1985-10-25

Mr. Jean-Claude Malepart (Montreal-Sainte-Marie):: Mr. Speaker, on October 23, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) officially announced that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Conservative Government had misled Canadians when the Government tabled its consultation paper on child and elderly benefits, a paper that was tabled in January by the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) and which says clearly on page 6, and I quote: "Any savings which may result from program changes will not be applied to a reduction of the deficit."
Mr. Speaker, on October 23, 1985, in answer to a question, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) stated the following, as reported in Hansard of that day, and I quote: "The reason behind the decision to reduce the growth rate of the family allowance is the deficit, Mr. Speaker."
Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that despite thousands of signatures expressing the support of people from all Conservative ridings, despite the demonstration held by mothers with children on Parliament Hill, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and all Conservative Members would rather take $22 from every mother with two children and spend it on changing the colour of our military uniforms.
The Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of social injustice, with the co-operation and support of all female Progressive Conservative Members, would rather take
away-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I am sorry to interrupt the Hon. Member, but his time has expired. The Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis).


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Wayne McCannon, a Canadian citizen from British Columbia, is being held in Costa Rica on bail awaiting extradition to Guatemala within the next few days. The reason for his arrest is that he stopped payment on a cheque to a hotel in Guatemala City where he had arranged accommodation for a number of travellers. When the hotel's standards were found to be completely unacceptable, he stopped payment on a cheque to cover the costs of the accommodation, but agreed to meet with representatives of the hotel in neighbouring Costa Rica to arrange a satisfactory settlement. When he arrived in Costa Rica, he was arrested and thrown into jail for 120 days. He is presently out on bail under constant surveillance and forced to remain in Costa Rica.
He soon will be extradited to Guatemala where he, and others, believe he will face certain death once confined in a Guatemalan jail. All this is over a disputed cheque for $8,500.
I urge the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) to intervene with the utmost haste to assist this Canadian citizen who will face the harshest of repercussions if action is not taken immediately.


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, one of the most sought after careers for young men and women, especially in western and northern Canada, is in joining the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. However, the RCMP recruiting policy, which seems to be a hangover from the previous regime, deliberately discriminates against Englishspeaking Canadians and, as a consequence, against westerners and northerners.
Most members of the Force are stationed in the contract provinces, and surely there ought to be a rough relationship between the number of members serving in a particular province or territory and the number of recruits being accepted from that jurisdiction. This is manifestly not the case.
In the Northwest Territories where the RCMP are held in such high esteem, there has not been a single recruit accepted for over five years despite a "G" Division strength of about 280 members. Employment equity seems to be a very popular

October 25, 1985
concept these days, so let us change the present policy and have geographical equity in the hiring practices of the RCMP.


RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Bill Tupper (Nepean-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, the federal Government has a stated objective of increasing Canadian effort in research and development. Innovative technology is one of the focal points for the Government's trust to create jobs and to remain competitive in the technological world of tomorrow.
In order to achieve this goal, extended funding must be channelled into advanced research and training for scientists and engineers. The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, our country's major research funding body, calls in its second five-year plan for a $1.4 billion increase to meet the critical need for improved research infrastructure and to increase the universities' capacity to produce adequate numbers of highly trained scientists and engineers. Without such action, Canada will fall further behind competing nations, and the economic consequences will be far reaching.
The Government must give careful consideration to the NSERC recommendations. Desirability of adopting the plan appears to be unquestionable. There is an urgent need for an immediate and sustained action to provide the stability necessary for the effective management of the Council's programs.
This investment should be viewed as a long-term investment into national effort to revitalize the economy and as a means of laying the foundation for our future achievements in science and technology. I strongly urge the Government to approve NSERC's second five-year plan.

[ Translation]


SMALL BUSINESS
Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard-Anjou):: Mr. Speaker, during National Small Business Week, I would like to talk about the courage and perseverance of our Canadian business people. In fair weather or foul, they are always there, and thanks to them, millions of Canadians have jobs today. The Conservative Government consulted with business people at the beginning of its mandate, but after one year, no concrete and direct action has been taken by the Government. This is what the situation looks like:
Business people, their families and associates may not take advantage of tax shelters created by registered retirement savings plans to invest in their own businesses; $500,000 in capital gains tax exemption for everyone over five years, with
no attempt to channel investment of these gains to small-and medium-sized businesses; not a word about the Federal Business Development Bank; the Small Businesses Loans Act has been amended to tighten up access and make it less flexible.
The Progressive Conservative Government's only positive action has been to adopt legislation simplifying tax measures applying to small businesses, something which had already been proposed in the Lalonde Budget. In a survey, the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses indicated that 57 per cent of its members did not intend to invest in new businesses. This lack of confidence is caused by the attitude of the Minister of State (Small Businesses) (Mr. Bissonnette) and the lack of leadership shown by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney).


&quot;MADE IN U.S.A.&quot; PEACE TOWER REPLICAS
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, as you are aware, there have been discussions in our country about free trade, unemployment rates, and so on. Well, an interesting thing happened this morning. My constituency assistant, Michele Beilin, from Yorkton, came down to Ottawa. She wanted to buy a little gift for her husband Dale before she went back. She went to the House of Commons gift shop to buy something which is really Canadian and symbolizes the House of Commons. She picked up a little tie tack with a symbol of the House of Commons' Peace Tower. She thought that was a great symbol of Canada, made in this country. It happens that she picked up a box, it is a little blue box, sort of a Tory blue colour, and she looked inside the box and saw: "Made in the U.S.A.".
I think that is really symbolic of what is wrong with much of this country. Here is a symbol of the House of Commons, a symbol of this country, sold in the House of Commons' gift shop, yet it is made in the United States.
I think the time has come when we should get our act together, at least here in the House of Commons.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Fernand Ladouceur (Labelle):: Mr. Speaker, every indicator points to sustained economic growth in Canada over the coming years, as evidenced by the findings of the twenty-second Economic Council of Canada annual review and the Royal Bank of Canada forecasts.
October 25, 1985

Mr. Speaker, our Government was committed to put Canadians back to work and pave the way for strong economic growth spurred by, among other factors, declining interest rates, lower unemployment levels, renewed confidence and a smaller deficit. On the basis of the Royal Bank's forecasts, our economy should expand by 3 per cent in 1986 and 3.4 per cent in 1987. The unemployment rate is expected to go down from an average of 11.1 per cent in 1985 to 10.3 per cent in 1986 and 9.8 per cent in 1987, while inflation should remain stable at about 4 per cent.
Mr. Speaker, that is the promising outlook for all Canadian men and women who put their faith in the Government's future challenges to our society, the driving force behind the current flood of major investments by private industry.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Gabriel Fontaine (Levis):: Today, Mr. Speaker, I want to say on behalf of all Quebecers and all Canadians how proud we are of the outstanding performance of our Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) at the Commonwealth meeting and before the United Nations.
After only one year as the head of Government, our Prime Minister stood out among statesmen as a result of his dynamic stand at the Commonwealth conference where he prevented a break-up and created a consensus leading to a compromise readily endorsed by all participants.
In a similar vein, the Prime Minister of Canada made a strong disarmament appeal to the major powers before the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. Representatives of all countries unanimously expressed their satisfaction, gratitude and solidarity to the head of the Canadian Government.
Once again Canada has shown it fully deserves international credibility.
He did all of us proud, Members of Parliament as well as Canadian men and women.


THE MINISTRY
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, this is the second in a continuing sequel concerning the astuteness of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Crosbie). In a Canadian Press Report of Monday, October 21, the Minister of Justice is quoted as having said that he had not been politically astute when he said that the Prime Minister's staff
Oral Questions
were not politically astute. It was very astute of the Minister of Justice to say that he had not been astute when he accused the Prime Minister's staff of not being astute. This implied that Brian the Wonderful, who appointed his staff to start with, had not been astute himself. I do not know, but we can speculate, and I would suggest to all Conservative Cabinet Ministers not to speculate out loud, as to whether the staff of the Prime Minister's Office is astute.
The question now facing Canadians is which Tory is less astute, the one with the staff which is not astute, the one who appointed them, or the Cabinet Minister who was not astute enough to keep his mouth shut in the first place. Tune in at the same time next week, Mr. Speaker, for more in the continuing astuteness of the Minister of Justice. This has been a Crosbie production.
S)



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Miss Aideen Nicholson (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Finance. On August 9, the same day that the Minister wrote to a shareholder expressing confidence in the long-term viability of the Canadian Commercial Bank, the Minister of Finance was meeting in Toronto with the Chief Executive Officer of that bank who told him that the bank's capital would be depleted by year end. Did the Minister of Finance inform the Minister of State of this meeting before her letter was sent?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, I have said, time after time, in response to questions about this poor preferred shareholder and his letter of August 9, that all the facts will come forth in the inquiry, and I am looking forward to the Hon. Member getting those facts.


Aideen Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, truth and accuracy in this House do matter.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


MINISTER'S RESPONSIBILITY
Aideen Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, the Minister said one thing in a letter, and apparently something else happened at the same time. The Minister of State, who opposed the bail-out, has been defending it. When will the Minister of Finance take up his responsibilities and tell us what happened at that meeting?
8002

October 25, 1985
Oral Questions


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Which meeting is the Hon. Member referring to?


Aideen Nicholson: The meeting on August 9 with the Inspector General of Banks and the Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Commercial Bank who stated that, in view of the loan losses, the bank's capital would be depleted at year end.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker. I was on holiday on August 9.


Mr. Nunziata:: You, too?


Mr. Foster:: You mean you were out to lunch.


FISHERIES
Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Deputy Prime Minister in his current capacity as the Acting Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. Fishermen on both coasts supposedly had fisheries improvement loans guaranteed by the federal Government under federal legislation. If the Minister is on top of the situation he will know that fishermen on both coasts are now being foreclosed upon by major chartered banks on the grounds, according to the banks, that the loans are not guaranteed and that the fund did not cover specific loans, loan by loan. Gear is being seized and equipment is being taken from the fishermen. What is the Acting Minister of Fisheries and Oceans going to do about this?


Hon. Erik Nielsen (Deputy Prime Minister and Acting Minister of Fisheries):: Mr. Speaker, I heard the same rumours that the right hon. gentleman heard this morning and I have caused immediate inquiries to be made in the Department. Until I know whether there is a problem, there is not much that I can do about answering his specific question. If there is a problem, I will certainly do something about it.


PASSAGE OF AMENDING LEGISLATION IN JUNE
John Napier Turner: They are not rumours, Mr. Speaker. We have copies of letters from hundreds of fishermen on both coasts and copies of letters from the banks. At the same time as the Fisheries Improvement Loan Act was before Parliament for revision in June the Government had apparently secretly informed the banks that the funds had expired and that loans would no longer be guaranteed. At the same time the fishermen of the country, on both the British Columbia and Atlantic coasts, were under the impression that the loans would continue to be guaranteed. Would the Acting Minister of Fisheries and Oceans clarify what the situation was in June? Was Parliament misled when that legislation was before the House?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, a moment ago I told the right hon. gentleman that 1 had caused immediate inquiries to be made. I have the initial results of those inquiries now. He will be pleased to know that the advice I have received from officials is that the Government is not taking any collection action. The Government has reached the limit to which it guarantees loans for the period 1977-80. I am informed that this limit is set by a formula. Once the limit is reached and the cost guarantee ceases to be in effect, it is up to the banks to take what action they see fit.


FUND REPLENISHMENT
John Napier Turner: The
point is that the banks are foreclosing on the fishermen and the banks were telling the fishermen that those loans were guaranteed at the time when the fund had already been exhausted. The Government was telling the banks but not the Fishermen.
Will the Deputy Prime Minister introduce a Bill immediately to replenish the fund, as should have been done in June when the legislation was before the House and when loans were still being granted to fishermen under the guise of their being guaranteed?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, the right hon. gentleman has reached certain conclusions which may or may not prove to be the fact. If they are the fact, then we will consider his very worth-while suggestion.


REPORT ON PRIVATIZATION OF HEALTH CARE SYSTEM
Mr. Neil Young (Beaches):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. Yesterday Canadians learned the details of the report commissioned by the Minister of National Health and Welfare on the privatization of Canada's health care system. Will the Deputy Prime Minister advise the House whether or not the Government agrees with the findings of this study, namely, that the Canadian health care system is sound and that privatization would pose a threat to the system?
If the Government does not agree with that, does that explain why it refused to release the report and only did so when forced to do so under the provisions of the Access to Information Act?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Members knows, the Minister of National Health and Welfare is not here. It is a matter falling within his jurisdiction. I will take notice of the question and see to it that the Minister of Health contacts the Hon. Member.
October 25, 1985

Oral Questions


TASK FORCE CHAIRMAN
Neil Young: Mr. Speaker, as the Deputy Prime Minister knows, he has commissioned a study into the whole health care system. Will he tell us how any findings as a result of this task force could be believed when it is being chaired by a Mr. Garry Chatfield, who is the president of Hospital Management and Development Ltd., a component of the Extendicare Corporation, who obviously has a vested interest in this plan?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. gentleman knows, these study teams have been working over the past year on a whole range of programs, over a thousand of them government-wide. Other members of this particular private sector and public sector study team include Mr. Dennis Kealey of Health Services Directorate of Health and Welfare Canada; Dr. Bryce Taylor of Sports Administration Certificate Program from York University; the Assistant Deputy Minister of the Policy Development Division of the Department of Hospitals and Medical Care in Edmonton, Alberta; Mr. Hearn, the Deputy Minister of Health of Newfoundland, and I could go on. There is a good public sector/private sector mix there, a mode that we have been following throughout the program review process.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
Neil Young: Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that when an individual from Extendicare is in a high position such as this, there is a definite conflict of interest. I want to say to the Deputy Prime Minister that over the last several years there have been numerous studies into Canada's health care system and each one has indicated that the health care system is fine. How many reports does the Government need before it finally finds one that supports its medieval view that the health care system should be privatized?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. gentleman will reflect on his own words for a moment, he will know that he is very unfair in levelling that accusation. This particular study team is involved in a study of government programs applying to health, education, and sports.
There have been other study teams that have also looked at programs having a relevancy not only to health but to every government Department. That is a management exercise. None of the recommendations that come back from that study team is government policy. They are the flow of opinions from a mixed private sector/public sector study team who are looking into the whole, broad range of programs in Government.


FISHERIES
Mr. George Baker (Gander-Twillingate):: Mr. Speaker, this question of the fishery improvement loans is not a new question to the Government of Canada. In July the then Minister of Fisheries wrote to a fishermen. He named the bank and
said:
"The Bank ... as a result of its heavy losses, has reached its full entitlement for reimbursement by the federal Government on fisheries improvement loans for the period in which your loan was registered and, therefore, we can no longer be responsible for your debt."
My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Is it the policy of the Government to back in and give guarantees to people with lots of money in the bank, but to back away from a written guarantee given to a primary producer?


Erik Nielsen: Not at all, Mr. Speaker. The hon. gentleman may not yet have noticed, but that kind of process was changed on September 4 last year.


APPOINTMENT OF NEW MINISTER
George Baker: Mr. Speaker, in a letter from a fisherman to me, the fisherman wrote;
The bank manager advises me they too were unaware of any such limitation-
By the Government of Canada. He continued:
Maybe if you could contact the Minister of Fisheries as soon as possible something could be done right away.
I am contacting not the Minister of Fisheries but the Acting Minister of Fisheries. In his position as Deputy Prime Minister, when will we see a Minister of Fisheries so that I can respond to my constituents?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, as Acting Minister of Fisheries I have had no difficulty in dealing with problems that have been forwarded to me by Members of this House, and others. I am rather surprised that the Hon. Member has not performed his responsibilities and forwarded that particular problem to me. I now have notice of it and I will deal with it.
With respect to the second part of the Hon. Member's question, he knows, or should know, that that has to do with a Prime Ministerial prerogative. When announcements are to be made, they will be made known in due course.


CANADA-UNITED STATES NEGOTIATIONS-CONGRESSIONAL PROTECTIONIST MEASURES
Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External

October 25, 1985
Oral Questions
Affairs. Before the United States concluded a free trade agreement with Israel, it required that all unfair trade practice laws between the two countries would remain in effect.
Since the Gibbons Bill obviously aimed at the Canadian lumber export industry has now passed the subcommittee stage in the U.S. House, why is the American Government stalling with the required 60 days' notice to Congress before trade negotiations can begin, while protectionist measures snowball against Canada?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, there is no stalling by the United States administration. A very clear commitment on the part of the United States administration was given by the President to the Prime Minister at Quebec that if there is a major assault upon Canadian interests, as would be the case with the lumber question, there will be a veto.


CANADIAN POSITION
James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, the Minister knows that if there is a two-thirds majority the presidential veto can be overridden.
Why is our Government refusing to lay out firm preconditions for trade negotiations while the United States proceeds with actions that will cripple our exports before negotiations even begin?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member will know, if he wants to be true to the truth, that the passage of the Gibbons Bill yesterday was by a much smaller majority than had been expected, and is not veto proof, to respond to the question raised by the Hon. Member.
The question on lumber imports was raised personally last night by the Prime Minister with President Reagan. I will be discussing the question again with Secretary Schultz on Monday when we meet in Calgary. We intend to take every action that is open to us to protect the Canadian lumber industry. One of the reasons we want to take a look at the possibility of a trading arrangement with the United States is precisely to protect the security and the jobs of those 60,000 Canadians in the lumber industry whose jobs are threatened now because the present system does not work well enough.


NATIONAL REVENUE
Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, the fishery industry is in big trouble because we have a Minister who is Acting Minister of everything and master of nothing.
The Government recognized the disastrous condition of the Newfoundland fishery a few weeks ago by participating in a $105 million bail-out of the biggest company in that business in Newfoundland, Fishery Products International. This morning the Minister of National Revenue introduced a brand new, completely different approach to fishermen.
I ask the Minister of National Revenue, rather than the Master of Nothing, why is it that the Government of Canada instituted a policy today to lift the ceiling on the collection of back taxes from fishermen through the garnishee of wages, above the reasonable, human, and sensitive 25 per cent established by the previous administration? How can it do that at a time when the Government has to put 105 million bucks into saving that company?


Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that my hon. friend opposite gives me an opportunity to dispel a very erroneous impression which apparently has been created in the media and in other sources. He knows, as do all other Newfoundland MPs who were extensively consulted, as were the union and other interested persons in his province, that this action, this administrative change by the Department of National Revenue, was designed to promote equity and the ability to pay rather than emphasize the concept of garnishee.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Supplementary question.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, the Minister ought to know that the two individuals who consulted Newfoundland MPs did not really consult us; they came and told us, and we told them that they were crazy. One is retiring from the Newfoundland Civil Service this month, and the other is retiring from the federal Public Service in a few weeks. They have sense enough to run from a disastrous, insensitive, stupid policy-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: May I ask the Hon. Member to ask his question, please?


Brian Vincent Tobin: In light of the disaster which we have had this year, in light of the fact that the Minister of Employment and Immigration has no help for fishermen this year, in light of the fact that that company requires $105 million, where-


Some Hon. Members:: Order, order!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Churchill.


Brian Vincent Tobin: They are only the fishermen of Newfoundland!


ABILITY TO PAY TAXES
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister of National Revenue. How can he claim that they have the ability to pay when he will be taking over 25 per cent of the income of some of those fishing families? How can they possibly have the ability to pay?
October 25, 1985


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, I would have thought that my friend opposite would have known better than to ask such a fallacious question. He indicated that we would take more than 25 per cent of the income of fishermen. That is not necessarily true, at all. The fishermen of Newfoundland were put in a certain category by the former Liberal Minister of Revenue. I am sure he did it with all best intentions. All Members from that province were consulted, as were other people.


Brian Vincent Tobin: But we did not agree.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: I assure the House and my hon. friend opposite that I will personally, as will my Department, exercise great sensitivity to the problems of Newfoundland fishermen who are, as are other fishermen-


Brian Vincent Tobin: You are out of the fat and into the fire, Elmer.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: -caught in an unfortunate position because of the cyclical nature of their profession.


DEPARTMENT'S TREATMENT OF FISHERMEN
Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, the Department of National Revenue is not known for treating Canadians with compassion. How can fishermen feel confident when the ceiling which protected them has been removed? Right now they have no protection. How can the Minister expect those fishermen to feel very confident with that kind of response?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Hon. Member has forgotten that it was our Government which brought in the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights and brought in a whole new approach to treating taxpayers with equity and consulting with them.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Again I repeat for the Hon. Member and the House that there will be no insensitive or Draconian action taken. The fishermen of Newfoundland will be put on the same basis as all other fishermen. Their ability to pay and their personal circumstances will be carefully examined. If there are any instances of unfairness or Draconian measures, I invite the Hon. Member and other Members to let me know, because we will not put up with it.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Dave Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. It concerns the feed cost equalization program requested by the Maritime Farmers Council. As the Minister knows, it is an important agricultural and regional development initiative.
Oral Questions
The request was made of the Minister over a year ago. Would he indicate to the House why farmers in the maritime provinces have to wait so long before any action is taken on a resquest which will affect the lives of farmers and producers in the maritime region? Why this inordinate delay?


Hon. John Wise (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the Hon. Member's question and his interest in the subject. I have received numerous representations from Atlantic Canada agri-food organizations. 1 can only assure him that I fully understand and appreciate the difficulty in which they find themselves. I want to assure him that the program and the suggestions they have made are actively under consideration.


REQUEST FOR GOVERNMENT DECISION
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I say with sincerity to the Minister that that was not an answer. Farmers in the maritime provinces have been waiting since February of this year for an answer. Last March the Minister promised that he would get back to them soon, and in the subsequent months he has not provided an answer. Would he pleased tell the House and farmers in the maritime provinces when they can expect an affirmative answer to a very important regional development issue in those provinces? Why this delay?


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. member would take the time to check the record he would see that the agricultural industry, not only in Atlantic Canada but across the country, was totally and completely ignored by the previous Government.


David Charles Dingwall: Don't mislead the House.


John Wise: I want the Hon. Member to take the time to check the record.


David Charles Dingwall: It was your own Members.


John Wise: The record will show that we have not ignored the agricultural industry anywhere in Canada.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
William Tupper: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. The United States has closed its borders to personnel of Canadian companies who install or service products sold by Canadian companies in the U.S. after August 29, 1985. This problem is of great concern to high-technology companies in my riding, and to all manufacturers. Can the Minister tell the House what progress the Government is making in having this impediment removed?

October 25, 1985
Oral Questions


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the United States Department of Justice is appealing the decision of a California District Court which dealt with the matter only in so far as applications before August 28 were concerned. I understand that that appeal will be heard sometime within the next several days.
In addition to those U.S. court processes, our Ambassador in Washington has raised the matter on several occasions with a range of Ministers in the Government of the United States. It is my intention to raise the matter with Secretary Shultz when I meet with him in Calgary on Monday.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Vic Althouse (Humboldt-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. He has been the Minister of Agriculture and his Government has been in power now for more than a year, yet farmers in the southern Prairies have been awaiting an answer to their problems with drought and grasshoppers since August, when the Hon. Member for Assiniboia was put in charge of recommendations to the Prime Minister in order to speed up the process.
Since the Minister of Agriculture said that the delays in taking action were somehow related to the wet weather which followed the drought, could he tell us how that improves the financial prospects of farmers in the drought zone? Or was he intimating that the Hon. Member for Assiniboia had been given extra instructions to come up with a payment program for farmers who suffered losses due to extremely bad weather?


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, I am not certain whether I fully understand what information the Hon. Member is seeking. As one who understands some of the problems associated with the agricultural industry, he might have more appreciation for the difficulties we have encountered, for the very reasons which we mentioned. However, I can assure him that we are much closer to a final decision in respect of Phase II. At the same time as reaching a decision on that phase, we are attempting to build into that aspect of the program more long-term, permanent measures to cope with recurring disastrous situations.


ROLE OF PROVINCES
Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, has the fact that the provinces have not declared the area a disaster area in any way inhibited the Government from taking action? Or are the allegations circulating out in the country simply allegations and in fact have nothing to do with the slow reaction time of the Government? Does the Minister need the provinces to declare it a disaster area before he can act?


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the Hon. Member added that last comment because it makes it much simpler for me to answer. The answer would be no.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of the Environment. It has to do with the clean-up plan for the Niagara River presented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to him. It is a plan that could affect the health of Canadians for generations to come. The Minister makes confusing and conflicting statements inside and outside the House of Commons. Municipalities are becoming nervous and so are non-government groups.


Charles Joseph Clark: Question, question.


Mr. Caccia:: The public wants to know how toxic pollutants will be disposed of, when the clean-up will start, and what kind of funds have been allocated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Will the Minister answer these questions today in the House?


Hon. Tom McMillan (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member who posed the question has been making a big point inside and outside the House to the effect that I refuse to release what is a U.S. document which was given to me, in confidence, for my contribution before it is finalized and released by the U.S. Government. It is not my document to release. Having said that, I can reassure him and, through him, the people on whose behalf he purports to be asking the question, that my officials will be linking arms with those of the Governments of Ontario, New York State and the U.S. at a meeting on November 8 to discuss the working document with a view to finalizing it for an early release to the public. The document will be released by the U.S. Government, not by the Canadian Government, because it is not our document.


TOXIC CHEMICAL DUMP SITES
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: It may not be our
document but it affects the health of 4.5 million Canadians and the Minister had better learn to give some immediacy to this important matter. I cannot believe that he would take such a detached, cool, and indifferent attitude. He has to give leadership and to tell this House, for instance, whether on November 8-


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: Order, order.


Charles L. Caccia: You shut up over there.


Charles Joseph Clark: Shameful. Look at Turner smiling.
October 25, 1985


An Hon. Member:: Go ahead. Go ahead.


Charles L. Caccia: -he would defend the long-term interests of Canadians in health and water by demanding the incineration of toxic chemicals in the dump sites along the Niagara River. Will he do that?


An Hon. Member:: Yes or no?


Mr. Crosbie:: Time you woke up, Caccia. Where were you all these years?


Thomas Michael McMillan: Mr. Speaker, no one on this side of the House needs to take a back seat to the Hon. Member in the moral outrage that we feel toward those who pollute our rivers from which Canadians derive their drinking water. He accuses me of bringing coolness to the debate. I suggest to him that he might be well advised to bring an element of coolness to the debate himself because, if he did so, he would recognize that this Government has done more in 12 months of being in office-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Thomas Michael McMillan: -than the previous Government did in 12 years.


Mr. Gray (Windsor West):: You never answered the question.


FARM CREDIT CORPORATION
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. Rock bottom crop prices and high interest rates were going to force the Farm Credit Corporation to close down 670 farms this fall, so the Minister moved to put a moratorium on FCC foreclosures. But my question to the Minister is this: what will this moratorium lead to, how long will it last, and will he extend it to non-FCC loans as well?


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, 1 appreciate the recognition and, I gather, the support for my decision in the early part of September to place a moratorium on FCC foreclosures. I indicated at the time that it would be in place indefinitely and I also indicated that at the same time we instructed a study of the role and mandate of the Farm Credit Corporation. This is the first time that such a study has been done for the last 25 years. I now have those recommendations, they are being evaluated, and I would expect in the not too distant future we will be making some decisions with respect to appropriate further measures that might well be taken to help alleviate this very, very difficult situation in which many Canadian farmers find themselves.
Oral Questions REVIEW BOARDS INQUIRY


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, there is a tremendous urgency about this problem. I have thousands of signatures here that demonstrate the concern. There are perhaps 50,000 farmers who, according to FCC figures, are facing severe financial distress.
Will the Minister act now on the results of the Grey-Bruce study and establish a system of judicial review boards with power to hear cases and implement settlements to help these
50,000	farmers? Otherwise they will be chased off the land and we will lose the agricultural production that is so crucial to the future of the country.


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, there is no question about the fact, and 1 have said it in this House and across the country and to the many agri-food organizations that I meet day in and day out, that it certainly is a recognition of this Government that the financial situation in the primary sector of the agricultural industry is indeed a very difficult one, perhaps one of the toughest we have been through in the last 50 years.
I do think the Hon. Member's figure of some 50,000 farmers who are facing immediate foreclosure or bankruptcy is somewhat exaggerated. As I indicated to him, we still have in place across the country the Farm Credit review boards. They are acting in a voluntary capacity and they are doing an excellent job. One of the recommendations that I am looking at is something in the nature of what the Hon. Member is suggesting.


SHIPBUILDING
Gabriel Fontaine: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion.
In this morning's Le Devoir, we read the following headline: "Paramax Inc. ahead of schedule in production of equipment for Canadian frigates". The company will employ 500 hi-tech workers. The impact on the employment rate is expected to be very positive in the Montreal area.
Could the Minister inform the House whether his department intends to take steps to accelerate the process of getting these jobs for the people of Montreal?


Hon. Sinclair Stevens (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion):: Mr. Speaker-


Some Hon. Members:: Good morning.


John V. Nunziata: Sorry we woke you up.

October 25, 1985
Oral Questions


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Good morning. Mr. Speaker, those are the kinds of positive questions that the Canadian public wants to hear more of.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Deans:: In the meantime could someone tell him what he was asked?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: I think that the fact that Paramax are opening up this new research facility in Montreal and giving work to 500 people in that area is something that should be commended. The fact that they are using $11 million of their own money with respect to this development, I think speaks that much more in favour of the project. In short, instead of the doom and gloom that pour out of that other side, this is Canada in action. Jobs for Canadians!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Alain Tardif (Richmond-Wolfe):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister of Agriculture.
Quebec dairy producers are very concerned, because they are still waiting for the long-term dairy policy they have been promised any number of times. In fact, a decision was to be announced on August 1. It is now October 25, and your Department has yet to announce its dairy policy.
Could the Minister inform the House what the reasons are behind the delay in announcing the Government's intentions in this respect.


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, I am interested in the Hon. Member's question and also his observation with reference to a delay. I want to assure him that there certainly has not been a delay, there is no question about that. No commitment was made to make any announcement on the long-term dairy policy-


John V. Nunziata: Yes, there was. You promised a committee.


John Wise: -on August 1. They are confused; they don't understand it. What was required and what we did on August 1 was announce a price increase. There was no commitment to announce a long-term dairy policy then, or on September 1, September 15, or November 1.
The Hon. Member should know that I appointed two very capable individuals to carry out a study and to consult with everyone in the industry. I will be receiving the report of the two individuals, Mr. Everett Biggs and Mr. Benoit Lavigne,
since they have consulted widely across the country with all sectors of the industry.


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


John Wise: I will be receiving that report-


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


John Wise: I will be receiving that report in perhaps about two weeks' time. I am sure Hon. Members will recognize that I will need another two or three weeks to study the ramifications of the report-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: We thank the Minister for his answer. [Translation]


REQUEST FOR MINISTERIAL COMMITMENT
Alain Tardif: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the same Minister. Could the Minister make a firm commitment before the House that the dairy policy will be a long-term one and that it will not include any cutbacks whatsoever, as you promised time and time again during the last election campaign?


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, the dairy farmers of Canada have been asking for a long-term dairy policy for the past eight years. The previous Government refused to give it to them. However, we will be-


Maurice Brydon Foster: What are you going to give them?


John Wise: I cannot give any deadline. I am always reluctant to do that. I want to go through the proper course of action. I want to take the time to consult with all people in the industry. It is obvious that we are nearing completion of that process. In good faith, I would expect that I would be in a position-I hope I will be in a position-prior to the end of the year to announce what the long-term dairy policy will be.


PETRO-CANADA AUDITING CONTRACT
Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Last week I raised with her colleague, the Minister of Finance, the question of why the PetroCan contract for auditing its books had been suddenly switched by an Order in Council to a Chicago-run company called Arthur Andersen & Co., which is the largest auditing firm in the world. I have a list in my hand of the names of 20 partners of the Arthur Andersen firm who have given at least $1,000 each to the Conservative Party in the last year.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame!
October 25, 1985


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Will the Minister tell the house whether or not the real reason for switching this contract to a Chicago run company is because at least 20 partners of that company threw at least $1,000 each into the Conservative Party? Is this the real reason why they got the contract?
Hon.	Pat	Carney	(Minister of	Energy,	Mines	and
Resources): Mr. Speaker, the answer is no.


AWARDING OF CONTRACT
Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, in that case can the Mihnister tell the House and explain to the House why, to the best of my knowledge, none of the other eight big auditing companies in the country were asked for a formal proposition or a formal bid on that particular contract? Why was there not any tender? Is not the real reason that these people threw money into the Conservative Party?
Hon.	Pat	Carney	(Minister of	Energy,	Mines	and
Resources): Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member should be aware that we reject out of hand his sleazy suggestion that political contributions were a factor in this matter. As the Hon. Member well knows, firms of chartered accountants give money to all sorts of Parties, just as his Party receives contributions from labour interests.


Ian Deans: We don't give them contracts.


Miss Carney:: I can add, as the Hon. Member should know, Section 141 (i) of the amended Financial Administration Act sets out that the Governor in Council and the appropriate Minister, after consulting with the board of directors of a Crown corporation, make the recommendation. Petro-Canada's board of directors reviewed a number of firms, including the firm of Arthur Andersen which has offices in a number of Canadian cities such as Toronto, Ottawa, and Calgary, and recommended Arthur Andersen & Co. The incumbent, Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co., have had that account for 10 years.

[Translation\


SHIPBUILDING
Mr. Jacques Guilbault (Saint-Jacques):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct my question to the Minister of Supply and Services.
When the Vickers workers left Parliament Hill yesterday they were disappointed because the Minister had not given them any assurance that the Government would intervene to prevent lay-offs.
The Montreal shipyards do not even have the option of tendering under the Multiship-six program because depart-
Oral Questions
ment officials claim that Montreal icing conditions prevent Vickers from undertaking repair work in wintertime.
I want to ask the Minister whether he would be prepared to reverse the decision of his officials and allow Vickers to submit tenders under the Multiship-six program, keeping in mind the fact that Vickers has been doing year-round repair work for the past ten years.


Hon. Stewart Mclnnes (Minister of Supply and Services):: Mr. Speaker, I was at the meeting referred to by the Hon. Member. I received the very distinct impression that the workers, after being apprised of all the elements, were very satisfied on my undertaking to do everything we could to accommodate their situation. Specifically, with respect to the question, there has been no change in policy precluding the Montreal shipyards from bidding on the multiple ship contracts. The only prohibition is that if the work is to be done during the winter, and if the Seaway is frozen, then the ships will not be able to get there. If the work is to be done in the summer, then they have the option to bid on that work.


REQUEST FOR PROMPT DECISIONS
Jacques Guilbault: Mr. Speaker, if the Minister is having second thoughts, and well he might, can he assure us that the Government will step in before workers are laid off, which means in the immediate future? Lay-off notices will be issued as early as at the end of the year and, unless something is done before next March, none of the 500 shipyards workers will have a job.
Will the decisions be made in time? That is what I want to ask the Minister.


Stewart Donald McInnes: Mr. Speaker, I repeat, the Government is reviewing all potential alternatives to accommodate the situation which is a matter of concern to us and everyone in the east end of Montreal. I gave an undertaking that I would keep the workers apprised. We are meeting with the Chairman of Vickers within the next two weeks. 1 undertook to report back to the workers, and I will do that.


TEXTILE INDUSTRY
Mr. Mike Cassidy (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion.

October 25, 1985
Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the committees to safeguard jobs in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Valleyfield submitted a petition with
40,000	signatures to the Minister yesterday, but were not informed by the Minister when he intends to announce measures to protect the textile industry and the jobs affected in these two towns.
Has the Minister received the final report of the Textile and Clothing Commission on the subject, and when does the Government intend to announce its new policy to save jobs in Canada's textile industry?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, you will recall that the Hon. Member asked a similar question yesterday when I informed him that I was to meet yesterday afternoon with representatives from the group, including union leaders, management personnel, and mayors of towns. I did meet with them. I think that we had a meaningful discussion at which time they gave us their viewpoints. I think they understand the difficulty. This is the decision of a private company. I did meet with Tom Bell of Dominion Textile. We have discussed the over-all health of the industry. I want to assure the Hon. Member and the House that the Government certainly intends to come out with a policy which will ensure that there will be a viable textile and clothing industry in Canada.


INQUIRY WHEN NEW POLICY WILL BE ANNOUNCED
Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, is the Minister aware of the fact that 800 employees, whose jobs are at stake and who are affected by the shutdowns announced by Domtex in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Valleyfield, that these employees feel as though they were being held hostage by the company, which may be intending to leave Canada, and are there going to be any changes in our textile policy? How much longer is the Government going to penalize these employees, whose jobs are at stake, and when exactly are you going to announce your new policy for the textile industry?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, when the Hon. Member says that we were aware, of course we were aware. We were aware long before he started to show an interest in this question. He is simply playing catch-up and trying to make a few political points on something which, frankly, is a serious situation. We are working with industry and union leaders to ensure that there is a proper solution which will overcome some of the unemployment which is developing in the industry.


APARTHEID
Mr. Barry Turner (Ottawa-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. I would like to welcome the Minister back from the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Barry Turner: Does the Minister feel that the compromise communique issued concerning sanctions against South Africa is a strong enough signal from the Commonwealth to break down immediately apartheid in South Africa?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member who has taken a consistent interest in this question. I think that the consensus achieved at Nassau at the Commonwealth Conference was particularly remarkable, given the divisions which existed prior to the convening of that meeting. 1 think it maintained the steady pressure against apartheid which Canada wants to see maintained. I should say, Mr. Speaker, that I believe all Canadians can take pride in the pivotal and essential role which was played in achieving that consensus by the Prime Minister of Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


AGRICULTURE
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. He knows that the potato farmers in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island are facing the worst year in their history due to the service charge and inspection fees which were imposed by the Government, and due as well to prices which are running at half of the production costs.
Is the Minister willing to make a commitment today to institute a potato purchase program under the Agricultural Products Act to assist these producers? And is he willing to withdraw the inspection fees which he has imposed this year for the first time in history?


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, the observations of the Hon. Member with respect to the increased inspection fees are somewhat exaggerated because the Hon. Member will know that I personally negotiated with just about all of the commodity groups and we reached mutually satisfactory increase levels. Of course, these increases will be phased in gradually, as they should be.
I know the Hon. Member does not exaggerate the very tight situation he describes in the potato industry, not only in the
October 25, 1985

Atlantic area but elsewhere across the country, and we do have existing programs, the stabilization program, which I can consider. We also have the purchase program under the Agricultural Products Board. 1 am quite prepared to consider both of those options, but, of course, with a word of caution that we have extremely limited financial resources.


CLERK OF PETITIONS' REPORTS
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that all petitions except one, presented by Hon. Members on Thursday, October 24, 1985, meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.

The petition presented by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Keeper) does not meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.



POINT OF ORDER


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: 1 have a notice of a point of order from the Hon. Member for Trinity (Miss Nicholson).


Aideen Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, in my question today I referred to a meeting on August 9. The details of the meeting are in a document filed before the Estey Commission. From the context, I had assumed it was the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson). It now appears that it must have been another Minister. 1 regret that the Minister of State (Finance) (Mrs. McDougall) has left because it would have helped if she'had made a statement on motions to clarify this.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Patrick Boyer (Etobicoke-Lakeshore):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of tabling, in both official languages, the first report of the Subcommittee on Equality Rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Petitions

Pursuant to Standing Order 70, Article 16, our Committee on Equality Rights requests a comprehensive response to this report within 120 days.
[Editor's Note: For above report, see today's Votes and Proceedings.]


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier), on a point of order.


POINT OF ORDER
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to raise a point of order, further to the tabling yesterday by the Deputy Prime Minister of the Government Response to the Second Report of the Standing Joint Committee on Official Languages Policy and Programs.
I wish to inform the House and the Chair that after carefully reading the French and English versions, I would like to point out to the Chair that the Response does not read the same in French as it does in English.
1 simply want to bring to the Government's attention that the French text contains a reference to a federal-provincial conference that we do not find in the English text. Various programs are mentioned, Mr. Speaker, and 1 do not know whether it is a poor translation or whether someone edited the document, but I would like to ask the Secretary of State or someone else to read both the English and French versions very carefully so that we will know which is the official and which the unofficial version.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The Secretary of State, on the same point of order.


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Secretary of State of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, 1 just want to say that we will check the contents and make sure both texts are in agreement.


PETITIONS
Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, 1 would like to present a few petitions this morning.
A group of constituents from the ridings of Edmonton-Strathcona and Edmonton North have asked me to present a petition on their behalf, stating that in its latest Budget, the Government decided to reduce indexation of family allowances and the child tax credit, that this measure provides assistance

October 25, 1985
Petitions
that is indispensable to families with children, and that therefore the federal Government should change its decision.
I also have a similar petition from the riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore, in Ontario.
1 have one from the electoral riding of Langelier in Quebec, Mr. Speaker.
Still in the same vein, another one from the riding of Bellechasse, also in Quebec.
Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition from the Quebec riding of Montreal-Sainte-Marie.
This one comes from the riding of Rosemont, Mr. Speaker, and the electors of that region are also asking for the same thing in their petition.
Mr. Speaker, I have this petition from the federal electoral riding of Shefford.
And then this one from the electoral riding of Saint-Hyacin-the-Bagot whereby the petitioners are asking for the same thing, Mr. Speaker, a reversal of the Government's decision concerning family allowances.
There is one from the federal riding of Rimouski in Quebec.
One from the riding of Westmorland-Kent, which is very ably represented in the House, as you would know, Mr. Speaker.
One from Quebec's federal riding of Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot. I wonder whether there is a Member to represent that riding. There must be one.
One from the electoral riding of Gatineau, Mr. Speaker. Again the petitioners of that riding express a similar wish.
And this one from the federal riding of Rosemont.
A petition from the riding of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve in Quebec.
I also have a petition from the riding of Quebec East.
Mr. Speaker, this one comes from the riding of Saint-Mich-el-Ahuntsic in Quebec.
On their behalf, all those people from various ridings have asked me to present these petitions concerning family allowances.


Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, I too have a number of petitions from the Province of Quebec, namely, the ridings of Drummond, Shefford, Saint-Michel-Ahuntsic, Montreal-Sainte-Marie, Rosemont, Joliette, Rimouski and Richelieu. These petitions and the petitioners who signed them are urging and praying that the Government, and particularly the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), will maintain the promise made during the last federal election campaign, namely, the sacred trust which would protect the full indexation of family allowances because it is a regressive measure which takes away some $55 million from the families who can least afford it.


Hon. William Rompkey (Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition signed by many residents of the communities of Grand Falls, Windsor and Bishop's Falls in central Newfoundland. These communities have a very serious health problem with their water supply system. They are calling upon Parliament to encourage the Government of Canada to come up with a solution to this very serious health problem in the water supply system as soon as possible.


Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition from the part of southern Ontario in which I grew up, around Welland and Dunnville, Ontario. It is from senior citizens who are joining with others across this country to ask that the Government reinstate full indexation of the universal family allowance, as it did with pensions, and rescind unfair tax increases which are hurting families.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I wish to present a petition from a group of Quebec City women with whom I met earlier this week. These women decry the injustice of ever dimishing family allowances through deindexation, and they ask for the restoration of full indexation and the repeal of unfair tax increases.
Mr. Speaker, I also have two petitions from my constituents of Ottawa Centre-

They are asking, since children are everyone's responsibility, that all parents receive Government assistance. They also strongly oppose the budget proposals to reduce the cost of living protection for family allowances and demand that this proposal be withdrawn as soon as possible.
i


Mr. Cyril Keeper (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have a petition from a number of constituents of mine, along with other residents of Winnipeg, who call upon the Government to withdraw the deindexation of family allowances. They point out that this will not only cost the poorest Canadian families, but also middle-income Canadians.


Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour and duty to present a petition signed by a large number of residents of the beautifyl City of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. They call upon the Government and the House of Commons to reinstate full indexation of universal family allowances and rescind unfair tax increases.


Mr. Dan Heap (Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and pleasure to present a petition signed by many residents of the City of Toronto who complain that the Government has
October 25, 1985

broken its promise by reducing the family allowance through deindexation, and they request this Parliament to ensure that the Government will restore full indexation of the family allowance and also cancel its plans for other taxes that hurt low-income people.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure to present a petition signed by more than
1,000	people. They stress, first, the urgency of the farm crisis, the great financial squeeze affecting many farmers, and they argue for hearings across this country on the principle of parity pricing through the Standing Committee on Agriculture.
This is signed by people from right across Essex county, as well as from the following towns and communities across Ontario: Simcoe, Lucknow, Wingham, Mount Hope, Durham, Goderich, Kincardine, Chatham, Brantford, Forest, New Lis-keard, Thedford, Cayuga, Chesley, Port Elgin, Arkona, Blenheim, parts of Middlesex County, Ailsa Craig, Petrolia, Wiar-ton and Owen Sound. They all stress the urgency of this crisis which requires a response.


Mr. John Parry (Kenora-Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege to present a petition signed by a large proportion of the residents of Hudson and Sioux Lookout, Ontario, in my riding. These communities are heavily dependent upon the forest industry. They call upon the Government to get going and take some action to dissuade the United States Congress from passing into law the Gibbon's natural resources subsidy Bill which would indeed cost thousands of jobs in Canada's great forest industry.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. F. Oberle (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Mines)):: Mr. Speaker, the following question will be answered today: No. 421.


Mr. Robichaud: 1.	Did the government increase admission fees to national parks by 300 per cent and, if so (a) what tourist groups or associations were consulted before the decision was announced (b) by what amount?
2.	Flow many persons visited national parks in New Brunswick in (i) 1983 (ii) 1984?
3.	Will the government change its decision to the increased fees and, if not, for what reason?
Supply


Thomas Michael McMillan: 1. No.
The annual admission fee for national parks has not been increased. However, in most national parks the other types of admission fees such as daily and chartered bus have been increased by 200 per cent, (a) N/A; (b) N/A.
2.	(i) 1,214,687; (ii) 1,220,958.
3.	A complete review of all national parks fees across Canada to assess their impact and suitability given the particular circumstances of each park is presently underway.


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The question enumerated by the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary has been answered. Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I have had a series of questions on the Order Paper, some dating back as far as last March, concerning the cost of that singing duet in Quebec City referred to as the Shamrock Summit. Is the Government so terribly ashamed of that fiasco that it does not wish to answer these questions? If that is not the case, will the Parliamentary Secretary undertake to answer those questions at the next sitting day of the House of Commons?


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, I can tell the Hon. Member that the Parliamentary Secretary normally responsible for answering these questions is especially sensitive to those profound questions the Hon. Member places on the Order Paper. I am prepared to read out the record of the Government in this area, but I am reluctant to do so because today is an Opposition Day and I understand that the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) has an urgent farm speech to make. I would not wish to take up the time of the House to report that in this Thirty-second Parliament-I can go on if you wish, but I can tell the Hon. Member that his intervention will be brought to the attention of the responsible Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


John Napier Turner: That this House regrets that the Government has refused to recognize the serious crisis facing the farm family in Canada and condemns the Government

October 25, 1985
Supply
for its inadequate response to the problems of Canadian farmers, including a severe cost-price squeeze and debt burden, Fierce predatory international competition and natural disasters, which have combined to place Canada's agricultural community in jeopardy.
He said: Mr. Speaker, we are bringing this motion to the attention of the House and the people of Canada because we are concerned with the crisis affecting Canadian agriculture and the family farm. This crisis has been rendered even more serious over the past few months because of natural disasters, particularly in western Canada. We want to draw this to the attention of the Government and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise), as well as the Canadian people, in order to heighten the consciousness of the average Canadian concerning the precariousness of the position of the average Canadian farm family today. We want to show what this situation means for the country as a whole if we do not do something about it in the short term, immediately, as well as over the long term.
Over the summer and autumn I had the opportunity of travelling to many rural constituencies in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and particularly in Ontario and Nova Scotia. Three or four weeks ago I was in southern Saskatchewan speaking to the people who lived in that area of the province where the drought has been most severe. On the morning of September 23, I met with the mayors, reeves and councillors of all municipal organizations within 50 or 60 miles of the Town of Assiniboia. I was later in Lafleche, Gravel-bourg and, of course, later that evening in Moose Jaw. The next morning in Regina I presented on behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada, a 10-point program which we forwarded to the Minister, as well as bringing it to the attention of the Canadian people, concerning what needed to be done to meet a very grave problem. Because of this growing crisis I have also asked the Hon. Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster), this Party's agricultural critic, to head a task force made up of three other Liberal Members who will call upon the expertise across western Canada this autumn, and then move into Atlantic Canada, Ontario and Quebec early in the spring, to meet with farm families, producer groups and provincial organizations in order to get firsthand the feeling of these people who live on and derive their livelihood from the land, regarding the response they want from this Parliament and demand from the Minister of Agriculture.
I can say quite frankly to the Minister that the farmers are not impressed with what the federal Government is doing; nor are they very happy with what their provincial Governments are doing. I am now talking particularly about western Canada. The mayors, reeves and councillors whom I met in Assiniboia were disillusioned and disgusted with the response they were receiving from their provincial and federal counterparts. They are concerned that attention is not being paid to their problems by the people of Canada of Canada through their Government.
I know it is true that the Conservative Government fulfilled a few of the pledges it made to the Canadian farmer during the election. The most important commitment that it fulfilled,
the capital gains tax exemption, affects the transmission of farm land from one owner to another. That may be helpful to farmers who want to get out of farming, but it is certainly not helpful to farmers who want to stay in farming and live on the land, and it is certainly not helpful to the young men and women who have no forbears who had lived on the land and who want to make farming their career.
Western farmers, particularly in the southern parts of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, have now faced a second consecutive year of drought. More than that, the farms have been ravaged by grasshoppers. I would like to try to focus the attention of the country on the situation and, hopefully, to elicit a response from the Minister that will go some way to meeting the crisis. As I said in Regina, the Minister can take the credit for the 10-point program which we outlined there because it has gone beyond the political manoeuvers which are sometimes played in the House of Commons.
The problem, of course, runs deeper than drought and the vagaries of the weather. Some farmers in Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba have now suffered five or six successive crop failures, but the general crisis affects farmers from coast ot coast. It goes far beyond the so-called marginal farmer or the farmer who may be a bad manager. It touches many farmers who should be strong, viable operators but who now find themselves up against the wall, largely through no fault of their own. Some studies suggest that as many as one-third of our farmers are now in serious financial difficulty. Speaking in human and social terms, what is even more important is the fundamental unit of Canadian agriculture which has given a great deal of stability to this country since the time of the homesteader. The Canadian family farm is in deep, deep trouble.	1
The impact does not stop at the farm gate. The rural municipalities of western Canada are dependent upon the farm community and are in trouble as well. Their tax bases are eroding. Equipment dealers, car dealers and suppliers are in trouble. The situation is contagious, it is escalating, and it needs and immediate response from the Government.
There is also a human problem. Emotional stress is being placed on farmers. They are used to the usual problems of the weather and the vagaries of the international markets and have understood that it is a life that demands independence, integrity and self-reliance. The average farmer can take that, but he cannot take the combination of problems that is making it absolutely impossible to stay on the land. It is provoking problems with self-confidence, the family, and the ability of the farmer to persuade his children to take over the farm and carry it on as a family livelihood.
There are four factors to the problem. I mentioned the weather first. We have had a drought in southern Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba for two successive years. We have had the grasshoppers. The Government says that it has been studying the problems, but it should have taken action months ago to come to grips with it. Yesterday the Minister of State responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) invoked the provisions of the Prairie Grain Advance Payments
October 25, 1985

Act to give interest-free loans of up to $3,000. That is a good piece of legislation and it was proper for the Minister to invoke the provision which was designed for years like these. However, in terms of the current crisis it is an almost meaningless gesture. Producers in the North who have wet grain will suffer financially because of the reduced quality of that grain. What may have been a number one crop a month ago will end up as "utility". Producers in the south, victims of the drought, are still waiting. It was not helpful when the Canadian Government remitted its share of support for cattle producers in Saskatchewan only to have the Government of Saskatchewan pocket the money instead of giving it directly to the farmers. The farmers feel outraged by the whole performance.
In addition to the natural disasters, the farmer faces a serious cost price squeeze. Prices for his products have been going down. With the advance payment on August 1, initial grain prices were reduced. Commodity prices have not kept pace with the input costs of fertilizer and fuel. In the Prince Albert Charter presented by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mul-roney) during the last election the Government promised to reduce the price of farm fuel by 20 cents per gallon. When one considers the rebates that are going to expire, the increase in the price of gasoline which occurred September 1 and the next increase which will take place January 1, one sees that instead of getting a reduction of 20 cents per gallon on the price of gasoline, the farmer will pay an increase of 23 cents per gallon. For the average Saskatchewan farmer that will mean an additional fuel bill of $700 per year. He cannot take that right now. Things are bad enough without adding that increase to his input costs.
The Prime Minister talked a lot about agriculture during the election campaign, but he has not said much about it since and he has not paid much attention to the problem. [Translation]
Obviously the Government did not do anything to help farmers cope with soaring production costs and decreasing income. Quite the contrary! The Government made matters worse by raising taxes on farm fuel and lowering wheat prices.
And then the third problem: farmers are faced with massive indebtedness. Particularly during the years 1980, 1981 and 1982 the Government and the banks convinced them that they should expand their acreage and buy more machinery. Well they did expand their acreage and buy more machinery, but then interest rates went up and eventually the value of their land fell so that they are now in a situation such that their loan security is worth very little indeed.
The number of farm bankruptcies has skyrocketed in recent years and land values are slumping. We are running the risk of losing a whole generation of young farmers and, should that ever happen, there will be no turning back. Where are the agri-bonds promised by the Government? What about lower interest loans?
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It is clear, Mr. Speaker, that the Government has not fulfilled its commitment in terms of long-term financing vehicles for the farmer. It is true that the Minister placed a moratorium on Farm Credit Corporation foreclosures. That saved a few farmers in the short term by preventing immediate foreclosures. However, interest keeps piling up on top of the principal and the equity of the farmer keeps shrinking.
The fourth problem faced by farmers is the predatory pricing and the fierce international competition for our major grains. The Minister knows that some of our former best customers are now our competitors. The Minister knows that we do not yet have a renewal of the International Grains Agreement. The Minister knows that the United States Department of Agriculture is throwing tonnes of grain on international markets in order to try to solve its own problems. This dumping of surplus grains onto international markets is affecting world grain prices.
Speaking of the United States, the Canadian farmer wonders what the Government is talking about when it says it intends to move toward a free trade agreement with the United States. The Canadian farmer wants to know what that will do to marketing boards, subsidies and the Canadian Wheat Board. We know that the Americans have never liked the Canadian Wheat Board and the way in which we have successfully centralized and orchestrated our international marketing. Farmers in western Canada know that the initial payments for grain made by the Canadian Wheat Board are considered to be subsidies and subject to countervail by the United States. Canadian farmers want to know if they are on the table in these negotiations, but the Canadian Government will not tell us. It is keeping its hand very close. The Minister for International Trade (Mr. Kelleher) told Canadians in Nova Scotia that we should not show our poker hand while we are negotiating. I have told the Minister for International Trade that we are all on the same side and we do not want to see the Government's hand, but we want to know what the game is, as do Canadian farmers.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: I am saying to the Minister quite categorically that we do not believe that Canadian agriculture ought to be part of a free trade arrangement across the board. Not only will it not work, it will make the farmers of this country absolutely vulnerable to that type of competition.
On September 24 in Regina, I outlined a program which I believe will go a long way toward alleviating the crisis of the family farm. Some of the action to solve the crisis will cost some money, but compared to the huge human cost that is at stake, I believe it is money worth spending.
I do not believe that the average Canadian living in a large city or even a small town understands the depth and gravity of this crisis. I do not believe that the people of Toronto, Vancou-

October 25, 1985
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ver, Montreal or Halifax understand what is happening out there and if this debate can contribute to heightening the consciousness of Canadians generally about the real problem on the farm, then I think it is useful.
Unless something is done, the family farm as we know it will disappear. Despite harsh weather and a shorter growing season combined with the problem of remoteness from markets, the efficiency of our Canadian farmers and the Canadian farm family has enabled us to compete successfully with every other country in the world, including the United States.
Agriculture has become the most productive industry in this country. Our farmers are able to compete world-wide against state-owned operations in the Soviet Union and corporate farms elsewhere, and this is because the motivation, solidity, morale and cohesion of the Canadian family farm has made it the most productive element in world agriculture. That is what is at stake here.
The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool predicts that Saskatchewan farmers will earn less than an average of $5,000 each this year. Farm income in Saskatchewan will be down 33 per cent from last year, not even taking into account the full impact of the drought and difficulty in harvesting because of the rain and snow in northern Saskatchewan. The Minister is aware that grain inventories are at their lowest level in 30 years, prices are down and quotas are low. It is estimated that the combination of the drought, poor crops and difficulty of harvesting as a result of the rain and snow will cost western farmers about $2 billion this year. Western grain stabilization and crop insurance are good programs but not nearly enough to meet this current situation.
The Government and the Minister must face the crisis caused by the drought which has forced many farms to turn to welfare and food banks for assistance. I know that the Minister is listening carefully, but what we are dealing with here is not just an economic problem. We are dealing with a human problem and a way of life.
I urge the Govenrment to devise some short-term measures. We have proposed an acreage payment of $50 per seeded acre. It has a maximum because it is pro-rated to the amount taken off in harvest and because of the seeded aspect of the program. We have asked the Government to review its taxation of fuel and remove the excise tax from fuel for the purposes of the family farm. We believe the Government should create an agency for moratoriums and rescheduling farm debts, not with the power to write off debt but to reschedule it.
We have asked the federal Government to work with the provinces toward a joint disaster fund operation that is able to respond more quickly than it does now. We suggest that the Government review the problem of soil erosion, hydrology and irrigation. The Government should consider the possibility of immediate negotiations with the provinces to set up an agricultural relief disaster fund.
The Government should review the Income Tax Act. Currently, farmers are forced to sell off much of their herd due to what is happening, yet the definition of "herd" under the
Income Tax Act is not flexible enough to allow that to be done without immediate recapture of depreciation. The Minister knows what I am talking about.
These are steps which can be taken in the short term, but in the long term the Minister must review the whole infrastructure of agriculture. If the Government does not respond soon, we will have a different kind of country because the rural communities will be different.
The Minister is now dealing with the hopes, the morale, the stability and efficiency of those in Canada who moved across the Prairies and those frontiers with the courage and resiliency of the homesteaders that have given this country a special character. That is the essence of this debate. It is not simply about "a sector of our economy". It is about a fundamental way of life. The Minister ought to recognize that. He ought to get out there personally and talk to the farmers the way I have talked to the farmers.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Michael Holcombe Wilson: He has talked to farmers far more than you have. He is always out there.


John Napier Turner: 1 have made it my business to educate myself about the problems of Canadian farmers.


An Hon. Member:: You should have done that a couple of years ago.


John Napier Turner: In fact, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) is part of the problem. He commissioned a study in his Department. The bureaucrats in the Department of Finance have never really understood agriculture in this country. He produced a booklet in which the Canadian farmers were ridiculed from coast to coast, saying that the Canadian farmers are the most prosperous group in our country-


Michael Holcombe Wilson: That is a total distortion.


John Napier Turner: That is exactly what the document says. I say to the Minister of Agriculture that he should bring the Minister of Finance out there with him because he needs the education more than any other Member in the House. I am delighted that he intervened because I want to tell the Minister of Agriculture that he needs help in dealing with that Minister and his officials because they really do not understand the problem. They have always rejected preferential rates for the farmer in terms of subsidy. They really do not understand the Farm Credit Corporation and if the Minister needs some help, we on this side of the House will be glad to help him educate the Minister of Finance who really does not understand the issue.
Until the Minister of Finance intervened we were having a reasonable dialogue and conversation. I can see that the Minister of Agriculture was agreeing with most of what I was saying and that he understood the problem. This issue goes beyond the type of political tomfoolery of the Minister of
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Frank Oberle: That is debatable.
Finance. I am glad that he is here to listen because he needs to be educated more than anyone else in the House of Commons.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, I must compliment the Leader of the Opposition on his defence of the prairie farmer. However, I want him to comment on his reference to preferential rates because neither the Minister nor the Government can be blamed for the loss of those preferential rates. The blame for the loss of those preferential rates must be laid at the door of the Liberal Party.
Will he tell us if his Party would return to a preferential statutory rate for the movement of grain in western Canada?


John Napier Turner: What statutory rate is he talking about? Is it the transportation rate or the credit rate?


Stanley J. Hovdebo: I am talking about the preferential rate for the movement of grain, the Crow rate.


John Napier Turner: Of course, that Crow rate, under the terms of the legislation, is up for review and I understand that the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) is considering it carefully. He has to reconcile divergent interests in the country. I think that question ought to be put to him.


Frank Oberle: Does the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition have any indication of what a $50 an acre payment would cost the federal Treasury? Does he intend to have the provinces share in such a program on the customary fifty-fifty basis? If that is the case, I applaud the right hon. gentleman for the initiative he has taken and the attention he has paid to the issue, which is as grave as he describes it. It is a serious matter of concern to all of us. He did not get into the Peace River country of British Columbia. I suppose he assumes I am looking after that.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Give him an hour.


Frank Oberle: I would like to know from the right hon. gentleman whether he had any opportunity to use his channels through the provincial Government in British Columbia to ascertain whether the province would come to an agreement on an acreage payment, similar to the agreement reached on cattle and the initiatives taken by the Government in that area.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member knows that I have been up in his country, which I enjoy. I have been there twice in the last 12 months, but I have always missed him. I apologize because he was welcome at the very successful meetings we have had because he would have added a little colour to those meetings.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Napier Turner: Although I have known the Premier of British Columbia for over 30 years, I doubt whether my pipeline to him is as clear and well flushed as the Hon. Member's.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, if this were an open-ended program, the maximum cost would be somewhere around half a billion dollars. The program I have proposed is not open-ended.
As I said during the course of my remarks, the pay-outs would be restricted to a maximum number of seeded areas. This avoids the problem of farmers with large farms getting huge amounts of money. It is also pro-rated to the crop harvested. The amount, I believe, would be a reasonable amount against the huge dimensions of the problem I have described.
Every major farm organization in western Canada supports the idea of acreage payments. Under the former Government, my Government, there is a precedent in the payments we have made to the producers in northeast Saskatchewan as a result of flooding. The Minister has a precedent there if he wishes.
As to the level of sharing, I suggested in Regina that it be two-thirds federal and one-third provincial. We want to make sure that that two-thirds really gets to the farmer. When the Government of Canada advanced payments to the cattle producers in Saskatchewan, they did not get to the cattle producer at all. The Province of Saskatchewan through its Treasurer pocketed the money.


Mr. Hopkins:: Mr. Speaker, farming is still a big business and is a business, not just another way of life as this Government is treating it. Historically speaking, agriculture has been and still is one of the key staple parts of the Canadian economy. Liberal Governments, contrary to answers given in Question Period today, have done a great deal in subsidizing Canadian agriculture and helping that sector out when in need.
Could the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) expand a little more on the income tax policies and relief that he would extend to the farm community? Second, could he expand on the immediate policies he has in mind for financial assistance? Third, if he were Prime Minister, would he buckle under the European Economic Community in the same way the Government and its Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) has today instead of supporting the farm community in Canada?
If he has any time after that, will the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition elaborate in his intelligent way on the hog and beef producer markets and the helpful hints and policies he has for them today? The Government obviously needs help badly.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, it is a relief to get an intelligent comment.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Napier Turner: In response to the pork issue, despite this new partnership which the Government of Canada is envisaging with the United States in terms of trade, our pork producers are being hit by the Americans who are
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October 25, 1985
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using their Department of Health in a phoney way and crippling our pork industry.
On the matter of taxation-


Michael Holcombe Wilson: What would you do about it, John?


John Napier Turner: It would not take much to do better.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Napier Turner: The Hon. Member wants to know about amendments to the Income Tax Act. What we are talking about here is a sell-off of cattle. Ranchers are now being forced to sell off large portions of their herds as a result of feed shortages and the high feed costs resulting from the drought.
The way the Income Tax Act and the definition of a herd is currently framed it would provoke premature recapture of depreciation, and the producer is taxed on the extraordinary income received from the sale, the result being that, having to pay the tax, he is unable to buy a replacement herd. We suggest the Income Tax Act be amended to set up an escrow fund giving the farmer a prolonged period of time in order to re-establish the herd without calling into play the recapture provisions of the Income Tax Act.
The Hon. Member put to me the question of what I would do about European beef. The new Canadian federal Government has just opened the doors to European beef and thrown our western producers-


Mr. King:: How much did you allow in?


John Napier Turner: The current federal Government has quadrupled the imports from Europe. That is what has happened.


Frederick John King: Mr. Speaker, I have a comment on the speech by the right hon. gentleman and then I would like to ask a question.


Ms. Copps:: Hey, Mr. Speaker. No questions and comments.


Frederick John King: I do not disagree with his analysis of the problems in agriculture: I just think it is rather cynical to bring them up at this time when he is Leader of the Opposition. The condition existed when he was in the other capacity as Prime Minister of Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Frederick John King: This is not a new phenomenon. It is a situation that has existed. How can the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) account for a situation that existed in the Okanagan for two years with the knowledge of the former Minister of Agriculture? The fruit growers of the Okanagan were asking for stabilization payments, to which they were
entitled. They were refused by the Government of the day, led by the hon. gentleman. It was not until a change in Government and the present Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) came to the Okanagan that the stabilization payment was granted, and that was after two years of stonewalling by the Liberal administration.
Why was there no favourable response to the concerns of the farmers in British Columbia in the Okanagan Valley with respect to action instituted by his Government against their organization and which has since been resolved amicably? If the Leader of the Opposition wishes to have any credibility, he should at least explain why his Government did not act when it had the opportunity to protect the farmers whom I represent in the Okanagan Valley.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Unfortunately the time allotted for questions and comments has terminated. Resuming debate.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Hon. Member just put some questions to my Leader. With unanimous consent, I think he has the right to answer the questions to try to put this matter in perspective. I think we overstepped the 10 minutes.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition to answer the Hon. Member's questions?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I am aware of the situation which the Hon. Member is attempting to describe. The Minister of Agriculture should do anything he can to widen that stabilization net. He is trying to obtain the consent of the provinces to do it now. We expect him to take a little more initiative. When we are talking about stabilization, we ought to cross a couple of mountain ranges as well and look at stabilization for the sugar-beet industry in southern Alberta. I can tell the Hon. Member that we never blew $1 billion on a bank, money which could have well gone to Canadian farmers.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to make a few comments, and I know I have about 20 minutes in which to do so. I did not utilize an opportunity to put questions to the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) so that other Hon. Members could question him. However, I want to do something which perhaps I do not always do. It might or might not be appropriate to do so on this particular occasion. I want to thank the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition for bringing this matter to the floor of the House of Commons and for the tone and rationale of many of his statements. Of course, I completely and totally reject any detrimental or negative reference to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson). He was completely and totally inaccurate in that respect, and he knows it. I wanted to set the record straight.
October 25, 1985

I am glad the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition utilized at least a small portion of his time this summer to travel the country, to get to the grass roots level and to visit particularly the drought area in western Canada. He should not believe that he was the only person there. In the last four months or five months, I have made a half dozen trips to western Canada and indeed to other parts of the country. I had the opportunity to visit the drought area with many of my colleagues, particularly with the Hon. Member for Assiniboia (Mr. Gustafson) who led the task force. In any event, I recognize the tone of his remarks today. Certainly his comments have improved compared with the position and the tack which he took the last time we discussed the matter in the House. I recognize the tone, the tack and the approach which he used on this occasion.
However, I think it is important to set the record straight. The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition indicated that the Government had fulfilled a few of its election campaign commitments. That is very misleading, and I utilize this opportunity to remind him that when we went to the country, we made 16 very clear commitments to the agri-food industry. To this point in time we have fulfilled 13 of those 16 commitments.


John Napier Turner: That is not our
calculation.


John Wise: I think that is a pretty good record. It will stand the test of time. When campaign commitments are made, normally the are made for the mandate of a Government, that is, at least for four years. We are only into our thirteenth month, and I believe our record is good. Also he indicated that there had been some delay and that we had neglected our responsibilities with regard to the drought in western Canada. That is completely inaccurate. A year ago we were quick off the mark, shortly after being sworn into office. I travelled to western Canada with a number of my cabinet colleagues. We provided a $16 million drought payment at that time. Subsequent to that, within weeks, we delivered another $13 million or $15 million to deal with excess water in western Canada.
Unfortunately the drought recurred this year, and again we accepted our responsibilities. We appointed a working committee. I went out there, I walked the area and I visited the area. As the Leader of the Opposition will know, we have delivered some $48 million on phase one of that program. That is not neglect; that is acceptance of responsibility.
We will be coming forward with phase two. We are a Government which believes in consultation with our provincial colleagues. We do not want to act unilaterally. We also believe in consultation with the industry people. This is the process through which we are going now to satisfy ourselves that whatever is available in phase two will meet with the general approval of the provinces and the general acceptance of producers. There is no delay at all. We just want to be satisfied that whatever we bring forward will be in the best interest of western farmers.
Also the Leader of the Opposition touched upon the need for some ongoing, existing mechanism or plan between the federal
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Government and the provinces to take care of disastrous situations. I agree with him on that. We are doing everything possible. At the time of the announcement of phase two, we hope to be in a position at least to signal what we think should be done. I am not talking out of school in respect of what can be and should be done. We all know the importance of the crop insurance program. It has done an excellent job over the years, but it has to be changed, perhaps not drastically. It must be enhanced, changed and revised. Provision must be built into that crop insurance program which will provide an option for individuals in high-risk areas. It is not only true in western Canada, but in northern Ontario and elsewhere in the country, that the existing system does not allow for an option to buy additional coverage. Until such time as revisions have been made to the crop insurance program to include those options, we will always be faced with ad hoc payments.
I see that the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition is present in the Chamber. I do not know what is his schedule this afternoon, so I will raise this matter with him how. It appears that the Opposition Party is attempting to lay all the blame on the doorstep of the Government. I think the message which he wanted to send across the country was that he was divorcing himself and the previous Government from any blame for the situation in which we find ourselves now. I do not think he will be very successful in doing that, to be perfectly honest. Most of the difficulties which we are experiencing today did not happen in the last 13 months. Rather, they began to happen as a result of developments in the early 1970s when we were not in office. Some of the messages of so-called experts impacted very detrimentally upon Canadian agriculture and other industries in the last three years of four years. Unfortunately they will be with us for time to come. During that period of time many of the studies with regard to what Governments, banks and industry people should be doing in the next decade-and I am taking it back to 1970-indicated that as far as the agri-food industry was concerned there was every indication that there would be a great deal of stability in interest rates.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I regret to interrup the Hon. Minister, but it being one o'clock p.m., I do not leave the chair until two o'clock p.m.
At 1 p.m., the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: When the House rose at one o'clock the Hon. Minister of Agriculture had the floor.


John Wise: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we broke at one o'clock I think I had covered some of the areas and some of the questions raised by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition and had tried to correct the record and describe the factual situations. I dealt with the election campaign commitments

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and dealt, I think quite adequately, with this Government's very positive, prompt and responsible handling of the western Canadian drought situation.
When we broke at one o'clock I was making some comments that would again set the record straight with reference to the impression that, intentionally or otherwise, the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition was attempting to leave, to lay all the blame for the difficulties that we have in the agri-food industry at this particular time totally and completely on the doorstep of this Government, when in fact that is not the case. I think we have acted responsibly for the last 13 months. We have passed more agricultural legislation in this House in the last eight months that we were sitting than the previous Government did in the previous eight years. We have taken well over 100 initiatives totalling nearly $2 billion. They are on the public record for people to examine, and no doubt other speakers on both sides of the House will utilize that list to make some further comments.
I want to make the observation that back in the early 1970s-and I need not remind the House that we were not in government at that time-the experts in the agri-food industry were meeting here in Canada, in North America and other locations throughout the world. They were doing some predictions and some crystal ball gazing as to what the future of the agri-food industry would be.
Collectively they came to the conclusion, looking ahead into the late 1970s and through the 1980s and perhaps beyond, that certain situations were going to exist. Collectively they came to the conclusion that interest rates would remain stable, and of course they were wrong. They indicated that energy prices would remain stable, and they were wrong again. They indicated that in-farm input costs would remain stable, and time has indicated of course that they were wrong in that observation as well. They indicated that during the late 1970s and on through the 1980s farm commodity prices would reach an all-time high. We all know that commodity prices have seldom, if ever, been much lower than they are at the moment. They also indicated that, as far as the North American and the international supply of food commodities was concerned, we would be going through probably a decade or a decade and a half of commodity and food shortages. Indeed, they have been wrong on that count as well because we are going through a time here in Canada and throughout the North American continent and in some of the major food producing countries of the world when we are not in a decade of shortages but rather in a decade of surpluses. Although we have certain market mechanisms which do help to establish better commodity prices, it is still difficult. Most are dealt with on the supply and demand principle.
So previous Governments were involved in these observations and they were involved in supporting these conclusions. They were also involved, particularly the federal Government, and there are many examples with respect to that. I do not have anything against my predecessor. I have known him for a long time. However, if there is any question in anyone's mind and they want to go back and read his speeches they will see
that in those speeches he indicated these would be great times, that input costs would remain stable and that commodity prices would be high. On behalf of the Government he was urging people to increase investment and to expand production. He said that there would be great things in store for those people who did.
I want to make those observations because part of the recommendation was supported quite enthusiastically-not quietly but quite openly and publicly-during that period of time with respect to what conditions would be like during the late 1970s and 1980s. Unfortunately, some very inaccurate and unfortunate messages were sent out to the agri-food industry by the previous Government during that period of time. This has resulted in some very serious situations for a large number of Canadian farmers.
Another comment made by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition was quite unfair. If he knew the facts he probably would not have made the comment. He made some reference to the action the Government has taken with respect to imports of heavily subsidized EEC beef. I was rather startled by his comment. I believe he said that we were responsible for tripling or quadrupling EEC beef imports into the country, or something of that nature. That is just not the case. I would like to take the hon. gentleman back and remind him that his Government did nothing, and he was Prime Minister at the time when, in fact, no action whatsoever was taken. As a result of no action being taken, beef imports from the EEC countries flowed into Canada to the extent of some 50 million pounds. The year prior there was about 13 million pounds imported into the country, while two years prior to that time the level of imports was at about one million pounds. If there was any irresponsibility it certainly was not on the part of this Government but rather on the part of the previous Government during a time in which the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition was Prime Minister of the country. No action was taken at all, and that is a fact.
We indicated that if we were elected we would invoke meat import legislation. We were elected and we invoked that legislation. We invoked it on December 21, a year ago, and negotiated a settlement with the EEC so that this year a maximum of 23 million pounds of heavily subsidized beef will be imported into the country. That is an amount less than half of what was shipped into the country last year. That is not a case of turning our backs on the beef industry but rather of accepting our responsibilities and providing some leadership and some control on these imports.
I have seen other comments, not by the Leader of the Official Opposition, but comments reported in the farm press across the country to the effect that beef, in excess of some 300 million pounds, will be imported into the country. That is complete nonsense and it is completely inaccurate. We said that we would invoke the law and we did. We negotiated a settlement with the EEC with respect to 23 million pounds as compared to 50 million pounds last year. Had we not invoked
October 25, 1985

the law and had we followed the course of action set down by the previous Government, instead of allowing 23 million pounds of EEC beef into the country, in view of the huge amounts in storage in those countries, the import levels could have reached 80 million, 90 million, or perhaps even 100 million pounds this year.
Not only did the previous Government not take any action but it did not provide any help or assistance to the Canadian beef industry. As a consequence, it went through an antidumping course and, unfortunately, it was not successful. We have assisted the Canadian beef industry this year and, in fact, within the last few days the anti-dumping group have decided that the Canadian cattlemen do have a case and that the investigation will go forward. I wish to set the record straight in that regard as well.
I notice, Mr. Speaker, you are indicating that I should bring my remarks to a close. I have not started to use any of my prepared text and I am prepared not to. However, there are two or three other areas upon which I would like to touch. One would be with respect to the bilateral trade agreement.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent to allow the Minister to conclude his speech?


Maurice Brydon Foster: Just for a couple of minutes.


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is agreed that the Minister shall have a few more minutes.


John Wise: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to express my appreciation to my colleagues. I do not want to misuse the additional time which has been given me. However, I do think it is important for me to touch on at least two other subjects, although I might not spend a great deal of time with respect to one because it was raised by a member of the Opposition earlier today during Question Period. I was asked a question with respect to the long-term dairy policy, and perhaps I will leave the matter there. I would like to remind Hon. Members to check Hansard with regard to my answer given to the Hon. Member who is present in the House today.
The other subject I wish to touch upon is a subject of great interest both in the House and across the country with respect to the interest that the agricultural industry has concerning the possible upcoming talks and possible upcoming negotiations with respect to the comprehensive trade negotiations between the two countries. We know the sensitivity which exists with respect to this issue.
I believe our first reaction is to draw back and perhaps to take the position that we should not have agriculture on the table if, indeed, we ever sit around a table. We have not reached that stage yet. We must recognize the fact that about 50 per cent of total farm income comes from export sales. If one looks at the agricultural trade between the two countries one will see that last year we exported to the U.S. somewhere in the vicinity of $2 billion worth of agricultural goods. I think it is absolutely important that we do not turn our backs on an
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opportunity but, rather, we should attempt to utilize an opportunity to secure access to that very important market.
For example, Hon. Members know of the problems we have had with respect to the hog industry between Canada and the U.S. which took place last year. If we did not have access to the U.S. market the Canadian hog industry would probably shrink by about one-third. I do not think we can afford that. Although I have not prepared an accurate calculation on this subject, I believe that if we did not have access to the U.S. market with respect to the movement of beef cattle in the country the Canadian beef industry would probably shrink by about one-half or two-thirds.
So I believe it is absolutely essential in the long run. We should remove the emotion from the issue and look at it from an economic point of view as an opportunity to achieve access to that market. I really do not think we have any choice but to try to negotiate a square deal, a better deal, for Canadian agriculture.
What I think we should also try to achieve is some agreement whereby we could remove some of these border irritants which we have encountered day in and day out with a wide variety of commodity groups. When we examine the mechanism which exists on this side of the border as compared to that which exists on the south side of the border, we end up the loser every time. We have to agree on some type of formula, program or mechanism we can put in place on both sides of the border because we are always going to be under pressure to use it from time to time and there will be legitimate reasons for doing so in the short-term interests of our own producers. I believe that that aspect of the discussions and negotiations is important for that reason alone.
I know there is a great deal of sensitivity about the matter, and I share that feeling, but I am also satisfied that we are going to have ample input, along with the industry and the provinces, and the mechanisms which will be in place will ensure that adequate consultation will take place. Unless someone knows something at this point of time that I do not, I believe we have only signalled our intent. I know there is an intent on behalf of the President of the United States to do likewise. However, I do not believe an official decision has been taken on behalf of the United States with reference to continuation of the talks and possible negotiations.
I will conclude my remarks at this time by saying that I appreciate the Opposition providing us with an opportunity to talk about some of the very serious problems which exist in the industry today. Again, I would like to compliment the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition for the tone he set in his remarks. I am sorry I do not have the time to talk about some of the many things we have accomplished in the last 13 months, but I am sure that will be done by others of my colleagues who will participate in the debate today. I welcome this opportunity to set the record straight on a number of comments made by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition and I appreciated the opportunity, I believe for the first time,

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to just say a word or two about the bilateral trade negotiations which may take place between the two countries as they relate to the agri-food industry.


Alain Tardif: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, when I asked you before lunch, during Oral Question Period, why no dairy policy had been announced on August 1 or during the first week of August, you pointed out that there never had been any commitment to that effect, and now I am getting out the proceedings of the Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs, where I was present when you made that commitment.
That being said, you made a brief reference to the question of the dairy policy. Perhaps you will allow me to draw a parallel with another question you dealt with, namely pork production.
You will probably remember that during the last election campaign, the Hon. Member for Joliette (Mr. La Salle) formally promised $13 million, putting his signature on a cheque, a payment pork producers were fully entitled to receive.
The Government decided not to pay this amount, giving as an excuse the threat of retaliation by the Americans and that it might be prejudicial to our market in the United States.
This brings me to the following question, since I am drawing a parallel between the situation in the pork industry and our dairy producers. According to your reasoning and your way of thinking, can we expect radical cutbacks in the Government's dairy policy, considering the fact that you seem to be in favour of a more open agricultural policy vis-a-vis the United States, and also considering what you did about the $13 million for pork producers?


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member makes some mention of the exchange we had during Question Period and refers to the August 1 date. That date is the date which in previous years was set by the existing Government. At that time it made the announcement of what could be in place for the next 12 months. It has been done continuously on an ad hoc basis for about the last 10 years. The dairy farmers of Canada and the dairy industry want a long-term dairy policy. The Hon. Member knows that. The industry made that representation to the previous Government year in and year out and received no action. The August 1 date was always the time in which the announcement was made of what the policy would be for the next 12 months. We do not want to follow that course of action. We want to be in a position as soon as possible to deliver the 14th of the 16 election campaign commitments we made. We said we would deliver, not on an ad hoc basis or on a 12-month by 12-month basis, but we will signal the dairy farmers of Canada and the dairy industry that there will be a long-term dairy policy-"long-term" meaning five years. We want to say to them that this is what the policy is going to be and it will be in place for five years.
We made an announcement on August 16. We were a couple of weeks late because there were some sort of technical problems involved which I think most people understand, but we accepted our responsibilities. We are carrying on in the same way, using the same formula, and we made the announcement on August 16-which should have been made, admittedly, on August 1-and in addition to that, I have appointed Everett Biggs and Benoit Lavigne who have consulted widely across the country. They have talked to all the provinces because the provinces are involved in the national plan. They talked to all the supervisory bodies because they are part of the plan, and to all the milk marketing boards in the provinces because they are signatories to the plan as well. We have to talk to all the people in the industry and to the Canadian consumers. This long, lengthy but necessary process has been completed and, as I indicated to the Hon. Member, I expect to receive that report within a couple of weeks. I hope to have a further couple of weeks at least-and I think the Hon. Member would agree that I need a couple of weeks-to assess the recommendations. Having assessed the recommendations, I will then make recommendations to Cabinet. I told the Hon. Member during Question Period that I thought a reasonable timetable would be a date prior to the first of the year.
There is not going to be any price increase in any case during that period of time so no one will suffer or be hurt by any increase at all. What we want to do is to deliver the long-term dairy policy.
I am surprised that the Hon. Member would bring up the question again-particularly in view of events which have taken place since August, 1984. What he has said certainly justifies the action we took. We were advising caution throughout September and November when the Hon. Member was putting pressure on us to send more money out. Sure, we can put $13 million into Quebec, but if we make a payment to one province, we have to pay them all under that program. It would have meant another payment from the federal Government of about $30 million, not $13 million. Had we paid that, then the U.S. countervailing duty on us would have been obviously much higher.


Mr. Benjamin:: They put it on anyway.


John Wise: Yes, you are right. However, how was it put on? It was not just ad hoc. There again we are losing under their system, but the calculation was made by the U.S. International Trade Commission based on the amount of stabilization and subsidy payments which flow from two levels of Government to the industry.
I appreciate the interest the Hon. Member has in dairy policy, but I am somewhat surprised that he would raise that old question again.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, the Minister talked about the new trade discussions with the U.S. This is one of the first times we have had an opportunity to discuss this with him.
October 25, 1985

Has he had discussions with the Minister for International Trade (Mr. Kelleher) as to the process of the negotiations over agriculture? Will the total package of agricultural products from either side of the border be placed on the table? It is extremely important that we look at the total agricultural package on either side. They have consistently had a trade surplus with us because of our inability to produce certain fruits and vegetables. They are also a bigger market, which makes it important for the whole package to be placed on the table. When we get into commodity-by-commodity negotiations we are always at a disadvantage at a ratio of about 11 to one, which is also the relative ratio of the two economies. Will he point out that the U.S. already has far and away the largest advantage in trade and that we should begin our negotiations there rather than on the old system of commodity-by-commodity where we always end up losing?


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, I want to be perfectly frank, open and honest in the discussions regarding the bilateral trade negotiations as they relate to the agricultural industry, both here in the House and across the country. However, I ask the Hon. Member to appreciate my difficulty at this point because the major spokesmen for the Government will be the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) and the Minister of International Trade (Mr. Kelleher). However, if you examine my earlier remarks, you will see that I said I was satisfied with the mechanism and the process. If these talks take place, there will be ample opportunity for consultation with input from the provinces and industry. I do not think I can say much more than that at this point in time.
I indicated that we get into problems from time to time in talking in generalities regarding the agricultural industry. A lot of people across the country think they can make certain statements which will apply to every commodity in the agricultural industry. That could not be farther from the truth. There is as much difference between some food commodities as there is between food commodities and a car or truck. Therefore, we must be cautious and ensure that all of these factors are taken into consideration. The Hon. Member mentioned the difference in scale and he is absolutely correct. We must never lose sight of the fact that the U.S. producer has many advantages, too many to list here. In fact, it would perhaps be an interesting subject for some debate someday in this House. However, it is obvious that they can take 10 per cent of their production and displace 100 per cent of our market. We can take 100 per cent of our production and displace only 10 per cent of theirs.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: That has always been the case. We have always known that.


John Wise: That is right. The other thing we should be aware of as well is that there are always many fingers pointed in this direction saying that we subsidize our agricultural commodities highly. I think what the Hon. Member was getting at was that if you take all their programs into consideration, and I have seen studies which have been examined and cross-examined and still stand up, that one might well conclude their financial support to their industry could run as high as 30 per
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cent compared to ours at about 12 per cent. These are the things we have to be very, very much aware of and never lose sight of. This Government is interested in making a better deal for Canadian agriculture by ensuring access to that huge market and eliminating some of these border irritants which exist and which are extremely disruptive, particularly to this industry.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in this debate. Debates on agricultural issues raised by the Opposition happen only about two times a year and this is the first opposition debate on the Order Paper this fall.
I would like to begin by making a very brief comment on the Minister's presentation which produced a lot of the information we have normally been used to getting from the Minister. We heard one admission which I think is new and which 1 hope is taken notice of by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and some other Cabinet Ministers as well. The Minister said, I think for the first time in this House at least, that the main problem in agriculture is not that of finding ways of supplying markets, it is that we are in a period of market surpluses. He pointed out that this is a world-wide phenomenon, something we in this Party have recognized for some time. However, he took the opportunity to apply a little political rhetoric to the Official Opposition in saying that it had not recognized it yet. To be fair, if it has not, it is because that recognition has only come slowly through the farm sector. The policy our Party has put forward over the past number of years has taken account of that, and I will get to that a bit later.
If we go back to the last election campaign, which was only 16 or 18 months ago, we saw the Ministers' Leader, now the Prime Minister, tell us in Prince Albert that if he was elected, western Canadians could look forward to increasing their export markets by 30 per cent. When the press turned to the Member for Assiniboia (Mr. Gustafson) who was at that time chief adviser to the then Leader of the Opposition and is now the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, they found he was only slightly more conservative, if I can use that word. He said he thought perhaps 25 per cent in the first year would be more reasonable. Well, reality is beginning to set in and at last the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) has pointed out with some accuracy that the reality is that there are world market surpluses for agricultural products.
Our former chief customer for wheat, Great Britain, is now one of our competitors. Through the European Economic Community it is now a net exporter of wheat. India, which used to be considered a basket case as far as the production of food is concerned, has had the ability for the last two or three years to export. It is reported to have about a million tonnes of wheat for export this year. While China has over a billion mouths to feed, it has become self-sufficient, even in grains. It is not exporting this year, but could do so if it chose to. It chooses, instead, to build up a surplus at home. The only major market left for Canadian wheat is the Pacific side of Russia,

October 25, 1985
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the only place that does not produce enough wheat internally to provide for its own food needs. They find it cheaper and more efficient to buy the grain they require from our ports in Prince Rupert and Vancouver and transport it by water to Vladivostok. That is about the only export market that still exists for Canadian grains at the moment. That has changed the whole equation that we use when considering the marketing of grains.
The Minister mentioned that we are used to exporting about 50 per cent of our production and consuming the other 50 per cent at home. The new reality is that we consume 60 per cent domestically and find outside markets for 40 per cent. Having reached that point, I reiterate the policy on agriculture that the NDP has worked out over the past decade, that is, that perhaps it is time to concentrate on the domestic market while continuing to work very hard on the other markets. Perhaps we should look at the domestic market with more hardheaded business sense in an attempt to utilize it to meet the income requirements of farmers in a better way than we have been doing.
We have basically been permitting the world market, which is a very cut-throat situation to begin with, to set the price levels. We then back off with the transportation costs and arrive at a domestic price that Canadian consumers will pay. As a result of the transportation differential, it is usually less than the foreign price. Through this method of pricing, Canadian consumers have been getting an extremely good deal.
There are only a few commodities on which the pricing situation has been reversed. Parliament has given farmers in the dairy and feather industries the authority to establish domestic prices that are fair to consumers as well as to farmers. Under those pricing arrangements, which they file each year with the National Farm Products Marketing Council, they have the right to recover a fair return on their investment equivalent to the national average industrial wage. This is fair and allows the producers of those commodities the hope of surviving in the current economic times. Producers who are paid world market prices, accepting the fluctuations which go with that situation, now have virtually no demand for their products and are facing great financial hardships.
One of the best financial assessments of the Government's first year in office was written in a very succinct fashion by one of the Government's own agencies, the Farm Credit Corporation. In the Farm Credit Corporation's quick business analysis of the Government's first year in office it points out that farm asset values declined by 12 per cent in the past year, outstanding farm debt increased by an additional two per cent, and gross farm sales declined by 5 per cent. This does not sound like a growing agricultural sector. It does not sound like the Government has been doing very much to improve the situation.
In fact, if you do similar analyses for previous years, you will see that there was only a 5 per cent or 6 per cent decline in farm asset values in 1984 and that debt increased at about the same level, but that farm sales had at least increased a little
bit. While I will admit that the problem has built up over time, the Government, with all the best intentions in the world, has been unable to stop the rapid decline in the fortunes of Canadian farmers despite all the attention it says it has paid to agriculture.
When looking at the long list of things which the Minister says he has done for agriculture I find some very creative accounting.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: You mean cooking the books.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Yes, what my friend, the Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin), says is probably true. The Government says that it has given almost $2 billion worth of aid to agriculture in its first year in office. The numbers are all here. One of the bigger aid packages is $520 million paid through the Canadian crop insurance scheme which has been in place for years. That money would have been paid regardless of which Government was in power or whether any Government was in power. An interim payment of $450 million through the Western Grain Stabilization Act was made. Payments of about that amount will be made again this year. Without government interference they would have been made this November rather than last May and June, but the amount would have been the same. The change in the legislation expedited the payments but did not change the amount. That money would have been pumped into the pockets of Canadian farmers regardless of which Government had been in power or, indeed, whether any Government had been in power. If we had been in the midst of an election, that money would still have been automatically paid out.
I hasten to add that both of those programs are paid for, at least in part, with the money of farmers. One-third of the funds paid out through the Grain Stabilization Act are raised through premiums paid by farmers. Fifty per cent of the money paid out in crop insurance is raised through farmers' premiums. Included on the Minister's list is the announcement of the final payments on the three Wheat Board grains. There is no Government money involved in that. It is simply a matter of finalizing the annual sales, closing the books, and paying the surplus back to the farmers who produced the grain. Those are the kinds of things included on this great list.
However, the production of great lists will do nothing to attack the real problem. Again, I must congratulate the Minister for finally recognizing that we are faced with a market of surpluses. Apparently, his officials have not recognized this because the White Paper which he presented to the Ministers of Agriculture in St. John's, I believe, followed the opinion that there are may hungry people to be fed and a world market to be filled. His officials have not yet come to the conclusion arrived at by the Minister.
In the time I have remaining I would like to outline how I believe we could deal with the reality of this market of surpluses. I believe that we should give priority to the remaining 60 per cent of the domestic market which should be ours to
October 25, 1985

fill first. Farmers should be allowed to structure marketing institutions that will take advantage of local domestic markets and let them set prices in those markets which will give the farmer full cost recovery. Since the weather, disease and other factors make it very difficult for farmers to produce the precise amount of commodity to fit the market, the surplus amount of product should be sold in international competition through powerful marketing agencies like the Canadian Wheat Board. These agencies would act wholly in the interest of the original producers of the product and return any surplus funds from the market, pro-rated to the original producer of the goods so that the full benefit of that marketing and sales activity will accrue to the local community and to the farmers who produced the commodity. This is the only way to face up the current farm crisis and ensure that agricultural development can take place and continue in this country. One only needs to look across the border to see that the farm crisis there is even worse than in this country.


John Wise: So is their financial situation.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Their financial situation is worse than that being faced by Canadian farmers because their marketing situation has not been as carefully monitored. Furthermore, I believe the main reason for that difference lies in those institutions which I just mentioned. The marketing ability of the Canadian Wheat Board and the Canadian Dairy Commission to act on behalf of farmers in obtaining fair prices, as well as the ability of various chicken and egg boards in this country, have made it possible for at least some farmers to maintain something close to production costs, viability and parity with the rest of the country. Without such institutions and the recognition which the Minister is now prepared to make, there is no ability for Canadian farmers to survive in the current economic climate.
Canada has a relatively large agricultural sector given the size of its economy and therefore it does not feel disposed to make the kind of subsidy payments to keep agriculture viable as we normally see in the European Economic Community, the United States and other industrialized countries like Japan. Our small population means that we can produce a consistent surplus of commodities. Our tax base is relatively small compared with that of those countries with large numbers of very wealthy people. Therefore, we should allow the farmers to look after themselves, as our agriculture policy suggests. They should be given the marketing power they require in the form of marketing institutions like the Wheat Board and the Dairy Commission and they should be allowed to adjust to the reality of the market-place both domestically and internationally.
I attempted to provide such an opportunity earlier in this session of Parliament when the National Farm Products Marketing Agencies Act was broadened to permit tobacco growers to do just that. At that time I moved an amendment that would have permitted all producers of fruits, vegetables, grains and livestock to have the same privileges. However, the Government intervened and refused to allow that to happen. I regret that it took such action because I believe that self-help
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for farmers is the only way they will have a chance to survive in this very difficult economic climate. It is the only solution that will allow farmers to obtain the income they need to remain viable.
In closing, I am pleased that we had this opportunity to discuss agriculture this afternoon. I urge the Government to face up to the new analyses that the Minister has offered us today which is a radical departure from the position of his Party and his Government. I hope he has some luck and success in selling his arguments to his Cabinet colleagues, particularly in persuading the Member for Assiniboia and the Prime Minister who were convinced some 16 or 18 months ago that the agricultural industry was viable and that it would only require harder work in order to sell the products that would solve the problems of Canadian farmers.
At least the Minister has recognized that that is not the case. I hope he will confirm that by introducing the necessary amendments to the National Farm Products Marketing Agencies Act so that other producers in this country besides those in the chicken, egg and dairy industries will also enjoy self-reliance.


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, in my opening remarks earlier today, following the initial speech by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition, I took what might be considered an unusual step and utilized the opportunity to congratulate the Leader of the Opposition for the tone of his speech. I think it is only proper and appropriate, after listening to the agriculture spokesperson for the Opposition, the Hon. Member for Hum-boldt-Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse), that I also utilize this opportunity to extend, on behalf of the Agriculture Ministry as well, the same complimentary remarks about the manner in which he has made his presentation in the House today.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I thought that the Minister would perhaps go into a longer dissertation.
I was very interested in the comments of the Hon. Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse). He made a number of observations about the speech of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise). I was especially fascinated by the comments of the Minister of Agriculture when he agreed completely with the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) and rejected the suggestions made by the Leader of the Official Opposition.
This surprises me because I believe that 90 per cent of the problem experienced by the Minister of Agriculture is in obtaining recognition, support and assistance from the Minister of Finance. The document entitled Taxation Issues in Agriculture which was before the Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs Committee earlier this year clearly put the Government's position on the line. According to the view of the Minister of Finance in his White Paper, farmers earn twice as much as other Canadians, only pay a quarter as much in income tax and other taxes, and are eight times as well off as other Canadians. I am sure that that comment by the Minister of Finance has been rejected by all farmers. I am sure the

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Minister of Agriculture might want to choose his words more carefully.
Along with the Hon. Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre I was interested in the comments of the Minister of Agriculture with regard to free trade. He seems to be supporting the concept that, yes, our marketing boards are important in Canada whether in the dairy industry, the feather industry or with regard to the Wheat Board but the Minister is not prepared to take them off the table in the free trade negotiations. I understand his thinking in that regard, but I reject it completely. It seems to me that if you are going to enter into negotiations with the United States, you cannot go in naively and say "Well, we will put everything on the table and there will be no problems."


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: That is what the Liberals did.


Maurice Brydon Foster: It appears that you have to think that the American system of marketing and assistance to agriculture is better. I reject that. I think our system in many of those administered commodities is much better. Even if we wanted to go to the American system I do not think that we have treasuries rich enough here to support a system like that.
I would be interested in the thoughts of the Hon. Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre, although he has pretty well set them out on the table already. To be prepared to adopt the American system of subsidies and surpluses and the American system of agriculture would be something quite impossible for our Government to take on even if it were as good which, in my opinion, it is not.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I do not think I can give full justification in the time I have to the complexities of the question posed.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: What was the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: If we are going to our trade talks with the United States with child-like wide-open eyes thinking that this would be a way of maintaining free trade in agricultural goods, we are probably fooling ourselves to no end. There has not been true and absolute free trade in many agricultural goods, certainly in my lifetime.
In my reading and understanding of economic history, that has been the case with only a few commodities at any one time. In reality, most of the large developed countries have internal agricultural policies which serve to protect supplies. They make certain they come very close to being self-sufficient in food, a situation brought about, in part, because of European experience with war. Countries like to be as self-sufficient as possible in the event of a blockage during war. That policy came from the last century and with two major wars in this century, countries feel it is still a good policy and they pursue it. Similarly do the Japanese. They try to produce as much within Japan, regardless of cost, as possible. That has
not necessarily been the reason for the U.S. producing the kind of agricultural output it has. The U.S.A. happens to be a relatively new economy situated in a very good agricultural area, in terms of land base, climate, technology and the training the population has. Americans are able to produce very well. They have at the same time used extra funds from their industrial base to assist agriculture in farm and rural life in a way that is subsidized at least three times per capita as in Canada. American farmers will not give up their far greater subsidies. Therefore, when we go into negotiations, we have to go in with our eyes wide open. We have to realize the U.S. is a much bigger country. Our negotiating position and economic clout is only about one-tenth of the U.S.
As long as we go on recognizing those things, we may come back with some honour and ability to survive as farmers in Canada. If Government negotiators ignore that, Canada's farmers will be very ill-served indeed.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for my colleague. I did not get a chance to ask the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) so I will attempt to ask him indirectly; first, on the experience of Canadian livestock producers in particular, but others as well. On a number of occasions in the last two or three decades we thought we had understandings or agreements on the amount of cattle, hogs, calves and dressed beef that we could send to the United States. As soon as the Americans started hurting, they closed the border. That has happened on three or four occasions since 1970.
Will the Hon. Member comment on the fact that unless we have a specific commodity, volume and price agreement that that situation will continue to happen? If we think we can blast our way into a market R.B. Bennett style we are deluding ourselves that the American livestock producer will hold still for that.
Second, my colleague commented on the matter of free trade. He said that we are trying to keep all of our eggs in one basket when we could be negotiating deals with countries such as Mexico and those in Central America. We could provide them with pure-bred cattle, breeding and red meats in exchange for their fruit and vegetable production rather than relying on the high cost imports from the United States in the middle of winter.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief because I notice you are getting a little edgy about the time. 1 do not have all of the instances of times when our relatively free trade agreement with the United States on red meat went awry. Probably the most noticeable ones had to do with our free trade hog component of the red meat understanding. In 1976 we were not producing all of the hogs required in Canada and we were not meeting our own domestic consumption. At one point for a year in that period in the middle 1970s, 14 per cent of our pork had to come from the United States.
As far as the Americans were concerned, we were a very small market. This past year the shoe switched to the other foot, so to speak. We were exporting relatively heavy exports of pork to the United States. We got to the point where
October 25, 1985

Canadian pork made up about 2 per cent of the American market. The Americans moved very quickly with a countervail and cut us off. They have much faster, better and more efficient mechanisms for cutting off trade than we have.
As to the second question about trade agreements which tend to tie us to one country "a la R. B. Bennett", as the Hon. Member said, there are some parallels. R. B. Bennett wanted a similar agreement with the British in the 1930s. The British did not seem to be very interested, but he kept pursuing it pretty well throughout his mandate. The Government has decided that the object of its affection will be Ronald Reagan and the Americans. Ronald Reagan may be willing, but the American Congress does not seem to be terribly willing. As the Minister explained, we will probably see Canada going to these discussions, if they in fact amount to something. However, rather than tying ourselves to a firm bilateral agreement with exclusivity clauses, we would be much better off going the GATT route, keeping our options open and selling to a wide range of countries. We know from past experience that countries which appear to be good markets dry up. For example, the British seemed to be the main market of the 1930s, and they buy virtually no agricultural products from us now. In fact, they have become our competitors. Tying ourselves to one market is not the answer; keeping our options open is much better.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, the motion before the House today in the name of the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) reads as follows:
That this House regrets that the Government has refused to recognize the serious crisis facing the farm family in Canada and condemns the Government for its inadequate response to the problems of Canadian farmers, including a severe cost-price squeeze and debt burden, fierce predatory international competition and natural disasters, which have combined to place Canada's agricultural community in jeopardy.
He placed this motion before the House on our first Opposition Day because we are very concerned with the serious crisis facing Canadian agriculture.
We only have to look at the most recent report of the Farm Credit Corporation which suggested that 23 per cent of Canadian farmers are in serious financial difficulty. That is a frightening statistic. We only have about 170,000 farmers, and some 39,000 or 23 per cent of them are in serious financial difficulty. Another 11 per cent are in moderate to severe financial difficulty. If we look at that group of 39,000 farmers, we see that they spend an average of 10 years to 12 years in agriculture. They are really our youngest farmers, but they are also our most technologically advanced. They are our most efficient producers and our most productive farmers and, according to the statistics of the FCC, produce about half the food in Canada. They have a debt burden of something like $17 billion. The possibility of these young farmers losing their farms is frightening, disturbing and concerning. Will they be unable to survive? Will they be unable to have the opportunity to live a good life on the farm and to make a tremendous contribution to our country and to our export sales in years to
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come? Also it is very disturbing, as we look at the agricultural economies of Canada and of the world, to see the prices of commodities, the price prospects for grain and the prospects for cash crops. For example, we see farmers in southwestern Ontario growing soybeans and corn. They will not even get back their cost of production unless the Government provides stabilization. If we look at the long-term prospects for red meat, hogs and pork, it is a very disturbing situation which requires the resolve and determination of every Member of the House of Commons, especially those in the Government. It has to be placed on a higher plane of commitment or given a higher priority.
If we look at the international climate for farm commodity prices and at what is going on in the world at large, we see large trading blocs like the United States with huge, massive surpluses. They are able to commit $2 billion worth of grain for a bonus program. They are able to demand and receive a larger share of world markets. We want to know whether the Government is prepared to hang with our farmers and see them survive in the fierce, predatory international climate of commodity pricing.
If we look at the EEC, several years ago it was a customer for 25 million tons of wheat. Today it markets about that much on the world scene and subsidizes sales abroad. To round out the fierce competition in international trade, we have only to look at the 23.5 million pounds of EEC beef, subsidized up to 48 cents per pound, which is coming into Canada this year, or at the hog countervail by the United States of 5.3 cents per pound which will be harmful to our hog producers. We should compare those aspects with the almost blase, laissez-faire, easy-going attitude of the Government that it will consider it, that it is sympathetic, but that it has not got around to making any decision or taking any action. These are the things which concern us in the Opposition and concern farmers right across the country.
Another reason for the motion being before the House at the present time is that the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition is a man of his word. In September, he had an opportunity to visit the drought areas of southern Saskatchewan, to meet with community leaders there and to view the devastation due to the drought. In July, I had an opportunity to visit some farms in that area, to talk with many producers and to see the devastation as well. I saw hundreds of acres with no crops. After having an opportunity to meet with community leaders and producers, my Leader suggested to the Government a number of worth-while initiatives which it could take. Although the Minister spoke eloquently this afternoon, we are concerned that he was unable to respond to many of the recommendations of our Leader. Since I was in Saskatchewan, in the prairie areas, since the Leader of the Opposition was there and made these recommendations, people want to know whether the Government will respond to these suggestions. I will mention some of them in detail in a few moments.

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1 think this is instructive because the people know of the 338 promises that were made by the Government and of the dozens and dozens that have been broken or have not been responded to since the election of over a year ago. They have seen the House of Commons spend a great deal of time this fall debating a bail-out of $1 billion or $2 billion for banks because of the carelessness of the Government in dealing with that issue last March. They have seen PetroCan spending $1 billion to set up additional gas stations. They have seen a billion dollar tax ruling to benefit one big industrial family in Toronto. What they want to know is why can the Government not respond to this industry, which is critical to Canada, not only in terms of those several hundred farmers but to the entire economy and to the rural life of our country.
In the recommendations which were made by the Leader of the Opposition he recommended that there be immediate action on an acreage payment for drought. He suggested $50 per seeded acre, which has been recommended by the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. He recommended an income tax adjustment related to farmers who have to sell off their herd and want to be able to go back into the industry without having their revenues destroyed by income tax. He recommended a permanent long-term disaster relief mechanism in conjunction with the provinces. He recommended a debt review agency to reschedule debt and also provide long-term preferential interest rates for farmers. A sales tax exemption for farm fuels was promised by the Government in the last election campaign. It instituted a program last November in the economic statement but most of that elimination of excise tax was removed between May 1, when the exemption to the petroleum compensation charge was lifted because that charge was removed, and September 1 when a new excise tax of 9 cents a gallon or 2 cents a litre was imposed.
The Leader of the Opposition recommended that there be a public inquiry into the cost of chemicals and pesticides about which there was a great deal of concern. The Senate has done some work on that but there is a need for an impartial inquiry in that regard.
The Minister did respond to the question of what will happen to our marketing agencies and our support programs with free trade. I still have not seen an ironclad commitment that these will not be bargained away and I do not suppose that we are going to get such a commitment. Of course that adds to the uncertainty and concern that Canadian agriculture feels today.
I think in the debt crisis there is a very great concern in areas all the way across the country but particularly in areas like the Bruce Peninsula where hundreds of farmers have lost their farms in the last couple of years. The Government promised an agri-bond program. An agri-bond program was recommended by the Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs Committee, a program which would assist the farmers to-


Mr. Dick:: What year?


Maurice Brydon Foster: In 1985. It was chaired by the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn).


Paul Wyatt Dick: It was also recommended when you people were in Government but you did not do anything about it.


Maurice Brydon Foster: It was an excellent recommendation with the majority of the people on that committee from the Government side providing a write-down of interest to 8 per cent, up to $300,000, which was a five-year program. There was no response. I think that the Minister is very glib, very reassuring in what he has to say. However, when one reads the Budget one sees that there is only input cost increases and while there was a provision generally available to all Canadians and to farmers for capital gains exemption which helps farmers get out of farming, it does not help them stay in farming. There were increased input costs through the sales tax, through an excise tax, through removal of exemption of the petroleum compensation charge, and when one reads all the solid evidence, the Estimates, the Budget, these documents that show where decisions are made by the Government. There is no decision to give additional support or encouragement to agriculture. There is no decision on Section 38 because the Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs Committee studied that matter and put down a recommendation. In the Estimates the Farm Credit Corporation budget was reduced by almost $400 million this year. The estimates of the Department of Agriculture-


John Wise: Increased.


Maurice Brydon Foster: There will be $50 million removed from it. As well, the Department of Agriculture will be deindexed and that will cost another $10 million to $15 million. We do not even know where that $50 million and $15 million is going to come from. Is it going to come out of the dairy program? Is it going to come out of agricultural support programs? Is it going to come out of transportation or is it going to come out of research? There is a pretty firm commitment by the Government to greater research in agriculture and yet there appears to be no certainty or commitment by the Minister yet where he is going to remove that $50 million.
I was impressed with the Government's support to the oil industry. There was a reduction in taxes within three or four years of $2.4 billion and an increase in the value of reserve by $800 million. I was not impressed that there was that kind of commitment to agriculture. I am sure the Minister wants, and I hope that he will get, that kind of commitment from the Government because I think we are going to go through a very difficult time for the next couple of years. I think that Canadians want to see agriculture get the kind of commitment which other sectors of the economy, notably the petroleum industry, received in that Budget.
The Minister after his review placed a moratorium on 670 Farm Credit Corporation foreclosures which are in the pipeline now. There will probably be more by December 1 because that is when most of the payments come due. I am interested to know whether the Minister will be adopting a program like
October 25, 1985

the agri-bond program recommended in the Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs Committee Reports to assist a good portion of the young farmers who are facing serious financial difficulty.
I was reassured as much as is possible by the Minister's words today that the potato industry is going to get his support and that there will be a potato purchasing program put in place under the Agricultural Products Act, because we have literally hundreds of producers in the Maritimes especially, although much of the industry is suffering in Manitoba and other places as well. These producers receive something in the order of 2.5 cents a pound, which is slightly less or more, perhaps, than half the cost of production. They can surely not survive indefinitely. I have recommended to him that he remove the inspection fee or place a moratorium on it, at least for this year or, perhaps, even indefinitely, which would be a more popular move. 1 am told that a person operating a 600-acre farm will pay inspection fees in the order of $6,000.


John Wise: That is inaccurate.


Maurice Brydon Foster: That seems like a great deal of expense for an industry in which one receives about half of one's production costs.
While the Minister has soothing words, I think the industry is looking for decisions and actions. I suppose it is unfortunate from the Government's point of view that many of these actions will cost money. However, when one looks at the depth of the problem from the farmer's viewpoint, when one looks at the impact on rural Canada and the long-term interests with respect to Canada both domestically and internationally, 1 think the type of commitment which was given to other sectors of the economy should be given to the agricultural sector. We are certainly looking at an emergency debt situation and crisis in the short run. We are looking at a cost-price squeeze which the Government can help in certain ways over a longer period of time. We are looking at a fierce situation in terms of the international market. We want to see the Government respond in a positive way to the recommendations made by the Leader of the Official Opposition a few weeks ago and those which he repeated here in the House today, as well as the recommendations coming forward from agricultural groups in the country. This industry is just too important to be receiving only soothing words. It requires a total commitment by the Government and the people of the country at large so that we can see it survive and prosper as a family farm type of industry and not be changed to the type of industry which we see in the United States and some other countries.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Are there questions or comments? The Hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise).


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of observations and questions to ask of the Hon. Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster). The Hon. Member speaks about soothing words. He should be an expert on soothing words since during the time
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his Party was in power that was all it delivered to the agriculture industry.
I would ask Hon. Members to consider the farm finance situation. If the Hon. Member examines the record he will recognize that there was only one single action taken by the previous Government to address that problem. I am speaking of the special farm assistance legislation which lowered interest rates by 4 percentage points on a very selective basis to about 2,100 clients of the FCC. When my Party assumed office we moved interest rate conversion legislation which lowered interest rates across the board to all FCC clients who held loans and mortgages with interest rates at 16.75 per cent. We brought them all down 4 percentage points to the benefit of 5,600 clients. That was an $80 million commitment to the agricultural industry. That is not an action which fills the definition of soothing words. That is an action in terms of dollars.
In addition to the introduction of the interest rate conversion measure we put into place appeal boards across the country. We also introduced the shared risk mortgage program and, in addition, we lowered interest rates five times. Interest rates are now at the lowest point they have ever been in the FCC since 1979. Those are not simply soothing words but actions which have required the expenditure of dollars.
During the same period of time the previous Government saw interest rates increase by about nine percentage points to 20 per cent or 24 per cent. That is what happened when no action whatsoever was taken by the previous Government. Those were extremely devastating events which took place and which seriously impact the agricultural industry today.
I wish to ask the Hon. Member whether he realizes that for every percentage point increase in the general interest rate in the country there is a cost to the Canadian farmer of $140 million. Has the Hon. Member not observed that since my Party has taken office there has been a three percentage point decline in general interest rates in the country? Does he not know that for each percentage point of decrease there is a saving of $140 million to the Canadian farmer? During the time the previous Government held office, and because it took no action and allowed interest rates to increase from 10 per cent to 24 per cent, there was a direct cost to Canadian farmers to the tune of $1.4 billion. What did the Hon. Member's Government do? It had nothing but soothing words. We have taken action.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, that was a beautiful intervention by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise).


John Wise: It was fact.


Maurice Brydon Foster: He knows that the reason he was able to carry out that flip with respect to interest rates was because the previous Liberal Government had left $600 million worth of funds in the Farm Credit portfolio. Rather than costing his Government $80 million, which, of course, is a total canard, it

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really cost nothing. All the Government had to do was exchange one level of interest rate for another.
I would point out to the Minister that there were some 5,600 farmers who were eligible for that program. They had to sign an incredible document stating that they were on the way to the poor-house and they were going broke. If they did not sign the document they would not receive anything. If the Minister would come clean he would admit that there were 6,800 farmers holding farm mortgages at 13.5 per cent or 14 per cent who at the same time received nothing. I think we have to take what he says with a grain of salt.
If we look at the Tory promises we will see that they promised that the Government would allow the Farm Credit Corporation to offer agri-bonds to farmers in order to have access to reasonably priced funds. The Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs held hearings on this matter at which people from across the country were heard. The committee recommended an agri-bond program with an 8 per cent interest rate up to $300,000 in order to write down all the high interest rate loans for a period of five years. I did not see any action in the Government's Budget in that regard. As a matter of fact, if one looks at the Estimates for the Department of Agriculture with respect to the Farm Credit Corporation one will see that the Estimates decrease from $494 million to $90 million. That is not something which took place last fall; it is something which took place in February when the Estimates came down. If we look at the budget of the Department of Agriculture we will see that it has been cut by $50 million. We see that increases over the next several years will be restrained due to the deindexation of departmental budgets which will just cost more money.
I would say that the difficulties are growing greater and that the number of farmers in serious Financial difficulty has increased by some 5 per cent from last summer to this. That is from about 33,000 farmers to 39,000 farmers. The Departmental estimates of the Farm Credit Corporation suggest that those accounts which were past due at August 1 have increased to $236 million. Last year it was $165 million. It is estimated that by January 1,1986, the number of farmers who will not be able to make their payments to the Farm Credit Corporation will increase and overdue payments will amount to $300 million. That is an increase of $190 million from last year.
We hear the Minister talking, but we do not see very much action. There was not very much action in the Budget or in the Estimates. Last July 10 the Minister put out a statement that he was going to put in place a pre-arbitration tribunal system attached to the Bankruptcy Act. Since then there have just been studies. I put a motion before the House calling upon the Government to implement some action in that regard. Many groups like the National Farmers Union and others are recommending some action.
There was a Bill in the House of Commons in June, 1984, before the election campaign. It was not a case where the
Government had to go and find a new Bill, it just had to come forward with the legislation which was already there.
A question was put to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Cote) this week. He replied that the committee was still studying the issue and that we may get a Bill in January or later on. It is very indefinite when there is going to be some action taken. We can compare this inaction with the promises which were made in the election campaign. Promise No. 14 was that the Government would allocate the necessary funding to assist producers in refinancing their loans at current prevailing interest rates. But where are the 6,800 farmers who were left last January with interest rates at over 13.5 per cent? Their loans were not financed down to 9 per cent or 10 per cent. What happened to the recommendation which was made by the Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs? The majority of Members on that committee were Government Members. They knew what needed to be done. But there has really been no action taken by the Government on that recommendation made by their own private Members.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Hon. Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster). In listening to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) and to the Hon. Member for Algoma, 1 was reminded of a story of the farmer who was on a train. When he went to the washroom there was a sign above the toilet which said: "Do not flush in town". The farmer said: "Oh, sure, do it to the farmers again".
A year and a half ago the Conservatives were making the same kind of speech the Hon. Member for Algoma made today. As year and a half ago members of the Liberal Party were making the same kind of speeches the Conservatives are making today. I would like to ask the Hon. Member for Algoma, with all of his complaints, if he can assure us, on behalf of the Liberal Party, that it has now changed its mind and will admit that it was wrong. Who was it that got rid of the Crow rate and increased costs for producers in western Canada, with the supine acquiescence of the Tories? Who was it that abandoned thousands of miles of branch lines and increased the cost for producers? Who was it that sat quietly by while the United States colsed the borders on us on cattle, hogs and number of other commodities? Who was it that started the user-pay principle which hurt agricultural producers all over this country? Who was it that tried to get rid of the Maritime Freight Rates Act and the Atlantic Region Freight Assistance Act? This all resulted in falling agricultural prices and falling farm net income. Can the Hon. Member now say that his Party has now changed its mind and admits it was wrong, and that the Tories were right in what they said while the Liberals were in power? Can he just tell us that?


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) who is a long time friend and member of the most illustrious class of 1968, obviously dreams of the possibility of his Party being able to be the Government of this country but he is not likely to see that happen. I want to assure the Hon. Member that if the
October 25, 1985

Government would adopt some of the recommendations made by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition which were put to the Government today, it would prove it recognized, for instance, the seriousness of the western drought situation which occurred this past summer. If the Government would implement an acreage payment system at $50 per seeded acre, in co-operation with the provincial Governments, that would be very beneficial to western agriculture.
Someone on the Government side made the suggestion to the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition that this is going to be a very expensive program, and, yes, it could be, but we should look at the magnitude of the situation which has occurred in western Canada. It is estimated that there was at least $2 billion in lost profits because of the drought alone. The damp, wet harvest also reduced grain production and will reduce the value of crops. In those cases, that kind of a payment, I am sure the Hon. member for Regina West would appreciate, would be very useful.
There should be a permanent disaster relief mechanism in place to assist in the kind of disaster which has happened to the farmers this year. There needs to be long-term action on water storage, water conservation and irrigation which will put on a firm basis the agricultural industry in western Canada. I am sure that the Hon. Member for Regina West would certainly want to applaud and support in any way possible those and other recommendations of the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition.


Mr. Albert Cooper (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to participate in this debate today for a number of reasons. Of course, the first reason has to be that agriculture is a very fundamental part of the economy of my constituency. It provides a livelihood and opportunity for many people in my area. In fact, it is a major influence on all of us in Canada. The second reason I wanted to speak in the debate today is because of the motion which is before us. I would just like to read the motion, if I may:
That this House regrets that the Government has refused to recognize the serious crisis facing the farm family in Canada and condemns the Government for its inadequate response to the problems of Canadian farmers, including a severe cost-price squeeze and debt burden, fierce predatory international competition and natural disasters, which have combined to place Canada's agricultural community in jeopardy.
That is quite a motion, Mr. Speaker, but I will tell you what really makes it incredible. It is the Party which has put this motion before the House. I was elected to Parliament in 1980 so I was able to watch the previous administration and perceive how it dealt with agricultural concerns, problems and frustrations. Today those same people put forward a motion condemning our Government for not paying attention to these problems and not acting upon them. All one has to do is look at the two records to see that the people who are doing the criticizing today really have no grounds, basis or reason for putting forward any of that criticism. I can remember sitting in this House and watching the Minister with the green hat making all sorts of statements, all sorts of flowery speeches, but not once that I can recall did he really respond to the gut needs of people in the Peace River country. I remember
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questioning him about problems we had in Peace River, whether it was drought or some other weather condition, and his response was: Check it out with the province. He was not interested. Yet these very same people turn around and have the audacity to put forward this kind of motion. In spite of that I have to say that I have found this debate quite interesting and the speeches information and thoughtful. That is a real compliment to Members of this House and in many ways to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise). He set the tone.
I want to talk for a few moments now about this new Government. It is important that I talk about it from the viewpoint of a western Canadian, particularly as the Member of Parliament representing the Peace country. This new Government has meant many significant things to us. The first thing which comes to mind is that for the first time in a long time we feel we are represented at the Cabinet table. Time and time again in the past our concerns, worries and frustrations were never heard. Why? Because the Liberals did not have anyone from western Canada to stand up and speak for us. That is not the case today. We have several Members from western Canada sitting at that Cabinet table demonstrating concern about the problems we are faced with in western Canada. At the same time they very much influence the direction Canada is taking. I could not help but notice an article in Quorum which I thought really spoke to this fact. Some of you may remember Mordecai Richler's statement regarding the City of Edmonton. Western Canadians were very offended by what one Member said because what they felt was happening was now that the Liberals are in Opposition they are free to come forward with all sorts of platitudes and nice statements but when they were in Government they totally ignored us. The title of the article was: "Shame on Sheila". It said, among other things:
If she feels compelled to apologize to us, why doesn't she express her profound regret for her Party's unabashed attempt to loot Alberta with the National Energy Policy?
That is the kind of thing which has made western Canadians furious. We find it particularly offensive when Liberals come forward with this kind of motion today criticizing a Government which is looking at the problems facing our farmers and is already taking action and considering further action.
I now want to talk briefly about the Ministers who deal with agriculture in this Government. The first thing we have to remember is that those Ministers were handed one heck of a mess in the shape of our agricultural economy. It has suffered from neglect, severe weather conditions, and all sorts of other things. Of course, the biggest thing it suffered from was the inaction of the previous Government. What I found really impressive was that the Minister of Agriculture listens. That is important. In my first four or five years in this House when I sat on the Opposition side I never felt that the Minister of Agriculture listened to me, let alone my constituents. However, the new Minister of Agriculture is listening and responding, and anyone who wants to seriously sit down and look at it will know that the Minister has listened and his track record

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bears that out. Another Minister is the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski). His work affects the commodity and agricultural industries and, again, I find that he is a listener. We have a serious problem in our area with the number of places which do not have rail service. As a result, some of our farmers are trucking their products 50, 60 or 120 miles to the rail head. I have had a hearing with the Minister of Transport about this issue an I am confident we will have a program which will show the Minister is interested and concerned about this problem. I am confident that in the next little while we are going to see some action.
The third Minister I want to mention is, of course, the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer). Several times since the election I have had to go to him with problems which in some cases were unique to the Peace country, and in other cases not necessarily so. However, what really impressed me is that each time he was aware of the problem, understood it, and immediately sat down with me and tried to work out some kind of solution to meet the real needs of farmers in that region. Those three men have really been of great assistance and help to us and I think their actions give the lie to the motion which has been put before the House today.
I want to pause for a few moments now and talk about the drought in the Peace country this spring. During the summer, as soon as the House adjourned, I immediately started to travel throughout my riding. I went to as many of the agricultural areas and communities as I possibly could. I averaged some three or four meetings a day with farmers. It became very obvious that we were facing a crisis in that part of the world. Conditions were spotty; some parts of the region had reasonable crops, others had none at all. Often enough those divisions ran right down a fence line or quarter line. It was a very serious problem. What was even more frightening was that for parts of my region this is the third and fourth year that they have suffered some sort of weather problem. Whether it be drought, rain or snow, something has always prevented farmers in my area from harvesting good crops. I have to admit that, after travelling around my riding, I ended with somewhat the same kind of feeling which many of my farmers had, one of panic and desperation because the situation was so serious. What I found impressive, though, was that when I got on the phone to the Minister of Agriculture and said we have a problem out here, it was not long before we saw him out there personally looking at the problem our farmers were facing. He was out looking at the farms, the crops, looking at what the grasshoppers and drought had done. He was there and he was concerned. What did he do when he got back? The first thing he did was to ask the Hon. Member for Assiniboia (Mr. Gustafson) to form a task force to have a good look at the problem. I have had the privilege of working very closely with that Hon. Member because I was later asked to join that same task force. I can tell you that he went out there, looked at the problem, studied it, listened to the farmers, taken what he heard and put it together in a package which can be worked with, and that is the kind of message which was delivered to
the Minister of Agriculture. The approach has been very tenacious and sensitive. That is important because so many of our farmers have felt for so long that they have not had a sympathetic ear here in Ottawa. They have not had someone who understood the problem or cared about them. The Hon. Member for Assiniboia is a farmer himself, he talked to these people, listened to their concerns, and I think that in itself gave a number of our farmers some confidence.
As the house knows, one of the first things to come out of that task force was the announcement dealing with help for our cattle producers. Of course, that help has been significant. Now, of course, we have had a slightly different problem come up and that is why I want to talk for a few moments now about the harvest. I have to admit that it has been kind of a frustrating experience for me this year to be talking in the spring and summer about a drought and then do a complete turn and start talking about snow and rain and cold conditions. However, that is what has happened in the Peace country. We have gone from one extreme to the other. What little bit of crop we had cannot now be harvested. We are faced with a situation where farmers cannot harvest the crop that does exist. That creates problems for not only our farmers, it also makes it very difficult for the task force to get a handle on the extent of the damage. When I am asked what kind of crops we ended up with in the Peace Country I cannot say. How can you give figures when the crop cannot be harvested because of the snow and rain? We have some very serious problems. My confidence comes from watching the Minister of Agriculture over the last year. I know that he is listening and that we will not be ignored. The task force has been doing its work and I am very confident in the announcement that I know will be forthcoming in the near future. It will respond to the needs of farmers. It will consider the conditions they are faced with and it will not be the hollow rhetoric that we got before from the Minister with the green hat and some of his colleagues.
I want to touch on the record of my Government because it has certainly made agriculture a priority. Agriculture has become an important priority on the table of the Government. We are trying to solve a number of the very serious problems that exist today. I would first like to discuss briefly the abolition of the capital gains tax. This morning in the opening of his remarks the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) seemed to pooh-pooh that. He said it is great if you are getting out of agriculture but it does not do much good for the people who want to stay on the farm. However, as I understand it, the average age of farmers in Canada now is 55. In other words, there are a large number of farmers who want to retire and sell much of their farms to the younger generation. Therefore, this is a very significant program because it will allow those individuals the opportunity to retire and put some money in their savings accounts to provide for retirement, which opportunity was not available to them until now. For the Leader of the Opposition to pooh-pooh that provision shows that he has obviously not been paying attention to the real concerns of farmers.
October 25, 1985

The other action that I think is important is the removal of the federal sales tax on farm fuels. I would have been in favour of not having that last tax apply, as I think many people would have been. However, the fact is that we were able to carry out our election promise of rebating that tax. As a result, farmers in my riding today are not paying the full federal sales tax on farm fuels. That is important because every bit of assistance that we can provide is significant.
The actions of the Farm Credit Corporation are demonstrative of the differences between the two Governments. Prior to the last election I received a phone call from a farmer who was stuck with a 16.75 per cent interest rate on a loan. He was desperate because that loan was getting him in real trouble. The interest was depleting his operating capital. As a result, he was in a very difficult situation. He called me and I phoned the then Minister of Agriculture, the one with the green hat, and expressed the problem to him and asked for some assistance. Even at election time, when I thought the Liberal Minister would have been sensitive, all I got was a deaf ear. 1 must say that I was able to phone that farmer a little while later and say that the new Government had listened to him and we could now get the interest rate down. That farmer is a happy man. That is the kind of thing that the Minister of Agriculture has done. The shared-risk mortgage program is extremely important because that shared risk means that farmers now have some assurance that they will not be hit with the high interest rates they were nailed with by the previous administration.
There is also the moratorium. The other day I had one of my best days this year when I was able to call one of the farmers in my riding who was going to be foreclosed by the FCC. I was able to tell him that the Minister had called a moratorium, that I had checked into it and that it applied to him. That man is now trying to put his farming business back together and I think that he will succeed because the Government listened and recognized his problems. In spite of what the previous Liberal Government did, that farmer now has a second chance. We do have a track record, Mr. Speaker, which I think demonstrates that we are indeed interested in agriculture, indeed concerned about farmers, and are indeed going to meet the needs that they have today.
The way in which we have expanded the appeal process for farmers through the Farm Finance Review Board is of benefit to them. The Western Grain Stabilization Act is a favourite of mine as well. I remember a short while ago when the Liberals made an amendment to allow one payment. The funds were finally delivered right around election time. This Government has amended the Act to allow those payments to be made at any time. Since this Government has come into power there have been payments made in the spring and the fall that have really been of benefit to farmers. There are many things on the Government's record that demonstrate its interest, concern and action.
The other day I happened to look at a list of some of the things that the Minister of Agriculture has done. In fact, I have it with me here today. I found it interesting that he has
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had 122 accomplishments in the short period of time that he has been in Government. Dividing that by the number of months that he has been the Minister of Agriculture, we find that he has made a major decision which positively affects our farmers on an average of 10 times per month. If we consider that there is an average of 20 working days in each month, we find that every second day the Minister of Agriculture has made a major announcement which very much affects our farmers. After all of that we face the type of motion made by the Liberals who did none of those positive things in all the years they were in power.
I see that I am running out of time, Mr. Speaker, so I will conclude my remarks very quickly. I would like to spend the rest of the afternoon just reading from the list of accomplishments of the Government. I could go on for two on for two or three hours doing that.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Albert Glen Cooper: The future of agriculture is very tenuous at this point, Mr. Speaker. It is a difficult situation which we on this side are certainly not ignoring. We are not saying that in the first year in which we have been in Government we have been able to solve those problems. We are not saying that we have accomplished everything we wanted to do. We are saying that we are listening to input from farmers so that we can act on it. The Government has done a lot, Mr. Speaker. As a Member representing an agricultural community, I am proud of the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Transport and the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board because in the short time that those gentlemen have been in Government they have done so much more than the Liberals ever did. I think that they deserve to be applauded rather than criticized through a phoney motion such as the one which is before us today.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member has done an admirable job of apple-polishing with his Minister, but I do not think he will convince anyone that the Government has any great commitment to agriculture. Since the Government did not put any money into the Farm Credit Corporation to lower interest rates, since it cut the budget of the Department of Agriculture by $50 million and deindexed it so that it will lose another $15 million a year, one really has to take what the Hon. Member said with a grain of salt. He told us how wonderful it is to be able to go to the Ministers of Agriculture and Transport, but he is really not getting very much. That is the problem. He speaks of the soothing noises and so on. He talked about one farmer who had, I think, a 14.5 per cent interest rate on a loan who had it reduced to 12.75 per cent. If that farmer is in the cash crop or red meat industry, can he really cope with a 12.75 per cent interest rate on a loan? As I pointed out to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise), the reason he was able to do the flip on loans above 14 per cent down to 12.75 per cent was that the previous Liberal Government had some $575 million in the FCC budget so that flip could take place.

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I would like to see him do it today because the Department of Agriculture reduced the Farm Credit Corporation's estimates from $494 million last year to some $90 million this year. If the farmer in the Hon. Member's constituency had a 13.5 per cent or 14 per cent loan he would not have been able to offer that. He certainly cannot offer it today and the only reason he was able to get that assistance in the previous fiscal year was that the Liberal Government provided a large enough estimate to make such a flip possible.
I was interested to hear the Member say that the former Minister of Agriculture had no interest in agriculture. I have heard much criticism from the Tory Members about Eugene Whelan but I have never heard anyone, any place say that Eugene Whelan was not interested in agriculture. I think that no one worked harder, as a Member of Parliament from 1962 to 1984 or was more committed to the interests of agriculture in this country than the Hon. Eugene Whelan. I believe everyone on all sides of the House would agree with that.
The Hon. Member talked about the Farm Finances Review Board. The Hon. Member for Bruce-Grey (Mr. Gurbin) is here today and he was very instrumental in appointing the chairman of the pilot project. I certainly want to commend the people from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and other commodity groups who took part in that project. I know some of them and I am aware of the great amount of effort they put into that pilot project.
However, after talking to people who served on the Farm Finance Review Committee, I was disturbed to hear them say that the main problem was that the Farm Credit Corporation was not willing to write down any of their loans to farmers. They said that they were stymied without the Minister's support. Although the Minister is supportive to the extent of providing some funding to set it up, he certainly was not willing to make the commitment to change the policy or regulations of the FCC to make it work.
Although the Minister has imposed a moratorium on FCC loan foreclosures, I have not seen anything that has taken place in that regard, apart from his announcement in early July that he would set up a pre-foreclosure arbiration procedure. The Minister is conducting another review of the Farm Credit Corporation policies. A rather extensive review was conducted last February and March in which we made recommendations about the farm debt crisis. Members from all sides in that committee worked very hard to recommend a series of assistance measures for farmers facing foreclosure or bankruptcy. We waited all spring for the Budget-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I notice that the Hon. Member has used about eight of the ten minutes in which I would have a chance to respond to his comment. The implication of what he said is how can the Government do anything if it has not put in more money.
If the Member will consider what we have done he will see that we are getting much more for our money than his Government ever did. Who was it that was able to cut interest rates on farm credit loans? Who was able to abolish the capital gains? Who established the shared risk mortgage? Who has contributed to the Canadian economy in such a way that we have seen interest rates decrease to record lows today? We have been able to get the bang for the buck. The Minister of Agriculture and the Government have succeeded in making the best possible use of our resources. We should be proud of that record.
The Hon. Member talked about the former Minister of Agriculture and said he worked very hard. I will not deny that.
I do not know what his work habits were and he may well have worked very hard. However, I think he must be measured by what he accomplished. From the point of view of what I saw him do for the Peace country, he may as well have saved his time and not bothered coming to work because it did not accomplish anything. If the Hon. Member was honest, he would admit that he is doing nothing more than nit-picking the Government because even he must be impressed with the record of our accomplishments.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I must say that it is remarkable to hear a speech like that given by an Hon. Member from the Peace River country. Perhaps it makes the case for exchange visits throughut our country. I could certainly lead the Hon. Member into the pleasant countryside of Essex County and introduce him to a few poeple who would do nothing but nit-pick about the record of the Government.
This past summer we had a meeting in Essex County to look at the record of the Government for its first year and specifically at the Budget which had been brought down by the Government in May. That hall was filled with farmers who had voted Conservative and had in fact elected the first Conservative Member of Parliament from Essex County-the Essex-Kent constituency-in 25 years. There was one word stated in that hall to describe the Budget. That word was "betrayal". Those people did not whisper that word, they did not simply speak it, they shouted it. They felt that they had been betrayed on virtually every topic which led them to vote Conservative that previous September. Whether it was gas tax, support for the Department of Agriculture, whether it was a serious moratorium on farm credit, new sources of finance through agri-bonds or all those things that had led them to vote Conservative, their judgment was betrayal.
These were not people who had voted for me. They were not people to whom I felt I must listen with the special sympathy that one saves for people who were your original supporters, these were people who voted Conservative because, frankly, they believed the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney). I must say that they no longer believe him. They believed in a Conservative Government. I must say that they no longer believe it. They believed in the Conservative promises and that, above all, they believe no longer.
October 25, 1985

They expressed a sense of urgency which can be heard across the country. It is a sense of urgency to which the kind of partisan pot shots across the floor of the House this afternoon do not give justice. It is an urgency that cuts across partly lines and escapes partisan debate. It is an urgency that looks at the very real statistics and an urgency that sees around us in rural constituencies the human cost and the human loss, not just the kinds of losses involved if people have to accept lower wages or have their pensions decreased, but losses that represent farms slipping out of the hands of families who have held them for generations, farms which represented something very central to the whole life of people. How can one possibly bring that urgency to the House of Commons late on a Friday afternoon? Partly one can talk about the statistics and how gloomy they are.
The Farm Credit Corporation has just produced a paper which indicates that farm asset values have declined in this past year, a single year, by 12 per cent. The same Farm Credit Corporation paper demonstrates that no less than 34 per cent of Canada's farmers are facing financial stress. The analysis, to continue quoting from this paper, suggests that in Canada as well as in the United States the farm finance situation has become worse over the past 18 months. It says that this deterioration will likely continue, given current forecasts of farm prices and high international stocks of grain and livestock.
The Farm Credit Corporation itself says that payments in arrears have climbed by almost 50 per cent in the 1984-85 fiscal year up to $160 million. Let us take a look at the value of farm land, which has been the one saving grace for most farm families. We have heard farm families say, "We have a tough time making a go of it because of cash flows each year, but, my goodness, we are accumulating an asset that is growing in value.'' This past year farm land right across Canada has dropped in value. In Alberta, the province about which the last speaker spoke with tremendous praise for Government policy, farm prices are down by 5 per cent to 10 per cent. In southern Saskatchewan, prices have fallen 30 per cent to 35 per cent in drought-stricken areas. British Columbia has a 5 per cent to 10 per cent decrease. Even in parts of Ontario which started to see a small increase in farm prices in the early part of the year, the situation has reversed and the price of farm land is once again well below what it was at the start of the year. These decreases have taken place at a time when the general economic circumstances of the country have been getting better. The Conservatives have brought this fact before us this afternoon suggesting that it does them credit. However, it is just the reverse in the farm community, Mr. Speaker. The economy has been getting better. Interest rates in general have gone down by three percentage points. Yet, despite the fact that things in general are getting better, the situation in the farm community is getting worse. That demonstrates as clearly as you could possibly want this Government's failure to do what needs to be done in the farm sector.
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If we were facing a situation of desperation in the rest of the economy and the farm sector was getting its lumps too, the Minister could rise and say "I have a tough situation to face", but things have been getting significantly better regarding outside circumstances which the Minister cannot control while the situation on the farm has gotten worse.
I shall not fall into the trap of saying that this is all the fault of 13 months of Conservative Government because this is a crisis situation which has been building up since 1981-1982. It owes as much to the past failures of the Liberal Government that came before-


Mr. Della  Noce@: Right.


Steven W. Langdon: -as to the failures of this Government. This Government was elected on promises to change and on promises to improve. It was elected on specific promises to deal directly with the farm credit crisis.
This morning I asked the Minister about the farm credit crisis. I asked him whether he was prepared to do something about other than FCC loans. I asked him whether he would put a moratorium on them. I asked him whether he was prepared to put in place a system of judicial review of the debt situation of farmers. The Minister to his credit replied with some quite positive responses to those suggestions. He told me, and I hope I quote reasonably correctly, that action would be forthcoming of the kind I have been arguing for over the past 13 months since my election, but the Minister has been in office for 13 months. The farm crisis situation existed when he reached his office. It has got worse over the period that he has been in power, and he has no excuse when he gets up today and says action is forthcoming. Action should have taken place already.
We should have in place, at the very least, the kind of thing which the Conservative Governmention Saskatchewan has put into effect, a moratorium on farm debt and a system of review of each farm situation where debt looks likely to kick farmers off the land. At the very least, that should have been put into effect.
In May the report came from the Grey Bruce study. It very clearly recommended action at once to set up farm debt review boards. Again, I have talked personally to the Minister about this. He has expressed his sympathy, and he has expressed how favourably inclined he is to do something in this area, but he has not done it. I do not think it is because he does not want to. I think it is because his Government has priorities that are not people priorities. His Government has shown that on a weekend back in March it would move to help the Canadian Commercial Bank. In a week it moved to get $875 million into the hands of depositors of the Northland Bank and the CCB .Farmers carry the can in this Government as they have in virtually every Government since Confederation.
It was not fair in the last Government. It is not fair in the present Government. I ask back-benchers in this regime to join with us in the kind of push which we are continually making to

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make the Government listen to the promises enunciated by the Prime Minister before the election; to work with us to make the Government at least as sensitive to the plight of farmers as the Conservative Government in Saskatchewan; to work with us to make the Minister's voice heard more powerfully against those representatives of Bay Street like the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) and against those representatives of big business who frankly do not care about the small family farm; to fight with us in an attempt to get the Government to put into real priority what it put into verbal rhetoric when it sought the votes of farmers. If the Government does not act, constituencies and townships in all of Ontario that voted Conservative overwhelmingly just 13 months ago, will soon see hitting their territory the rural revolt which is so evident in my constituency. Within the last month and a half the National Farmers Union in Essex County has exploded into new life. Over 400 family members have signed up within the last 60 days. That thrust is sweeping across Ontario.
The petition which I presented to the House this morning was organized by that group of concerned farmers in Essex County. They have reached out across the Province of Ontario to all the cities, towns and communities that I enunciated when I presented my petition. They signed up thousands of people to protest the betrayal which the Government is seen as bringing to the rual parts of Ontario.
There is a threefold message that farmers are bringing to us. First, judicial debt review boards must be established to protect Canadian farmers. Second, they require urgent moves to try to get parity pricing for farm products. This is not something which is easy to do. It will require careful analysis. The House unanimously presented a Bill to the Standing Committee on Agriculture last April to explore that idea, and the Bill has sat there; nothing further has happened on it. The farmers in my county and the farmers with whom they talk right across Ontario are fed up. They want action and to be able to express their commitment to better prices for farm production. They do not want charity. They want fairness in the prices they receive. Finally, they want the trade strategy which the Government is trying to pursue with the United States to be turned into a trade strategy to protect Canadian farmers rather than leave them open to unfair competition from the United States. They feel-and I think they are absolutely right in saying it-that throwing ourselves completely open to the United States, with farm support levels there being much higher than here in Canada, will leave the Canadian farmer once more the victim of economic policy instead of its beneficiary. They want a trade strategy which gives us a fair shake in U.S. markets and gives us a chance to sell our products there without, each time we make a little progress, seeing that market swept away by unfair trade institutions in the United States.
I finish my remarks with a warning. The Opposition will continue to move motions asking for urgent action. However, if the Government fails to provide such action, it will reap its reward in the next election with a disastrous loss of constituencies right across Ontario, right across western Canada and I
believe right across Quebec. We expect that the fight being made in the House of Commons on behalf of Canadian farmers will lead to us being the spokespeople for farmers after the next election. We will be the people fighting for fairness for them. We will be the people fighting against the betrayal not only of the present Government but of the past Liberal Government, a betrayal which is badly hurting the future of our farm community.


Alain Tardif: Mr. Speaker, 1 am very pleased with this opportunity to express my views on the motion presented by our Leader.
First of all, Mr. Speaker, I shall, if I may, take advantage of this opportunity to correct the question I put to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise), where I said that he stated before the Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs that the dairy policy would be released at the beginning of August. This should have been the Committee on Agriculture.
I shall now get back to the motion before the House. Mr. Speaker, it is truly amazing that every time a question is debated in this Chamber, no matter what the subject is or what opinion is being expressed or what the debate is about, we hear endlessly repeated: Listen, interest rates have dropped sharply, thanks to our efforts and our energetic policies. Inflation has stabilized, thanks to the measures we introduced.
And when the debate focusses on less joyous aspects and on very serious problems and situations, the blame and the responsibility are supposed to lie with the previous administration.
Yesterday, in this very same Chamber, we heard someone who, I think, is a real expert, inform us that it takes at least two years after the Budget is brought down before it can have any effect on unemployment or interest rates. This means that the present Government which has been in power for only thirteen months and which keeps saying, which keeps setting itself up as the initiator of all that is good and blaming us for what goes wrong-
I was surprised to hear the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) say earlier: Listen, after thirteen months in power, we have kept and acted on twelve promises out of fourteen. In his assessment, only two promises had not been kept.
A little later, his colleague mentioned that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) had 122 achievements to his credit, and all that in thirteen months. That is what this Government and its Ministers are telling us, that is what they would have us believe, Mr. Speaker. To me, all this is absolutely apalling and light-years removed from reality. To make my point, and to do so as eloquently and as incisively as possible, 1 would like to make use of what I feel best represents the interests of farmers, and especially in Quebec. I am, of course, referring to
October 25, 1985

La terre de chez nous, which in its August 22 edition happened to publish an article under the heading: "The conservatives: A balance sheet", in three columns with three sub-headings: "What they promised, what they say they did, and what the UPA has to say about it". I will have an opportunity to get back to this later on and people will realize that the achievements are a lot less spectacular than Hon. Members on the other side would have us believe, at least as far as Quebec is concerned.
The best way to illustrate rapidly the current agricultural situation in Quebec is to quote or read a series of headlines. I will spare you the details, but as a rule the articles are faithfully summed up in headlines, the kind of newspaper headlines we saw last summer and during the month of September, still current fare, as a matter of fact. They go like this: "Industrial milk industry in full crisis", "Milk producers fed up with cutbacks", and "Bill C-25 rejected in Quebec". Yet we are told the Bill was rushed right through in late June, that it is just the kind of measure we need, a measure which has won unanimous praise and which will have a positive impact on the agrifood sector.
After reading and discussing it with the people who are directly concerned in Quebec one can see why they consider this measure, this initiative as being a classic insult to the Quebec farming community. Here are more: "Milk producers warn Wise he might find summer's end rather warm and stormy"-referring of course to the dairy policy-"Centralized system to be operational by September 17", "Pork Producers' Federation to sue federal Government", "Ottawa and systematic hypocrisy", "Most centralizing federal legislation ever", "Minister Garon decries Ottawa's future plans for Canadian agriculture"-he is Quebec's Minister of Agriculture-"Ottawa fails to keep promise", "New dairy policy announcement delayed until November".
This afternoon the Minister told us there is no way he can unveil it before early next year.
There are Members of Parliament from Quebec in this House, but unfortunately, very few of them are here this afternoon to take part it the discussion on the major issue of agriculture. "Quebec not invited to take part in the discussions", "Quebec farmers claim they have been betrayed", "Quebec farmers will have a tough year", "Quebec more worried than ever about the Canadian agricultural policy", "The UPA up in arms", "What an injustice-The producers appeal to the Prime Minister", "Dairy producers want more support from Ottawa for the price of industrial milk", "An abundance of subsidies for Western farmers and nothing at all for Quebec", and finally, "Producers are angry". All these titles have appeared in the most popular and best-known newspaper, one which is read by thousands of Quebec farmers. That is what the people involved, those who live with this problem, think about your achievements after 13 months in power.
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One after the other, the major concerns and the main commitments made by the party opposite have gone by the wayside. Each time 1 have had the opportunity to speak about agriculture in this House, I have always referred to the solemn commitment made by someone whom I believed responsible, the Hon. Member for Joliette (Mr. La Salle). He promised that pork producers would receive $13 million and sheep farmers $450,000 but after waiting for months, these producers finally learned that they would never receive this money.
This was a major concern for Quebec farm producers. Another issue which was just as important was the dairy policy, about which the Members opposite said: We shall give you what you want, namely a long-term dairy policy without any cutbacks, and we shall guarantee that production costs are accounted for more reasonably and more equitably. We are now at the end of October and we are still waiting for this policy.
There was also the issue of the Farm Credit Corporation, about which all kinds of proposals and suggestions had been made. There was a reference a little while ago to bonds and to the fact that the farmers should have benefits and rates that would allow them to look at the future with some optimism. What has been done in this regard? The rates went down a few points, which benefited a few hundred farmers and producers.
There was also some concern about Bill C-155, through which the previous Government had agreed that the payments would be made to the railroads. I am speaking about the Crow's Nest rates. Once again, Members of this Government travelled throughout Quebec and used every forum available to say that this would not be changed and that the status quo would be maintained. Yet, a report has now been tabled which recommends not only that the payments not be made to the railroads, but that they be made to the farmers and producers directly. What is even more surprising is that, contrary to the previous report in which Mr. Gilson said that the money should be paid over a certain period, the most recent report, the Hall report, says that the subsidy should be paid directly to the wheat growers. This would result in absolutely incredible losses for Eastern producers, especially those in Quebec. And this is what your Government has accomplished. I am trying to be as fair and as objective as possible, in order to try and identify, among the 12 commitments referred to earlier by the Minister and the 122 apparent achievements mentioned by his colleague, something that could have been of benefit to, or could have had spinoffs for Quebec. Unfortunately, I do not see anything. I can identify practically nothing.
The Progressive Conservatives tell us, when faced with the facts, and by the way I would remind you that these are not my facts, not political facts gathered by Alain Tardif, Member of Parliament for Richmond-Wolfe. They are the facts as stated by the chief mouthpiece of all those involved in the

October 25, 1985
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agri-food sector in Quebec, all those who speak on behalf of those producers, that is La terre de chez nous. What are we told with respect to the results of 13 months of Government? We were told on September 4: "We have been given a clear mandate by the people of Canada." On September 4, Canadians told us: "We trust you, go ahead!" And they give a rough interpretation of that mandate. They even suggested earlier this week that such a mandate gave them the power on the one hand to liberally distribute billions of dollars to a few multinationals and on the other hand to take that money from the pockets of small-and medium-income consumers, small-and medium-income Canadians, small-and medium-income taxpayers.
Those facts that you are spreading around, that you keep repeating, they also are true in the case of the agri-food sector. And to return to what I was referring to, the article in La terre de chez nous of August 22nd, I quote the following:
Conservatives-an assessment. What they promised.
To my knowledge, your party's official spokesman in Quebec, was the Hon. Member for Joliette (Mr. LaSalle). And what I am quoting is actually the full and word-for-word text of the commitments made by Mr. LaSalle at that time, at a meeting held in Longueuil on August 22nd, before a gathering of over 300 people.
Mr. La Salle said, and I quote:
In order to live, one has to eat, and we have realized that.
Mr. La Salle promised that his party would only establish a stabization insurance program after getting Quebec's agreement. I do not have to answer that question, you know as well as I do. You passed that legislation, relying on your vast majority, although all those concerned in Quebec, without exception, would have absolutely nothing to do with that most incredible Bill.
The Hon. Member for Joliette made commitments, as I said, concerning the $13 million. He also made formal commitments regarding a number of measures, namely the longterm dairy policy. And they summarize the commitments made by the Hon. Member for Joliette, what they say they did, and to make an assessment, here is what they say, with reference to the month of August, and I quote:
Early in the month, in the Beauce area, on the occasion of the opening of the 17th Regional Exhibition, Conservative MP Gilles Bernier issued a release entitled "No sooner said than done". The Progressive Conservative Government is fulfilling its commitments to farmers.
Now the Hon. Member for Beauce (Mr. Bernier) has spoken in exactly the same terms as the Minister a few moments ago and he said that 14 out of 16 commitments had been implemented in connection with a series of lesser measures. This has enabled me to learn a number of things. However, I will tell you what the UPA thinks of those lesser measures disclosed by the Hon. Member for Beauce and I will
quote Mr. Proulx, the director primary responsible for the UPA:
Among the things done by the Tories, the important ones are the real stakes, where the future of agriculture will be determined. They can very well give us 200 trinklets, but if you are unable to-
-what difference does it make? This is what Mr. Proulx is saying after this Government has been in power for a year.
Mr. Proulx says: "Trinklets, that is what you have given us. And what does farming in Quebec need? Concrete responses to serious problems.
Considering that my time is running out, I would like to point out immediately that problems dealing with farming in Quebec have not only remained unsettled but have been dragging on and unfortunately we do not see any possibility of solving them. That is for the past. But 1 am also concerned about the future, for it looks just as bad. During his remarks, the Minister indicated that he was considering with much interest the possible opening up of our market, adding that free trade between Canada and the United States was an interesting concept, given the fact that we export for several dozens of million dollars of goods to the United States.
The Minister is taking for granted that the elimination of trade barriers between Canada and the United States would open new markets for our farm exports. I find his attitude both disturbing and dangerous. And as evidence of this danger which is hanging over our heads, I should like to use the example of the hog production which the Minister of Agriculture himself used a few months ago. He then said: Listen, we cannot give you the $13 million, because if we did, we would face reprisals from the United States. Then, the dairy policy which is the envy of some 10, 20, or 30 countries throughout the world is subsidized.
On the basis of an argument such as the one put forward by the Minister of Agriculture, I am afraid that the announcement of the dairy policy which the Government was supposed to make last August and which has been postponed until early next year will include cuts in the subsidies currently being paid to dairy producers, because the Government feels that these cuts are necessary if we want to be able to export our farm production to the U.S. markets which it is so interested in and which are huge indeed.
Yet, I can tell you, based on consultations which I have had with people that are knowledgeable in this field, that abolishing trade barriers would be extremely risky, and the experts I met last summer told me that we would soon witness the failures of several thousands small businesses involved in egg, hog and milk production. 1 can hardly believe that this is the road the Minister of Agriculture is tempted to follow.
To conclude, let me tell you this: You have been elected with a very clear mandate. Deliver the goods as promised to those
October 25, 1985

who trusted you and who are now expecting results, and rightly so.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Are there questions or comments? The Hon. Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster).


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate the Hon. Member for Richmond-Wolfe (Mr. Tardif). He really outlined in graphic detail the impact of the Government's lack of determination and commitment on agriculture, especially with respect to his home province, Quebec. I would like to ask the Hon. Member for a couple of clarifications.
In listening to the Hon. Member I thought I heard him mention that the Minister of Public Works (Mr. La Salle) actually signed a cheque for $13 million to the hog producers of Quebec and then reneged. Can the Hon. Member tell me if that is the case or not?
Yesterday in the House the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) said that Ministers of Agriculture of four producing provinces, I believe, and he were considering a red meat stabilization program with respect to hogs and beef. I am interested to know what the impact would be on agriculture in Quebec if that province were not able to participate in the program.
Will the Hon. Member comment on the $50 million cutback in the budget of the Department of Agriculture if those
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funds are to be taken out of the dairy subsidy? What impact would that have on the Province of Quebec?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. member for Richmond-Wolfe for a quick answer.


Alain Tardif: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. First of all,
I	should like the House to know that my colleague the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme) also wanted to take part in this debate, but will be unable to rise because it is already very late. I now come to the question.
The major concern or one of the major concerns was that, in the short term, hog producers wanted to get the $13 million they were entitled to in view of the very bad marked situation. Indeed, they had been deprived of that amount by the previous administration, and on that side of the House a firm, irrevocable and unequivocal commitment had been made to pay that amount of $13 million; Mr. La Salle went as faras putting his signature on a symbolic check which has never been honoured, and the producers are still waiting for those $13 million.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. It being 5 o'clock p.m., it is my duty to inform the House that proceedings on the motion are expired in accordance with Standing Order 63(11). Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until Monday at
II	o'clock a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 3(1).
At 5 p.m. the House adjourned.