Jake Hoeppner

[Self-Government, May 5th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am very surprised.

Does the minister tell me that he has had no letters from these native people? I would ask him how he will respond to this. The members on the opposite side support self-government. We want the minister to realize that we as Reformers support the same self-government for native people. We have had genuine fears of concern addressed to us about this.

Would the minister explain why he refuses to open up the process to all Canadians to alleviate the concerns of those people not directly involved in the negotiations?

[Self-Government, May 5th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of aboriginal affairs. We seek the assistance of the minister in responding to written communications sent to us by our original peoples other than chiefs.

Will the minister tell us how he has responded to the fears and concerns expressed in these written letters about native self-government because his answers to these letters will help us in answering ours.

[Grain Transport, April 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, further to that I would ask the government whether it is doing something with demurrage charges that are piling up on the west coast. Grain and oilseed sales have been lost. Japan is in search of a reliable supplier to grow more canola next year.

Would the government indicate what measures it intends to take to keep Canada a reliable grain and oilseed supplier to the world?

[Grain Transport, April 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.

In a letter dated November 15, 1993 the Thunder Bay Harbour Commission Port Authority warned the minister that the rail car shortage problem had been some time in the making and was due in part to the policy of dispersing the rail car fleet into trades and routings outside its original purpose. This is just one of the several warnings the minister received.

Could the minister please explain what measures were taken in light of these warnings?

[Supply, April 28th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Provencher for his speech. I point out to him that the cash shortages, the financing problems, are severe.

If he had read the Winnipeg Free Press last night he would realize that one window manufacturing company in Winnipeg got a $370,000 interest free grant. This is the kind of money the FCC needs to help farmers solve some of their problems. I would appreciate his attention to that.

[Supply, April 28th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out a report that was given to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food the other day to back up some of my figures, just kind of arguing the point with the hon. member about going through Thunder Bay.

When we had the PSAC witnesses on grain transportation, they pointed out to us that in a two week period of officially weighing grain which is done for Agriculture Canada, it was detected that 341 rail cars would have gone through the system with the wrong car numbers, putting the wrong grain to the wrong customer. One hundred and sixty-nine had the wrong initials on them, bringing the total to 510 cars in two weeks that they had to correct.

In the same period, there were 26 mixes between different railways, 45 mixes that were prevented by weighers and assistants. Grain was left in receiving hoppers 10 times, 12 spills, overweight as much as 25 tonnes on a boxcar or on a hopper car or underweight in some cases.

The total was 1,173 cars that were under the wrong procedure in two weeks out of a total shipment of 13,000 cars. Almost 10 per cent of the cars that were directed to Thunder Bay had been marked incorrectly by elevator companies. How can you have a system deliver our grain under those circumstances?

This is why I say we have a disaster. We have a calamity in the transportation system. If this government does not correct some of those problems we will never be able to survive on the farms by becoming more efficient and producing more. It is senseless.

[Supply, April 28th, 1994]

I apologize for that, Mr. Speaker. Seeing the minister was so impressed with the farm issues, it got to my heart. I hope to simmer down a bit.

The railways are required by law to move these grains according to the Western Grain Transportation Act. Why do we not see them doing it? It amazes me when I see stats that the turnaround on a hopper car today is actually a little longer than was required in 1923. Is this today's modern system that is supposed to help farmers survive?

With the negotiations having gone on for over a year, this government failed to pass legislation to order the west coast strikers back to work. We lost 12 days. Not only that, I was told that during the Easter holidays there was again a four day shutdown. There are 40 ships sitting in Vancouver drawing demurrage charges on grain that cannot be shipped. When is this government going to take action on this?

That has dealt a tremendous blow to the farm sector in western Canada. Shipping $100 a tonne feed wheat to the U.S. which takes twice as long as putting a car to Vancouver with $500 a tonne canola just does not seem to make sense. When are we going to get the right type of direction from some of our farm organizations or our government to solve these problems? Farmers need that cash to put in another crop. Farm programs cannot look after all these requirements. We have to ship that grain. We have to get our money out of that grain. I appreciate that the hon. minister is listening and I hope that something can be done about it.

The other serious issue coming out of this whole system of not delivering grain is the lost sales. Japan today is encouraging Australian farmers to plant more canola because the Canadian system cannot deliver the product after it is grown. How long can our economy continue to exist in western Canada if we do

not start supporting the farmer who produces more efficiently every year and then is not allowed to sell to get the funds out of it?

It amazes me sometimes what modernization, with all the computer technology and the efficiencies we have built into our systems, has done to us. I will give one little example of an experience I had. This is not with grain transportation.

Being a farmer I like to save as much money as I can because I know I will need it. Just before I came back to Ottawa two months ago, I got a telephone bill for $27.65. I wrote the cheque for the due date on the bill. I said to my wife: "Would you please drop it off at the telephone office so it is there directly and I can save myself the 45 cents".

Lo and behold, a month later I got a returned cheque with a notice on it saying "insufficient funds", charging me a $15 service charge for a $27 telephone bill. It is a provincial utility. I went to see the banker, furious as can be. I have never had less than $2,000 in that bank account.

Somebody had punched the wrong figure and it showed there were insufficient funds. To hide their mistake, they wrote out a little slip which said: "Due to insufficient funds". It took me a month and probably $30 worth of telephone calls to find out where the problem was. Is this progress?

I said to my wife: "I know what I am going to do with the next telephone bill. I am going to put a stamp on it, mail it in Morden because it will take the postal service at least six months to figure out it is supposed to be delivered to Morden. It will travel all across Canada. They will cut off my telephone before I get back. Then at least I will have peace and quiet this summer with Stats Canada phoning me every month wanting to know how much grain I have left in my bins". There is a way of getting around this system, but how long can we continue to do it?

I apologize for the problems I caused you, Mr. Speaker. Forgive me. I hope the hon. minister does listen to this.

[Supply, April 28th, 1994]

Well, you know-

[Supply, April 28th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the whip of the Reform Party I would like to advise the House that pursuant to Standing Order 43(2) our speakers on this motion will be dividing their time with your concurrence.

I am really enthused about the hon. minister's speech this morning. I would like to direct a few remarks to him before I go into the details I want to present to the Liberal government.

I started farming because of farm programs like FCC and MACC. I was guaranteed a low interest rate for 25 years which I really appreciated. It was the only way I could acquire land and continue to farm and later retire as a farmer.

Why did the Liberal government in the 1970s change the farm credit regulations to do away with those programs and allow the banks to take over the financing for young farmers? Also during that period, why did the Liberal government allow interest rates to go to 24 per cent and force thousands and thousands of farmers off their land?

I am so glad to hear the hon. minister is prepared to do some fence mending on those issues. I hope he gets the fences built a lot stronger in the west because they are getting very thin. If something is not done for the farmers there could be a charge by the big western farmers right down here into Ottawa to demand some changes. However, I appreciate his comments and I hope he will take them into account.

I am not going to be quite as critical of the government on the issues of farm problems as my friend in the Bloc was. However I would like to address some of the problems we farmers are facing. I hope the hon. members in the government will take them to heart, look at them and give us some help with them.

My speech is mostly going to be directed toward transportation. I would like to point out some of the problems we are having today. We feel the car shortage on the railway system is not due to something that has happened overnight.

I would like to point out to the government that in a letter dated November 15, 1993 the Thunder Bay Harbour Commission Port Authority warned the Minister of Transport at that time that the rail car shortage problem had been some time in the making and was due in part to the policy of dispersing the rail car fleet into trades and routings outside its original purpose.

In an October submission to the National Transportation Agency, one of Canada's railroads confirmed there was in existence as early as May 1993 an extreme car shortage affecting its ability to supply cars. To be sure the terrible situation we find ourselves in today was not without warning.

What did the railroads do? They chose to chase business in the United States without first making sure they had enough cars to handle the Canadian grain requirements. That makes money for the railways but it certainly left the western agriculture community high and dry.

Under the Western Grain Transportation Act brought in by the previous Liberal government the railways are supposed to be subject to sanctions if they do not meet targets for unloading grain at Canadian ports.

However, this recourse proved useless when the senior grain transportation committee decided not to pursue those sanctions. I wonder why. Who sits on that senior grain transportation committee and whose best interests do they have at stake? Apparently it is not farmers.

I look at the people on that agency: They represent elevator companies, terminal operators, the railways, everybody but farmers. An article in the Western Producer states that elevators shipped the wrong grain to the port of Vancouver just recently. Why? They have all the stats and all the figures on trade at their fingertips. They know what they need. Is the system so inefficient that they cannot even load the proper grain?

Mr. Minister, I hope you look into that because it seems ludicrous. It almost seems as if there is a conspiracy to shut the system down.

William Stinson, chairman and chief executive of Canadian Pacific Ltd. received a $448,000 bonus for losing less money than the previous year. CP is trying to negotiate with two unions right now and is asking for cuts and labour deterrents so they will not go on strike, but this gentleman is given an extra half a million dollars for losing $2 billion. How does he expect to get a settlement with his unions?

It is imperative that the government start to look at these issues and address them. One of these days we are going to have a civil war if this is the system we are going to allow to go on. A million and a half dollars for management and 50 cents an hour for the workers. Is that fair, Mr. Minister?

[Sahtu Dene And Metis Land Claim Settlement Act, April 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, after hearing the hon. member speak, I do not know how to respond to that. I always thought that we as a people who developed a country should have some respect or some benefits from it.

My forefathers were driven from Prussia to the Soviet Union. They lost all their land and came over to Canada and started over again. Maybe it is just natural for us to be on the losing side all the time. Maybe it is the other side that should always win. I also have feelings and needs.