Peter Stoffer

[Supply, February 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my hon. colleague. Brian Tobin, the Premier of Newfoundland, recently indicated that he would like to relinquish health care responsibilities and give them back to the federal government.

Given that he was a former colleague of the member's, what would he think about that kind of program?

[Tax On Financial Transactions, February 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I must say what an honour it is to be in your humble presence again.

The rural route mail contractors are not considered to be employees according to the provisions of the Canada Labour Code because they are specifically prohibited those rights under the Canada Post Corporation Act, section 13.5. This means that RRMCs do not enjoy the rights and protections that the vast majority of workers take for granted. This includes things like minimum wages, health and safety protections, workers compensation, employee insurance benefits, vacation leave, maternity leave, severance pay and so on. RRMCs are also denied the right to negotiate improvements to their wages and working conditions.

Why does the government continue to allow these conditions to exist? The RRMCs have now formed an association called the Organization of Rural Route Mail Couriers in a serious attempt to get the government to change their working conditions. There are now over 3,400 signed members who are dedicated to improving their lifestyles. These members deliver mail to several million householders across rural Canada. They virtually do the same work as their urban counterparts. How can this government deny these dedicated workers the opportunity to receive the same wages and benefit as their urban counterparts?

This is very similar to what the regional rates of pay do to the lowest paid workers in the public service. They get a different salary depending on what part of the country they live in and that is straight discrimination.

The solution to both these is to remove section 13.5 from the Canada Post Act, which this government could do, and replace it with section 1 of the Canada Labour Code, a very simple and easy thing that can be done to improve the lives of thousands of people in this country.

It is important to point out that people who do similar work have these rights, private sector workers who deliver mail in rural areas, public service workers who deliver mail for Canada Post in urban areas, rural route mail carriers who work for the United States postal office. Even rural postal workers in Mexico have a collective agreement.

The RRMCs strongly believe that it is wrong to deny them rights accorded to so many workers. They are determined to change their conditions but they need the government's help. Will the government remove section 13.5 of the Canada Post Act and replace it with section 1 of the Canada Labour Code now?

In the 1998 budget the federal government promised people that it would look at new ways to deliver information and programs so that rural Canadians are full participants in Canada's future prosperity. Was the government's promise to look at new ways of delivering information programs just another way of saying it will find cheaper ways of exploiting rural Canadians who deliver information and programs? Rural Canadians would like assurances that this is definitely not the case. Recently it introduced restructuring the stamp sales which will definitely hurt thousands of rural route post offices.

Speaking on behalf of the riding of Sackville—Eastern Shore I find this government's approach to rural route mail carriers absolutely despicable, as with the way it treats the bottom lower salaried people who work for the public service in terms of 11,000 workers across this country, different regional rates of pay which this government has said it would eliminate in its 1993 promises in the red book.

[The Public Service Of Canada, February 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, as with free trade and the GST, once again the Liberals are breaking one of their campaign promises.

This time they are breaking the 1993 election promise to eliminate regional rates of pay, a policy that pays 11,000 federal government workers a different salary depending on where they work in the country.

This is not a cost of living issue as the government maintains, it is a discrimination issue. The policy only applies to 5% of the civil service, the government's lowest paid workers. It does not apply to 95% of the civil service, such as judges, civil service managers, the military, the RCMP or members of parliament.

These 11,000 workers are staging rotating strikes across the country over this issue and they are asking the government to come back to the table for meaningful negotiations.

I call upon the Liberals to stop their hypocrisy and end this unfair and inequitable treatment. Federal workers doing the same job should be paid the same salary no matter where they live.

[Fisheries, December 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the International Court of Justice in The Hague has ruled that the court has no authority to hear Spain's complaint that Canada's seizure of the fishing trawler Estai in 1995 violated international law.

If the current Minister of Fisheries and Oceans truly believes in conservation, as he claims he does, now is the time to prove it by extending Canada's jurisdiction over the ocean floor to 350 miles to include all the continental shelf. This would stop foreign fishing draggers from destroying the seabed on Canada's continental shelf outside the present 200 mile limit.

This foreign fishing is damaging the spawning areas on the Flemish Cap and the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and destroying the fishing resource for our coastal communities.

We now have the opportunity to preserve fish stocks for all future generations by preventing huge foreign bottom draggers from fishing spawning grounds and destroying the seabed.

[Agriculture, November 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great privilege to speak in the House this evening on a crisis, it saddens me to say, of truly biblical proportions when we think about what is happening to our farmers in western Canada, central Canada and the maritimes.

My critic role in parliament is on fisheries and oceans. Probably some people may be asking why I would be discussing the farm crisis. I can tell people firsthand of the crisis that happened to the people of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and the rest of the Atlantic provinces. That is happening to people in western Canada. That is happening to people in central Canada. That is exactly what is happening to farmers.

Farmers are the finest people in all of Canada when it comes to agricultural work. We are not just talking about people who work the land. We are talking about people who actually risk their lives every day because farming is one of the toughest occupations out there. They deserve our help and they need our help now.

In my 10 minutes I will read a letter from the minister of agriculture and food of Saskatchewan. This is a letter he has written to everyone in the House of Commons. Although he cannot be here to read it himself, I would like to read it for him because it states exactly what the problem is:

Dear House of Commons:

It is with regret that I have to write this letter to inform you about the serious situation facing Saskatchewan farmers.

I first want to point out that Saskatchewan farmers are among the most productive in the world. They are prepared to compete in world markets on a fair basis. However, current world markets are anything but fair. The United States and the European Union continue to provide massive subsidies on their production and exports. This has been a major factor in driving grain prices down over the last year.

The level of subsidies in the U.S. and EU can be illustrated by looking at information from the Organization for Economic and Co-operative Development (OECD). For wheat, the subsidy, as measured by a producer subsidy equivalent measure, was 10 per cent in Canada, 32 per cent in the U.S. and 36 per cent in the EU. This means a Saskatchewan farmer growing wheat has to compete against farmers getting 3.2 to 3.6 times as much assistance.

The impact of low prices is being felt in the agriculture sector and throughout the provincial economy. Farm incomes for 1998 are projected to drop $407 million from the five-year average. In 1999, they are projected to be $766 million below the five-year average. Clearly, our agriculture sector cannot be expected to handle this type of situation on its own.

There are two issues that need to be dealt with. One is the need for a long-term strategy to deal with multi-year disasters. Saskatchewan asked at the 1998 summer annual meeting of federal-provincial ministers for this to be addressed as we jointly negotiate a new five-year framework agreement to begin in the year 2000. The second and more pressing issue is the need for a short-term solution to the cash flow problem Saskatchewan producers are facing today.

I am seeking support for a disaster program to protect our farmers against the dramatic income drop. The program must be federally funded in the same way that the U.S. and EU fund their farm programs. Only the federal government has the fiscal ability to fund such a program. Saskatchewan is prepared to help our agriculture sector as much as possible. We do this by contributing 40 per cent of the costs to such programs as crop insurance and the Net Income Stabilization Account (NISA) program. We already fund agricultural programs at a much higher level relative to our tax base than any other government in Canada. In fact, it is over four times higher (on a per capita basis) than the federal government and the average support provided by all provinces. Saskatchewan clearly does not have the additional fiscal capacity to fund this type of disaster program.

The current farm income situation is a federal responsibility: the income problem is primarily a result of the use of subsidies by other countries and international trade is a federal responsibility; subsidization of our industry's competitors is primarily being provided by the national governments in both the EU and U.S.; only the federal government has the treasury that can deal with this type of problem; and the federal government chose to completely eliminate export subsidies in Canada prior to receiving the same commitments from other countries when it eliminated the Crow benefit. This federal decision has taken $320 million annually out of the pockets of Saskatchewan producers.

These large problems are clearly beyond the scope of an individual province. Saskatchewan cannot go to those farmers who have lost almost 70 per cent of their net income this year and to the 40 per cent of Saskatchewan people whose livelihoods are indirectly supported by agriculture in this province—and ask them for more tax dollars to fix a problem created by our federal government.

I agreed with federal government decisions to utilize Canadian taxpayers' dollars to help out the east coast fisheries through targeted transition funding; I agreed when they provided disaster relief to Manitoba during the flood; and I agreed when they assisted Ontario and Quebec after the ice storm. My hope now is that they can see their way clear to assist prairie producers during this period of severe financial hardship, a hardship caused through no fault of their own.

The federal government must take action to press the EU and U.S. to eliminate the use of trade distorting subsidies. They must be willing to protect industry during this income shortfall if the U.S. and EU subsidies continue. I need your help to ensure Canada puts as much pressure as possible on the EU and U.S. to reduce their production and trade distorting subsidies.

I do have confidence in the future of our industry. But it needs help to address periods of low incomes. I ask for your support in getting a short-term, disaster relief program in place before spring seeding in 1999.

This letter was signed by Saskatchewan Minister of Agriculture and Food Eric Upshall. What we are talking about are the finest farmers in the entire world. In fact, I would like to say that this crisis relates exactly to the fishing industry on the east coast.

In conclusion, farmers are going through the most devastating time of their lives in the hog producing industry. What have these farmers done? Some of them have actually given thousands of pounds of pork away to their local food banks. We are talking about not only the best farmers in the world, but the finest people in the world as well.

[Petitions, November 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the second one is from my riding in Lower Sackville and other parts of Nova Scotia. There are 66 names on this petition to date. We hope to get thousands more.

They call upon parliament to enact legislation which would provide and strengthen protection to children from convicted child sex offenders on which the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough has a private member's bill.

As well, I received my two girls' report cards today and they are fantastic.

[Petitions, November 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House to present two petitions pursuant to Standing Order 36.

One is on Bill C-255, an act to amend the marriages prohibited degrees act and the Interpretation Act.

[Canada Post, November 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the minister knows full well that the moratorium put in place by him is over tomorrow.

I would like to give the minister the opportunity to speak directly to the people of those thousands of small businesses and tell them he will tell Canada Post to put an end to this devastating policy once and for all.

[Canada Post, November 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, this government through Canada Post has closed down thousands of postal outlets and then allowed small business to retail postage stamps.

Now not only will Canada Post commission a restructuring of stamp sales but it will also allow the big banks such as CIBC to sell stamps.

Why is the government allowing Canada Post to force thousands of small businesses into foreclosure, increase the already excessive profits of the big banks and further disrupt postal service in Canada?

[Small Scale Fishing, November 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank everyone, even those on the government side, for speaking on the debate today. They keep talking about conservation. The fact is that for 450 years Canadians on the east coast, especially in Newfoundland and Labrador, knew conservation techniques long before this government ever realized it was an issue.

The member from Ontario mentioned the TAGS program and the post-adjustment programs. In reality what has happened is that inshore fishermen whose livelihoods have been there for close to 500 years are being given anywhere from $3,000 to $6,000 and told that's it, time to move away. All that has to happen is for anyone to go to Catalina, Newfoundland to see bordered up houses where the people have just abandoned them. Imagine if people in downtown Toronto, Etobicoke or in areas like that were told to abandon their homes. Here is $3,000, move somewhere else. It is an absolute shame.

The parliamentary secretary realizes what this motion does and the member for Burin—St. George's has echoed it exactly. Last year I moved a motion in committee that the finance department forego the cuts to DFO because we required the funding in DFO and move ahead in science and research and other development areas within DFO in our coastal and inland communities. Unfortunately the Liberal members on that committee did not vote that motion in. My understanding of their commitment to further funding for DFO is rather lacking in terms of that.

I would be remiss if I did not mention our inland communities of Manitoba, the Great Lakes, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Northwest Territories and Yukon, as fewer salmon are going up the Yukon river because of our dispute with the Alaskans.

I will be asking for unanimous consent to make this motion votable. I know very well that if I put a monetary value on this issue it would not have a hope in God's green acre of going anywhere. It would just be a symbolic gesture. This standing committee has issued six reports but we have had no action on them at this time. In fact, a few of them have been disregarded totally. It is a symbolic gesture to give hope to the inshore fishermen who only want to earn a livelihood so they can answer to their families and their communities.

The corporations are answerable to shareholders and need an ever increasing profit. A lot of inshore fishermen have been bought off and told to leave while the allocation of the resource has been given to larger corporations. It is really gut wrenching to go to those communities and see the heartbreak going on. All this was was a symbolic gesture to honour and respect them.

With the indulgence of the House, I will be asking for unanimous consent to make this motion votable.

I wish the government side would honour the motion in order to honour the men and women and the workers of the resource who risk their lives every day in order to put food on our tables.

I thank the members for Burin—St. George's, Saanich—Gulf Islands, Huron—Bruce and Malpeque for speaking to the motion today.