Mr. Speaker, I rise to address Bill C-34, the Agricultural Marketing Programs Act.
To refresh the memory of those who are watching, this bill combines four separate agricultural acts and one program into a single act. The Agricultural Marketing Programs Act will provide for the marketing of agricultural products.
The four acts it combines are the Advance Payments for Crops Act, the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act, the Agricultural Products Co-operative Marketing Act and the Agricultural Products Board Act. The program is the cash flow enhancement program.
I would like to review the three main parts of the bill before I address some of the things that we, as Reformers, would like to recommend. The new act incorporates the existing provisions of the current Advance Payments for Crops Act and also the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act into the advance payments program. That will guarantee interest free loans. The new program will now include adjustments and a phase-in period to allow producers marketing wheat and barley through the Canadian Wheat Board to be eligible as well.
The second part of the bill is the price pooling program. The new act incorporates the existing provisions of the current Agricultural Products Co-operative Marketing Act that provides for price guarantees for agricultural products marketed by a co-op. Also the new program's administration and approval process will be clarified, modernized and streamlined since approval is now the minister's responsibility rather than that of cabinet and Treasury Board.
The third part of the bill is the government purchases program. The new program incorporates the current provisions of the Agricultural Products Board Act which offers government purchases, sales and importation of agricultural products and abolishes the agricultural products board.
The new act also provides for the recovery of administrative costs, creates offences, requires reports to Parliament and makes consequential amendments to other acts. There will be a mandatory legislative review of the act five years following enactment, which is a good idea for all legislation.
The Reform Party agricultural policy supports maintaining the advanced payment for crops program since the program has been shown to have a stabilizing influence on the marketplace, while at the same time maintaining an acceptable level of default exposure to taxpayers.
Reformers agree that the three different pieces of cash advance legislation should be consolidated into one to save administrative costs. We have proposed amendments that include, first, entrenching the limit on the government's contingent liability in the act or allowing the agricultural standing committee to review any increases; second, allowing farmers to access emergency advances of an interest free basis but only as part of the overall $50,000 interest free portion; third, eliminating the government purchases program because it is incompatible with the competitive market driven, modern, Canadian agricultural economy; and fourth, treating all agricultural organizations equally in terms of defaulted advances by not allowing the Canadian Wheat Board a special two-year exemption.
Unfortunately the Liberals have only kept about 25 per cent of the election promises that they made on agriculture in the 1993 campaign. I have gone through the red book and it is very difficult to even find them buried in all of the other 100 and some pages of rhetoric. One of their promises was to provide interest free cash advances. By voting against Reform's amendments, the Liberals are voting against their own promise.
I just listened to my colleague from the Bloc talking about the committee process and the amendments that are often brought to improve legislation. Very often these suggestions are not accepted because they do not come from the government side. That is unfortunate because the Liberals promised to allow committees
more say in legislation. That has really not happened which is again another broken election promise.
All of Reform's amendments were voted down in committee, even though the reason for sending the bill to committee before second reading was to allow MPs to make substantive changes. The Liberals' red book promise of giving MPs a greater role in drafting legislation has really become a hollow promise. The red book at pages 91 and 92 states the promise to allow MPs a greater role in drafting legislation. It was a very hollow promise. It has not happened in 3.5 years.
If the Liberals on the committee were truly committed to the red book they would have voted for some of Reform's amendments to make substantive changes, in particular the amendment in which we actually do what the Liberals claimed they would do in their red book.
Having kept only 25 per cent of their promises on agriculture in the 1993 campaign is very serious. We have to take everything together, but let me give an example of what they said in the red book at page 15:
Governments have little room to find new revenues from the tax side; indeed, the long term objective of all governments must be to reduce the tax burden.
The fact is the government has collected $24 billion more in tax revenue. Unfortunately that is a very serious broken promise.
Let me turn to page 57 where the Liberals buried a few of their promises with regard to agriculture. They said they would develop new domestic and international markets for Canadian food products. They were to reduce input costs to make farming more viable and to introduce a whole farm income stabilization program.
I am quite familiar with the area of reducing input costs. I live on a farm and have close ties to the farm community. I listen on almost a daily basis to the concerns of farmers. One of their very critical or serious concerns is the high input costs they experience. Many input costs have taxes built right into them.
For example, fertilizer is made from natural gas and natural gas has a high tax component. A very high tax component is built right into the product they must use to produce their product. Instead of reducing costs and the size of government, government taxes to support big government.
The high cost of transportation is another serious concern of farmers. I have looked through the red book and I have yet to find anywhere any indication that the Liberals were to remove the Crow subsidy as soon as they were elected. I believe this was a shock to farmers. Very often it was not just the promises they made but the things they did once they got into power that people had no idea they would do. That is very serious.
The Bloc member talked about the cynical attitude of the public has toward politicians. I agree. We have to be held accountable. There must be some mechanism built into our democratic structure whereby the constituents may hold their MP more accountable. That is a very key change Reformers will make when we form government.
I will now talk about some of our amendments. We propose a limiting of the governments contingent liability. The government is increasingly allowing the review of government policies, regulations, expenditures and contingent liabilities by bureaucrats rather than elected officials.
I asked a question of the Library of Parliament dealing with how much legislation has come before the House in the last while that has taken away power from the elected people and given it to bureaucrats. It is a question that had not been asked previously. The people doing the research were shocked and amazed as they began to go through the legislation to find that routinely legislation before the House was taking away the power of those elected to run the affairs of the country and giving it to bureaucrats.
The bill before us does the same thing. That is a very serious matter. That was one of our concerns with regard to the Canadian Wheat Board. There is no reason farmers cannot completely control their own affairs. It does not have to be under the thumb of the agriculture minister where he an appoint the CEO and control the affairs of the wheat board completely. It should be run from Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba, those most affected by it.
The standing committee with all its expertise should review any increase in the contingent liability under the cash advance program. The agriculture minister would simply have to notify the committee of his intention to raise the amount well before it may be needed and hearings could be held to quickly determine whether an increase is actually needed.
Reformers would like to comment on allowing interest free advances. The Liberals voted against a Reform amendment in committee to provide interest free spring advances. It was one of their own election promises. They have not fulfilled it. Nor do they agree with Reform's amendment.
Let me now deal with the aspect concerning the limiting of the government purchases program. The government purchases program provides the minister with a wide ranging authority to buy, sell or import agricultural products to stabilize domestic market conditions or to conclude sales to other governments or government agencies.
Although there are no resources budgeted to the program the government has been unable to adequately justify extending or continuing it by entrenching it in new legislation. The extensive powers encompassed by the program have not been used since 1985 and have only been used a couple of times in the past 20 years. Most important, the intent of this type of program is incompatible with the competitive market driven modern Canadian agricultural economy.
For instance, exactly what are the unusual market conditions for perishable crops as specified in the government's literature as grounds for using the program? The government should fully explain its rationale of continuing to have a potentially controlling hand over Canada's agricultural economy.
Let me now deal with the treating of all producer organizations equally. Under the new act the portion of each defaulted advance that will be the responsibility of the program administrator or producer organization will be based on the historical defaults of the organization. The liability amount will vary from 1 per cent to15 per cent depending on past performance.
Reform supports this change but opposes the two-year delay for the Canadian Wheat Board. Although the government claims the Canadian Wheat Board needs time to make the necessary administrative adjustments, the principles of equity and fiscal responsibility should be respected.
I wonder if some of the political tactics the government is using is to deflect attention away from its more controversial bills. I often look at what has happened in the last few weeks as we prepare for the next election. We have seen a sudden increase in spending by the government in certain areas. Is this spending increase a way of deflecting attention away from what it has done previously, especially in Saskatchewan? The gun control bill has been of concern to many people. Also there is the gay rights amendment.
Some of so-called good news bills the agriculture minister announced are maybe an attempt to make people forget what has happened over the past 3.5 years. If there is anything Canadians really want it is more control over their own affairs. They want us to work together as MPs to improve legislation and to make sure it is effective. That really has not happened.
My greatest concern is that agriculture has had a lower priority with the government. Very little was done to help farmers. The removal of the crow rate subsidy without any warning, without any opportunity for adjustments to be made in the transportation area, has been a very serious blow to farmers. It will have a devastating effect on the farm economy. The government should have done what was necessary to bring down the input costs of farmers before it made some of these other moves.
