Ralph Goodale

[Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, October 20th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, in Ontario there used to be a single-desk marketing agency through the Ontario Wheat Producers' Marketing Board. That board disappeared in 2003. That happened because of a democratic decision taken by the democratically elected board of directors of the Ontario Wheat Producers' Marketing Board who determined that was the route they wished to take.

In western Canada, there is also a duly elected board of directors for the Canadian Wheat Board. Why are the western directors not being treated with the same respect and regard as the directors of the Ontario Wheat Producers' Marketing Board?

If the Ontario directors were allowed to take a democratic decision and go in a certain direction, why can the western directors not do the same thing?

[Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, October 19th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, following a speech, which was the speech given by the member for Guelph, there is the normal question and comment period. That is what the member for Winnipeg North is endeavouring to do: participate in questions and comments.

[Rail Transportation, October 7th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it is now a full year since the rail freight service review was completed. It is over six months since the government promised to implement it. In March the government said it would work with all parties to draft legislation giving shippers the right to enforceable contracts with the railways. Now the government is suggesting a process to avoid legislation.

Which is it: enforce shippers' rights or avoid shippers' rights? I ask for the fourth time, will the legislation be introduced this year?

[Committees of the House, October 5th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I do not mean to withhold consent, but I do not have a copy of that report in front of me. Could the member confirm that this has to do with certain committee membership changes on behalf of the New Democratic Party? Is that the item that we are talking about?

[Taxation, September 30th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, there is concern across the country among many law-abiding Canadian citizens and taxpayers about the long arm of the U.S. tax collection department. Even the Canadian Bankers Association is upset. The Americans are trying to enforce their laws beyond their borders and are threatening Canadians to that effect.

So far, the government has offered Canadians tea and sympathy. Will the government do something a little more tangible? Will it set up an advocacy centre to actively inform and assist Canadians who are unfairly being put upon by the extraterritorial excursions of the U.S. IRS?

[The Economy, September 29th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the June budget is already out of date. A summer full of economic decline has overtaken the small measures from that budget to be introduced only belatedly next week. It is all too little, too late and out of touch.

Will the government produce a new economic update before mid-October? Will that update include at least some new budget measures? Will it cancel its $1.2 billion in extra EI payroll taxes, which it will slap on small business beginning January 1?

[The Economy, September 29th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the government's last economic statement was the budget in June, which was four months ago, and, during those four months, the IMF has downgraded Canada's growth, the TD Bank says that another recession is likely, Statistics Canada says that the economy is already shrinking, Scotiabank says that Canada may be the first to be hit again, and BMO says that Hoover-like austerity planning will only make things worse.

When will the government present an urgent economic update to acknowledge how things have worsened and that austerity alone is not the right path?

[President of the Treasury Board, September 27th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the facts are these. Parliament approved government spending on border infrastructure, but without lawful authority the Treasury Board President took money from border infrastructure and spent it instead on totally unrelated and unauthorized vanity projects in his own riding.

To cover this up the government misinformed the Auditor General and caused the Auditor General to misinform Parliament. Now the minister hides. This looks like the behaviour of a coward. Will the Treasury Board President finally respond for himself?

[Canada Transportation Act, September 21st, 2011]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-281, An Act to amend the Canada Transportation Act (discontinuance of listed sidings).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce another measure to better preserve producer car loading sites across western Canada. Located along railway sidings, these sites enable prairie grain producers to load their own railcars as an alternative to being forced to go through the grain-handling facilities of private elevator companies.

Down from over 700 such do-it-yourself loading sites some 10 years ago, fewer than 300 of these sites remain in existence today. The grain companies do not want farmers loading their own grain cars because, of course, they do not collect any tariffs on that grain and the railways have been trying to get rid of these sites. However, producers have actually been making greater use of their right to load their own railcars in recent years. The number of producer-loaded cars is up fourfold in the last decade, to nearly 12,000 cars per year.

The vast majority of prairie grain is handled through the conventional system but this is a right that was given to farmers to load their own cars over 100 years ago by the Supreme Court of Canada. It is enshrined in the Canada Grain Act but it is meaningless unless the sites exist for farmers to use. Right now, the railway can abandon those sites on 60 days' notice without any further due process.

This measure proposes to give three years' notice to ensure there will be a proper hearing, to put the onus on the railways to prove what they are doing is in the public interest, to provide other interested parties with an opportunity to buy and operate those sidings and to compensate municipalities when a siding is closed.

This is just decent behaviour in dealing with matters of this kind. I hope the measures contained in this private member's bill will commend themselves to all members of the House.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[The Environment, September 21st, 2011]

You're firing the guy.