Ken Epp

[National Agriculture Industry Relief Coordination Act, June 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Progressive Conservative member's bill deals with times of crisis in agriculture and attempts to take a farmer through those years when family and farm income is very low or zero. For the member who is listening so carefully, which I appreciate, I simply am drawing the picture that some of the reasons for a reduced or zero income for farmers are due to climate, such as dryness. However some reasons are government induced for which we should have solutions but we do not because the government is unresponsive to the needs of prairie farmers.

I mentioned the seed farmer. I have talked to other farmers who are very frustrated. They have products in their bins which they are ready to sell. They even have buyers but they cannot sell to them. They have to take the product to the wheat board. Then if they want, they can buy it back at an inflated price. No one else does that. I do not know of a single other industry where, in order to sell one's own product, one first has to sell it to a government or an agency of the government and then buy it back at a higher price.

There is a farmer in southern Alberta who has been actually doing that. He markets his product in the United States because he has a customer there who buys it. This is so absurd that I must relay it.

He takes his grain from his bin to his truck, which he drives over to the grain elevator. He gets his truck weighed then dumps the grain so it can weigh the truck again. The difference is the weight of the grain. Then they load the grain back up again. He sells it to the wheat board, then writes a cheque for something more than what he pays for it, including costs of dockage and a proportional cost of transportation for which the wheat board is responsible. He does it himself but he has to pay for it. Then he takes that product across the border and sells it to the person who wanted to buy it from him in the first place. He is still making money.

Where is the effectiveness of the wheat board? Part of the farm crisis is that there are rules and regulations which affect farmers and which are induced by inaction or wrong action on the parts of governments. If the wheat board is so good for Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, then why is it not good for Ontario and Quebec? Why is it not good for the Atlantic provinces? Why do they not have to sell their products through a marketing board controlled by the federal government? That is an area that has been overlooked.

To have an agency which looks at all of these different areas and helps to provide a way whereby farmers can, in those bleak years, weather the storm and carry on with their businesses instead of going bankrupt is so important. I do not think people who have never gone through a bankruptcy know how devastating it is, especially when a family loses a farmland which has been in the family for 50, 80 and 100 years. That is totally devastating and it is about time that something be done about it. Therefore, I commend the member for the bill and I am very pleased to support it.

[National Agriculture Industry Relief Coordination Act, June 5th, 2001]

I would blame both governments. I blame members of the federal government because when there was a vote on rules for the wheat board they all stood even though none of them, or I should say very few of them, represented ridings in the prairies. They had the gall to set up a wheat board that applies only to the prairie provinces and does not apply—

[National Agriculture Industry Relief Coordination Act, June 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your comments. Certainly the House should be a place of dialogue and not just verbal jousting.

Farmers in my riding are having trouble these days. It includes drought, and with drought comes another problem. One farmer in my area this week lost his home. It was so dry around his place that unfortunately a fire started, the grass burned up to his house and took his house down. That is a calamity in that family. Everything was lost due climate over which farmers have no control.

What is maddening is when farmers have problems over which they have no control but which the government could change. That is the source of the agricultural crisis. For example, I know a farmer who sells seed grain. Seed grain is not covered by the wheat board. The wheat board will not market it. All it markets is the usual grain.

The farmer is wanting to market his seed grain. The wheat board demands that it be sold through him. It will not take it. That does not make any sense. What a frustration to a farmer who wants to make enough money to look after himself and his family, to pay his bills, his increasing energy bills, and all other bills.

[National Agriculture Industry Relief Coordination Act, June 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, once again I rise unexpectedly in the House because the topic seizes my attention as I hope it seizes the attention of all Liberals over there who are closing their eyes to a problem in the country. I look over there and pretty well all of them are disinterested in what we are doing today. That is very unfortunate because it is a matter of great importance.

I want to make a few comments about the importance of agriculture. It goes far beyond the fact that I grew up on a farm. It goes far beyond the fact that I still have relatives in Saskatchewan and Alberta. I do not have any farming relatives in Alberta, but I have farming relatives in Saskatchewan. I have many farmers in my riding for whom I feel an obligation to speak up on an occasion like this one when a motion was presented by a member of the Progressive Conservative Party which talked about the crisis in the agricultural industry.

The Government of Canada, in conjunction with the provincial governments, has a large duty in the agricultural community which has gone unfulfilled. It is more than just a crisis of lack of rain, pests or the usual things farmers have contended with all their lives. It is a crisis in marketing their commodities.

I want all Liberal members to hear that there are problems which have been produced by the government. It is curious to me that members of the Liberal Party are basically saying there are so few voters on the prairies it does not matter whether or not they look after them because they will not lose many votes and will still keep power. It seems that the Liberal government is all words, all committee and no action.

[Patent Act, June 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, this is the best news I have heard for a long time. One of the things I did in my previous life was write computer programs. I wrote a word processing program before Bill Gates had even thought of it. However, even though I had the intelligence, he managed to patent it first, which means that now after the 20 years is up I get one half of his money. I am very appreciative.

[Patent Act, June 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy listening to the hon. member. She has some interesting ideas and of course some of them I have heard many times before having been raised in Saskatchewan which is true CCF and now NDP country.

I would like to pose a problem to her. If I build a house, whether I build it with my own hands or hire some workers to help me, it is mine. I and my family can live in it for as long as we wish. There is no time limitation on the ownership of that house. Similarly, if I build an apartment, I can rent out the suites in it and I can collect the rent. There is not a 17 or a 20 year time period after which she can come in with her socialist friends and start collecting the rent on half of the suites.

I happened to be a computer programmer in a previous life. I am now incompetent in that area so no one should call me. Over the last eight years I have fallen way behind. However I used to write computer programs which are now intellectual property. I would like to know from the hon. member how many years I should have the ownership of a program and be able to sell it before she can sell it and keep the money from the program that I have produced.

The simple point I am making is that R and D for these drugs companies costs millions of dollars. The legislation says that after a certain time, even though a company spent the money and did it, it is no longer theirs and somebody else can take that result and use it to produce money for themselves. How does she reconcile that?

[Committees Of The House, June 5th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I concur as much as I can possibly concur with what the hon. member has just said.

There is a contempt for members of the opposition and even for backbenchers on the Liberal side that has been shown over and over by the government. Instead of using the ploy of enhancing the salaries of members of parliament in order to try to give them more dignity in the public eye, it is about time that the occasion be used to recognize that members of parliament are elected by their respective constituencies, are here to do a job and should be heard.

I am deeply offended by Bill C-15 and the move the government is making here by mixing into the motion many very good items with a few totally deplorable items. I have used this analogy before: we get a bowl of really nice pudding—I like custard pudding—but in it is a bunch of gravel and we are supposed to eat the whole thing. I am using the example of gravel in order to try to be polite because there are other things that come to mind which the Liberals mix into good parts of a bill.

Bill C-15, the bill under discussion here, in fact has some very good parts, as the member has pointed out, but what has the government done? It has thrown into it things that are totally offensive to most Canadians. The members of parliament on this side and the other side would love to express that, but they cannot because it is all tied together in one big package. It is an all or nothing thing.

The government is doing the same thing with MPs' salaries. There are some good things and a bunch of stuff that is bad. We cannot amend it. The government will not accept it. In its arrogance and its majority here it just does whatever it wants. The Prime Minister acts like a dictator. He says it and it is done. That is very offensive.

I would like to congratulate the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough for what he is doing today and I give him 100% support for this motion. I also believe that this report should be accepted. I would like to see the House seized with this issue before any other because of the importance of the protection of our children and our society. I would like the member's comments on that.

[National Environmental Standards Act, June 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Since each member is very lucky to have one bill ever drawn, is there not some rule that prevents this member from having 400 private members' bills, all which will never see the light of day?

[The Act Of Incorporation Of The Conference Of Mennonites In Canada, June 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say something about the administrative aspect of the legislation. It is time that we seriously considered freeing up parliament from the necessity of passing legislation to change a name. I know the act was originally passed by parliament so only parliament can change it, but surely we could figure out some way that name changes and other changes in the incorporation of various institutions that come to the House from time to time could be done in a more efficient manner.

I also have roots in the Mennonite community. The name Epp has the characteristics of a typical Mennonite name, as the do Dycks, the Friesens, the Klassens and on and on. I hesitate to say that I am proud to come from a Mennonite background because of the fact that pride is one of those things that we do not pride ourselves on. Pride is one of the seven sins that we try to avoid. The object is to walk humbly, to serve other people and to serve God. It is a very strong religious commitment made in the Mennonite community.

I have never said this before in the Chamber, and maybe it is slightly inappropriate, but I grew up in that kind of environment with my parents and grandparents all very solidly teaching us to follow the ways of the Scriptures, the Bible as we call it in the Christian tradition, and to live by it, not just say we believe it but to actually act on it.

It says we are to love our enemies and pray for those who use us spitefully. That is a very important teaching of the Mennonites. I honestly believe that if more people of all kinds of different cultural and religious backgrounds would practice that, it would certainly help to reduce the total amount of conflict, not only domestically and socially within our own country, but around the world.

One of the reasons my family, as with the member for Provencher, was basically forced out of then Russia was that the Mennonites being pacifists were not ready to take up arms and shoot their fellow man. Because they were not friends of the revolution, they were considered enemies. Therefore, the Bolsheviks and the other revolutionaries entered Mennonite communities and shot the men and boys who were old enough to fight. The Mennonites offered little or no resistance, at least for the most part. Many escaped serious injury because of their philosophy. A lot of people were actually let go because they were not a threat to the other side.

Also, there were many sad stories of the atrocities committed. Those are also in our history book. They really tear me apart when I think of them.

I remember reading a little book, the Diary of Anna Baerg , which I got from the Liberal House leader, who some may know has studied the Mennonite way of life. Recognizing that I was of that background, he lent me the book, for which I was very grateful. It made good reading. I have to admit that at times there were tears in my eyes because of some of the atrocities that occurred.

In one case she talked about attack and invasion by government officials of the day, and listed a number of people who were killed. She then talked about one young girl who was not killed. Her next sentence said there were some things that were worse than death. When I think of that, I have nothing but respect for the people who lived through that kind of persecution, yet came to Canada and positively made a contribution to the country.

I would also like to emphasize that in my family, in our church and in the part of the country in which I grew up, frequent statements of thanksgiving for being in, Canada were made. I do not think I ever went to my grandparents place without realizing my grandmother was particularly overwhelmed by the freedom and opportunity. That was back in the thirties and forties. I obviously do not remember too much from the thirties, but in the forties I remember my grandmother said over and over how blessed we were to be in this wonderful country.

Not only have the Mennonites as a group contributed to Canada, as has already been stated, but they were very grateful recipients of what Canada offered. I would simply like to say that I share that gratitude. I am very happy that my grandparents made the decision, even though it was under some coercion, to bring their family to this country.

This is sort of a free for all, a time to talk a little about the Mennonites. The actual purpose of the bill is to change the name, and some of the articles of the constitution of the Mennonites, from the conference to the church. They are a church and a solid faith community. They have much to offer.

Another aspect they have become involved in under the auspices of MCC, the Mennonite Central Committee, is with respect to justice in our country, and it has been a very important intervention. They have emphasized being involved in restorative justice by bringing victims together with the perpetrators of crimes and having them work that out. They have found that, when young perpetrators break into homes or things like that and go through that process, the recidivism rate is way lower than when we simply put these young offenders in prisons and teach them better ways of doing crime.

I thank the House for this opportunity to speak about what I think are very important social issues as they affect the very deep meaning of the people who live in our country.

[Armenia, June 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House and add to the debate.

I have a great deal of empathy for what the member is doing, since this also has to do with the history of my family. I suppose I cannot expect everyone to have heard everything I have said in the House, but I have made reference to this before. For those who have heard it before, I apologize for the repetition.

Only two generations prior to me my family suffered direct persecution, mostly because of religious reasons in what my grandmother always called the old country. Several of my grandfather's brothers were killed. Criminals came into the villages at night and shot men and older boys who were able to fight. Because they were participants in the revolution, they were considered to be enemies of the revolution and were therefore killed.

I have great concern about the fact that we should not in any way minimize the magnitude of that type of human behaviour, where people with guns and power ride roughshod over very basic rights, even the rights to human life.

As a result of our family history, we have had what I would call a privilege and an honour of having our son work in some of the wartorn parts of the world, including Rwanda. He has told us stories about some of the horrendous atrocities that took place there, including the atrocities against children. The stories are beyond imagination. It is almost evil to even think of some of the things they did, let alone acknowledge that these things happened.

In my support of what the member is saying, I believe it is so important for us to raise awareness of the fact that human beings are capable of doing these things to other human beings. Hopefully by increasing that awareness, we will somehow increase the level of conscience that would prevent people from doing this.

I know in this case the member is speaking of the Armenian people. What happened to them happened to a number of other racial and religious groups around the world. Indeed, it continues even to this day. I believe Canada should be one of the primary players or interveners in stopping these activities.

There is little doubt in my mind that we are not doing anywhere near what we could or should be doing. I know we have limited resources, but we ought to be involved, not only in the prevention, education and awareness side, but when it comes to sending in our peacekeepers to stop this kind of activity.

I commend the hon. member for raising yet another example in human history in which these kinds of atrocities have taken place and for increasing awareness of them so that we do what we can to stop them in the future.