Howard Hilstrom

[Agriculture, December 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, once again the minister is not telling the entire truth—

[Agriculture, December 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, now we know how the minister of agriculture really feels about the crisis in western Canada and across the whole country. While he cries crocodile tears out west his bureaucrats in Ottawa have been writing a report that concludes there is no agriculture crisis. According to them farmers are just faking it. Is the minister denying much needed emergency relief because he does not believe there is a crisis?

[Agriculture, December 2nd, 1998]

I do not want to hear from our ambassador down there. I want to hear something strong from the Americans saying they will abide by trade rules.

Quite simply the heritage minister has poisoned Canada's trade relationship with the U.S. It refuses to co-operate on agricultural issues because she has been so abusive to its magazine industry.

Why would the Americans deal fairly with us on important matters like agriculture when the heritage minister has been taunting and abusing U.S. business for years?

[Agriculture, December 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that. It says a lot about—

[Agriculture, December 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the foreign affairs minister and the agriculture minister went down to Washington, cap in hand, to beg the Americans to stop the unfair subsidies that are partly responsible for destroying our Canadian farms. The trade minister says that the heritage minister is a big part of our trade problems.

Is it not true that the reason the Americans have not backed off on their farm war is the heritage minister's personal vendetta against U.S. magazines?

[Agriculture, November 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly will participate in the debate tonight. This issue is of utmost importance to many people in my riding and across the country.

The debate tonight has already been held in the House in that Reform had a supply day motion where the whole farm income issue was debated. In essence we are going over again the very thing that Reform initiated a couple of weeks ago.

At the agriculture committee once again a Reform motion required the committee to hold hearings and come up with a report along with recommendations to the minister. That will be delivered on December 7 for the benefit of the agriculture minister.

While the debate is important in that we want to talk about it as much as possible and get all the facts out, the fact is that the Conservatives under their new leader, Mr. Joe Clark, are once again three steps behind the issue.

As noted by the hon. member for Calgary Southwest, the current Liberal government knew at least a year ago that this crisis was on our doorstep. It continued to ignore farmers until pictures of dead pigs and bankrupt farmers on the nightly news forced it to think of something. Without the Reform Party's action in committee and in the House of Commons, I wonder if this issue would be as far down the road as it is today. This crisis is real. It is national in scope and will not be over soon. This fallen income was forecast by Statistics Canada and Agriculture Canada some time ago.

Why did the Liberals fail to take action? The question has been asked before but it must be asked again. If a drop in income this severe was forecast for any other major industry such as the auto sector, would the government have failed to act or not reacted as it could have?

Our producers must have more than just a temporary band-aid. They need a long term solution. In arriving at this solution the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board did not attend the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool meetings two weeks ago. There were farmers there, primarily producers who had stories to tell about the income crisis facing Saskatchewan. After the tough questions at the United Grain Growers annual meeting I suppose the minister was a bit hesitant to attend another farmer rally. However I believe that the junior minister for agriculture from the government did attend.

How can the government claim to understand the problem or develop real solutions to the problems if it does not even take the time to listen to producers in addition to industry representatives? How can the government claim to care about farmers when even rural ministers cannot drag themselves out of Ottawa?

I would like to talk about a farm rally that happened in Neilburg, Saskatchewan. All politicians and all the general public were invited to attend the rally to talk about the income crisis. There were no federal Liberals there. There were no federal NDP there. There were no federal Conservatives at this open public meeting.

Over 500 concerned producers organized a meeting and invited everyone. They were not only talking about income but a serious drought that hit a larger portion of Alberta and Saskatchewan. These are real people who are facing the destruction of their livelihoods. The minister of agriculture from Saskatchewan took time to attend. Once again federal representation, with the exception of two members of the Reform Party, was totally missing.

Reform attended both the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool meetings and the Neilburg rally in order to get direct input from the farmers concerned. It is because Reform has been listening to farmers that we have been pressuring the government to take action since the opening of parliament.

Unfortunately the government has not been listening, which is why we are in the middle of an emergency debate. Why did the Liberals delay the hearings of the agriculture committee by a month? Why has the government done little to implement Reform's November 3 supply day motion.

Farmers need more than handouts. At these meetings farmers told me over and over again that they needed help today. They cannot keep coming back to the government every few years. Government must create the conditions that will allow them to survive and prosper without a federal cheque.

On this list are also marketing problems that are endemic across western Canada in the way we market wheat and barley. Many grain companies and farmers have innovative ideas about how to market grains and are restricted from doing so because of the Canadian Wheat Board. It is a sad to read the papers every day of farmers being fined tens of thousands of dollars in lots of cases and some even going to jail for marketing their own grain.

This feedback has been the basis of Reform's plan to get us out of the emergency we are in. However, it must be part of a larger package. The broader package must address two key root causes of the current farm income crisis: international causes and domestic causes.

International action is required. We must have free and fair trade abroad. This means our government must take strong action to reduce foreign subsidies. For example, the European Union subsidies on wheat production are 773% above Canadian subsidies while the U.S. wheat subsidies are 480% above Canadian subsidies. Our farmers cannot wait until the end of the next WTO talks to have these subsidies fall.

We see who is going to Europe to talk about these subsidies. A large number of senators are going over to Europe at a cost $107,750. These unelected people will come back and have very little, if anything, to say. They certainly will not have any impact on Europeans. The agriculture minister and trade minister should be going there. At least they are elected. If their actions do nothing to help farmers, they can be thrown out in the next election.

Many people have suggested that we enter bilateral negotiations with the U.S. to develop North American opposition to the high EU subsidies. Unfortunately the Liberals have made no attempt to initiate these types of negotiations. Our government must ensure that our trading partners live up to agreements that have already been signed. The European Union is still stopping our beef and our canola exports into those countries. Trade tribunals have ruled against the Europeans in this regard but they continue to take that action and our government seems unable to do anything about it.

On September 16 the governor of South Dakota began stopping Canadian agriculture exports. South Dakota had given the trade minister a two week warning and yet the border remained closed until the first week of October. The government claimed that this dispute was due to election hype, but this was not true because we see the trade disputes continuing. North Dakota farmers have indicated that they will once again blockade the border on December 6. Where is the action to make sure that this does not happen?

Farmers who are facing some of the lowest commodity prices in recent years cannot afford to have their income problems compounded by an incompetent trade minister.

I will talk for a few minutes about the domestic action that is required. A short term disaster assistance plan has to be related to actual harm created by the trade subsidies of other countries. Farmers not only need lower subsidies abroad. They must have lower taxes at home.

The hon. member for Calgary Southwest outlined three specific areas in which the government could reduce its burden on producers. These were to suspend the user fees of the Department of Agriculture of $138 million per year, suspend federal 4 cent per litre excise tax on farm fuel, and suspend taxes on farm input such as fertilizer. Federal taxes account for about 15% of the retail cost of fertilizers.

By suspending its tax grab in these areas it would give farmers about $500 million. The rumours of how much aid will be put forward by the federal government are right in that neighbourhood. We would not have this problem if only tax reform was put forward by the government. The government is contemplating giving farmers emergency aid while at the same time taking more than $500 million directly out of their pockets. This does not seem to make sense to a reasonable person.

Reform's plan could be implemented today. Other proposals will take time to implement and some of our producers will be lost in the wait. Unlike ad hoc payments, Reform's plan for targeted reduction on the cost of government will have lasting effects on the viability of agriculture. Our plan will allow producers to compete in the global agriculture environment without interference from the federal government.

Reform's plan to reduce the cost of government will not only immediately benefit agricultural producers. It will also immediately benefit the industries that support our producers. Our plan will have an immediate benefit to the economy of the entire Canadian agriculture and agrifood sector.

Above all, I absolutely insist and demand that the government not institute any program which the Americans will feel has to be countervailed due to interpretations of the World Trade Organization rules and NAFTA. If the government takes that kind of action the hurt in the agriculture area, particularly in the area of hogs and cattle, will be at least 1,000 times more than what it is today.

In encouraging the government to look at this crisis I also caution it not to do anything that will destroy what is left of the economy in western Canada.

[Royal Canadian Mint Act, November 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it slipped out by accident and I apologize for that. It is not appropriate language for here.

In any event I would like the hon. member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre to expand on his knowledge of comparison between the Grant Devine Conservative government and the honest economic policies of the Reform Party.

[Royal Canadian Mint Act, November 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I will reply to the member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre.

With regard to Reform's economic policy I suggest to the member that in the 1997 election the NDP put out its policy as to the economic conditions in Canada and what its solution was. Reform put out our policies. I see us sitting here with about 60 members after the election and them with maybe 20. The people judged the economic policies of the Reform Party to be far superior to that of the NDP.

The hon. member refers to the Reform being associated with the Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan. My relatives are all from Saskatchewan. He knows very well, if he had done any research and looked at Reform Party policies on the economy and at what Grant Devine did in Saskatchewan, that there is no comparison. He is lying right here and right now when he talks like that.

[Royal Canadian Mint Act, November 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, with all the conversation going on beside the member speaking, I am having trouble following what is being said and I would like to participate.

[Agriculture, November 27th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, this fall South Dakota stopped Canadian agriculture exports. South Dakota gave a two week warning and the trade minister did nothing until the trucks were stopped.

Now North Dakota farmers have warned us that they will blockade the border on December 6. Why is the trade minister doing nothing to keep the border open on December 6?