John Solomon

[National Defence Act, December 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, members of the New Democratic Party this evening vote yes on this motion.

[Division No. 303, December 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, NDP members present this evening vote no on this motion.

[Division No. 302, December 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, NDP members present this evening vote yes on this motion.

[Division No. 301, December 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of Christmas, NDP members will vote yes on this motion.

[Division No. 300, December 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, members of the NDP present this evening vote yes on this motion.

[Division No. 299, December 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, NDP members present this evening vote yes on this motion.

[Agriculture, November 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in the debate this evening.

I was the member of parliament who on October 5 called for an emergency debate on the looming farm crisis. My colleague the member for Palliser had been raising this issue in the House of Commons for weeks prior to that. We see the looming crisis now upon us and I want to share a few reasons for that.

We have seen in Saskatchewan the net farm income to farmers decline by 70% in 1998 over 1997. We have seen the price of hogs basically collapse in the last four or five months. They are decreased in value in terms of selling price by 60%, although at the supermarket the price of pork is still the same. There must be some kind of a gouging in the middle. Maybe the government could look at that. Certainly the consumers are not getting any benefit of this crash in the price of hogs, nor are the farmers. I am sure it is some of the larger corporations that subsidize and donate to the Liberal and Reform parties.

We have had a number of signals from Saskatchewan and other parts of western Canada.

Donette Elder is a farmer at Fillmore who operates a farm distress hotline. She told me that in her 15 years involved in this operation, it has never been as busy as it has been this year. The Saskatchewan government has a group which handles stress calls from farmers as well. The numbers are way up. There is a farm debt mediation services and farm consultation services organization in Saskatchewan that deals with farmers who are in financial distress with respect to their land. They deal with farmers before it gets to the foreclosure situation. Their business unfortunately is up 72% over last year. To date, 371 farmers have asked for mediation services with respect to their financial condition which is an increase of 155 farms over last year.

I have been in my constituency and other parts of the country. I have been in Tugaske and Lumsden and Craik and Nokomis and Brownlee. I met with hundreds of farmers. I never got to Neilberg for the big rally. It is a little distance from my constituency. I was in Ottawa at that time. I know that Saskatchewan minister of agriculture Eric Upshall was there and represented the NDP very well.

Farmers from Tugaske and other places are telling me that they are in big trouble. Craik is a very small town, actually a village, with a number of larger farms around the community. There were 22 producers who could not pay their chemical bill as of November 1 from the last crop year. Should an alarm bell not go off in terms of what is happening? This is some of the finest farmland in Saskatchewan with very high production and very high yield.

We have seen the fertilizer costs go up 57% from 1992 to 1997. We have seen farm chemicals increase 63% over that same period. We have seen $130 million extra in cost recovery, for example the privatization of the meat inspection facilities, that have gone on the farmers' backs. We have seen the biggest problem that farms and in particular grain producers and wheat producers are facing which is the loss of the Crow benefit.

I went to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France. I happen to have a community in my riding called Strasbourg. I went to Strasbourg, France in 1995 to speak at the Council of Europe. I went there as a delegate from this parliament. I had an opportunity to meet with the 38 European countries that are members of the Council of Europe. They meet quarterly and discuss issues such as agriculture.

I met with the agriculture committee in 1995 I asked all the MPs from the 38 European and eastern European countries what they were doing to address the farm subsidy issue in their countries. I told them that the Liberal Government of Canada was eliminating the Crow benefit, which was a subsidy, because of the WTO requirements. I said “We have eliminated our Crow benefit which is about a $700 million benefit a year to our grain producers which is guaranteed in legislation. We are eliminating that in order to have good competition. What are you going to do about it?”

They said “We have five years under WTO to address the subsidy issue, not to solve it but to address it. If you think after five years we are going to sacrifice our farmers for the U.S.A., you are crazy. We will never do that”. Three years later after we have gutted the Crow benefit, the European Community and the U.S.A. are providing not the same but higher subsidies than three years ago. Meanwhile we have abandoned our farmers.

We can only draw one of two conclusions from this. Did the Liberal government get suckered on this negotiation and deliberately betray Canada's farmers, or did it deliberately do it, knowing that it did not really care to support farmers in our country? I sense it was both. The Liberals do not really like farmers in western Canada because farmers do not seem to vote for every Liberal candidate who runs. That is negligence on behalf of the government. I would ask the government to consider that.

The final word I got was from a gentleman by the name of John Germs. He is the president of the Saskatchewan pork producers. He wrote to me saying hog farmers in Saskatchewan and other parts of the country are suicidal because of the loss on their hog farms. That is a very serious issue.

We should have long term solutions and short term solutions. I am proposing five items for short term solutions.

We need to provide some disaster relief for farmers as soon as possible. Some say $700 million. The NDP says $700 million is a start. It is a good number for grain and pork producers.

We should accelerate or advance the date for the final payments on wheat and barley to provide cash to farmers in a quicker way.

If NISA is used, and I am not advocating that it be used, but if it is used it should be provided to farmers as quickly as possible without the red tape that is required to get it. They should only be allowed to use the tax free portion so they do not have to pay taxes held on their NISA accounts.

The Government of Canada should deal with the input costs I have referred to. We have a lot of farmers who do not have a lot of bank debt in comparison to the farm crisis in the 1980s but they do have more credit with suppliers such as fertilizer companies, chemical companies, grain companies and machinery companies.

The government would do well to take my advice to pursue the issue of gasoline and diesel fuel price fixing in Saskatchewan. The farmers are being hammered on that input cost alone and it should do something with it.

I think the agriculture minister has already said this, that the government will deal with the financial institutions and work in a co-operative and collective way to ensure that our farmers are not taken advantage of by the institutions.

There are two long term solutions. We should address the issue of the subsidies that the EU provides its farmers and the U.S. provides its farmers. If they do not comply within a period of time, let us say 12 months, then maybe we should be looking at reinstating some kind of competitive agricultural program to support our farmers.

There is another issue I want to raise in terms of long term. When the Crow benefit was depleted, the deregulation of railroads occurred at the same time. Farmers' transportation costs doubled and in some cases tripled as a result of the deregulation and the Crow benefit being taken away.

We have a serious situation with respect to the agriculture economy. We have very solid recommendations from the NDP to the Government of Canada to follow these issues to the end and make sure that our farmers do have some sort of protection.

The Reform Party has touched on a couple of issues I want to respond to. Many people tell me that the Reform Party has lost touch with the bread and butter issues that first sent it to Ottawa. In the House of Commons on November 3 I asked the Leader of the Opposition whether under the circumstances with respect to the farm income crisis he would support an emergency disaster program, a relief program for farmers. He stood in this House and said he would not support any kind of cash supports for farmers in terms of the emergency.

The Reform member for Selkirk—Interlake, the agriculture critic went to the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool meeting a week ago last Friday where I spoke as well. Farmers pleaded to both of us to support an emergency program. The Reform agriculture critic said no that they were going to have tax cuts and if they ever make any income it is taxable and they will do all sorts of positive things.

To set the record straight, the Reform Party is not a friend of the farmers. On the contrary, I think it is a friend of the chemical and oil companies because the Leader of the Opposition worked for the oil companies for many years. They fund his party and they decide what policies the Reform Party will undertake and support in the House.

People in this country are telling me more and more that the Reform MPs are letting ideology get in the way of common sense. Farmer after farmer, business person after business person, housewife after housewife, every person I speak to in Saskatchewan tells me the Reform Party has lost touch. That is a very serious condition, in particular when we are trying to defend and support an agricultural sector that is under attack not only by the European Community and the U.S. but by the Reform Party inside our own country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think the member for Elk Island misinterpreted my comments. I did not make any reference to him personally by name. I did not make any reference to his executive. If it has NDP members on it, it has to be a darn good executive in my view.

In debate we have to look at the facts. In Saskatchewan we had a Reform-Tory-Liberal coalition in government that was corrupt, ended up in jail, and they happened to be Reformers.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from the member for Brandon—Souris. He always has some great questions and I think this is a pretty good one.

I can only speak about things that I am familiar with. For example, I know that the NDP government in Saskatchewan did not send anybody to jail, whereas the Reform-Tory coalition sent 18 to jail. That is one example. I guess it is not very good.

The Bob Rae government did not send anybody to jail from its caucus. The Reform-Tory coalition in Saskatchewan sent about 17 or 18 to jail. I may be off by about one or two but it is approximate.

As for the NDP government in British Columbia, none of its officials are in jail, at least yet. The Tories and the Reform in Saskatchewan sent 17 or 18 Tory and Reform MLAs to jail. I guess I can only compare what I know. To me that seems to be somewhat balanced.

I know the NDP in Ontario had a bit of a rough ride. The member for Brandon—Souris would appreciate this immensely because he is the member of a party that had a rough ride in 1993 in Canada. They went from government to two members. He can relate to the anxiousness and the anxiety of the NDP in Ontario.

If we look at the polls the NDP is doing very well across the country. We are leading the polls in Saskatchewan. We are leading the polls in Nova Scotia. We are leading the polls in Manitoba. That is three provinces. We have a government in Yukon. In British Columbia we have two more years to go, and I am very confident the NDP in that province will rebound.

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

The coalition was with Elwin Hermanson, Grant Devine and Grant Schmidt who are all members of the Saskatchewan Party now. They are Reformers and supporters of the Grant Devine regime and were cabinet ministers.

I know this is a sore point with the Reform Party. We have had about 22 elected Reform, Tory, Liberal and officials from that Devine government, that coalition, who were charged for breach of trust and other very terrible things about which the former RCMP officer from Selkirk—Interlake would know more than I. I was just an MLA at that time and not part of the police force. It was his colleagues who investigated these people.

I do not know the number, but I think about 15 of them were found guilty. The Saskatchewan Party is a new party in Saskatchewan made up of Reformers. Elwin Hermanson, the former Reform house leader, is the leader of the Saskatchewan Party and has all these Grant Devine folks in there, those who were not in jail.

They attended a big convention the other day of about 150 people. By the way, on Saturday one of the provincial ridings in my federal district, Regina—Qu'Appelle Valley, had a nomination convention. We had just under 300 at a nomination convention for one provincial riding with only two people seeking nomination. We can tell how powerful the Reform Party of Saskatchewan is in Saskatchewan.

The Reform Party and the party in Saskatchewan of Grant Devine are basically the same. They put forward the same policies, the magic policies of less taxes, more services and more jobs. That is what they promise. Grant Devine did that and the Reform Party did that. Grant Devine was elected, however, and we ended up with fewer jobs, incredulous increases in taxes and very few people working. I believe that was part of the problem.

The Reform Party just embraced this Grant Devine policy. I should not be warning it not to continue doing that. I should encourage it to keep pumping that policy because if it does that it will never get elected. I am very concerned that Reform members do not remember their history. Somebody once said that if we forget the lessons of history we are doomed to repeat them.

I am not a teacher by background, but I think it is really important to remind them of their history. Their history in Saskatchewan is really bad, corrupt and terrible. It has been shown across the province that all the things they have undertaken resulted in fewer people working, higher unemployment rates and higher taxes for people, which resulted in money leaving the province and huge debts left for taxpayers.

We in the west are very worried about that. Yes, the member's arithmetic is right. There were more Reform members elected in the last election than there were New Democrat members, but that is the way it goes. We in this party respect democracy. Being from Saskatchewan, the member would know that there is an old saying that when you throw a rock in the dark and a dog yelps you have hit a dog.