Dick Proctor

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, December 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Palliser did not state what is being alleged by the parliamentary secretary.

To deal with his points, he suggests that I favour the American plan. What I was trying to get at, and I thought I had indicated, was that the American plan has a higher threshold than the Canadian plan. Under the American plan the cutoff rate would be in the neighbourhood of $88,000 Canadian as opposed to $35,800.

To suggest that I want a higher age of retirement, the answer is no. But do I want a fairer system in this country? Absolutely.

That takes me back to the first point which was made by the parliamentary secretary, which was that we are not suggesting any increases. That is obviously incorrect. We want to have a broader based amount of earnings going into the plan. If we had a cutoff rate higher than $35,800 we would have more money in the plan and it would provide a better return for people at the lower end.

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, December 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up where the member for Qu'Appelle left off in his earlier remarks. I congratulate him at the same time for the work he has done on this important piece of legislation. The hon. member for Qu'Appelle said there should have been an overall look at pensions. Rather than that the government has endeavoured to do it with a piecemeal approach.

The government took the attitude that the sky was falling and that we had to move immediately. Our caucus would have preferred to have looked at the entire pension plan, including the old age security plan, the guaranteed income supplement and the Canada pension plan. Apparently those other reviews are being held over for another day. As a result this is a piecemeal approach which greatly concerns us.

At the end of the day the Canada pension plan will be less than what it was before. We are very concerned that when the government gets around to introducing the seniors benefit it will have a negative effect on the pension plan of seniors and their overall level of income.

Bill C-2 has failed people in just about every way imaginable. The government has failed to look at the plans overall. It has failed to allow the chief actuary to look at the projections of incomes and outflows and determine what he or she thinks will be the future of the pension plan.

As the member of Qu'Appelle said, the government failed to expand the earning base. The cutoff is $35,800. It does not matter whether one earns $100,000, $200,000 or perhaps a couple of million dollars a year. If one pays taxes in Canada the maximum cutoff on CPP is $35,800. It is clearly an unfair program contrasted with that of the United States where the cutoff works out, in Canadian dollars, to be about $88,000. It is clear what we are trying to get at. There would be a different level of fairness.

The minister is apparently saying that he will be prepared to look at the issue when it is reviewed in two or three years. We will certainly try to hold him to that commitment but one wonders why we could not have looked at it in this round of pension reform.

Bill C-2 is failing the people of Canada with the 10% cut to which my colleague referred earlier. Another area that could have been easily fixed is the dropout years for women who remained home a short number of years ago to raise their children. We see less and less of that today, but in the not so distant past families were able to survive on one income. That is not the way it is done any more. Many women took time out from the workforce to raise their families and then returned to work. These reforms, to use the polite term, will impact on those folks significantly and most unfairly.

An anomaly was pointed out to me by a lawyer in the Moose Jaw area concerned about couples who separated or divorced prior to 1978. As I was advised, after 1978 pensions were split equitably between the male and the female of a dissolved marriage but before then there was no retroactivity. Women who are reaching their retirement years are suddenly learning to their shock and chagrin that the money they thought they were entitled to is in fact not there. This is another area that could have been fixed during the CPP review but such was not the case.

Living conditions have improved significantly for seniors in the not too distant past for many different reasons. We certainly welcome that and want to see those living conditions continue to improve.

Child poverty groups which are concerned about the elimination of that unfortunate social condition have noted that seniors' conditions have benefited in the past. I think that this bill will show quite quickly that these benefits are not going to continue for very long. It is an unfortunate program and it will not enhance the living conditions of our seniors who deserve a lot better.

I will conclude my remarks by remembering the work done on social programs by the father of the current Minister of Finance. Paul Martin Sr. worked with folks like the late Stanley Knowles, Tommy Douglas and others to improve the retirement benefits so that our seniors who had worked hard all their lives for this country could retire with a degree of comfort, security and dignity. I believe that he would be appalled at what is being brought forth by the current Liberal government.

[Petitions, December 3rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, in conjunction with my colleagues from Manitoba who have spoken to the matter this afternoon, I am pleased to present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36 on the Canada pension plan.

It is signed by a number of people from the prairie region who are interested in supporting a publicly administered universal pension plan which ensures that all Canadians, not just the wealthy, can look forward to a secure retirement.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, November 20th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this interesting grouping as previous speakers have indicated. Motions Nos. 4 through 19 include a large variety of important items, the election of all directors, giving the standing committee some insight into the ongoing work of the Canadian Wheat Board, the equality of those who are elected and those who are appointed, the removal of the president and how we would proceed on that important note should it ever come to that, minimum production levels, which I will come back to in a short while, regulations respecting elections and the staggering of elections, which I think is an important point as well, the terms for the president, code of ethics and so on.

I did want to talk a bit about Motion No. 10. This is a motion put forward by the previous speaker, the member for Prince George—Peace River. I think I understand what he is getting at here. He wants a minimum level. In fact, he talked about the difference between a hobby farmer and a somebody who earns his living in farming and who should have the right to vote and who should not.

I want to go on record to say that this caucus will very strongly oppose that. I heard a member from that party talk about two tier. If there is anything that is two tier it is clearly this.

In this caucus we think that as long as a farmer is sending one bushel of grain to the wheat board that he or she should have the right to a vote on the election of the board of directors.

I also want to talk about Motion No. 13 which is contained in Group No. 4. I think how the directors are elected is very important. I want to take a minute for the benefit of the people listening to read Motion No. 13:

(3) Directors shall be elected by producers on the basis of one vote per producer permit book

(4) There shall be limits placed on the expenditures made by any candidate for election to the Board of Directors.

This is a very important aspect of it:

(5) There shall be limits placed on the expenditures made by any third parties toward the election of candidates to the Board of Directors.

I want to elaborate on Motion No. 13 if I may. If the wheat board is to have a board of directors, and we certainly go along with that, then it is essential that the majority of them are elected through free and fair elections. That means, as I said before, one vote per producer holding a wheat board permit book.

It seems to me on Motion No. 10 that the Reform Party wants to see the large scale agribusiness farmers have more votes and more clout than their neighbours. We say this is totally anti-democratic and we want no part of it.

Fair elections also mean a limit on campaign spending by candidates just as in federal and provincial elections so that wealthy individuals do not have an unfair advantage. Fair elections mean the strict and transparent limit as to how much third parties can spend on elections and how much they influence the outcome.

We are reminded of the million dollars that the Alberta government poured into the barley vote last year to try to influence that one and fortunately to little or no avail.

As has been pointed out repeatedly, the wheat board is a $6 billion industry and certain corporate interests would love to get their hands on it. Western grain farmers do not want those folks with deeper pockets than the rest of us to influence these elections unduly on the board of directors.

We are also witnessing what could only be termed as a disgraceful media campaign by other friends of the Reform Party, the National Citizens Coalition, again to try to discredit the Canadian Wheat Board.

The coalition claims to be funded by ordinary Canadians, but we all know that it is bankrolled by the friends of the Reform Party and the the big business community in this country. We know who is in line to be the next president of the National Citizens Coalition, a former member of the Reform caucus.

With those points, we think it is very important that the election of the new board of directors be done in a free and fair way. We will be watching and hoping that the government will move to make some accommodation so that can result.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, November 20th, 1997]

moved:

Motion No. 13

That Bill C-4, in Clause 3, be amended by adding after line 10 on page 5 the following:

“(3) Directors shall be elected by producers on the basis of one vote per producer permit book

(4) There shall be limits placed on the expenditures made by any candidate for election to the Board of Directors.

(5) There shall be limits placed on the expenditures made by any third parties toward the election of candidates to the Board of Directors.”

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, November 20th, 1997]

With regard to Motion No. 41, the Conservatives and the Reform propose to do away with the exclusion clause. Again, we see rugged individualists at work here far more in common with the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the National Citizens' Coalition than with grain farmers.

We think it is a simplistic solution to say that we do not want the inclusion clause, therefore we will take out the exclusion clause as well and we will all live happily ever after.

Our preference in this caucus is to give the Canadian Wheat Board both options of exclusion and inclusion clause for the future. We may all have our views about what the future holds for the Canadian Wheat Board, but no one can say with certainty what it will look like in five or ten years from now.

I think not to give those kinds of options to the board of directors of the future Canadian Wheat Board would be to hamstring it significantly.

In conclusion, it would be a democratic decision, including a vote. There is certainly nothing wrong with that. We say that farmers should be allowed to vote on inclusion clause and exclusion clause as the bill currently is, although we will have something to say on deleting a portion of the inclusion clause when we get to that portion of it.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, November 20th, 1997]

I represent some farmers. I thought I heard a lot of chatter. I know the difference between Motion No. 2 and Motion No. 5.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, November 20th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the next grouping of motions that are before the House this afternoon. Specifically, we are looking at Motions Nos. 2, 31 and 41 as has already been outlined by previous speakers.

As I listened carefully to the mover of two of those three motions, it was clear that on Motion No. 2 what the mover of the motion is seeking is the ability of a province to opt out of the Canadian Wheat Board. Motion No. 31 deals with a contingency fund and Motion No. 41 deals with the exclusion clause as well and obviously the inclusion clause is part of both of those, as has been pointed out.

What is beginning to become clear is now that we are past the words in the preamble, the support by the members in the opposition for the Canadian Wheat Board is like Liberal support on the prairies, a mile wide and an inch deep. That is particularly true of some of the speeches that have been coming forward.

With respect to Motion No. 2, clearly what is at play here would be, as the member for Prince George—Peace River pointed out, that a province such as Alberta could opt out. Obviously a move like that would totally cripple the Canadian Wheat Board. We certainly would oppose any reference to an opting out provision.

Of the three motions that are before us, Motion No. 31 is critical. It would delete clause 8 which deals with using any profits from bonds, debentures, notes or other evidence of indebtedness in payment of expenses incurred by the corporation or putting money into the contingency fund.

It seems to me that some members of this House, in particular members of the Official Opposition, want to eliminate any reference to a contingency fund and so does our caucus, but I think we have different motives in mind. What is at stake here is to delete any reference to the contingency fund and not to have any borrowing contingencies from the federal government. In other words, the Canadian Wheat Board would stand or fall on its own.

We are not supportive of that. We do support the wheat board and recognize that there needs to be government guarantees along this line. In fact, we want to see the government guarantees be the same as they have always been for the Canadian Wheat Board. This has not been a big drain on Canadian taxpayers to have had that kind of support.

It seems to us to be a very difficult argument to persuade western Canadian wheat and barley growers that a new, improved wheat board bill is going to be good for them and at the same time have significant increased input costs, costs of production, to maintain the contingency fund.

We tried during committee stage to have some estimate of how big that contingency fund might be. We never did get a satisfactory response from government officials, although some people have put it as high as $575 million. Whether that is 10% of the value of the Canadian Wheat Board, I do not know where that figure comes from, but it is from usually reliable sources.

We do not know and farmers obviously do not know how big that contingency fund is going to have to be or how much they are going to have to pay for it. We certainly reject the idea of a contingency fund.

As I said earlier, we would like to see the Government of Canada continue to have the borrowing authority for the Canadian Wheat Board, more correctly, to be able to go through the government for its borrowing requirements on an annual basis.

The Canadian Wheat Board, it seems to me, is a classic example of farmers in this case banding together to create an entity which would allow them to do collectively what they could not do individually or separately.

Because there has been a lot of chatter about the history of the wheat board and how it was invoked on an unwilling farm community in western Canada, I would like to quote from an eminent Manitoba historian, Gerald Friesen, who says that Prime Minister Bennett's cabinet was under enormous pressure to relieve the burdens of farmers and to judge by the leaders of prairie farm movements, the prairie preference was for a national wheat marketing board.

Farmers supported the wheat board in the dirty thirties and they are still supporting it in the nebulous nineties as we saw from the vote last year, to the member from the Reform Party. Sixty-seven per cent, as a matter of fact, of the barley growers voted to have the board continue marketing their crop.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, November 20th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I think I just heard my hon. colleague say that he wanted to discuss Motion No. 5. I thought that we were still discussing Motion No. 1. I would encourage the debate to go in that direction.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, November 19th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I too am very pleased to be taking part in this historic debate on Bill C-4, the amendments to the Canadian Wheat Board Act, this afternoon. Before I talk about the preamble before us, Motion No. 1, I will respond to the comments made by the parliamentary secretary about how privileged members who serve on the committee should feel for the ability to come to the House and propose amendments since the bill was referred to committee prior to second reading.

I would take more comfort in that if I had not felt as a member of the standing committee that there was a rush to judgment throughout the entire process. I do not recall specifically how many groups appeared before the committee, but they were grouped in threes and fours so that we could get through the bill in a matter of two or three weeks. The amendments were rushed through in one session. It was not a very effective way to consider a bill of this magnitude which will have a long lasting impact on Canadian grain producers.

With respect to the preamble put forward by the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville, he said that it is not motherhood. I think that there is a lot of mom and apple pie in it. However, I also think that there is nothing wrong with us saying that in a preamble, as my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois articulated a few moments ago.

The New Democratic Party and the CCF before it have always been very strong supporters of the Canadian Wheat Board and we continue to be strong supporters of it. What is wrong with insisting that there be a preamble that makes it very clear? The motion which is before us does that. It states what the vision and mission of the Canadian Wheat Board is to be.

Those vision and mission statements are very much in vogue these days. We see corporations and other groups doing it. What is wrong with such a statement being in the preamble about what it is that the Canadian Wheat Board is all about? It is a reference point that producers and others can look to when seeking guidance or when they have concerns.

Having said that, New Democrats believe that the wheat board has been a very good marketer for Canadian grain producers over the years. We see absolutely nothing illogical about having this as the preamble and we will be supporting this particular motion when it comes to a vote.