Kevin Sorenson

[Supply, March 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that today, as we brought this debate to the House, the House leader on the other side stood and for an hour we questioned the agricultural difficulties and the problem here. We lost an hour of debate. There are now six people from my party, many on the other opposition sides and a few on the government side who would love to speak to the agricultural crisis. However we spent an hour on a technicality when the country is in a disaster and a crisis.

This is the fourth time I have stood in the House on behalf of the many farmers in my predominantly rural riding and pleaded their case for assistance. Today is the first day of spring, the day most farmers look forward to getting on the land and putting a crop in the ground, a time when calves are being born and equipment is being fixed. Many farmers in my riding are not looking forward to much.

Every farm group across Canada has asked for a minimum of $900 million. The government says it can give $500 million and that should do. That will not do. It will not help the plight of our farmers.

Last week farmers across the country took to the streets in tractors and combines to protest the meagre aid that was given. In Ontario convoys pulled on to the highways, even highway 401, the busiest highway in the country, to protest. They also protested in Saskatoon.

I realize that my time is pretty well up. I should like to ask for an extension of the time for debate on the motion.

[Supply, March 13th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member beside me for such a good question. It boils down to this: Do we want to fight crime or do we want to deal with the effects of crime? Do we want to put in place what the police forces are asking for? They are asking for a registry that would not only be a record of the case or of the conviction of an offender but a record that would allow them to know where the offenders were so they could prevent it from happening again.

We want more than record keeping. We want a tool put in place to help us fight crime. As we learned in question period today, people on the most wanted list are in Canada. They have been here for two years. The government does not seem anxious about this until these individuals are forced to leave. Then two years later it will deal with the crime and say that at least the individuals did not commit anymore.

The Liberal document that I received this morning deals with the need to fight pornography at the root and not allow it to go the next step. The document states that there should be a registry available to groups who would hire people who work with children. It goes on to talk about pornography and making it illegal to possess it.

In the past we have sat passively by watching the courts rule on decisions. The government has had no will to fight crime but there has been a will to rehabilitate and reintegrate. One of my greatest concerns is that we are now compromising on that. That is exactly what this member said.

We are now saying that not only are we not going to fight crime by giving police officers the ability to know where these individuals are, but we are going to lower the amount of time they are incarcerated. We are not going to make it compulsory for these individuals go through education programs while incarcerated. This is an injustice to our society and to our children. It is time we stand up for the sake of our children and our grandchildren.

[Supply, March 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege and a pleasure for me to stand and speak in support of establishing a national sex offender registry. I do so today in memory of Christopher Stephenson, an 11 year old Toronto boy who was abducted, raped and murdered by a repeat sex offender.

Joseph Fredericks had a long history of assaulting children. He spent most of his life in psychiatric institutions. He was on mandatory supervision when Christopher was killed. I fully recognize that in this particular case a registry may not have prevented this sadistic killer from committing such a horrific act. However, as many have argued here today, it may have prevented him from killing the young boy. It may have allowed police officers to find and incarcerate Fredericks before Christopher's death.

As noted in many of the speeches already presented by my colleagues, we are proposing to establish a registry that would contain the names and addresses of convicted sex offenders. Every offender would be required to register in person at his or her local police station at least once a year. During that time they would be required to provide any updated information that the police force may ask for in order to combat sex offences.

As already mentioned today, a number of provincial jurisdictions have established this registry already. In the case of Ontario, Christopher's law, or Bill C-31, received royal assent in April 2000. It established a registry that aims to ensure the safety and security of all persons in that province by providing the information and investigative tools required to prevent and solve crimes of a sexual nature.

Before proceeding further, I would like to caution members on the other side of the House, particularly those who were here in or prior to 1993, to carefully consider their position on the motion today.

I issue such a warning because I have a copy of an April 1993 document titled “A Liberal Perspective on Crime and Justice Issues”. Contained within that document are a number of recommendations put forward by the then official opposition, one being to “combat Canada's growing violent crime problem.”

I commend the Liberal Party that while it was in opposition it recognized and realized there was a growing violent crime problem. That problem is still here today.

One of the recommendations that was put forward appears on page 7 of the Liberal document: “to support the establishment of a national registry of convicted child abusers”. The rationale for the recommendation was:

Sex offenders represent almost 20 per cent of the incarcerated population and 10 per cent of the conditionally released population. These numbers are not an accurate representation as they include only those sentenced to two years or more in prison. Actual figures are much higher.

Over the past five years there has been a 20.4 per cent increase in the rate of admission of sex offences. Evidently more and more sex offenders will be reintegrating into Canadian communities.

The Liberal's own findings went on to reveal:

Repeat sex offenders are more than twice as likely to commit further sex offences, much more likely to violate conditional release conditions and more likely than any other offenders to reoffend with a non-sexual offence. However, treatment programs for sexual offenders are sorely lacking.

When referring to the Tory government at the time the document stated:

The federal government is spending approximately $98 million a year to incarcerate sex offenders and only $2 million a year on treatment programs to rehabilitate them.

It went on to state:

It is the norm, when it should be the exception, that convicted sexual offenders return to communities without any counselling or rehabilitation therapy.

I do not often agree with the Liberal Party, but I certainly agree with its findings in this instance. Most of my colleagues and I agree with the information that was given out by the Liberal Party in 1993 to support its own recommendation for a national registry of convicted child abusers.

The Liberal's information is fully supported by a number of good studies which repeatedly indicate that sex offenders have one of the highest recidivism rates of any criminal group, with an estimated 40% reoffending within five years of release.

As well, research indicates that offender treatment programs have shown limited results. Practitioners in the field of sex offender treatment never claim to cure sex offenders, but rather they claim to manage the risk of reoffending.

What has changed over the last eight years? What has changed since the Liberals produced this great document on growth and violent crime? What is it that has so adamantly changed their minds that they have not implemented the program they wished to implement in 1993? Why have they not established this registry?

Moderately more money is being spent on treatment programs. According to the CSC's most recent figures, approximately $150 million is spent to incarcerate offenders and a little over $8 million is spent on treatment. That is a slight improvement over the figures released by the Liberals when the Tories were in power.

Not all sex offenders are fully completing the courses, the necessary plans that are prescribed by the CSC officials, because treatment is not compulsory. When they are incarcerated it is not compulsory that they undergo rehabilitation programs.

I can only surmise that it must be amnesia. Perhaps the Liberal Party is growing old or perhaps it is strictly amnesia that is causing it to forget about the recommendations or promises it once so believed in, or claimed to believe in.

The Liberal government forgot the recommendation to support a registry just like it forgot the recommendation to scrap the GST, just like it forgot the recommendation to forget free trade, just like it forgot the recommendation to have an ethics counsellor who reported directly to parliament. We have a very forgetful government.

To better illustrate the need for a national registry I will read some excerpts from an article that appeared in the Montreal Gazette a number of years ago. It stated:

A pedophile named Martin Dubuc was convicted...for offences against children—again. This is the same Martin Dubuc who, as a boys' hockey coach in Laval, was convicted in 1986 for molesting team members, the same creep who, after his release from prison, did not let a lifetime ban on coaching in Quebec stop him.

He simply changed locales, becoming a coach and eventually president of the Minor Hockey Association of Southwest Montreal. But that neglect by the recreation establishment is an old scandal. The new scandal involves the schools. It came to light last week when Dubuc pleaded guilty to using the telephone to threaten several boys aged 10 to 13 and to incite them to touch themselves sexually. Somehow, he had slithered his way into elementary schools as a substitute teacher. And this was not a slip-up by just one organization. In recent years, three different school boards in the Montreal area had hired Dubuc.

The Gazette went on to say:

This case illustrates the chilling way in which predators with long criminal records can worm their way into positions of trust and authority to harm children.

The author of the article went on to say that this was not a slip-up by simply one organization. It was a slip up by many organizations. One of those organizations was the Liberal organization across the way. One of them was the Liberal government because it failed to establish the national registry that it had once recommended.

In closing, I call upon members sitting opposite to honour their past promises. It is better to be late than never. Sexual criminal offences are all about control and power. For the sake of our children, let us take control away from the offender and give it back to our police forces, back to those who would fight crime. For the sake of our children, let us protect society and let us begin now with a national sex offender program and registry.

[Judges Act, March 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, in December of last year, shortly after the federal election, I was going through an Ottawa Citizen article which mentioned that Canadian judges would be receiving a $19 million pay raise that would boost their income 11.2% on average to more than $205,000.

The 11.2% awarded on December 13, 2000, was according to that news article quoting a justice department lawyer a compromise between the 26.3% that the judges were asking for and the demands of taxpayers to keep costs down. Government justice lawyer Judith Bellis had taken the view that the 11.2% was in the range of reasonable.

Bill C-12, the subject of today's debate, enacts that 11.2% pay raise, thereby raising the salaries of approximately 1,013 federally appointed judges who sit on provincial superior courts and courts of appeal, as well as the tax courts and the Supreme Court of Canada.

The increase, retroactive to April 1, 2000, will raise the base salary from $179,200 to $198,000 for judges who sit on appeal courts and superior courts in each province. The salaries for the chief justices in those courts will rise to $217,000 from $196,500. The same rates will also apply to federal court judges.

The judges on the Supreme Court of Canada will remain the highest paid. The eight regular judges will see an increase to $235,700 from $213,000, while Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin's salary will jump to $254,000 from $230,200.

It is important to note that while the government considers this raise reasonable, the official opposition views it as extremely generous considering senior public servants have received raises of no more than 5.7%. As well, the pay of public servants is not indexed, while the pay and salaries of judges are. We on this side of the House, therefore, are opposed to Bill C-12.

For the information of other new members of the House, I would like to point out this is not the first time the Liberal government has tried to amend the Judges Act. In fact, this is the fourth time the Liberals have come forward and made changes to the act.

Originally in 1996, Bill C-2 and Bill C-42, both if I may paraphrase a former member of the House, were described as being nebulous, inconsequential pieces of legislation with little significance to Canadians who were genuinely concerned about their safety, as opposed to the simple administrative matters that these bills brought forward.

In April 1998 Bill C-37 was introduced to establish the judicial compensation and benefits commission. The compensation commission was set up as an independent advisory body after the supreme court ruled that judges' salaries were constitutionally protected and the previous system of setting pay was inadequate.

Bill C-37, increasing judges' salaries retroactively, provided them with an 8.3% pay increase over those two years. Translated into dollars, this meant an average $13,000 pay increase for federal judges with salaries increasing from $159,000 to over $172,000.

I do not know of any other federal public servant, or any hard-working Canadian citizen, who received a $13,000 pay increase in 1998. While the Liberal government and the Tories were voting in favour of the huge pay increase, Canadians' incomes were on a steady decline.

Members on this side of the House, with the exception of the Progressive Conservative Party, opposed the bill. Members on the other side of the House wrongfully insisted that our opposition to the bill was “the ravings of ill-informed and ill-prepared men of parliament who contributed to the ill-repute of the justice system”. The truth is that my party holds the judiciary in high esteem. We were opposed to Bill C-37 and we are opposed to Bill C-12, based on the fact that other senior public servants, lower level public employees and other Canadian workers had not and will not be awarded such generous increases.

In the same year that federal judges were being awarded these huge salary increases, comparatively Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers, who had had their salaries and wages frozen for five years, were granted an increase of 2% in March 1998, retroactive to January. A second pay increase was given to them in April 1998 and toward the end of that year they received another three-quarter per cent increase. Over the five years that they had been frozen, and in the next year of 1998, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police saw an increase of three and three-quarter per cent. They are on the front lines putting their lives in jeopardy. The average three year constable received less than $2,000 over those years.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that the former member of Crowfoot put forward an amendment to Bill C-37 that was supported and passed in the House during report stage. That amendment ensured that every four years the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights had the opportunity to review the report of the commission on judges' salaries and benefits. The task would not be left solely to the Minister of Justice as was originally contemplated by the Liberal government.

It would be negligent of me if I also did not recognize the thorough job the Senate did in reviewing Bill C-37, the pre-emptive bill to Bill C-12, and the substantive amendments that it brought forward at the upper house.

In particular, I would like to single out the efforts of Senator Anne Cools for her diligent efforts in revealing the many inadequacies of Bill C-37. Senator Cools apparently exposed the fact that Bill C-37 would effectively allow judges to set their own wages, salaries and benefits and in so doing would set up the possibility of there being a show down between parliament and the judiciary. It would allow judges to appeal parliament's decision regarding a recommendation of the salary increase put forward in the courts. Essentially the judges would have the final say over whether or not parliamentarians were giving them a sufficient raise.

Although former judicial pay commissioner David Scott said it was unlikely that judges would ever be setting their own salaries, he would not rule out the possibility of the judiciary challenging parliament's response to the commission's recommendations for a pay increase or for reducing pay.

The judiciary would have to prove, however, in a court that the refusal to increase salaries or a decision to lower them was motivated by a wish to diminish the independence of judges. Mr. Scott said that even if the judges won in such a case, the court could only declare parliament's motion on the issue void and that would result in a stalemate. As pointed out by the Liberal senator, this would “deprive Canadians of their undoubted constitutional right to parliament's control over the public purse in respect to the judiciary”.

Clearly, the control of the public purse rests with the elected members of parliament and not with the unelected members of the judiciary.

Section 100 of the 1867, Constitution Act, states in part that the salaries, allowances and pensions of the judges shall be fixed and provided by the Parliament of Canada. Clause 6 of Bill C-37 potentially abolished parliament's role in fixing judges' salaries.

Obviously we must question why the Minister of Justice at that time was so willing to bestow such potentially wielding powers on the judiciary through Bill C-37. One can only surmise, and again I use the words of Senator Cools when she said:

The real intent (of Bill C-37) is to remove parliament from the process.... There is a problem in that certain particular judges seem to crave a closeness to certain individuals in the Department of Justice and are trying to cling, closer and closer, to the executive rather than to parliament.

She went on to say to the Senate:

In other words, honourable senators, what is happening here is that 200 years of history are being turned on their head, and we are being told in this judgment that, quite frankly, judges prefer their fate to be in the hands of the executive rather than in the hands of parliament. It is a most curious and interesting subject matter.

It is more than curious and interesting, it is fearful.

Bill C-37, which was also an act to amend the Judges Act as it was originally drafted by the Department of Justice, had another problem. It created a legal right for a judge to have two spouses. The two spouses clause was meant to deal with circumstances in which a married judge, who was separated from his or her wife or husband and was living common law with another person, died. It would have allowed a judge to have both spouses, married and common law, to be eligible for the lucrative pension. In addition, the common law spouse would collect a one time payout of one-sixth of the judge's annual salary at the time of his or her passing.

Former supreme court Justice William Estey said that this particular section of Bill C-37 would “give his former colleagues on the bench the right to a kind of homemade harem. It would effectively create two separate sets of family law, one for the judges and one for everyone else”.

During debate on this legislation it was noted that the situations such as the contemplated one in Bill C-37 were rare. Therefore, questions arose as to why such a clause was put into Bill C-37. Critics suggested that this particular clause was tailor made for Chief Justice LeSage who was separated from his wife and had resided for about a year with Judge Lang. If Chief Justice LeSage were to die, the new amendment would have allowed both Judge Lang and Mrs. LeSage to qualify as his surviving spouse and share his pension.

As pointed out by Senator Cools during the debate, Bill C-37 appeared tailor fit to particular individuals. Senator Cools said “We have a situation in this country where individuals have access to the legislative writing machine”. Senator Cools said that it was very bothersome. Again, that is more than bothersome. That is a huge concern.

I understand that Bill C-37 was not the first time that the government has tailor made legislation to amend the Judges Act. Bill C-42, as mentioned earlier, also amended the Judges Act. It changed the pension scheme and working conditions of the federally appointed judiciary. In particular, it set out the terms on which Canadian judges could participate in international activities.

Although it was never explicitly admitted by the House or by the government, it was no secret that these amendments to the Judges Act arose due to the 1996 appointment of then Madam Justice Louise Arbour to the United Nations as a prosecutor for its special war crimes division.

Apparently opposition members naively agreed in June of that year, just before the House recessed for the summer, without any debate in the House, without any debate at committee, to pass Bill C-42 after being assured by the former justice minister that it was a simple innocuous housekeeping bill. It was not until the amended bill was returned from the Senate and the testimony of witnesses that appeared before the Senate committee were made known that my colleagues realized that Bill C-42, as claimed by legal experts, had “the appearance of transgressing the vital principle of judicial impartiality”, the very principle that our Minister of Justice has just spoken on.

In particular, I refer to the testimony of Professor Morton:

The government is concerned, as well it should be, with the current status of Justice Arbour and the implications of her status for those responsible at justice. The government seems to hope that by passing Bill C-42 as quickly as possible it can retroactively legitimate apparent indiscretions by Justice Arbour and possibly others—

It would appear that Justice Arbour agreed to the appointment before it had been approved by the Minister of Justice (or any other officials), thereby forcing the minister to react to a fait accompli. Furthermore, it then appears that the minister, rather than recommending to Justice Arbour that she postpone her new activities (at the Hague) pending necessary amendments to the Judges Act, sought to temporarily legitimate her actions by an order in council; and then (because the order in council is conceded to be insufficient) sought to retroactively legitimate Justice Arbour's new employment with general amendments to the Judges Act, Bill C-42, thereby forcing the hand of Parliament.

Professor Morton added:

No doubt some will say that this is nit-picking. My response is simple. If the justice minister and appeal court judges cannot be expected to comply with the letter of the law, then who can?...Indeed within the last month the justice minister himself pronounced on the meaning and the importance of the rule of the law. The rule of the law is “a living” principle that is fundamental to our democratic way of life. In substance it means that everyone in our society, including ministers of government, premiers, the rich and powerful and the ordinary citizen alike, is governed by the same law of the land.

While one section of Bill C-42 at that point in time appeared tailor made for Arbour, another section of that very same bill was apparently designed for the then chief justice of the supreme court in that it offered an unprecedented pension benefit to the chief justice and his wife at the very time when the top court was considering the most politically sensitive case of the decade, perhaps of confederation, whether Quebec had a constitutional right to secede from Canada.

The proposed changes did away with the prohibition on judicial double-dipping. Previously a retired judge received a pension equal to two-thirds of his annual salary; on average, about $104,000. When he died, his spouse collected a survivor's pension worth one-third of his salary or $52,000, provided that she was not a retired judge.

Under the new law retired judge spouses will collect both, thus receiving a total pension equivalent to their salary before retirement. The most obvious beneficiary of the change was Chief Justice Lamer and his wife, Federal Court of Canada Justice Danièle Tremblay-Lamer.

With regard to this section of Bill C-42, Professor Morton said:

Without imputing any illicit motive to anyone involved—the timing of this proposed change could not be worse.

Morton also said that sceptics would claim:

It is unacceptable that a chief justice who is about to benefit from the minister's proposed pension policy change now sits in judgment of the minister's Quebec reference—the most politically sensitive constitutional case of the decade.

In closing, I would assure the House and Canadians in general that the official opposition will closely scrutinize Bill C-12. In particular, we will review the provision of the bill that changes the annuities scheme.

I am not a financial expert. I am not an expert on annuities or the pay schedules that are put forward in the bill. Without the advantage of expert advice at this stage, what appears to happen is that the changes being made to the Judges Act allow a judge who is married for the second time to another judge after the death of his or her first spouse, also a judge, to collect both or two survivor benefits upon the death of the second spouse. One could only guess why the government is contemplating such a rare and highly unlikely situation.

As we have already mentioned, four times the Liberal government has come to make amendments to the Judges Act. We have seen time and time again where the government has tailor made legislation to fit certain individuals and certain situations. We will also assure the House and Canadians in general that Bill C-12 is not tailor made to any individuals. If it were, it would definitely compromise the impartiality of our judiciary.

[Judges Act, March 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House and have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-12, an act to amend the Judges Act and to amend another act in consequence. I would like to mention that I will be splitting my time with the Canadian Alliance justice critic from Provencher.

[Trevor And Linda Davies, March 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend Mr. Trevor and Mrs. Linda Davies of Camrose, Alberta for their volunteer efforts in Honduras.

On behalf of the Canadian Executive Service Organization, Trevor and Linda went on assignment to Honduras to assist an organization that provides financial services to Afro-Honduran communities and other ethnic groups that have difficulty accessing credit from conventional sources.

Trevor wrote a comprehensive report that covered the past and present micro credit situation, management and personnel and projected lending. He made a series of recommendations for change.

Linda provided recommendations for immediate and long term health and sanitation improvements for a village project the organization sponsored. She left medications and other supplies donated by Canadians at the village clinic and donated materials to the village school.

The outstanding and selfless efforts of these two individuals helped stimulate development in the disadvantaged economy of Honduras.

In this year of volunteers, I salute the work of these highly skilled volunteers, Trevor and Linda Davies.

[Young Offenders Act, February 28th, 2001]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-289, an act to amend the Young Offenders Act (public safety).

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce my first private member's bill. The bill seeks to make the protection of society the first and guiding principle of the Young Offenders Act.

In the name of public safety, the bill allows for the publishing of all names of young violent offenders. It also seeks to change the minimum age of criminality from 12 to 10 years of age. It provides young people, who at this tender age get mixed up in crime, with the opportunity for guidance and rehabilitation that is necessary for them to get back on track.

In June 1997 the justice minister promised to make amending the Young Offenders Act a top priority. That was almost four years ago and nothing has been done. There have been a number of futile attempts but we are still saddled with what the minister, in her own words, calls “easily the most unpopular federal bill”.

I ask for all members to help with the bill for the sake of our children and grandchildren.

[Agriculture, February 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a privilege to be in the House tonight to speak on behalf of farmers in the west and to speak on behalf a sector that is hurting, a sector that is diminishing and disappearing. We are here tonight because we believe that we can make changes. We have not totally given up hope. We believe that there is still a place for the family farm in western Canada and throughout Canada.

I realize, Mr. Speaker, that you are a sporting enthusiast. We may be all having a little difficulty this evening staying awake. It is 12.45 p.m. here and 9.45 p.m. in Alberta.

As a new member of parliament, I have already given my response to the throne speech. Tomorrow I will give a speech with regard to the young offenders legislation. I was not aware that I was going to give a speech on agriculture tonight, but I was told that if I waited until midnight I might find a opening. I am glad I did.

This little illustration I am about to tell the House is about a football game in 1929. California was leading Georgia Tech by a score of seven to two. The quarterback went up to the line and shouted for the ball. When the centre passed the ball to the quarterback he turned and handed the ball to a running back by the name of Roy Regals. Roy Regals took the ball, ran into the line and bumped up against his tackles and his guards and got turned around. He started running one way. Then he started running another way. Pretty soon he found himself running in the wrong direction. As he ran the wrong way the crowd hollered “no, no, no” but Roy thought they were hollering “go, go, go”. He continued to run in the wrong direction.

California had a player by the name of Benny Lam. Benny Lam took after the running back and he tried to run him down. He caught him at the five yard line. He explained to his running back that he was running in the wrong direction. Georgia Tech tried to kick the ball from its end zone and get out of trouble. When they kicked it, it was blocked. The opposing team fell on it and won the football game.

I believe we have a government very similar to the player who was running in the wrong direction, putting out all the effort to get a job done and working hard to see that agriculture and many other sectors that are in dire straits get help. However the government is running in the wrong direction.

We have stood for years and decades in the House to tell the government that there were troubles coming in the agricultural sector which needed to be addressed. They put it on hold. Everything was continually put on hold.

This past fall we travelled throughout the constituency of Crowfoot, a constituency that is dependent on agriculture and whose lifeblood is agriculture. We saw communities that are dependent on farming, grain and cattle. We were told that they would not make it.

I have travelled through many small towns in this past election campaign and found many more doors locked on main street than opened. When we talk to businessmen, whether in Drumheller, Stetler, Hannah, Camrose or Killum, they say that if we want to help their businesses we should help the farmers. If we want to keep the businesses alive, it will not come in any other way than by helping the agricultural sector.

We have looked at ways of helping agriculture. Government members looked at ways of helping agriculture. They were heading in the wrong direction. They came up with the AIDA program. They promised billions of dollars to farmers. They promised that there would be money coming and then gave us a paperwork nightmare. The other ones having nightmares are the accountants because they are the only ones who can fill out the forms. More farmers end up paying a higher accounting bill than they get in return from the government. We need to change the direction in which we are headed.

We have talked about the concerns of transportation. I am a farmer. I have farmed for 25 years. Farming is the only business which pays the end price for every purchase made. Farmers pay a retail price on everything they buy. Everything they sell is sold at a wholesale price. They also pay the freight both ways when they sell it. Before they sell any grain they pay for the freight when it leaves the farm gate. When they buy sprays and cover their input costs, they pay the final cost, which includes all those things.

We have talked about tax reform. Many of our members won the election on our stand on tax reform. One of our directors, a gentleman from Czar, Alberta, went to the United States and toured a John Deere factory. He spoke one evening with the president of John Deere. He told the president the problem with a lot of the equipment and machinery manufacturers was that they did not make equipment for the smaller farmer, the farmer who is looking for a $40,000 tractor.

He was told that when the iron comes out of the smelter and rolls out it is taxed. It goes to the next level and is taxed again. If all levels of accumulative taxes were removed from a $100,000 tractor, we would end up with a $40,000 tractor. The level of taxation on all input costs is too high.

The family farm is disappearing. I want to mention a true story about what happened during the election. I knocked on the door of farmhouse, walked in and went to the kitchen table. The farmer sat down with me and told me that he would not make it. He was 72 years old and he had no hope. In past years he had a glimmer of hope. He thought there would be hope, but he saw no hope coming from the government or anyone.

As he sat there he told me that he spent two hours on the Sunday previous looking for a .22 shell. He said that there was no hope for him. When I left that farmhouse, he was sitting, weeping at the table.

The only time I have ever stolen anything in my life is when I left the farmhouse that day. I went to his gun rack on the porch, took the rifle and put it in my pickup. It is a true story. It simply illustrates the degree of hopelessness people are feeling out there.

I have received phone calls and letters from people in my riding. I have had individuals sitting in my office, breaking down and weeping. A 58 year old farmer from Edgerton told me that on the night previous his 26 year old son who has one young child had come in to his home and had told him “Dad, I am leaving. Why would I stay?” This individual had most of his land finally paid for. He was looking forward to his son taking over the farm. We are losing a generation from the farm and they will not come back.

What do we want farms to look like in 10 years? What do we want western Canada to look like in 10 years? My communities are dependent on the family farm. We are begging the government to listen. The Prime Minister stood in the House the other day and said that he would go to the United States and encourage President Bush to drop the subsidy.

We need help and we need it now in the agricultural sector in western Canada. We need help from a government that will say that we will not simply ask Mr. Bush but will lobby governments in Europe, in the United States and throughout the world, our competitors. We want our farmers on a level playing field with farmers around the world.

There are too many stories out there about people who have lost hope. Twenty-two thousand farmers over the last year have packed their bags and said that they were going somewhere to find a job. They were going to learn about computers so that they could work in the city somewhere, which our government is encouraging them to do.

The family farm is disappearing. What will it look like in 10 years? I have no idea. I do realize that just as in the 1930s in Alberta and throughout western Canada populist movements came along and people found hope. People are looking to the government today for hope. They are looking to each side for hope. Let us hope and pray that we come up with some long term solutions soon and a quick influx of cash before spring work.

[Agriculture, February 13th, 2001]

It is just you with all the answers.

[Correctional Service Canada, February 9th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we should take them away from our police officers as well then.

Drumheller guards were bitten, head-butted and kicked while attempting to restrain two intoxicated prisoners in the prison corridors because another guard had to go to the main control office, locate a key, open a restraining locker and retrieve the handcuffs they needed.

Quite obviously the policy of Correction Service Canada is putting our federal prison guards at serious risk of injury. Why will the solicitor general not immediately revoke the directive that forbids correctional officers from carrying handcuffs before more guards are seriously harmed?