Jake Hoeppner

[Supply, October 30th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, it has been an interesting morning. I am also one of the hon. members on this side of the House who is supporting the motion very strongly.

It is time for an all-party decision and to get the House to agree on something. I do not think that will only enhance the bill. It will also improve the stature of the House of Commons throughout the country.

I have been involved in a number of legal cases in the last while. I have been astounded by the issues judges do not have to address or look at. If they make a mistake they cannot be held accountable. Maybe that is one of the reasons for the problems in our justice system.

We used to look at judges as being almost infallible and as making decisions that people could support. When we look at a lot of the judgments being made, we wonder whether criminals dictate or influence the courts. Do they have more rights before the courts than victims? That is what it seems to me.

Some drunk driving charges are almost unbelievable. Neighbours in my area through no fault of their own, and not due to alcohol, lost a daughter and two grandchildren in an accident about 15 years to 20 years ago. The suffering the family is going through today is unbelievable. We as a House sometimes cannot look at situations jointly or transparently to see the suffering in communities.

I will not make my speech too long today because other member want to participate. I wish the House could support the hon. member's motion so that we are addressing it from the point of view that it is affecting families.

I will be splitting my time with another member, so do not let me go beyond the 10 minutes, Mr. Speaker.

Often we look at tragedies as something that only happens to other people. In the speeches today I have heard of incidents involving families or MPs that I never imagined or had known before. They have probably affected every member of the House in some way, even if we do not know it or see it visibly. When I look back at the emotional stress caused in families that lose a mother or a father, I am hurt to think of the neighbours I deal with on a daily basis whenever I am home.

These accidents, these drunk driving incidents or episodes, could have been easily avoided. In the case I am talking about the issue was that probably the father who was impaired had some problems at home not because of drinking but because of emotions and finances he could not handle.

Often we are not aware that families or certain people suffer before they turn to the bottle, as we say. When that happens they become disillusioned and try more or less to drown their problems by taking off in a vehicle to go to see somebody or to go to the next bar. That has bad effects.

It is very sad we only realize the hurt of the tragedy after the fact. We should somehow measure the incidents or the beneficial effect prevention would have on the emotional strains faced by families and on the financial side at times. Often when the drinking problem becomes prevalent in a home mismanagement occurs. Usually it culminates in some kind of an accident, whether it is drunk driving or something else.

It has been a privilege to say a few words on the issue before the House. As I have done before, I urge the House to be non-partisan, to look at the motion and support it, and to make the country a better place to live.

[Canadian Wheat Board, October 28th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, in early October the Manitoba court of appeal ruled that the only responsibility of the Canadian Wheat Board was to Parliament and this responsibility negated any desire or any provision for them to get the best price for farmers' grain.

Does the wheat board minister agree with that ruling?

[Canada Marine Act, October 10th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, your father must be very proud of you in your elevation to the Chair. I congratulate you and wish you well.

I will take a different slant on this issue. I will try to point out why some of these ports are probably not profitable and why we need more cost effective transportation or handling of these ports.

My hon. colleague from Souris—Moose Mountain gave me some stats from the Canadian Grain Commission. They really tell the story of what has happened to many of the ports. The dates for all of these ports range from 1987 to 1996.

The Atlantic coast ports decreased from 552,000 tonnes in 1987 to 73,000 tonnes today. That is quite a decrease. The ports along the St. Lawrence have had an even bigger decrease. In 1987 they handled 11.8 million tonnes of grain. Today they are only handling about 4.4 million tonnes. We can see that the flow of traffic as far as grain is concerned has been diverted to some other transportation systems.

Thunder Bay has done a little better. It has actually increased from 1.1 million tonnes to 1.4 million tonnes, possibly because of the grain going to the U.S. being loaded in Thunder Bay and then unloaded at Duluth. Churchill, which my hon. colleague from Dauphin—Swan River talked about, used to handle about half a million tonnes or better of grain in 1987. In 1996 they were down to 227,000 tonnes. As we heard today that has increased to about 400,000 tonnes, which is a good trend for Churchill.

The Pacific coast has actually stayed very stable at from 60 million tonnes in 1987 down to 40 million tonnes in 1996. Because of market trends in shipping products to Asia, west coast ports have done better than east coast ports.

Why is that? One of the big reasons is that the costs at some of these ports have become almost unbearable for the shippers, especially grain farmers.

In 1990 the St. Lawrence Pilotage Authority negotiated a new wage contract that gave a 32% increase in wages over three years, which was unheard of in those days for other industries. Why these people were able to leverage this kind of a contract I have no idea.

In a nine month period pilots earn from $115,000 to $156,000. We were told during the hearings in Thunder Bay that they did not want to prove or disprove after nine months of operation that they still qualified for unemployment insurance. Their yearly earnings were fairly well looked after.

This brought to light other things. I am looking at some of my notes. Mr. Kennedy, one of the town fathers of Thunder Bay, pointed out that the cost of a tonne of grain going down the St. Lawrence Seaway on a 20,000 tonne freighter would be $2.50 per tonne just for the pilotage. That is more money to be paid by farmers than all the fuel taxes on a tonne of grain being shipped across the country. We can see the additional costs.

For a laker coming up stream with another type of freight it would be about $1.25 a tonne or about half. It is still very high and adds to the cost of operating the port.

He also pointed out that a 10 day trip from Montreal up through the Great Lakes to Thunder Bay and back would cost shippers $53,000 just for the pilot. That is as much as the total wage bill for the crew of the ship. We can see that something is wrong in the pilotage authority that should be addressed in the bill.

In 1995 we were led to believe that this was one of the most important issues and that it would be dealt with when the marine bill was brought forward. However it has been deleted and that really bothers me.

People will have to begin realizing that if grain transportation costs are not brought down there will not be much grain going through some of the ports. The sooner we recognize that, the better off we will be.

When I looked at some of the figures that the grain companies gave us, it was astounding what property taxes were doing to some of these ports and terminals.

Cargill has a terminal in Duluth which is a third bigger than its terminal at Thunder Bay. It was paying $27,000 property taxes at Duluth and $1.25 million at Thunder Bay. It is about the same for west coast ports. They are somewhat lower but the property taxes on some grain facilities are unbelievable. That will have to be addressed, or we will begin to see things happen such as what is taking place in rail transportation now.

Going back to figures the hon. member for Souris—Moose Mountain gave me, direct shipping to the U.S. by rail in 1987 was 60,000 tonnes. In 1996 it was 1.889 million tonnes. We see that these ports are interfering with the shipment of grain, in which direction it should go, because of the costs.

The Canadian Wheat Board, one of my favourite friends, tried a number of projects to ship grain down the Mississippi. It was quite successful. It would take grain up to Minneapolis, barge it down the Mississippi and export it.

Those things are happening. The government will have to realize it better do something to address the costs of ports or they will totally lose the business. Once the business is gone it is pretty hard to bring it back, except it can be attracted with lower costs that are feasible and reasonable.

I was astounded by what the pilotage did to shipping on the Great Lakes. A Canadian ship owner who testified before the hearings had five vessels in the seaway system. In 1994 he estimates he could have saved $475,000 on pilotage costs if they were in a competitive environment and operated on commercial rates. That was half a million dollars for four ships. When 10 or 12 million tonnes of grain are taken through the system, we can be seen how it affects shippers.

Why is the Government of Canada allowing these things to happen? As the whole transportation system was developing there was so much government interference in the system that they do not know how to rectify it. It is so far out of whack compared to the U.S. system.

While freight costs are a little higher as far as rail is concerned in the U.S, if I ship a load of grain through the handling system from my farm in Snowflake, Manitoba, to Seattle, I can save $16 a tonne just by elevation and handling charges in the grain handling system. These are items that we have to address.

I have a little story to finish up the whole debate. In the 1930s during the Bennett buggy days car tops were taken off, shafts were put on the wheels and cars were pulled by horse. In those days one of my neighbours who was shipping a carload of barley to Thunder Bay got a bill for a number of dollars and the price of the barley did not cover the freight.

The station master sent him a bill. He went to the station master and said “Sir, I haven't got any money. I can't pay this freight bill. The barley didn't cover the cost of it, so you are just out of it”. Things being very tough in those days, the station master said “Bring me a rooster and we will call it even-steven”.

About a week later the farmer came back to town and brought two roosters with him. The station agent said “Sir, I only asked for one rooster. Why would you bring me two?” He said “Well, sir, you have forgotten I have another carload of barley to ship”.

That is about the way we are running our transportation system today. It is becoming so costly that shippers cannot survive with it. Sooner or later it will die. If we have to pay it in roosters, the chicken industry in Ontario will also fold.

[Red River Flooding, October 10th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, Manitoba residents faced a terrible period of destruction and loss last spring with the catastrophic Red River flood. Now months later with winter approaching many residents are still trying to rebuild their lives.

Instead of receiving flood relief as promised by the federal and provincial governments, they find themselves caught in the middle while these two governments argue over who is liable to bear the costs.

I received a letter from an Ontario resident who sympathizes with those affected by the flood and with the struggle for compensation they now face.

She suggests Liberal members of the House should move into trailers in Ottawa to get an understanding of what Manitobans are going through.

Last spring the prime minister went to Manitoba to show how he could throw a bag of sand. When is the government going to honour its commitments and start throwing some real help to Manitoba flood victims?

[Supply, October 9th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, it has been an interesting afternoon.

I was wondering why the hon. member from the government side would give such a compliment to the Reform Party. He said we were on a different planet. I am sure he means a higher planet because I am sure they would not want to degrade a member of Parliament. We really accept that type of adjustment. It is encouraging.

I was just wondering what influence peddling means. We had a flood in Manitoba as members know, and as soon as the election was announced we saw 12 Liberals paddling down the river with $5,000 cheques and vote, vote, vote Liberal. Well six of them have floated right down the river.

The funny part was that all of a sudden, because there was an election and the Conservatives, Reform and NDP were running, they decided that this honest, accountable Liberal government had made some mistakes in accounting from the floods of 1993 and 1995 so they just handed us a little cheque for $1.25 million. Boy, we loved that. Finally the Liberals admitted they had made a little mistake.

Now I do not know what is happening. I received a letter from a constituent here in Ontario suggesting that she feels sorry for the Liberal members who made these huge pledges or influence peddling during the flood, but these poor people are still waiting for that promise that was made. They are living in house trailers because their homes still have not been redone. She recommends that these hon. members from the government side should move into trailers for the winter in order to see how it feels, to see if that is influence peddling or not.

So thanks for raising us to a higher planet. We really appreciate that.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, October 7th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that very much. I know that I will get the chance in the House one of these days to get an explanation of democracy from that side of the House because I still have not found that it gibes with what the dictionary says. I would like to know who is right. Is the Webster dictionary right about democracy or is the Liberal government right?

That is what this bill deals with. Where is the accountability? Where is the equality? Where is the democracy in this bill? I do not see it.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, October 7th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to look at the last clause of the bill. If a wheat board manager or a wheat board employee is found to be in civil disobedience or is caught in a criminal act what happens to them? The liability comes back to the farmer who has entrusted that employee with the grain. That is responsibility. I have to pay the liability for the guy skimming my grain.

If I hire a man and he steals my pick-up truck and I call the police and they arrest him and put him in jail, will I have to pay the fine? Will I have to pay him for the time he spends in prison?

That is how ridiculous this bill is. It takes the liability away from the government, which is forcing this bill on farmers and placing the liability on producers. I have never heard of something like that happening in a democracy. It really bothers me that that type of thing can happen.

Judge Huband said that Parliament should look into these irregularities and do what has to be done. What did Parliament do when asked to act on these irregularities? The solicitor general lost the documentation between here and Winnipeg D division. It was gone. I got kicked out of the House because I could not believe that was possible. How can government, from the solicitor general to D division in Winnipeg, lose the documentation?

That is what this bill is about—

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, October 7th, 1997]

They voted on the advisory board. I thank the hon. member for bringing that out. I do not have Mr. Harder, the advisory board chairman, in my riding but I was interested in what kind of accountability and prestige he had in his riding. I went to the returning officer and checked the figures on the votes the Liberals and the NDP got in the two polls where Mr. Harder, the big defender of the wheat board, was working against Reform tooth and nail. The results were 25 for the Liberals, 78 for Reform, 18 for the Liberals and 72 for Reform. That is democracy.

There was a flood in Manitoba. It was very interesting when they were campaigning. All of a sudden I saw Liberals waving $5,000 cheques and saying “Vote for the Liberals and you will get compensation. Just vote for us”. There were 12 Liberal candidates in Manitoba and 6 of them floated down the Red River with their $5,000 cheques. They are gone, gone for good. That is what I call democracy. That is accountability. If we do not deliver what we say then down the river and out into the lake.

Farmers in western Canada want equality. They want accountability. They want democracy. They want the option of a voluntary wheat board, a single desk or open market. That is all they ask. When we look at the CTV- Maclean's poll, farmers are in the most honourable profession in Canada. Let us look where politicians are: right on the bottom just above lawyers. It is accountability when they are placed according to order.

It has been a real nice experience to listen to the debate today. I hope they will ask me for the judgment of Judge Huband to read how accountable the wheat board is. When the wheat board mandate is only to get rid of grain no matter what the price that is not accountability. Accountability is to get a fair market price distributed to each farmer. If the wheat board is not prepared to do that it should get out of the business. Everybody else will do it.

We can look at the canola industry, the flax industry and the rye industry. Farmers are moving them. They are getting decent prices. They are progressing. Look at the wheat board grains. They are going down, down, down. Very soon we will not have any wheat with which to make our bread. That is what is happening to wheat board grains.

We recently had a provincial byelection in Portage. It is Portage—Lisgar for the information of the hon. member for Winnipeg South. Reform got over 15% of the votes without a party to back it up, just behind the Liberals. Not only did we do well, we got rid of another two Liberal MLAs in the legislature. They resigned because they were so disillusioned with the lousy political system.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, October 7th, 1997]

I wonder why he did not run in Yorkton. I do not think there were many farmers there. He needed the farmers. He wanted them to vote for him, did he not, or why did he move?

It is an interesting House in which to sit and listen to these people talking about democracy, accountability and equality. As long as somebody in Ottawa can tell us what to do in western Canada it is accountability and it is democracy. When we in western Canada send 60 Reform MPs representing all the rural areas we say what farmers need. They want a voluntary wheat board, a wheat board that can market all grain and get the best price for them. But that is not equality, that is no good, according to the government.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, October 7th, 1997]

The hon. member from the NDP talked about accountability and equality. I wish he would explain it to me. When his MP pension plan is about $2 million and my farmers are starving, where is the accountability? How did the NDP vote on the MP pension plan?