John Solomon

[Canada Marine Act, December 9th, 1997]

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

[Canada Co-Operatives Act, December 9th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his question.

In my view the bill does not really affect the principles of co-ops, the principle of open membership or the principle of one member one vote. Members of the co-op will still control the direction of their particular co-op, even though they may take advantage of these economic utensils.

The principle of doing collectively what cannot be done individually will always be around in a co-op. The bill will assist co-ops on the larger scale in dealing with competition from international corporations and in expanding their co-ops in a vertically integrated way as other multinationals have done in the past.

[Canada Co-Operatives Act, December 9th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this House as a New Democratic Party member to speak at third reading of Bill C-5, an act respecting co-operatives. I am also pleased to see that the legislation enjoys the support of all five parties in the House of Commons, reflecting perhaps that the co-operative spirit is becoming a pan-Canadian value.

I say that because in Saskatchewan the co-operative spirit has been alive and well for a number of generations. As a matter of fact, we in Saskatchewan view the world in a very clear way when it comes to using economic utensils to develop economies and to keep people working.

It is the view of the New Democratic Party that our economy is composed of three engines. There is the engine of government which generates and creates economic activity to a certain extent. There is a second engine of the economy, the private sector, which generates and creates economic activity in jobs and revenues. In Saskatchewan in particular but across this country, the NDP believes, a third engine of economic activity in our economy is the co-operative movement. We feel the co-op approach to life is a very important approach and one that basically allows people to do things collectively in a co-operative way that they cannot do individually.

We feel very strongly that Bill C-5 addresses some of the challenges which the co-op movement is now facing, the modernization of co-ops, the modernization of the economy, the more competitive nature of corporations and businesses competing with our co-ops around the country.

The co-op movement is very important when it comes to world trade. We have been involved in very significant things with respect to economic development in this country through co-ops that we normally would not do. The co-op movement has been very significant in the international and global economy. We did not call it the globalization of our economy, but the corporations that were involved and structured as co-ops, like the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, were actually trading in the international marketplace for decades before the terms globalization and global economy became the catch words of those who wish to do business all over the world.

I am very pleased this afternoon to acknowledge a neighbour of mine in the gallery. He lives on my street. He is visiting Ottawa on business. I am very pleased to see him here because not very often do we get to speak directly to some of our constituents. I am very pleased that he is here. I am not sure if he is impressed or not, but we will see what happens during the course of my remarks.

This co-op bill is one which I think has gone through a very comprehensive process in terms of looking at how we can modernize co-ops, how we can assist them in meeting some of these very significant economic global challenges.

I am pleased to note the co-operative manner in which the needs of the Manitoba and Alberta pools were negotiated with other members of the co-op movement so that a jointly recommended amendment could be proposed in the industry committee at clause by clause and it was basically approved. In addition, there were a further five technical amendments at committee and two more technical amendments at report stage in the House which all parties supported.

Before getting into more of those items, I want to talk very briefly about another example of how important co-ops were in Saskatchewan in particular. That is my example because I represent a constituency in Saskatchewan.

There was a problem a number of years ago with gas pricing and oil pricing and availability of energy in our province. The large oil companies, Imperial Oil and Shell, had the refineries and they were gouging our farmers. They could not get their crops in the fields and seeded because of the high prices. There was a huge hurdle to farming economically in our province.

In the 1940s a number of people got together and put together about $40,000. They established Consumers Co-operative Refineries Limited. In essence using resources that they collected in their own neighbourhoods and communities in the province of Saskatchewan, they built from scratch the Consumers Co-operative Refineries which still exists today.

As a matter of fact, the refinery is valued at somewhere around $1 billion Canadian. It refines about 50,000 barrels of oil on a daily basis. It not only has a refining capacity, but it has an upgrading capacity as well. It can take the very thick crude and upgrade it through a process, and then refine it in a refinery which is right next to it and make all the things that are made from a barrel of oil. Many people do not realize that 10,000 different products can be made from a barrel of oil.

What I am getting at is that the people of Saskatchewan were confronted with the problem of price gouging. They developed a technology among themselves. They collected their own resources and built a refinery to the point now where it is worth a significant amount to our economy. It employs about 250 people annually.

The president of the union is the spouse of my constituency assistant. His name is Bob Johnson. Bob has been president before, but remains president of the union. With his colleagues at the co-op refinery, he contributes significantly to the economy of our province. They are able to do this as a result of significantly strong co-operative principles. I remind members that those principles are based on the fact that individuals can do collectively what they cannot do individually. This is an example that has been very significant in our province.

Another example I want to share with my colleagues in the House of Commons and other people who are watching is that the co-op movement is not dying. It is actually a very strong, vibrant, growing movement not only in Canada but in other parts of the world.

As a matter of fact, I was visiting one of the 37 communities in my constituency, the community of Strasbourg just last spring. At a public meeting there were a number of speakers. One of the speakers was from the co-op college at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. There was a slide show. It was about the new economic approach in the land of free enterprise, the United States of America, to solve some of the unemployment problems, to solve some of the dying rural community problems in the United States of America.

The slide show was about the co-op movement that is a “new” economic utensil the Americans are now discovering and using quite dramatically in a very positive way. The slide show talked about a midwestern community with a population of about 6,000. It had had a very significant decline in its population over the years. It was in the midwest in an agricultural community. Young people were being educated and then were moving to other parts of the United States and finding jobs and earning a living.

As a group of people who got together as a community they asked, how do we stop this drain of our young people? How do we stop the drain of jobs from our community? How do we enhance and prop up and get our rural economy back on its feet? Somebody had the bright idea of forming a co-op.

They formed a co-op and started with a bison farm. They started raising bisons in a co-operative way. Then they expanded to hog production, to grain and to a furniture factory. They started a co-op for house building and contracting and also established a buying co-op where they could buy materials at contractor prices.

With respect to Bill C-5, this is a very applicable example. This shows that Bill C-5 which we are talking about today is modernizing the approach and the economic tools that co-ops can use similar to those in the midwestern American city I am talking about where they discovered this new movement of co-operation.

Do you know what that community is doing now? They are hiring the children of the founders of this co-op for jobs which pay very significantly. They are managing these hog production plants. They are managing the grain and farm production operations. They are managing the furniture factory and other factories they have established on a co-operative basis.

Of course at the slide presentation in Strasbourg, Saskatchewan, everybody at the public meeting was saying, “We have been members of co-ops for 50 years. That is exactly what we have been doing and that is how we have been able to sustain a reasonable quality of life in our community”. I might say that Strasbourg is a very significant community in my constituency.

As my party's spokesperson for co-ops I have been contacted by a number of co-op members in particular on this bill, many of whom support the bill but a few of them do not. Let me take a few minutes now to address some of their concerns which were brought to my attention.

In the first place, some were merely the result of some misinformation, for example, that the bill applied to all co-ops or that it compelled all co-ops to raise investment equity. In fact as we know, the bill applies to only about 51 federally chartered non-financial co-ops as did its 1970 predecessor. It does not compel any of them to pursue any financing option their members have not already approved. It simply enables them to choose from a few more options.

It is also true that a few people philosophically do not believe a co-op should raise investment capital. It is a deeply held conviction of a minority of people who are also uncomfortable with changes at the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. Of course, for members who might recall this, the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool is provincially chartered so that when the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool wanted to expand its economic base to pursue value added processing of its primary production of grain and hogs and cattle and other things, they decided to expand in a number of areas.

The members of the co-op who control the co-op decided that they would go to the markets. They made an amendment to provincial legislation, as we are doing with this Bill C-5 for other co-ops, to enable them to go to the market for more capital. I might add that since this was done the shares of Sask Wheat Pool have increased in value. The members of the wheat pool who did not buy shares still control the company. The wheat pool is actually doing a very good job.

As a matter of fact just yesterday it was announced that the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool which is the principal shareholder of Fletcher Meats has now bought Harvest Meats, a meat processing factory in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. It employs a number of people and is a very successful plant.

That adds value to the products which members of the wheat pool and other farmers in Saskatchewan believe are important to our economy. It adds value in the sense that it provides jobs to people living in Saskatchewan. It also provides more profits for those who are members of the pool from which patronage can be shared.

Patronage of course in a co-op is different than patronage in the Government of Canada. Patronage in the Government of Canada is where the government of the day appoints people of its liking to highly paid positions. In many cases they are not accountable but they perform functions in the country. Patronage in a co-op is when a member supports the co-op and purchases goods from the co-op. They patronize the co-op and earn some value from doing that. When they leave the co-op they have an asset which is theirs as a result of their patronizing their co-op.

With respect to the wheat pool, I believe that members of the large co-ops, the ones which are federally charted, since they carry out business in more than one province, need to have some choices available to them to take on the multinationals which are increasingly taking them on.

I was speaking with the minister of agriculture for Saskatchewan, Eric Upshall, the other day about this debate. He pointed out that the wheat pool has been responsible for millions of dollars of investment coming into our province in the last few years which as a result has created many jobs. He told me about a number of the details, one of which I shared with the House a few moments ago.

At the same time the pool's market has been targeted by the American multinational Archer-Daniels-Midland. The pool has needed to finance the upgrading of a lot of its capital to meet this challenge, at the very time when a large number of farmers are retiring and withdrawing their capital from the pools.

I also believe the co-op movement has demonstrated that the majority of its members support having this option available to them under Bill C-5.

Evidence was presented before the industry committee about the extent of the consultation process undertaken in the co-op sector prior to the tabling of a model bill with the government.

A first round of consultations took place at the grassroots level about what changes were needed in the bill. This resulted in the development of a first position, which was then sent back for a second round of consultations, all within the co-op movement. After the co-ops and the federal Department of Industry and the co-op secretariat at the Department of Agriculture agreed to a draft piece of legislation, industry and the co-op secretariat then conducted a round of national consultation hearings themselves.

The resulting legislation is thus the product of consultation, consensus, constructive engagements and co-operation. Such a process does not guarantee unanimity, but I believe it reflects a sincerely genuine effort to obtain the input and support of as many co-op members as possible.

The bill also greatly strengthens the rights of co-op members. I am sure that co-op members of all points of view will be making use of these rights if their co-ops debate such new approaches and agree to pursue them under Bill C-5.

In summary, on behalf of the New Democratic Party, we would like to see this bill move forward as quickly as possible. We applaud the efforts of co-ops across the country to bring forward proposals to modernize their governing legislation and to meet the challenge of taking on the multinationals which are increasingly moving into Canadian markets.

We support a vibrant and thriving co-op movement and believe this bill will assist in enhancing that goal.

[Division No. 59, December 4th, 1997]

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

[Division No. 58, December 4th, 1997]

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

[Division No. 57, December 4th, 1997]

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

[Division No. 56, December 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, NDP members present are voting yes on this motion.

[Division No. 55, December 4th, 1997]

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

[Division No. 54, December 4th, 1997]

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

[Division No. 53, December 4th, 1997]

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