Allan Kerpan

[Lee Bellows, April 25th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, this past weekend I had the opportunity to meet a friend of mine, Mr. Lee Bellows of Moose Jaw. Mr. Bellows has been involved in the sport of rodeo for many years.

Lee Bellows is highly respected in Saskatchewan for his common sense and great wit. Mr. Bellows is also a cowboy poet. On his behalf I would like to quote a few of his thoughts:

What's your thoughts on gun control? They ask, but they don't hear. They run 'round "chicken little style" and share with us their fear. I've done a bunch of ponderin', and its become plain to see the controlling of my old rifle would be the best if left to me. Your logic misses the point, my friends. Don't inflict your values on to me. Life's different where the pavement ends and you know what's bothering me Well, I'll tell you with this rhyme, You've went and gone and convicted me, befor' I done the crime.

[Farm Improvement And Marketing Cooperatives Loans Act, April 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to clarify for my hon. colleague that my criticism is not against increasing the limit to $3 billion. I understand the need and necessity for it. My only concern was that we were using band-aid measures and we could do far more to improve the situation if we opened it up and looked at the whole picture.

[Farm Improvement And Marketing Cooperatives Loans Act, April 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of comments for the hon. member for Souris-Moose Mountain. We are seeing a classic case of the government trying to close the door after the horse has escaped. I get back to what I said a few moments ago. I would like the member to comment on my idea.

Why could the government not support the idea of consolidating the three or four federal programs to offer lending assistance to the agricultural industry?

It is well known that the Farm Credit Corporation exists. Why do we not remove the other two bureaucracies, the Small

Businesses Loans Act and the Farm Improvement Loans Act, and put them under the umbrella of the Farm Credit Corporation?

It would seem a government guarantee to other lending institutions is a conflict in one way because we would be in direct competition with the Farm Credit Corporation. What does the member think about the idea of consolidation and removal of duplication?

[Farm Improvement And Marketing Cooperatives Loans Act, April 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, as I listened to the debate I asked myself why we are here, why we have heard, as we have so often in the past, of amendments to particular bills or new legislation being introduced.

I would criticize the government for dodging what I think is the big issue. If I talk about the farm improvement loans act, I will not be specifically critical. By and large it has been a good program, as has been mentioned today. Especially in my province of Saskatchewan it has been very well received and very well used. The parliamentary secretary to the minister is absolutely correct. The default rate is not very high when one considers the amount of money lent through that program.

As I said before, perhaps the big picture or the issue is being dodged or avoided to some extent. I refer to what my colleague from the Bloc had to say. For obvious reasons the member from the Bloc has different plans, different hopes and aspirations for his province than I do for mine. I find myself agreeing very much with what he said today when he talked about the duplication and the overlap of these types of programs.

In Saskatchewan if farmers wanted to borrow money with some sort of government assistance or help they could look at this current program, the farm improvement loans act, small business loans, the Farm Credit Corporation or, only in Saskatchewan, the Agriculture Credit Corporation of Saskatchewan. A farmer has his or her option of four different areas or wickets, as my friend from the Bloc said, from which to borrow this money. I ask myself why. I see no reason for four different bureaucracies to get the same end result.

If I look back on the motion I put forward which is before the House now, one of the basic pillars my motion is built on is to reduce duplication and overlap and to bring the services that cannot be privatized into the lowest or the most local department for delivery of programs or services.

I do not think anybody would deny farmers need access to capital for the financing of their endeavours just as any other business does. Because of the unique characteristics of agriculture with its exposure to unique risks, the private financial services industry has at times been reluctant to provide the services farmers and agri-food businesses need. The unique risks the farming industry faces are related to being very much at the mercy of mother nature and the fact that for the most part we produce perishable goods that must be moved quickly to market and sold.

In our integrated global trading environment where food and non-food products are shipped across our borders, our oceans, our skies and our land, a natural disaster such as a drought, a flood or a hailstorm in one part of the world could create shortages that farmers somewhere else must fill.

The international agricultural marketplace can thus be very volatile and is affected from year to year by price hikes and price drops, by supply gluts and supply shortages. These unique facts of life that farmers face create unique financial needs that some financial services provider must fill.

Our discussion about farm financing should centre around asking the simple question: How can our society and our world best serve the financial needs of the agriculture industry and thus ensure that we have a safe, stable, affordable, and abundant food supply?

Generally, farmers and agri-businesses have proven over the years to be good borrowers to meet the terms and conditions of their loans on time and in full. As the parliamentary secretary has mentioned, that is the case in this program.

There have been years in which an onslaught of unfortunate disasters has occurred that has stretched farmers' income and expenditure balance sheets to the very limit. At times like these, provincial and federal governments have stepped in with emergency aid because the public's interest for a stable food supply has been put at risk.

I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, after spending my entire life in the farming industry, that no farmer wants government handouts. No farmer wants government to be his full time partner in business. We have said over and over again in this House that farmers, just like other business entrepreneurs, want governments off their backs and out of their pockets. We want lower taxes and input costs. We want a streamlined and efficient regulatory process. We want governments to negotiate good trade deals and to open up access to marketplaces so that we can develop to our full potential as world competitors.

What concerns me about legislation such as Bill C-75 is that government is stepping in and taking a role that the private financial services industry could and perhaps should provide. As long as this government or any government continues to

participate in this kind of financial activity, I do not believe that the private sector will ever become motivated enough or competitive enough to provide the financial services the agriculture sector needs. Why should it?

It also strikes me as ironic that the private sector would actually have the level of confidence in the federal government as its guarantor that it appears to have. I know the federal government will certainly have about $120 billion worth of tax revenue this year and that the $3 billion in loan guarantees that this act provides for is probably sound, even if it were all to be defaulted upon, which of course it will not be. This type of financial arrangement does raise the ironic question of how an organization that is $550 billion in debt and that will pay almost $50 billion this year in interest payments can be counted upon as a guarantor of anything.

It is the government that is in debt trouble and in need of a bail out, not the the farmers or the lenders. We might have the cart before the horse in this case.

Therefore I would assert that it is time to ask the question about what the proper approach to financial services for the agriculture sector is. Should government be increasing loan guarantee programs at this time? How can it really be a guarantor of premium quality when its own finances are in such bad shape? Should not the government rather be encouraging the private financial services industry to serve the agriculture industry?

I believe there would be financial companies that would move into this service market, competition would be introduced, and farmers would therefore get good service. The government should clearly indicate to the private sector what it sees as its limits of involvement and then develop policy in that direction.

There is no free lunch. As individuals, farmers, business people or whoever we are, we will all pay for the goods or services that we need. If we get what we need from the private sector we will pay in dollars. If we get it from the public sector we will pay in tax dollars. Mr. Speaker, it is a crying shame that my children and yours are going to have to pay back the $550 billion debt that we now owe for services that we enjoyed. Debt is nothing other than deferred taxes and the intergenerational transfer of financial obligation.

I ask you, Mr. Speaker, before this problem gets worse, might this Parliament not be the one that recognizes the importance of a clear and better division of responsibilities between the private and the public sectors, between paying by taxes or by dollars. Surely, we should not simply approve this bill or any other like it before asking how much it will cost, how are we going to pay, and is there a better way to do this. If generational stewardship and self-responsibility mean anything, surely we must ask these questions and seek the best answers.

Government must no longer be allowed to continue to grind along day after day, year after year, program after program as a self-contained and self-propagating industry, completely insulated from and oblivious to the long-term consequences of its actions. We either repair and fix our economic house now or our children are going to have to fix it-or it is going to have to be fixed for us by outside sources.

At committee stage of Bill C-75, my Reform colleagues and I want to talk about these matters. We believe that there may be some amendments to this bill that would be in order. We will listen to what other members have to say, what the officials have to say. But rest assured that we will press forward and onward as Reformers in the last decade of this century and this millennium to ensure that our children are not saddled with the catastrophic results of irresponsible actions that we the parents take.

In conclusion, I want to say that the criticism of this amendment to Bill C-75 is not one that would see this act replaced. It is an act that could simply be consolidated, as I mentioned before, with the Small Businesses Loans Act, perhaps put under the auspices of the Farm Credit Corporation, if that is the most efficient and most effective way to do it, and get rid of the huge bureaucracies, as my colleague from the Bloc mentioned.

There are three federal bureaucracies in Saskatchewan. I firmly believe that at least one and most likely two of those could be eliminated. All those types of lending guarantees that the federal government produces for the farm industry should be carefully examined. The big picture of this issue must be looked at, not simply a band-aid measure to make an amendment.

The parliamentary secretary is correct in saying that if we do not make this amendment the program will have to be delayed for two years. However, we can do better than that simply by opening up what we believe and perceive to be a strangulation of the system by effectively not being prepared to look at consolidation and removal of duplication.

As I mentioned, my colleagues and I will be preparing amendments for committee stage of this bill. We would ask that the government and the official opposition would support and work with us on any amendments that would make our system more cost-efficient and effective.

[Rail Strike, March 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, this 35th Parliament has an enormous responsibility to get Canada's economic, democratic, constitutional and criminal justice policies in order. The clock is ticking on all fronts.

This is why many Canadians were upset with the recent political manoeuvring by which the House was delayed in passing back to work legislation on the rail strike.

Farmers lost sales, mines laid off workers, manufacturing plants shut down and our export customers were again forced to look to other countries for supplies.

Labour management disputes must be settled through an improved collective bargaining process. Canadians were disappointed that the Liberal government defeated Reform's final offer selection private members' bill and yet the very next day ran into the political squalls of the Bloc and the NDP.

Let us learn our lessons and make the system work better in the future.

[Grain Export Protection Act, March 20th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud and honoured today to rise in this House and give my full support to Bill C-262 which was presented by the hon. member for Lethbridge.

The timing of this particular debate in the House is absolutely perfect. We are sandwiched between back to work legislation which occurred last Wednesday and certainly the potential of another forthcoming round of back to work legislation in the rail industry. We could not have asked for a better time to talk about this ongoing problem which has occurred many times in the history of western Canada as far as the agriculture business goes.

Today I would like to do something just a little bit different. Rather than dwell on how the innocent third party is affected by this proposed legislation, I would like to look at all aspects. I would like to look at how this would affect labour and management and also of course, how it would affect the third party, in this case, the shipper.

I want to talk about how this would affect the shipper in this case. In my position I am most familiar with how it would affect the agriculture industry in Saskatchewan particularly in Moose Jaw-Lake Centre.

I want to look back at the labour dispute in Vancouver a little over a year ago. We looked at something like 11 days of tie ups. The grain industry never recovered all summer from that labour dispute. I know that firsthand. I live about two and a half miles from the grain elevators in my home town and our community never recovered and Saskatchewan never recovered from that short labour tie up.

I also looked at some of the evidence I received in the last few days. There is a statement from Mr. Blair Wright of Olds, Alberta, an alfalfa dehydrator. He said that his company was just beginning to make inroads to Japan. He estimated that he lost $500,000 in revenue during that shut down in Vancouver last year.

He also said that the Japanese businessmen he deals with stated they cannot understand why Canada allows such destruction of its export business. Mr. Wright is obviously concerned that he will lose his Asian markets entirely for this emerging product. He also stated that the American ports on the west coast are actively promoting their continuous delivery to Asian markets. The port of Vancouver has the potential to lose major customers if this government does not take legal means to prevent further labour disruption.

I also talked to alfalfa dehydrators in Saskatchewan last week. They told me that a labour dispute of one week is an annoyance. A labour dispute of two weeks inflicts serious pain on their industry. Anything longer than a two week labour dispute is a complete disaster to the industry.

With regard to things like canola prices, although they may not be directly affected, on Monday, March 13 the price of canola was $9.44 in my hometown. By Wednesday morning it had dropped to $9.20, a drop of some 24 cents. Is that directly related to labour problems? Perhaps some of it could be related.

Having said that, I look at the innocent third party, the shipper. I know this piece of legislation would do the job to alleviate those types of problems and frustrations. I look at labour and the unions. There have been arguments in this House that it is not fair to labour to have final offer selection. I do not agree with that. I see what long term labour disputes do to labour. I have seen it in my home area of Moose Jaw.

There have been two major strikes at Moose Jaw Sash and Door. The people were on strike or locked out for more than three years. The company ended up closing its doors. Did that help labour? No.

Moose Jaw meat packers were on strike for some 18 months recently. I had the opportunity to drive by their strike location many times. These people were playing horseshoes and cards because there was no work to do. Did that help those people? No. The labour dispute did not solve one thing for labour in that instance. I talked to many people on the line. They were willing to go back to work. They wanted to go back to work, to some real work. There is no way in the world they could ever hope to recoup any of the financial loss they faced by being out on strike for so long.

Looking at that, labour is in a no win situation. In a discussion paper written by Mr. Errol Black and Mr. Jim Silver, they quote the idea of final offer selection. They say: "The fact is that final offer selection is aimed at a real need, namely, the problems of workers in weak bargaining units".

They go on to say: "Final offer selection provides such workers with an alternative to strikes which they have little chance of winning. Any repeal of final offer selection", which by the way is in place in Manitoba, "and this problem-unionizing and winning gains for workers in weak bargaining positions-will remain". This is more evidence that long labour tie ups have a harmful negative effect on workers.

I want to talk about management, or the businesses and companies. When they face long term labour disputes either by strike or lockout it really disrupts the orderly flow of any product. Again, in this case I look at agriculture products from Saskatchewan to either Vancouver or Thunder Bay. When we see

a tie up like that, there is no way in the world to recoup financially those losses faced in a very short period of time.

I look back to last year's labour dispute and remember talking to people in the grain industry. They said there was no way in the world they could catch up to what they had lost in a very short time. Those effects are felt immediately.

I spoke earlier about the labour dispute at Moose Jaw Sash and Door. That company was locked out and on strike for so long that it closed its doors. The company is no longer in existence. Did that solve any problems for the good of business? I do not think so. That is why we have to look at some alternative to bring this thing together so that we do not have these problems as time goes on.

If we talked to all three parties we could sell them on the idea for final offer selection and for this bill. In my mind, as a farmer from central Saskatchewan, as my colleague mentioned before, I have seen the effects firsthand of these types of labour disputes. We never recover from them.

My colleague across the way said we cannot call this an essential service. I am not calling it an essential service, but it is essential to the livelihood and future of those people in my province. Their financial lives, perhaps not their physical lives, depend on getting their products from their farm gate to the port. That is the way we do business in Saskatchewan. That is the way we make our living. If that is interrupted then it is essential in my mind because it has a very far ranging, serious effect on my livelihood.

In conclusion, again I would urge all members of this House to support this legislation. It is the first real positive step I have seen since I have been in this House to eliminate a big, broad problem with a wide ranging approach, a fair approach and an approach that makes a lot of common sense to me.

[West Coast Ports Operations Act, 1995, March 15th, 1995]

Mr. Chairman, I was sitting here just a few minutes ago wondering why I was happy to be here at seven minutes after nine on a Wednesday evening. I just realized what it was. I get to sit in the front row once a year. However, that is hardly reason enough to be here once a year; to pass back to work legislation in labour disputes.

Many of the points I want to make this evening to the government and to the opposition have already been made so I will dispense with them. However, there are a couple of questions and a couple of concerns that I do have with this legislation and I would like to spend a few minutes asking a couple of questions.

Before I do that, I had a letter handed to me today from an alfalfa dehydrator in Olds, Alberta. I think it is worthwhile reading it into the record tonight. It is an obvious concern from people in that industry who go through these types of labour disputes on an almost regular basis. Certainly they have concern for the future of their businesses whenever they see one coming down the road.

I will read this letter, if I may:

If in any small way my name or the name of my company can stop the insane abuse of power a very few people have over so many others, please use them.

In our industry Canada only has a 3 per cent market share. The U.S.A. has 85 per cent, China and Australia have about 5 per cent each. The Americans cannot be happier, they probably will sell lots more product now and will lock in more future sales because of Canada's poor track record and reliability and with no future end in sight to the strikes. My customers from Japan ask, "How can we be so stupid?" "If you cannot supply them we have no choice". Americans will win again, not because they are better, more competitive, or have better quality but through default.

If the Dominion of Canada wants me to pay taxes and to help fight the deficit, please help me deliver products I have sold. End this strike forever.

It is signed: "A discouraged export business owner". His name is Blair Wright from Olds, Alberta.

The reason I read that is that I think it is critical. I echo the words of my colleagues who have said that we cannot continue to work under this system. I encourage the minister to develop some sort of system. I encourage her to do that in order to pre-empt these types of labour disputes. As the member of

Parliament for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre, I would offer my support to the minister and I would be prepared to help in any way I can to make that happen.

The two questions I would like to ask the minister on the legislation are, first, why are the Montreal docks not included in this legislation? Second, if the Reform Party had been drafting this legislation it would have removed section 8 and replaced it with final offer selection, which has been discussed here before.

I want to be very clear about this. I talked to the minister's officials before the debate began tonight. I understand that the reason behind not using final offer selection is that it was used about a year ago in a labour dispute that was then ongoing. I understand and I accept what they have told me.

However, I would like to ask the minister if she believes that final offer selection could be useful at some point in this process. Would she commit the mediator-arbitrator to move to final offer selection at some point in this process if it is necessary?

[The Budget, February 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, a certain member of this House has recently reminded Canadians that he was Minister of Finance during the years 1977, 1978 and 1979. The budget deficits for those three years were $10.4 billion, $12.6 billion, and $11.5 billion for a three year total of $34.5 billion.

One can add up the budget deficits from 1976 all the way back to 1954, the first post-war budget deficit year, and only get to a total of $25.9 billion.

History tells us that two Liberal finance ministers went on a spending spree and overspent more in three years than their predecessors had overspent in 21 years. Canadians turfed that irresponsible government out in 1979.

Do you know who the Minister of Finance was for the 1978 and 1979 budgets? Why of course, it was the present Prime Minister. This country cannot afford the kind of experience that was brought to us by the present Prime Minister.

[Petitions, February 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the fourth petition is signed by 39 constituents of Moose Jaw-Lake Centre who pray that Parliament ensure that the present provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada prohibiting assisted suicide be enforced vigorously.

[Petitions, February 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, in the third petition, which is signed by 40 constituents of Moose Jaw-Lake Centre, they ask Parliament not to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in any way which would tend to indicate societal approval of same sex relationships and/or homosexuality.