Leon Benoit

[The Economy, November 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister often brags that Canadians are benefiting from lower interest rates. He claims that Canadians will buy more houses and more new cars, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars due to lower interest rates.

My question for the Prime Minister is what about those Canadians who cannot afford to buy a home or a new car and who work two or three jobs to feed their kids. What is the government going to do for those children who do without so much, including time with their parents who have to work so hard and so long to feed this hungry government?

[Agriculture, November 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be speaking today in support of the motion presented by the hon. member for Wild Rose:

That, in the opinion of this House, wheat and barley producers in western Canada should be given greater flexibility and more choices by amending the Canadian Wheat Board Act to include a special two year opting out provision for those farmers interested in developing niche export markets.

I thank the hon. member for bringing this up. I am not saying this is necessarily the only way we can deal with the end of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly, which is what many farmers are asking for. But this certainly is one alternative that should be debated. Before I get into that debate I will comment on some of the comments by the hon. member from the Bloc who just spoke.

He asked why we were not debating something important. I have barley in the bin and out in the filed to be sold right now. To me this issue is important. I have neighbours who have barley in the field and barley to be sold. To them this issue is very important. In fact, to thousands and thousands of western Canadian farmers this issue is very important.

I have come to know the hon. member from the Bloc and I have gained some respect for him over the past three years, but I find it absolutely unbelievable that he would brush this issue off as an issue that is not important. It is important. It is important to many western Canadian farmers.

Back to the motion at hand, I would like to ask some questions. For example, why is the minister of agriculture denying farmers a third option on the ballot that will give farmers a chance to speak in the plebiscite promised by the minister?

In this plebiscite only two options are offered to farmers. I will read the questions and make clear what these two options are. Then I will talk about a third option which should be on the ballot. The first option is the open market option which is stated as follows: "Remove all barley, both feed and malting food, from the Canadian Wheat Board and place it entirely on the open market for all domestic and export sales". That is the first option and that is the wording the minister will use to present this option.

The second option is the single seller option: "Maintain the Canadian Wheat Board as a single desk seller for all barley, both feed and malting food, with the continuing exception of feed barley sold domestically".

Those options are two out of the three options that should be on this ballot. Unfortunately the minister has denied western Canadian farmers the option that a vast majority of them would choose. I know this not only from polling I have done on my own, not only from the polling of other Reform members in their own constituencies, but from other polls that have been commissioned on this issue. Poll after poll has shown that a majority of Canadian farmers if given the choice would choose the dual marketing option or the voluntary board option, call it what you like.

In a plebiscite held in Alberta about a year ago, when the question was put to western Canadian farmers, two-thirds of the farmers in Alberta chose the voluntary board or the dual marketing option.

This issue has been decided in Alberta already. It should be put to plebiscite for the benefit of farmers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. However, let us present the option that farmers would choose. What kind of nonsense is this, offering only two options which will split western Canadian farmers and pit family against family? Only asking the two questions will do that.

How will farmers handle having only the two options presented? I cannot say for sure but I can make a pretty good guess. My guess is that farmers, on recognizing that the dual marketing option is not available, may choose the open market option. In that case the wheat board will no longer be handling barley sales at all. That is not what I want, that is not what other Reform MPs want and it is not what farmers across western Canada want. They want the freedom to choose to market their barley through the Canadian Wheat Board, through a pooling system, or to market it on their own or through a private grain company. That is the third option which is not on the ballot of the minister of agriculture.

I am afraid, because that option is not on the ballot, that farmers in western Canada might be denied the pooling option, an option which I know some of them want. That is nonsense.

Why did the minister not put this third option on the ballot? I cannot answer that question for sure but it concerns me greatly that he did not offer it. Would not the proper way to handle this issue be to present the three options? The reason the minister of agriculture gives for not putting that voluntary board or dual marketing option on the plebiscite is that it would not work. Would not the proper way to handle this issue be to put it on the ballot and to have a debate across western Canada? The minister, the wheat board and other people who argue that a dual marketing system would not work could debate that option. They could say: "We do not think that option would work for these reasons". That is a point of debate.

On the other hand, I could argue that it would work and that is what I would do during the debate leading up to the plebiscite. I would argue that in fact the Canadian Wheat Board, when it was set up, was a voluntary board. The dual marketing system was in place from the time the board was first set up in the twenties and re-established in the thirties. The voluntary board or the dual marketing option was only taken away from farmers under the War Measures Act in 1943. That was done so the Canadian government could obtain for the war effort grain at the lowest price possible. Canadian farmers allowed that because they wanted to help with

the war. They were promised compensation later which they never received.

Why do we still have a monopoly situation today when it was only put in place under the War Measures Act? It is to get cheap grain. I would argue in the debate leading up to the plebiscite that the dual market system worked well before the monopoly was put in place and that it would work well now.

I want to make it as clear as I can that I favour keeping the Canadian Wheat Board. It is very useful. However, I favour giving farmers a choice. Surely in country like this no one could argue seriously that farmers who put all of the money, the sweat and the work into producing their grain should not have the freedom to choose how to market that grain. Yet, that is what the government and the minister are arguing against all common sense. It makes no sense whatsoever.

I have so much that I want to say on this issue, but I see that my time is coming to a close. However, if I may, I would like to again make it clear what I am arguing for here.

The hon. member for Wild Rose is asking that farmers be given the chance to opt out over a two-year period. It is one way of ending the wheat board monopoly. But there are other ways the monopoly could be ended and make it work effectively.

One way would be to offer deferred delivery contracts such as that which grain companies now offer to farmers, unlike the Canadian Wheat Board contracts that are in place now which do not guarantee a price for the commodity and do not guarantee delivery by a certain date. It is a one-sided contract.

The deferred delivery contract which farmers use for canola, peas, or other crops of choice, stipulates that farmers will deliver a certain number of bushels or tonnes of the commodity to a specified delivery point for such a price on such a date. The grain company promises to take delivery at the specified price, destination and date. That is another way to end the monopoly of the board.

A third way is by offering contracts, committing a certain number of tonnes or bushels to the board so that the board would know exactly what it will be working with before the actual marketing. That commitment can be made some time in advance and staged in. That is another way to deal with the issue. Give farmers a choice. I cannot believe that the government in good conscience can continue to deny farmers the choice on how to market their grain.

In conclusion, I want to again thank the hon. member for Wild Rose for his motion and say that I support it as one way to deal with ending the monopoly of the wheat board. I also point out that there are other ways of dealing with the situation. I say very clearly that a voluntary board has worked before, a dual marketing system has worked before, and it will work again. I ask the minister to examine this again.

[Income Tax Act, November 4th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on Motion No. 30, sponsored by the member for Mississauga South.

The motion reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider amending the Income Tax Act to provide a care giver tax credit for those who provide care in the home for preschool children, the disabled, the chronically ill or the aged.

I would like to commend the member for bringing this motion forward. The recognition of the problem of unfair tax treatment, in particular of families that choose to have one member of the family stay at home, is commendable. It is a good thing to bring this forward and to talk about it. There are, however, at least three questions that I would like to ask the member. I will talk about them in my presentation today.

The first question is where is the cost benefit analysis, or at least an estimate of the cost and the benefits of the changes that this motion would bring about and put into law?

My second question is why is the government's only response to this issue to put in place more taxpayer funded day care? I will talk briefly about that in my presentation.

The third question I have is that the government of which he is a member has been in power for three years now. Why has the government not acted on the portion of the motion which would bring into place equal tax treatment between families that choose to have one parent stay at home to take care of the children and those families that choose to hire, either through day care or some other place, someone to look after their children while they are at work? Why has the government not dealt with this inequity in the tax system? Why has it not taken this unfairness out of the system?

That is the third question for the member. I will deal with it later in my presentation.

First, where is the cost benefit analysis? The member for Mississauga South, the sponsor of the bill, said in his presentation: "The viability of M-30 needs to be assessed, not from a financial perspective, but from a balanced perspective, taking into account both social and fiscal reality". I agree with that.

How can this member ask me and others to support this motion when a cost benefit analysis has not been done? How can we possibly support a motion when an estimate of the effect this would have on the finances of the country has not been completed?

I would suggest that no member of Parliament should, in good conscience, vote in favour of a motion like this. We must have a cost benefit analysis that is at least accurate enough to give us a ball park figure of the costs and the benefits of this motion. The hon. member has failed to provide that. I certainly cannot support this motion on that basis.

Second, why has the government's only response to this issue been a promise for more taxpayer funded day care? Of course, this promise was made in the red book. It is another one of those promises that has not been kept, by the way. In the government's tally, 72 per cent or some such thing of its promises have been kept. By my tally, 28 to 30 per cent, if someone is generous, have been kept. This promise for more spending on day care, which is by the way something I do not support, is a promise that has not been kept. Canadians should hold the government accountable because it made a promise and a promise should be kept.

It is one of the things on which the government did campaign. It is an issue that was talked about during the campaign. Other Reform candidates and I spoke out against this during the election campaign while the Liberals spoke out in favour, yet it is certainly a promise the government will not be keeping.

Why has that been the government's only response, a promise which it is not going to keep, but a promise to spend more on publicly funded day care? It is not going to solve the problem.

The third question is the most important. Why has the government, of which the member who has sponsored this motion has been a part for three years now, not deal with this unfairness that he points out is in our tax system. It gives an unfair tax advantage to people who pay others to take care of their children.

It is not for government to tell people how they are going to care for their children. It is important that parents have a choice whether they will have their children looked after by someone else while they work or if they choose, to have one parent stay at home and look after the children without having the tax system punish them for making the choice to have one parent stay at home.

That is wrong. There is no job in this country, including the job of Prime Minister, which is as important as having children very well looked after. Studies have shown that it is important for one parent, and it does not matter which parent, stay at home with children in their younger years. If a family chooses to do that because they believe that is their responsibility as a parent, then the tax system should not punish them.

Reform has said some very specific things in the fresh start document which was released on October 17 and has been talking about and presenting across the country. This fresh start document says that there are two visions of how and what this country can be. One vision has been shared by the Liberals and federal Conservatives over the past many years. It is a vision of big, very expensive government. Higher and higher taxation is necessary to support this big government. That taxation has been a job killer and has also made it very difficult for parents to support a family with only one person working. It is high taxation and high payroll deductions that have caused this problem.

The other vision, which is the vision that Reform and many Canadians share, is a vision of a Canada with a much smaller federal government, much less intervention in our lives, and a government that would cost less and so would allow less taxation.

Our fresh start has three proposals concerning taxation which would make it much easier for parents to choose to have one parent stay at home with the family. In fact, it would make it easier for those parents who choose to have both work and someone else look after the children while they are at work.

The first proposal which is for all families, whether both parents work or not, is an increase in the basic personal exemption amount from $6,456 to $7,900. That will lead to a tax reduction for all Canadian families. That is important.

The second proposal is critical and would deal with the part of this motion to do with the unfair tax treatment of families, in terms of taking care of children. The second proposal allows for an increase in the spousal amount from $5,380 to $7,900. That levels the playing field.

Furthermore, as part of our commitment to the family, the child care deduction of $3,000 to $5,000, which is currently in place and it is available only to parents using outsiders to take care of their children, will be extended to all parents, whether they choose to stay at home with their children or to have someone else look after their children. These three proposals would be far more effective in dealing with the concern that is expressed in this motion.

In conclusion, I would say to Canadians that they do have a choice. They have a choice with Reform to make things much better for the family with respect to taxation and with respect to security through changes in the justice system and other changes. With respect to this motion, the proposals that we have put forth in our fresh start platform certainly would do a much better job in dealing with the issue which is considered by Motion No. 30.

Because there is no cost benefit analysis and because our proposal would deal with this matter in a much more complete way, I personally cannot support the motion.

[Petitions, November 1st, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table two petitions on behalf of people in the constituency of Vegreville, both dealing with the same subject.

They say that whereas the law now allows criminals to profit from the sale of videos, books and the use of 1-900 numbers, the petitioners would like the House to immediately enact Bill C-205 so that convicted criminals would no longer be allowed to profit from their crimes.

[Interprovincial Trade, November 1st, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the industry minister.

With one breath the government and the minister say they are committed to removing barriers to interprovincial trade. With the next breath the finance minister announces his GST harmonization plan, which in the words of the Retail Council of Canada "divides the Canadian economy into two separate entities".

If the industry minister is committed to removing interprovincial trade barriers, as he says he is, why is he supporting the finance minister's harmonization plan which is, in itself, a barrier which will hurt Atlantic Canadians?

[Agriculture, October 10th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the minister has answered the question. He has said that dual marketing will not be an option.

This option is accepted by many western Canadian farmers. Will the minister promise today that he will change his mind on this issue and put dual marketing as an option on the ballot?

[Agriculture, October 10th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of agriculture. The minister announced last Friday that he will hold a plebiscite on the future of barley marketing in western Canada.

I need some clarification from the minister. Western farmers really want to know, as they go into marketing this year's barley crops, will farmers be given the option to choose dual marketing in the plebiscite?

[Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, October 10th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have a few comments on Bill C-60, the act that would put in place the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The stated purpose of this bill is to establish the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in order to consolidate and enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the federal inspection services related to food, animal and plant health and to increase collaboration with provincial governments in this area.

Specifically, the bill sets out the new agency's framework in terms of responsibilities, accountability, organization, human and financial resources, powers and reporting. The bill also amends some of the enforcement provisions and penalties in federal statutes that the agency will enforce or administer in relation to food, plants and animal health.

When the new Canadian Food Inspection Agency begins operation in 1997 it will become one of Ottawa's largest bureaucratic entities with 4,500 civil servants and a budget of $300 million. Federal officials contend that ending interdepartmental overlap and duplication in such areas as enforcement, risk management,

laboratory services, informatic systems and communications will save taxpayers $44 million annually beginning in 1998-99.

However, a detailed breakdown of this estimate has not been provided by the government. No decision has been made on staff reductions or the new agency's surplus laboratories. We have a broad statement of cost, a broad statement of savings and no specifics whatsoever.

When we are working with legislation that creates a new bureaucracy of 4,500 employees with an estimated budget of $300 million we should have a lot more detail. I am not talking about minute detail, but about a statement that really explains how the money will be spent and how money will be saved. That has clearly not been offered in this legislation.

The government departmental estimates on cost are $300 million but we should know from history that departmental estimates are rarely accurate. It would be a rare occasion indeed. I have seen many new agencies created and I do not know if I have seen one that has come in on budget. I would feel much more comfortable that this agency would come in on budget if some information were given to show how the money would be spent.

I want to make it clear that the Reform Party supports the consolidation and downsizing of federal government operations but this bill will accomplish little except for the shuffling of names and titles. Instead, the government should be considering the advantages of privatizing a significant portion of Canada's food, plant and animal inspection services. The Reform Party has been calling for this since the day we came here.

We should consider how much of this service can be privatized so the service can be provided at a lower cost to the people who need the services. At the same time I acknowledge it is very important to ensure the services that are privatized can be done more efficiently, in a less expensive way and safely.

With a saving of $40 million or 13 per cent of the agency's $300 million budget, that 13 per cent is currently cost recovered. The concept of cost recovery that the Reform Party proposes, and that I personally heard being recommended by many processors, particularly processors of agricultural products, is quite different from what this government proposes.

Reform proposes that cost recovery should reflect the lowest cost at which the service can be provided, whether it is in the hands of the private sector or the government. I believe that in some cases, the private sector can provide very high quality service for less money than government can. In other cases, it may be found that the department can provide the service at a lower cost. It is not clear which services could be provided better by the private sector or by the department. I do not know of any study or any work having been done on this.

The government's idea of cost recovery is totally different than the Reform idea. The Reform idea is cost recovery at the lowest price. If it can be done for less money with high quality then give it to that group or person to do.

The second major issue I would like to touch on in this legislation concerns the authority of the provincial governments versus the federal government. The federal government has decided that the way to end overlap between the federal and provincial governments is to centralize the complete service in the hands of the federal government. This is certainly in line with what Liberal governments have done over the years.

Liberal MPs have generally accepted that Canadians like big government. Along with big government comes high taxes. I contend that Canadians want a much smaller government, lower taxes, more take home pay and therefore a much better job situation in the country. There are two visions of Canada. There is the vision held by the Liberals and Conservatives which has been demonstrated over the years. They believe in big government, high taxes, low take home pay. Then there is the Reform vision which I believe is shared by many Canadians: a much smaller federal government with much lower taxes and higher take home pay, therefore, a better take home pay.

Unfortunately, with this legislation the government has chosen the large government, high tax route. The legislation will place a great burden on the taxpayer and on processors who are paying cost recovery.

[Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, October 10th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, a very well known Canadian was asked a few weeks ago what was the single largest problem in dealing with international trade. This very prominent Canadian, the hon. member for Peace River who just asked the question, said that the single largest factor which is preventing Canadian business from doing business around the world is the lack of interprovincial free trade. The hon. member has already alluded to why that is.

Canadian companies, in some cases, need the ability to build. They have to get the economics of scale so they can compete on the world market. In many cases they cannot build when they are operating within one province. There are so many barriers to doing business in other provinces which prevent the growth that is needed in order for Canadian business people to succeed in international trade.

This is almost unbelievable. It has become so bad that I have had business people tell me it is easier for them to do business with some states in the United States than it is with other provinces. Some of them say: "We are moving out. We do not want to move out. We love this country. But we are moving out of this country because if we do business in the United States then we have free access to all Canadian provinces and we do not have to jump through all the hoops which we would be required to if we were doing business with the provinces from within a Canadian province". That is a sad commentary, but it is the truth.

[Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, October 10th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the hon. member did acknowledge the importance of removing these barriers to interprovincial trade. I just hope he can put some pressure on his industry minister and others in his government to deal with this issue.

The member said rightly that this is not a bilateral issue. In fact, interprovincial trade is a federal responsibility under sections 91, 92 and 121 of our Constitution. It is clearly the responsibility of the federal government to never allow interprovincial trade barriers to build in the first place and to remove them if they should.

This obligation has been put aside by Liberal and Tory governments for over 125 years. We have all kinds of barriers to trade between provinces which are causing the problem that is developing in Ottawa and which are causing the problem between British Columbia and New Brunswick. These kinds of problems are threatening to tear our country apart.

If we are going to keep this country together we need economic harmony between the provinces. That can only come if the federal government stops neglecting its responsibility under the Canadian

Constitution. It must show leadership in this issue and remove barriers to interprovincial trade.