Dave Chatters

[Canadian Wheat Board, February 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is truly a sad day for western Canadian farmers. Today this government is ending debate on changes to the Canadian Wheat Board by invoking closure. Even worse, in spite of ample and verifiable evidence that the government has long used the wheat board as a foreign policy tool at a cost of billions of dollars to Canadian grain producers, wheat board lawyers even went as far as to argue before the courts that the wheat board had no obligation to prairie farmers.

In spite of this, both the minister of agriculture and the wheat board minister last night voted against an amendment proposed to make the primary legal responsibility of the wheat board to act in the best interests of wheat and barley producers.

All other arguments aside, is it not reasonable that the producers of the grain should be able to expect their marketing agent to act primarily in their interest? Truly a sad day for democracy and property rights.

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

Mr. Speaker, the issue we are debating in Group No. 4 is election versus appointment of officers of the Canadian Wheat Board. I wish members opposite would take the debate a little more seriously, stand in their places and explain to me, to my constituents and to other western farmers why they are being denied exactly what farmers in Ontario currently have. We are asking for the same thing but we are being told it is not good for us. It is good for them but they are not breaking down the door to give the Canadian Wheat Board jurisdiction in Ontario.

We have a valid concern and a valid point to make on behalf of producers. While maybe some of the debate is repetitive or may wander from the election of wheat board officers, the emotions surrounding the issue increase in my riding every day.

I was home on the weekend. I just arrived back in Ottawa this afternoon. On Saturday afternoon a farmer in my riding contacted me. He is a second generation grain producer in the mid-northern part of my riding that has farmed all his life. The Farm Credit Corporation, an agency of the federal government, has given him 60 days to vacate his farm. He has not been able to put a crop in the ground for two years. It has been so wet he has not been able to get into his fields. It draws my emotions out when I hear people joking, laughing and making sport of the issue and issues surrounding farming.

On the airplane on my way back to Ottawa I was reading a story in the paper about a Manitoba farmer, a constituent of a colleague of mine, who was jailed for 60 days, given a $2,500 fine and had his $50,000 grain truck seized. Almost exactly the same day this took place, two men who gang raped a woman in B.C. were given community service. The farmer for selling $500 worth of grain was put in leg shackles, strip searched and humiliated day after day. We cannot help but get emotional and start throwing these things back and forth.

As I said, I challenge members on the other side to take the matter seriously. Let us stand and talk about why Canadian farmers cannot have an elected board in control of the wheat board and cannot have the wheat board working for farmers, elected by farmers and responsible to farmers.

There must be some transparency in the board. It certainly is not elected. The minister insists for whatever reason—and I do not know what it would be—on maintaining control over the board. Is it any wonder farmers in western Canada are suspicious and do not trust the board?

Farmers in my riding want to support the Canadian Wheat Board. They believe in the Canadian Wheat Board and what it can do for farmers. However, because of its historic injustices, they want control of the board. They want to elect the people who control the board. They do not want the minister and the government to control the board, simply because the courts said that the board was not responsible to farmers. A situation where a farmer has to sell his grain to the Canadian Wheat Board at the same time as he could get double the price for his grain by trucking it just a few miles across the border seems to be an injustice to farmers.

We have farmers in tears because they are losing the family farm after two generations. They are being deprived of up to $3 a bushel for their grain because the Canadian Wheat Board will not let them market it. It bothers me when I see the whole issue being made into a joke and being bantered back and forth. It is an extremely serious issue in my part of the country. I do not think the demands of my constituents, the Reform Party and my colleagues are anything more than reasonable and normal under the circumstances.

I urge members opposite to take them seriously, debate the matter seriously and give us some real reason they will not accept the number of amendments we are putting forward to make the changes. They will give farmers confidence and faith in the Canadian Wheat Board and make them willing to use it as a marketing tool for their grain.

If we keep going in the direction we are going and if the government insists on maintaining the position it is maintaining, the Canadian Wheat Board will be destroyed.

Already in my part of the world farmers are turning to other alternatives. They are looking at non-wheat board crops. They are looking at local markets in livestock production. They are turning away from the Canadian Wheat Board because the government refuses to budge. It refuses to change its position on the Canadian Wheat Board in any way.

The government is being unreasonable. It makes me quite sad to see that response. With that I will close my remarks.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise again in the debate on Bill C-4 as it has some relevance to my family and me. I am a third generation grain farmer. My family has held a Canadian Wheat Board permit since the very inception of the Canadian Wheat Board. That gives me some legitimacy and some relevancy in this debate, contrary to the member who just spoke. He probably does not know a bushel of wheat from a gallon of maple syrup.

It is not a matter of whether one member or another might be able to rise to speak. Any member of the House can rise to speak on any issue he likes. It is a matter of legitimacy when we speak. I do not understand these members.

The only thing the Group No. 4 amendments referred to was the election of wheat board officers.

[Ice Storm, February 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I and my colleagues from this side of the House toured the sugar bushes of eastern Ontario and met with many local producers.

The massive devastation that this ice storm has left on one of Canada's heritage industries is indescribable. These producers are feeling abandoned and neglected and need immediate assistance to prepare for the 1998 season. They also need long term professional assistance to evaluate the long term effects on the maple trees.

The maple sugar season is only 30 days away and action is needed to be taken right now. I urge this government to act immediately to save this unique Canadian industry from becoming a fatality of the ice storm of 1998.

[Petitions, December 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from citizens in the greater Ottawa area. They ask Parliament to recognize that crimes of violence against persons are serious and abhorrent to society and to amend the Criminal Code of Canada, the Bail Reform Act of 1972 and the Parole Act to better reflect societal attitudes.

[Petitions, December 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I present two petitions today. The first petition is from citizens of Pointe-Claire and Dorval in Quebec and Oakville, Ontario. The petitioners ask Parliament to declare and confirm immediately that Canada is indivisible and that the boundaries of Canada and its provinces, territories and territorial waters may be modified only by a free vote of all Canadian citizens as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and through the amending formula as stipulated in Canada's constitution.

[Aboriginal Affairs, November 27th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the empty rhetoric coming from the Indian affairs minister and the accusations she is throwing out are unacceptable.

For 130 years in this country, Conservative and Liberal governments have committed atrocity after atrocity on Indian peoples. This Prime Minister even produced a white paper on assimilation. Therefore, to throw that kind of talk out, I simply ask the minister when she will quit that kind of talking and simply act on the report that is in front of her.

[The Environment, November 26th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, pure greenhouse gas. I said in my presentation that I was not speaking on behalf of the energy industry or any particular industry. I think it has done an excellent job of representing itself and I think to a great degree it has protected its interests.

What I said was there were scientists who were part of those 2,500 scientists who were most upset because their scientific evidence was distorted and misrepresented. I think that is a valid position for them to take.

[The Environment, November 26th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure where the question was but certainly that erudite body the hon. member referred to is entitled to its opinion, as are all other Canadians.

The problem has been that all Canadians have not been engaged in this debate. They have not had a chance to express their fears and their opinions. Based on an implementation plan that the government would put forward, the group the member talks about could probably pay double what it is paying now for car gasoline without creating serious hardship.

I think there is also a very large group of middle income to lower income Canadians who would suffer huge hardship when this plan is implemented and the prices of energy rise significantly. There are both points of view out there.

[The Environment, November 26th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate, particularly after sitting here all evening and listening to the debate and being very annoyed at the gross distortion of the Reform Party position on this issue and the undignified and unwarranted personal attacks on members of the Reform Party.

The Reform Party certainly has never put forward a position that we should not do anything. That could not be further from the truth. Certainly we believe that all prudent measures to reduce emissions and pollution should be done that can be effectively done without committing economic suicide, which is what this government is bound and determined to achieve.

We neither want to commit economic suicide nor be isolated in the world by implementing a program that has no real plan, no global plan for implementation, forcing other countries around the world to participate.

I think it would be truly tragic to end up in a situation like that. For the life of me, I cannot understand how intelligent people can totally ignore any of the conflicting science on this issue. There is hard data written on pieces of paper collected by scientists that without any doubt prove that the global climate has not warmed since 1940. The data is there and is indisputable.

There are scientists who participated in the IPCC, 2,500 is the number talked about, who say that their scientific data was misinterpreted and misrepresented for political purposes.

How intelligent people can discount all those things and engage in psychological terrorism and coercing Canadians into taking some action that is going to be extremely costly and harmful to the Canadian economy is beyond me. Quite frankly, I think it is unethical and dishonest.

There must be a broad public debate and discussion in this country. We must bring ordinary Canadians into the discussion because after listening to this issue in the House, in committee and in the media, it becomes very obvious that the people who are going to pay the price are going to be the ordinary taxpayers.

Governments have engaged industry in the dialogue. Industry has presented a strong position. I think the government has listened to industry to a great degree in talks about tradable credits and the voluntary challenge program and a lot of these other things that will likely work for industry. However, industry is only one-third of the problem. Another third is the transportation sector and the other third is people themselves.

Certainly while some interests have been addressed, some certainly have not been. This shroud of secrecy over the Liberal government's position gives cause for great concern and fear in the general Canadian public and not unwarranted.

I heard the member for Ottawa West—Nepean tonight quote Maurice Strong as a world authority on this issue. Maurice Strong, for those who do not know, was the chairman in Rio who stood up and said that the only salvation of the globe was the total dismantling of the industrial society. It was the Liberal responsibility to achieve that. If that does not strike fear into the hearts of Canadians, I do not know what will.

This refusal to develop a dialogue and a position and to simply announce one-upmanship against the Americans indicates to me that the greatest interest here is not in the interest of Canada, it is in the interest of grooming someone to be a greener leader or the world's boy scout who is going to save the world faster than the next leader. I do not think that really serves us well.

The Canadian reality is that we are a huge country and a cold country with a very sparsely and disperse population and with great dependence on the resource industries. Based on that, it is important that we get this whole issue into perspective.

Canada only produces 2% of the world's greenhouse gases. China and India are huge contributors to the problem and they are not even part of this discussion. In fact, it is ludicrous that we would take leading action to solve the problem without engaging some of these other countries. If we, tomorrow morning, were to achieve the commitment that the government talks about, the achievement of 1990 levels by the year 2010, without engaging India, China and some of the other countries, it would take a mere 25 days for that benefit that Canada produced to be used up by the third world. Only 25 days and we would not have accomplished anything except to destroy our economic base in this country. I think it would be quite foolish to do that.

As I said before, what we are mostly lacking in this debate is a public debate engaging all Canadians in the issue. That has not happened and it is not likely to happen now until after Kyoto, until the government has signed a binding legal agreement that leaves it little flexibility if Canadians do not buy into this scenario.

If we think we hear emotions in the House tonight on this issue, wait until the government starts to implement this program and passes the cost of this program on to ordinary Canadians. We should think back to last winter when there was a large increase in the price of propane. For senior citizens in my riding on fixed income, the price of their heating fuel doubled and caused them great hardship. They could not afford to buy groceries. People called me from reserves in northern Alberta. They could not afford to buy heating fuel for their homes.

Look at the outrage in Toronto last summer when there was only a temporary spike in the price of gasoline. There were calls for investigation and government action immediately and it was nothing compared to what this government is proposing, I am afraid.

Canadians should be well aware of the fact that they are now paying over 60% of their income in one form of tax or another. Real take home income has been shrinking in this country for a long time thanks to ever increasing taxes. I do not really think there is a mood out there for further increases to the degree this government is proposing.

It is very important that we take a balanced approach, a careful approach, a cautious approach. We have never disputed and we do not dispute that Canada's environmental situation is in serious trouble. It is in serious trouble all around the world from a number of sources.

We heard the Conservatives talk about the wonderful things they had achieved. The member for Davenport, in spite of that wonderful achievement on cleaning up pulp mills, introduced a debate in the House about how this government has in fact exempted pulp mills and they continue to pour dioxins and furans into Canada's water system.

We have a potential Chernobyl in the suburbs of Toronto with a nuclear power plant and we have an ever growing stockpile of nuclear waste around the world that nobody has figured out what to do with.

Our environment is in serious trouble, but that does not mean we need to do the kinds of things this government is proposing to do to solve the problem. Prudent action is in order. Responsible action is in order and our party supports doing that. We just urge caution.