Leon Benoit

[Supply, October 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the member's comments, coming from the parliamentary secretary, really concern me.

I heard no reference whatsoever to some of the key issues that are affecting farmers, such as tax reduction which would help immensely in improving the bottom line, and such as dealing with the unfair trade practices of other countries which would do more than anything else the government can do. These programs are not going to cut it. We have to fix up the problems in trade.

I heard no reference to reducing user fees which have been built up by the government at an unbelievable pace over the past six years, or reducing regulation and red tape so farmers do not spend half their winters working through the maze the government has set out for them.

None of these things were talked about. No solutions were offered by the parliamentary secretary. That certainly does not respond to the concerns that farmers have.

[Supply, October 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to see that the member from Toronto recognized the important contribution made by farmers to the food supply, which is safe and certainly among the best in the world. I was also pleased to hear his idea on how to get city people to recognize the input of farmers. I really appreciate that and think it is a good idea, but it still does not deal with these severe, critical problems that we have.

It does not deal with pushing European countries and putting pressure on Asian countries to remove or reduce their import restrictions. It does nothing to pressure the United States to reduce its unfair subsidies which make it very difficult for our farmers to compete because they are not competing on a level playing field. They are competing against just too many odds. Our farmers have become so efficient that they can compete against an awful lot of odds that one would think they just would not be able to deal with, but they can.

The Liberals have not dealt with the tax problem other than making it worse. They have not dealt with the restrictions on farmers to develop more options for markets except by making it worse. They have made things worse rather than improving them.

[Supply, October 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the agriculture minister talks about his $1.5 billion. That figure really means nothing to farmers. The reality is that after more than a year since the minister promised quick action on the issue—and I remember him calling for quick action—only $72 million has been paid out in Saskatchewan, the province that was supposed to receive a bulk of the money.

The minister implies that it must be because farmers are not bright enough to apply for it or something. He implies that if farmers applied for it they would get it. He should give a little more credit to the farmers in western Canada. If he would understand farmers at all in western Canada he would know that they are well-educated people. They are very intelligent, hard working and they understand business. The minister gives no indication that he understands any of that.

[Supply, October 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I do not expect I will ever get through to the member. I have been trying for six years, as he says. Quite frankly, he is not listening. When we talk about reducing subsidies, we are talking about reducing the cost of the bureaucracy in Ottawa. Everyone, including him, knows that the bureaucracy should be cut back.

We are talking about tax reduction, so there is a trade off. When some of the subsidies are lowered there is tax reduction. That has not happened. We are talking about opening up marketing options so there will be more money for commodities. Instead, it continues to limit.

In the end, the only way we will solve the problem is to eliminate the Liberals. That sounds like an awful partisan statement, and maybe it is, but I am fed up with Liberals who either do not understand because they do not want to or deliberately make it look like they do not understand what we are proposing, as the member has just done.

[Supply, October 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to this very important issue. I am very disappointed in what I have heard so far from the members opposite. I hope they will pay more attention to the debate and offer some useful input as we go along.

This situation is very serious. It is not something that affects a few people in the hinterland of western Canada. This affects most of the farmers and certainly all of the grain farmers in western Canada. Hog farmers have gone through extremely difficult times. I know it also affects farmers in the rest of Canada. I cannot understand the attitude of the government when it comes to not treating this issue as a serious issue.

I rent my farm out on a crop share basis. I understand very well what the markets are like. I have my income to offset losses from my farm but a lot of other farmers do not have enough off farm income to offset their losses. These losses have been ongoing. In some cases farmers have been feeling them for years, especially in cases where there has been flooding year after year, as the member from the Peace River country referred to, or in cases of drought as there has been in the area I am from. Farmers are not asking for handouts. They are not looking for money from the government just because things are difficult. They are looking for fair treatment. They want the government to take serious action to deal with the trade issues that are so dramatically depressing prices.

The government, the minister and others have paid lip service to this issue, but what have they really done about it? They say one thing and do quite another. They really should be ashamed at the way they are looking at the issue.

I would be happy to stand here today and say that the Liberals are doing a good job but it simply is not true. I also cannot see that they really care a lot about it.

I want to talk a little about the situation right now so that the Liberals understand it. We understand it well. It is such serious situation that in Saskatchewan alone farmers will experience losses of $50 million this year. That means there will be no profit. They will not even have enough money to cover their year to year expenses, let alone make payments on the land. This will be the situation in many cases.

The situation is particularly serious in western Canada. It less so in Ontario and in the rest of the country but I believe it is still serious. The reason it is more serious in western Canada is that Ontario has the GRIP which is still in place and is much richer than it ever was in western Canada. It was given special treatment from the start. I do not say this by way of attacking Ontario farmers. They have done their work and this is what they wanted. They fought for it and were successful. However, the government seemed for some reason to give this to the farmers from Ontario where it would not give the same thing to farmers in western Canada. It clearly viewed farmers from western Canada with less seriousness.

Supply management, which is more prevalent in central Canada, fixes prices based on cost and for that reason farmers will not suffer as much in Ontario. It is a serious situation that I recognize in Ontario and the rest of the country as well.

When looking at the current situation, it is important to look at how the situation affects people. It affects farm families. It affects small town business people who depend on what farmers earn to make a living themselves. It affects people right across western Canada and stretches right into the major centres of western Canada: Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Regina and Winnipeg. The impact is felt even in those larger centres. We are not talking about a few people. We are talking about a very serious situation.

I think back to when I was a farm economist and worked for Alberta agriculture with farmers. Through the 1980s, I worked with dozens and dozens of farmers who were going out of business, many going broke. I sat down at dozens of kitchen tables with farm wives and husbands who were in tears and desperate. Their children saw the tears in their eyes. I thought that once we got through this situation it would never happen again. Sadly, it is happening again as I speak and it is because there has not been the action that was required on the part of government.

What has the government done? Looking at the short term, it put in place the AIDA program which farmers say is not going to work and the government has to know that.

The government has raised taxes. I heard a previous member say “Why are you talking about income tax? If you do not make any money you do not pay income tax”. Where is his head? There are taxes on everything these people buy. It drives prices up. Taxes account for half or more of fuel costs. I cannot believe a member would say something like that when talking about the tax load. They just do not understand.

New user fees have more than doubled since the government has been in place. The government dumped the freight subsidy, with little compensation. Nothing was put in place to help deal with the situation. It has actually limited marketing options and has done nothing to reduce the red tape. It has in fact increased it. It is a shameful record.

What does Reform propose? The House will know it is a top priority issue with Reform by the number of debates we have called for, the emergency debates we have called for, the supply days we have used to discuss the subject for a committee and all the other work that the Reform MPs have done. I guess one would expect that from a party that has more than 20 members of parliament who either right now have direct connections with a farm or have owned farms and farmed in the past. It is a serious issue with us but we do not see the same level of commitment to the issue from the member's office.

What Reform is proposing is much more substantial than just talk. Starting in 1990, I was a member of the first Reform agriculture task force, along with the current leader of the the new United Alternative in Saskatchewan. We were among seven people who were committed to making things better for agriculture. We called for the elimination of the Crow subsidy, but we called for part of the capitalized value of the Crow. We were looking at maybe $3.5 to $4 billion, maybe half the capitalized value of the Crow, to be put into what we called a trade distortion adjustment program which would compensate farmers for damage done due to unfair trade in other countries around the world. This is not talking about handouts, just fair treatment.

We have called for a trade distortion adjustment program since coming here literally hundreds of times in the House and in committee. We have explained what it is. We have encouraged the government to put this in place but it is not going to happen. I have given up trying to pretend the government is ever going to fix the problem.

Had that program been put in place, farmers would not be in the situation they are currently in right now. Liberals usually are good at stealing the concept and talking about good ideas. Unfortunately their flaw is that they do not implement the good ideas completely. This was a good idea. I wish to God that these people had taken that idea and implemented it. I am sad today that they did not.

As well as that program, which would have gone a long way to solving the problem, when Reform forms government, and I believe we will in the next election because the country needs us and more people are recognizing that, we will lower taxes and that will help farmers in a very real way. We will lower or eliminate unfair user fees. We are not against user fees as a whole but they should be fair and reasonable in the context of the services being provided. We will open up options for western Canadian farmers and for farmers right across the country. We will open up marketing options and make the wheat board a voluntary board. We will open up options in transportation. We will make things better for farmers because I know the government is not going to.

[Petitions, October 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to present a petition put forth by the African Refugee and Immigration Aid Services which calls upon the government and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to deal with the urgent resettlement needs of refugees in Sierra Leone, including tortured victims, women, children at risk and internally displaced persons with family ties in Canada. They ask the Canadian government to act on this immediately. I fully support this petition.

[Points Of Order, October 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I admit that I do get a little excited by some of the so-called answers, and I completely withdraw any comments that the hon. member finds offensive.

[Agriculture, October 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, many farmers across the country are going broke or are having a difficult time making ends meet. For most it is through no fault of their own. Farmers are paying the price for this government letting them down in trade talks, for this government overtaxing them everywhere they turn and through everything they buy, for this government imposing unfair user fees on them and for this government burdening our farmers with unnecessary red tape and over regulation.

For six years Reform has fought for the government to lower taxes, to remove unfair user fees, to reduce red tape and to get tough on trade talks. For the past 10 years Reform has proposed compensating farmers through a trade distortion adjustment program for losses resulting from unfair trade practices on the part of Europe, the United States, Asia and elsewhere.

Surely even this government must see that it is reasonable for farmers to receive compensation for losses resulting from unfair trade practices in other countries, but so far all they have received is the Trudeau salute, again.

[Immigration, October 20th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, everything in the minister's answer was really irrelevant. It is clear to Canadians that this system is not working well at all.

It has been over three months and the government system has completed six claims. Over 50 people are missing and more are being released every day. Of course we know that they will disappear.

I want to know why the minister is allowing people who came here illegally and have been denied refugee status to be released on Canadian soil.

[Immigration, October 20th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, bogus refugees have gone missing. At least 56 of the 600 migrants have either abandoned their claims or have been denied refugee status.

They all have something in common, however. The immigration department does not have the first clue as to where they are right, at this very minute. No doubt, however, the people smugglers who brought them here know exactly where they are.

Why is the minister allowing organized crime to profit from her lack of action?