Roy H. Bailey

[Canada Transportation Act, June 14th, 2000]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I was saying, this was a good committee, but I want to point out and make it very clear that the passage of this bill, and why we are supporting this bill, is not so much the content but the emergency that goes with it.

As Justice Estey said in committee, there is no choice. He said it is like having a gun at your head. When I asked the hon. justice what he thought about what the government had done to his recommendations, he said that it had every right to do so, but only 1 per cent. The government did exactly the opposite of what the hon. justice wanted.

I also want to make it abundantly clear that our support for this is for the short term gain, but there is going to be long term pain. Make no mistake about it. This bill will be back before the House within a year. The way the bill stands now, it does not address agriculture in the year 2000 on the prairies.

Even members in the caucus opposite knew what was wrong. They wanted a complete and open commercial system, but somehow through the back door they said “No, no, no”. It is all right for the potash companies to have an open agreement with the railways. It is all right for the coal companies to have an open agreement with the railways. But over 50% of all the money realized from the sale of farm commodities on the prairies today does not come from board grains handled by the wheat board. No consideration was given to that fact.

There was even an attempt to blame us for bringing in amendments, such as that brought by the member for Brandon—Souris, to bring the meaning of shipper into the year 2000. They said “No, we are trying to get at the wheat board”. The wheat board does not handle the goods whatsoever for which we wanted that meaning.

This reminds me of the poem about Casey at the bat. There was no joy in Mudville because mighty Casey struck out.

I was home on the weekend. There are some very disappointed producers who really thought the Estey and Kroeger report was going to go through. There is no joy in the producers, those same producers who appeared before the committee, the canola people who lost millions of dollars because for some reason there were four or five long trains backed up in Vancouver and their goods could not get to port.

When I asked in committee whose fault that was, there was no question it was the wheat board's fault. That is what they said; I did not say that.

What was the opinion of the majority of the people who came before the committee? The vast majority of people who came before our committee, the five major grain companies, basically said we should scrap the whole bill. That is why I say that this bill will be back before this house.

The individual producers, and there are going to be more of them, are worried because now the wheat board is taking on more of a role even to control the transportation industry.

The railways said if what is wanted is to save the farmers a lot of money in freight, as well as the grain companies, the five major grain companies which handle over 90% of all the grain, then let us go to an open accountable freight system. Somehow the wisdom opposite was to say no, they do not trust the people who handle more than 90% of the grain. They do not trust the pulse growers. They do not trust the canola growers. They do not trust anyone but themselves. And they do not trust the railways. Which stakeholders are left?

The government promised money for roads. I want to put it on the record that the money that has been allocated for prairie roads is going to be a pittance to what the government should have done with this bill and gone to an open commercialized system.

The day will come when those same people will not grow products that go to the wheat board because they do not trust it. That was the reason for Estey in the first place. I am not trying to condemn the wheat board. I am not trying to come through the back door or anything. All I am saying is I respect the grain producers, the barley producers, the pulse growers and the canola growers. I respect all of those farm organizations, the majority of which said to scrap the bill.

It makes good sense to get those points across. The majority of the witnesses and the majority of the stakeholders disagreed big time with this bill. We do have a gun at our heads. Therefore, we have decided that for temporary gain and the long term pain that could well be experienced by the producers, we will support the bill. But let the record clearly show that the Canadian Alliance pointed out the need to bring grain transportation into the year 2000 and not take it back to 1945.

We are going backward; we are not moving ahead, as the minister said. The move that was put into this bill is a concession by those people who want full commercialization. Those people said they will concede that and give a little bit of money and have 25% going into a tendering process and then it is not between the grain companies and the railways.

I have been living with this issue since 1996, a good year before I came to the House. No one in the House has been around and watched the failures of the grain handling system more than I have. I am not bragging, it is just a fact. It is just my age.

We had an opportunity to do something. We had an opportunity to move into the new century, but no, we had to play a little politics here. That is exactly what we did.

If I am still around and I suspect that I will be, we will be back debating this bill within a year's time because it is doomed to fail.

Who will take the blame the next time the canola or pulse shippers' cars cannot get to Vancouver because of unnecessary grain cars with no boats in the harbour? Who will take the blame for that? Nobody took the blame last time. It is always the railways' fault. The railways were told to take the grain there, but there can never be anybody but the railways to take all of the blame.

I am not here to support the railways. I am simply saying that for centuries now, when anything goes wrong it is blamed on the railways. As I said in a speech over a year ago, in our part of the country when the kids are in grade 6, part of the curriculum is how to hate the railways.

It is time we became honest with ourselves and with all of the stakeholders. This bill has not been honest with all of the stakeholders. This bill scrapped what the government spent thousands and thousands of dollars on simply because it was a good idea. We were ready for the 20th century, but somebody was not.

We will be back; I will be back. And let me say that the next time we are back on this issue, we will do it right. That will be the last time. We did not do it right the first time.

[Canada Transportation Act, June 14th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, it is with some sadness that I stand at this time. I want to join with the minister, however, in congratulating the men and women who served on the transport committee. I think it was a very good committee. The hearings were good, we heard good witnesses and we had good discussion and good debate.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House to share my time with the hon. member for Lethbridge.

[Immigration And Refugee Protection Act, June 1st, 2000]

Madam Speaker, following on my colleagues I think it would be best if I asked a question in relation to Bill C-31. We have had many different waves of immigration in our history. From the Irish to the Chinese, to The Last Best West , we have had waves and waves of immigration. Why is it that in the last 10 or 15 years we have had more problems than in the previous 150 years? That is the question Canadians want addressed.

To try to make the claim that this party is against immigration is absolutely false. We have to put this department in its proper place so that it can function properly. On a scale of one to ten Canadians might rate health care at five or police protection at two, but when it comes to immigration Canadians probably rate it at minus three.

Two doctors in my constituency, a husband and wife, were brought into the country. They laboured long and hard, day in and day out. They applied to go back to South Africa for a break and tried to get a permit to re-enter Canada. They were two very honourable and trained physicians.

I will find out this weekend when I return home if they were allowed re-entry into Canada. They have tried their very best. They came to their member of parliament. I tried everything I could, and finally on the day of the departure they said if they were denied they would never return to Canada. These people came here and slaved it out in our hospitals, and that is the kind of treatment they receive.

I will give one more example. Last week a girl in Ukraine had gone through everything legally. She travelled 12 hours on the train to Kiev. When she got there she thought all her papers would be in order. Instead of just walking up and taking a card for the line up to get in the queue, she had to buy a place in the line in front of the Canadian embassy, right before the immigration officials. What made it worse was that her application form was stamped rejected before she even completed the inquiry.

I could go on, but this is what Canadians are telling me. Like my colleague for Cypress Hills—Grasslands, I find these people come to their members of parliament when everything else breaks down.

Every case has been proven to be overly bureaucratic and prone to excessive legal delays. Why is it that we are so absolutely tough and ignore those people who not only would make good citizens but are well trained and ready for a job in Canada. One gentleman said:

Unless this department becomes more effective in implementing better management, better training, better auditing and more enforcement within the system, it will continue to fail Canadians.

I do not know why the government keeps bragging about this department. It is atrocious. I have files in my constituency to prove that this is so.

Another person who recently came to this country said, “The integrity of Canada's immigration system to protect yourselves from crime, terrorists and people smuggling is disgraceful”. As my hon. colleague just mentioned, when we pick up the paper, it is unbelievable to see who is granted status immediately when they come into the country. Yet, there is file after file on people who have been denied access and on cases which are still being looked at.

What do Canadians want? We want the system we had in the last century that brought people into the country. We had no immigration problems with law. We had no immigration problems with unemployment. What do we have to have? We want an immigration system that will accommodate independent immigrants. We want the process of coming in to be improved. Not only that, we do not want them to suffer unnecessary delays. We need these people because they quickly add to our economy. We welcome genuine refugees. They know and have been told all around the world to get their feet on Canadian soil and they will be protected by the charter. Our legal immigrants do not even like what they see. Those who have come here are insulted by this. The government has failed to deliver what Canadians want and expect of this department.

In attempting to be all things to all people, we have disgraced immigration in Canada. We need to take the bill back, redraw it and go outside this Chamber to get information from people who are concerned about immigration. We are not doing it. Until we make big changes to this bill and to the approach taken by the department, we will continue to have an immigration scandal well into this century as well.

[Canada Transportation Act, June 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, this bill will not bring grain transportation into this century. As a matter of fact, I would suggest that this bill demonstrates the failure of the government to honestly look at the recommendations of Estey and Kroeger. It has really put those recommendations through the shredder. It has paid little or no attention to them.

It is bad enough for the farmers in western Canada, who are fighting a subsidy war, to have their input costs driven up 98%, but I want to look at a few other figures to demonstrate what has happened in the last 15 years. Grain elevation costs are up 52%. Canadian Wheat Board costs are up 56%. With all due respect to the big bad railways, their freight rate has actually decreased, due to other measures, some 5%.

I mentioned one time in a speech in the House that when a person is in grade six in Saskatchewan they have to take as part of the curriculum a course to learn to hate the railways. Again, that is a very popular theme. However, let us say that both Canadian Pacific and Canadian National are not so irate as the minister mentioned because of the forced 18% reduction. What they are irate about is that they are being forced into a contractual agreement not with the elevator companies, not with the grain companies, but with a government agency. That is what is wrong.

Would the minister of minerals interfere with potash or coal? Would the minister interfere with the shipment of those products to market? No way. That is exactly what Justice Estey and Mr. Kroeger recommended. Get out of it. Both the CPR and the CNR would tell us “Give us a completely commercialized system and we will show you further freight rate reductions”. That is what Justice Estey said.

What happened? His report was put through the shredder. I have given credit to the transport minister. However, he had to concede to his colleagues, and that is too bad.

I suggest to everyone in the House that the amount of money which will be saved because of the 18% reduction will be short lived. I also suggest that in a few short years we will be right back discussing this issue in the House again.

I acknowledge what the minister said about the memorandum of understanding. I would have liked to have had that sooner. If the Canadian Wheat Board is to enter into the negotiation process through the ports of Vancouver, Prince Rupert, Thunder Bay and Churchill, then I want to get into the age-old problem of who decides which port. It has been said that wheat is 16% protein and the rest is politics. Now it will become more politics, not less.

Let me give the House an example. If we have a sale of No. 2 milling flour for the Asian market, it is then up to anyone who has any degree of responsibility to move that shipment and the tonnage required through the port which will represent the least cost. If it should happen to be that the least cost would be to ship it through Prince Rupert, that is where it should go. If, for instance, they are servicing the South American market and that same grain can be moved at a reduction in the freight cost through Port Churchill, then that is where it should go. That has not happened in the past and I do not think it will happen in the future. I know that is not in the best interests of those who produce the grain.

It might be of interest to know that the same union which handles the facilities at Lakehead is the same union that handles the facilities at Port Churchill. They hate each other now. They do not want each other to have any more grain. Where is the biggest interest? I see my colleague from Thunder Bay. There is more interest in Thunder Bay. There are more MPs. There are more votes. That is where politics gets into grain, and it always has.

No requirements have been specified. There is nothing within this bill in respect of the conduct of the Canadian Wheat Board in the process of tendering or operating under the contractual system. We have some questions.

The wheat board is taking on a new role. It is getting into the shipping business. I would like to ask these questions. Will the wheat board fall under the Canada Transportation Agency? Will it fall under the agency that deals with fairness in competition? To whom will the wheat board report? Certainly not to the House, because information we want from the wheat board is protected under the Privacy Act. It and CSIS are the only two institutions which are so protected.

Will the producers, the grain companies and the railways know outside the tendering process what the implications will be? I understand from the railways that they are going to have to provide to the wheat board certain information which is strictly confidential to the railway's operation, but the wheat board, in turn, does not have to provide that information to the industry. We have a real problem with this.

I would like to talk briefly about the regulatory powers to control car allocation. Gone are the days of the order book. In three years the old block ordering of cars will be obsolete. We are in a brand new era. The wheat board knows exactly what elevator, what commodity, what grain and what type of grain is in every elevator in Saskatchewan and across the west.

All it has to do is provide those elevators, those companies that have the grain, with the shipping order. Let them bid and see who can get the cheapest rate to get that grain to market. That is what the report said. That is what Estey said. That is what Kroeger said. They wanted to bring Canada into this new century. Unfortunately that is not going to happen.

I know that the Minister of Transport's colleague would like us to say that the Canadian Alliance is going to oppose the bill. That is what he would like but he is not going to fool anyone. We are going to oppose the bill through motions in committee. We will support the bill because it is the end of the crop year and because of the August 1 deadline. It is a temporary measure to save the farmers some money but it is not the answer. We will be back and back until they bring us into this century to provide us with what Kroeger and Justice Estey recommended.

I am sorry the minister did not get his way on this. I wish he had. Certainly the people in western Canada wish he had. They feel very much betrayed by the minister in charge of the wheat board and those ministers opposite who live in the city of Winnipeg. They will not forget this. It will be forever on their minds. I will do my part as a representative not just of my party but of my constituency and those across Canada to let them know that once more the thousands of dollars that went into the report literally went through a paper shredder.

[Canada Transportation Act, June 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is not often that the minister would lead off a debate on a bill like this one, which is probably more important to the people in western Canada than the finance minister's budget speech because they have been waiting for this since 1996.

I want to do something which is rare and congratulate the Minister of Transport. The minister admitted that he does not always get his own way. We in western Canada, all of the farmers in western Canada, wish that he had gotten his own way because the minister tried to bring about what Chief Justice Estey along with Mr. Kroeger recommended. That was denied to him by his seatmate, the minister in charge of the wheat board, and a few Liberals from the city of Winnipeg. That is a fact and it will not be missed by the people of western Canada.

I congratulate the minister for his vision. A minister from the great city of Toronto could see the problems in western Canada, but the minister in charge of the wheat board and other hon. members refused to look at the future.

We are in the year 2000, but this bill in many ways will take us back to the 1950s. Hospitals do not use 1950s X-ray machines. We do not see farmers running around with Massey-Harris 17 combines. We do not see a DC Caterpillar building roads. With this bill the Canadian Wheat Board will be empowered with a role it was never designed to have in the first place. The wheat board will now have a dual role. It will be involved in a more intricate way with transportation.

I watched what happened in 1996 with the railways. For the record, the instructions given by the government to Chief Justice Estey were “To ensure that Canada has the most efficient, viable and competitive grain handling and transportation system”. He did just that. However, when the report came back indicating that there would be more openness and more competitiveness which would allow the grain industry in western Canada to let the wheat board play a role in direct negotiation with the railways, the Minister of Transport got shot down by his own party.

The minister in his speech referred to hundreds of meetings during a two year period. Mr. Estey and Mr. Kroeger never changed their reports. These learned gentlemen recommended in language which everybody understood that Canada needed a commercially driven system. These learned gentlemen were not interested in protecting the status quo. That had failed. They were not interested in protecting an institution. They brought back a report which would ensure that Canada had the most efficient, viable and competitive grain handling and transportation system. These gentlemen were not out to penalize the railways. They wanted the cheapest freight rate possible to deliver grain to market.

I can assure the House that this will not last. This issue will come back to us in a few years. We will have to go through this whole issue again simply because this does not meet the needs of this century.

Mr. Speaker, I forgot to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Selkirk—Interlake, if that is permissible.

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I have enjoyed listening to the comments from that part of Canada. It is rather interesting to compare the thinking in different areas of Canada.

In my province we have two airports, which is all we have ever had and I guess all we can ever expect. The minister and other members mentioned three airports this morning. I believe they were Moncton, Fredericton and Saint John. I can appreciate that those members have the airports, and I hope that they can keep them, but it is very difficult for me to understand the concept of distance. Where I come from the joke is that if our dog runs away we can see the dog going for two days.

I want to draw a comparison here. I come from a rural constituency. If I really step on it I can get to the airport in an hour and a half to two hours, and I am one of the the lucky ones. My colleague from Yorkton—Melville is two to two and a half hours from the airport. My colleague from Cypress Hills—Grasslands is five hours from the airport. In those terms, I have never heard anyone in my province complain about having only two airports.

In getting to the airport, is it the time restraint the member for Fundy—Royal has or is it the mileage? For instance, when I stayed with my brother in Burlington it sometimes took him two hours to get me to Pearson airport.

I think we have to put things in perspective. I am not trying to criticize the hon. member's position. I am just trying to get a picture in my mind of what the problem is with the airports. Is it the distance or the obstacles in getting to the airport?

[Grain Transportation, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, a growing number of motorists and truck drivers in Saskatchewan for safety reasons are choosing the municipal roads for travel instead of the provincial highways.

The provincial highways, handling the increased amount of grain transportation, are deteriorating very rapidly.

Within the proposed grain bill the $175 million to support grain transportation over the next five years simply breaks down to $35 million for the three prairie provinces. Saskatchewan would probably get 60% of that amount, or $21 million a year. If that entire amount were to be spent within my constituency, it would not even bring Highway 13 up to the standards for modern trucking demands.

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it takes a great deal of courage to stand and make a speech like the one of my hon. colleague opposite.

I ask the member to bring forward information on any country in Canada or in Europe that returns to its provinces a mere four cents on the dollar of the excise tax. I can say right now that no country in the world contributes 4% of what is taxed out of motorists and truckers. I would be ashamed to say that the government is marching forward with a vision. That is stealing.

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, there is not a passenger rail system anywhere in the world which does not receive some form of subsidization, even the great passenger rail service in Japan or in France. It does not make any sense to provide a service that would break the country and bring it to its knees.

Let us make it clear. If the most profitable route of passenger rail has to be subsidized by some 40%, what would it cost Canada to return VIA Rail service to all places? We would not have enough money in the whole Department of Transport to keep it going. We have to use logic. I am not against subsidizing transportation, but there comes a point in the philosophy of things that we have to say no.

I do not know of any city in Canada that has a public transportation system which makes money. There may be some but they all receive some subsidy. If we have to spend billions and billions of dollars to provide a passenger rail train which people are not using then governments have to make a decision. They should be subsidized but within reason. That is where the federal, provincial and municipal governments come in.

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, let me make one point clear. I never said that the government should cut back on taxes. It is how it uses the taxes after it gets them. That is the difference.

All I am saying is that if the government wants to keep the federal excise tax on fuel at its present level that is its responsibility. The reason that tax went on in the first place was for highways. There is no question about that. All we are asking for is a mere 25% to go back to highway structure across Canada.

To answer the second part of the member's question, the Canada Health Act was formulated and came into being on the assumption that Canadians would have a universal health system providing that 50% of the funding came from Ottawa. Now we find ourselves in the position where it is not coming from Ottawa. Health care across Canada is in a crisis and the crisis is growing. There is the answer. They cannot have it both ways.