Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-48, the back of the napkin, Buzz Hargrove and leader of the NDP budget bill.
With the NDP ready to make more demands on the Prime Minister and the Liberals in exchange for their continued propping up of the Liberal government, I believe it is important that Canadians be made aware of the record of the last federal Liberal minority that was propped up by the NDP.
Here are just a few points to consider regarding the last Liberal-NDP coalition government. Between 1972-73 and 1974-75 fiscal years, spending on federal government programs jumped by 50%, from $18.8 billion to $28.2 billion. The taxes and other revenues taken from Canadians climbed by 52%, from $19.2 billion to $29.3 billion.
From October 1972 to July 1974, the inflation rate more than doubled from 5.2% to 11.1%. Chartered bank prime almost doubled, climbing from 6% to 11%. Five year mortgage rates jumped two full percentage points to reach 11.4%.
It is no wonder that groups like the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business have expressed grave concerns about Bill C-48 and the reckless spending that it proposes.
This out of control spending is made worse by the complete lack of a plan as to how this money will be spent. Spending without a plan is a recipe for waste and mismanagement. It is cruel not only to taxpayers but more important to those who depend on promised services.
As the official opposition critic for agriculture and agrifood, I find it incredible that despite criticisms of both the NDP leader and the NDP agriculture critic, Bill C-43 had nothing in it for farmers in rural Canada. The NDP did absolutely nothing to address these blatant omissions in Bill C-48.
Let us remember that it was the NDP leader who in the House said the following in regard to Bill C-43, “How can the member stand and support a budget that gives nothing for farmers when they are living on the edge?”
Furthermore, the NDP agriculture critic had several things to say regarding Bill C-43. He said, “The Liberals presented the budget in the House just a few days before the R-CALF decision came down and we got to see what their five year plan for agriculture was. It was a big zero”. He also said that it is “a budget that has made no attempt to address the long term issue of agriculture in Canada” and “to the rural farm families of Canada the budget has offered them nothing”. He added, “There was nothing in the budget to encourage young families to take up farming. Unfortunately we have seen the plan for rural Canada. It is laid out in the budget, and there is nothing there”.
Despite the NDP's claims that farm families were shut out of the government's budget Bill C-43, the Leader of the NDP ensured that farm families received nothing in Bill C-48 either.
The Leader of the NDP's actions make it obvious that the NDP does not care about farm families and will not support them in their times of need. In spite of the NDP's lip service toward the needs of the agriculture community, it did nothing to help our agricultural producers with Bill C-48. I guess this shows where the NDP's priorities truly lie.
The government talks about declining farm income. In spite of this, most of our export oriented agricultural producers continue to receive the blunt end of a stick from the Liberal government's intransigence which dictates to western Canadian farmers that they can have no choice but to market their wheat and barley through the so-called Canadian Wheat Board.
The Conservative Party of Canada believes the Wheat Board's monopoly on grain marketing should be abolished. Farmers should have options. They should be able to market their own grain if they so choose and take advantage of market conditions to maximize their profits.
Furthermore, the current unfair market situation facing our grain and oilseed producers is simply not sustainable or acceptable. Our grain and oilseed producers continue to face crippling foreign subsidies and unfair tariffs imposed upon them by foreign bodies at the WTO. Canadian grain farmers are losing $1.3 billion annually to the hands of European and American subsidies.
The Alberta Grain Commission estimates that if tariffs were reduced, farmers would get $16 a tonne more for wheat, $19 more for barley and $71 more for canola.
In this context, the Conservative Party of Canada supports the goals of the Doha round, those being substantial improvements in market access, the phasing out of export subsidies and substantial reductions in trade distorting domestic support.
This position is affirmed in the Conservative Party's international trade policy, which reads:
In future rounds of trade negotiations, a Conservative Government will vigorously pursue reduction of international trade barriers and tariffs. A Conservative Government will pursue the elimination of trade-distorting government export subsidies within clearly established time limits. A Conservative Government will seek a clear definition of what constitutes an export subsidy.
We are pleased that a NAFTA panel has ruled that U.S. duties on Canadian hard red spring wheat are unjust. However, this government's handling of the grain hopper cars runs the risk of more U.S. duties in the near future.
Speaking of the grain hopper cars and budgets, the Liberal government announced nine budgets ago its intention to dispose of 12,000 government-owned grain hopper cars. Nine years later, the cars are still in the hands of the government.
This process should not be complicated. The government and grain industry conducted an extensive review known as the “Grain Handling and Transportation Review”, led by Justice Willard Estey and evaluated and supported by Arthur Kroeger. Estey's recommendation was to dispose of the cars for fair market value.
The government can dispose of these cars on a commercial basis; a process that would be fair to all Canadian taxpayers. Instead, the backroom deal being made by the Minister of Transport, at the expense of Canadian taxpayers, will see the cars given away for next to nothing.
The United States views the government-owned hopper cars to be an indirect subsidy to Canadian grain farmers. Even worse, a non-commercial transfer of the grain cars will run the risk of further U.S. duties on Canadian wheat.
This government continues to fail farmers by providing inadequate income support programs for producers struggling with circumstances and conditions outside their control.
It is unspeakable that both Bill C-43 and Bill C-48 have nothing whatsoever to help our Canadian farm families. Canadian producers are fighting for survival. They should not have to fight their own government.
The Conservative Party has consistently opposed the Liberal approach of spending without an adequate plan, which is reflected in Bill C-48. This bill is a reflection of the new federal budget, an NDP budget, one that the Liberals have put forward after they said it could not be done.
The lack of detail regarding programs that would be developed as a result of this bill, combined with the Liberals' poor track record on delivering value for money, provides little guarantee that the objectives of this bill would be met, that taxpayer money would be spent properly or that Canadians would be better off.
The Conservative Party wants to ensure that the social needs of Canadians are met and recognizes that many Canadians are not receiving the level of assistance they deserve from the federal government.
It is unfortunate that the NDP-Liberal coalition blocked at report stage the Conservative Party's efforts to move amendments to make the spending in Bill C-48 more accountable to Canadians and to reflect a prudent fiscal approach.
Our amendments aimed to do several things: raise the amount of surplus that would be set aside for debt payment; force the government to table a plan by the end of each year outlining how it intends to spend the money in this bill; and ensure that important accountability and transparency mechanisms are in place for corporations wholly owned by the federal government.
Unfortunately, both parties to the NDP-Liberal coalition prefer to remain unaccountable for their spending of Canadian taxpayer dollars. For this, I will be voting against Bill C-48.
