Howard Hilstrom

[Agriculture, October 24th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, thousands of western Canadian farmers do not have the basic human right to sell their own grain. They are forced to sell it to the Liberal imposed Canadian Wheat Board monopoly against their will. Quebec and Ontario farmers can sell their grain to whomever they want.

The Canadian Wheat Board minister has criminally convicted the following prairie farmers for selling their own wheat, some of whom are here in Ottawa today: Gary Brandt, Ron Duffy, Marcel Desrocher, Jim Chatenay, Rod Hanger, Martin Hall, Noel Hyslip, Ike Lanier, Mark Peterson, Jim Ness, Bill Moore, Rick Strankman, John Turcato and Darren Winczura.

Having already criminally prosecuted these prairie farmers, the Canadian Wheat Board minister is now going to physically throw them in an Alberta jail on October 31.

Why does he deny western Canadian prairie farmers the same opportunity given to farmers in the rest of the country?

[Petitions, October 24th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition in regard to child pornography. It in fact asks Parliament to take action in an immediate manner to stop the use of materials that promote or glorify pedophilia or sado-masochistic activities involving children. I think Parliament should do that.

[Agriculture, October 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, last night's emergency debate on the drought in western Canada was drowned out by rhetoric. Liberal statistics flew high, wide and handsome, muddying the verbal waters to the point of losing all sight of the farmers who are trying to keep body and soul together.

The Minister of Agriculture is trying to pull the wool over farmers' eyes by claiming that the recently announced agricultural policy framework will provide farmers with over $1.1 billion of federal money per year over the next five years. It is not true.

Once the minister's temporary bridge funding runs out next year, farmers will be receiving less than $700 million a year through the agricultural policy framework.

This is a cut in support. It is time that the minister came clean with farmers and quit playing his shell game. Farmers have the right to know that they will be receiving less money under the APF than they are right now.

The only thing missing last night was the Canadian Wheat Board minister coming in and explaining his statement that farmers would be receiving $15.2 billion in agricultural policy framework funding.

[Government Contracts, October 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have another petition in regard to debilitating diseases, such as spinal cord injury and muscular dystrophy.

The petitioners ask that Parliament work on the issue of stem cell research and ensure that the maximum amount of research can be done so that these people suffering from these serious diseases and injuries can be helped.

[Petitions, October 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my petitions are from my riding and they deal with child pornography. The creation and use of child pornography is not condoned by the majority of Canadians. The constituents in my area feel that the courts are not taking a sufficiently tough view on this. They are petitioning Parliament to take action and protect our children from child pornography.

[Agriculture, October 7th, 2002]

Let us talk about how much money our competitors are receiving in the European Union and the United States. What is the matter with a commitment from the government of maybe a 75% or a 50% subsidy level. Why not come out with a position like that?

When I came to Parliament in 1998 as the chief agriculture critic, the Liberal government had cut farm support down to the grand total of $650 million for all Canada, including running the agriculture department.

During the drought, only pressure from the people of Saskatchewan, particularly the Lloydminster area, and the Reform Party at that time drove the government and the minister to bring in the AIDA program which finally gave some extra help. Until that time it was farmers be damned, they can do it on their own.

[Agriculture, October 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, tonight we are debating on an emergency basis the drought situation in western Canada, Saskatchewan and Alberta in particular.

However, I would like to point out that it is not only in western Canada where we have a drought. In four out of the last six years there has been extremely dry conditions in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia. Southern Ontario also has a drought. Never has there been any special help for these farmers stricken by this drought. This year was a little more dramatic I suppose in the sense that there were gigantic acreages involved, due to the size of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

However the evidence is clear. The government has never taken drought as a serious issue that needs special measures. That was demonstrated again this year with the inaction of the Liberal government. The available $600 million was for agriculture policy framework bridge funding for all farmers across the country. That has nothing to do with the drought. Farmers need that program money to offset the low prices they were receiving due to foreign subsidies which were depressing the prices because of overproduction in those competing countries. That was exactly what we needed for the drought, but it did not come.

This is an all Canada thing, not just simply western Canada.

If we look at the Statistics Canada statistics for the next year, New Brunswick is expected to be down 19%, Quebec 31%, Ontario 31%, Manitoba 28% and Saskatchewan 73% in realized net income. This drop in realized net income will not be compensated in any way by the federal government, except for the limited agriculture policy framework money it is putting forward.

I distinctly remember the Prime Minister announcing that it would be $5.2 billion over six years. If anybody can divide and come out with $1.1 billion, which is what we are currently getting in a safety net program, then I believe that there will be more money under the agriculture policy framework. However there will be less money under the agriculture policy framework for safety nets than there is now.

Let us talk about what is happening in western Canada in regard to agriculture. Right now warrants of committal are being prepared to send wheat and barley farmers to jail. Some say, “That cannot be true. Why would any government send a farmer to jail?”

The fact is, these farmers wanted to sell their own wheat and barley and when they did it, they were arrested and charged for failing to obtain an export permit from the Canadian Wheat Board. Farmers in the rest of the country can get an export permit for nothing. They just go in and ask for it. They get it and they export at no extra cost. Farmers in the designated region of Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba have to sell that wheat to the Canadian Wheat Board, buy it back and then export it. That makes it uneconomical. As a result, western farmers cannot export outside the country. In fact they cannot even take a load of wheat, haul it from Manitoba into Ontario and sell it without the Wheat Board getting a piece of the action.

How do farms that have over $1 million in assets, where the families are trying to make a living, do it when the right to market their own crops to their own best advantage is taken away from them? They are told by the Liberal government that they have to believe in the big socialist mentality that everybody will get an average income and there will be nobody who will do better because of their abilities to do a better job of marketing.

New Brunswick is the province with the greatest value added in this whole country of all the produce that it makes. Why do we not have that in western Canada? Partially because of the socialist attitude that wheat and barley cannot be marketed except through the Canadian Wheat Board.

There has been a really big push in Ontario, and a lot of credit to the people in Ontario. They have decided that the Ontario Wheat Marketing Board should not be a monopoly. Why? Because they want to have value added. They know that they cannot just ship bulk crops out and make money at it.

We see that happening across the country, but our western Canadian farmers still suffer under the yoke of a monopoly that tells them they cannot use their own initiative to market their wheat and barley.

Is there some big conspiracy to keep western farmers down? I would not say that. However, when we look at the facts, it is mighty sad. I mentioned the 14 farmers from Alberta. They have to pay their fines by November 1. They are the farmers for justice who are protesting an unjust system which says they cannot market the fruits of their own labour. They took the chance putting those seeds in the ground. They took the chance that the rains would or would not come. With what did they end up? A government that told them they could not market their own wheat and barley. Not only that, if they did not do it the way they were told, they would be put in jail.

On November 1 these 14 farmers will refuse to pay those fines. It will be a sad day when the Liberal Government of Canada puts them in jail for trying to market their own wheat and barley.

The government is failing to do these kinds of things. We look at many of the other issues about which my leader from Calgary spoke. We look at the inaction of the heritage minister in regard to the tuberculosis problem in the Riding Mountain National Park. That has the potential to affect all livestock exports from Canada. It adds costs right now to the province of Manitoba, but it affects the credibility and status of all beef exported from Canada.

What has the heritage minister done? She talked about a scientific study. I found out this summer that they put collars around elk to see where they would go. Well, wherever they go, they will be spreading the TB. Why is the government not doing something about it?

The minister talked tonight about the minor use of pesticides. I had representatives of CropLife Canada in the other day. They said that they wanted me, my party and the other opposition parties to get into the House of Commons and tell government members that they were not making any progress on speeding up the authorization of the use of minor use pesticides. I told the association that they had appropriated money for that purpose. They said that the Liberals were spending the money, but nothing was happening quickly for the use of minor use pesticides.

Tonight we heard two great speeches by members from the Liberal side who talked about all the great things. As far as the government is concerned and as far as Canadians who are watching this on TV, those farmers must be rolling in cash. There are billions of dollars. We hear the government talk about all these programs. The fact of the matter is Statistics Canada has come out with statistics on the drop in incomes, particularly grain and oilseeds, and the negative margin incomes for farms.

Those negative incomes translate directly into farm families having trouble sending their children to school with the right books or buying clothes for them. We are talking about the direct impacts on farm families. We are not having some hypothetical argument in the House of Commons about too money much flowing around. That is the image the government would like to give.

This safety net money is insufficient for the hurt that is being caused, especially to the grain and oilseed farmers. The government plainly does not care.

[Committee Business and Reinstatement of Government Bills, October 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will be using up my full time because of the importance of this issue.

In any event the member for Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey and other members, but this member in particular, had to come up with a reason why they would vote for a bad bill for farmers when they knew that the farm associations, lobby groups and farmers in their own ridings did not want it.

The reason was because a promise had been made by the justice minister to the Liberal rural caucus that the bill could be amended in the Senate, that they should just vote for it, that it would be amended and then things would be all right for the livestock industry and medical research.

That was a fine enough reason. There was a public press release, and I am not telling any stories here or making anything up. It turns out that when the bill went to the Senate, the senator who was responsible for shepherding the bill through the Senate, said that absolutely no deal had been made to amend the bill. I could stand to be corrected, but I think justice minister himself denied that he had made any deal to have it amended in the Senate. In fact I do not know how the House could force the Senate to amend a bill anyway. That is totally up to the senators. That is what happened.

The exact case the Canadian Alliance is putting forward now is that the House, including the member I have been talking about and the Liberal rural caucus, should now separate Bill C-15B, the cruelty to animal legislation and Bill C-5, the species at risk legislation, out of this omnibus motion, pass what is left of it to reinstate the bills to the position they were at before Parliament prorogued. Where we in the House collectively made a mistake on Bills C-15B and C-5, we would now have the opportunity to correct that mistake. The Canadian Alliance members will take that opportunity to correct the mistake made on the cruelty to animal legislation, by separating it, not having it sent back to the Senate and let the government reintroduce a new bill that satisfies the very concerns of the livestock industry, medical research and others who are so opposed to these bills.

What a glorious opportunity to simply do that. I have heard from my friends in the Bloc Quebecois and the other parties that our motion to separate the bills is a good one. Let us correct the mistakes that have been made. How many times in life do we say “I wish I had done things differently” then have the opportunity to go back and correct those mistakes?

We have seen the broken promises from the justice minister and the member for Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, promises that were not kept or promises that were never made in the first place. We do not know. It was tangled web that they got themselves into. Who would have ever known in that the members in the Liberal rural caucus would have to own up to the tangled web they wove by having the bills come back from the Senate, back into our own little hands right here in the House of Commons? This is a glorious opportunity for those members to stand up and say that they made a mistake when they passed those bills in the first place and now they will not have them come back.

Should we expect the Liberal members who are opposed to Bill C-15B and Bill C-5 to stand and vote against their own government? I would hope they would. There is an opportunity for them to go to the Prime Minister and to the other cabinet ministers and tell them that they do not want to vote against the government on this omnibus bill, so why do they not take those bills which they are opposed to, Bill C-15B and Bill C-5, out of the omnibus motion and they will vote for the rest of it.

That could be done without any embarrassment on the side of the Prime Minister or the cabinet or the individual members who are so opposed to that bill. There is an opportunity, and it is getting a little late for them to do that now, that they may have to vote against their own government. So be it.

We have had a lot of talk in the House about reform of Parliament. There is talk about individual members not having enough clout to do anything about some of the major issues coming along. When it comes to having clout with a majority government, the Liberal rural caucus has enough members who are elected, in essence, by farmers that they should at this point represent their constituents by defeating this omnibus bill to correct the mistake that they made earlier on.

If that does not happen, we go back to our ridings and put out another press release saying that the Senate may fix the mistakes in the House because we had two chances at it, but we did not fix it; perhaps the Senate will do it this time. That will be seen as another false hope for change.

I would like to talk about Bill C-15B. That included the Firearms Act. The Firearms Act, from day one when it was first brought in going back as far as the federal Progressive Conservatives when former Prime Minister Kim Campbell started to bring in firearms legislation, had the ultimate goal registering all rifles and shotguns, having no due regard that the people who owned rifles and shotguns were not criminals.

If they were criminals, why would they be given a registration and licence for firearms? This was to nail the poor average citizen who just happened to own firearms or wanted to own firearms. This is another good reason why Bill C-15B should not go back to the Senate to be passed.

Under the firearms amendments there is a new commissioner of firearms being established, who would report to the justice minister thus taking away from the commissioner of the RCMP this coordinating effort on the registration of firearms. We would create a brand new bureaucracy, a new commissioner of firearms, and have that new commissioner report to the justice minister. More costs going up constantly and not solving one crime.

In my riding there was a man whose son had been in trouble under the Young Offenders Act. Police went to the house and asked if there were any firearms in the house. The man said that he did have firearms, but that his son did not. The son did not have access to the gun cabinet. He did not have the key. The police had to get it from the father. The father had committed absolutely no crime, but his firearms are in police custody right now because somehow this act has a catch-all clause that says “if something happens”. As a result, police have the authority to take people's guns away. This man was a law-abiding citizen who did absolutely nothing wrong, yet his guns have been seized and locked up.

We have a lot of good reasons to have Bill C-15B and Bill C-5 separated away from the omnibus bill. Let us bring it back into the House of Commons. Let us do it right, then all our constituents will be happy. I appreciate the time today that I have been given to speak on these bills. I hope that it has made some impression on those Liberal rural caucus members. I am sure that when they reconsider they will vote the right way this time.

[Committee Business and Reinstatement of Government Bills, October 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, after the proroguing of Parliament, it is once again my pleasure to be back here to debate with members of the opposition party and, in particular, the members of the governing Liberal Party.

We are speaking today of the omnibus motion and the amendment by my party to have two bills separated out, Bill C-15B and Bill C-5. They are such bad bills that they should be separated out so Parliament can reconsider the votes held, re-examine the issues and do it right.

It was very interested to listen to the hon. member for Mississauga South, I believe, talk about members of the official opposition and the fact that we were talking about the merits, the reasons and all the facts behind debating Bill C-15B and Bill C-5 again. Somehow it is not good when we on this side of the House talk about redebating bills, particularly when we talk about this big omnibus motion, but that member himself sees fit to go into a lengthy debate on his pet bill with regard to stem cell research.

What we have is a debate on an omnibus motion that the rules are good when for use by the government side, but if the opposition plays by those same official rules, then somehow it is bad.

We intend to speak up about bills that are bad and about the fact that those bills have ended up back here because Parliament was prorogued. It is necessary for Parliament to once again pass a motion that will reinstate those bills that died on the Order Paper to their former position. I do not think it is a waste of Parliament's time, as the Liberal government has put forward, to talk about the substance of the issues of those bills that died on the Order Paper.

The question of whether it was necessary to prorogue Parliament in the first place is one that deserves a bit of comment because that has put us back in this position of having to debate this and some of the very same bills that were already been passed.

The proroguing of Parliament was done so that there could be a throne speech. That throne speech was to lay out some grand visions for Canada, its problems and opportunities for the future. We expected something new in a throne speech. What did we get? We got talk about trying to do something about health care, child poverty and first nations problems, everything from education through to health and governance issues. There was talk about infrastructure. The opportunity was there for the government and the Prime Minister to do something about those topics. He has had 40 years as minister of various portfolios, including as the Minister of Indian Affairs, and as Prime Minister since 1993 to have fixed those issues or to have laid out the plan and instituted it. By proroguing Parliament, he was trying to make these promises again as if they were something new and that somehow that would make things all right.

The Prime Minister has said that he will not be around very long, that he will quit and make room for the next leader of the Liberal Party. However he has insisted on trying to set out an agenda, committing Parliament to vote in the future to spend money on his promises in the throne speech. It is pointless.

Should I be in the House as the various spending bills, which the Prime Minister has promised, come up, I can guarantee that I will not have my hands tied for votes in the House because that Prime Minister wanted to have a throne speech and therefore prorogued Parliament.

With regard to the question the member for Mississauga South raised about saving time and reinstating these bills, what point is there in trying to save time when a really bad piece of legislation, which was opposed by many members on the government side and the opposition side, was passed because of the terrible whipping backbench Liberals received. That legislation, Bill C-15B, ended up going to the Senate.

Bill C-15B has an interesting little story onto itself. It goes to the very essence of whether we in the House should simply pass this omnibus motion and put everything back in place the way it was, or should we have a second thought and look at this again. From the Liberal point of view, I cannot imagine that they would not be really excited about having a second chance to look at the legislation contained in this omnibus motion.

With regard to Bill C-15B, while it was going through the House and committee, the Liberal rural caucus with its chairman, the member for Dufferin--Peel--Wellington--Grey, criticized and pointed out that this was a really bad bill. They said it hurt medical research and the livestock industry. They said it would hurt hunting, fishing and other pastimes that involve the use of animals in our daily lives.

However, when push came to shove, at the final vote in the House at third reading stage, the Liberal rural caucus members, including the chairman, stood up and voted in favour of Bill C-15B. The question immediately arose: Why, when members and their constituents were opposed to a bill as in the case of rural Liberal caucus members, would they vote for that legislation? The truth of the matter is, the Prime Minister told them that if they did not, there would be certain repercussions in any number of ways. He told them they could forget about their future political careers.

However that could not be said to the general public. That could not be said to our farmers and ranchers. They could not tell these people that they had been whipped by the Prime Minister and leaders in cabinet, so they had to come up with some other reason. What did the reason turn out to be? The member for, and he has a long riding name so I want to get it right--

[Agriculture, October 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, that great line I just had, I lost it now. What it is, is that Saskatchewan will have a drop of 73% in income next year. The government at the same time is cutting safety net program money.

Under the agriculture policy framework, there will only be $850 million a year for the whole budget for over six years. That is 5.2 divided by 6 to equal $850 million. Currently farmers are getting $1.1 billion in farm safety net money.

Why is this minister going to cut it under the agriculture policy framework?