Jake Hoeppner

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise again to speak on this group of motions.

Group No. 5 deals with the auditor general and an information officer being involved in the Canadian Wheat Board. Mr. Speaker, I do not know if you have had these types of mornings when you wake up and feel that everything is going to go your way. As soon as you have had your breakfast, it does not start to happen.

About three years ago I introduced a private members' bill that would put the Canadian Wheat Board under the authority of the auditor general. It was not a votable bill but we did debate it for a while in the House. As I remember, every Liberal member in the House at that time was against that bill. They did not want to have the wheat board audited by the auditor general.

This morning when I picked up the Ottawa paper, I saw that the auditor general had said he hoped that he would be named auditor for the Canadian Wheat Board so that he could, under Bill C-4, work with the reform of the wheat board. That is exactly what I said four years ago. That is what should have happened. That would have put accountability into the wheat board and would have put some kind of trust back into this organization.

A lot of my comments on the wheat board and what I think should have happened to the wheat board have been heard. I would like to read a few quotes from somebody who is not involved in the farming industry, but is a free lance writer in Calgary, George Koch. I hope some people have picked up the article and read it. This is what he says:

Farmers have no way of knowing whether the wheat board is doing its job because it operates in secret. And they have no other recourse—such as a mediator or an ombudsman—against apparently incompetent, abusive or fraudulent actions.

Nor, unlike nearly any other participant in aq modern market economy, do farmers have access to competing services-providers.

That is what farmers want. They want a choice.

Those who skirt the wheat board illegally are taken down by the armed men in black, clapped in irons and charged with offences punishable by imprisonment.

This is what farmers object to. They want the same type of treatment as other farmers in other sections of this country, the same treatment as in Ontario where they run their own board. He then goes on to say:

This has happened to more than 100 farmers so far. Clayton Desrochers, a young farmer in Baldur, Manitoba, who exported his grain in defiance of the wheat board, recently spent his birthday in jail. Brian White, the wheat board's director of marketing, describes people like Mr. Desrochers as `sort of those free men from Montana”'.

Can you imagine the wheat board making comments like that to a farmer who is trying to save his farm? This young man wanted to earn a couple of extra dollars because he could get twice the price for that barley that he was marketing in the U.S. than what the wheat board was willing to pay him. Why would a gentleman lose his farm and go on welfare instead of getting a better price for it?

This gentleman goes on to say:

The wheat board has been called many things: secretive, unaccountable, arrogant, ruthless and incompetent. But the Manitoba case goes to the crux of the matter. If the wheat board does not, in its own mind and in any meaningful sense, represent the interests of farmers and cannot be compelled to do so, why does it exist?”

Why do we have a wheat board if it is not going to represent farmers? Farmers in the last while have thought that maybe the court was the direction that they should go to try to get some fair play into this system, to probably represent their interests and to make the government and the wheat board change their attitude toward farmers.

I was astounded today in the House when, during question period, I heard the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans say in front of this House that the ruling in B.C. on the native fishing industry would not pertain to this House, they would not go by the judgement of the judge or the court, that did not affect this House. How can that be? Is this House above the law of this country? It is astounding.

I just want to read to the hon. members a paragraph out of a paper by Professor Peter Hogg, Q.C.. In his paper he says “Government Liability Assimilating Crown and Subject” says “It has always been a basic assumption of Anglo-Canadian public law that the Crown, that is the government, is subject to the same laws as everyone else. This was a principal element of Dicey's Rule of Law. It reflected a political theory that government ought to be under the law and not just under any law, but the same law that applies to the ordinary citizen. A special regime of law for government can lead to tyranny.' This is exactly what we are experiencing.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Group No. 4 amendments to Bill C-4 dealing with the election of directors, the number of directors and the duty of the directors.

Why do farmers not trust the partially elected board? I think that is the number one question in western Canada. I would say it is mainly due to one simple reason, that the minister and this government have not listened to western Canadian farmers. They have prepared a bill they feel should be put on the backs of western farmers so they can control the destiny of western Canadians farmers for another half century probably, and that is something farmers violently object to.

The minister does not listen. Why? That is one question I have not been able to answer. We know this minister spent at least a year and a half establishing the western grain marketing panel which was supposed to do a job of listening and then give the minister recommendations on how to deal with this bill.

As I have watched this thing unfold in the House and in the public, none of those recommendations was really ever accepted or implemented into Bill C-4, and that has what has caused farmers to react bitterly to this bill.

We wonder why the minister is not listening. It does not make sense. I was listening to his presentation the other day to counteract the point of privilege the member for Prince George—Peace River put forward.

The straightforward meeting with farm leaders which I held on January 21, which is Reform's sole source of complaint in the alleged question of privilege, was part of that open, inclusive and transparent effort to gain the benefit of producer input.

According to reports on that meeting, the minister told these producer groups what was in the bill and what they would have to accept. That is more or less why those people from the producer groups walked out on that meeting. I do not think too many people stayed at that meeting to listen to the minister or to have their concerns brought forward.

To me that is not listening, it is dictating. It would be wise for this government to accept the premise that we are here to represent our constituents and not to represent Ottawa to the grassroots people in our home constituencies.

The minister went on to say: “In his intervention last Tuesday, the member for Yorkton—Melville admitted that he had done just that the very next day and after my meeting. The member for Portage—Lisgar has had meetings about the details of Bill C-4 and many other Reformers have done the same. The extraparliamentary meetings to discuss Bill C-4 while that bill is pending before the House are not a breach of privilege, they are not in contempt and neither am I”.

The Speaker has just ruled that is the case, but I want to talk about the meetings I attended in Saskatchewan and Alberta. There were 600 people at the meeting in Weyburn. The minister was invited to participate and to bring forward his concerns or his ideas but he did not show up.

When the question was asked of how many in the audience wanted a single desk selling system, not one hand went up. Eighty to ninety per cent of the farmers said that they wanted a dual marketing system or a voluntary wheat board. Nothing in this bill promotes a voluntary wheat board. That is why this minister has a tremendous number of problems with listening to farmers and getting this bill through the House.

After the meeting in Yorkton—Melville a producer wrote to the minister to explain that it was one of the best and most informative farm meetings he had ever seen held in that area. He said that he supported that type of meeting.

Because the minister did not attend and did not want to listen, they held a vote to see how many people at that meeting thought the minister should resign for not listening to the producers. Over 80% lifted their hands to say that the minister should resign for not representing the interests of western farmers. They used to call this area the red square. This gives us an idea of how much attention he is paying to this issue.

I do not know why the minister does not want to listen, why he would rather prosecute farmers.

In 1994 a group of farmers made a presentation to the minister on the frozen wheat issue. They wanted him to look into why Sask Pool or the wheat board dumped grain into Montana at half price. He did not respond after the meeting. He never did anything about it. This is what the minister did.

The minister threw a huge forfeiture against a farmer who during a protest here two years ago had loaded 50 pounds of wheat in a pick-up truck, took it across the border and donated it to a 4-H club in Montana. The farmer did not know what was going on and he used the pick-up truck to transport his kids to hockey games in Montana. He also has some interest in some land there. They kept jacking up the forfeitures. He has $132,000 worth of forfeitures against this half ton pick-up truck.

This is how the minister is treating these western farmers. It is causing a lot of animosity toward the minister and this government. It is a sign that democracy in Ottawa just is not working. When I see farmers fined for taking 50 pounds of barley across the line in protest, then I see people smuggling marijuana and cocaine on the streets without fines or imprisonment, something is wrong.

All that these farmers have been doing is trying to get a better price to bring more bucks into the economy and to be able to have a better standard of living on the farm than before, and they are getting fines for it. That is what this bill is about. It is a bill which is supposed to change the wheat board to give farmers more democracy and more choices. It is exactly the opposite.

One of the former wheat board commissioners was interviewed and he said that it is becoming more secretive. On the old wheat board the commissioners at least had the authority to refuse certain recommendations made by the minister or parliament. Today he will have the power to fire and hire on the will of his desires. That is democratic? That is the way this whole government is going.

It is very important that the government not just listen to western farmers. If this is the type of a marketing system that we can be controlled by, where the government states “You have to turn your grain over, you have to take the price that we dictate to you”, why will it not do it to our RRSPs? It is the same thing.

Any marketing system is at risk if this type of a bill is allowed to pass this House. It is of utmost importance that this bill gets defeated, but with the Liberal backbenchers being controlled by the front benches or the cabinet, I do not see much hope of that happening. It means one thing, that in the next federal election western farmers have to make sure that they do not have a Liberal government or else they will be indebted to this type of bill for the next half century.

That is why there is such a big protest to this bill in western Canada. It is not just a bill about marketing grain, but it is a bill about freedom and property rights. It surprises me when I look at some of the western provinces. They are prepared to go to court on gun legislation to protect the right whether you should register your gun or not, but they have not had the guts to stand up and say to the federal government “This is property, this is grain that the farmers grew. This is something they have the right to enjoy. This is something they have the right to sell for the best price that they can get”.

Democracy works in this fashion. Democracy works from the bottom up. Democracy works when the elected parliamentarians listen to the people. Dictatorship is the reverse. Dictatorship works when government dictates to the constituents what they have to do and how they will do it.

Mr. Speaker, I hope you have listened and I hope you have taken it to heart. I hope you can vote against your government and do what is right.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your advice. I am just wondering whether this is recorded and will be taken into account when the bill is dealt with later.

It does deal with the liability of the bill and transfers it from government to farmer pools. You are really being liable yourself with illegal procedures whether civil or criminal.

That is what I wanted to bring forward in this House to make sure you were aware of it. I knew you could give me some learned experience on that. With that I will turn to my debate on Bill C-4 when this is recorded and you will take note of it.

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

Mr. Speaker, before I speak to this bill I would like to rise on a point of information, privilege or whatever it is. Maybe you can guide me along on what I should be doing.

As members know, I have had the wheat board send me some nice friendly letters. I have always appreciated them. I am in a situation where the issue is that we have a whole bunch of area farmers in my constituency losing a whole pile of money on issues of freight and elevation and stuff being cleaned off their cheques.

On the class action suit these farmers said that Parliament should deal with it. Parliament has not dealt with it but now we find out that in a court case on November 11, 12 and 13 in Manitoba, the wheat board, under oath, admitted it should not have deducted freight, elevation or cleaning charges on these farmers.

This amounts to about $358,000 that has been deducted. As members know, this bill transfers the liability from the government to the pooling system. What do I do to get this issue resolved properly?

The courts have now found out that these farmers have had these fees deducted illegally but still nobody will deal with it. How do I handle that?

Also, during that court case, this farmer is charged with forfeitures for transporting grain illegally without an export permit to the U.S.

On February 2, 1996 one of the farmers in Saskatchewan filed an action against the minister of revenue and customs on the same issue. The government failed to file a defence.

It says very clearly in this document it is required to file in the registry of the Federal Court of Canada in the city of Ottawa at the local office or court its defence against this. It was never filed. It admitted it had no case.

The government is still prosecuting farmers under this same rule. How can we pass a bill in the House when the liability is transferred from the government to the farmer pool itself?

I do not know how to debate this bill, whether I should first of all make a citizen's arrest of the Speaker or the government or whether I should lay criminal charges. How do we deal with a bill that is actually in contempt of court? The government has not filed a defence but is still prosecuting farmers.

I would like Mr. Speaker's learned wisdom on how to deal with this.

[Customs Act, February 6th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, what I see happening today is that a lot of times governments will use certain law enforcement officers to fulfill their mandate or to proceed with a mandate. I know in my riding, and in Manitoba especially, customs officers have become known as the enemy of farmers. They have begun to prosecute farmers for selling their grain at a better price than they can get in their marketing system.

I do not blame the customs officers. They do a tremendous job. They try to do what is right. However, when they get orders to enforce an act such as the wheat board act instead of prosecuting farmers on the act itself, then they are manipulating these people and the act. That is very dangerous for our country. That is not the way the justice system is supposed to work.

I support this bill. Customs officers are a very important part of our democratic system. When we travel to places like the Soviet Union or Mexico we really know what a customs officer is worth, what he can do for you, what he can help you with. He is very important.

I say more power to the customs officers. They should work at arm's length from government. That will make them efficient and they will be a real benefit to Canadian society.

[Petitions, February 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the second group of petitioners supports a national referendum to be held concurrently with the federal election on the question of government funding for medically unnecessary abortions.

[Petitions, February 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to present two petitions on behalf of my constituents.

The first group of petitioners asks parliament to recognize the fundamental rights of individuals to pursue family life free from undo interference by the state.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997, February 3rd, 1998]

Madam Speaker, it has been an interesting afternoon. One would wonder sometimes on which side of the fence one should really sit. When I hear some of the hon. colleagues getting up and accusing the Reform for all the problems that we have in this country, I wonder whether I ran for the wrong party. Then after I listen to that side, and those comments that well it is really the Conservatives that were ahead of the Liberals and they are to blame for all these bad policies.

One day somebody said to me “You know, governments have blamed everybody for the problems, even God”. Then the gentleman pointed out that it was all due to Christopher Columbus. He said that Christopher Columbus was the first Liberal to come to North America. I asked him how he knew that Christopher Columbus was the first Liberal and he said that when Christopher Columbus left Spain for the new world he did not know where he was going and when he arrived in North America he did not know where he was and he did it all on borrowed money. Does that not sound about right for our country?

Maybe if we keep on looking for excuses we will eventually find somebody who will take the blame. However, it is going to be a long time before that man arrives and does so.

I was astounded today to hear the government side say how good things are here in Canada. It is refunding all these tax credits. I was beginning to wonder where these credits came from. As a farmer, before I go to the hen house to gather eggs I have to put some work into getting the chickens to eat the grain and produce the eggs. There had to be a source where the eggs came from.

I am wondering where the Liberal government got all these funds for refunds, tax credits and benefits as it claims to be doing under Bill C-28. It seems to me that it had to come from some borrowed money that it had in the past. When I look at the ledger I think there is $600 billion of debt somewhere that future generations owe. It also seems to me that there is a Canada pension plan that has about a $560 billion unfunded liability. That makes a trillion dollars plus of money that has come into source somehow and has been distributed. We are now redistributing and redistributing and things just do not add up.

When I heard the prime minister in question period say that his government would pay back a billion dollars of debt or liability, I quickly figured that out and found that on $600 billion and $560 billion it would take about 1,100 years which will be the next millennium. There is not much chance for me or my children or my grandchildren to have any of those benefits.

What these people in government do not realize—and it does not matter whether it is Liberal, Conservative or NDP as we have had all three in provincial and federal governments—is that when cuts are made in one place, it affects everybody right down the line.

During the election in the fall of 1993 we heard that Reform was the party that would slash, burn and destroy everything while every day of that campaign we said that education and health care would not be cut. We now know that the Liberals had a different agenda. They were really the ones who cut, burned and slashed as far as education and health care are concerned. If I am right, about 40% of the funding has been cut back. Now they are slowly starting to give a little bit of that back in order to get the whole system back on track.

Farmers probably felt it more than anybody else. Not only did we pay income tax on the farm, we also had to pay property taxes. There were a lot of years where farmers had poor crops or prices were poor and there was no taxable income. However, because governments cut back on transfer payments for education and health, the municipal governments still had to raise those funds which came back on the property taxes. In order to make up for those cutbacks and taxes, I would have to borrow from the banks or the credit unions or privately the funds needed to pay my property taxes or I would not be able to stay in production.

This is something that our governments do not seem to realize. We have to create wealth before we can tax. We do not tax and then create wealth. It does not work. It does not work in the production of grain. It does not work in the production of livestock. It does not work in the production of machinery or manufacturing of any sort. We have to have inputs. We have to create wealth before we can tax that.

What we have been doing is we have been borrowing money to more or less give tax credits that should not have been given because there was no wealth to counter balance that.

How long will it take governments to realize that this is the way the system works. Whether we call it an NDP government, Liberal or Conservative, the mathematics are there and they function only in one direction. We can say one and one is three but it does not matter how often we say it, we will only have two.

That is exactly the way it works in farming. I could say to those chickens, “I pay 25% more tax and now you have to lay 25% more eggs”. It does not work that way. I have to either get more chickens or I have to somehow manage them better so they can produce more. That is what governments fail to realize. I do not know when they will finally learn and change the system.

In the 1988 election when the GST was brought in we heard that it was the vehicle that would finally get hold of the debt, that the GST would be a fair tax. They called it the goods and services tax so that if one had wealth to buy the goods and services one could help to pay down the debt. We have never seen a figure or an account where any of that debt has been paid back by the GST. We can say that was the Conservatives and we have it in black and white.

Then in the last election the Liberals all of sudden realized that it was a bad tax and it could buy votes if they did away with it. They came out strong and heavy saying “We will kill the GST. We will eliminate it”, or something else. I forget what it all was but we still have it. When I go home I have to fill out the GST forms for a three month period. They are always there waiting for me no matter whether I have anything to pay or not. But it is still in the system.

This is the sad part. Once we have a tax in the system, to get rid of that sucker is practically impossible no matter what government takes over. It will have to be a government that does not care about buying votes. That is the only way I can look at it. By buying votes they do not get rid of taxes. They make promises that do not have to be kept. That is the idea of politics.

I was interested in the comment made by my colleague from Calgary—Nose Hill about the difference between American politics and Canadian politics. It makes sense that is probably what is happening. When we look at the U.S. tax system it is about 30% less than ours. It is not perfect but at least it is less. Its production is more efficient. When we look at the value of the American dollar today and the value of our dollar, we almost need two of those little suckers that we call Canadian loonies compared to the American buck. Why is it?

In 1976 I took my family on a little trip across the midwest. I got $1.10 for that Canadian loonie. That is how we were running our country at that time. Our farmers and businessmen were producing well, but we have thrown so many taxes on these people that we have finally bled them to death and we are all suffering for it.

I hope that changes some day because, Madam Speaker, both you and I will be better off.

[Privilege, February 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, as you know I have been one of the people driving the issue of making the wheat board accountable. When we were interviewing witnesses before the standing committee on Bill C-4 they tried to rule me in conflict of interest because I was part of a group of farmers holding the wheat board accountable before the courts in Manitoba.

There was no court action at that time. I removed myself and asked them to get a ruling whether I would be in conflict because my lawyers had said that I was not in conflict. I was never given a ruling on that and I did not mind that too much. I will accept mistakes and things said in the heat of debate.

Shortly after I picked up the Western Producer and I was astounded that the member for Simcoe—Grey at that time indicated outside the House that “if he tries to get involved in a debate when this bill is brought back before the full House this week, I will demand that the Speaker remove him from that debate”.

I was elected to uphold the laws of the country. I had to take the action of a civil route in the courts to try to get the wheat board accountable. When as a member of Parliament I am not allowed or threatened not to be allowed to participate in the debate of something that is important to every resident of my constituency, there is something wrong.

When the hon. member for Prince George—Peace River raises this question of privilege I think he is dead right. You should be looking into this matter, Mr. Speaker. I would appreciate that.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997, February 3rd, 1998]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I think we are short of a quorum, so I would appreciate if some of the Liberals would come back and listen to this good debate.