Garry Breitkreuz

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, October 7th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if two or three years from now whether anyone will remember this speech, but I will give it anyway.

Government is destroying the wheat board. I want to make that clear at the beginning. I am going to be asking a series of questions to point out how it is doing that. I have heard the Liberals across the way talking about the fact that we do not have any representatives in Ontario.

I do not see the relevance of that point to what we are discussing today. The Canadian Wheat Board affects primarily the people in the prairie provinces. If the hon. minister in charge of the wheat board had to face farmers in an election today, he would not get elected.

He got elected because he is in primarily an urban constituency. There are very few farmers who support him on this issue. I think that is something that should be clear to the members opposite.

I appeal to those people watching and listening to this debate today, I appeal to our city cousins, to listen to the dilemma farmers are in because they have no control over the minister of the Canadian Wheat Board.

The government is talking about democracy. Every farmer knows that the question which was asked on the plebiscite on barley marketing was not the key question. It was an all or nothing question.

The government decided that there was either a monopoly or there was no wheat board. That is not what the farmers in my area are telling me. If members want to talk about democracy, they should come to my riding and design the questions. I have already done that and over 80% of the farmers want changes to the wheat board, which the minister is not making. That is democracy and it is not happening in the House today. Over 50% of the farmers want some choice. They were not given that option.

I live in an area that is very strongly supportive of the wheat board.

Unfortunately I will not have time to get through the nine very important questions that I think need to be addressed. I will have to somehow communicate that to the members opposite in another way because those are key questions.

We have had very little light shed on this debate today. There has been a lot of heat and it has generated a lot of friction between farmers in Saskatchewan. Unless these questions are addressed and light is shed on this, we are spinning our wheels and not doing what is in the best interests of farmers.

When I surveyed the farmers in my area, I had no vested interest in one side of the question or the other. I wanted to know what farmers really thought. I think that is what the government should be doing. It should be going to farmers and asking what they really want. The government put in place a marketing panel and when it brought in its report, the government cherry picked.

I listened to somebody this morning reporting about the transportation issue and how all of the key stakeholders in it got together and reached an agreement and the government simply cherry picked on the results of that. That is what it has done with the western marketing panel. We have this problem over and over.

Another time I will go through my nine questions because I feel they are essential in shedding light on this issue.

[Petitions, October 3rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the next group of petitions are signed by 58 of my constituents who are asking Parliament to make several changes to the way crimes of violence are treated in the law and by the courts.

They ask for the following changes. First, the law should require all bail hearings in crimes of violence to be presided over by a judge.

Second, the law should require money or security to be posted before the release of a person accused of a violent crime. Third, the law should hold agents of the crown directly accountable for the actions or omissions in permitting the release of offenders.

Fourth, the law should ensure that sentences reflect society's abhorrence for the criminal act in order to act as a true deterrent and to protect the public.

Finally, they ask that public safety be given a higher priority than the rights of the violent offender for early release. My hope is that the government listens to these petitioners.

[Petitions, October 3rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have several petitions to present, so I ask for your indulgence as I go through them.

I am pleased to present two petitions with the signatures of 80 Canadians from my constituency who are concerned that their freedom of choice in health care is becoming increasingly curtailed and threatened by government regulation.

The petitioners request a number of specific amendments to the Food and Drug Act which would ensure that health foods and dietary supplements are not defined and regulated as drugs.

They request also that the only foods the Government of Canada may restrict from the market are those which are proven unsafe or fraudulently promoted and that in all cases the burden of proof shall be on the government.

[Agriculture, October 3rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, Saskatchewan farmers are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Farmers say the devil in this case is the minister responsible for the wheat board who seems incapable of getting the grain moving from prairie elevators to port.

A private supermarket can get thousands of products to thousands of consumers on the very day they need any one of them, but the wheat board cannot get one product to one port in the month the customer wants it let alone the right day. The government blames the railways, the railways blame the wheat board and the farmers pay. Bureaucratic inefficiency has cost farmers between $65 million and $115 million.

Some farmers in the Yorkton—Melville area have been denied this year's initial payment from the wheat board because they have not been able to pay back last year's initial payment. And why is that? They have not been able to sell their grain because all the elevators are plugged, again thanks to government intervention in the marketplace.

Farmers are telling me it is time for an exorcism to get the devil out of the grain transportation system in the prairies.

[People's Tax Form Act, September 29th, 1997]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-214, an act to allow taxpayers to inform government of their views on levels and priorities for the expenditure of tax revenues and to provide for a parliamentary review of the results.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Calgary Southeast for seconding the people's tax form act.

Last week the prime minister defended his government's handouts: $42,000 for a Latin song book, $100,000 for a military golf course, and $19,000 for golf balls. When I gave my constituents the opportunity to fill out the people's tax form they told me in no uncertain terms that they did not want their tax dollars spent on official bilingualism, funding for special interests groups, gun registration, foreign aid, multiculturalism, the National Film Board, subsidies to businesses and the CBC.

Today I am reintroducing the people's tax form act which will give all taxpayers the opportunity to tell the government what they think by voluntarily filling out a form which would be included with each tax kit distributed by Revenue Canada.

If passed, my bill would require the results to be tabulated and reviewed by the finance committee as part of its pre-budget consultations, a report that would be tabled in Parliament. This would make it much harder for the prime minister to defend spending which millions of Canadians have expressly indicated they oppose.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Petitions, September 26th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased to present seven petitions with the signatures of 178 Canadians from Nova Scotia, Manitoba and British Columbia.

These citizens of Canada support retention of section 43 of the Criminal Code which states “every schoolteacher, parent or person standing in the place of a parent is justified in using force by way of correction toward a pupil or child who is under his care if the force does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances”.

Your petitioners request Parliament to affirm the duty of parents to responsibly raise their children according to their conscience and beliefs and retain section 43 in Canada's Criminal Code as it is currently worded.

[Petitions, September 26th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have quite a large number of petitions so I ask for your patience in introducing them.

First I would like to present 87 petitions with the signatures of 2,035 Canadians from seven provinces. They are concerned that by ratifying and implementing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child that government bureaucrats and the courts, not parents, will be legally entitled to determine what is in the best interests of the child.

The petitioners go on to say that Canada is creating a bureaucracy to police parents and enforce the guidelines in a UN charter, a charter that has never been approved by Parliament. Not only are parental rights being undermined by implementing this UN convention, they are concerned it will create greater incentives for families to abdicate their parental responsibilities to the state.

Finally, your petitioners request Parliament to address their concerns by supporting my private member's motion No. 33, which would include parental rights and responsibilities in the charter of rights and freedoms.

[The Family, September 26th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, thousands of concerned parents from all across Canada have been sending me petitions supporting my private member's motion to recognize the right, responsibility and liberty of parents to direct the upbringing of their children and their right to pursue family life free from unnecessary interference from government.

Many parents feel their rights and responsibilities are threatened by the government's attempts to fully implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a UN charter which has never been approved in this Parliament.

Parents are afraid that their rights and responsibilities to properly discipline their children are threatened by the direction the Liberal government is taking. They say that if the convention is fully implemented government bureaucrats and the courts will have absolute power to determine what is in the best interests of the child and parents will be powerless.

The problem seems to be that government is paying more attention to what the bureaucrats and foreign politicians are saying in the United Nations than what parents are saying here at home.

[Speech From The Throne, September 26th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to offer my congratulations on your speakership once again and to all those who will be occupying the chair.

I would like to ask the member, very briefly, to comment on this question. Does the member agree that one of the primary functions of government in a civilized society is to provide for the peace and safety of its citizens? I was wondering if at the beginning of this Parliament he would assure us that he would agree with that statement.

The reason I ask that is I have been here for four years now and cannot understand why law and order is not more of a priority for this government.

I want to give the House an example. I am very familiar with what is happening at our local high school in Yorkton. My children have attended there and they tell me what is going on. There is a serious problem with young offenders. Many of them will attend school the next day and boast about their exploits. This has a very negative effect on all the other students. They begin to say “what does it matter what I do, who cares?” It affects their studies. It affects their job.

Unless people realize that the law is made to be respected, they lose the thing which holds us together as a society. The glue which holds us together becomes soft.

[Government Appointments, April 17th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the 20 for 20 record of the Prime Minister in appointing loyal Liberals to the Senate is far worse than the Tories he complained about in the red book.

Page 93 of the red book has a list of statistics on the cynicism of Canadians toward politics. A recent Environics poll found that73 per cent of Canadians think the Prime Minister has done a bad job.

Does the Prime Minister think his thousands of patronage appointments have reduced cynicism in Canada?