Preston Manning

[Social Union, December 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is only confusing things with that type of talk.

He implies that he wants a social union agreement. But he goes to sleep when he should be awake. He says the wrong things at the wrong time. He drags his feet.

The Prime Minister says he wants a social union agreement yet he continually drags his feet. He objects to an artificial deadline. What is his deadline for concluding an agreement? Is it the end of the year? Is it next month? Is it some other time?

[Social Union, December 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my questions for today are for the manager of the general store.

Last night's election in Quebec cries out for a positive signal from the Prime Minister. Quebecers are not happy with the status quo, but they would rather not separate either.

The best idea on the table is the social union proposal from the premiers which if concluded would improve the ways Ottawa and the provinces work together on health care and other services.

Does the Prime Minister agree that the speedy conclusion of a substantive social union proposal is the best way to strengthen the federation at the present time?

[Supply, December 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his talk. I would ask him not to get too hung up on the deadline, mainly in light of the minister's response.

The hon. member sees the resistance on the part of the government to moving forward on this at all. Our reason for putting the deadline was to try to create pressure.

The member suggested that maybe we should ask for a federal response. I know what the member is getting at, but he has seen the federal response. It is pure mush. It does not drive to a conclusion. I would ask the member to reconsider that.

The premiers added a modifying clause to the opt out clause. They added: “provided that the province or territory carries on a program or initiative that addresses the priority areas of the Canada-wide program”. The member is aware of that proviso. Did that help him at all in his objection?

[Supply, December 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot express strongly enough my disappointment in the minister's speech.

It was just a litany of reasons for delay. It reminds me of Lincoln's comment on people in his day who said they were in favour of the abolition of slavery but could not do it on this day, not on that day, not by this way and not by that way. At the end of the day, of course, they really were opposed to the change that was being recommended.

I would like to ask the minister a practical question. What is it in the proposals put forward by the premiers that is the great obstacle to bringing this to a successful conclusion? Is it the opt out clause, is it the dispute settling mechanism? What are the practical things that the federal government simply cannot solve in its relations with the provinces that prevent this social union agreement from moving ahead?

[Supply, December 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who just spoke has been very involved on behalf of the official opposition in endeavouring to ascertain the positions of the various provincial governments with respect to the social union.

She is also a representative from the province of British Columbia. Would she care to comment on the importance of the social union proposals to that great province? That province will be the second largest province in Canada some time in the 21st century. Would she care to share a bit of her knowledge and experience on that subject?

[Supply, December 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the member shows a gross and I would suggest a deliberate misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the position of the official opposition. Our position has always been that health care should be available to all Canadians regardless of ability to pay and we do not support an American style of health care. We never have and never will.

We are open to amendments to the Canada Health Act. Coming out of the social union discussion we may require amendments to the health act. If the member is concerned about the health care act, he should be concerned about the violations of it today. One of the five criteria of the Canada Health Act which the government swears is its number one priority is accessibility to the system.

Accessibility means being able to get health care when one needs it. With 188,000 people on waiting lists, that one criterion of the Canada Health Act is being violated tens of thousands of times per day. It is violated not by anything the official opposition has done but by the inaction of the federal government.

[Supply, December 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. I will respond in two ways. First, there is a reason for the deadline. Our understanding is that the premiers want this concluded by the end of the year. The premiers have referred to the end of December as a deadline that must be met.

They are asking for the federal government to respond conclusively to the resolutions they passed in August. They are not saying that the legislation, if there is a requirement for legislation, has to be in place. They want a definitive response from the federal government by the end of the year to proposals which have been on the table for months and months and months. That is the reason for the December 31 deadline.

On the member's second point, of course we see a place for public process but there has to be public process with respect to some agreement that is in place. Until we know the federal government's response to the premiers' resolutions, what would we discuss with the public in a public discussion at this stage? It would be the various options the federal government may pursue. We see all sorts of room for process after there has been some definitive agreement between the federal and provincial governments. In fact we would insist on that.

I urge hon. members not to let the time factor be a restraint from voting against the motion. The House has to put some pressure on the government, which has been dragging its heels for years on this subject, to come to some kind of conclusion now on matters that have been before it for months.

[Supply, December 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in support of the supply day motion before the House.

This motion, as members will note, calls for the government to conclude an agreement with the provinces and territories prior to the end of the year and to establish a stronger partnership for the provision of essential social services such as health care, education and social assistance. It calls for that agreement to be based on the unanimous resolution of the provinces as agreed at Saskatoon last August 7.

In other words, the motion calls for a positive, timely, proactive response by the federal parliament to the demands of all provinces for a better and stronger social union. I do not need to tell the House that such a response to the social union proposals from the premiers is long overdue and even more urgent in light of the provincial election results in Quebec last night.

As a democrat who accepts and respects the results of elections, I want to extend congratulations to all those members of the Quebec Assembly who were elected yesterday.

I wish to congratulate Mr. Bouchard's government on its re-election. Congratulations as well to Mr. Dumont and Action démocratique du Québec, which offered Quebeckers a third option between sovereigntists and traditional federalists.

I also want to congratulate Mr. Charest for fighting a valiant campaign with one hand tied behind the his back, a hand tied by the actions or more correctly by the inactions of the Prime Minister and the federal government.

I believe it is imperative that the federal government and parliament send a clear message to all the provinces including Quebec that the reform of the federation is essential and a national priority.

However, over the past 12 months the federal government has had at least three opportunities to send that message and has failed to do so. On November 25, 1997 the official opposition put forward a motion endorsing the efforts of the premiers to initiate reform of the federation through the Calgary declaration, including the seventh point of that declaration which pertained to the reform of the social union.

That motion specifically called for the federal government to communicate the Calgary declaration to the people of Quebec and to consult them on its contents. The government supported the motion but failed to act on it, missing a golden opportunity to communicate to Quebecers the demand for reform of the federation in other parts of the country.

Then on August 7 of this year, after intense negotiation among the provinces themselves in which Premier Bouchard also took part, the 10 premiers and 2 territorial leaders endorsed resolutions calling for a new partnership between the two orders of government for the provision of social services including the refinancing of health care.

However, the Prime Minister reacted negatively in the press to these proposals and his officials have resisted action on several of the main points. Thus there was still no concrete, tangible progress to report on reform of the federation when the Quebec election was called on October 28. Yet another missed opportunity.

At the outset of the Quebec election there was the Prime Minister's infamous interview with La Presse in which he implied again that fundamental reform of the federation, in particular relations between federal and provincial governments, was not an option or a priority. In other words, the tired old song that federalism is good enough as it is, precisely the wrong message to send to Quebec at the beginning of a provincial election.

Three golden opportunities over a 12 month period to send a clear message to all provinces including Quebec that reform of the federation is a viable option and national priority were all missed by the government.

Yet the sun still shines on Canada. Here we find ourselves on the day after the Quebec election with yet another opportunity to send a message to the people of all the provinces that parliament is prepared to respond positively today to the demand for reform of the way this federation delivers and finances social services.

I remind all hon. members that in the final analysis this social union is not a constitutional measure. Nor is it merely some subject for academic debate about federal-provincial relations or the administration of government programs. The social union is about health, education and support for people in need.

At this point in time when federal transfers to the provinces have been cut by $7 billion, when hospitals are closing, when 1,400 doctors have left the country in the last two years, when nurses are striking in British Columbia, and when almost 200,000 people are on waiting lists, the social union is particularly about health care.

When the premiers call for joint action between themselves and the federal government to repair the health care system, when the electors of Quebec support joint action to repair the health care system, and when our motion today calls for joint action to repair the health care system, we are asking the federal government to respond to the health care needs of real people—somebody's mother, somebody's father, somebody's child, somebody's friend—waiting for the government to act.

The motion is asking the federal government to conclude an agreement with the provinces this month that will make a difference as to how health care is provided and financed in the country next year and in the years ahead.

We know from the representations of all the premiers and the polls that there is demand in every province for social services reform, even if there is still some disagreement about the details. I urge NDP members of the House to support the efforts of Premier Romanow and Premier Clark on this issue, to support the motion in principle and then argue for their particular perspective on the details of the social union at a later time. I also urge PC members of the House to support the efforts of Premiers Klein, Filmon, Harris and Binns on this issue to do likewise.

We also know from the Angus Reid poll of November 24, conducted for Radio Canada in Quebec, that 73% of respondents said that if Premier Bouchard were re-elected his priority should be to attempt to improve the position of Quebec within Confederation, while only 24% said he should commence to gather winning conditions for a referendum on sovereignty.

I sincerely hope that Bloc Quebecois members will see in this motion the major features of the social union motions they themselves introduced on October 5 and November 19. I sincerely hope, as well, that Bloc Quebecois members will support this motion, because it reflects the wish expressed by Quebec voters for immediate priority to be given to social service reforms.

Finally, I appeal to government members, indeed to all members of the House, not to miss yet another opportunity to provide some positive leadership on the issue of social union.

This parliament's job in the coming months will be to create winning conditions for all Canadians as we enter the 21st century.

As we enter the 21st century there should be winning conditions for taxpayers, winning conditions for jobs, winning conditions for health care, winning conditions for all our people regardless of their language, culture, ethnicity, station in life or where they live in the country.

I urge all members to support the motion as a positive step toward creating winning conditions for the new Canada of the 21st century.

[Supply, December 1st, 1998]

moved:

That this House urge the government to conclude an agreement with the provinces and territories, prior to December 31, 1998, and based on the unanimous resolution of the provinces as agreed to last August 7th at Saskatoon, to strengthen the partnership between the federal, provincial and territorial governments in order to secure Canada's social programs for the future.

[Agriculture, November 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to participate in this emergency debate on the income crisis in agriculture, which is of concern not only to our farm people, but to all of us in this House.

I will be splitting my time with the official opposition agriculture critic, the member for Selkirk—Interlake.

Surely the issue here is not whether there is an income crisis in agriculture. This fact was clearly established during the supply day debate on November 3 in this House when the official opposition urged the government to move immediately to defend the interests of Canadian farmers from unfair subsidies and unfair treatment by foreign countries which have changed the problem of stagnant farm incomes to a full blown farm income crisis.

Tonight, therefore, I would like to focus on two questions. First, why is it taking the government so long to act? Second, will the government provide a real solution or simply a band-aid?

Over a year ago Statistics Canada and Agriculture Canada predicted that realized net farm income would fall by 46% Canada-wide. The government did not react at that time to that prediction in a substantive way. Earlier this year Agriculture Canada predicted another 30% drop in net farm income, but there was still no substantive long range or short range reaction from the government. May I suggest that this has become part of a pattern with this government. It is slow to act, period.

For example, for years it was known that the cod fish stocks off the Atlantic coast and now the salmon fish stocks off the west coast have been declining in absolute terms. The government expresses alarm. The government does studies. The government wrings its hands. But the government never acts until there is a full blown crisis and even then it usually acts with band-aids.

The House, therefore, calls upon the government to act with speed on the agriculture income crisis, but also asks why the government always has to wait until an emergency is upon it to do something substantive.

The question is, will the government provide band-aids or real long term solutions? The government may talk about emergency aid of $450 million this year and another $450 million next year, as has been rumoured in the press. The government may put forward a non-contributory, non-commodity specific plan which would make up part of the shortfall if farmers' gross margins fall below some percentage of a five year average, as has been suggested; essentially a revenue insurance program without the premiums. But our concern is that Canadian agriculture needs more than band-aid solutions. It needs real, long term solutions.

As the official opposition repeatedly pointed out in debate on the supply day motion earlier this month, these long term solutions involve two elements. First, a more aggressive strategy to reduce, through political pressure and international trade negotiations, the subsidies paid to American and European farmers. This country has done its part to lower agricultural subsidies and it expects and should insist that its trading partners do likewise.

We suggest a two-stage strategy: a special effort to resolve our trade differences with the Americans first through NAFTA and then a co-operative joint effort on behalf of Canada and the United States to attack European subsidies, which are really at the root of this problem.

Second, and this is the main point I want to make—it is the reason I am in this debate—what the agricultural sector needs is what every Canadian needs, what every family needs, what every sector needs, particularly those sectors experiencing reduced incomes, and that is broad based, substantive tax relief.

What has been the fiscal policy of Liberal and Tory governments in this country for over 30 years? If it moves, tax it. If it continues to move, tax it more. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

I have in my hand a table from Statistics Canada titled “Income Tax Paid by Canadian Farmers 1993-96”. It shows a total paid over those four years of $4.2 billion, about $1 billion per year, $2.75 billion of which went to the federal government.

I would like to see this done by the agriculture department. It should be part of its presentation to finance and cabinet. There should be a calculation of all the taxes paid by individuals, families and companies in the agriculture sector on inputs from sales taxes on consumer goods and equipment to taxes on fuel and fertilizer. For example, we know that in 1997 alone Canadian farmers spent $2.037 billion on fertilizer. Of that total, 15% was taxed. That is $306 million in taxes on one input item, in one year alone, that the government took from farmers.

My point is that this government plays a shell game with taxes and subsidies. It takes with one hand and it gives with the other. But the taking is always greater than the giving.

If the government had followed the advice of the official opposition and farmers across this country and substantially reduced taxes on this sector over the last five years, I would suggest that the balances in the net income stabilization accounts would have been much higher, the savings of farmers would have been much higher and farmers would have been in a much better position to withstand the downturn in commodity prices than they are today.

What is the position of the official opposition on the emergency aid package which the government intends to bring forward? It is hard to say because nothing was brought forward tonight. We want to study the details when they are brought forward and cost them out.

Basically our position is this: if the finance minister will clearly declare that the forthcoming budget will contain broad based tax relief for all Canadians, including the agricultural sector, then the official opposition would be prepared to support a temporary aid package as part of that long term solution. We would also insist that temporary aid be presented as compensation for demonstrable injury done to our producers by foreign subsidies so that it is seen as an anti-subsidy measure.

On the other hand, if all the government has to offer is a band-aid without offering these long term solutions, we will declare that band-aid insufficient and continue to fight for the long term solutions upon which the future prosperity of Canadian agriculture truly rests.