestion from the Reform Party last fall. There should be spending limits in elections but the senators came up with no suggestion as to what that should be.

The senators noted the intense and bitter debate around dual marketing. They took no position but said that the new board of directors could make decisions on this in future.

For our part, the federal NDP caucus opposed the bill even with the inclusion clause. We will oppose the bill with these amendments which essentially removes this clause. We would oppose the further recommendations we have heard tonight made by the member for Prince George—Peace River.

Our caucus opposes Bill C-4 because it does undermine the integrity of the wheat board and will continue to undermine farmer confidence in it. We believe farmers cannot afford the contingency fund is in the bill and they do not want it. The senators have accepted the contingency fund although they recommend it be limited to $30 million.

One of the few positive clauses from our point of view was the possibility for the board to either add or delete grains from its mandate. The decision to include or exclude a grain would have been triggered by requests from farm groups but would have required a vote by all the farmers affected.

A coalition that included the Winnipeg Commodities Exchange and other corporate groups lobbied hard against the inclusion clause. To achieve their end they said both inclusion and exclusion should be dropped and the senators have capitulated to this aggressive lobby. In place of a democratic process to include or exclude the senators offer an alternative that would make it almost impossible to ever add a grain or delete one.

The inclusion clause was one of the few redeeming features of Bill C-4 and it has now been gutted. We in this caucus have always been strong supporters of the wheat board because it works in the best interests of farmers. We must work together to make sure that the wheat board has a healthy future.

On this whole business of secrecy about the wheat board I agree very much with the comments made by the member for Malpeque. We are talking about a $6 billion a year operation. I has been accountable to parliament. Parliament has required that an external independent auditor scrutinize the wheat board's books. The auditor is Deloitte & Touche and each year the report is filed with parliament. The last audit I saw was the 1996 audit. That well recognized, well respected accounting company found the wheat board's books to be in fine shape.

It is true that the wheat board is exempt from provisions of the Access to Information Act and we feel that the overriding reason for that is customer confidentiality and the conduct of the wheat board's commercial activities. If customers big and small cannot be assured that their business dealings with the board are held in confidence they will go elsewhere with their business.

It is interesting that the same groups that frequently claim that the wheat board does not get a good enough price for grain would now like to undercut the board's ability to do just that.

The Canadian Wheat Board is probably the best grain marketing organization in the world and it has served western farmers well for more than 60 years. It is a great Canadian success story and it is accountable to the people of Canada through parliament and through an external audit.

We in this caucus have always supported the wheat board because we believe, as I have said, that it works in the best interests of farmers. We oppose Bill C-4 because it is flawed legislation and will only serve to undermine the board.

Reform opposes Bill C-4 because Reformers do not think it goes far enough, quickly enough to destroy the board faster. We are not in support of Bill C-4 and we are certainly not in support of the amendments presented tonight.

[National Defence Act, June 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to take part in this debate on Bill C-25. The bill was introduced last December. It proposes the most extensive set of amendments to the National Defence Act in the past half century.

The main focus of this bill and a key focus of the act is the military justice system, the distinct system of penal law applicable to members of the Canadian forces and other persons subject to Canadian military jurisdiction.

The eight parts of the act comprising the statutory basis for service, that is military offences and the procedures for enforcement, investigation, prosecution, trying and punishing those who commit them, are called the code of service discipline.

Service offences under the code of service discipline naturally include infractions which relate uniquely to military service. However, the code of service discipline also incorporates offences against the Criminal Code and other federal acts and with a few notable exceptions permits the military justice system to have jurisdiction over persons who commit them while subject to the disciplinary jurisdiction of the Canadian forces.

As we all know, the military justice system in recent years has been under increasing scrutiny and pressure for significant changes. One factor is undoubtedly the extended and unprecedented period of time since Canada was last involved in a major war and the perception that the chances of such involvement are remote. This situation tends to lead people to be less tolerant of any perceived systemic unfairness in the system and its retention of punishments perceived as excessive or anachronistic.

Another factor has been the adoption of the charter of rights and freedoms. This constitutional change has brought the military justice system as well as the Canadian legal system generally under increased public scrutiny regarding procedural safeguards for accused persons and principles of fairness and equality of treatment in general.

Particular attention has been drawn to aspects of the military justice system which reflect the disparity of treatment between soldiers and civilians or among military personnel such as the lack of certain traditional criminal law safeguards at summary trials; the fact that only junior ranks, private and corporals, and non-commissioned officers, master corporals and sergeants can be summarily sentenced to detention or reduction in rank; the considerable discretion of commanding officers in deciding to proceed with or dismiss charges, possibly including even serious criminal offences; and that persons exercising judicial functions or what would be judicial functions in the civilian system are frequently members of the chain of command who have no legal training and who have other apparently conflicting responsibilities for administering the code of service discipline.

In the past few years such issues and concerns have been brought to the forefront by various high profile cases such as those relating to misconduct by some Canadian forces members in Somalia and Bosnia, which has been well discussed here this afternoon.

Moreover, the 1997 reports on Somalia and the Dickson report recommended a series of changes to the military justice system. There have also been a number of other internal and external studies about possible reforms to our military justice system.

I want to take a few minutes to talk about some of the things that have not been addressed in Bill C-25 that came out of that Dickson panel. One is the office of the inspector general which was discussed at some length here this afternoon.

The Somalia inquiry recommended the creation of such an institution as a general supervisory and review body outside the chain of command. It did not happen. Whistleblower protection was another item that came out of the Dickson Report. Again referring back to the Somalia inquiry, it recommended specific measures aimed at protecting both those who reported wrongdoing in connection with Somalia, both at the time and in conjunction with the inquiry, and those who may do so in the future.

Another item that was conveniently ignored in Bill C-25 is trials by civilian judges and juries. The Somalia inquiry recommended that military accused charged with offences punishable by five years imprisonment or more have the right to elect trial by jury before a civilian court. The Somalia inquiry also recommended that all military judges be civilians appointed under the federal Judges Act with the same security of tenure as civilian judges. Again, this was not acted on.

On the independence of military police, a number of recommendations of the Somalia inquiry were directed at making concrete institutional and procedural changes to ensure the equal treatment of all suspects without distinction of rank and to insulate military police from direct or indirect command interference. This was not acted on at all.

It is not surprising that as a result one of the three commissioners, Peter Desbarats, called the shutdown the most brazen cover-up and denials of responsibility in the history of our country. He also said that the government's action were a brazen cover-up and a total denial of responsibility. Because the government opposite snuffed out the inquiry Canadians will never know all the truth about what happened in Somalia or who was responsible for the ensuing cover-up. It has to be constantly restated that this was the first time in Canada's history that a federal government shut down a commission of inquiry before that important work had been completed. It was profoundly undemocratic and an extremely dangerous precedent was set by the government in the previous parliament.

I want to draw my remarks to a close by referring to the charges of sexual misconduct in the military that have been revealed recently, particularly by Maclean's magazine, but by other news media as well. I want to talk about it in terms of a specific case that deals with one of my constituents, with whom I met less than two weeks ago. I want to put her case on the record.

Before I do that I want to say that, without a doubt, this was the most stomach churning, upsetting bit of casework that I have ever done in the brief time I have been here as a member of parliament.

Here are the key points as they were related to me. This individual, who was then 18 years of age, signed on as a female bosun. As I understand it, it was at a time when females were being allowed to take that position for the very first time, which was in 1989. She was dispatched to the west coast and assigned to a ship there.

During the fall of 1989 this individual said that she experienced several instances of unwanted and unwelcome sexual advances that included touching, rubbing, petting and patting. She advised that there was a particularly disgusting incident prior to Christmas 1989 when she was presented with a plastic penis from some members of the crew of another ship that was in port.

Following the break over the holidays this individual, who went in as an ordinary seaman and had been promoted to an able seaman, returned to the west coast. The occasional harassment and unwelcome sexual advances continued, including one incident of a male superior exposing himself in front of her on board the ship. However, nothing during the early months of 1990 prepared this individual for what took place on a night in early May of that year.

On this evening the individual stated that she was asleep on board the ship when she awoke to find a seaman in the cot with her. The seaman was partially naked. She says that she could feel his penis against her thigh and her bra had been pushed up. According to this individual, the male seaman had his hand in her underwear and a finger inserted in her vagina. Her screams awoke the other females present in this female only section of the ship, who in turn began screaming at the male seaman, who then apparently picked up some of his clothes and repaired to a female only washroom to get dressed.

The military police were called and the male in question was either arrested or detained. A rape kit indicated that the individual, despite the overbearing harassment, had not in fact been actually raped, but she was sent home on compassionate leave.

When she returned two weeks later she felt that she was being completely ostracized, excluded and was unwelcome by her peers and superiors.

The insensitivity of the military officials was heightened by the fact that she was forced to share a military bus on the base for two weeks with her assailant before somebody figured it out and changed one of their schedules so she did not have to go through this ordeal.

She eventually requested a leave. She could not go back on the ship. She was not much longer in the military before she sought to get out and was released from duty.

Although she was under psychiatric care in Esquimalt, when she left there she was not eligible for treatment and there was no military psychiatrist who could treat her. Her parents helped her out for a bit in terms of psychiatric help, but it was too costly and she stopped seeing anybody for professional help.

It is also worth noting that the navy lost all of her performance records and she was told that if she wanted to go back she would have to start all over again as an ordinary seaman.

My sense of this is that what the military did after this odious, horrible and shameful incident is as bad as the actual incident itself.

No one ever contacted her. She never had a chance to testify at the trial. No one has ever told her that she may be eligible for compensation under veterans affairs.

This is symptomatic of the problem we have in the military. We have low pay. We have low morale. We have a lack of leadership and we do not think that Bill C-25 begins to deal with the root of the fundamental problems in the military.

[Division No. 213, June 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it being 3 o'clock I wonder if you would declare question period over for the day.