Lost their last election, in 2000, with 10% of the vote.
Petitions December 12th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, in the other two petitions the constituents point out that in the last 10 years gasoline prices have risen 466 per cent.
The petitioners request that Parliament not increase the federal excise tax on gasoline in the next election. I fully agree with their prayer.
Petitions December 12th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, I have five petitions to present to the House today.
Three of the petitions pray that Parliament have our present laws on obscenity strictly upheld thus demonstrating a will to protect the men, women and children of Canada from pornography.
Excise Tax Act December 10th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of debate on the issue. Some tremendous speeches have been made today. They have been entertaining and nice to listen to.
I was reminded of a farmer who got shafted on a horse he did not really want. He went to an auction sale. He needed a good work horse. The auctioneer asked his helper to bring out one of the horses. The helper led it around. It pranced. It was a big, heavy set horse. He felt this was exactly what he needed. He got it at a pretty fair price and went home very happy. He took it off his buggy to take into the barn and found out that it was stone blind. It could not see the barn door.
What does someone do with a blind horse? It is not a very good work horse unless it is led back and forth down the field. He said: "What am I going to do? I got shafted. I have to get rid of this horse. I have to get some money out of it".
This is what this tax reminds me of. He advertised it. He said: "I am going to advertise this huge, heavy set horse as a real good, powerful beast. I will advertise it at a bargain. I will get my money back somehow".
Another farmer read about it in the papers. He came over and said: "Could I have a look at the horse you have for sale? It sounds like a fairly good bargain". He went into the barn and led the horse out. He pranced it around in his yard. He showed the other farmer how big it was, how capable it was and how flexible it was.
The other farmer said: "It looks like a good horse to me". He said: "It is a good horse". He spoke with a bit of an accent. He said: "It is a good horse but it don't look so good". It is not really what you see". He said: "I don't care about looks. It is a big horse. I am going to buy it. I think it will do the job for me".
He took it home and when he went to put it in the barn he found out it was blind. He got shafted. He went back to the first farmer and he was mad. He said: "Look here, you sold me a horse that was a real heavy horse, a good work horse that could pull a big load and it is blind". He said: "I tried to tell you it don't look so good".
That is what I hear with this GST today. He told them that it was blind, that it just did not look so good. That is probably what we heard from the Liberals when they were in opposition: "This GST is terrible. We will have nothing to do with that animal".
What did those terrible Tories do? They brought in eight other people to fill the other place a little more to get it passed. When the Liberals ran for government they said: "These terrible Tories don't look so good. They have this terrible tax. They are ripping off farmers. They are ripping off taxpayers and consumers. If we get elected we will kill that tax. We will bury it. We will tramp on it. We will hang it".
I do not know all that they said. I heard a lot of different comments that they would get rid of it just like the farmer did with his horse.
Today some lofty Liberals are saying it is a pretty good tax. They ask why we are complaining. It is a good horse. To whom will they sell it next? Could they sell it another time? I do not think they could sell it to farmers. It does not look so good to them.
The other day we talked about a businessman who was dealing with the GST issue. An inspector from the GST department came out to do his audit. He said: "I see you have a truck sitting in the yard. You have not claimed all the GST on it. What is the reason?" He said: "The truck is taxable. The hoist is not taxable. The box is taxable. I have a terrible problem figuring it out". He said: "What do you mean the hoist is not taxable?" "It is a separate entity and it is not taxable. It is for a different use". He said: "I don't believe you".
The inspector wanted to find out if it was true. He phoned his superior but the superior was not in the office. He had gone away on a three-day educational trip or something. The inspector sat in this businessman's office for three days. Finally the superior phoned back and tried to give him a ruling. He said: "I don't know. You will have to ask somebody else". For three days he waited. Imagine how much GST it took to pay his wages.
These are the problems. Not everything is taxable. Some things are taxable. Some of the horses are blind. Some can see.
How will we sell this sucker in the next election? We will have to dress it up some. The horse that does not look so good will not sell again. Let us dress it up and say that we will harmonize it. Maybe we can give it a little better colour. It might just look a little better in the dark even if the horse cannot see. This is the way taxpayers and voters get shafted during elections.
We must start being honest and accountable. We must show the integrity we promised during the election campaign. I guarantee the House that when we sit on that side there will not be any GST. At the least it would be called something else. It will not be a GST. That tax has hurt business and jobs. Why would we keep the sucker? That is why I am saying it will not be there.
I am sure they will all vote for me now. They did in the last election. They put 177 Liberals over on that side when previously there were a few Liberals here and 212 Conservatives on that side. Somehow we have to sell the stuff.
I hope consumers, farmers and electors get what politicians promised them. When the previous government had 10 per cent unemployment nobody thought it was acceptable. We still have
10 per cent unemployment and we have $100 billion more in debt. Something has to change or the country will not survive.
Promises do not get us anywhere. If all the promises made in this House had been kept I am sure there would not be $600 billion of debt.
Who will look after those promises in the future? Will it be our children or our grandchildren? Let us show some integrity. Let us call a blind horse a blind horse if it is one. Let us call a Holstein cow a milk cow and not a beef cow. That way we will probably get something done in the House.
It concerns me when I hear a dozen good speeches that will probably have very little effect outside the House. The country is a lot bigger than the inside of the House. Approximately 30 million Canadians depend on the House to set down regulations and taxes so Canada can survive and operate efficiently. They expect us somehow to take care of the $600 billion that have been put on the shoulders of future generations. If we do not start addressing that issue I am afraid politicians will not be rated second from the bottom as they were in the last CTV integrity poll. They will be rated at the bottom, right below lawyers and other legal people.
We must ensure that politicians begin to climb in the ratings of integrity and honesty. We must try to get politicians back up to the top where former prime ministers, former oppositions and former members of the House once were. We must realize the country was built on broken promises. The promises that were kept built the country. If we do not return to the old system where taxpayers or the electorate hold us accountable for the promises made, I do not think the country will survive.
I reiterate. Let us not sell a blind horse to the electorate in the next election. Let us give them one that really pulls the country out of the mess it is in. Then we will have accomplished something.
Agriculture December 10th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, Andy McMechan was ordered to refund $55,000 to the CWB pool account, the premiums he gained for selling his grain into the U.S. Yet wheat board officials have directed Saskatchewan farmers to flour mills in Saskatoon who have paid millions of dollars in premiums outside the pool account for unlicensed wheat.
Would the minister of agriculture please explain where in the Canadian Wheat Board Act it allows for some farmers to gain premiums outside the pool and others are thrown in jail?
Agriculture December 10th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, I have a letter dated December 14, 1995 from the Canadian Wheat Board to a western farmer stating that it has no commercial market for hulless waxy barley.
Could the agriculture minister explain why Alberta and Saskatchewan wheat pools are allowed to grow and market hulless waxy barley into the U.S. outside the Canadian Wheat Board pooling system yet a farmer like Andy McMechan is thrown in jail for doing the same thing?
Supply November 21st, 1996
Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. I happen to agree with him, but I do not have the answers. I am a farmer. I am not a financial wizard. However, I know that if I spend more than I make I will get into financial difficulty.
That is what this country has done. It has spent more money than it has received in revenue. It has had to borrow. Whether we blame that on the Bank Act or whether we blame it on the people who run the government and who should look after the Bank Act is the question. I believe it is the government who is to blame. It has allowed the banks to get a crippling hold on us. When you owe banks money they own you. When we do not owe them money they come to us to borrow it. That is the big problem. I hope I have clarified that somewhat.
Supply November 21st, 1996
Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for that question. I am very sincere when I say we need to direct our help to low income families.
When I started farming in 1957 I think the national debt was something like $16 or $17 billion. I was able to buy a farm by borrowing the money. I did not have a cent at that time. I paid 6 per cent interest at the bank. The government at that time had brought in a program that gave me 4.5 per cent financing over 29 years. That is what helped me get started.
I was able to expand. On a half section I grew enough product to pay my bills and put a few dollars aside for a rainy day if something went badly wrong because we did not have crop insurance at that time. I was able to raise my family and still have a fairly comfortable livelihood.
Then, all of a sudden, we started to live beyond our means. We needed things we never dreamed we would need. We needed a pickup truck. We needed a car also. Then all of a sudden we realized we were losing implement dealerships and we had to go further and further. Why? Because taxes kept increasing. Taxes went up, up, up.
The amount of taxes that today have to be paid by a young family running a half section farm is unbelievable. They have to have an outside job or they cannot survive on a half section farm. They need at least a two section farm to make it viable.
If you cannot raise half a million dollars today you cannot start farming because of over taxation, because of all the government programs.
In 1957 I needed $10,000 to buy a farm which my dad put up for me. That is all I needed. Today you cannot even buy a garden tractor for that. Why? Tell me why. We have the same land, we have the same natural resources but we have lived beyond our means.
Canada's debt is $600 billion. It will never be paid in my lifetime or that of my children or my grandchildren. That is debt we borrowed on the backs of future generations. We must give the consumer some buying power.
In 1991 a family could buy an average sized car with 28 weeks of work. In 1996 statisticians tell us that it takes 36 weeks to buy the same type of car. How are consumers supposed to be able to buy the products that they need? Sixty per cent of the domestic economy is still driven by consumer spending.
When the prime interest rate is at 3.5 per cent and consumers cannot afford to spend, something is wrong in the country. The buying power is gone to a few elite people. That is why we are directing this tax credit to the lower income families because an $850 tax credit to that family buys a lot of stuff for them as compared to the elite.
The other thing that has happened is that today a lot of high paid people are running corporations. These multimillionaires do not pay a cent of tax. They do not even need this tax credit. However, our $600 billion debt has to have the interest paid on it. Who is paying it? The middle income earners, the low income earners.
With our new fresh start program we will take almost one million people out of that tax bracket, or at least lower it for 89 per cent to give them some buying power. When they have buying power then the economy is going to start booming again like it did in the fifties and the sixties.
We have to realize that we have had 40 years of Conservative and Liberal governments that had a lot of good ideas and we are bankrupt. If a farmer or a businessman had that debt load compared to his income as the government has today he would be foreclosed on.
I see the hon. member wants to ask another question, so I will give him some time.
Supply November 21st, 1996
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in the debate.
I would like to set the hon. gentleman straight on the tax credit. Reform policy says that it will be at the lowest possible tax rate, which is about 17 per cent. If I am correct that means about $850 per child, which to a low income family is a lot of money. It would probably take care of their household needs for a month. For a millionaire like the gentleman was talking about, $850 probably does not pay for the car licence for his Mercedes. That is the difference. That is why we targeted low income families. Nobody gets a higher rate of tax credit than low income families. That is the Reform tax credit. It is a very wise decision.
I started farming in 1957. When our family came along in 1962, $850 bought us groceries for a long time. Even though the cost of living has risen a lot, to the low income families it still means a great deal. That is why the motion is so important to farm or rural communities. If there were this type of tax credit during the years my wife and I farmed pretty well on our own, it would have meant our children could have been looked after by someone locally who wanted to earn a few dollars. That tax credit was not available at that time. We needed every penny we had to keep our farm operating.
From 1961 to 1994 the average family saw its before tax income increase by 768 per cent, which is a tremendous increase. If we look at the other side of the story we see that taxes grew by 1,200 per cent. If we take that into consideration plus the increases in the cost of food, clothing and shelter, the family on the farm today is probably in a lot worse position than it was when I started farming.
We always had enough money to put food on the table without my wife taking a second job. We always had enough money to pay our bills and to pay the interest on the money we borrowed to buy our farm. That is not the case on the rural scene any more.
According to Statistics Canada 48 per cent of net farm income today comes from off farm jobs. This is very sad and very serious. We have seen farms increase from a half section to probably two sections as the average today. The expense and the stress are unbelievable, as well as mother or father probably having to work at an off farm job. The extra money will be beneficial to rural families trying to survive on one income.
In 1971 the average family earned $3,600. Only 39 per cent of those families had dual income.
It was rare if we saw a dual income on the farm in 1957, 1961 to 1970, but today we see that happening on almost every farm. By 1990 the average family income had crept up to $43,500 but 60 per cent of those families had dual incomes. We can see what has happened in society and with family income.
As the hon. gentleman explained, it seems that Liberals or Conservatives in power during those 35 to 40 years had all the good ideas. I am wondering why we are $600 billion in debt, why our families today have to pay interest to the tune of almost $45 billion on money that was never earned during this period but was borrowed. We are expecting our younger families to take over this burden and take care of that debt that was made before they ever had any input into how government should be run.
It bothers me when I see that we want take credit for things that we really do not deserve credit for. Sure things were tough in the 1950s, 1960s and probably the early 1970s but the communities were there and they looked after each other. There was a lot of fun even when we did not have that much money. We had local curling and skating rinks. Today they are gone. They are in the larger centres, and farm families and other industries that look after farmers such as fertilizer dealers drive 40 or 50 miles to take their kids to hockey games or hockey practises or to music lessons. This has all disappeared because we had the good idea that we could live on borrowed money and now it is catching up. I do not want to take too much credit for making things better on borrowed money.
When I look at the latest statistic that a single income family has to pay $7,000 more in taxes than a dual income family it really worries me. That is why things are being geared to a two income family where one member of that family pretty well works full time for the government.
With the Reform's fresh start child care policy we are directing the tax cuts to those families that desperately need it. Under Reform's plan a single income family of four making $30,000 will pay 89 per cent less tax. To me that means a tremendous benefit, that there is that amount of money left to spend on necessities that this family probably was not able to afford before this tax cut. People will appreciate this and will take that into consideration in
the next election because it is the family that still drives the nation. If we do not realize that very soon I think we are in big trouble.
One of the farm papers was mailed to me. In it a gentleman writer portrays what is happening with this Liberal government. It is comic: "You are driving up to Goodale's General Store". Whether there is a store like that I do not know but that is what this writer says: "Your wife has asked you to pick up a loaf of bread. You ask the storekeeper for one loaf of 100 per cent whole wheat but the storekeeper hands you a dozen grade A large eggs. No', you protest,a loaf of bread is what I came in to buy. I do not need eggs. My wife said we need a loaf of bread'. The storekeeper tells you this is better for you. He says `believe me, I have been running this store for three years now and I know what is best for my customers, including you. When I run across something I do not know myself my suppliers explain it to me and tell me what to do. Here are your eggs and that will be $3, please'. Since there is no other general store in this country you will have to take it and like it".
That is what I have seen happening in this political arena for the last three years. We have a government that thinks it knows what is best for families. It tells us: "This is even better for you than you yourself know. It is better that two parents should be working than one paying taxes so we can afford some handouts". I think it is are dead wrong and I will say why.
When I see that 48 per cent of net farm income today is coming from off farm jobs, what is left to the rural lifestyle? Not very much. I must tell this House that not only has the Liberal government increased taxes over the past number of years, but it has really decreased farmer incomes by making certain moves which I believe are disastrous to the farm community.
In 1975-76 when we were told under GATT that we could import 76,000 tonnes of beef, the Liberal government knew better. It increased that to 119,000 tonnes of offshore beef imports. We had a beef industry that was already realizing decreases in prices because of overproduction due to depressed grain prices. This added fuel and the prices continued to slide.
Yesterday I phoned one of the farm input dealers. We got talking about what was happening in the farm scene. He said: "It's sad, Jake. I have had a number of young beef producers come in recently and tell me that they cannot afford to pay their bills. With interest rates at a record low, the lowest in 40 years, the banker is still telling them to liquidate". These people who diversified three or four years ago because of low grain prices are now told that they should liquidate.
What else has happened to these young farmers? We know we had to restructure the western grain transportation subsidies. Every farmer realized that would have to happen. But what did we do? The entrepreneurial young farmers who went into beef production because of low grain prices were excluded from these western grain transportation subsidies because their tame hay farms or silage corn farms did not qualify. They were not able to get funding out of that WGTA payout. They got a double whammy. That is very sad.
Just as these young people started to rebuild their lives with the hope that grain prices would stay low for a number of years, it backfired. The prices went up. Cattle prices went down. Now they are told to liquidate with the lowest interest rates we have seen in a long time. That is not building a country; that is destroying a lifestyle and a country.
Once agriculture is destroyed there is not much left. It drives the engine of a country. It is the backbone of a country and we had better start to realize that.
The marketing of grain prices has also helped to decrease grain prices. We had record high prices last year from January through June. Now we find out through Stats Canada that we have a record carryover of durum wheat and feed grains because of poor weather conditions. This is depressing prices again while young farmers who have started in the livestock industry are being told to go out of business. This means we will need less of these grains when the product is building up. Again we are going to destroy that type of industry.
I cannot imagine it. A young farmer from my province, Mr. McMechan, spent four months in jail because he violated a customs regulation that said he could not export grain without a wheat board export permit. This young farmer sold his grain for the best price he could get, a price that the wheat board was not willing to pay him. So he went to jail. He is not the only one to be prosecuted. There are approximately 300 farmers who are being prosecuted for the same thing. Why? We had record amounts of grain on hand and the wheat board sold 31 per cent less durum last year than the previous year when the demand was tremendous. How is that supposed to build a country?
Sure that farmer violated a law, but in a democracy when we are deprived of selling our product for the best price available, that industry is not going to survive very long. If we are going to provide a democracy where nobody gets a price lower than the next, that is going in the wrong direction.
What are we going to do about this? Are we going to overturn the system? The agriculture minister is asking western grain farmers to either defend the wheat board or totally sell under single desk. This no allowance for an option for people to decide what they want to do.
There is no allowance for competition between grain companies and the single desk marketing system. Competition is what keeps
the system fair and honest. But that seems to be something the government is not interested in doing.
I picked this out of an article in the Ottawa Citizen : ``Canadian families are more like the Cleaver family of the 1950s television than the patchwork of mixed families portrayed in the media during the 1990s. A landmark Statistics Canada survey of 23,000 children found that 83 per cent of the kids under 12 lived in a two parent family in 1994. Only 16.5 per cent lived with a single parent. Moreover, the vast majority of their families were biological families, not reconstructed by marriage or other means''.
The biggest difference between the TV household of the Cleaver family where the mother stayed at home is that today in 36 per cent of the two parent families, both parents have full time jobs. That is a good thing if the mother wants to work or the father wants to work. But what is parenting?
Another article states: "A child's prospects were at least as good with positive parenting in a single or disadvantaged family as with negative parenting in a family with two parents or more money". That tells me that any advantage we can give to the traditional family can improve its lifestyle and standard of living will only be positive for the country. That is what Reform's fresh start family policy does.
Another thing surprised me in a another article on behavioural problems. It stated that a single mother, low income family has 34 per cent more behavioural problems than a two parent family; a 13 per cent difference between the same lifestyle or income because of the parenting. A single mother not in a low income situation has 28 per cent more problems than a two parent family.
Parents are very important in creating good young citizens for the future.
One thing that really impressed me, and I have said it before in this House, was when an RCMP officer from northern Manitoba said: "Jake, it is so much easier to build a good kid than to fix a broken adult". I hope we can do that in this House.
Speech From The Throne November 7th, 1996
Madam Speaker, I think seeing the member for Carleton-Charlotte sitting there with his hon. colleague from Malpeque I would have to ask one simple question about the Canadian Wheat Board.
Hearing the member talk about all the expertise in communications that we have today, I am wondering why the Canadian Wheat Board sold less grain than in the previous year. Why, when there was a tremendous need in the U.S, did we sell half a million tonnes less into that market? Now we have a record carry-over in durum and also some feed grains.
It was very interesting to read in the papers recently what the priorities of this Liberal government are. When a motion or a resolution was brought forward to its policy convention supporting the Canadian Wheat Board it was side tracked by a motion to legalize the production of hemp. One of the reporters said: "Instead of supporting the wheat board we can now legally smoke a rope". I am wondering if that is supposed to soothe the nerves of western farmers, with Liberal philosophy of that sort, so that we can sit quietly at the end of the field and more or less smoke a couple of ropes and not realize that our grain is still in the bins instead of being sold. I wonder how the hon. member would respond to that.
Speech From The Throne November 7th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, we heard some very interesting comments from the hon. member for Fraser Valley East.
I was wondering if he has some other statistics. I think I heard at one time that some polling company came out with a statistic which told us how many mums or dads would love to stay home to look after their small children. If that was feasible financially, how does he feel about that?
When I was in Winnipeg I had the privilege of attending a meeting of the Standing Committee on Health. An RCMP officer brought out a very interesting fact. He said that they had found it a lot easier to build a good kid than to fix a broken adult.
When we spend billions and billions of dollars on the justice system, would the hon. member not agree that this would be money very well spent if it was directed toward the parenting of young children?