Vic Althouse

[Parliament Hill, March 14th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the new Minister of Public Works and Government Services has inherited a real mess on the Hill.

The architects who estimated the current Peace Tower repair project said it would cost $2.5 million. The companies that bid on it bid about half of that in order to win the job. Then job in hand, months later, they obtained a change order for an additional $1.2 million, thus doubling the original bid and bringing the cost close to the original estimate.

In the meantime, staff at the bidding companies harassed a female engineer, Anne Rainey, off the site. Ray Wolf and fellow masons walked off in protest. Yet in spite of a very clear, non-discriminatory clause in the contact from public works, the former minister took no action.

The harassment appeared to have been condoned with the issuing of a subsequent further contract to the same offending companies to do further work on the tower and the House of Commons itself.

Canadians were quite ticked off at the previous minister. Hopefully, the new minister will correct the injustice done.

[Petitions, March 13th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition sent in by constituents from Mistatim, Porcupine Plain, Hudson Bay and Chelan. It notes that Canadians are paying about 52 per cent of the cost of a litre of gasoline at the pumps in the form of taxes. Over the past 10 years excise taxes on gasoline have risen 566 per cent. They urge that Parliament not increase federal excise taxes on gasoline in the future.

[Supply, March 12th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, on February 29, I raised a question directed to the new Minister of Transport. I pointed out that the grain shipment this year was the first when we had almost complete deregulation, and the use of two fully privatized railways has been abysmal.

Grain movement in the previous crop year to mid-February was 21.4 million tonnes. This year with the new system in place the railways have moved a mere 15.1 million tonnes.

I asked the minister what he was prepared to do to make the circumstances improve. He pointed out there had been some cold weather. There were three weeks of cold weather but that would not account for even half of the discrepancy between the amount moved the year before and the amount moved this year.

In my own research I discovered that vast parts of prairie Canada have a shortage of rolling stocks in locomotives. I have checked with the railways, which admit this. They point out that they perhaps will have to bring some locomotives and cars back from the United States.

I am sure the Minister of Transport even though he is new will quickly be apprised that the rates they can charge for the same cars and locomotives in the United States are considerably more than they can charge in Canada with the current ceiling on rail shipment of grains in Canada.

The U.S. rail system has dramatically increased their fees for service because they understand that grain prices are higher and they are simply charging everything the market will bear. There has been a rapid and radical increase in fees charged to farmers and shippers in the United States. Our railways are down there trying to take advantage of this, meanwhile shorting our ability to export grain and the ability of our farmers who produced a very good crop of excellent quality in prairie Canada.

There should be very little to stand in the way of rapid movement because virtually every district in western Canada has produced top grades of wheat and barley. It is not a problem to put together a full 104 or 108 car trains of one grade to be moved to the terminals at port.

Wheat and barley are under the wheat board and a system of pooling is used so that all of the train can be dumped at one

terminal even though some of the grain may have belonged to a different company. A book exchange of grains is used to speed up the turnaround. Turnaround time on wheat board grains is double or more than double the turnaround time for a similar car of non-board grains. Some of the specialty crops have turnaround times that would make one weep. They take three to four times as long as wheat board grains.

As well, the country elevator system has not been awfully co-operative. It took advantage of the new deregulation and filled its elevators late last summer and in the early fall, at least in northeastern Saskatchewan where I come from. Most elevators report that they are about half full of non-board barley, open market barley, for which the elevator companies have not yet found a buyer.

This is clogging the system. There is less than half of the space to handle this year's crop. The farmers are beginning to despair of being able to deliver what was a very good crop in this crop year when prices are high. I wish the Ministry of Transport and the new minister would take this into account and take action as quickly as possible.

[Petitions, March 12th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the third petition is from seniors in the towns of Invermay, Rama and Hazel Dell, Saskatchewan. The petitioners call on Parliament to maintain and enhance the public pension system, which is their right and heritage as senior citizens.

[Petitions, March 12th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from people in northeastern Saskatchewan. The petitioners call on Parliament to include forage and alfalfa producers in any compensation payment arising from the elimination of the Western Grain Transportation Act.

[Petitions, March 12th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions.

The first petition is from the professional teaching staff of schools in my riding at Wadena, Kelvington, Porcupine Plain, Weekes, Hudson Bay, Archerwill and Naicam. The petitioners ask the Government of Canada to toughen the Young Offenders Act as quickly as possible with a view to making young offenders responsible for their actions, making names of young offenders public and increasing the severity of consequences for repeat offenders.

[Grain, February 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the new Minister of Transport. I want to congratulate him on his appointment and make clear that a lot of people in prairie Canada are depending on him.

The year over year grain exports until mid-February this year are only 15.1 million tonnes compared to 21.4 million tonnes for the same period last year.

During the intervening year the government imposed its privatization and deregulation solutions to solve grain export problems.

Since grain exports have plummeted and demurrage charges have soared with ships waiting what, if anything, is the new minister proposing to do in order to keep us on target for exports of $20 billion by the end of this century, which was his government's target?

[Food And Drugs Act, December 7th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, a week ago, on November 30, I rose in the House to question the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food on a recommendation he had received from a senior executive officers committee that he had struck several months ago. It was looking at some of the ideas concerning ownership of hopper cars, the future role of the wheat board in allocating cars in the grain handling system in western Canada and other similar matters.

I tried to make the point with the minister that the recommendation coming from that group was that farmers would be asked to pay an extra $1 per tonne to raise money to purchase between 12,000 and 13,000 hopper cars the federal government now owns. They have an assessed value of $400 million, but the proposal is that the railways each take half the cars for a sum of $100 million which they can raise by imposing an extra fee of a dollar per tonne on the farm sector for everything farmers ship. In the end, after having collected the extra money from farmers, the railways would own the cars.

This seems to be the ultimate bad deal for farmers. If they are paying for the cars, why do they not end up owning them? This is something farmers are arguing. They think the senior executive officers have presented a proposal that is self-serving in the ultimate. We must remember that at least two of the people on the senior executive committee represent the two major railroads.

The basic justice of the proposal is something I was arguing. The minister in his response said he had not made up his mind yet, but I should remember the senior executive officers recommended that there be a ceiling placed on freight increases, other than the $1 per tonne, for 10 years.

I have listened to responses from farmers in western Canada to this remark. They are very quick to remember that it was a Liberal government approximately 97 years ago that promised the Crow rate in perpetuity, and that means forever in anybody's language. It lasted for 96 or 97 years.

The question the farmers have is a very good one. They are saying if perpetuity lasts 96 and 97 years, how long will 10 years last? The answer in coffee row is until the next budget.

They will not buy that and I do not see why they should. It is incumbent on me as a member from out west to remind the minister that his credibility and the government's credibility on promises for grain rates and promises into future activities of the government or any future government is zero after what they have done to the Crow rate and other things considered to be part of the constitution, almost, for Canadian farmers. That is not acceptable.

What is acceptable is to put those 13,000 cars under the control of the wheat board, even if farmers have to pay for them. At least it would let them know they own them afterward and that their agency, the board, can control them.

The board does an excellent job of distributing rolling stock. As I have pointed out, the ownership of rolling stock was thrust on them because of the railways' refusal in the 1970s when the current minister was assistant to Otto Lang. The railways simply refused to buy or rent rolling stock. Farmers and provincial and federal governments were forced to buy rolling stock to keep Canadian grain rolling.

As I have said, the board has done an excellent job of using the rolling stock. It has extremely high turnaround times, meaning that a car is loaded, delivers its load and is returned to the country elevator system faster than any other grain cars in the system. I will give an example using comparable grains. Durum wheat makes 17 turnarounds in a year using wheat board cars, compared to oats which are operated by the open market and only make 12 turnarounds. This gives an idea of how much more efficiency there is under the board controlling those cars and of the savings that result both to farmers and to railroads from that activity.

I recommend the government take very seriously turning these cars over to farmers. Yes, we will pay for them if we have to, but they should be left in the control of the wheat board.

[The Economy, December 7th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, for more than 20 years successive federal governments have claimed to be fighting inflation and the deficit by cutting corporate taxes, raising interest rates and cutting programs. What have investors done with the interest earned and the taxes saved? They have used their surplus funds to bid up existing stocks to the point at which general stock values in Canada are reported to be up 35 per cent over last year.

To continue generating existing levels of profit, their prices for goods and services provided will have to be pushed up, as will inflation.

If the government is serious about fighting inflation and the deficit, a tax on transactions can both cool inflationary pressures and reduce the deficit. Such a multiple approach to fighting the deficit and inflation might actually work, unlike current policy fixation with high interest rates, low corporate taxes and deep program cuts.

Surely after 20 years of failure to meet even one deficit target it is time to try some things that might actually work.

[Canadian Wheat Board, November 30th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister in charge of the wheat board.

In the 1970s, farmers bought hopper cars through the wheat board and governments bought hopper cars because railways refused to supply cars for shipping grain.

Recently the minister's SEO committee recommended that farmers pay $1 per tonne for the purchase of the government's 13,000 hopper cars. Although farmers would pay for them, ownership would revert to the railways.

Since the deregulated U.S. style system this government is emulating has one abiding rule, if you want rail service, you had better own rail cars, why does he not instead allow the wheat board to own the cars on behalf of farmers?