Dick Proctor

[Division No. 72, February 12th, 1998]

moved:

Motion No. 44

That Bill C-4, in Clause 26, be amended by deleting lines 30 to 34 on page 19.

[Division No. 72, February 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with group 6 amendments to the Canadian Wheat Board Act and there are a total of six amendments here. Our party has proposed three of them and I would like to deal with them in some detail in the few minutes I have.

Amendment 35, regarding the pooling period, maintains the wheat board's pool account for the entire year, rather than having it broken down into shorter periods of time which is one of the proposals in Bill C-4.

The proposal, we believe, to shorten the pooling period is linked to cash buying, that is obvious, and other tools which are alleged by the minister responsible to make the board more flexible. We do not believe it would make the board more flexible, but we are sure that the long run result will be to undermine farmer confidence in the board and thus weaken the board in the long run.

Amendment 36 concerns the federal government guarantees.

This amendment, in the spirit of an earlier one, serves to maintain the government as the guarantor for the board rather than having the board set up a contingency fund to perform that task. I referred to that earlier when we were dealing with group 5 amendments.

Motion No. 39 is our other amendment regarding cash buying. I would like to spend a little more time going through what our hopes and expectations are in that regard.

Motion No. 39 is the amendment that would remove the current proposal in Bill C-4 to have the wheat board make cash purchases of grain. Bill C-4 does many things to undermine, we believe, the Canadian Wheat Board but nothing in the bill is more damaging than the proposal for cash buying. The wheat board has long had a practice of buying grain from farmers at announced prices and distributing profits to all producers on an equitable basis.

Now, under the proposals before us, in the brief time that has been allotted by the government, the wheat board will be able to buy grain from anyone, anywhere, at any time and at any price. We are absolutely convinced that this will totally destroy a fundamental pillar of the wheat board and it will undermine farmer confidence in it forever.

The proposals for cash buying are linked to other damaging proposals in Bill C-4. The contingency fund is one and the proposal to shorten the pooling period or have several pooling periods on a 12 month basis, which has been talked about before, is another.

As I noted, the Reform Party would have us go beyond even the weakening of these two pillars by attempting to destroy the third pillar which is the single desk selling via the dual marketing proposal.

Who is opposed to cash buying? The previous speaker was saying how many people have become involved in this and come together. The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool does not think that cash buying makes a lot of sense in this plan. I remind viewers and members that the wheat pool in Saskatchewan is the largest grain buying organization in Canada. The sister pools in Manitoba and Alberta are also opposed. They are joined by many other groups, including the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities and the National Farmers Union.

Those are our comments on group 6. We want to leave the indelible impression that we are very much opposed and say no to cash buying.

[Division No. 72, February 12th, 1998]

moved:

Motion No. 39

That Bill C-4, in Clause 22, be amended by deleting lines 20 to 27 on page 17.

[Division No. 72, February 12th, 1998]

moved:

Motion No. 35

That Bill C-4, in Clause 17, be amended by replacing lines 16 to 19 on page 12 with the following:

““period” means a crop year”

Motion No. 36

That Bill C-4, in Clause 18, be amended by replacing line 2 on page 13 with the following:

“order of the Corporation with the approval of the Minister and the Minister of Finance.”

[Division No. 72, February 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my first words this morning have to be ones of condemnation as well toward the government for introducing closure on Bill C-4. I remind the House, especially those who do not sit on the Standing Committee for Agriculture and Agri-food, that the bill was rushed through the House last fall. At that time the excuse was that the government wanted to have the bill through before Christmas.

I recall that even before the Canadian Wheat Board made its presentation on Bill C-4 opposition and government members on the committee were to have their amendments in. This is yet another example of this rush to judgment. A couple of more days to have concluded all this would not have been beyond the pale.

We are dealing this morning with Group No. 5 in which there are 14 or 15 amendments. In a broad brush way they include the auditor general, which my colleague for Frontenac—Mégantic spoke about it at some length; maximizing returns to farmers-producers and I will come back to that; the contingency fund; how any profits from the new wheat board will be consolidated; and the questions of lower then normal price, best returns, overtime and the accountability of directors.

I want to zero in during my remarks this morning on the contingency funds. For us this proposal is perhaps the worst feature of Bill C-4.

Bill C-4 does not reflect the wishes of western Canadian farmers. Despite objections from numerous farmers and farm groups section 39(1) remains in the bill. That section would allow for cash buying and thus undermine price pooling.

Bill C-4 also terminates the government's guarantee of adjusted initial prices. These two changes together would necessitate the creation of the contingency fund which has been estimated could cost farmers as much as $5.45 a tonne every year for five years on every tonne sold through the Canadian Wheat Board. That is a total of $27 per tonne marketed.

This is based on Mr. Hehn's estimate of a contingency fund that would be in the neighbourhood of $575 million or $580 million. Again we have no indication from the government about how big or how small that contingency fund will be. One assumes that the $580 million comes loosely on a 10% contingency fund for the annual marketing of the Canadian Wheat Board, which is in the neighbourhood of $6 billion.

The contingency fund could cost wheat and barely growers almost as much money as they received under the Crow payout scheme of two or three years ago.

Canadian Wheat Board supporters are not only being asked to accept legislation that fundamentally damages the board, but through the contingency they could be asked to pay thousands of dollars each if Bill C-4 changes are implemented. The bill ignores and repudiates the clearly articulated will of the vast majority of western Canadian farmers and is therefore totally unacceptable in its present form.

The minister responsible for the wheat board has been able to achieve the almost impossible. He has all the opposition parties united against the bill, admittedly for very different reasons but nonetheless in total opposition to what we have in front of us. It seemed to be unthinkable at the time but the impossible has been achieve.

Let me make it crystal clear that our caucus and our party oppose the bill because we do not believe that what is here unamended will improve the Canadian Wheat Board. Rather it will significantly weaken the Canadian Wheat Board.

The fundamental question that needs to be answered is whether the bill will or will not be an improvement over what we have now, particularly the three pillars of the current wheat board. The conclusion, as I have said, is that what is before us is a significant diminution of the wheat board which has been a critical factor in western Canada for the past 63 years.

There are three pillars of the wheat board. We believe two of them are at risk in the bill as we see it, price pooling and government guarantees. If the Reform amendments were adopted the third pillar would disappear as well, single desk selling.

As we all know, Reform wants to do away with the wheat board. They want a voluntary board or to do marketing which would effectively kill the wheat board. The notion of a voluntary board is a total fraudulent idea. It is a scam, as was noted by the Alberta Judge Muldoon who said that a duel market was simply a quick transition to an open market. This is something Reform critics and commentators never acknowledge.

I want to say how refreshing it was to hear the agriculture critic for the Conservative Party when he rose on Monday to speak to the bill and specifically to some of the resolutions, instead of the pathetic bleating and ranting of many but not all in the Reform Party.

One Reform Party speaker told us how many speakers from his party had risen to speak in this debate. Let me say as an interested observer that there was a heck of a lot more chaff than wheat in most of the content we heard on Monday afternoon. Particularly abysmal was the performance of the member for Saskatoon—Humboldt. I would encourage any fair minded person to go back and read his contribution to Monday's debate.

Western Canadian wheat growers have a policy that I do not agree with. They have a lengthy paper on duel marketing. They are the ideological soul mates of many Reformers. They must be somewhat embarrassed when they hear what is said many times on the floor of the House.

On the contingency fund, we would propose specifically under Motion No. 25 to delete all references to the contingency fund. Let me underline that we believe the fund is, as I have said before, the single worst feature of the bill. The idea of establishing such a fund follows from provisions in the bill for cash buying. That is the logic behind it. The contingency fund is unnecessary if Ottawa would continue to provide financial guarantees to the board as it has done for the past six decades, guarantees, I might add, that are seldom used and as a result cost taxpayers next to nothing.

Furthermore, the government is either unwilling or unable to indicate how large of fund is required. I have alluded to that. The assumptions are somewhere between $350 million and as much as $575 million to establish the fund.

I note in passing that the parliamentary secretary to the minister of agriculture rose in his place while we were debating the bill last November and said that nobody could pinpoint exactly how large the contingency fund would be. It is another dilemma in our position on the bill.

We believe the government could make an important concession by guaranteeing federal finances that have seldom been required over the past six decades to support the wheat board. It would mean that the kind of money we are talking about would not be required to be produced by farmers but instead would have some genesis and some real assistance from the Canadian government.

Motion No. 30 simply reinforces the federal guarantee to the Canadian Wheat Board. It is in Group No. 5 as well.

Before I close I want to refer to one of the amendments before us. It was somewhat startling to hear what the member for Yorkton—Melville said on this grouping. Subsection 1 shall not be interpreted to prevent the corporation from making a contract to sell a type of grain at a price that is lower than normal in order to secure other sales of the same type of grain that will result in the best return to producers of that type over a period of time.

That amendment sticks out because it is totally hypocritical. That party has been chastising the wheat board over many years because it fails to get the best return. Now it is suggesting that we should do it as an order of business.

I close by saying that this party opposes any notion of a contingency fund and we want to see the continuation of government guarantees in Bill C-4.

[National Defence, February 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence. I would like to know when the minister will explain to Goose Bay Happy Valley defence employees and their families why defence assigned a $1 million performance bond with a British company which is busy slashing civilian workers' wages in half, a company which intends to cut more than 100 positions and fill a few good remaining jobs with retired military brass.

Was this the impact of a recent DND memo which stated “privatization will mean we don't have to be encumbered by national procurement policies”?

[Middle East, February 9th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Vancouver East.

Before I get into my remarks, I would like to congratulate the member for Davenport, the dean of the House, for his very thoughtful remarks a few minutes ago. I certainly hope that the prime minister was listening to those remarks on the need for more diplomatic efforts before any action is taken tomorrow in cabinet. The prime minister indicated that he was going to be listening very carefully to the debate tonight. The member for Davenport had some very important things to say to the prime minister.

This is a very important debate tonight. I am advised that there are some young Canadians in front of this building conducting a vigil on the Iraq situation. Clearly, Canadians are engaged as well in the debate.

Earlier in the evening the leader of our party outlined why military action proposed by the United States against Iraq is reckless and ill advised. She has explained why Canada should avoid the fatal mistake of agreeing to participate in such an action at this time.

My first point relates to the role of Parliament with respect to our role here as legislators in a sovereign country that must make its own decision. The U.S. secretary of state, Madam Albright, said last night that Canadians support her. Is she taking us for granted? Was it a misquote? Or does she know something that has been kept from the rest of us?

Canada is a sovereign country. We must make our own decisions, whether they be about the MAI or about our defence policy, peace and security in an increasingly uncertain world.

This party is saying that we need to give diplomacy more of a chance. Canada has a long and honourable tradition as a nation of diplomacy as has been noted earlier. We have just brokered an international treaty on the disposal of land mines. We did that even though our neighbour to the south did not approve and has not yet signed on. It was a proud moment.

Why do we now want to rush off to support an ill-advised military adventure proposed by the Americans?

And why do the Americans want our support so badly? Despite what we have heard from other parties tonight, the fact is that the United States does not have widespread support for taking military action at the present time against Iraq. The French are opposed. The Russians are opposed. The Chinese are opposed. Significantly the Arab countries in the Middle East are opposed.

In 1991 there was a bona fide coalition against Saddam Hussein. Today there is none. The United States is contemplating drastic action without much support from the world community. One might well ask what confluence of events in the United States is leading it into this strike at this time.

We have heard this evening without much backup as the member from the Bloc was indicating a little while ago about the involvement of the United Nations. Most of the remarks on the situation in Iraq are coming from Washington and not from New York where the United Nations is based. That poses a concern for us.

Whatever President Clinton's reason for considering military action, I suggest he wants Canada's approval and support precisely because we have a standing and reputation in the world community as an honest global citizen and he wishes to enlist our support for his plan.

Let me underscore again what the member for Halifax said about Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein is a dictator and an abuser of human rights. She said that we have been clearly on record as supporting those UN resolutions that forbid Iraq from acquiring, manufacturing or using nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. This is fully consistent with our policy of opposition to the manufacture, the proliferation and the use of nuclear weapons. Our party has long been on record on these issues and there can be no doubt about that.

The unsavoury nature of Saddam Hussein's character is not in doubt, but that is not really the point here. The question to ask is this: What is the point of Canadian participation in another bombing spree against Iraq? It is supposedly to find a way to secure Iraq's compliance with UN resolutions concerning the inspection and destruction of the country's chemical and biological weapons.

The sticky point seems to be the composition of the teams of UN weapons inspectors in Iraq. It is clear that the American presence among the senior ranks of these inspectors is viewed as a provocation by the Iraqis. Surely an arrangement could be reached whereby both the U.S. and Iraq could be satisfied with the composition of an inspection team so that these inspections can continue. Could Canada not play a diplomatic role in this regard? The question to ask is whether the resumption of bombing is going to accomplish that objective or not.

The Mennonite Central Committee, a respected Canadian church organization with a long involvement in Iraq, has written the prime minister telling him that it does not believe bombing Iraq yet again will bring about compliance. This is what the Mennonite Central Committee had to say in a letter sent to the prime minister late last week:

The apparent intention of military action is to force Iraq's compliance of UN resolutions which require Iraq to destroy all weapons of mass destruction. But in statements made earlier this week, U.S. defence secretary William Cohen made it clear that military action will not bring a solution to the problem of Iraq's non-compliance. We must then ask why these measures are being so strongly considered and why Canada would consider lending its moral or even its substantial support to them.

In these circumstances, our caucus can only echo the pleas of the Mennonite Central Community which says in its letter to the prime minister “We urge you and your government to look for diplomatic ways of addressing the crisis”.

The gulf war in 1991 and seven subsequent years of military action and threats have done nothing to ease tensions between Iraq and the west. The approach taken by the United States has in fact allowed Saddam Hussein to strengthen his grip on power as he portrays himself as a victim of aggression at the hands of the United States.

There is a fear that further military action would simply allow Saddam Hussein to play this old card yet again. It is not only church and peace groups that hold this analysis. Allow me to refer to General Norman Schwarzkopf who has been referred to earlier this evening.

The general told a British newspaper, the Guardian that further bombing of Iraq would have no effect on Hussein's defiance of the UN disarmament regime imposed on Iraq following the 1991 gulf war. Schwarzkopf warned that American bombing of Iraq might well smash the fragile international coalition that has supported sanctions against Iraq.

We in this caucus are sceptical whether further military action at this time against Iraq will work. It will cause untold death and suffering to people who have already suffered greatly. Rather than weakening it will only secure Hussein in his position.

I repeat that from our caucus we are saying no bombing now, no Canadian compliance yet to the United States request. Efforts should be redoubled, diplomacy given a real chance and a multilateral solution sought.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, February 9th, 1998]

moved:

Motion No. 30

That Bill C-4, in Clause 7, be amended by replacing lines 28 to 39 on page 9 with the following:

“(3) Losses sustained by the Corporation

(a) from its operations under Part III in relation to any pool period fixed there-under, during that pool period, or

(b) from its operations under this Act under any crop year, for which no provision is made in any other Part, shall be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament.”

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, February 9th, 1998]

moved:

Motion No. 25

That Bill C-4, in Clause 6, be amended by deleting lines 28 to 46 on page 8 and lines 1 to 11 on page 9.

[Grain Transportation, February 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on behalf of the NDP caucus to speak to the motion concerning this crisis put forward by the member for Brandon—Souris. There is a crisis in western grain transportation. We must try to find workable solutions.

I heard the member who put forward the motion lament that it was non-votable, but it certainly has been actionable. The government has seen fit to take some action. As previous speakers have noted, the government has appointed retired Justice Estey to look into the grain transportation crisis. We welcome Mr. Estey's appointment in this effort. He is a distinguished Canadian citizen and was a distinguished jurist at the supreme court level. A native of Saskatchewan, he knows in his bones just how important grain transportation is to our vast and land locked province.

In a recent interview in the Western Producer , Justice Estey said: “You know I'm a westerner from 100 years back and I don't remember four provinces ever agreeing on what day it is, but they did today”. The member for Souris—Moose Mountain noted that the four provinces are in agreement on the need for this urgent transportation review.

The federal government in 1975 appointed a royal commission to investigate grain and rail in western Canada. The commission was led by a colleague of Mr. Estey, the late hon. Justice Emmett Hall. At that time Justice Hall was being encouraged by the railways to move toward deregulation. He was wise enough not to accept their recommendations. He insisted there had to be a degree of regulation in the grain transportation system.

We have an historic problem which has been with us since the first stages of agricultural settlement in western Canada. Farmers grow grain and they have to move it to market. To do that effectively and efficiently in the land locked west they must rely on the railroads, as previous speakers have noted.

The railroads are effectively a monopoly or at least a duopoly made up of CN and CP when it comes to moving grain hundreds and thousands of kilometres from the farm gate to the port. From Sir John A. Macdonald's day until today, the railways have always had farmers and rural communities at their mercy. Much of western Canadian history revolves around attempts by farmers to force governments to create institutions and/or regulations to protect them from this monopolistic environment.

Mr. Hall did not buy the railway's cry for deregulation two decades ago. He knew the only protection for farmers in this monopolistic situation was the continuation of some form of regulation. But the governments of Pierre Elliot Trudeau and Brian Mulroney and the current government of today did buy those arguments from the railroads. First the Crow rate was abandoned and replaced by the Crow benefit. Then the Crow benefit was abandoned in the last Parliament and railways have now been given the green light to abandon rail lines at will.

We are not talking about hypothetical situations. I refer to the line that includes Eston and Elrose. The previous speaker moved around Saskatchewan when he ran for various legislatures. He will know about the Elrose area, Dinsmore, Beechy and Estonia.

This is an area where the farmers had to get together to move the grain in December because CN had indicated that it had no intention of coming in. I would like to quote from the minister of highways who is responsible for transportation in Saskatchewan. The hon. Judy Bradley said:

CN's refusal to negotiate in good faith with the West Central Road and Rail Committee is simply unacceptable. Communities will lose their railway system, not because rail service is not economically viable in the region, but because it does not support the bottom line of CN and the grain companies. This is not an answer Saskatchewan will accept.

While I am on this point about West Central, I congratulate my colleague from Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar who notes that the West Central R and R has put together an excellent package, one that will ensure the future of the rail line and one which will work for farmers. There is no sound reason for CN to reject it.

The prairie provinces have suffered dramatically as a result of changes to federal regulations governing rail transportation. It is not enough that they are abandoning rail lines but they are dismantling the tracks at the same time. It is a real scorched earth policy.

I listened carefully to the exchange last week between the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands and the Minister of Transport. The member was urging the government to place a moratorium on rail line abandonment until the Estey report was concluded. The minister gave a lot of platitudes and indicated he would look into it but he was certain that the railway companies were not abusing the situation.

There is absolutely no reason at this point that the government cannot simply issue an edict that says there will not be a centimetre of rail track that is lifted during this report by Estey. That is the real problem. If we abandon the track, we can always put rail cars on at a later date, but if we tear up the track, the cost is prohibitive and it means the line is gone forever.

We see examples of that in parts of Saskatchewan and in other provinces. The railway companies are tearing up a significant portion of track to make sure that short line railways will not be viable for Omnitrax or some of the other competitors that are thinking of coming in to fill the void created by CN and CP to move grain to Hudson Bay and elsewhere to the main lines. That is a very significant concern. It is something the government could and should move on immediately.

In addition, I mentioned the abandonment of the Crow rate and the Crow benefit. We have seen in the last few years that the railways have doubled and tripled freight rates on grain. At the same time they have ripped up tracks and shifted the costs of long hauls onto the backs of farmers.

This is not the only cost to individual farmers. The roads in western Canada and the grid roads in Saskatchewan—and we have some of the largest road networks in the country on a per capita basis—were not built for these huge trucks. The roads are taking a terrible pounding as the member for Souris—Moose Mountain noted a few minutes ago. They are taking a pounding because the grain has to be carried further and further to the giant inland terminals.

Mr. Estey, we believe, is off to a good start having met quickly with governments of the four western provinces and with various stakeholders. I agree with Mr. Estey when he says that he can and must proceed with his review even while the wheat board complaint against the railway continues concurrently. On this point I do not accept the member for Brandon—Souris' point that the wheat board's complaint against the railway should be dropped. Clearly the two situations can go independently of one another.

In conclusion, we are demanding again that the federal government stop all rail line dismantling until Mr. Justice Estey's review is complete. Whatever results from the review of the grain transportation system, it must ensure that a fair share of the benefits of an improved system find their way back to the farmers and thus to their communities.

Also, we must ask ourselves what government policies and regulations may be needed in a situation where competitive services and rates are not historic in a continuing monopoly by the railroads.

Finally, there are other various ideas which are of great interest to us, including joint running rights and the organization of short line railroads. Railways have thwarted efforts by Saskatchewan producers often in frustration for the establishment of short line railways.