Rick Borotsik

[Canada Transportation Act, June 14th, 2000]

moved:

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-34, in Clause 9, be amended by adding after line 26 on page 5 the following:

““shipper”, in respect of a contract for the movement of grain, means the person who is identified as the shipper on the bill of lading;”

[Canada Transportation Act, June 14th, 2000]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-34, in Clause 2, be amended by adding after line 27 on page 1 the following:

“(2.1) If the Minister wishes to communicate information for the purpose of monitoring the grain transportation and handling system,

(a) the Minister must provide to the appropriate committee of the House of Commons a copy of the contract for the monitoring work, and

(b) the person to whom the contract is awarded must appear before the committee to answer all questions on

(i) the terms of reference of the contract, and

(ii) any monitoring reports that they have given to the Minister, except that they need not reveal confidential information about an identifiable person.”

[Petitions, June 6th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I too rise, as did the hon. member for Winnipeg—Transcona, to present a petition on behalf of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders.

The 42-page petition contains 2,684 signatures. Again, as was most eloquently noted by the member for Winnipeg—Transcona, the Department of National Defence currently is looking at ways of rationalizing its defence budget. We are saying that the militia regiment in particular is not one of those area in which the Department of National Defence should be looking. I speak with some knowledge having a CFB in my constituency, as well as the 26 Field Regiment.

On the bottom part of this petition, it does say quite succinctly that a strong militia is the base on which capable national defence is built. Therefore, any necessary cuts in government spending should be done in other fashions. I support that and table the petition before the House.

[Petitions, June 5th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I wish to present a petition which has four parts and 189 pages in total. The petitioners request that the government support Canadian agriculture. They indicate that we need a level playing field with respect to the subsidies that are being paid by the Europeans and the Americans. The petitioners are calling for $1 billion for an agricultural trade equalization payment for all Canadian farmers.

I respectfully submit this petition on behalf of my constituents.

[Canada Transportation Act, June 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, as a small clarification, it is $5.92 a tonne that is being expected to translate into savings to producers.

I agree with the hon. member. I do not believe that the $5.92 will find its way into the pockets of producers. I feel, somewhere between the railroads, the grain companies and the Canadian Wheat Board in particular, that a lot of that $5.92 may well disappear. I am not so sure that the $5.92 a tonne is the real number. I am not sure if this $178 million that is being held up as the rationale for pushing the bill through the House so quickly is the real number.

The government has not convinced me that this $178 million is there, although it does say that it is an 18% reduction in the revenues. I appreciate that but I am not so sure it will get to the producers.

As for his question on whether I believe this will help producers, the member obviously did not listen to my lengthy debate. I said that was not going to happen. I do not believe this legislation will in fact help producers.

We disagree on the rationale for that. The hon. member believes it will not help producers because 25% of the control will be taken away from the Canadian Wheat Board. I feel it will not help producers because enough of that control has not been taken away. I feel it should be a truly commercial system. There should be competition within the system. There should be main line access by other competitors. It should be open because that truly would help producers.

We disagree on the reason and rationale, but I think both of us agree that it will not help producers.

[Canada Transportation Act, June 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made mention that I was speaking long-windedly and that perhaps I did not have a lot of substance. He asked me the same question three times. Perhaps the next time he could be a bit more detailed.

There are actually two questions. How is it to be distributed? It is my understanding—and I certainly will not hang my hat on this—that it is to be distributed based on a percentage of the grains that are being transported from the provinces. I will give a percentage breakdown. As I understand it, of the $175 million, $35 million per year for five years, Alberta will receive 19%, Saskatchewan will receive 62%, Manitoba will receive 18% and B.C. will receive .4%. This is how it is to be allocated for western Canada.

As for the excise taxes on fuel with respect to dollars put back into the highways of western Canada, it is absolutely deplorable the billions of dollars taken out of our economy and not put back into the road systems. I have stood in the House many times and asked for a long term, well thought out, well financed plan to work tripartite with municipalities, with provincial governments and with the federal government to put dollars back into the rural road infrastructure.

The government, unfortunately, does not see that expenditure in rural Manitoba or in rural Canada as a priority or even a requirement, which surprises me because the Minister of Transport has said that he is now an expert on rural Canada. I suspect that he would recognize that is a bigger issue than the $175 million over five years.

[Canada Transportation Act, June 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I will open my comments by answering the question from the hon. member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar. I would suspect that smarter people than I, Mr. Kroeger and Mr. Estey particularly, have indicated that all of the transportation component should be taken away from the Canadian Wheat Board. That is not coming from me; that is coming from learned people who understand the system certainly better than I and the member.

First, let me say to the people who are listening to this debate that it is not a terribly sexy debate. It is not terribly romantic. It does not have a lot of real substance to it with respect to eastern Canada and people in Ontario and Quebec. It is a western Canadian issue. However, this is terribly, terribly important to producers and farmers in western Canada. It is all about getting more money for a commodity produced.

It costs producers in my area of western Canada one-third of the total commodity price to transport their commodity from point A to export markets. One-third of what they receive for their commodity is eaten up by transportation costs.

We are speaking of the opportunity of a savings on that horrendous cost. Those savings will not go into some frivolous netherland. The savings will go to pay bills that farmers and producers have acquired over the last growing season. The savings will pay for shoes for their children, gas for their automobiles and for ongoing living expenses that a lot of people in this great country of ours take for granted with a paycheque that comes in every two weeks.

This is an uncontrollable cost that producers have to face every time they put a bushel of grain on a railcar. They cannot simply go to the shipper and ask to pay less or negotiate a lower price, because they do not have the ability to do that. What they have, unfortunately, is a control that is thrust upon them, and in this particular case a control that is put on by the government.

Let us talk about grain transportation. This debate has been going on for decades. The government had a golden opportunity to put into place some changes that would actually benefit the producers, the growers of that commodity. It lost that opportunity.

Unfortunately the Minister of Transport knuckled under to the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board. He knuckled under to the minister of agriculture for whatever reason. He knuckled under to self-interest groups that still believe there must be 100% control of the Canadian Wheat Board in transportation.

He made a serious mistake. He is now putting forward to parliament a piece of legislation that is truly flawed. He holds up the $178 million potential savings, and I underscore the term potential, to producers. We will support any amount of money that can be saved and passed on to producers. However the $178 million is simply a proposed amount that can be saved by producers. We will talk about that a little later.

The minister came here this morning with quite substantial crocodile tears and apologized on behalf of the government for putting the opposition in such a position where it had to deal with this type of legislation in a very short period of time. Between now and when we rise is about two weeks. It is unheard of to put a piece of legislation through the House in that short timeframe.

Why is it being forced upon us as the opposition in such a short timeframe? The minister said that he did not have time to bring it to the House. Mr. Estey and Mr. Kroeger, in particular Mr. Kroeger, tabled the report on September 29, 1999. We now stand in the House on June 1, 2000.

What happened in that timeframe? Why was the legislation not put before us so that we would have the proper amount of time to take it to committee to listen to the stakeholders the minister said he listened to and talked with. He had the opportunity of taking into consideration and bringing into play all their opinions before putting the legislation forward. We as the opposition, we as the heart and soul of parliament, should have have had the same opportunity. Unfortunately we did not because the three ministers, the troika, put their hands together and said they should just wait until the final moments of the House to bring forward the legislation and really stick it to the opposition.

They are really sticking it to farmers. They are sticking it to the producers in my area. In a very short period of time we will try to put forward some amendments to the legislation to make it better and more palatable to the producers we would like to see being served by the piece of legislation.

Mr. Kroeger put forward a report. The report was very specific. He said that grain rail transportation should be commercialized. It was pretty simple. It should be commercialized, taken out of the hands of the Canadian Wheat Board. However, what we have in the legislation is something totally outside what Mr. Kroeger wanted to attempt to put into place. If Mr. Estey and Mr. Kroeger were here right now they would be biting their tongues for not speaking against what the government has put forward.

The efficiency of the grain handling and transportation system in Canada, which moves $6 billion worth of grain to market each year, has been the subject of debate for many years. Many contend that the current system cannot continue to operate as it is to maintain the competitiveness of the international world market.

In the past inefficiencies in the management of the Canadian grain transportation system have caused serious damage to the Canadian grain export industry and the prairie economy. Delayed 1997 shipments, primarily of wheat contracted to international customers, resulted in demurrage charges of $65 million, paid for primarily by producers.

It has been estimated that an additional $35 million were lost in potential sales because of Canada's inability to deliver. Not only is the reputation of my producers in western Canada affected. All of Canada's reputation is now being affected internationally.

The reports came forward and we wanted to change the inefficiencies that were built into the system, particularly in 1997. The cornerstone of the legislation before us is the $178 million which the government has held up and said must get through by July 31, August 1 being the new crop year, or farmers will lose $178 million.

It is a projected $178 million, as I said earlier. It is based on a revenue cap on the railroads of $178 million less, based on the transportation of 30 million tonnes of grain last year. We only moved about 26 million tonnes of grain. The $178 million is a projected saving that may be slightly higher than what the actual saving may well be with that revenue cap.

It is also not quite understood as yet whether that $178 million will translate into producer savings. We do not know where that $178 million will end up. It may end up in the grain companies. It may well end up in the bank accounts of the Canadian Wheat Board, but it may not end up in the pockets of Canadian producers. We must confirm where the dollars will end up.

The legislation speaks of 25% of the contracts being tendered to railroads. That is a very good step. Mr. Kroeger decided that 100% should be tendered as a commercial system, but 25% is being proposed in the legislation. It will be 25% commercialized tendering next year. It will be raised to 50% tendering three years from now.

The Canadian Wheat Board will enter into a memorandum of understanding with the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board that will set the parameters, the constraints the Canadian Wheat Board will follow with respect to the 25% tendering.

There has been some conflict. The minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board said that they have not quite negotiated the MOU. Now we hear from the Minister of Transport that the MOU may well be available to us tomorrow. I hope the Minister of Transport is correct. It will be very difficult to deal with the legislation in committee next week if we do not understand what the role of the Canadian Wheat Board will be with that 25% tendering capability in the system. We need that MOU. We hope to get it for next Monday when we head into committee.

The government also says that even with the Canadian Wheat Board having an influence in the 25% tendering, there must be for room the board to manoeuvre. It decided to contract an arm's length third party to monitor the 25% commercialization of the system. That is a wonderful step but I would suggest two points.

First, the terms of reference of the arm's length monitoring of the system should be dealt with by committee or by parliament so that we recognize what the terms of reference will be. We would then know exactly what the the company that gets the tendered contract is looking for to make the system work.

Second, the company doing the monitoring should report to parliament, not to the three ministers. Heaven forbid, if some of the information that came forward suggested perhaps the Canadian Wheat Board was not doing its best to make this system work, perhaps that information would not become public. The information should be public. Any reports from the monitor should come directly to parliament. Then we would find out how the system is operating or whether there is some manipulation to make it fail. That is something we could certainly talk about when we are discussing the legislation.

I am happy to see the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board here. I know he will listen to me very carefully when we debate the bill in committee next week and make the necessary changes to the legislation so that Canadians will be comfortable that the system will be given a very good chance to succeed.

If the minister had been here earlier he would have heard me say that I am not quite convinced $178 million is the right number. It is a projected number based on a fictitious number. Maybe we should consider placing a real number in the legislation so that there will be guarantees that $178 million is the amount to be passed on to producers. Maybe that is something we should look at.

As part of the little carrot dangled by the three ministers on May 10 was a suggestion that $175 million be placed into rural roads. The government neglected to mention that the $175 million would over five years. The government has a tendency not to come out with that kind of the information. That amounts to $35 million a year.

I stood in the House not many months ago and suggested that the government should put into place a rural roads strategy. The amount of $175 million over five years is not even close to what is needed for rural roads. The Minister of Transport, the minister from Toronto with his crocodile tears, stood to say he was sorry that he did not have an opportunity to bring forward the legislation earlier. He also said that he understood rural Canada. He does not want all people to live in major urban centres and knows that there is a need for rural Canada. The minister from Toronto would not know rural Canada if it bit him on the nose.

Rural roads are absolutely vital to the lifeblood of rural Canada. Everything we do comes down to transportation on our roads in most cases. Our roads are currently being beat up, almost to the point where they are impassable, because the railroads have abandoned rail lines and grain is transported on rural roads to inland terminals.

Based on the legislation $175 million over five years is a pittance, a drop in the ocean. Not only that. There is no method by which it will be implemented. Let us take that with a grain of sale from the three ministers. They are dangling a carrot so that they can suggest there should not be any opposition to their legislation, that it should just go through because it is the best thing since sliced bread.

The Canadian Wheat Board's control of the rail car allocation is probably the most serious factor in the whole legislation. Having only 25% of the rail transportation tendered, or commercialized as it is known in the industry, allows the Canadian Wheat Board an opportunity to sabotage the whole process. The Canadian Wheat Board has total control of the system right now. It has the opportunity of allocating rail cars to certain grain companies and to certain areas of the provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta. It unfortunately has a lot of control that no one can really understand, particularly the producers of western Canada.

They would like an open, honest and transparent transportation policy so they can negotiate with shippers and know who was at fault if a product does not get delivered where it is supposed to get delivered. Right now there are so many fingers in the pie and so many people pointing fingers at each other that there is no accountability within the system. That in itself is part of the downfall of the whole transportation system.

We in the Progressive Conservative Party would like to make three points. First, we will not prevent this piece of legislation from going forward between now and committee and third reading stages. Second, we wish to put forward many amendments to make it a much better piece of legislation than what is before us today.

Third, I will say right now, because I may not be here in three, four or five years, that I can assure the House the legislation will be coming back. This does not solve the problem. It will exacerbate the problem. Ultimately producers will stand up and revolt. They will say, in unison, that they do not want to have these controls placed on them because they are not working. Producers will not work forever for no return on their investment, which is exactly what is happening right now. It is happening because there are too many governmental controls on what it is they can and cannot do. This is just the final straw that will break the producer's back.

This piece of legislation will be back in the House in the very near future. It will have to be debated and dealt with again. Eventually the government may get it right. Better yet, there may be a different government and a different party on that side of the House that will in fact do what is right for producers in western Canada. I do hope that I will stand on that side at some time and have the opportunity to have the input that is necessary.

The Minister of Transport stood up and said that change is difficult to embrace. He quoted the fact that there was nothing to fear but fear itself. Why did he not embrace that change? Why did he not fear fear itself and put forward what Mr. Kroeger wanted him to, what Mr. Estey wanted him to and what was right for Canadian producers? He cannot have it both ways.

The official opposition was right. The minister was spooked by the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board. He was spooked by a couple of members sitting in Winnipeg who would not know the difference between a field of canola from a field of wheat. He was spooked and he did the wrong thing.

I hope I will have the opportunity to make the necessary changes to this piece of legislation that will make it better for all producers in western Canada.

I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to slag this particular piece of legislation. In saying that, we will support having it go forward to committee so that we can look at the MOU to see just how the negotiated settlement between the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board and the Canadian Wheat Board have decided how they are going to control transportation.

[Canada Transportation Act, June 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I will get an opportunity to talk to this, but I would like to ask a question of my colleague from Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar.

He talked about ideological predispositions. I recognize that the NDP certainly believes in a different role for the Canadian Wheat Board than perhaps do I, my party and certainly the Reform Party, but I would ask a very simple question.

I recognize and understand the member's desire to keep the Canadian Wheat Board as a single desk marketer. He and I will argue about that point. However, why is it that the Canadian Wheat Board sees the necessity of controlling the transportation of that commodity when all it is looking for is to be a single desk marketer? It needs to sell the commodity. Why is it that it must have control of the transportation in order to simply sell it and market it internationally?

[Genetically Modified Foods, May 31st, 2000]

A Manitoba solution? Quite possibly, but it will be based on what consumers require from the government and parliament.

[Genetically Modified Foods, May 31st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, first let me thank hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre for bringing forward once again the issue of genetically modified foods and that of mandatory labelling. I appreciate that her motion does not speak to mandatory labelling. It simply speaks to implementing a labelling process that will make consumers aware of all genetically modified produce and components in processed foods. I do understand the motion that is before us.

I also want to thank the hon. member for Louis-Hébert, in particular, who sits with me on the agricultural committee. In my estimation, she is probably one of the most knowledgeable individuals in the House when it comes to debating, talking about and certainly understanding the ramifications of genetically modified organisms. I do thank her for educating me on a number of occasions at the agricultural committee.

As the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre will recognize, the members speaking to this motion are the ones who have the most to gain or the most to understand with respect to agriculture.

Two or three members of the agriculture committee are here. The member for Palliser is here as well as is the parliamentary secretary, who is not only on the agriculture committee but also represents the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food.

There is a member here who sits on the health committee who has brought forward the motion with respect to genetically modified produce. I do feel some compassion for the member for Winnipeg North Centre and the fact that she could not get her committee to debate this very important issue.

As a matter of fact, at one point in time we had hoped we could get the health committee and the agriculture committee together in a joint committee to debate this very complex and important subject on which Canadians are asking for a resolution.

I cannot speak to the hon. member's inability with her own committee, but I will give her some assurance right now that the agriculture committee takes this situation extremely seriously. The committee is now dealing with this very issue.

I will not be supporting the member's motion as it stands. It is not that I do not agree with a lot of what the hon. member has said, but simply because I do not understand this very complex situation well enough to be able to say that mandatory labelling or labelling of any sort will be the best resolution for this issue.

Let me talk about biotechnology. First of all I will not take a long time, even though I know the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food would like to stay and listen to me for as long as possible because he learns an awful lot. I know that the Speaker would love to stay here a little longer and learn a little bit about genetically modified organisms, but I will very briefly and succinctly try to explain the Progressive Conservative Party's position on this.

We in the Progressive Conservative Party accept biotechnology and genetically modified organisms as being a very major opportunity for Canadian agriculture. We have always supported biotechnology and genetically modified organisms and believe that agriculture and Canadians as consumers are the beneficiaries of strong, very good science, and we will continue to do so.

The parliamentary secretary referred to comments by Mr. Romanow in Saskatchewan. Right now Saskatchewan has one of the world's most renowned biotechnology centres. That is very positive. Canadians are on the leading edge of biotechnology. This is very good for consumers because consumers, and producers to a degree, can take advantage of the changes in biotechnology.

We would like to make sure that Canadians can protect their position in world markets right now with biotechnology. We believe that the consumers must have the proper knowledge and information available to them.

I am saying to the member for Winnipeg North Centre that yes, I agree that the government, we as the opposition and we as a parliament must be able to give consumers what it is that they want, unlike some other parties in this House that will remain unnamed who wish to turn a blind eye, stick their heads in the sand and simply say, “Never mind what the consumers want. We will simply say it is safe as predicted by science and continue to go on with biotechnology”. That will not happen.

In the real world consumers are demanding more information and knowledge when it comes to biotechnology and that is a very good thing. We have to make sure we listen to all the stakeholders, to all those organizations and groups that are demanding that knowledge and information. We must make sure we put forward that information in a logical and knowledgeable way.

Let us not have fearmongering, as some may wish to suggest. Let us make sure we do it logically.

I would like to thank the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre for bringing this motion forward. My party and I will support her in certain movements toward information based genetically modified organisms with information given to consumers as they demand it. It may or may not be mandatory labelling, but it will be—