Rick Borotsik

[Supply, April 13th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, needless to say, the people of my riding do not feel alienated because they have elected me to represent them in this House. They did not elect Reformers so I do speak in glowing remarks to the residents of my community who had a very reasonable decision to make and made a reasonable decision in not having Reform represent them.

[Supply, April 13th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I thank the Secretary of State for Western Economic Diversification for his question.

I would suggest that he does not make enough of those announcements in the city of Brandon. Perhaps he could expand on some of those announcements and I would be very happy to be a part of them.

I do not think there is any doubt that it is always to our benefit to listen to Canadians. The Progressive Conservative Party has a task force under way that is listening to those people who are homeless and who are dealing with poverty. We deal with that task force from coast to coast. We would not be able to learn the issues and to better deal with them if we did not listen to the people who are at the root of those issues.

I have no doubt there will be some good that comes from this particular task force. I have no doubt the task force initially was developed and designed to try to elevate the Liberals' profile in an area where their profile is very limited. Will it work for the profile? Probably not. But the members of the committee should well learn something from the people whom they listen to. The people they are talking to certainly know the areas better than the Liberal members do.

As was mentioned once before, I believe by a member from the NDP, I too have some very strong opinions on those issues. I have had the opportunity on occasion to share those opinions with members of the government. Unfortunately they do not implement those opinions as much as they should. They would do a much better job if they did.

[Supply, April 13th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, normally when I rise to debate an issue in the House I start my debate by saying that I am very proud and very pleased to stand to debate a particular issue. Unfortunately I cannot say that at this time because quite frankly I find that the motion put before us by the Reform Party is basically taking up very valuable time of the House. The motion is totally partisan and quite frankly an opportunity, I suspect, to put forward a face that is kinder and gentler for the Reform Party. Perhaps the Reform Party has too many supply days if it has to go this level to put forward important issues to the House.

I have spoken in the House on numerous issues from the hepatitis C situation that we found the Liberals ignoring to health care. I have spoken to the budget, which I was very pleased to do. I have spoken with respect to defence issues, very important issues that resonate out there in our country today and are very important to Canadians in general. I cannot put this motion in with the other issues we have debated.

As I say, I am always proud to be a representative of the constituency of Brandon—Souris in the House. I must say that speaking to this motion does not instil a lot of pride in myself. Certainly it should not instil a lot of pride in the people who put forward the motion.

Yesterday in the House a very important debate took place, a debate of great significance to Canadians, the Canadian military and our responsibility with respect to NATO. The Reform Party and the leader of the Reform Party justifiably took offence to the fact that we as members of parliament did not have the opportunity to vote and make our mark or have the ability to come forward and suggest that what the government was doing was right or wrong.

Perhaps the Reform Party would have been much better served if it had put forward that motion today and if the Reform Party leader had some conviction as to whether he wished to have that vote on the floor of the House. Then we would have been much better served than with the motion before us.

I find it a rather perverse irony that the Reform Party would come forward with a motion that actually speaks to alienation. Alienation is synonymous with the Reform Party. To bring it forward now obviously is the Jekyll and Hyde of the Reform Party. It is trying to snow Canadians at this point in time.

Let us make no mistake that Reformers have alienated the rest of Canada. We can see that on their benches. They have alienated Ontario. They have alienated Quebec. It does not take much for me to speak to that with the advertising campaign that they had in the last election, as well as comments that were made by their members just recently with respect to anti-French, Frenchified and anti-francophone.

The members of the Reform Party have alienated eastern Canada, Atlantic Canada. They have done it many times in suggesting that Atlantica should be an amalgam of all the Atlantic provinces. They have alienated Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.

At any point in time if the Reform members would like to come to me, I can introduce them to my colleagues from Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland. The Reform members cannot do the same. I would love for them to introduce me to their colleagues in those other regions of Canada that they now so passionately speak of as being alienated, not only by the Liberal government, but by other members of this parliament. They do not speak of their own alienation. Let me speak to that briefly and then I will get into the alienation the Liberal government has also allowed in this great country.

What about Atlantic Canada? A member of the Reform Party stood up recently and spoke very eloquently to the fact that there are issues in Atlantic Canada that have to be put on the floor of this House, which the Liberals and the government should be able to deal with immediately. Let me deal with some of those issues.

I quote: “The Leader of the Reform Party of Canada does not like special income assistance programs for fishermen and plant workers. He would wipe out regional development initiatives like the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and he is opposed in principle to the special bailout of Cape Breton coal mines”. Not only is that an irony, it is a complete flip-flop from a comment that was made recently by a member of the Reform Party. He talked about Devco and about the Sydney mines. That quote, by the way, was made on July 25, 1996. Those are the chameleon policies of the Reform Party.

I have another quote: “The kind of fiscal shock treatment the leader of the Reform Party favours may eliminate the deficit, but would also abandon thousands of Atlantic Canadians to a cruel fate”.

I find it rather ironic that they speak so eloquently on issues of Atlantic Canada on the one hand, but do not tell the truth on the other. They are saying something totally different. I would like to add another quote: “Canada should slash its universal social program and return to a bygone era when families and charities looked after the elderly, the unemployed and the poor, the Reform Party says”. That was in the Chronicle-Herald on February 22, 1995.

It is absolutely incomprehensible that the Reform members would talk about the alienation of a region when in fact they are the ones who have alienated the majority of the regions in this country. It is the wrong thing to do.

We should be debating something of consequence here in this House, but we are not.

I would like to speak to the motion because perhaps there are some items the government would like to hear about from the Progressive Conservative Party to try to improve upon its record in western Canada. The government has alienated in its own right and its own way, as have we. I take some consequence of 1993 when the Progressive Conservative Party had alienated Canadians. Perhaps we all do it at some point in our political careers. That is why they are not necessarily long careers, but they are valuable and viable careers.

On January 7, 1999 the Prime Minister announced the creation of what he called the Prime Minister's task force on the four western provinces. I have to admit my first reaction was that it was definitely a political manoeuvre to try to get additional support in the western Canadian provinces.

I have no doubt in my little mind that is what this particular task force is all about. It is to go out and gain some public relations and some media attention. It is to say that the government is listening, that it cares not only about western Canadians but also about eastern Canadians, Atlantic Canadians and the Quebecois who are still very strong Canadians.

The task force is a bit of a make work project for little Liberal backbenchers. However, it is doing it for whatever it feels are the necessary reasons.

In fact, the chairman of the task force is a colleague of mine. He is also the chairman of the agriculture committee on which I sit. I find it rather amusing. The member who is from the Manitoba riding of Charleswood St. James—Assiniboia, and heads the task force is the very same member on the agriculture committee when we were trying to put forward some very well thought out changes to legislation, Bill C-4, which had to deal with the Canadian Wheat Board, who said that Canadian farmers want what we are putting forward and we are not prepared to make any changes.

That is not the way governments are to listen to the people who represent Canadians in those areas. I wish that particular individual had made some of the changes. We would not be in the position we are in now with the alienation of Canadian farmers.

Did the government consult with not only the stakeholders but also the premiers of the provinces of western Canada when it put together the AIDA program? No. It developed a program of its own design and then it went out and forced premiers to come into the program. It is the absolute wrong way to do it. Of course in doing that people are alienated and the government is learning from that.

I wish that Canadians would better recognize this country as being ten provinces and three territories. Perhaps we could all learn from our mistakes. Perhaps by working together as opposed to driving these wedges between the regions of the country we can become a much better country.

[Government Services Act, 1999, March 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. To try to understand the logic of the government is impossible. To ask me how I think the government thinks, it is impossible for me to get to that level. I am sorry but I cannot answer that question. At some point in time when a member of the government stands to speak perhaps the question would be better directed to him or her.

I still go back to my original comment. I cannot believe that a negotiated settlement could not be achieved in two years of negotiating. That shot my wildest dreams. I do not know why the Liberals would not go to binding arbitration. I know that the union has put that on the table before and they have not taken binding arbitration. I do not know why it was not extended in Bill C-19 so that grain would not be affected.

We recognize this is the pawn. We recognize the unions will use it. Let us be fair about it. They will use anything they possibly can to get the attention of a government that is not prepared to sit down and negotiate.

[Government Services Act, 1999, March 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is true to a point. There is no question that this is a huge hammer to use to try to resolve a problem that could be resolved in a better and more honourable fashion if the assurances were there that the grain would be moved.

The problem is that farmers are being used as the badminton bird in this game between management and labour. Do not use my farmers as that badminton bird or that pawn. If we make sure that the grain can be moved, then I would be very happy to continue with the negotiating process that has now been put on the table by treasury and the union. It is a terrible sledgehammer to use back to work legislation right now in order to resolve this problem.

When the union took the grain handlers out and used this particular gambit, it also knew it would get the government's attention because it was affecting an $18 billion industry, most of western Canada and probably all of Canada. The union knew when it did it that it would get the government's attention and that this would be the result.

Nobody has total right on his side. The hon. gentleman is right. It would be very nice to be able to resolve the situation without this piece of legislation, get them back to work and make sure there are no strikes on the grain handling side of it.

Bill C-19 should have spoken to a situation where we would not have any more tie-ups with Canadian grain moving to the marketplace.

[Government Services Act, 1999, March 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for, I suspect, some ambitions that I may have, although I was not aware of them. Maybe he could tell me where he has been getting these particular pieces of information. However, things are strange in this world of politics, so one never knows.

I am the member for Brandon—Souris and I accept that there are members from Manitoba who represent other ridings, perhaps not as well as Conservative members in Manitoba, but they do represent them all the same.

I will try to answer the question from the hon. member of the NDP. As he is probably aware, with respect to zones or regional rates of pay, an offer was placed on the table by Treasury Board. As I understand it, PSAC table two has even agreed to a massaging of the zones at the present time from ten zones to seven zones.

As to his other comments about breaking our promises, I would suspect that we have not broken as many promises as the Liberals have broken. We can talk about the GST, the NAFTA, the EH-101, Pearson airport and a lot of other things, but we do not break our promises. We negotiate honourably and sensibly and try to make it as best we can for labour-management relations.

[Government Services Act, 1999, March 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, what I am about to say is very important. It has a lot of importance in reference to western Canada, particularly in the grain industry. We will deal with that.

I want to emphatically say that the blame here and this debate is happening today because of inactivity and inaction on behalf of the government of this country. Treasury Board has had two years to resolve this issue. Because of the inaction of Treasury Board and this government, members of PSAC table two were required to go on strike in order to get their message across to the President of the Treasury Board. It is inexcusable that labour-management relations have dropped so low that in two years they could not get to the bargaining table and come up with a resolution to a labour issue.

I speak from experience. I have had ample experience in dealing with numerous unions in a previous life. I can also stand here today in front of the House and say that in all of the negotiated settlements we had, not once did we require a strike mandate to get a settlement. Not once did we have our unions hit the bricks in order to get what they felt was a reasonable negotiated settlement from the corporation. That speaks to good, honest, equitable, in good faith negotiations between labour and management. That is something this government and the President of the Treasury Board do not understand, open honest negotiation, an honest negotiated settlement with their unions, in this case PSAC table two.

Let me talk about PSAC. I stood in the House not that long ago when PSAC was still on strike. It is still on strike today but perhaps not in the next couple of days. I said in a statement that it is unconscionable to have a unionized group of individuals who have not had a wage increase for seven years. Not to give a wage increase to any labour organization for seven years speaks to disaster.

Since 1991 we have all gone through some very tough economic times over the last seven years. There was a thing called the recession. I am sure most members will remember the recession of 1991-92. It is pointed out to us regularly when we talk about how after 1992 the economy got spurred along by a number of very major initiatives that the government of the day put into place. However, I digress just a bit. From that point on when those initiatives of that government were put into place, the economy did turn around. We are seeing the fruits of our labour today because of those initiatives taken in 1991-92.

Let us go back to PSAC's position. Since 1991 it has not had an increase.

The same circumstance faced us and we gave increases to our unions. They may very well have been small increases. They were half of 1%, three-quarters of 1% on an annual basis. The reason we did that as an employer is so we would not have to worry seven years later about trying to catch up. We did not have to worry seven years later about having a very disappointed and unhappy union that would go on strike. We never had that because we were logical in the way we faced labour-management relationships.

PSAC table two has not had an increase for seven years. Of course those workers frustrated. We would be frustrated if we had not had a wage increase for seven years. Members of the House gave raises to themselves. Mr. Speaker, you, me and members in the House got salary increases. We did it ourselves.

By the way, members of this party said we would rather see wage increases go to the RCMP, to PSAC and to those government employees who have not had salary increases for seven years. When we ran for office we knew what we were going to be paid. Those people have families like we do and they have to make sure they keep pace with inflation. They have not had it, but they should have a wage increase.

PSAC went back to the table for 14 days. On the last day the government decided that it would try to negotiate in good faith. Those negotiations lasted for three hours. Then the government walked away from the table. That is why we are here today, with a PSAC strike that is still ongoing and a government that is not prepared to negotiate honourably and fairly.

As I said, two years is a long time. Fourteen days of negotiations with nothing happening is a long time. The frustrations of PSAC came to a boiling point and it went on strike.

Unions have certain rights in negotiated agreements. PSAC has the right to strike. PSAC has the right to remove its services from the government, the employer that is paying its members. The PSAC membership has taken that strike vote and it has taken that strike to the streets. That is the right of PSAC and the unions.

I had the opportunity to meet quite a number of PSAC members in my office over the weekend when I was in my riding. They are like the rest of us. They have families, they have jobs, they have lives, they have mortgages and they want to go back to work. They actually want to go back to work. They would rather be working than not working and on strike. However, they want a settlement which is fair and equitable. I mention the strike vote because they have the right under their union agreement to take their services away from government.

Last week when the grain weighers went on strike they impacted another industry, an industry that is very important to me and my constituency in western Canada, and to Canada in general. In my opinion they crossed the line. They went too far. When I met with these people I mentioned that. I told them that I spoke on their behalf, that I believed the government and the President of the Treasury Board had not done what they were elected to do and that they had been negligent in their duties. But when these people took their services away and impacted the agricultural industry, they stepped over the line.

As members are well aware, the agricultural industry is in difficult straits. We have problems in trade relations with our major trading partners, the United States and Japan. We have problems with commodity prices worldwide. Western Canadian producers are getting the lowest commodity price they have had in generations. There is difficulty in the farming economy to the point where the government has put together the AIDA program, an aid program to give farmers the opportunity to plant their crops again this year.

We recognize that there are serious implications when the trade of that agricultural commodity is impacted. I told the PSAC members that, unfortunately, this could not happen.

I was very fortunate last month to travel with the agriculture committee to Washington. I was very fortunate this month to travel with the minister of agriculture to Japan. Two issues were always being put on the table by our major partners. The United States of America is our major trading partner and Japan is our second largest trading partner in agriculture. In both cases our trading partners told us that they would trade with us if and only if we could guarantee delivery of our product in a reliable fashion.

Remember what I just said. There are problems in the world with commodity prices. There are problems in the world with a number of other countries producing the product that we would like to sell to the open market. There is a lot of competition out there. We have good customers who depend on us. They depend on the delivery of that product. The delivery of that product has been impacted by the PSAC strike. That cannot be tolerated.

The best solution is not back to work legislation. The best solution is not to force people to do something they do not want to do. The best solution is to get the President of the Treasury Board back to the bargaining table, to sit down and negotiate a fair settlement with that organization, which in fact should be dealt with in a similar fashion as other members of that organization were dealt with previously.

They are not asking for anything totally out of the ordinary. They are asking for fair compensation. That is all they are asking for.

I said that they should not to be forced back to work. We will debate this legislation that is before us right now, the back to work legislation. However, I cannot in good conscience suggest that farmers in western Canada will be able to take this on the chin, a third party which has absolutely no opportunity of getting its grain moved without PSAC going back to work.

The process is something we would like to talk about. As I said earlier, this motion should never have been introduced. This should never have been an issue. It should never have been a problem. I again must repeat myself and say that I hold this government totally to blame for not solving this problem before it got here. The government had two years to solve the problem. It should never have come to the floor of this House. Now it is here. We will have to make sure that grain exports, grain handling and grain transportation are not impacted by this group of individuals in PSAC.

In my closing remarks to the union people whom I met with this weekend I told them quite emphatically that we cannot stand for what they are doing and how they are impacting grain. We will have to consider supporting back to work legislation if they are not able to get back to the bargaining table or back to work.

I am very disappointed that we have to be here today to speak on this issue. I will hopefully have an opportunity when we debate the legislation within the next day or two to explain why it is totally unfair that this government has not been able to come up with a negotiated settlement with this particular table of PSAC.

I would be more than happy to answer questions. I wish the motion would come forward quickly so that we could debate it.

[Trade, March 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, if the minister does not take the ruling very seriously, perhaps he should take seriously the comments made recently by the chairman of the U.S. federal reserve, Alan Greenspan. He said this week that Canada and Australia were to blame for the farm commodity crisis in the U.S. We all know that when Mr. Greenspan speaks, America listens. Unfortunately the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the Minister for International Trade are not listening.

What is the Canadian government going to do to respond to Alan Greenspan and the American producers?

[Trade, March 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the WTO ruled against Canada and said that its export dairy pricing policy was illegal. Yesterday the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food stood before reporters and said that this would not have any impact on our negotiations in the upcoming WTO trade talks.

In Washington recently we were told time and time again that supply managed systems and state trading enterprises were the number one issue that Americans were going to put on the table.

Can the minister honestly say that this ruling will not have any impact on our trade position?

[Year Of The Francophonie, March 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a proud western Canadian to pay tribute to Canada's francophones on the Year of the Francophonie in Canada.

Yesterday's offensive comments by the member of the Reform Party for Yellowhead further underline the need for Canadians to proudly support our francophone population.

Unlike the Reform Party, the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada respects the linguistic duality of our country. We understand the need to support and celebrate our participation in any organization that can promote the French language.

I challenge the members and leadership of the Reform Party of Canada to stand and be heard on this issue. If the Leader of the Opposition agrees with the member for Yellowhead that the country is being run by francophones, let him stand and be heard. If he believes that Ottawa has been frenchified, let him stand and be heard.

The Reform Party will never understand the history of this great country because it refuses to accept Canada's linguistic duality. That is also why the Reform Party will never form government.