Ray Speaker

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, June 5th, 1995]

moved:

Motion No. 33

That Bill C-76, in Clause 38, be amended by replacing lines 27 to 36, on page 19, with the following:

"direct that any cash contribution under the Canada Health and Social Transfer to that province for a fiscal year be reduced, in respect of each default, by an amount determined by the Federal Court to be appropriate having regard to the gravity of the default pursuant to an application by the Minister, where the Federal Court determines that a default has occurred."

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, June 5th, 1995]

moved:

Motion No. 31

That Bill C-76, in Clause 37, be amended by replacing lines 12 to 24, on page 19, with the following:

"the government of the province shall, at the times and in the manner prescribed by the regulations, provide the Minister with such information, of a type prescribed by the regulations, as the Minister may reasonably require for the purposes of this Act."

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, June 5th, 1995]

moved:

Motion No. 28

That Bill C-76, in Clause 35, be amended by replacing lines 31 and 32, on page 18, with the following:

"must exist before any part of a cash contribution may be withheld."

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, May 31st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I want to speak to the group 3 amendments before us which affect the Western Grain Transportation Act, the National Transportation Act and the Crow rate for the future of western farmers.

Reformers said it very clearly during the election campaign. We were not like the Bloc Quebecois or the Bloc finance critic who stands up and says that they are going to cut certain things in the House of Commons while back in Quebec they talk about greater and more handouts for the people of Quebec.

There is a continual inconsistency. The hon. member has just spoken as the finance critic for the Bloc Quebecois. He talked about not giving the western farmers anything, that the Crow benefit and the Western Grain Transportation Act benefits should be cut off as such. The Bloc wants to cut it off but not give the western farmers any kind of transitional payment whereby they will then take the responsibility of paying the full amount for the freight rate.

Let us look at Quebec. Let us look at some of the tax expenditures that never get raised in the general public. In committee I raised the tax expenditures for the labour venture capital fund, $360 million in terms of tax expenditures. Three hundred million of that is to the people of Quebec. Other Canadians do not benefit from that tax expenditure. In raising the matter in the finance committee I asked the hon. member what he had to say about that because other Canadians are not getting a fair deal. There is a broad base of Quebecers benefiting from this tax expenditure.

One day the hon. member is against tax expenditure when it supposedly relates to the rich or those who are planning for their estates; the next day when it is in their home political ground, it is a great thing to do. The hon. member should think about that when he talks about the benefits the western farmers are going to get with regard to a payout on the Crow rate.

Let us look at that payout. Most likely, some $2.2 billion will be paid out over a two year period. What does it amount to in terms of the farmers of western Canada? It is not a major amount of money. It will be a one time payout, most likely of $16 to $18 per acre. How much money does that really amount to? What will that do for a farm operation? Not very much when putting fertilizer on irrigated land costs $40 to $60 an acre.

What is $18 an acre? The spray for crops costs $5 to $10 an acre. What does that $18 really mean? In that portfolio farmers will have to pick up the major cost of shipping their produce to the coast by rail. They will pay 100 per cent of that in the future.

Within a year the farmers will not be dependent on the federal government for the transportation allowance. Farmers are willing to buy that and accept that responsibility but it does not hurt government when phasing out a program like that to have some type of transitional support system. It has done that and I commend the Liberal government for taking that specific position on this matter.

Although the Crow benefit, the Western Grain Transportation Act, will have an effect on western Canada, we have to look at transportation on a broader base. The government must give some leadership there as well.

When the free market system goes into transportation, the government will have to assure Canadians and assure the western farmers that they have access to alternate routes by which products can be shipped into a variety of markets in the world. That must be looked at.

I raised the question with the minister of agriculture as to whether there were any impediments that would prevent western Canadian farmers from shipping their grain through the railway system or the port system of the United States. I asked whether we could use the Mississippi River to ship our grain if that were a more expedient, more efficient and less costly way of doing it.

The minister has assured me there are no impediments and that we will be able to do that kind of thing. I ask that the government ensure that will happen because we farmers in western Canada will look at innovative ways by which we can market our produce. We will look at the means by which we can come up with different crops. We will diversify our agriculture. That is a spinoff benefit of terminating the western grain transportation allowance and also the Crow benefit. That is a spinoff benefit which will be there. It will restructure agriculture.

It is unfair for a member of the House to say that western farmers should not have any type of transitional compensation to make the adjustment over the next year or two. It is certainly unfair when that member sits in committee and talks about tax expenditures of over $300 million which are specifically targeted at a group within his province, when other Canadians do not have access to those kinds of tax expenditures. It seems to be an attempt to speak in two different arenas. There is one arena here but there is another arena back home that wants to hear those kinds of political words.

We cannot support the amendment of the hon. member for Kamloops. It is a rather traditional approach to what has happened in Canada with respect to transportation. We think changes are needed and we are prepared to support them.

We also oppose vehemently the comments and the amendment put forward by the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot which ask the government to terminate the benefits to western farmers.

That is where we stand. We believe that under those circumstances we can clearly and with good conscience vote as we feel is right.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, May 31st, 1995]

moved:

Motion No. 75

That Bill C-76, in Schedule II, be amended by replacing line 10, on page 47, with following:

"criteria".

Motion No. 76

That Bill C-76, in Schedule II, be amended: ( a ) by replacing line 26, on page 47, with the following: applicant after the payment is received;''; and ( <em>b</em> ) by replacing lines 33 to 44, on page 46, and lines 1 to 4, on page 48, with the following:respect of an outlay or an expense.''

Motion No. 77

That Bill C-76, in Schedule II, be amended by replacing lines 27 to 35, on page 48, with the following: "transition payments; and ( c ) how interim and final transition pay-''.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, May 31st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I thank you very much for the opportunity to discuss Bill C-76 and the amendments thereto.

I want to make general comments then some specific comments with regard to the amendments.

With regard to the amendments before us that deal with public service measures, we generally support the government's decision to suspend the workforce adjustment directive and eliminate some 45,000 positions in the public service. However, we feel there are some concerns and because of that we have moved Motions 1, 3 and 4.

With regard to our first motion, on clause 3, we are concerned that some employees will be declared surplus and be paid for a period of six months without doing any work. Officials have confirmed to us that this would be possible with the way the bill is written at the present time.

With regard to clause 8, we have concerns that the legislation gives the Public Service Commission too much flexibility in appointing surplus workers to jobs in other departments. We would prefer that the appointments be subject to the competitive process in order to prevent any type of favouritism, cronyism, or unfair competition. We think the commission should be given the power to hold a closed competition confined to surplus employees only.

With regard to clause 8, we are concerned the employment equity programs will be used to further the goals of employment equity during this period of downsizing. As I recall, earlier in this session the minister responsible for the public service mentioned that this would be one of the criteria taken into consideration. We feel that this could happen as a result of people being appointed without competition to jobs that would otherwise be occupied by surplus workers.

Those are the motions that will be looked at with regard to that. My colleague, the critic who is responsible for that in terms of the public service, will be making further comments on those amendments to the House.

I think we have to understand the broader picture and the reason for Bill C-76. Bill C-76 has as its purpose to deal with the fiscal circumstances of Canada. It is to deal with the deficit in some way.

We have to recognize that we have a very serious circumstance. We have said this many times in this House. My hon. colleague from Vancouver points out to me often that every day we have a deficit of some $100 million between the revenue that is available for us to take our responsibilities as a federal government and the expenditures that take place on a daily basis. That is $100 million a day in terms of a deficit. If we put that over a one-year period we have the accumulated deficit of this country, as projected in the current budget for 1995-96, of some $32.7 billion.

If we look at what has happened with regard to the public debt charges during that period of time from 1994-95 to the budget of 1995-96, our debt charges in this country have increased from some $42 billion to $50 billion. They have increased for two very basic reasons. First, the deficit is not being dealt with by this government. It continues to add on to the accumulated debt of the country of some $550 billion today. This is heading toward a major sum. From the government's own figures, it points out that the net public debt by the end of 1995-96 will be some $578 billion and by 1996-97 it is projected to be over $600 billion.

Because of that increased accumulated debt, the interest costs to the Government of Canada continue to increase. This has a major effect on the budget of Canada and the revenue available to administer and take care of the responsibilities that have been delegated to the federal government in this country.

That is certainly one of the factors, the fact that the deficit continues to add to the accumulated debt and that larger accumulated debt creates a larger base on which the interest costs are enormous.

The second factor, which is very obvious to all of us, is the increased interest costs that have occurred during the past year. For example, in the United States the Federal Reserve Bank has increased the interest rates over the last year seven times, and every time the interest rates have increased in the United States it has had a direct effect on the interest rates here in Canada. Over the year, we have had an increase of 3 per cent in interest rates, which has again affected the amount of interest we pay as a government annually.

It is seriously affecting the programs that are to be delivered by the federal government. I have already mentioned that for 1994-95 the cost of our debt charges from the cost of interest was in the $42 billion range. Now in 1995-96 it is projected to be $50 billion. We have had an additional $8 billion of interest costs because of that 3 per cent interest rate increase and also the larger base of debt in this country.

What has that done? It means that in order to try to deal with the deficit we must in some way eliminate expenditures of some $8 billion just to cancel that out. Well, that is not that easy to do. The government has come up with certain measures. For example, it has increased tax revenue by $1.5 billion to $2 billion. Well, that is only 25 per cent of the increased interest costs. Where does the other $6 billion come from?

The government has attempted through other means to secure that expenditure reduction and at the same time in its budget is attempting to reduce the cost of program spending from $118 billion down to $114 billion, a reduction of $4 billion.

If we could have maintained at least the base from which interest is calculated, if we could have stopped the accumulation of debt by eliminating the deficit, we would have had more money to reduce the expenditures of government. There would have been more confidence in the Canadian economy and the interest rates would have been lower because we were balancing the budget or we had a plan to balance the budget.

Missing from the budget is the fact that the Liberal government has not put in place a plan to reduce the deficit from the projected deficit in 1996-97 of $24.3 billion down to zero. It is afraid to take the next step and say to Canadians we are going to take the deficit to zero by this plan. The government is afraid to stick its neck out and make that commitment to Canadians. That is costing us billions of dollars in higher interest rates.

If we had at least held our interest costs in 1995-96 at $42 billion, where they were in 1994-95, rather than the increase of $8 billion I have talked about, we would not have had to reduce our expenditures by $4 billion. We would have had an extra $4 billion to work with. That is what the government should have been looking at.

We can go through all these amendments and all the items we are going to deal with in Bill C-76, but we must get back to the basic problem we are facing. That is, the Government of Canada has not declared to the people that it will balance the budget during the term of this Parliament. It has not clearly said that, and it is incumbent upon them to do so.

Moody's and the Dominion Bond Rating Service have told the Government of Canada clearly: "In order for us to give you a better credit rating, which reflects on interest rates, you must commit to a plan".

As we go through these amendments we must keep in mind the very first item on the agenda, which is dealing with the deficit and stopping the growth of debt, which is destroying the country.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, May 31st, 1995]

moved:

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-76, in Clause 8, be amended by replacing lines 26 and 27, on page 7, with the following:

"the employee, under a closed competition exclusively open to employees declared surplus within the meaning of the Workforce Adjustment Directive under the Public Sector Compensation Act, to another".

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-76, in Clause 8, be amended by adding after line 37, on page 7, the following:

"(6) Under no circumstance shall the Commission appoint a participant in a program designated by the Treasury Board as an employment equity program to a position that could be occupied by a surplus employee within the meaning of the Work Force Adjustment Directive under the Public Sector Compensation Act."

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, May 31st, 1995]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-76, in Clause 3, be amended: a) by replacing line 10, on page 3, with the following: of the program,''; and: (</em> b <em>) by replacing line 17, on page 3, with the following:able job offer, and (iii) shall in no circumstances make a payment to a suplus employee who has not performed any work.''

[Petitions, May 31st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, this petition is signed by 1,042 people from my constituency who are very concerned about the sexual orientation phrase being included in the charter of rights and freedoms. I concur with their concern.

[Petitions, May 31st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to present two petitions. One has been sent to me from Frankfort, Ontario and the other is from constituents of mine.

These petitions come from two different provinces yet they request the very same thing, that Parliament refrain from implementing a more restrictive control of firearms that will affect only law-abiding citizens.

They request that more effective prosecution and tougher sentencing of criminals be carried out. The target for gun control

laws in the Criminal Code of Canada must be the criminals who are either a danger to the safety of the public or those who have criminal intent, not law-abiding responsible firearm owners.

I thank all of those who signed the petition. I concur with their sentiments.