1987-04-28

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INDEX ISSUED IN A SEPARATE VOLUME	LIBRARY OF PARLIAMENT CANADA 1988 05 3 1 BBUOTH§QUE DU PARLEMENT
Published under authority of the Speaker of the House of Commons by the Queen's Printer for Canada
Available from Canadian Government Publishing Centre, Supply and Services Canada, Ottawa, Canada K1A 0S9.
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Tuesday, April 28, 1987
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Prayers


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to take this opportunity to remind Members of the House that this week, the week of April 26 to May 2, is National Organ Donor Awareness Week.
The purpose of having a week so designated is to heighten public and health professional awareness of the benefits of organ and tissue donation and transplantation, to encourage families to discuss and make a decision on organ donation before a tragedy occurs, and to urge health professionals to examine how they may participate in the organ donation process, thus making organs and tissues available to improve and, in many cases, save a life.
There is no question that today organ transplantation is an effective treatment, in many cases, of end-stage organ disease. A kidney transplant can free a patient with kidney failure from dialysis, a procedure which ties the patient to a machine for up to 40 hours a week, disrupting his or her social, family, and work life.
Heart and liver transplants offer the only hope for survival for those with terminal heart and liver disease. Also, thousands of people have had their sight restored through corneal transplantation.
Bone transplants have spared some from the amputation of limbs, and skin transplants have helped save the lives of victims of severe burns.
The statistics indicate that Canadians support organ donation. Yet, today, one of the most significant factors limiting the number of transplants performed is the supply of donated organs and tissues.
Last year, over 1,000 Canadians were waiting for a kidney transplant. More than 1,000 waited for corneal transplants, and that despite a doubling of the number of corneal transplants done in 1986 over 1985.
Sadly, a number of Canadians in need of a heart or liver transplant died because an organ did not become available in time.
My Department, in co-operation with a number of voluntary and health professional associations, has undertaken a number of activities to address this shortage of donor organs. To mention but a few examples, guidelines for establishing organ and tissue donation services in hospitals, as well as for vital organ transplant programs, have been developed and will be distributed to hospitals soon; we have assisted the Canadian Federation of Medical Students in conducting awareness campaigns on university campuses, and we have produced an inventory of educational resources on organ donation and transplantation, to assist professional and voluntary groups in planning information sessions; and we are participating in the development of a national computerized system to facilitate the distribution of organs, as well the establishment of a transplant database.
I commend the voluntary and health professional associations for the steps they have taken to increase awareness in this area. The Canadian Nurses Association and the Canadian Medical Association have both passed resolutions in support of organ donation and transplantation.
The Canadian Medical Association, with the support of my Department, launched an awareness campaign for physicians earlier this month, and the Canadian Council on Hospital Accreditation has included a statement on organ donation in its accreditation standards.
The Kidney Foundation of Canada, the Liver Foundation, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and Transplant International (Canada) are continuing their efforts toward encouraging Canadians to consider organ donation; and, of course, the provincial organ and eye donor programs are carrying on with their efforts to increase and co-ordinate organ and tissue donations. Many of these organizations are staffed by volunteers, and I commend those volunteers today.
To commemorate Organ Donor Awareness Week, my Department is distributing a cheque insert, with a detachable donor card, to Members of Parliament and employees of the federal Government, the House of Commons, and some 18 corporations, numbering approximately 304,000.
We hope that the radio and television stations will air the public service announcements on organ donation that we have distributed.
I am pleased that several of the federal employee union newsletters, popular magazines and health professional

April 28, 1987
Statements by Ministers
journals are featuring articles on organ and tissue donation in their April issues. Also, a number of provincial Ministers of Health have organized activities in support of Organ Donor Awareness Week.
It is my hope that all of these efforts will help to increase organ donation. But, there is something that each of you in the House can do to help-and may I take this opportunity to thank those Members of the House who have already taken personal action in this regard-and that is to consider organ donation and to sign a donor card or the consent portion of your driver's licence to that end. Also, I encourage you to discuss your decision with your family and friends, and ask them to follow your example. And take the message further, to your constituents and professional colleagues. By doing so, you will personally be encouraging others to give the most generous gift of all, the gift of life.
To use the slogan for the Week, "Make Something Good Happen-Be an Organ Donor."


Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, of course it gives our Party great pleasure in joining with the Minister in saluting Organ Donor Week.
It is clear from the most recent Gallup Poll which came out on March 16 that more Canadians than ever are willing to donate their organs. The problem is that they do not know exactly how to go about doing it.
Those who say that they are willing to donate their organs include 26 per cent of the population who have already signed donor cards, compared with 21 per cent in 1983 and just 12 per cent in 1978. Over the last decade we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people who have donated organs. However, 26 per cent is just too little.
We would suggest to the Minister, as well as the very positive initiatives he has taken in trying to sensitize the Public Service and the professional community, that it might be a good idea in next month's family allowance cheque to send that message out to families across Canada.


Mr. Lewis:: Did you just discover family allowance?


Sheila Maureen Copps: No, I have not got mine yet.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: It is in the mail.


Sheila Maureen Copps: We see heart-rending cases highlighted from time to time on television, for example, when young children are seeking liver transplants. Canadians want to reach out and touch someone. They want to save a life, but in many cases they do not know how to do it.
For example, the Director of the National Capital Organ Retrieval and Exchange Organization said that one of the main problems with obtaining organ donations is that many doctors and hospitals do not have a specific policy on organ donation. Naturally, when a family is in crisis-it may be
facing a death or a decision to take one of their loved ones off a respirator-possibly the last thing it wants to be faced with at that critical moment is a question about organ donor transplants.
If we want to get more people donating, we should reach out and get their approval at a time when they are in a better position to make those kinds of decisions rather than when they are in crisis.

I was also pleased to hear the Minister mention volunteer-ism in his speech, although I may point out that in the Estimates just tabled in Parliament, funding for national volunteer agencies has not increased at all over last year. It is all very well to talk about the contribution being made by volunteers, but I think it is also important to follow through with some kind of financial support.

In closing, of course we are giving our full support. We would suggest that the Minister get the message out, not only to professionals but also to many thousands of other Canadians. He suggested that in our own way, through our newsletters and our contacts, we should also encourage our fellow Canadians to sign their licences, which provide them with this opportunity, or to sign donor forms. We should encourage those provinces which may not already have donation options on their drivers licences to do so.
There is much to be done, but I think there is goodwill on the part of Parliament and on the part of all Canadians. It is in that regard that we hope this week indeed spurs many more thousands of Canadians to give the gift of life through a donor transplant.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-Walkerville):: Mr. Speaker, there could be no contest in the statements being made now of the commitment of all Parties in Parliament to making this week an important one in communicating awareness of organ transplants. It is important to many who are in need of such transplants. However, there can be no more compelling inducement to support what has been said on behalf of the Government and on the part of the Official Opposition than to have, as I have, a very dear friend who lies waiting in a hospital bed, hoping along with his family and his many friends that he will have a heart in time to survive. It is clear that the longer he waits the chances of his survival diminish, and of course the length of his wait is a reflection of the availability of hearts for transplantation.
Without elaborating in support of the statement made by the Minister, or the details by which we could enhance the awareness of organ transplants, I say that those of us who have not given it thought heretofore should consider the situation faced by me in this particular instance and by others as they await the end because there are no organs available. Then they would understand the importance to so many that everything
April 28, 1987

possible be done to enhance the availability or organs for transplantation.


OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY
Hon. Pierre H. Cadieux (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak of a Canadian tragedy, a tragedy which is daily affecting thousands of workers injured, killed or made ill in the workplace.
In Canada every year one out of every nine workers, in all industries and occupations, suffers a work-related injury. During 1985, the latest year for which full statistics are available, 768 of our fellow Canadians were killed on the job, and 16.2 million work days were lost due to injury. The cost of this loss, in direct and indirect terms, is estimated at some $14 billion, a tremendous human and financial price for our nation to bear.

However, today is not a day for statistics. It is a day for people to recognize the pain, hardship, and loss suffered by our fellow Canadians because of workplace illnesses and injuries. Today is a day to remember the loss of life and the human price which has been paid in building this great country.
This day was conceived by the Canadian Labour Congress as a day of mourning to draw greater attention to the serious and continuing problem of workplace health and safety. In this we applaud the CLC and its leadership.
On this day I think it is important that we all renew our commitment to addressing this Canadian tragedy as a national priority. We must commit ourselves to raising the awareness of Canadians to this serious problem, for this is not just a responsibility of Government. It is a responsibility we all share-labour, business, industry, the provinces; indeed, all Canadians.

It is true that progress has been made in the field of occupational safety and health over the past number of years. And we have come a long way since the first Workmen's Compensation Act was passed in Ontario 73 years ago today. We still have a long way to go, however. Much remains to be done by us all if we are to meet our goal: ensuring a safe and healthy workplace for all Canadians.
I want to stress the Government's commitment on this matter and my firm determination to improve the situation. Indeed a number of initiatives attest to this commitment.
We have amended the Canada Labour Code in order to improve its provisions with regard to occupational safety and health. We have strengthened three fundamental rights set forth in the Code: The right to refuse dangerous work, the
Statements by Ministers
right to know, and the right to participate in safety and health committees.
We have extended the safety and health provisions of the Code to the air, marine, and rail industries and to the oil and gas industry. We have developed the new workplace hazardous materials information system. These are a few of the things we have done in hopes of protecting Canadian workers. Let me add that all these actions have been undertaken in close cooperation with representatives of all the parties involved. We strongly believe that this is the only approach than can be successful.
I wish to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to bring this important matter to the attention of Members of this House.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on the Minister's statement. We of the Liberal Party certainly wish to join the government in helping Canadians appreciate the sacrifices being made every day by Canada's workers.

The Minister deplored the situation that workers face in the area of occupational health and safety. In his statement he suggested there is $14 billion in human and financial terms lost as a result of work accidents. We cannot let it escape public attention that this same Minister and Government cut the budget of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety by 10 per cent over the last year. In fact, there has been a reduction in staff in the centre that was created by the very people he suggests are going to solve the problem. It was a tripartite centre. It was a dream launched in Hamilton which included input by Government, management and workers, both union and non-union, who would have an opportunity to get information to prevent occupational hazards on the job.
As a result of this Government's cut-backs, a 10 per cent cut-back which occurred this year alone, the number of small companies, the number of small unions and workers who can be served from coast to coast is being affected. The Minister will know that in the Estimates for the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety it is said that it was not able to deal with the same number of inquiries, that the Centre was affected by the Government's budgetary restraint and the cutback is pointed out.
If the Minister has had a chance to visit the Centre, as I have, he will know that it gets information directly to the people who need it. In the last fiscal year the Centre dealt with 20,000 inquiries from coast to coast. They were not all from big companies that have access to their own information concerning occupational health and safety. A worker in a small plant wanted to know what a chemical reaction would be if the chemical came in contact with the skin and what a particular hazard on the workplace meant.

April 28, 1987
Statements by Ministers
It is fine to change the Canada Labour Code and give workers the right to refuse unsafe work, which is a notion we support, but at the same time if workers do not have access to information about unsafe chemicals, if they do not have access to information about hazards on the job, then they are not in a position to make a valued judgment about their own right to refuse work.
Of course we would stand and join with the Government in mourning the loss of thousands of lives. We saw recently in Sudbury a very tragic mine accident. More recently in the Province of Quebec a near tragic mine accident, certainly tragic for one family. In my own community of Hamilton, Mr. Speaker, in the steel mills, a month or a couple of months do not go by when we do not hear of some tragedy which results in a near fatal or in some cases a fatal situation. It is something that we all want to work toward eliminating, but in order to do that we must have information.
I think the responsibility lies with the Government to support and enhance the facilities and resources of the Canada Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, not to cut them or reduce them in a way which really makes a mockery of the words that "we are all working together". We are all working together, but the one centre that was launched in order to get information out to workers to prevent the billions of dollars of occupational losses to which the Minister referred has been cut back. He will note in the Estimates that the cost per inquiry in 1986-87 is predicted to be $71 per inquiry. That seems a very small price to pay to eliminate some of the billions of dollars that we lose in terms of productivity, not to mention the human costs in lives and injury.
I would encourage the Minister as a real tribute to this day of mourning, which was evoked by the Canadian Labour Congress, as a result of the Supplementary Estimates, to go back and to find the extra money not only to restore the Canada Centre for Occupational Health and Safety to its previous budget but also to enhance it. If he is really serious about trying to prevent or to cut down on these occupational accidents which cost workers' lives, money and productivity, then I would ask the Minister to go back to the Estimates, to rethink this very serious cut and to reconsider what has been a dream of tripartite participation among Government, management and labour to help make the workplace a safer place for every worker. I think then the very flowery, erudite and eloquent statements he makes today would have some meaning.


Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, at the start let me congratulate the Minister and thank him for having sent a copy of the statement to me well in advance. I received it last evening. I have been able to study it and am able to respond appropriately. I commend him for that practice and I trust it will infect his colleagues in the Cabinet, those who intend to make statements in the future.
We in the New Democratic Party caucus applaud the action of the Canadian Labour Congress in establishing April 28 as a commemorative day, in a formal sense to remember those brothers and sisters who were killed, injured or disabled on the job over the last year.
I think it is fair to say, Mr. Speaker, that we are today far more conscious of safety and health in the workplace than we ever were before. Yet in 1985, 768 Canadians were killed on the job and thousands have been injured or disabled. I am constantly exposed to the rhetoric from the Government in this House with respect to the great contribution that capital has made in developing Canada. We constantly bow down and worship at the altar of Bay Street about investments and money. To listen to what is sometimes emanating from the other side, we hear that that is God, that that is what has created a vibrant Canadian economy. In fact, too often we forget that labour has contributed more in building this great country of ours, oftentimes at the cost of lives and health.
Today we pause to remember them. In remembering, we recommit ourselves to being ever conscious of a safe and healthy work environment.
The Minister says that Part IV of the Canada Labour Code is important. He talked about the great things he has implemented, but since this Government came into office in 1984 there have been no amendments to Part IV of the Canada Labour Code. No Bill has been put before this Parliament in the name of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Cadieux) with respect to strengthening and improving the occupational health and safety sections of the Canada Labour Code.
As a matter of fact, in the federal Public Service and Crown corporations, for example, there were 13 fatalities in 1986-87 and 25,371 injuries, of which 16,536 were disabling. The federal Government has a long way to go indeed in cleaning up its act in the workplace. It seems to me that the Government has a responsibility to show leadership when it comes to the question of occupational health and safety.
One of the most dangerous occupations in this country, even more so than mining is fishing. We know that the Minister has had in his possession since January the Gray report, which is an interim report on health and safety in the fishing industry on the West Coast. We are still waiting for the studies to be undertaken on the East Coast with respect to the fisheries there. The Government would be well advised to move with a bit more alacrity. Rather than the speed of a snail, we would expect the speed of Superman when dealing with what obviously has been recognized as a serious problem, according to the Minister's statement today.
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In closing, it is our sincerest hope that on April 28, 1988, we can stand in this place and say at this hour that the workplaces of Canada are safer and healthier than they were in 1987.
April 28, 1987


COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Marcel Danis (Vercheres):: Mr. Speaker, as Chairman of the Legislative Committee on Bill C-15, an Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Canada Evidence Act, it is my duty to table a revised report.


ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS AND NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT-THIRD REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Mr. Allan Pietz (Welland):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Chairman, I have the honour to present the Third Report of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development in both official languages.
On March 24, 1987, your committee met in camera to consider a draft report with the intention of adopting and tabling it before the First Ministers' Conference on Aboriginal Rights which was scheduled for March 26 and 27 of 1987. During the course of the meeting, certain members voiced the opinion that the committee might in some way jeopardize certain negotiations at the conference by tabling a report at this time.
After the ensuing debate on the matter, a member proposed a motion which had the effect of negating the possibility of tabling the report before the conference. The motion was adopted on a recorded vote.
On March 25, 1987, the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry) rose in the House under Standing Order 21 to protest the actions of the members who voted to reject the draft report and in the process named the members who so voted. See Hansard of March 27, 1987, page 4540.
This action was brought to our attention on April 1, 1987 by a member who felt that his privilege was breached in some way and that the entire in camera process was in jeopardy because of the decision of the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River to divulge certain events that transpired behind closed doors. A motion was adopted to report these actions to the House.
Your committee feels that it is its duty to place these matters before you at this time since privilege may be involved and to give the House an opportunity to reflect on these matters.
A copy of the relevant Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence, Issues Nos. 24 and 25, which includes this report, is tabled and respectfully submitted by me on behalf of the Chairman, the Hon. Member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre).


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps I could point out to other Hon. Members who are rising on this matter that when they report, they should give just a very short summary.
Petitions


OFFICIAL LANGUAGES-SECOND REPORT OF STANDING JOINT COMMITTEE
Mr. Charles Hamelin (Charlevoix):: Mr. Speaker, as Joint Chairman of the Standing Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons on Official Languages-

I have the honour to present in both official languages, of course, the Second Report of the Standing Joint Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to add that all Committee members are anxious to start reviewing this country's fundamental legislation on official languages as soon as possible, with a view to enhancing the status and recognition of Canada's official languages.


FISHERIES AND OCEANS-FIRST REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Mr. Gerald Comeau (South West Nova):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of tabling, in both official languages, the First Report of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.


COMMUNICATIONS AND CULTURE-FIFTH REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Mr. Jim Edwards (Edmonton South):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of tabling, in both official languages, the Fifth Report of the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture. The Committee's review and recommendations follow the order of reference dated January 29, 1987. The Committee requests the Government to table a response to this report, pursuant to Standing Order 99(2).
[Editor's Note: For above reports, see today's Votes and Proceedings.]
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PETITIONS
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to present a petition, pursuant to Standing Order 106, from residents of Pickering, Scarborough, Toronto, Guelph, Mississauga and North Bay in the Province of Ontario, and residents of Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Surrey, Westbank and a whole variety of places in the Province of British Columbia.
The petitioners are concerned that the proposals of the Government to change the Patent Act relating to prescription drugs will increase drug prices for Canadian consumers and will severely restrict the ability of average Canadians to buy necessary prescription drugs.

April 28, 1987
Petitions
Therefore, they are asking the Government to reconsider its decision to proceed with this legislation.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by several dozen residents of Duncan, British Columbia, calling upon the Government to revoke the proposed changes to the Patent Act because, if it goes ahead, it will of course directly affect all Canadians who are not protected by private or government medicare programs.
The petitioners also suggest that the federal Government's proposals will raise the cost of already high provincial health care programs.
I have a similar petition from Waterford, Ontario, that great tomato-growing area, and the petition is also signed by people from Simcoe, Vanessa, Windham Centre, Nanticoke and Port Dover where there are the world's greatest perch.
This particular petition calls on the Government to back off from the patent legislation because the petitioners believe that the monopoly granted to pharmaceutical companies will prevent competition and will result in an increase in drug costs and prices and will severely restrict the ability of average Canadians to buy necessary prescription drugs.
I have a similar petition from several dozen residents of Digby, Nova Scotia, and from residents of Vilna and Redwater in Alberta who have called upon the Government to back off from the patent changes because the petitioners believe that the proposed changes are another example of the Canadian Government's concession in the free trade negotiations with the United States at the expense of every-day Canadians.
These are some of the people who have signed petitions and there will no doubt be more petitions coming in the future.
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Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, I have five petitions that were examined by the Clerk in accordance with Standing Order 106 and which meet the requirements of the Standing Orders.
The petition of the undersigned residents of Canada who now avail themselves of their ancient and undoubted right to present a grievance common to your petitioners humbly sheweth that the monopoly granted to innovative pharmaceutical companies will prevent competition from cheaper generic drugs and will result in an increase in the price of drugs for Canadian consumers and severely restrict the ability of many Canadians to purchase the drugs they need; that the proposed changes in the Patent Act will directly affect all Canadians who are not protected by Government or private medicare programs; that the Govenrment's proposals will raise the already high cost of provincial health care programs; and that the proposed changes in the Patent Act are another example of the Canadian Government's concessions to the free trade negotiations with the United States, at the expense of the average consumer.
Wherefore, the undersigned your petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject these proposals which will increase prescription drug prices for Canadians.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present eight petitions signed by hundreds of residents of the City of Winnipeg who say that the proposed Bill C-22 will unfairly hurt those Canadians whose health needs require the purchase of prescription drugs on an ongoing basis. They say the federal government proposals will result in higher costs for provincial government drug plans.
Therefore, they humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject these proposals which will increase prescription drug prices for Canadians.
I have another petition on the same subject signed by residents of a number of towns in Manitoba, including Inwood, Teulon, Balmoral and Poplarfield. They say the federal Government's proposals to change the Patent Act relating to prescription drugs will increase drug prices for Canadian consumers and severely restrict the ability of average Canadians to buy necessary prescription drugs.
The proposed changes are another example of the Canadian Government's concessions to the U.S. at the expense of average Canadians in the free trade negotiations. They humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject these proposals which will increase prescription drug prices for Canadians.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I have another petition signed by residents of British Columbia.
Whereas the most recent figures indicate almost all fishermen in Canada depend upon unemployment insurance to survive the long winter months, they humbly pray and call upon Parliament to ensure that the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Bouchard) rejects any recommendation that will deprive fishermen of their right to collect unemployment insurance; and to enter into consultations with representatives of fishermen in Canada in order to improve the program offered to fishermen.


Mr. W. R. Bud Jardine (Northumberland-Miramichi):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present petitions on behalf of the New Brunswick Right to Life Association, Miramichi Branch, calling upon Parliament to support Motion M-37 which calls for the protection of unborn babies under the Charter of Rights.
April 28, 1987


Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present petitions signed by hundreds of residents of my constituency of Burnaby who note that the telephone is essential for communication and that rental costs must always be affordable. They further note that the telephone pricing system known as local measured service, or charging for each local call, means having a telephone will cost much more for most people, and will particularly hit those who rely on their phones, including seniors, the disabled, those confined to their homes, and volunteer organizations. Therefore, they call upon Parliament to direct the CRTC to deny to telephone companies such as B.C. Tel the right to charge for each individual call and order the retention of the monthly rental for telephones.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I also have the honour of presenting a petition, again signed by a large number of residents of Burnaby, as well as of Vernon, Kamloops, Chetwynd and a variety of other towns and municipalities in the Province of British Columbia, who note that the federal Government's proposals to change the Patent Act relating to prescription drugs will increase drug prices for Canadians and severely restrict the ability of average Canadians to buy necessary prescription drugs. They point out this is in effect a concession to the U.S. in the free trade negotiations and therefore call upon Parliament to reject these proposals which will increase prescription drug prices for Canadians in Prince George and many other areas.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Finally, 1 have a large number of petitions again signed by residents of Burnaby, British Columbia, who note that deindexation of universal family allowances and the massive cut-backs in the public commitment to child benefits are an unfair attack on women and families with children, especially single-parent mothers. They note this is particularly unfair in the face of budget hand-outs such as the $500,000 tax-free capital gain exemption, greater RRSP deductions for high income earners, the bail-out of banks, and, of course, they note that this particularly hits farmers who are already struggling.
Therefore, they call upon the House of Commons to reinstate full indexation of universal family allowances and rescind unfair tax increases.


Mr. Joe Reid (St. Catharines):: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition duly certified and signed by some 35 residents of Niagara who, far from the source of their concern, nevertheless express a real concern for the future of the island of South Moresby and the flora and fauna found there. The island is also the ancestral home of the Haida nation. The petitioners
Motions
humbly pray that this Parliament halt the logging operation on that island.


Mr. Dave Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I have nine petitions I wish to table with the Clerk today. To summarize them very briefly, they are signed by residents of Ontario, particularly Mississauga, as well as Nova Scotia, particularly from the constituency of Cape Breton- The Sydneys.
I also have another petition signed by residents of Lindsay, Ontario.
I have another petition signed by residents of Nova Scotia, particularly the constituency of Annapolis in the Middleton and Kingston area of Nova Scotia.
I also have another petition signed by residents of the constituency of Cape Breton-Highlands-Canso, particularly in the St. Peters area of Nova Scotia, the federal Government's proposals will raise the already high cost of drugs to provincial health care programs, and whereas the monopoly granted to integrated pharmaceutical companies will prevent competition from generic companies and result in an increase in drug prices, and severely restrict the ability of average Canadians to buy necessary prescription drugs, as well as being another example of the Canadian Government's concessions in the free trade negotiations with the U.S. at the expense of everyday Canadians, the petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to withdraw the amendments to Bill C-22.
Finally I have petitions signed by individuals from Brantford, Ontario, people from the great Province of Alberta, as well as Quebec, and finally from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, including the MLA who represents that constituency in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, the Hon. Jim Smith. They call upon the Government of Canada to withdraw the amendments to Bill C-22 which they believe will negatively affect senior citizens, the elderly, the poor and the sick of this country in a very harmful way.


ELECTIONS, PRIVILEGES AND PROCEDURES AUTHORIZATION TO STANDING COMMITTEE TO TRAVEL
Philip Derek Lewis: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the Parties and I think you will find there is consent to put this motion and pass it. Therefore, I move:
That the Standing Committee on Elections, Privileges and Procedure be
authorized to travel to Vancouver, B.C. to hold hearings on May 4, 1987 on
the Report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of British
Columbia, and that the necessary staff accompany the Committee.

April 28, 1987


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, there have indeed been discussions among the Parties and I want to say that we appreciate the initiative taken by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Lewis) on this issue. I can say on behalf of all Members in this House of Commons from British Columbia that we appreciate the rather extraordinary gesture at this time.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it agreed?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 29 I rise to seek leave to move the adjournment of the House for the purpose of considering a question of urgent and pressing necessity, that being the current crisis facing the Canadian grain farmer.
Last week the Canadian Wheat Board announced a reduction of the initial price of grain by 18 per cent. This is added to a 20 per cent reduction from last year and was exacerbated yesterday by the withdrawal of the moratorium on the Farm Credit Corporation. Many farmers now feel they need some assurance that the Government is willing to support them. I believe this is an urgent enough issue to be brought before the House for debate this day.


Mr. Speaker:: I have, of course, received notice of the application of the Hon. Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo) and I find that it meets the requirements of the Standing Order. Does the Hon. Member have leave to move the adjournment of the House under Standing Order 29 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter?


Philip Derek Lewis: Prior to granting leave, if I may-


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair may be in some difficulty here. The Chair has granted leave, the House has not. This is not a debatable matter, but I will hear the Parliamentary Secretary.


Philip Derek Lewis: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. We are naturally prepared to grant leave and I want to indicate that right off the bat. However, I want to make a couple of points.
First, all Members of the House look to decisions of the Chair with regard to deciding what truly constitutes an
emergency and to preparing requests for emergency debates in the future. The Government naturally governs itself accordingly-
Second, notice, either to the Minister involved or public notice, is helpful in enabling Ministers to organize their travel plans. As a result of public notice the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Masse) was here last evening. I will indicate now that it may not be possible for the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) to be here this evening because he has made travel plans.
Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I respect the decision of the Chair, although I must say that I personally disagree with it in view of the situation. I invite a comparison of my conduct and that of other government Members of Parliament with the conduct of opposition MPs on other occasions with respect to decisions by the Chair-leave granted.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: We don't need sermons.


Philip Derek Lewis: Maybe you do.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Not from you.


Mr. Speaker:: Under the Standing Orders this is not a debatable matter. Hon. Members will remember that when this Order was changed there was considerable thought put into it, resulting in the Order as it now stands. It is not debatable because the Hon. Members of this place who worked this Order out felt that that was not appropriate. Also the intention was expressed at the time that the Chair not give reasons for why it decided to accept an Order. The reason for that was that it was believed by Hon. Members that a body of jurisprudence, which would undoubtedly build up on these matters, would lead to a tendency for debate. As a consequence, the Order is as it is.
Having considered the matter and accepted the application the Chair is in the hands of the House. That is why, under the Orders, the Chair, having accepted it, then puts the question to the House.
The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary raises another matter, which is not a matter of slight importance at all, that is whether or not the appropriate Minister may be able to be in the House. However, with the greatest of respect, I believe that is a matter which Members will have to work out for themselves.
I think I am bound, as Speaker, to put the question. Does the Hon. Member have leave to move the adjournment of the House under Standing Order 29 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: The proposed motion shall stand over until 8 p.m. this day.
April 28, 1987


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
Philip Derek Lewis: Mr. Speaker, if Question No. 87 could be made an Order for Return, this Return would be tabled immediately.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that Question No. 87 be deemed to have been made an Order for Return?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


NATIVE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
Mr. Penner: 1.	For each of the fiscal years 1983-84, 1984-85, 1985-86 and 1986-87 to date, did the Native Economic Development Program hire any consultants and, if so (a) what were the number of consultants hired (b) what were their names (c) what were the dates they were hired (d) what was the amount of each contract (e) what was the total amount spent?
2.	For the same periods, were applications received by the Native Economic Development Program and, if so (a) how many (b) for each application, what was (i) the date it was received (ii) the name of the applicant (iii) the title of the proposal (iv) the date it was recommended for approval by the Native Advisory Board (v) the date it was approved by the Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism) (vi) the date the contribution agreement was signed by both the applicant and the Government (c) for each application, what were the dates cheques were issued and their amounts?
3.	For the same periods, did proposals and/or projects receive grants and/or contributions under the program and, if so (a) how many (b) what were the proposals and/or projects funded (c) for each, what was the amount of financial assistance approved and received (d) for each, was the assistance in the form of a grant or a contribution?
4.	For the same periods, were applications submitted to the program and, if so, how many under (a) Element I (b) Element II (c) Element 111?
5.	For the same periods, were proposals funded by the program and, if so, how many under (a) Element I (b) Element II (c) Element III?
6.	For the same periods, were any proposals submitted under the program forwarded to other economic programs and, if so (a) how many (b) what were they (c) which program was each proposal forwarded to (d) on what date was it forwarded (e) for each, has assistance been provided?
7.	For the same periods, was money expended by the program in grants and contributions and, if so (a) how many projects received funding (b) what were the projects (c) what was the amount of funding in each case (d) what was the total amount spent?
8.	For the same periods (a) what was the total value of proposals submitted to the program (b) what was the amount the program spent on (i) administration (ii) consultants (iii) grants (iv) contributions?
Return tabled.


STARRED QUESTIONS
Philip Derek Lewis: Mr. Speaker, would you be so kind as to call Starred Question No. 89.


PUBLIC SERVICE
[Stage Direction]
Question No. *89-Mr. Daubney:
Point of Order-Mr. Gauthier
1.	For the period January 1, 1985, to December 31, 1986, did the Government eliminate positions in the Public Service and, if so, how many?
2.	Of those individuals whose positions were eliminated, were any subsequently placed in other positions in the Public Service and (a) if so, what are the numbers and the proportion who were (i) men (ii) women (iii) members of visible minorities (b) if not, what are the numbers and the proportion who were (i) men (ii) women (iii) members of visible minorities?
3.	What is the total number of positions now existing in the Public Service and what proportion is held by (a) women (b) members of visible minorities?
Mr. Chuck Cook (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, the response of the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) is: 1. Treasury Board does not control the size of the federal Public Service on the basis of positions or individuals. Rather, Treasury Board controls are based on person-year authorities measured on a fiscal year over fiscal year basis, i.e. employment of one person for 12 months, two persons for six months, et cetera.
The Treasury Board controlled federal Public Service had decreased in size by 8,900 person-years or 3.7 per cent between April 1, 1985, and April 1, 1987. The total number of person-year authorities approved for Main Estimates 1987-88 is 233,454 person-years. Further detail is available in Supplementary Table 2.2S p. 16, Part I of the 1987-88 Main Estimates.
2. As mentioned when tabling the Main Estimates, the President of the Treasury Board will be reporting more fully to Parliament with respect to the impact of the person-year reductions on human resources when the final results are available later this month (April). 3. As at December 31, 1986, there were 90,741 women (41.8 per cent) in the Public Service. In a survey conducted in 1985, 3,791 employees (1.7 per cent) identified themselves as belonging to visible minority groups. These data include indeterminate employees and term employees over six months service hired under the Public Service Employment Act. An update of the visible minorities data is planned for 1988.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


POINT OF ORDER
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I gave notice in writing today that I wanted to raise a point of order which arises from procedures before we adjourned for the Easter break. You will recall that I had discussed this with

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you on April 15, 1987, and we agreed that it would be raised at the earliest possible occasion upon returning to the House.
It is not a question that requires much time, but I want to make sure that members of my caucus and others in the House understand the procedures under which we operate in regard to Private Members' Bills and Motions.
As you know, according to our Standing Orders-Standing Order 31,1 believe-Private Members' Bills and Motions are the object of a draw to decide who gets priority for discussion in the House.
Under your authority, Mr. Speaker, the Clerk of the House convenes these meetings for the draw and they select 20 Private Members' Business items for debate in the House. As these items are debated, they are replaced occasionally by others which are also drawn on occasion.
I want to draw Standing Order 31 and Standing Order 32 to the attention of the House. Standing Order 31(1) states:
At the beginning of a Session, the Clerk of the House, acting on behalf of the Speaker, shall, within two sitting days of the placing on the Order Paper of separate items of Private Members' Business from at least twenty Members, notify the Members involved, of the time, date and place of a random draw to establish the order of precedence for twenty separate items of which at least twenty separate Members have given notice.
My point is that Standing Order 32 goes on to state:
Notwithstanding Standing Order 31, the order of precedence shall not contain, at any time, more than twenty nor fewer than ten items, when there are sufficient items contained in the list which have not been given a position on the order of precedence.
The last draw on Wednesday, April 15, was scheduled at 1.30 p.m. in Room 238S. This was unusual because most of the draws are held at 3.30 p.m. We did not understand why it was being held at 1.30, and also asked why it was done before Routine Proceedings, therefore preventing many Members from presenting their Bills and having them put in the draw that day since Routine Proceedings on Wednesday are called shortly after three o'clock. The draw being held at 1.30 p.m. would eliminate a Member's chance of getting into the draw that day. That is my main point. In my view, the hour being set before Routine Proceedings, therefore before Introduction of Bills, was difficult and unusual.
I repeat that Standing Order 32 indicates that the order of precedence shall not contain at any time more than 20 nor fewer than 10 items when there are sufficient items contained on the list which have not been given a position on the order of precedence.
The Order Paper on Wednesday, April 15, showed 11 items in the order of precedence, so it was not essential to hold the draw, in my opinion.
Notice of the draw by the Acting Clerk stated that: "All motions printed on the Order Paper or Bills having received first reading at any time prior to the draw will be eligible".
The April 15 Order Paper listed 12 Private Members' Bills whose sponsors may have wanted those items included in the draw. However, since it was held at 1.30, they were indeed
unable to do so, or would not have been able to have their Bills or Motions in the draw.
Through no fault of the Members sponsoring the Bills, for some days the House did not reach the place in Routine Proceedings where Bills could be introduced.
My point is that Members have a right to table with the House initiatives, Bills and Motions and they are subject to a draw which normally is held at 3.30 in the afternoon. In this case, it was held earlier, at 1.30. If this is repeated, or becomes a precedent, it could cause difficulties with Members.
I want to ensure that the House understands my point, that I would like to see the draws held at the normal time, after Routine Proceedings, at 3.30 or later that day so that Members would not be shortchanged of their right to table those Bills.


Mr. Speaker:: Are other Members rising on this point?
The Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) has raised a point of which the Chair was aware. I think he put it very succinctly and I want to assure the Hon. Member and other Members that the Chair will be diligent to ensure that this does not happen. However, I will consider the matter carefully and come back with a reasoned decision on this, because I believe the points made by the Hon. Member are clear to all Hon. Members and concern a situation which I think calls for correction. I thank the Hon. Member.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is my duty to inform the House that because of the Minister's statement, Government Orders will be extended by 26 minutes today, starting at 1 p.m.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, April 27, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski:
That this House supports, in principle, the reinstatement of capital punishment and directs that a special committee on reinstatement, composed of 15 members, be established, hold hearings and make its final report to the House no later than three (3) months following the adoption of this motion, such report to provide recommendations on:
(a)	which offence or offences should carry the death penalty, and in what circumstances;
(b)	which method or methods should be used to carry out the penalty of death, and in what circumstances;
That, pursuant to Standing Order 107(1), this special committee be hereby appointed as a committee to prepare and bring in a bill no later than three months following the adoption of this motion, founded on the committee's recommendations on (a) and (b) above; such a bill shall be the object of a separate and distinct report of the special committee, and such a report shall be its final report;
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[Stage Direction]
That such bill, when reported from such special committee to the House, be deemed pursuant to Standing Order 107(1) to have been introduced and stand on the Order Paper, in the name of the special committee chairman, for first reading at the next sitting of the House; and that subsequent House stages of the bill be considered under "Government Orders", with the bill standing under the heading "Government Business"; and that, when the said bill has been read a second time, it shall stand referred to a Legislative Committee;
That the Striking Committee be empowered to name the Members of the special committee, provided that once the Striking Committee report is laid upon the Table, it shall be deemed concurred in;
That the special committee have the power to sit while the House is sitting and during periods when the House stands adjourned;
That the special committee be empowered to report from time to time and send for persons and papers, and to print such papers and evidence from time to time as may be ordered by the committee and to retain the services of expert, technical, professional and clerical staff;
That the special committee be empowered to adjourn from place to place inside Canada and that, when deemed necessary, the appropriate staff accompany the committee;
That a quorum of the special committee be eight (8) members for any vote, resolution or other decision; and that the chairman be authorized to hold meetings to receive evidence and authorize the printing thereof whenever six (6) members are present;
That any substitution of membership on the special committee be made pursuant to Standing Order 94(4); and
That, notwithstanding the usual practices of this House, if the House is not sitting when the special committee is ready to issue its final report and the said bill, the special committee shall present its report and the bill to the House by filing them with the Clerk of the House provided that the report shall then be deemed to have been laid upon the Table, and the bill shall then be deemed, pursuant to Standing Order 107(1), to have been introduced at the first sitting of the House thereafter and to stand on the Order Paper in the name of the special committee chairman, for first reading at the next sitting of the House; and that subsequent House stages of the bill be considered under "Government Orders", with the bill standing under the heading "Government Business".
Hon. Jack Murta (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon to speak against the motion to reinstate capital punishment. I do so for three reasons which I will briefly describe now and elaborate on in some detail later.
First, I do not believe that a return to capital punishment is a deterrent to murder. The facts and figures do not substantiate such a belief and I hope to be able to demonstrate that in a few minutes.
The second reason I do not support capital punishment is on moral and religious grounds. From a personal point of view, I could not support a return to capital punishment in Canada.
The third reason is that the possibility always exists that a mistake will be made. As long as human beings are in the courts and judges are making decisions, there is always the possibility of a mistake being made.
Before I explain my reasons in greater detail, 1 want to preface my remarks by saying that in 1976 when we voted on capital punishment in this Chamber I was in favour of capital punishment. The main reason for my support at that time was that I believed capital punishment would be a deterrent to premeditated murder. I feel that I was wrong and 1 think the statistics show unequivocally that it is not a deterrent. Furthermore, I have a deeper conviction from a moral and
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religious point of view which, of course, is my own, that capital punishment is not the way to proceed.
There are too many variables to allow the state the right to take a human life. I believe that allowing the state to take lives, even under certain circumstances which some Members have suggested, sends the wrong signals to society in general. I believe it is wrong from a moral point of view.
First, I want to explain the reasons why I believe capital punishment is not a deterrent. When one talks to the experts, the sociologists and so on, and reads what they have written, one sees three main classes of criminals. The first class is described as the professional criminal. That person never intends to kill, but when he or she does kill it is usually because of being surprised at various events, in other words, a policeman drives by, gets out of his car and goes to see what has happened. The person is surprised and reacts in a violent manner. Obviously, capital punishment was not in the mind of that particular individual at that time, so in my opinion it would not act as a deterrent.
The second class of criminal is the amateur, the person who is more fearful and unpredictable. They are considered dangerous in the extreme. In many cases life has no meaning for them and, as a sociologist would say, they could kill at the slightest provocation. That type of individual commits the kinds of crimes which get the headlines. These crimes are committed without thought, and, of course, without thought there is no premeditation, so once again capital punishment would not necessarily be a deterrent in that case.
The third class of criminal, into which fit most of the so-called killers or people who kill, is called the "domestic" killer. It could be anyone, a neighbour, a friend, someone working in a grocery store, a doctor, anyone at all. He or she kills out of passion spontaneously and without thought or care. By far the greatest number of criminal deaths are of this particular class, and when that kind of situation arises there is no thought of deterrence. Therefore, I do not believe the thought of execution will hold back any of these particular individuals.
The truth is that there is no evidence to show that violent criminals are deterred by the death penalty. In fact, the lowest murder rates are found in countries where the death penalty has been abolished for a long time, such as the United Kingdom, Sweden, Austria, Italy, and in the States of Wisconsin and Main in the United States.
In the State of Florida there have been 16 executions since the ruling of the Supreme Court in 1976 that the death penalty was not cruel and unusual punishment. These executions are exceeded in number only by the State of Texas which has a total of 20 executions.
Florida's death row houses approximately 260 convicts, which is more than any other state at the present time, yet Amnesty International has noted that Florida's murder rate is higher now than it was during the period between 1964 and

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1979 when the electric chair was not used. The only logical conclusion which can be drawn from such studies is that there is no demonstrable evidence that capital punishment has ever actually had a significant deterrent effect on the rate of homicides, including murder.
These results dovetail with what we found in Canada. Statistics Canada reports that most victims continue to be single males who are usually killed in their own homes by someone they know, most likely a relative. Alcohol and drugs often contribute to the murder. In other words, it is a domestic type of killing. In such instances deterrence is highly unlikely to play a factor because the murder in such circumstances results from thoughtless explosions of violence, usually associated with highly agitated, passionate scenarios.
Statistics Canada also reiterated just how rare homicides are in Canada. Between 1975 and 1984 there was an average of 2.78 homicides for every 100,000 Canadians compared with 14 suicides and 20 motor vehicle deaths for every 100,000 people. If our interests truly lie in saving lives, then our best efforts should clearly be directed in pursuit of other than the reintroduction of the death penalty or capital punishment.
The argument is made that the death penalty can be used to ensure that the person or persons do not murder again. Despite the overwhelming statistical evidence that capital punishment will not lead to the reduction of the rate of murder, death penalty advocates continue to claim that it is necessary to ensure that the specific convicted murderer is permanently deterred from killing again. In other words, they do not get back into society to repeat that kind of offence.
Statistics show that this claim is absolutely false. Of 384 paroled murderers between 1970 and 1984 not one murdered again. The most recent study by the National Parole Board shows that between 1975 and 1986, 473 convicted persons were released on parole. Two murderers murdered a second time. Both of these murderers had originally been convicted of non-capital murder. Therefore, the re introduction of the death penalty would not have had any affect whatsoever according to the National Parole Board.
No paroled murderers have been convicted of manslaughter, attempted murder or even wounding. Once again these are statistics which come from the parole board.
The simple truth is that the death penalty retentionists have no statistical evidence to support their contention that capital punishment is a deterrent to murder. Even the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, a long time advocate of capital punishment, has recently conceded that it is useless to argue for capital punishment on the basis of deterrence.
If an iron tight convincing argument cannot be made for the use of capital punishment as a deterrence, what then? I suppose it can be argued that in some cases it can be used in terms of vengeance, although I would hope that as a civilized society we have come further than the biblical adage, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".
This leads me to my second reason for not supporting capital punishment. I think it is morally wrong. I also do not support it on religious grounds. Proponents of the death penalty believe it is morally correct to kill murderers. One usually finds that such a position is derived from either a perceived moral imperative giving the state the right to kill in order to fulfil its obligations to protect its citizens, or from the oft quoted biblical precept I mentioned earlier, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".
Besides confirming a mixed-up argument that it is morally right to kill someone in order to demonstrate that killing someone is wrong, there is the question of whether or not the death penalty actually does what its proponents tell us it does. New executions help to convince society that violence and murder are morally wrong. However, I believe that executions lead society to the completely opposite conclusion, and in a completely wrong direction. In effect, I believe it leads society to more violence and murder.
Some experts think that some people see an execution as a prescription and not a threat. In other words, he or she would think that if the state can do this why can't I do the same thing? There is a saying that the state affects the conduct and actions of its citizens more by the standards of its own behaviour than by the penalty it inflicts on others, and I believe that to be true. There is a danger in forgetting this point and charging on with the destructive course of action vindicated only by the declaration that it is morally correct.
Indeed, to reinstate the death penalty in Canada would be to place this country in the same dubious league as such regimes as Iran, South Africa, the Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia. It is important to note that apart from the United States, Ireland and Liechtenstein, all western industrialized countries have abolished the death penalty.
I do not believe that governments can use capital punishment as a means of protecting society. By using capital punishment to protect society, we degrade the very values that make society worth protecting. The execution of an individual is an act of violence, and as such it can never be moral in a society which supposedly abhors violence. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that violence tends to provoke further violence.
I believe it is the moral duty of the state to protect the lives of all persons within the jurisdiction of the state, without exception.
I am also opposed to capital punishment on religious grounds. It is perhaps more difficult to express one's feelings on capital punishment on religious grounds than on any other, the reason being that religious beliefs are so highly personal in nature. In making these remarks, I want it to be clear that I do not put down the points of view of others. I have Christian friends here in the House of Commons on both sides of this particular issue. The views I am about to express represent my
April 28, 1987

personal feelings, and in making them I shall try not to be judgmental of others.
In considering this issue on religious grounds, one has to make certain assumptions, the first being that one believes in the Bible and in the significance of the life of Jesus Christ. If one believes in the Bible and in Jesus Christ, one should consider the issue of capital punishment in the light of the message of Jesus Christ, namely, the message of love.
Normally if one looks up to someone, one tries to imitate the life of that individual. In the case of Jesus Christ, of course, that is an impossibility. One could not even come close to imitating the life of Jesus Christ. However, one should do one's best to try to imitate the life of the individual to whom one looks up to. To do that, one needs to learn as much as one can about the life of that particular person. In the case of Jesus Christ, we read the Bible. An individual then, in one's own life, tries to show as much love, compassion and understanding in caring for one's fellow human beings as possible.
Of course, as I have already mentioned, in the case of trying to imitate the life of Jesus Christ, we will never succeed, nor do I think we were ever meant to succeed; but perhaps through studying His life, and our reflecting on His life and His character, we may be able to stretch ourselves toward His aims. By striving to imitate Him, we will become better human beings.
A good example of what can be achieved by imitating the life of Jesus Christ is the work and life of Mother Theresa.
In any event, if the life and message of Jesus Christ is the basis upon which one bases one's thoughts, then one has to ask how Jesus Christ would have dealt with this particular issue, or any other issue, and specifically how He would have voted were He here in Parliament casting a vote on capital punishment.
I believe that Jesus saw some good in every human being. It was His belief that every person had the potential to be rehabilitated, and had the right to be loved and to be cared for. No matter what a person had done, He would not wish to give up on them and simply turn them over to the state to be executed.
While there are passages in the Bible that seem to support the use of the death penalty, they are, in my opinion, at odds with the over-all emphasis on the sanctity of life that is expressed in the Bible. The message in the Bible is one of redemption, one of forgiveness. It is not one of vengeance.
The issue of capital punishment is, for me, a deeply moral and religious one. I could not vote in favour of capital punishment. Were I to do so, I could not live with myself and my beliefs.
The third argument against capital punishment is the everpresent possibility of a mistake being made. In our legal system, human error is inevitable. We all know that. While we may not want to admit it, we know that mistakes are inevitable. Usually a mistake made as part of the judicial process
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can be revoked completely or in part. That is not so when an innocent person has been executed.
We can all name names and quote the well-known stories that serve to illustrate that particular point.
Capital punishment, being ultimate, being final, being irrevocable, is different from all other penalties. The death penalty has been set aside in nearly all of the forward-thinking countries of the world. Canada would be taking a step backwards if it were to reinstate capital punishment.
For all of the reasons I have enunciated, Mr. Speaker, I shall be voting against the resolution.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Erie (Mr. Fretz), on a question or comment.


Mr. Fretz:: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with interest to the contribution of the Hon. Member for Lisgar (Mr. Murta), for whom I have the utmost respect. On this issue, however, we do part company.
I wish to first make a comment, and then pose a couple of questions to the Hon. Member.
While attending a meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Solicitor General this morning on behalf of another Member, I heard a statement made by the Commissioner of the Correctional Services of Canada to the effect that the protection of society is our primary objective. I wish to draw that statement to the Hon. Member's attention this morning; that is, that the protection of society is our primary objective in considering the correctional services of Canada.
If I recall correctly, the Hon. Member made the assertion in his remarks that capital punishment constitutes an act of violence, and he went on to question whether governments, in imposing capital punishment, are acting morally right or morally correct.
With that background, I should like to pose two questions to the Hon. Member.
First of all, does the Hon. Member believe that peace officers have a responsibility to protect our citizens, to protect society; and if so, I would ask him to outline for me why it is our peace officers carry firearms and the circumstances under which a peace officer would discharge a firearm in the line of duty?
And secondly, does he believe that governments have the right to protect their citizens with the use of armed forces, and do the members of our Armed Forces, acting for us, have the moral imperative to use weapons; and if so, under what circumstances?


Jack Burnett Murta: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Erie (Mr. Fretz) has asked whether governments have a duty to use weapons to protect society, and by that I take him to mean the armed forces of a country-and of course, I agree that they do.
I do not really draw the parallel between that and the issue of the death penalty. I do not see how the protection of society

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in that context is brought into this debate. Certainly society can be protected in many ways other than the use of the death penalty.
My argument in this case is that I do not think society is protected through the use of the death penalty, nor has it ever been. That is the way in which I would approach it.
Our police officers and prison guards have a very difficult job. We are all in agreement in that respect. I do not know of any other group of people who get more respect from Canadians generally than do our police officers and prison guards. However, 1 do not think-and this is where my friend and I do part company-that the imposition of the death penalty will make the jobs of our police officers and prison guards any safer whatsoever.
Perhaps I could return to my opening remarks in terms of the various classes of criminals, why people murder, and whether or not they think of the consequences of murder. I do not think it makes any difference whatsoever. I suggest that the Hon. Member ask the policemen in the State of Florida whether or not it makes any difference. They would say that it does not make any difference, and capital punishment is in place in the State of Florida.
I do not think anything I have seen would lead me to the conclusion that reinstating the death penalty, bringing back capital punishment, would make anybody's life easier. I think it takes a little away from each and every one of us.
I remember listening to John Diefenbaker when he was Prime Minister and had to deal with the particular question. In my opinion we must realize that each one of us is responsible for pulling the rope which opens the trapdoor or pushing the button which starts electricity flowing in the electric chair. That is the kind of vote in which we are involved. I frankly could not do it for the reasons I have outlined.


Mr. Nystrom:: Mr. Speaker, I commend the Hon. Member for Lisgar (Mr. Murta). I think we have seen something in the House today which is very rare-a Member having gone through a thinking process and changed his mind on the issue. That takes tremendous courage, and I think he ought to be complimented from all sides of the House for doing what he has done today.
The Hon. Member for Lisgar decided to have the courage of his convictions and to follow his convictions on this very sensitive and difficult issue. I want to go on record as publicly complimenting him. I have known him since the 1971 byelection. I know he is a very sincere person.
He would agree with me when I say that in the ultimate, in addition to listening to our constituents, what we owe our constituents most is our judgment and to have the courage of our convictions in terms of making judgments on important issues of the day. That is the most important thing we can do as Members of Parliament.
I am one of those Members of Parliament who really looks askance at some colleagues-and I will not mention them- who conduct surveys in their ridings and respond as a result of those questionnaires. I know, Mr. Speaker, that you are one of the better political scientists in the House. You are a long-time organizer. You know the volatility of surveys and public opinions. You know that how the question is asked can often determine the results of the survey. I think we are doing a great disservice to Canada, to society, and to our constituents if we use that kind of shallow device in terms of making a decision on the issue.
The Hon. Member for Lisgar is a shining example of what should be done. He made the decision that he owes his constituents his judgment and his conscience. He has put a lot of thought and a lot of meditation into the issue. I just want to say in this question and comment period that he ought to be complimented, because we in one Party or another often do not do enough of that in the House. Being a democratic socialist, and he being a Conservative, there are times when we disagree. However, we know where the Hon. Member for Lisgar stands. He is a straight shooter and a very sincere person.
Perhaps I could ask a little question at this point. Since the Hon. Member referred to the church, the teachings of Jesus Christ, and other references to religion, could he inform the House on what role the major churches in Manitoba are playing in this debate? One very positive thing which I saw in my constituency is that the Catholic Church and others are now starting to play a very major role in terms of providing information to the public about the immorality of a society intentionally taking the life of human beings, as is done in the Soviet Union, in Turkey, or in many dictatorial states in the world. I am very proud of the position of the churches in Saskatchewan, and I want to ask the Hon. Member if he could give us information about the campaign of the churches in Manitoba.


Jack Burnett Murta: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom). He and I have been longtime colleagues in the House of Commons. Regardless of Party lines, we have been very good friends for the last 17 or so years.
The churches in the Province of Manitoba are taking a far more active interest in this debate than they were two or three weeks ago. Obviously the churches are not all together on this particular issue, as I suppose they should be. They certainly reflect their congregations and from where, in effect, their members come.
The national church organizations in the Province of Manitoba are solidly against the reintroduction of capital punishment. That goes right through the gambit, from the United Church, to the Catholic, to the Mennonite Central Committee, et cetera. Of course individually the positions of churches are somewhat different because their members have the freedom to view the issue as they see it. I guess that is what I tried to outline in my speech. I view the issue from a religious
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point of view, my own personal point of view. I did not try to put my religious point of view on to anyone else. A sad commentary about religion in the world is that we have had too many wars because of it, and I do not think we need another one on the whole question of capital punishment.
I hope the churches become more vocal. They have a major role to play. Certainly before the debate is over I suspect that they will all make their voices heard loud and clear.


Mr. Reimer:: Mr. Speaker, I commend the Eton. Member for Lisgar (Mr. Murta) for the way in which he presented his opinions to us during this debate. It is a very personal issue. This is a debate on an issue of conscience. Of course, we will be carrying out a free vote. Each of us will be free to follow the dictates of our conscience as we see fit.
I also appreciate the way in which the Hon. Member was very sensitive to the fact that the Christian church is divided on the issue. There are Christians who are good friends and work together on other issues, as do we, but who are divided on the issue of capital punishment. I appreciate the Hon. Member's sensitivity to that and the fact that we are not trying to say necessarily that one person is better or worse than another because of it. We simply differ.
Also the Hon. Member mentioned that one of the responsibilities or obligations of a Christian is to mirror the mercy, compassion, and message of reconciliation of Jesus Christ. I agree with him. However, how do we take the other role which we have as Members of Parliament, that is, to write laws which protect society from the criminal element to the degree we can?
As Christians we could look, for example to Romans Chapter 13, with which I know the Hon. Member is familiar, and the fourth verse which indicates-and I am not quoting it exactly-that the civil authority is the minister or servant of God to act as God's agent, to execute his wrath upon the evildoer.
We also have that role as Members of Parliament. We have chosen to be here. We have chosen that role. However, how do we bring together those two roles-the role to mirror the message of mercy, compassion, and reconciliation and the role to be His servants or agents to control evil within our society? How does the Hon. Member reconcile those two roles?


Jack Burnett Murta: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for Kitchener (Mr. Reimer). He is a very sensitive individual. I know his questions come from a very deep understanding and searching soul in terms of trying to do good for the country.
Of course I have no pat solutions, but I can only comment on the way in which I try to deal with the question. I try to take the issues as they come up and deal with them vis-a-vis my own particular belief in how 1 interpret the Bible, my Christian belief and thoughts which I share and express with a small group of people as I move throughout the days and weeks around this particular institution.
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We write laws to protect society. That is part of our job. It is the soul searching that goes into those particular laws with which we must grapple. I know the Hon. Member will agree with me when I say that in trying to be more Christ-like makes decision-making in this place much more difficult than I would have thought say five to eight years ago. It is a difficult process. You take every issue as an individual issue and you try to grapple with it. You fight with it, and you try to come out on the side of what you think is right from your own valued perspective. If you do not, that is when the rubber hits the road. You either stand up and be counted as an individual, or you go along with the group and live to fight another day, as they say. That, once again, is a decision for each of us to make.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on perhaps one of the most fundamental questions to be studied by this House since I became a Member of Parliament in 1979. In answering the question before the House we will in many ways be explaining and shaping the kind of society we as a nation want to become; what kind of civilization we are in Canada. I believe we would be taking a giant step backward as a nation if we were to reinstate the death penalty in Canada.
I would like to quote the words of Winston Churchill who, in speaking in the British House of Commons many years ago, in 1910, said this:
The mood and temper of the public with regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country. These are the symbols which make and measure the stored up strength of a nation and are sign and proof of the living virtue in it.
A few years ago we in this Parliament adopted a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That Charter provided for the fundamental right to life and the right to be protected against cruel and unusual treatment and punishment. As the former Member for St. John's East, Mr. McGrath, said in speaking on this question:
-does Canada, with its new and enlightened Constitution, want to turn back the clock on progress and be one of the very few democracies to restore capital punishment?
The presence of the former Member for St. John's East is sorely missed in this House, particularly on this fundamental question of what kind of nation we in Canada want to be.
I want to join with my colleague, the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom), in congratulating the Hon. Member for Lisgar (Mr. Murta), who in 1976 voted in favour of capital punishment as a Conservative Member of Parliament and today had the courage to stand in this House and say that he has examined the issue and is now opposed to capital punishment.
When looking around the House during the very eloquent remarks of the Member for Lisgar I regretfully noted an almost empty Chamber. I know there are still Members of this House whose minds are not made up on the issue, and I can only hope that those Members will take heed of the words of

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the Member for Lisgar who spoke with such conviction about why he has changed his mind since 1976.
I believe it would be profoundly wrong for Canada to join the company of such countries as Iraq, Iran, the Soviet Union, South Africa and Chile, nations which retain capital punishment as the ultimate punishment. Canada would indeed be the only nation in the western world to legislatively reinstate capital punishment after having abolished it.
In 1983 the Parliament of the United Kingdom, dominated overwhelmingly by Conservatives with a Prime Minister who strongly supports capital punishment, voted solidly to reject the reinstatement of capital punishment in that country. Just a few weeks ago that same Parliament voted once again, even more strongly, by a margin of 342 to 230, to reject the reinstatement of capital punishment in Britain.
We have to ask ourselves again that basic question, the question that goes right to the core of this issue, the question that is asked by the church leaders in Canada; "Why kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?" It is as stark and as fundamental as that, Mr. Speaker.

I must point out that all major religious groups in Canada, including the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Anglican Church, the United Church of Canada, the Presbyterian Church, the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec, the Canadian Unitarian Council, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Mennonite Central Committee and the Religious Society of Friends, all officially support the abolition of capital punishment. Pope John Paul 11 himself has said he is firmly opposed to capital punishment.

Recently this House was honoured by the presence of the widow of Martin Luther King, Coretta Scott King. Speaking as a Christian she said:
I believe in the power of transformation and that we as Christians have an obligation to try to work for a reconciliation where it is at all possible.-
I regret very much that our country is moving backwards instead of continuing to move forward on the capital punishment issue. 1 will continue to speak out against the death penalty, because 1 think it is barbaric for a civilized nation such as the United States ... I certainly hope Canada will not fall into that.
As was said previously, we must surely recognize the sanctity and the value of all human life in our society. In doing so we must ask ourselves why it is that we as a society, as a Parliament, should single out, in particular, murder in terms of the cause of death in our society. In fact, it is quite appropriate that I should be speaking today, April 28, which is the annual day of mourning for workers who are killed and injured on the job. There are more workers killed in Canada on the job each year than Canadians who are murdered.
In 1985, for example, 768 Canadians lost their lives on the job. The fatality rate in Canada for high-risk occupations is staggering. Fishing, the most dangerous occupation in Canada, takes 207 people per 100,000. Forestry takes 129 per 100,000,
mining takes 122 per 100,000 and construction takes 48 per 100,000. I am from the Province of British Columbia and already this year 11 men have been killed on the job in the forests of British Columbia. In 1986, despite a lengthy industrial strike, 37 men were killed, six of them chewed up by machines in mill accidents. In 1985, 35 were killed. Similarly in the mining industry, recently four lives were lost in a mine in Sudbury. As said by NDP, MPP Elie Martel, who has fought for years for better occupational health and safety laws, "Miners' deaths go unreported. We kill them like they are black flies".
Let us place a value on all human life in our society and recognize that we must take effective steps to stop death and to prevent violent death however it may occur. An average of 12 people die every year in house fires on Indian reserves in British Columbia alone. Those are preventable deaths. Many more people die at their own hand, suicide, than die as a result of murder. In British Columbia last year, 28 boys and nine girls, teenagers, took their own lives. We must recognize this situation and take steps as a society to deal with that cause of violent death. We must deal with death in traffic accidents and death at the hands of drunk drivers, all far more common.
Of course we value and must protect the lives of prison guards and police officers, but all life is sacred. The state has no right to terminate any human life.

As was said last year by Normand Bergeron, Quebec City Chief of Police, if a community deplores an act as barbaric as the murder of two police officers, how can we, as representatives of our society, recommend another equally barbaric act? This would make no sense at all. Mr. Speaker, the Chief of Police of the Montreal Urban Community, Rolland Bourget, spoke out against reinstating the death penalty. He said: Personally, I am against the death penalty.

It has been 25 years since the last execution in Canada. It has been 11 years since this Parliament voted to abolish capital punishment. The onus lies squarely on those who would reinstate the death penalty to demonstrate that conditions have changed in such a way as to call into question that decision. There is no evidence whatsoever to support that argument. Fundamentally, there is no evidence to suggest that capital punishment would deter violent death or murder in Canada. Indeed, the Conservative Minister of Justice (Mr. Hnatyshyn) said the following recently:
Where you have a penalty it should be demonstrated to be a deterrent with respect to the activity for which it is a penalty. There has been no increase in the incidence of homicide or murder since the abolition of capital punishment has taken place.
Similar statements have been made by Canadian chiefs of police who recognize that deterrence is not a viable argument.
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Indeed, there was a significant drop of 20 per cent in the murder rate in Canada last year. There was an even more dramatic drop in the rate of first-degree murder. In 1985, there were 338 first-degree murders, and in 1986 that figure went to 260. There is no evidence to support the argument that reinstating capital punishment will save lives or prevent murder.
In the United States, a far more violent society than ours, capital punishment is retained in 37 of the 50 states. We recognize that Canadians' perception of violence is distorted as well and much of that emanates from the media. Violence can only beget more violence. As Gandhi said, "The trouble with an eye for an eye is that it leaves the whole world blind".
If deterrence must be discarded as an argument in favour of capital punishment, clearly the only possible argument in favour of it is vengeance. Vengeance as the foundation for punishment must be rejected in any civilized society.
Recently in my constituency I met with three women whose lives had been personally touched by murder, Alice Shook, Lilian Gamblen and Doreen Helm. I knew Doreen Helm's daughter personally. She was brutally murdered. Alice Shook lost a young daughter and Lilian Gamblen's husband was murdered. These women support capital punishment, not because they are killers, not because they are blood-thirsty or seeking revenge but because they believe that the persons who inflicted pain and suffering on their loved ones must forfeit the right to live. They recognize that this will not save any lives and we must all be sensitive to and feel the pain that they feel. However, we must not allow that pain and suffering to ultimately guide us in redrafting the law.
Other victims have taken a different position. The Leader of the NDP (Mr. Broadbent) has quoted the parents of Alison Parrott who was abducted and murdered. He quoted Esther Aucoin who lost her husband, a member of the New Brunswick Highway Patrol. She read out a statement at his funeral saying that he did not believe in capital punishment and that if he were there that day, he would say that it is the system that needs to be changed so that officers do not have to be alone on duty, and a full radio system should be in place both in cars and in portables.
Let us look at prevention. Let us look at strengthening Canada's gun-control legislation. Let us put more resources and attention toward the problem of domestic violence, including the physical and sexual abuse of children. Let us find more resources for alcohol and drug treatment and education. Let us break the vicious cycle of poverty, unemployment, homelessness and crime. Let us deal with the problems of those who are mentally ill and tackle the tragedy of teenage suicide. We should do what we can about violence in the media as well.
Having looked at all these methods of prevention, we must also recognize that there are other powerful arguments against capital punishment. I will not elaborate at length on those arguments because they have been made well by others. There is a risk that an innocent life may be taken. I have a newspaper
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here with the headline "Innocent man to go free". After nine years in jail, an innocent man convicted of murder was freed. A young Micmac Indian, Donald Marshall, was in the same situation.
We know as well that it is not the rich and powerful who hang; it is the poor, the illiterate, the uneducated, native people and blacks. As the late United States Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas stated, "One searches our chronicles in vain for the execution of any member of the affluent strata of this society".
Juries are more likely to convict when capital punishment has been reinstated in a society. Statistics show that clearly. As well, it is possible that some individuals may in fact murder because they themselves are suicidal and wish to have their lives taken. In fact, one individual who was convicted of murder said this to police, "I wish you'd blow my head off. If they had the death penalty, I might think of killing one of those kids. I want to die". That is a suicide murder.
Finally, for those who believe that we should actually place a price tag on human life, capital punishment costs more. It costs more because the appeals are lengthy, dragged out and expensive.

In concluding, Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote Robert Badinter, who was responsible for the abolition of the guillotine in France. He said:
We know it will be a long and difficult struggle and that the primitive avenger hidden in everyone of us will be reluctant to lay down his arms. Nevertheless, I am confident that in the end we will win this battle, and so, I say, let us start now and never give up until we succeed.

In conclusion, I would like to move an amendment to this resolution, an amendment which would broaden the scope of the committee proceedings. Having said that, of course my colleagues and I intend to unanimously vote against this resolution for the reasons enunciated by my Leader and I, and for the reasons that will certainly be enunciated by other Hon. Members. However, this amendment would at least improve a process which is already very flawed, a process which denies Canadians input into the fundamental question of whether or not we should reinstate capital punishment. I therefore move:
The deletion of all the words after "That" in line 1 up to and including the word "that" in line 2 and the words "on reinstatement" in line 3.
The effect of this amendment would be to ensure that the committee, which may be struck but hopefully will not be struck, would have the opportunity to hear from those Canadians who are profoundly and fundamentally opposed to capital punishment as well as hearing from those Canadians who merely wish to have input into the nature of crimes for which execution may be an option and the type of execution to be used. I fervently hope that this Parliament will reject any suggestion of the establishment of a committee, and that we will vote down capital punishment. If not, at least this would

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broaden the scope of the committee's hearings. It is for that reason that I propose the amendment.
[DOT] (BOO)
Mir. Deputy Speaker: The Chair finds the amendment in order. Questions and comments?


Mr. O'Neil:: Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to hear the Hon. Member outline in very eloquent terms his defence of life and that life is sacred. He invoked the support of the Catholic Church for his position. He also spoke about his desire to put an end to violence against people and his rejection of capital punishment as an act of violence. While listening to him I could not help but be struck by the reality that as we speak hundreds of unborn children in this country are being killed. Those lives, which are also sacred, are being arbitrarily and very violently ended. Unborn children across this country are being suctioned from the womb by women who want to put an end to their pregnancy. Those children are being dismembered. Does the Hon. Member support that destruction of the lives of unborn children? If so, how does he reconcile his support of abortion on demand and the violent execution of 60,000 unborn children in this country every year with his support of the case against the reinstatement of capital punishment?


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, before responding directly to the question of the Hon. Member, might I just say that I am very pleased to note that he has publicly stated his opposition to the reinstatement of the death penalty in Canada. I am very pleased that he has taken that position.
The Hon. Member asked me a question, which I recognize is serious and important, with respect to the value and sanctity of life in our society. He suggests that in some way there may be a contradiction between the position of those of us who support freedom of choice on the question of therapeutic abortion and our position with respect to the abolition of capital punishment. I recognize the point made by the Hon. Member but, with respect, I must say that I do not believe there is any inherent contradiction between the two positions.
I share with the Hon. Member the concern that the number of abortions in Canada must be reduced to the greatest possible extent. We as a society must do everything in our power to reduce the number of abortions in Canada. That means we must take effective measures towards educating our young people on sexuality. We must do what we can towards making birth control available, not just to young people but generally in our society. However, at the end of the day we have to ask ourselves whether it is not the case that the woman bearing the child should not herself have the right to make that very fundamental choice-


Lawrence I. O'Neil: To kill.


Svend Johannes Robinson: -of whether or not her pregnancy should continue. There are many,, many reasons why women have abortions. In some cases the continued pregnancy represents a threat to the health or life of the mother. In other cases,
tragically, the mother simply feels she cannot bear the child because she is in a situation where it is impossible to provide the kind of care, attention and love, and economic support in some cases, that is necessary for the child. Ultimately I believe we as a society should recognize that, having taken all possible steps to reduce the number of abortions in Canada, we must leave the decision to the woman herself.


Mr. St. Germain:: Mr. Speaker, I realize the importance attached to this issue and the emotions that surround it. However, the Hon. Member referred to economic reasons as justification for what in the eyes of many of us is virtually murder. Am I correct in what I heard? Is the Hon. Member basing his decision to eliminate the life of a child in these circumstances on economic reasons?


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, what I am saying is that the tragic reality in Canada today is that there are single parents in our society who are in such a desperate, economic or financial situation that they simply cannot feed their children. That is a tragedy. We know that in British Columbia there are children who go to school without breakfast and who have no lunch. Yes, there are women who, as a result of desperate grinding poverty, say they do not have the resources to bring a child into the world. That is sad. That is a tragedy. We should deal with that by doing whatever we can as a society to improve the situation of those desperate mothers. The reality is that children should be wanted. They should be provided for. By putting women in and tolerating a situation of desperate poverty, we have to recognize that fundamental decision is often and unfortunately made on the basis of the fact that the woman will not be able to provide a secure environment for the child. That is indeed most unfortunate and most tragic.


Mr. Manly:: Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Burnaby pointed out, as other speakers have and will, that capital punishment does not act in any effective way as a deterrent to further murders. Yet I think there is a perception among the general public that it does act as a deterrent. In fact, I think a lot of the support that some people have for capital punishment is based on the fact that they think capital punishment is going to deter future murderers. Could the Member address that fact? How can we give more leadership and get the message across that this is not a deterrent? Is there something more the Government should be doing in this regard?
I noted that the Member read from the speech of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Hnatyshyn) and I appreciated that. However, perhaps the Government could be more high profile on this issue, particularly Members like the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) who is, himself, an opponent of capital punishment. Is there something that he could and should be doing to illustrate to the Canadian people that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent to further murders?


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question of my colleague, the Member for Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands
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(Mr. Manly) because I think it goes to another very important issue, that the vast majority of Canadians who support capital punishment genuinely and deeply believe that it is a deterrent, that it will save lives.
If we can show that the reality is very different, if we can demonstrate to those Canadians who support capital punishment because they believe it will save lives that they are mistaken, I suspect that the proportion of Canadians who would be prepared to sanction killing by the state would drop quite dramatically.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I say that it is incumbent upon those who are in leadership positions in the Government not to abdicate that leadership, not to opt out of the debate, but to speak up, as has the Minister of Justice, to point out that in fact the sole basis for the return of capital punishment in our society is vengeance, that there is no deterrent effect.
I hope that those in the Cabinet in particular who feel strongly on this question and know that even the chiefs of police have abandoned the argument of deterrence will use their positions to demonstrate to Canadians that the restoration of the death penalty will save no lives at all and, indeed, may even result in the taking of more lives because there are those who will use it as a desperate kind of suicide attempt.


Gerry St. Germain: Mr. Speaker, I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to be able to finish my dissertation before the House adjourns for lunch.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent to allow the Member for Mission-Port Moody (Mr. St. Germain) to complete his speech which, of course, would be a maximum of 20 minutes?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Gerry St. Germain: Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House today to take part in what I consider to be a very emotional issue which will go to the heart of each and every Member of this House. At the onset of my delivery I would like to enunciate clearly to all of my hon. colleagues in this House, and all the Canadian people whom we represent, that I know this issue has been debated at length all over the world and that unanimity has never been reached on the subject. However, I do believe that a majority consensus has been arrived at in Canada, and that is that certain selected crimes should be subject to a form of capital punishment.
For a brief moment I would like to address my remarks to my constituents in Mission-Port Moody. In the by-election of 1983, and in the general election of 1984, I clearly stated that should the opportunity present itself I would vote for the reinstatement of capital punishment for specific and selected crimes. Today, through you, Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise my constituents that I have not changed my position on this issue.
In the past four years I have prepared and presented Private Members' Bills on capital punishment for this House and
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Members to consider. I will continue to pursue a direction which I believe will better protect the citizens of this country. As a humble servant of all Canadians, and after having served Canadians as a law enforcement officer, I will attempt today to express my views on this very important topic. My views are not only those of a citizen of our country but, as well, of one who has served in the trenches of law enforcement waging what I believe is an incessant war against crime.
My entire presentation today will be based on what I perceive as logic, not-and I emphasize "not"-on fanaticism, hate or revenge. This issue is merely a question of law and order upheld by a system of justice with the ultimate goal of protecting our citizens from those who would diabolically and deliberately plan the death of another human being. As I have enunciated, the object of this debate is to put all the aspects of this issue before the Canadian people in this forum. I will do my utmost in the next few minutes to point out the rationale of my argument.
I also want to point out that whatever decision this House arrives at I will support unequivocally because, as important as I believe this issue is to Canadians, the fundamental principles of this institution far exceed any one piece of legislation brought before you, Sir, or this House.
On August 26, 1986, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police prepared a position paper on capital punishment and I would like to read a portion of it into the record today. It reads as follows:
The Canadian police community has repeatedly urged the Government of Canada to give consideration to reinstate capital punishment in one form or other, without success. Since the time of de facto abolition in 1962 there has in fact been a doubling in the homicide rate in Canada. At the same time there has been no reduction in the level of public concern about child killers, serial murders and the murder of public servants, and there is increasing concern over the growing population of convicts serving life sentences, leading to more and more acts of violence including murder in our correctional institutions.
At the 1984 conference of the CACP the following resolution was adopted:
Be it resolved that the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police strongly recommends to the Government of Canada to immediately undertake a complete review of this matter; recognizing public opinion and addressing the need to reinstate capital punishment as an option within our criminal justice system.
I do not promote that we listen to only one sector of our society. I repeat, we must not listen to only one sector, but certainly we must heed the opinions of those who deal with the criminal element on a day-to-day basis and who, I believe, know the situation very well. I also know that there are abolitionists among police chiefs and policemen but, as I said, we are not discussing one particular group but rather an issue of conscience, an issue for each individual to deal with.
In my opening remarks I made mention of a war against crime. Let me assure you and this House, Mr. Speaker, that it is truly as stated, a war against crime and criminals. For those of us, like the Member for Bourassa (Mr. Rossi), who have worked the streets of our major cities and have dealt with the illicit drug trade, terrorism, child killers and serial murders, it goes without saying that a war does exist. This war is exemplified by the fact that certain cities now use vehicles similar to

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military tanks to carry out their day-to-day duty of law enforcement.
No, Mr. Speaker, I have not come here today to glamorize the situation, but I must tell you as one who has worked as an undercover police officer in the midst of the illicit drug trade that the value placed on human life by this group of people is negligible or none. The lack of respect for human life is borne out by the statistics of those murdered annually in North America's illicit drug trade.
This is just one area of criminal activity that has no respect at all for human life. Others include loan sharking, prostitution, gambling, extortion, kidnapping and, the worst, terrorism.
When I refer to war, I am certain that if a foreign power were to jeopardize the lives of our citizens we would not hesitate to implement capital punishment against the invaders as we protect our citizens. What is the difference between a foreign invader or a criminal invader within our own society?
I believe that we, as legislators and leaders, have a responsibility to protect our citizens from those who would seek to destroy life. Capital punishment is a necessary part of this protection, based on the ultimate action taken by the enemy. In this case, the enemy is obviously those who deliberately plan and kill innocent members of our society, including our friends and sometimes our families.
It is with the utmost respect that I say to the legal profession and the judiciary of this land that until one has been exposed to the arena of war on crime in the streets of the cities of this nation, one cannot truly evaluate the severity of the situation. One cannot truly understand the criminal mind from reading a police report, or hearing witnesses, regardless of how articulately they may be presented not until one is on the front lines and sees these individuals in action. No written words or statements after the fact can truly describe what is being dealt with.
Some say that in the minds of the law enforcement agencies capital punishment is a question of revenge as they seek to get even. I can say unequivocally that this is the furthest from the minds of police officers and correctional officers. Like other members in society, they only seek to improve their profession and work toward a society that is free of crime and violence. I believe, as the majority of Canadians believe, that we are bound to protect the essence of law and order in our Canadian cities if they are to remain safe 24 hours a day.
No person or group seeks revenge during a time of war. The only true objective is peace and safety. War criminals are not extradited for the sake of revenge but to remove those from society who deliberately plan the removal of human life and refuse to live within the normal bounds that society has established. In most instances, we do not hear the abolitionists question the handling of war criminals. Consistency must prevail.
The aspect of capital punishment as a deterrent has been much discussed. Is capital punishment a deterrent to premeditated murder? I believe that we are dealing with a question of justice, not utility. I also believe that the deterrent factor is very selective and marginal at best.
As a learned judge once wrote, "The death penalty is a warning just like a lighthouse throwing its beam out to sea. We hear about ship wrecks but we do not hear about the ships that the lighthouse guides safely on their way. We do not have proof of the number of ships it saves but we do not tear the lighthouse down".
I believe that deterrence is a factor. But the position we must take when dealing with certain crimes is that they are so terrible, so abominable, so outrageous to the public that only the ultimate penalty indicates clearly to those perpetrators that society will stand up and defend itself against these types of acts.
We must be very careful in the selection of which crimes are to be punishable by death. Even then, we should only turn to capital punishment as a court of last resort. On behalf of those who are retentionists, I am certain I can safely say that if an alternative method of dealing with these heinous crimes was to present itself and provide the protection sought by us, we would accept an option without question.
I want to briefly address the question of public opinion. We know that polls and other methods of measuring public opinion clearly indicate that in excess of 70 per cent of Canadians seek the reinstatement of capital punishment for selected acts of criminal murder.
I know that there are the psuedo-intellectuals of our Canadian society, as in all societies, who feel that the Canadian population is uninformed, basically in the stone age in their thinking. With all due respect to this so-called elitist group, they have lost sight of what is basic to our Christian Judean philosophy of life. They have become, in most cases, sectarian humanists who feel that all rules, regulations and laws, regardless of how permissive they are, must not infringe on the rights of the individual even when it comes to upholding civil obedience in our society. The fact that everyone is doing something does not make it right. They, like the previous Government from 1968 to 1984, would allow minorities to impose their will on the majority. This is not what Canadians want. They want traditional values based on the sound Christian Judean philosophy to run this country.
Canadians want both leadership and laws from the House of Commons that will not force them to form vigilante groups, or to arm themselves in their homes and businesses in order to fight off the wave of violence and crime that is gripping our society. I can refer to the incidents in Calgary, Montreal and Ontario where people have felt the necessity to arm and defend themselves as a result of the actions taken by the criminal element. We must deal with this question definitively and immediately.
April 28, 1987

We hear many statistics regarding homicides, murder rates, and infanticide rates. I say to all Canadians that statistics are general numbers. In many cases they are developed to uphold specific arguments on issues and are normally developed to the advantage of the side presenting the argument. 1 believe that the only statistic that is valid is the one that the homicide rate has doubled from 1962 to 1983. Certainly, populations have increased, but this is no reason to accept an increase in the rate of crime and violence as an integral part of our society. We are an advanced society and are supposed to be making progress and improving in this area.
However, I must point out to the House that if one looks at major U.S. cities there is a very thin line where cities lose their level of safety, and where the people can safely walk the streets after dark. It is incumbent upon us as legislators to be as stringent as we prudently can be, as populations increase, because the ability to supervise and police effectively decreases in direct proportion to population increases.
There are many reasons for this situation, but the main one is that law enforcement agencies and their agents have reduced personal contact and, therefore, cannot maintain the same level of control over the criminal element.
I could read into the record a multitude of statistics, but the real issue here is law and order with a well administered justice system that does not categorize or place special emphasis on the life of a police officer or prison guard, but recognizes that all lives have the same level of importance and value. If we look at the heinous serial murders and mass murders, we will see that these deliberate and vicious acts are mostly against young children, women and the poor in our society. These are the people whom we seek to protect.
In recent debates we, as a Government, have been chastised for the timing of this issue. Statements have been made that we are using it for political expedience. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) stated in 1984 that a free vote would take place on the issue of capital punishment. Here we are dealing with this issue, as promised. It was a promise made and another promise kept.
I would like to make reference to the motion put forward by the Government, and speak to the role of the special committee that will be struck should the initial vote in this House carry in favour of the reinstatement of capital punishment.
Some of the abolitionists have tried to portray all of us who favour the return of capital punishment as terrorists, vengeful, vindictive, sadistic, medieval types who would burn at the stake or boil in oil all persons for virtually any crime against people. Well, sir, here again they paint a false picture because I am a retentionist and I believe, as boost Canadians, that we would sooner let hundreds or thousands go free than make one error in charging, prosecuting and penalizing an individual falsely.
I also feel that we must be very selective in determining which offences warrant capital punishment. The committee, I hope, will recommend check systems in the process which will make it impossible for us to commit an error in this very crucial and final process.
In closing, I would like to take this opportunity to once again emphasize that we are dealing here with a vote of conscience. During the opening day's debate, however, I could not help noticing that many people fail to recognize that this is the only route to take. When dealing with issues such as this, it is important that they not be dealt with on the basis of who is on the right and who is on the left. Rather we must deal with what is right and what is wrong.
As legislators I believe we have a responsibility to protect members of our society. In light of this, I must vote for the reinstatement of capital punishment. None the less, this is a very emotional issue. I understand that other people in this House have different opinions. It is my hope that this debate will allow Members of the House to present their views in a civil manner without bringing disgrace to this institution. It is important that all sides of this issue be presented to the Canadian people fairly, openly and honestly. I believe that when all the facts have been presented, it will be obvious that the reinstatement of capital punishment is necessary for the maintenance of law, order and safety within our Canadian society. I thank all Hon. Members for listening so attentively to my presentation.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I see an Hon. Member rising. Is it the wish of the House to proceed to the period for questions and comments immediately?


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I would prefer to proceed to questions and comments after Question Period if this could be possible.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It being 1.33 p.m., I do now leave the Chair until 2 p.m. this day.
At 1.33 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mrs. Lucie Pepin (Outremont):: Mr. Speaker, last week, news of the death of our great film maker, Claude Jutra, saddened all those who were familiar with his work.
Born in 1930, Claude Jutra belonged to a new generation of Canadian film makers which conquered the hearts and minds

April 28, 1987
of film enthusiasts and the general public in Quebec, Canada and throughout the world.
With his singularly acute vision of society, Claude Jutra, while exploring a complex, sometimes comical, sometimes tragic world, was able to preserve something of the innocence of childhood. Influenced by his medical training, a great film technician, scenario writer, actor, and above all director, Claude Jutra made a major contribution to the burgeoning Quebec and Canadian film industry. His work sprang from a fertile social and artistic environment and reflects the Quebec of his youth and his mature years.
His many short and full-length films bear witness to his great talent. They also reflect the inspiration provided by his origins and the French Canadian and Quebec environment. I am thinking of works as varied in substance and form as 11 etait une chaise, an experimental film produced with Norman McLaren; A tout prendre, a very "nouvelle vague" film; Kamouraska and Mon oncle Antoine, firmly rooted in Quebec, and one of his latest films, La dame en couleurs, which takes us back to the world of childhood.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to join all Canadians in paying a last tribute to Claude Jutra, whose death has meant a great loss to Quebec cinema.


FISHERIES
James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, today we recognize the pain, suffering and loss of life and health on the part of Canadian men and women in the workplace.
Nowhere is this greater than in the fishing industry. It becomes almost routine to read news items, as we did this last weekend, about fishing boats that have been lost at sea, with all hands lost.
The Gray Report on Occupational Health and Safety in the B.C. Fishing Industry points to three basic requirements for an occupational safety and health program: (1) a trained and knowledgeable workforce; (2) safe plant and equipment; and (3) understandable regulations, with a means of enforcement.
The Gray report notes problems in all three areas and recommends mandatory training and certification of fishermen, mandatory inspection of all fishing vessels, and the development of appropriate safety regulations.
I call upon the Government to act now, before more lives are lost, to implement the recommendations of the Gray report, so as to ensure the best possible fishing vessel safety program is implemented.


DISCUSSIONS ON TRADE BETWEEN CANADA AND JAPAN
Mr. Patrick Crofton (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Government's concentrated efforts to expand our foreign trade markets continue to bear fruit.
This past Sunday an important three-day meeting in Japan concluded, a meeting which achieved positive results for Canada.
The Minister of International Trade (Miss Carney) met with a number of key individuals in Kashikojima on the important issues of lumber and coal sales to Japan, as well as the serious matter of foreign agricultural subsidies, something which currently bedevils our own agricultural industry.
Japan is giving serious consideration to amending its building codes to permit and promote the use of Canadian lumber in multi-storey housing construction. Such a code change would greatly enhance the potential for our lumber sales to Japan.
The Department of International Trade, under the energetic and able leadership of the Minister, continues to make great progress in promoting the diversification of our foreign trade, a trade which is essential to our national economic well-being.
While some in this House like to criticize foreign visits, they do so through ignorance and/or perceived partisan gain.
Our trade representatives, rather than staying home for the Easter vacation, were abroad on the nation's business, highly important business, and deserve our commendation for the results of their labours.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


ATLANTIC ENTERPRISE PROGRAM
Mr. George Henderson (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, the citizens of Prince Edward Island, and especially those of Prince County, are outraged by the federal Government's refusal to assist the greenhouse proposal made by Calagro Corporation.
Calagro Corporation had applied for interest rate buydowns and loan guarantees under the Atlantic Enterprise Program.
When the Government unveiled this program in February of 1986, it spoke of job creation. The Calagro project would have employed about 300 people during the construction period, and the plant would have required an operational staff of 150. In addition, the spin-off benefits for the local economy would have created more jobs.
April 28, 1987

The unemployment rate in Prince Edward Island is higher now than during the recession years. These jobs are badly needed, especially in the western part of Prince Edward Island.
We all remember the slogan: "Jobs, jobs, jobs"; but that has become another empty promise for Atlantic Canadians.
The federal Government's rejection of this proposal is a slap in the face, and it is one which will not be forgotten. The lack of support of both the provincial and federal Progressive Conservatives will be remembered.
This, Mr. Speaker, is not an empty promise.


THE LATE MASUMI MITSUI
Mr. Alan Redway (York East):: Mr. Speaker, recently we celebrated the seventieth anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. This past weekend a veteran of that battle passed away. His name was Masumi Mitsui, and he was a Japanese Canadian.
Masumi Mitsui was born in Japan, coming to Canada in 1908. He enlisted in the Canadian Army and was promoted to sergeant. He was wounded in action and awarded the Military Medal for Bravery.
He was one of 184 Japanese Canadians who served with our forces during World War I; 53 were killed and 91 were wounded.
In 1942, although he was a past-president of a branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, and although he had offered to serve again in the Canadian Forces after we declared war on Japan, Masumi Mitsui was forcibly taken from his farm and interned along with 22,000 other Japanese Canadians.
Since the end of World War II Masumi Mitsui had been working for the cause of Japanese Canadian redress. Now he is gone. How much longer will it take?


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Jean-Claude Malepart (Montreal-Sainte-Marie):: Mr. Speaker, last week, the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Bouchard) said on one of our radio stations it was the Opposition's fault that passage of legislation to provide refunds for early retirees was being delayed. Mr. Speaker, I have to say that this statement is as false as the image projected by the Conservatives. I suggest that the Conservative
Government split the Bill and call second reading of the Bill as far as the refund for 35,000 early retirees is concerned. The Liberal Party promises to facilitate same-day passage of second reading, report stage, third reading and royal assent, and we will even help the Government deliver unemployment insurance benefit cheques to the 35,000 early retirees, 13,000 of whom live in Quebec.


TAX REFORM
Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, the people of Canada are very concerned about where the Government is going on tax reform, particularly those living on low and modest incomes.
A letter from one Canadian in British Columbia said it well, and I quote:
I know we're all responsible for helping to reduce Canada's debt but it seems a
low wage earner is more responsible than a high wage earner.
To illustrate, he pointed out that his bi-weekly paycheque of some $250 had tax deductions which almost doubled from $4.90 in 1985 to $8.90 in 1986. In contrast, someone making a bi-weekly wage of $1,700 saw deductions for taxes increase by only $11.90 to $497.45.
I might remind the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) that on December 19, 1984, he said the following:
We've made it quite clear we want to shift some resources from the upper
income brackets, from the wealthier people in this country to the needy in this
country, using the tax system.
My question to the Finance Minister is: When?


VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS
Mrs. Lise Bourgault (Argenteuil-Papineau):: Mr. Speaker, recognition for the importance of voluntary organizations is increasing in our society. It is estimated that Canadian men and women spend about 395 million hours annually on volunteer work in hospitals, with young people and the elderly, and on recreational organizations, to name just a few.
What would our society be without the contributions of these volunteers? Just think of all the expertise and competence that daily supports the work of hundreds of employees in the public, para-public and private sector. Mr. Speaker, in the past two years I have made several proposals for creating a special committee that would consider ways of providing more

April 28, 1987
adequate support for volunteer work in Canada. Recognition is not just setting aside one week a year. It also means providing material, physical and financial support, 12 months out of 12, to maintain our voluntary organizations.
Mr. Speaker, in concluding, I want to salute all volunteer workers during this special week, and I would urge all Canadians to show their appreciation.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, thanks to the progressive market oriented and financially sound policies of the Conservative Government, Canada's economy continues to forge ahead toward new record levels.
Latest Statistics Canada figures indicate a solid growth rate of 4 per cent for the first quarter. Leading the rebound have been the housing and auto industries. First quarter results show annualized housing starts at 237,000, up 11 per cent from the last quarter of 1986.
Employment grew at an annual rate of 3.2 per cent between January and March, and between September and March alone nearly 200,000 full-time jobs have been created.
These impressive figures demonstrate what can happen when Canadians roll up their sleeves and start working in concert with a Government which is truly deserving of their well placed confidence.


WINTER OLYMPICS
Hon. William Rompkey (Grand Falls-White Bay- Labrador):: Mr. Speaker, the people of Labrador are not being allowed to participate in the Olympic Torch Relay which is to begin the trek to Calgary this fall starting in St. John's. This is a disgraceful situation.
The torch will be carried all across the country and to other distant and northerly points including Whitehorse, Inuvik, and Yellowknife. Yet the Olympic torch relay will not even come close to Labrador, a very important and large part of the Province of Newfoundland, a land mass of 259,000 square kilometres and occupied by over 30,000 people. It is my belief that the people of Labrador should have a part in this and that
the torch should begin its journey in Labrador. How otherwise can it be called a national event?
The Government of Canada must step in and ensure that plans for the Olympic Torch Relay are revised to include Labrador and that Labradorians must be allowed to "Share the Flame".


WORKERS' DAY OF MOURNING
Mr. Bill Tupper (Nepean-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, April 28 has been declared an annual day of mourning in recognition of the many Canadian workers who have been killed or disabled in industrial related accidents.
I had the privilege two years ago to be present in Sudbury with my colleague, the Hon. Member for Lachine (Mr. Layton), at an early workers' memorial service in memory of miners who lost their lives as a result of a rockburst underground at the Falconbridge mine.
April 28 is a significant date because on that date in 1914 the first worker safety legislation in Canada was enacted by the Province of Ontario.
Earlier today a monument to commemorate workers was unveiled at Vincent Massey Park in Ottawa near the site of one of Canada's worst industrial accidents, the collapse of the Heron Road Bridge in 1966.
Our industrial and construction workers have and will continue to play an essential role in the growth and development of Canada. I ask all my colleagues and all Canadians to join today in recognizing their contribution.


TAX REFORM
Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, I wish to quote from another letter about our tax system. This time it is from a concerned citizen in Ottawa:
Thanks to our equitable tax system, out of a salary of $14,946.61, $2,358.40 is taken for tax, while those persons making far in excess of this amount pay no, or very little tax due to their fortunate position of having numerous tax writeoffs.
Due to a physical handicap (cerebral palsy) shoes alone cost me in excess of $700 per year which cannot be claimed.
I found living in a five foot by 8 foot room detrimental to my mental health and so have moved to a one bedroom apartment, cost $550 per month.
ParaTranspo costs in excess of $500 per year (Thank God there is such a thing).
As can be seen, there is not much chance of me being able to save for a time which in future may possibly see me in total physical handicapped situation ...
April 28, 1987

I do feel our tax system is unfairly balanced to those in upper income levels. So
much for tax reform!


PHARMACEUTICAL PRODUCTS
Mr. Gilles Bernier (Beauce):: Mr. Speaker, it has become imperative that Bill C-22, the drug patent legislation, be passed without further delay.
Spokesmen for Quebec's Federation de I'age d'or have stated: "We are convinced that this amendment to the Patent Act is essential to promote research and discover new drugs to treat such diseases as cancer, Alzheimer's, AIDS and other cardiovascular conditions".
Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa said-listen to this, Mr. Speaker, and Members of the Opposition in particular should pay attention: "Montreal Mayor Dore and I have expressed our agreement to allow and encourage the federal Government to have its patent legislation passed because we know that this measure will pave the way for much larger research investments in Canada, particularly in Quebec".
The Montreal Board of Trade put it this way: "The greater Montreal region alone is expected to benefit from new investments exceeding $500 million, and this would create 750 jobs". New jobs, I might add.
We have the strong support of the Montreal Chamber of Commerce.
Quebec Industry and Commerce Minister Daniel Johnson wrote: "As we wait for this strategic and important decision for the industrial future of Quebec and Canada, you can count on my full co-operation".
Mr. Speaker, such testimony speaks much louder than the twisted positions taken by the NDP and Opposition Leader Turner.
Bill C-22 will free hundreds of millions of private investment dollars in Canada and create the kind of jobs our young graduates are anxious to have.


PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to inform the House and particularly
government Members that American legislators have started a Congressional investigation into the American drug industry, and Canada's current system is being held up as a model for the United States to follow.
In testimony before a Congressional hearing, the American Association of Retired Persons praised the Canadian system as: "an appropriate market-oriented model for moderating the trend in escalating prescription-drug prices".
This is just one more opinion in the growing list of people and organizations heaping praise on the current drug-pricing system in Canada, a system that was put in place by a Liberal Government under the leadership of the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner).
It is about time that the Government and the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Andre) acknowledged that the vast majority of Canadians do not support Bill C-22 and the changes to the Patent Act. Come election time, Canadians will remember who used closure to force this Bill through Parliament. They will remember who prevented witnesses from appearing before the committee. Most important, they will remember who raised prices for drugs by millions of dollars each and every year.


ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY OPENING OF SHIPPING SEASON
Joseph Lloyd Reid: Mr. Speaker, the St. Lawrence Seaway is now open for its 29th season. The great inland transportation system has had its share of troubles in past years but 1986 saw a trouble-free season with total tonnage up slightly over that of 1985. For our part, the federal Government has committed $175 million over the next seven years to prevent any further surprise mishaps.
The United States-Canada trade mission to Europe promoting the expanded use of the Seaway was described as being a big success. If the shippers, the carriers, and the seamen who man the ships will do their part by keeping the traffic moving through the season, the tonnage of movement through the Seaway should increase by some 3 to 5 per cent, and why not? The Seaway is already the most reliable, cost-efficient means of transporting bulk cargo goods of the world to the very heart of the North American continent, and vice versa.


CANADA POST CORPORATION
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, recently the editor of the Canada Lutheran, a

April 28, 1987
Oral Questions
religious publication, received the following letter from the Chairman of Canada Post concerning its second-class mailing privileges:
Upon a careful reading of the publication you have submitted in your application, I am unable to conclude that the content of Canada Lutheran is "devoted primarily" to one or more of the subjects enumerated in paragraph (b). Therefore I must conclude that your publication is best described by paragraph (a). As such, the exception provided by paragraph (i) is unavailable to you and your application is subject to the provisions of paragraph (h).
Your application fails because paragraph (h) takes away second class entitlement from any publication described in paragraph (a), if it is published by someone whose principal business is other than publishing and it is published for the purpose of advancing the publisher's principal business. When interpreting paragraph (h), it is important to note that the term "business" does not have a strictly commercial connotation. In the context of the Regulations, it is to be interpreted as the principal activity or purpose of the entity in question.
That clears it all up.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian grain economy is collapsing. Farm families are breaking up under the stress and strain of that pressure. Farm groups tell us that the situation is as bad as it was during the Great Depression. Yet this is the time chosen by the Government of Canada to start foreclosing on farms, kicking farmers off the land and kicking farmers when they are down.
Will the Prime Minister immediately reverse yesterday's mean-spirited decision by the Minister of Agriculture to start foreclosing on Canadian farms?


Hon. Charles Mayer (Minister of State (Canadian Wheat Board)):: Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt, and we on this side realize it, that it is a serious matter for Canadian agriculture. The federal Government has taken many initiatives to address that problem but let me try to put into perspective, if I can, the situation with the Farm Credit Corporation.
There are approximately 225,000 commercial farms in Canada. The announcement of the lifting of the foreclosure moratorium will affect approximately 50 farmers per month. By the way, those farmers have the option of having their cases referred to farm debt review boards or other programs this Government has initiated. So that a year from now, if the process goes ahead as planned, it will affect at the maximum about one-quarter of 1 per cent of all commercial farms in Canada.
In the meantime the federal Government is providing substantial financial assistance to farmers to see them through this very, very difficult time in the international grain markets.


GOVERNMENT ASKED TO GUARANTEE FARMERS DECENT STANDARD OF LIFE AND JUST PRICES FOR GRAIN CROPS
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, last week the Government reduced the preliminary price for grain by 18 per cent. This week, it has started turning farmers off their farms. These measures are stupid and unfair and are destroying a whole way of life on the family farm. When will the Prime Minister guarantee our farmers a decent standard of living and a fair price for their produce, especially for grain?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, as I said, I hope the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition will put it in perspective and consider the facts. I say again that one year from now the lifting of the moratorium will affect at a maximum one-quarter of 1 per cent of all commercial farms.
The Hon. Member talks about stupid and unfair. One of the reasons we are in this situation is because of the stupid, ignorant and unfair policies of the previous Government-


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles James Mayer: -in bringing in a high interest rate policy which put farmers in the position they're in today.


GOVERNMENT POLICY
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, after all those Tory promises why do it now? Why kick the farmer when he is down? Why reduce grain prices? Why start foreclosing on farms? Why now, and why all at the same time?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, we recognize this is a serious matter. The Minister of Agriculture has put in place several options farmers can consider. One of them is the farm debt review boards. Another one is the Canadian Rural Transition Program. The FCC has initiated two other interest rate programs which reduce interest rates for farmers. All of this is an attempt to deal with this very difficult situation. All of those programs are up and operating. They will be of use to farmers in this very difficult time.
Might I say that we are taking an entirely different approach under the leadership of the Prime Minister by trying to solve the problem internationally? That is in great contrast to a previous Prime Minister who came to western Canada and told us to sell our own wheat.
April 28, 1987


FARM FORECLOSURES-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. He started his own form of capital punishment for farmers yesterday when he announced he will start foreclosing on tens of thousands of farmers this Friday.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Maurice Brydon Foster: Can the Minister tell us why he is starting these foreclosures now? This is being done just one week after he reduced grain prices by 18 per cent. It is being done after he and the Minister of Agriculture refused a deficiency payment for the coming crop year. Farmers are going to the bank to get money to put in a crop. Why is he starting the foreclosure action this Friday? Is it going to be known as Black Friday from now on?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate it if the Hon. Member, who has been a distinguished Member of this House for a long time, would at least get his facts correct. We are not starting foreclosure on tens of thousands of farmers. The process will involve at the most approximately 50 per month. If he does the arithmetic, that amounts to about 600 per year. We are not involved in any way in the kind of thing the Hon. Member suggests.
Let me say again that anyone affected will have the option of having their case reviewed by the farm debt review boards which have been in operation since last August. They will be of great use to many of the farmers who are going to be affected.


NUMBER OF LOANS IN ARREARS-REQUEST FOR RESCHEDULING
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I would just remind the Hon. Minister that when he talks about 600 farmers he knows he is just kidding everybody. There are 6,000 FCC loans which are more than two years in arrears. When they are more than two years in arrears the history has been that they never recover. Altogether there are 16,000 FCC loans which are in arrears.
Before the Minister puts this program into effect this Friday to start thousands of foreclosures, will he put in place a major new system to reschedule debt? Does the Minister not have any compassion? Does he not have any heart? Does he not know what is going on out there?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member distorts things wildly out of proportion. He knows very well that the total number of Farm Credit Corporation clients is approximately 76,000. Therefore, for him to suggest that there are 60,000 in arrears is absolutely-
Oral Questions


Maurice Brydon Foster: Six thousand.


Charles James Mayer: I am sorry, the figure I heard him use was 60,000.
However, he should know that the approximate number of farmers who will be affected, regardless of all the numbers he wants to throw around the House, will be in the neighbourhood of 50 per month.


Mr. Blackburn (Brant):: How would you like to be one of the
50?


Charles James Mayer: That means that a year from now the action which was announced by the Minister of Agriculture will affect approximately one quarter of 1 per cent of all the commercial farms in Canada.
In the meantime we are providing a substantial amount of financial support. For instance, to repeat, there will be approximately $1.3 billion of federal tax money going into the western grain economy in the next five weeks. In my opinion that does not indicate a Government which is unconcerned and shows lack of compassion for the farm community. It indicates exactly the opposite and most farmers realize that.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


REQUEST THAT GOVERNMENT DECISION BE CHANGED
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. He knows that the figure to which the Minister has just alluded is to pay farmers for last year's crop. He knows that his Government has made no commitment to bringing in special assistance for farmers who are now putting this year's crop in the ground.
His decision to go ahead with foreclosures on Friday will mean that some 600 farms are immediately in danger. Since 25 per cent of Canadian farmers are on the verge of bankruptcy, will the Prime Minister intervene directly, change the Government's decision, and put an end to this policy which the Government wants to inflict upon Canadian farmers on Friday?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Leader of the New Democratic Party says farmers need cash for seeding now. That is exactly what we are doing. We are providing cash for them now.


John Edward Broadbent: That's not what I said.


Charles James Mayer: Well, the Hon. Member now wants to take it back. I wish he would know what he wants to ask when he phrases his question.
However, I will repeat that there is a substantial amount of money going into the pockets of western Canadian farmers right now at a critical time of the year, which is exactly the

April 28, 1987
Oral Questions
point he makes in his question. There is $1.3 billion of cash going into the pockets of western Canadian farmers right now at seeding time which is a critical time of the year. Farmers need cash for seeding right now and that is what we are supplying.


REQUEST FOR GUARANTEED RETURN FOR GRAIN FARMERS
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I will repeat carefully and slowly what I said so that the Minister can hear it. The Minister tends to answer questions in a straightforward way. He knows that the money which has been committed is for last year's crop, not for the crop which is now being put in the ground.
Will the Minister now guarantee grain producers who are planting this year's crop that their final return on this year's crop will not be one cent lower than the return they received last year which has already dropped by some 18 per cent?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I farm and speak from first-hand experience. When farmers seed their crops in the spring they usually do it out of revenues derived from last year's sales. That is exactly what is happening. Farmers are selling record quantities to the Canadian Wheat Board which is doing a very good job of marketing. The federal Government is providing a record amount of cash. With those two factors combined farmers are equalling and probably surpassing the income they received from the previous crop.
We are performing in exactly the way farmers would expect, based on the kind of marketing they are undergoing and the normal amounts of cash they would receive from such marketing. Therefore, I do not understand what the Hon. Member is talking about. If he knew something about farming, as I do, he would not phrase his question in that fashion.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


REQUEST FOR INCOME GUARANTEE
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I want to turn to the other well known farmer in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister, who did not hesitate to answer questions on this important matter when the Saskatchewan election was taking place. Will he guarantee to Canadian farmers who are putting the crop in the ground now that the money they get from that crop will not be one penny lower in terms of their final income than they got from last year's crop? Will he give that guarantee now when an election is not taking place in Saskatchewan but when there is a real crisis in western Canada?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I will acknowledge that I am not an expert in farming. I just sound like one when compared with the Leader of the NDP. The Leader of the NDP was doing well until he had Shirley Temple sitting next to him.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Martin Brian Mulroney: The very serious question by my hon. friend was given a very serious answer by the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board who is not only an experienced public official but an experienced farmer, with vast amounts of knowledge. He has been working very closely with farm organizations and individual farmers to maintain the record of this Government's commitment to agriculture nationally and western agriculture in a special way because of commodity difficulties it is undergoing.
May I say to my hon. friend that an important part of the resolution to the problem is on the international level where, in Tokyo last year, the Secretary of State for External Affairs and I raised agriculture and the implications of commodity prices for the first time at the summit-


John Edward Broadbent: It really did a lot of good, didn't it?


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: They are joking about this.


Martin Brian Mulroney: It is now at the GATT for the first time. I will acknowledge that there have been no overnight miracles, but there has been solid progress on a number of fronts and farmers recognize that.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


CANCELLATION OF FORECLOSURE MORATORIUM-ROLE OF CHARTERED BANKS
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg-Fort Garry):: Mr. Speaker, perhaps we can get back to the serious issue facing the House today, which is the Government's announcement that it was cancelling its moratorium.
My question is directed to the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board. He is fully aware that one of the most dangerous aspects of that announcement is the signal it will send to the chartered banks which hold over $8 billion of farm debt at the present time, that it is now open season on farmers to foreclose their mortgages.
Does the Minister or do his colleagues intend to call a meeting of the chartered banks of Canada to make it very clear that this disgraceful act by his Government should not be taken as a signal that they can start their own foreclosure actions and therefore precipitate an even broader and deeper crisis than now exists?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, let me try again to put it into some perspective. That is not what will happen. No one wants to see that happen because it is not in the best interests of farmers, banks, Governments or anyone else.
The Farm Credit Corporation will be looking at approximately 50 clients per month, which, on an annualized basis, is approximately one-quarter of 1 per cent of all commercial farms in the country. If it was believed for one minute that
April 28, 1987

what the Hon. member suggested could possibly happen, that action would certainly not have been taken.
We have been in contact with the banks to have an understanding with them of how they intend to proceed. Let me assure the Hon. Member that what he suggests will not happen.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, the Minister knows from the testimony of the FCC itself before the Agriculture Committee that over 16,000 farmers are now in arrears on the credit lines of the corporation itself. Six thousand of them have been in that situation for over two years. The conclusion is that they have a dangerous potential for bankruptcy.
The fall in farm prices and the lack of a deficiency payment precipitate even a further pressure on those farmers. Why will the Government not include the banks, which share the responsibility along with the Government and farm organizations, to work out a debt restructuring system to ensure that there will be no further attempts by the banks to foreclose, and to ensure that farmers can go ahead in the expectation that they can get loans and credit this year in order to put seed in the ground? Why does the Government not show some leadership in this issue?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the Hon. Member has been for the last two and one-half years of the Government. If he had been paying attention to what has been happening in the House he would have been here when we passed the Farm Debt Review Board legislation. Those boards have been in operation since last August and have gained some experience in how to deal with some of these situations. That which he suggests in his question is exactly what is happening through the Farm Debt Review Board appeal process. Those boards will be looking at every case, as the farmer so chooses, that the Farm Credit Corporation processes so that people have the option of dealing with the Farm Debt Review Board that has been in operation for some eight or nine months and gained some experience in how to deal with these situations.
The process that is under way is exactly as he suggests in his question. We have been doing our job in showing some leadership. If the Hon. Member had only paid attention he would know what was happening.


REQUEST FOR GOVERNMENT ASSURANCE ON FARMERS' INCOME
Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board. The Minister knows that the billion dollars promised last year and is still coming was for last year's crop. He also knows that $705 million that is coming in for western grain stabilization is a deficit on last year's crop. Most of that money is not going to the pockets of the farmers but directly to
Oral Questions
the banks. The Minister knows that businessmen depend on the farm. The farmers need some assurance for the fall that they will get money back. Can the Minister give us that assurance? Will the Government give us that assurance now?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I can give the Hon. Member assurance on two matters. We will fully support the Canadian Wheat Board in selling the record crop that we produced during the 1986 growing season.
I can also assure the Hon. Member that the federal Government will, in all likelihood, see that there will be a record payout under the Western Grain Stabilization Act this fall. That money will come entirely from taxpayers' money because the Hon. Member knows that the fund is in deficit.
The Wheat Board will continue to sell and farmers will be able to market a record amount of grain. Second, there will be a record final payment under the Western Grain Stabilization Act this fall.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: The record amount of grain does not help us very much with the price at which the Wheat Board is selling it. That is the real problem.


SITUATION OF FARMERS-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, the suggestion that the Farm Credit Corporation will begin to foreclose adds to that situation because it not only affects the farmers but all the rural businessmen who depend on the farmers. Will the Government give us the assurance that it will allow for that kind of money?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, since this Government came to power we increased agricultural spending substantially, over 60 per cent in the first two years of this Government as compared to the previous two years of the last Government.
Second, we estimate that we will increase the amount of spending on agriculture in western Canada by 50 per cent in the present year. We have supported agriculture in the past, we are supporting it now, and we will be there to support agriculture in the future.


PROPOSED PURCHASE OF DOME PETROLEUM BY AMOCO
Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Right Hon. Prime Minister. Yesterday, Mr. Bruce Smart, the American Undersecretary of Commerce, said that if Investment Canada turned down Amoco's bid to purchase Dome Petroleum then Investment Canada would have to be negotiated away in the free

April 28, 1987
Oral Questions
trade negotiations. Is the Government losing control of our energy industry because the Prime Minister does not want to risk offending the American Government?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I grew up in and represent the Province of Alberta. I know that when the Government of Canada and this country began to lose control of and hope in our energy industry was when the Liberal Party, of which the Hon. Member was a supporter, brought in the National Energy Program which devastated western Canada and which set in place the circumstances that brought Dome to its present situation.
I also know that there is no relation between the question of Dome and its possible acquisition and the trade negotiations.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: With this Government, the Canadian people have given up practically all hope at all.


GOVERNMENT POLICY
Russell Gregoire MacLellan: What I want to know is why the Government remains quiet while the Americans tell us not to use our laws while the free trade negotiations are undertaken? They did not hesitate to use their laws and impose tariffs on softwood lumber.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, if one wants to get into an argument about which Government has used which powers, let me say that there has also been the use by Canada of Canadian legislation with respect to the corn countervail. There has been action by the United States on a wide range of Canadian commodities. Surely the point is to arrange a situation where, instead of having conflicts over corn, over softwood and over these matters which are costing Canadians jobs, we should instead put in place-


Some Hon. Members:: Sell them out.


Lloyd Axworthy: "Sell them out Joe", we call him.


Charles Joseph Clark: -a new trading arrangement.


CANADIAN OWNERSHIP OF OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY
Mr. Ian Waddell (Vancouver-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, I want to direct my question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources on the same subject but a different line.


John Napier Turner: You just pulled your line in, John.


Mr. Crosbie:: The line is in the streets.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: We know from the Government's own records-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An Hon. Member:: Order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: I think I mentioned yesterday to Hon. Members that, when we have these delays, the Question Period is a little longer than it would be otherwise.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: We know from the Government's own records that foreign oil companies have not served Canada's energy interests as well as Canadian oil companies. For example, in the first six months of 1986, Canadian companies with 48 per cent of the upstream oil and gas revenues made 58 per cent of the capital expenditures, whereas foreign controlled companies with 52 per cent of the revenues-


John Carnell Crosbie: Question.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: -made only 42 per cent of the expenditures. Does the Minister agree that there are clear benefits to Canadian ownership in the oil and gas industry? And if he does, why the hands off attitude to the Dome-Amoco deal? Is it really because Mr. Bruce Smart is calling the shots for Canada?


Hon. Marcel Masse (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, we can always find statistics that say what we want them to say. Yesterday, I showed the Leader of the New Democratic Party figures on investment in research and development-I did not really want to release them, but you are forcing my hand-that show that the two largest Canadian companies, Petro-Canada and Nova, have a percentage far lower than Esso, Shell and several other multinationals, so that depending on the point of comparison we want to establish in a given sector, we can always prove what we want to prove, while the important thing is not proof but reality. The reality is that, as far as Dome is concerned, we have a corporation from outside Canada which Dome regards favourably, and that the Canadian Government has all the instruments it needs to ensure that the interests of Canada will be protected, and that is what we are going to do.


REQUEST THAT TWO OFFERS FOR DOME PETROLEUM BE MADE PUBLIC
Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary. The other day, Mr. Maier, President of TransCanada Pipeline, said there was no difference between the offer made by Amoco and the offer made by Trans-Canada Pipeline. Why doesn't the Government disclose the two offers so that the Canadian public can see whether or not there is a difference?


Marcel Masse: For a very simple reason, Mr. Speaker. We are not the ones who put Dome on sale. Dome is owned by Dome. It is as simple as that. The Government has not received any offer and it should not receive any offer. It is up to Dome to
April 28, 1987

receive the offers and it is up to Dome to decide whether it wants to make them public.


TAX REMISSION ORDER'S EFFECT
Miss Aideen Nicholson (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance who in February, 1985, made a tax remission order enabling Hudson's Bay Oil and Gas to deduct over 10 years the costs incurred by Dome to acquire it. Since the order failed to restrict the benefit to the then owner, Dome, will the Minister tell the House if his omission will result in a foreign buyer having a tax holiday until 1995?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member might put the question to her own side of the House because it was the Liberal Government which initiated that remission order in 1984. I am not precisely sure of the facts concerning the question the Hon. Member just put at this point because we are still in the early stages of the discussions on this.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have to take the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition through a few simple facts about tax matters.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Michael Holcombe Wilson: He was a Minister of Finance. There is a difference between a tax ruling, which is provided by the Minister of National Revenue, and a tax concession, which is something that the Minister of Finance gives, and a remission order.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An Hon. Member:: John, remember this now.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: That is what she is talking about.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: A remission order about which his colleague talks could be provided by the Minister of Finance, by the Minister of National Revenue or by another Minister.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Who sets the conditions?


Lloyd Axworthy: That is how you define "sell-out" isn't it?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: If I could go back to the question, my answer to the question is that I do not think that it will have the effect of passing through an acquisition, but we are not entirely sure at this point until we get more detail.


REQUEST THAT CONDITIONS BE ATTACHED TO TAX BREAK
Aideen Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, the previous Government may have made the commitment to Dome but the Minister decided the terms of the order and signed it.
Oral Questions


Jean-Robert Gauthier: That is right.


Aideen Nicholson: The Auditor General has estimated that the Dome remission order would cost Canadian taxpayers $1 billion. In view of the sale of Dome, does the Minister plan to put some conditions around this tax break?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member wrote that question before she heard my answer.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Michael Holcombe Wilson: I said that we think that the effects of the remission order will not pass through to any new buyer. However, I want to be sure of that and we will find that out from detailed discussions with the new buyer, be it Amoco or some other company, at the time we have those details.


TAX REFORM
Mr. Mike Cassidy (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister of Finance and relates to the proposed comprehensive tax reform concerning personal and corporate taxation as well as the sales tax, a reform which the Minister promised to unveil in the spring of 1987. Recently we have had all kinds of indications that Cabinet is split about the Minister's tax reform project. Is the Government still committed to propose a comprehensive tax reform, and will the project be made public before the end of June?


Geoff Wilson: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


MINISTER'S POSITION ON TAX REFORM
Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, could the Minister be rather more specific?


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Michael Morris Cassidy: Are the Minister and the Government still holding to their promise to bring forth comprehensive tax reform in the area of personal taxation, corporate taxation, and the proposed business transfer tax? Or is the Minister now abandoning that particular proposal because of opposition within the Cabinet; and will he, therefore, be perpetuating the unfair tax system that we have in Canada today?


An Hon. Member:: Yes, no, and maybe.

April 28, 1987
Oral Questions


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I do not know where to start.


An Hon. Member:: How typical!


An Hon. Member:: That is why you are at 24 per cent.


An Hon. Member:: Do you know when to finish?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: We will be putting out a White Paper on Tax Reform. That discussion paper will be out before the end of spring, and it will be comprehensive.


An Hon. Member:: It is getting awfully grey now.


An Hon. Member:: It will be a long spring.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Bill Attewell (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
Yesterday the United States announced that Kurt Waldheim, President of Austria, has been placed on their "watch list" and that he is no longer welcome in that country because of the war crime allegations that have been levelled against him, and he will not be allowed into that country until the issue is satisfactorily resolved.
My question for the Minister is: Will Canada be taking a similar position should Mr. Waldheim ask to visit our country?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, there is no plan to have Mr. Waldheim visit this country, nor is there any intention on his part to visit Canada.
A question similar to the one raised by the Hon. Member was put to the Prime Minister earlier today, and the Prime Minister made it very clear, in response, that Mr. Waldheim would not be welcome in Canada.


TAX REFORM
Mr. Raymond Garneau (Laval-des-Rapides):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance and has to do with the tax reform as well. The Minister has just stated in the House that he intends to table a proposal before the end of
spring, that is June 21 or 22. May I ask him whether the proposal he intends to introduce will be a White Paper setting forth the Government position, because I heard him say a few moments ago that it would be a discussion paper, which is usually referred to as a Green Paper?

The reason I ask the question is that there is a big difference between a White Paper and a Green Paper. In one of today's newspapers the Chairman of the Finance Committee of the House of Commons, the Member for Mississauga South, said that instead of a White Paper it would be a Green Paper.
Was the Chairman of the Finance Committee, in making that remark, speaking on behalf of the Minister of Finance?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance has never been able to control the Chairman of the Finance Committee.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Michael Holcombe Wilson: In response to the previous question on the subject I said that it would be a White Paper.


INQUIRY WHEN MINISTER WILL ANNOUNCE NEW TAX RULES
Raymond Garneau: I thank the Minister for clearing up this point but he knows as well and probably better than I that the Canadian public and particularly business circles are anxious to have an inkling about the nature of the tax rules. Could the Minister tell the House, and businessmen in particular, whether he intends to table a Budget this fall or wait until the 1988 Budget presentation to implement his White Paper?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, once the White Paper is tabled later this spring, all of that information will become quite clear to the Hon. Member and to interested Canadians.


APARTHEID
Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
On April 15 last, the Minister said that the Government would take no additional action against South Africa until after the elections. In the meantime, the Government of South Africa has used those very elections as an excuse for increased oppression and violence, and most recently for an attack against Zambia.
April 28, 1987

Would the Secretary of State for External Affairs not agree that this effective granting of immunity to South Africa is in fact an encouragement to South Africa to increase the level of violence in southern Africa?


Charles Joseph Clark: No, I wouldn't agree with that; but, I think that the latest acts of murder undertaken on behalf of the state and the Government of South Africa, with their incursions into Zambia to kill innocent civilians, should cause any Canadians who have any continuing belief that words alone will cause the South African Government to change its policies to reconsider that view.


PRIME MINISTER'S STATEMENT
Howard Douglas McCurdy: If these actions are supposed to cause Canadians to believe that mere words are not going to change things, what about the words of the Prime Minister a year and a half ago when he said that there would be a complete severing of economic and diplomatic relations with South Africa if there was not an improvement in the situation in that country?
Isn't it about time for this Government to put an end to the words and impose some actions on South Africa?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: The Hon. Member has been among those who have acknowledged the role of leadership of this Government, and in particular this Prime Minister, in respect of bringing about a peaceful and profound change in southern Africa. We intend to continue to play that role of leadership.
The exercise of that role will involve the continued application of economic pressure, but it will also involve the seeking of ways in which lines can be kept open with the regime in South Africa so that if there is in fact some peaceful response to the pressures that are brought by Canada and by others, there will be some opportunity for the world to take advantage of it and to try to seek that peaceful way, thus avoiding the chaos that would otherwise come to that subcontinent.


TRANSPORT
Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport and concerns safety on the Jacques Cartier bridge. Mr. Speaker, on the weekend there were seven accidents on the bridge, resulting in one death. Since January 1987, the Minister of Transport has had on his desk a report containing specific recommendations for dealing with the safety problem
Oral Questions
on the Jacques Cartier bridge. Unfortunately, this morning the Minister told reporters that the problem was not urgent. My question is the same one being asked by the police at the Jacques Cartier and Champlain Bridges, and it is this: Will the Minister inform the House how many deaths and serious accidents it will take for him to deal with this problem?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I learned through the Quebec press of Monday that the Hon. Member was going to ask me a question, and I haven't been able to sleep since.
The position on the Jacques Cartier Bridge is as follows. The bridge has been there for many years. It was constructed many years ago. There is no emergency arising out of the bridge having been constructed in any way that was wrong, or whatever.
As a matter of fact, we hired Trafix Inc., a consulting company, to investigate the cause of these accidents and to make recommendations.
That company submitted a report in February to the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority, the authority responsible for the operation of the bridge. As a matter of fact, there was a meeting yesterday between representatives of my office and representatives of the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority and the Department of Transport.
I am concerned about safety matters on the Jacques Cartier Bridge. If the drivers who use it would drive more slowly, it would certainly be a help.
We intend to take steps to see that these matters are looked into. But, Mr. Speaker, I have had a full report on this matter from the Members of Parliament for La Prairie, Longueuil and Chambly, long before the hon. gentleman ever decided to get some publicity in connection with it.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Napier Turner: Now we are going to get some action.


PROPOSED MEASURES
Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, it is not only disappointing, it is absolutely shameful, and the family of the victim who died on the weekend is unlikely to see anything funny about the Minister's comments. The Minister is right when he says, and in fact he knows, that according to the report, speeding is the reason why there have been so many fatal accidents on the Jacques Cartier bridge. Since we know the cause and the consequences, and since the report recommends a number of solutions, is the Minister prepared, first of all, to authorize the Jacques Cartier Bridge Corporation this afternoon to invest one million dollars in two extra patrol cars to improve police surveillance; and second, to install permanent traffic signals and third, to install anti-skid

April 28, 1987
Oral Questions
equipment in order to save lives, and finally, is the Minister going to stop fooling around?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member's hypocrisy is really quite odious. He has been a Member here for a number of years. This bridge has been there for a number of years-


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: I am sure the Hon. Minister would want to put his remarks in another way.


Mr.   de Corneille@: Withdraw.


Mr. Speaker:: I am sure the Hon. Minister will.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I want to put my question whatever way you feel-


Jean-Robert Gauthier: It is an answer.


John Carnell Crosbie: I want to put my answer whatever way you feel is best, and I will withdraw anything which might arouse the Hon. Member.
The position is that that bridge has been there for many years. For the first time some action has been taken to look into the conditions on the bridge. A report has been done. We have the report. They recommend certain changes which will cost at least $5.3 million over three years for the two bridges. That has been looked at with the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority.
Action will be taken. The hon. gentleman can relax secure in the knowledge that we are well aware of this problem and are acting to do something about it, where he failed to do anything in his years in the House while he was in government.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Ms. Lynn McDonald (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister responsible for official languages. According to a report by the CBC, francophones are being discriminated against at the Department of National Defence.
Could the President of the Treasury Board confirm that such discrimination is taking place? I am referring to a situation where francophones who fail English courses have a note to that effect in their file, while anglophones who fail French courses do not get the same treatment.
Is this true? And what is the Minister going to do to eliminate this kind of discrimination?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I have been informed of the troubling report broadcast last night by the CBC. Early this morning I called in the Minister of National Defence to discuss the matter. It is now being investigated, and I intend to report to the House in greater detail, at the appropriate time.
If it is true, it is entirely unacceptable and goes against the most fundamental policies of this House and this country.


REQUEST FOR EXAMINATION OF DEPARTMENT'S MANUALS
Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the remarks of the Prime Minister on this important matter. Could he confirm that there will be an examination of the manuals, which according to the report have in effect required this discrimination, so that there will be no remaining discrimination in them?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I have had that assurance from the Minister of National Defence who will be conducting a comprehensive inquiry to make sure that the criteria raised by my hon. friend are indeed respected, that the spirit and the letter of that law which governs our national conduct are fully respected at all times.


Mr. Speaker:: I should advise Hon. Members that I will recognize the Hon. Member for Mount Royal and the Hon. Member for Swift Current-Maple Creek, and that will end Question Period.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, the timing of the resurfacing of the Kurt Waldheim issue is quite ironic. This last Sunday thousands of people around the world joined in non-denominational memorial services to mark the remembrance of the most heinous of genocidal crimes, the Holocaust.
My question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Since Mr. Waldheim's activities are contrary to the very heart and purpose of the United Nations, and since his $81,650 retirement allowance is an optional appropriation of the General Assembly, will the Minister act on my previous request to raise the issue at the United Nations and vote against the payment of this allowance?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, we are raising the matter at the United
April 28, 1987

Nations, and I will advise the Hon. Member of the consequences of that action.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Mount Royal.


Sheila Finestone: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I thought you had said I had only one question.
The Hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs answered in the same way on June 9 and subsequently in a letter on December 29, so I remind him that I have been waiting for almost one year for his response.


INVESTIGATION OF ALLEGATIONS
Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, 1 should like to ask the Minister what has happened with the allegations in respect of Kurt Waldheim and the study which was to be initiated with other countries in respect of that dossier. Could he give us an update on that now?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, in light of the Hon. Member's preface to her second question, I am tempted to say that I have only one answer.
The answer is as I gave it. We are conducting inquiries. We have been in touch with officials of the United Nations. We are in touch with officials of other countries. As she would know, because she has shown a steady interest in this question, her question would require a more detailed reply which I do not have at hand at the moment. However, I will get it into my hands and then into hers.


Mr. Speaker:: This will be the last question.


WESTERN GRAIN STABILIZATION ACT
Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board who earlier in Question Period noted that the Western Grain Stabilization Fund is in deficit. The Minister knows that some 17 per cent or 18 per cent of producers are still outside the Western Grain Stabilization Plan.
In view of the fact that future payments will have to come out of future government and producer levies, will the Minister consider at this time opening up the Act to provide for easier and more facilitated access for those farmers who are presently outside the purview of the plan but would like to get in at this time?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member raises a matter of pretty significant consequences to those producers who are not part of the program, especially in view of the record pay-outs.
Privilege-Mr. Holtmann
We have had representations similar to the ones raised by the Hon. Member. I will certainly look at that representation. I also tell the Hon. Member that we have done some work on how we might open up the plan to bring everybody into it, in line with the import of the question which he raised.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. Felix Holtmann (Selkirk-Interlake):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I should like to begin by referring to the Nineteenth Edition of Erskine May at page 146 of Chapter X-Breaches of Privileges and Contempts. In part it reads:
That the evidence taken by any select committee of this House, and the documents presented to such committee, and which have not been reported to the House, ought not to be published by any member of such committee or by any other person.
It goes on to say:
Where the public are admitted this rule is usually not enforced. The publication or disclosure of proceedings of committees conducted with closed doors or of draft reports of committees before they have been reported to the House will, however, constitute a breach of privilege or a contempt.
It is on the basis of the third report of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, which was presented to the House today, indicating the actions of a member of the committee, the Hon. Member for Kenora- Rainy River (Mr. Parry), that I believe my privileges have been breached.
This morning the report indicated that the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River in fact divulged a good deal of information arising from an in camera session in which I participated. He did it without considering the ramifications of such an action.
I should like to refer to exactly what he said on March 25, 1987, the day following the in camera session, as reported at page 4540 of Hansard:
-when Canadians elect representatives to speak for their concerns in Ottawa, they do so in the hope that, when appropriate, all Parties will work toward constructive ends. As the spokesman on aboriginal issues for the New Democratic Party, I have and continue to hold the view that partisan concerns and parochial attitudes do nothing to further the cause of Canada's first people.
Those were his words. When speaking of the in camera session he said:
Yesterday the Indian, Inuit and Metis people of Canada were reminded again of that truism. In an anonymous office tower, behind closed doors and safely tucked away from probing microphones, four Members of Parliament abrogated their responsibilities to aboriginal people-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) on a point of order.

April 28, 1987
Capital Punishment


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I hesitate to interrupt my hon. friend but I simply want to say that the point he is raising involves one of the members of the caucus that I represent. The Member is on his way back to the Chamber. Would the Hon. Member consider holding off for a moment until the Member has a chance to arrive?


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis), the House Leader of the New Democratic Party, has suggested that the Hon. Member for Selkirk-Interlake (Mr. Holtmann) pause at least for a moment or two until the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry) could be in the Chamber. Could I ask the Hon. House Leader to see where the Hon. Member is. I think that is a perfectly reasonable request. I would just ask all Members to wait for a minute or two.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the co-operation of Members of the House. I have been informed that notice was not given. I appreciate there is no requirement to give notice that a question of privilege should be raised at this moment, however, the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry) at the moment is not available. He will be later on. I must say that he is not here and is unable to be here to witness and hear the comments of the Hon. Member.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap, the House Leader of the New Democratic Party is absolutely right. There is no requirement to give notice. Notice is sometimes given. Under the rules on an application like this it can be withdrawn right up to the last minute. Even if the Speaker has notice of it, not only do I have no obligation, I am not permitted to give notice to the other side. Under the circumstances, perhaps I could ask the Hon. Member for Selkirk-Interlake whether it would be possible, and perhaps the Hon. House Leader could help, that this whole matter be adjourned to the same time tomorrow. If that suits all parties, it might be the answer.


Felix Holtmann: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the Member cannot be reached, I would be prepared to present this with your permission tomorrow at the same time.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the House Leader for the New Democratic Party could convey that generous accommodation to the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River. I will arrange to hear both Members, and other Members if it is necessary, tomorrow at three o'clock, if that is satisfactory to everybody.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I want to say that it is certainly acceptable, Mr. Speaker. I want to express to my friend from Selkirk- Interlake how much we appreciate his willingness to cooperate on this very important matter. I want to express that gratitude and say that we will be here ready to debate the issue tomorrow.


Mr. Speaker:: I think I should say as Speaker that I appreciate the patience of all Hon. Members. While perhaps a few minutes were taken, sometimes a few minutes taken this way actually saves a lot of time in the long run.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski:
That this House supports, in principle, the reinstatement of capital punishment and directs that a special committee on reinstatement, composed of 15 members, be established, hold hearings and make its final report to the House no later than three (3) months following the adoption of this motion, such report to provide recommendations on:
(a)	which offence or offences should carry the death penalty, and in what circumstances;
(b)	which method or methods should be used to carry out the penalty of death, and in what circumstances;
That, pursuant to Standing Order 107(1), this special committee be hereby appointed as a committee to prepare and bring in a bill no later than three months following the adoption of this motion, founded on the committee s recommendations on (a) and (b) above; such a bill shall be the object of a separate and distinct report of the special committee, and such a report shall be its final report;
That such bill, when reported from such special committee to the House, be deemed pursuant to Standing Order 107(1) to have been introduced and stand on the Order Paper, in the name of the special committee chairman, for first reading at the next sitting of the House; and that subsequent House stages of the bill be considered under "Government Orders", with the bill standing under the heading "Government Business"; and that, when the said bill has been read a second time, it shall stand referred to a Legislative Committee;
That the Striking Committee be empowered to name the Members of the special committee, provided that once the Striking Committee report is laid upon the Table, it shall be deemed concurred in;
That the special committee have the power to sit while the House is sitting and during periods when the House stands adjourned;
That the special committee be empowered to report from time to time and send for persons and papers, and to print such papers and evidence from time to time as may be ordered by the committee and to retain the services of expert, technical, professional and clerical staff;
That the special committee be empowered to adjourn from place to place inside Canada and that, when deemed necessary, the appropriate staff accompany the committee;
That a quorum of the special committee be eight (8) members for any vote, resolution or other decision; and that the chairman be authorized to hold meetings to receive evidence and authorize the printing thereof whenever six (6) members are present;
That any substitution of membership on the special committee be made pursuant to Standing Order 94(4); and
That, notwithstanding the usual practices of this House, if the House is not sitting when the special committee is ready to issue its final report and the said bill, the special committee shall present its report and the bill to the House by filing them with the Clerk of the House provided that the report shall then be deemed to have been laid upon the Table, and the bill shall then be deemed, pursuant to Standing Order 107(1), to have been introduced at the first sitting of the House thereafter and to stand on the Order Paper in the name of the special committee chairman, for first reading at the next sitting of the House;
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[Stage Direction]
and that subsequent House stages of the bill be considered under "Government
Orders", with the bill standing under the heading "Government Business".
and on the amendment (Mr. Robinson) (p. 5311).
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: This is the question and comment period on the speech of the Hon. Member for Mission-Port Moody (Mr. St. Germain). For the first question 1 recognize the Hon. Member for Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands (Mr. Manly).


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I was interested in the speech of the Hon. Member for Mission-Port Moody (Mr. St. Germain). His desire to see the return of capital punishment seemed to turn on the whole question of law and order and what he called the protection of society. When it was brought up, as it has been many times and will be again, that capital punishment does not provide any real deterrence to murder, the Member said that justice, not utility, should be the basis on which we operate. I would be interested in hearing from the Hon. Member what standard of justice he uses. How does one determine what is just in a measure such as that? Is it the basis of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? How does the Member determine justice?
The other question I would like him to address relates to protection of society. Opponents of the death penalty are very concerned that if the death penalty is reinstated it will mean that innocent people will be put to death. The Member said every precaution will be taken to ensure that this will not happen, but the Member knows that in some circumstances an innocent person will be put to death. People are very concerned about that, and Members of juries will be very concerned when accused murderers are facing trial. They will have very skilful lawyers working with juries, to play on the fears of jurors that they might condemn an innocent person. We have seen statistics which indicate that where there is capital punishment there is a higher rate of acquittal than in situations where there is not. It seems to me a very real possibility-a probability-that guilty people will be acquitted much more frequently under a capital punishment provision than otherwise. I would appreciate it if the Member would tell the House how he feels the acquittal of guilty murderers-juries do not want even the possibility of having condemned an innocent person to death- will lead to further protection of society?


Gerry St. Germain: Mr. Speaker, let me first comment that it is unfortunate that the Hon. Member for Cowichan- Malahat-The Islands (Mr. Manly) will not in this particular instance be able to exercise a vote of conscience. My understanding is that his Party is voting in a block-


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I regard that as an imputation of motives. Members in this Party will vote according to their conscience. That comment is not a worthy part of this debate which so far has been on a fairly high plane.


Gerry St. Germain: Mr. Speaker, I certainly do not want to be confrontational on this issue. It is a very important issue, and if
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the Member feels he should rise on a point of order, then so be it, and I will be guided by your wisdom.
Let me come to the question of deterrence. As I pointed out at about one o'clock today, I do feel that deterrence is marginal, and it is very hard to determine exactly what deterrent effect this will have. We are speaking of a protection of society. I would gather it is a perspective that we see as individuals. It comes down to this conscience aspect of how we evaluate things morally within our own lives and how we see certain things evolving in society. I feel it is something that people should be free to express within themselves. It is something that should not be bound by Party lines or by dogma or doctrine. It is something that evolves from an individual's viewpoints, his upbringing, his spiritual views and his moral views.
In answer to the question of the Hon. Member, I would say that logically I am concerned about the innocent being prosecuted. Though I do not like to deal with statistics, members of the NDP have dealt with them considerably in this debate so I would say that statistics in Canada have shown that there is no proof that anyone in Canada has ever been put to death in error. I do not believe that anything we would institute would allow this kind of thing to happen. We would take the utmost of precautions. In the protection of society, there is always a risk, but it is so minuscule that I feel the protection of society far outweighs any risk we may take in this instance, given the heinous crimes and abominable situations we are facing at the hands of murderers.


Mr. Nunziata:: Mr. Speaker, when one analyses the arguments put forward by proponents of the death penalty, one realizes that the bottom line is that those who support the death penalty do so on the basis of vengeance and retribution. It has been proven that capital punishment is not a deterrent. Given the fact that the status quo is such that the death penalty is not on the books, the onus rests on those who want to bring back the death penalty to prove that it is justifiable in today's society. Study after study has concluded that it is not a deterrent.
Does the Hon. Member believe it is appropriate that vengeance or retribution be the basis of our criminal justice system? Does he believe it is right that our criminal justice system should be based on the theory of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? If he thinks that that is morally right, perhaps he could indicate to me what other western nations have retribution as the basis of their criminal justice systems. Would the Hon. Member not agree that retribution has no place in the Canadian criminal justice system, that in fact there should be other principles that underlie our justice system, namely, the protection of society and the rehabilitation of those who would pursue a life of deviant behaviour?
I would admit that we all at times feel the need or desire to get even with someone who has committed a wrong, either toward us personally or toward the state collectively. However,

April 28, 1987
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this is a human failing that we must overcome when we are talking about the criminal justice system, because if we were to allow vengeance to creep in and form the basis of our criminal justice system then we would in effect be saying that our criminal justice system is the law of the jungle. Would the Hon. Member not agree?


Gerry St. Germain: Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out earlier, I do not see this as being a form of revenge. Obviously the Hon. Member does, and that is the basic difference. This is why it is a question of the conscience, perception and perspective of each individual. It has never been proven that capital punishment is not a deterrent, as marginal and questionable as this particular area really is.
The Hon. Member asked what advanced nations have capital punishment. The answer is the United States of America, Ireland and Belgium, to name just a few.
There are those of us who believe that the protection of society is not a question of revenge or vengeance, but is merely a question of the ultimate crime being controlled. When I was a member of a law-enforcement agency, I recall an individual who had killed a child and was incarcerated. Through the system of parole he was released, according to the laws of the land. He was not on the street three months before he had killed again. I am not saying that in this particular case capital punishment would have been the penalty in the first instance, but had it existed it certainly would have been a deterrent to the second murder.
I do not want to base this entire debate on a question of revenge. It is a question of the protection of society and we have an obligation as legislators and leaders of the country to come forward with the protection that is needed today and in the future.


Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard-Anjou):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to take part in such an important debate, so important in fact that after my election the first question put to me by a news reporter when I first arrived in Ottawa was wether I was for or against capital punishment. Canadians are following this debate with interest because it is very important, yet at the same time sad for me because nearly 15 years after the death penalty was abolished in Canada the Canadian Parliament reopens the debate with a motion aimed at restoring capital punishment.
During that time mankind was able to send men to the moon and in orbit in space. As Canadians we are very proud of the Canadarm sent to the moon to repair satellites. Our scientific achievements are well known, but after 15 years, since yesterday, publicly in this House, by debating the restoration of capital punishment we admit we have failed and that as citizens we have been unable to find solutions to provide better protection for our society and prevent certain kinds of murder from happening again.
Any way you look at them, Mr. Speaker, statistics show that the number of murders did not increase since the death penalty was abolished in Canada. In countries where capital punishment is still on the statute books statistics reveal that the number of murders did not decline either. So, Mr. Speaker, what is the point of restoring capital punishment in Canada?
We have a serious problem, a problem of society. How to protect society? How can we make sure that certain criminal acts will not be repeated? How can we make sure that the life of every human being on earth will be protected? That is the real issue of the debate. Those are the answers which we as parliamentarians must find and give people. But what are we up to? We want to restore the death penalty. And when I say it is sad, Mr. Speaker, it is because by so doing we admit we have failed in our duty, that we are unable to move forward, to better our society.
Killing those who have killed in order to prove that killing is wrong in today's modern society is absurd. As a parliamentarian I do not believe the state should have the power to kill someone. If killing is wrong, why should the state have the right to kill? That is what we are debating here today. People often argue that if the death penalty is reinstated that will dissuade people from committing murder. On statistical grounds alone that argument does not stand up. Most of the time even if murderers knew they would die they would still kill because they are not normal human beings. They are sick. That is what we should be addressing: how can we solve the problem, how can we cure those who need help instead of killing them?

Mr. Speaker, assuming that some day on our planet earth- there are even some scientists who are foreseeing this in the more or less distant future-there are more human beings than the planet can support, what will happen? Would the authorities decide to kill a lot of people to ease the problem? Or would they look at the problem as a whole to try and find a balance and save all human lives? That is the question, Mr. Speaker. Personally, I feel that by reinstating capital punishment in Canada after 15 years, we show that we are unable to find solutions in our modern society, to develop effective preventive mechanisms to reduce crime and to protect our society against unbalanced human beings.
Mr. Speaker, those who are in favour of reinstating capital punishment will certainly say that three out of every four Canadians agree with them. In my opinion and on the basis of the great many thorough discussions I have had with my Saint-Leonard-Anjou constituents, these polls mean that people want better protection. It is our penal code that should be revised.
Of course, we have penitentiaries. But are they part of the solution? In penitentiaries, we take criminals and lock them up
April 28, 1987

in small rooms. But is that a solution? Is that the way to cure them? Years ago, people felt that this was the solution. But today, have we considered all possibilities? Why do some people kill? If scientists can study and develop the technology to travel to the moon and throughout the universe, why can they not find out why some people kill instead of us wasting so much time and energy reinstating capital punishment in Canada after 15 years?
Mr. Speaker, I believe in life. I suggest that all human beings should be the right to live, even after committing a murder. It is our responsibility, as a society and as well-adjusted human beings, to find ways to help the murderer and to cure him, to protect both him and society, and not simply by locking him up to show him that everything is over, but maybe by truing to rehabilitate him. And it is my view, Mr. Speaker, that with all the scientific progress accumulated to date, if we really took the trouble, if we took the same amount of time available for this debate, if we used all the publicity enjoyed by this debate-and this is something I have been repeating for two and a half years, how many times have I been asked by the press whether I was for or against the death penalty. If we put all the emphasis enjoyed by the death penalty on finding a solution as to how to protect our society, how to rehabilitate and cure the people who kill, 1 think we would have a better society. This is where we should apply an ongoing effort, put all our energies to find a solution in the hope that some day our society will be better.
Mr. Speaker, of course this debate is very emotional. People who support capital punishment come up with examples- children that were killed, very young innocent children and women, all sorts of crimes that are really unacceptable. Of course there is no acceptable crime, but those crimes are most horrible. With capital punishment, they would like to say- Well, we found that individual guilty, we sent him to the gallows, the problem is solved. I do not think the problem is solved. First, we must ensure whether the convicted individual was the guilty one. How many people sentenced to die were innocent! Our judicial system is a human system, therefore subject to human error. There is that aspect. Think of the jury or the judge who sentenced someone to die and found a few years later they had erred. Imagine, Mr. Speaker, what their lives must be. So, the equation must be made on both side of the coin.
Those are horrible events, criminal acts with loss of life, but on the other side there is also the possibility of error. That has happened in history. Therefore, when someone says the solution is the death penalty, my answer is no, because statistics once more prove the opposite. Although some countries have capital punishment, the crime rate has not decreased. And here in Canada, the crime rate has not increased since we abolished capital punishment 15 years ago. We must therefore ask the question: Is that the right solution, and should we really, as a modern society, go over what was done 15 years ago, because this debate already took place twice in this House? Why should we, Mr. Speaker? I put it to
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you: Why should we have this debate at this point, rather than debating our judicial system, looking at our Criminal Code, bringing in real reforms to our penitentiary system? That is the kind of debate we should have, Mr. Speaker, and that is where we should begin instead of moving backward. We are not making any progress, we are regressing.

What are the alternatives? How can we reduce the number of murders? No one, not even the most staunch supporter of the death penalty, argues that its reinstatement will prevent all murders. The declared aim is to reduce the murder rate. If our society is serious about that goal we must resist the temptation to adopt measures such as the death penalty which are illusory. Instead, our support must be directed toward effective alternatives.

We must find better alternatives. We must make sure that our criminals are put away until they are rehabilitated in order to protect society. Nowadays, of course, Canadians are concerned. It is true that they are asking for protection. Opinion polls indicate that quite clearly. However, as I said, Mr. Speaker, what they want is not the reinstatement of capital punishment but a more fair and equitable society that would reflect the history of mankind. And when at the beginning I said that I was sad, Mr. Speaker, I am really sad. For the past 15 years, since Parliament abolished capital punishment, we have made considerable scientific progress. We have sent human beings on the moon, we are exploring outer space, we have heart transplants and we have made so many incredible and marvelous scientific discoveries. How is it that after 15 years, we have to come back to capital punishment and have no other alternative than going backward?
This is not progress but regression. And on this issue, Mr. Speaker, I will continue to try to convince my colleagues that the reinstatement of capital punishment is not the best direction to take, but that we should find a better system and look at the structure of our penal and rehabilitation systems. Perhaps it is true, Mr. Speaker, that our rehabilitation system should be closely examined. It often happens that people undergoing rehabilitation commit other crimes. We have to consider the whole question. However, capital punishment would not solve those problems. It often happens that a murderer does not think about capital punishment. He is not a normal person.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I should like to tell my colleagues that I will vote against the reinstatement of capital punishment.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I wish first of all to congratulate the Hon. Member for Saint-Leonard-Anjou (Mr. Gagliano) for his speech and for saying that he is against the reinstatement of capital punishment.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Hon. Member a question on the way capital punishment is applied in Canada.

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The Hon. Member has already mentioned a number of problems with capital punishment.
I would like to ask the Hon. Member to reflect on a very serious concern which I have with respect to the application of the death penalty, that being the fact that it is applied not to the rich and powerful in societies where it exists, but rather to those who are poor and, in many cases, are racial minorities.
A study was conducted by Professor Kenneth Avio at the University of Victoria which showed that native Indians, Ukrainians and French Canadians, interestingly enough, were executed in disproportionate numbers to English Canadians while the death penalty was in effect in Canada.
The warden of Sing Sing prison said this:
Not only does capital punishment fail in its justification, but no punishment could be invented with so many inherent defects.
It is an unequal punishment in the way it is applied to the rich and to the poor. The defendant of wealth and position never goes to the electric chair or to the gallows.
Juries do not intentionally favour the rich, the law is theoretically impartial, but the defendant with ample means is able to have his case presented with every favourable aspect while the poor defendant often has a lawyer assigned by the court-with no experience.
Similarly, the former Governor of Ohio, Michael Di Salle said this:
During my experience as Governor of Ohio, 1 found that the men on death row had one thing in common, they were penniless-the fact that they had no money was a principal factor in their being condemned to death.
I would like to ask the Hon. Member, who has spoken with great conviction against the death penalty and outlined a number of arguments, to comment as well on the unequal application of the death penalty in Canadian society.
[ Translation]


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, that is definitely one of the reasons. I wish to thank my hon. colleague for mentioning those facts. That is indeed one of the reasons why we should not reinstate capital punishment.
In actual fact, Mr. Speaker, when a trial is held, everything is a matter of credibility and a jury is asked to judge a person on the basis of facts and circumstances and even in some cases of appearances. This is also the danger I mentioned in my speech, Mr. Speaker, namely the fact that it has been proved that in many instances throughout history, jurys and judges erred in sentencing to death people who were proved to be innocent a few years later.
The have-nots in our society whose appearance may not be as neat and whose defence may not be as well prepared as that of well-off people, tend to be more easily sentenced. Because a person is not properly dressed, or does not have a good appearance, that person may give the wrong impression. And these statistics show that more of those have-not people have
been sentenced to death than those who were well-off in our society.
It is unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, that such things can happen under our legal system, and that is the main reason, that is another very important argument, Mr. Speaker, to show that the reinstatement of capital punishment will not solve those problems, but will indeed lead to more injustice. Therefore, instead of spending our time and energy on this debate which the House has been through twice already, it might be more worthwhile having a debate on our criminal law, on our social justice system in order to provide all Canadians with the same justice.


Mr. Stevens:: Mr. Speaker, in the main body of his remarks I believe the Hon. Member said in effect that the state should not have the right to kill. Could the Hon. Member expand on that? In the case of war, if we were invaded by an enemy, does he not think the state would be in a position of being able to field an army which would possibly have to kill the invader in order to protect our territory? In short, surely it is a fairly wide statement to say that the state should not have the right to kill.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member took my statement out of context. With regard to capital punishment the state definitely should not have the right to kill. However, when a state declares war it does not declare the intent to kill but rather the intent to defend. The action of defence naturally creates the horrible thing which is war.
As far as I am concerned it is not right to extrapolate from the state's right to kill that parliamentarians can authorize the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) to authorize someone to kill a person because he or she has killed. However, the case of war, in which we have to defend our country, is not the same circumstance.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member rather startled me by using a figure which I know that those in support of abolition often use, that being that since the time capital punishment was abolished in Canada the death rate for murder has not risen. Surely the relevant period to consider is not from when it was technically abolished but from the last time capital punishment was carried out in this country.
Could the Hon. Member tell the House whether he has checked the figures? If he has, would he not confirm to the House that the death rate from murder per 100,000 has more than doubled since the last time capital punishment took place in this country, which means that on average every year 300 more Canadians have been murdered than were murdered on average in the years previous? Does it not concern him that the murder rate would jump so dramatically as a result, at least in part, of the abolition of capital punishment in practice as opposed to the technical abolition to which he referred?
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Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, I have all the statistics here. I have about 10 pages of statistics and I have a few other books from which I could quote. As we all know, Mr. Speaker, it all depends which side we want to look at and what point in time we want to consider. As 1 said before we can approach this from just about any angle. Those in favour of capital punishment are saying that the number of crimes has increased. Those against are saying the number has not increased. The point is, we have to know what periods the statistics are supposed to cover and how they are interpreted.
Mr. Speaker, what we are really talking about is human lives, and if we have to consider a human life in terms of statistics, I repeat, that is very sad. Fifteen years after the last debate on the subject, we still have no other alternatives, no other solutions to the problem, and here we are debating on whether to reinstate capital punishment, while in other areas we have made fantastic progress. Mr. Speaker, we can use statistics to prove that capital punishment does not act as a deterrent, while those who are in favour of capital punishment can use them to prove the death penalty does help reduce the crime rate. I think, however, we should consider the context from which these figures were taken.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: One last question by the Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart).


Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, I would like to know whether my colleague from Saint-Leonard-Anjou (Mr. Gagliano) shares my view that this debate is useless and will not do anything to prevent young criminals from committing further offences in future no matter how the vote turns out. Does the Hon. Member agree with me that we should first deal with three issues if we really want to reduce the criminal rate and the number of murders? First we ought to spend months and months debating the establishment of full employment policies for the benefit of poor people, programs to find jobs for everybody. Second we ought to introduce legislation to ban all violence on TV, including NHL telecasts where we see hockey games which promote violence among young people. Third, we ought to be here to undertake a real reform of our penal system, a real reform of the judicial system. Personally I think that such debates would make it easier for us to reach the objectives we have in mind, they would be more practical than simply deciding to take someone's life.


Alfonso Gagliano: Precisely, Mr. Speaker, this was the whole thrust, if you will, of the remarks I made earlier concerning capital punishment. I think that this debate, instead of channelling all our energies ... I said at the outset that when I first came here, my first day as a new Member in Ottawa, the first question put to me by a news reporter was whether I was for or against the death penalty. As a new Member I was not asked whether I had any suggestions to make to solve the unemployment problem or something else. So instead of putting so much energy to decide whether capital punishment should or should not be restored, I fully agree with the Hon.
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Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart) that we should solve the unemployment program.
I say we must take a closer look at our rehabilitation system. We must have a closer look at it. People are often allowed to go free and they go on to commit other crimes. We should have a look at that, and at our judicial system as well. The penitentiary system we have now was probably designed hundreds of years ago. Do we really need the same system, or should we have a new one to meet the needs of today's society?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Would the House give unanimous consent to allow the Hon. Member for Duvernay (Mr. Della Noce) to ask a short question?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Della  Noce@: Thank you for your patience, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I want to say the Hon. Member for Saint-Leonard-Anjou (Mr. Gagliano) is to be commended, but I do not agree with him at all. As far as figures are concerned, he does not know what he is talking about, although I agree that figures can be made to say what we want them to say. However, his figures do not prove a thing. And I wonder whether the Hon. Member knows the difference between first-degree murder and unpremeditated murder. When he talks about possible errors, I do not agree, and perhaps 1 could give an example. If 1 go on the highway and I am driving too fast, and the policeman fails to stop me, are we going to stop writing speeding tickets because the policeman is no good at his job? Maybe we should get another policeman. I wonder whether the Hon. Member has considered that if there is the possibility of a judicial error, something he has failed to prove and will not be able to prove, even if he takes Marshall and Coffin as examples ... Coffin is one of Senator Hebert's favorites and Marshall is a guy who perjured himself and anyway, he was not given a death sentence. I wonder whether in the case of a judicial error we should not consider revising our laws instead of ignoring the principle of justice altogether. I want to ask the Hon. Member ... Even if the Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart) was referring to the consequences for the future, and there will be consequences, because before, the annual figure for people sentenced to 25 years in our penitentiaries was five, while today, this has risen to nearly 60, I wonder whether in 10 years' time, we will see that three-quarters of our prison population with 25 year sentences. I think it would be interesting to pursue the matter. My question to the Hon. Member is this: Would we not be better off reforming our laws, instead of giving up altogether on the principle of justice which is something to which Canadians are entitled? Surely, we cannot deal with crime without sentencing the criminal?


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, the difference between the Hon. Member for Duvernay and myself is that we both agree-and I said as much in my speech-that we must take a closer look at our judicial or penal system. A closer look at this aspect is definitly in order. That is the point I think should be debated here. That is where the problem lies. How does killing

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someone deal with the issue? Mr. Speaker, do you think that killing someone, once we have capital punishment, will mean fewer murders? The Hon. Member said that the figure ... I have a paper on those figures. I didn't want to use them. I have them right here and I could use them, but as far as I am concerned, this debate goes beyond mathematics. It is a debate about people and about human life, and killing someone because he killed someone else is absurd, Mr. Speaker. We have serious problems in our society, and after 15 years we are back with the same debate and we still have no solution. And so we say: We must reinstate capital punishment. This is absurd.
[DOT]	(1550)


Joseph Lloyd Reid: Mr. Speaker, I will not begin my remarks, as most of us are wont to do, by saying that I am pleased to take part in this debate, because I am not. My conscience dictates, however, that I must.
Sometimes it is casually said in light of the importance of an issue that it is a matter of life and death. However, I need not remind my colleagues in the House that the debate on which we are now embarking is a question of life and death.
I must state clearly and unequivocally that when it comes to such an issue of life and death, I opt in favour of life. If, as a society, we respect human life as sacred and inviolable, and if we recognize the rights of each person as primary, how can we do otherwise?
As has already been stated often, the death penalty in this country was abolished in 1976, even though by a narrow majority. However, if there is one thing that the people in this country want, it is a rule of law that is firm, strong, and predictable.
I take the position that it is incumbent upon those who want to restore the death penalty to justify the taking of life in the name of the state. The onus is on them, and it is a heavy onus, to prove why we should join that small band of countries that, by some means or another, inflict the death penalty.
The motion we have to address commences with these words:
That this House supports, in principle, the reinstatement of capital punishment-
That is what the debate is all about. Those first 11 words set out the real issue. As soon as anyone begins talking about first, second or third degree murder, or about hanging being too inhumane, that person is backing away from the real core issue.
[DOT]	(1600)
Does any Government have the right to sanction the killing of any person? It is a simple question but one which deserves more than a simple answer. Advocates of the death penalty will skip the moral issue, but can we? 1 have a letter on my desk, and I assume each Hon. Member received a copy of that
same letter, which was referred to yesterday. It was written by Leslie Parrott of Toronto whose daughter Alison was tragically abducted and murdered just last July. Mrs. Parrott writes in part:
It has more than ever convinced me that we as a society cannot ever and must
not ever condone killing, whether by state or by an individual, in any shape or
in any form.
She continues on to talk about victims' rights and states her belief that in no way can anyone's suffering be alleviated by the deliberate killing of another. Her message is clear and unconditional. Human life is sacred and killing is always wrong, who could have said it better?
We have already heard in the context of this debate several biblical quotations, beginning with the Book of Genesis, as justification for state killing. First let me say that the Roman Catholic Bishops, and practically all the councils of the other established churches, hold that it is abhorrent in the 1980s to turn to the Old Testament to justify a legal and moral position. If the church or synagogue or Christianity means anything today, the lessons to be learned are lessons of love. Love thy neighbour. Have compassion, understanding, charity and forgiveness. These are the teachings and principles of the church. If we take them away, we have not much left. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Life is not ours to create and it is not ours to take.
Of course, arguments will be raised in favour of reinstatement, setting out, first, that there will be deterrence if the death penalty is there. To me, this is the only justifiable reason. If it can be shown that the death penalty has a deterrent effect then we might justify the return of the death penalty.
The second argument is that the penalty must suit the crime and, third, what about popular opinion which calls for reinstatement? There are other arguments such as the cost factor, but time will not permit me to address every one of these arguments.
First, with respect to deterrence, there are many who really believe that the death penalty has an effective deterrent ability for those who commit the crime of murder wilfully and with forethought, premeditated murder, but to me this is the last group which is likely to be deterred by the death penalty because theirs is the perfect crime and they will not be found out.
The facts are that in most western countries which have abolished the death penalty-and interestingly enough, Canada is included-the rate of murder has dropped or, put in another way, it has not climbed significantly since capital punishment was abolished.
A recent Statistics Canada report indicates that the rate of 2.19 per 100,000 in 1986 is the lowest homicide rate in 15 years, down from the 2.75 rate per 100,000 in 1976. In the United States currently 35 of the States have the death penalty. There are some interesting comparisons. For example,
April 28, 1987

Maine and Vermont are side by side with basically the same kind of people, income range and otherwise. Maine does not have the death penalty, Vermont does, yet Vermont's murder rate is slightly higher than that of Maine. It is the same with Rhode Island with no death penalty when compared with Connecticut, North and South Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia as well as with Oregon and Washington, which have a death penalty. In each case, the state which does not have capital punishment has a lower rate of murder although just slightly, than the state adjacent to it which does.
It is argued that the death penalty is needed to protect policemen and prison guards, and we all agree that policemen and prison guards have a difficult job and need all the protection which society-we, the people-can give, but I say to you, Mr. Speaker, in all sincerity, that the death penalty will not make their jobs one bit safer. The subculture in prisons will be there tomorrow as it was yesterday.
I do not want to enter into the numbers game but we did in fact have a bad year in 1962 while the death penalty was in place. In the year of our last hanging, 11 policemen were murdered. The high number since that date was in 1984 with six police murders, and at that time there was a substantial increase in the number of policemen serving their respective communities.
From 1961 to 1983, 14 prison guards were murdered with no clear indication of the deterrent effect of the death penalty. Indeed, the President of the Police Association of Ontario writes:
There is no concrete evidence to prove that it is or is not a deterrent and indeed
it is quite likely that we will never know with certainty if capital punishment
deters one who is contemplating murder.
I would ask my colleagues to note the reference to "one who is contemplating murder" since in this debate most of us are talking about premeditated and deliberate murder.
The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has decided it is futile to base an argument of reinstatement on the grounds of deterrence. The point is simply that capital punishment has no material effect on the murder rate. It is not a deterrent and it fails completely to meet the test of justifying a return of the death penalty.
I turn next to the crime penalty aspect, the penalty must suit the crime. Retentionists will argue that legislation must make it safe for the public to walk the streets at night and at least with capital punishment a murderer will not commit a second offence. For them, the only just punishment for a murder, that most heinous of crimes, must be death. It is an appropriate means of justice-or so they say. Apart from death, there is no guarantee that a second offence will not take place-and I will not guarantee that it will not take place, either. But it is to be noted that the rate of occurrence of a second offence of the crime of murder is, thankfully, the lowest of all criminal offences.
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In looking at these issues, one has to weigh the balance. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. While I have the greatest respect for our system of justice and our courts, I do not for one moment believe that that system rests on that delicate balance of an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth, or an assault for an assault, or a rape for a rape, or a life for a life. Of course the penalty must suit the crime; but a life for a life concept is barbarous, outmoded, and revengeful. Yes, some convicted murderers, not executed, may murder again. But let us weigh the results of the restoration of capital punishment.
All of us have read the recently released study by Professor Freedman of the University of Toronto. We have a system of justice made up of people with feelings as strong as those held by the Members of this House. There is no doubt in my mind that the reimposition of the death penalty would have an effect on jurors. I have had a member of the Supreme Court of Canada say to me that, in the event that the death penalty is reinstated, he will resign before invoking that penalty.
Once again, the most frequent argument against the death penalty is the gross inequality of its application. I am convinced, as some of you are, that the wealth and status of the accused will have some bearing on the result. I am just as convinced that the death penalty, if imposed, would be imposed more frequently on the poor, the socially deprived, the disabled, or on the ethnic and social minorities.
Our courts are not infallible. Occasionally they do err. One of the reasons that lawyers are so very much concerned about this issue is that they know that false testimony is sometimes introduced into evidence; they know that there are cases of mistaken identity, cases of biased or circumstantial evidence. All of these things make it possible to convict an innocent person. It can happen. It has happened. No amount of compensation or expression of regret will ever bring back a life that the state mistakingly takes. What a terrible crime by the state against a citizen!
You may ask: What about the polls? I have to admit that my constituents read the polls and read the results, and they are just as concerned about the rise in crime generally as are people across the country. I know that a majority of Canadians favour the restoration of the death penalty.
Some of my colleagues have said that they will vote in accordance with the wants and the wishes of their constituents, and they ask why I do not do likewise.
Well, Mr. Speaker, I have come through three general elections, and in each one the issue of the reimposition of the death penalty has come up. It is a point that has been raised at candidates' meetings, general meetings, and in other forums. My answer has always been that I am opposed to the restoration of the death penalty. The people of St. Catharines do not expect me to change my religion or to vote against my conscience. I take some comfort in knowing my home community.

April 28, 1987
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In this respect let me quote the words of Edmund Burke, who said: "Your representative owes you not his industry only but his judgment, and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion".
Ours is not a "punch button" democracy. Each of us has been forced by the media to take a position on this question before having had the opportunity of engaging in a reasoned discussion or debate. Ours is not a country, either, of common referenda or plebiscites. We are expected to debate and fully reason any issue before the House before making a decision thereon. When the vote is finally taken on this issue, I expect the result to be a reasoned decision.
Those of you who were in the Chamber this morning to hear the words of the Hon. Member for Lisgar (Mr. Murta) will know whereof we speak on this matter. For those who were not in the Chamber this morning for that speech, I commend it to you for your reading.
The real bottom line, as has been mentioned, is not the continued abolition or the reinstatement of the death penalty but our system of justice. It is our justice system that we have to look at and our justice system that we must be concerned with. I have always said that the taking of a life is the last thing that we should do, and I am not satisfied that we are anywhere close to having to take that last step.
One of the reasons that my constituents and your constituents feel as they do is that they are displeased and discouraged with our whole judicial system. They feel frustrated, ignored, and sometimes fearful for their own safety. They want to see that justice is being done. The public confidence in the judicial system is undermined by the discrepancies in sentencing. Confidence has to be restored in our parole system.
Canadians do not have faith in a system that they no longer understand. They read and hear little about it, and they do not believe that it reflects the kind of system that they were brought up under. Media coverage has led the people of Canada to believe that the crime rate is far in excess of what it is in fact, and they are now of the belief that only with the restoration of the death penalty will they be able to restore the law and order that was the norm in past times.
We are all concerned with violence in our way of life; far too many acts of homicidal violence take place in our society. But I sincerely do not believe that the return of the death penalty will resolve those problems. Rather, the problems of our society must be addressed by vigorous law enforcement measures, law reform measures.
Canadians want a society that is both just and humane. We want a criminal justice system that will respond effectively to the real needs of our citizens, who must be protected from crimes of violence. We, in our life-styles, cannot, at home and in our schools, continue a life of permissiveness without the counterbalance of restraint, discipline, and personal responsibility. Having disapproved of the use of the strap in our school system, the use of corporal punishment, we cannot now call for
capital punishment for the weaker among us who did not learn discipline and responsibility.
Society can, through its courts, express clearly and forcefully its profound condemnation of murder and other flagrant crimes against the person without resorting to the death penalty.
When the Lord put his mark upon Cain, the first biblical murderer, and cast him out of his family and into the wilderness, he did not kill him; he forced him into a life, remembering each day the wrong that he had committed.
This debate will be followed by a vote of conscience, free of dictate, partisan or Party loyalty. In good conscience, I shall cast my vote against the motion. I cannot do otherwise.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez), on a question or comment.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, before putting my question to the Hon. Member for St. Catharines (Mr. Reid), I want to commend him for his excellent speech. It was a speech given with much feeling and much insight. I was certainly touched by what he had to say. In prefacing my question to him, I want to indicate that today was a day chosen by the Canadian Labour Congress to remember men and women who died or have been injured and possibly disabled in the workplace over the last year.
Those who would return capital punishment to the books of Canada have argued that it is essential to protect the innocent. Does the Hon. Member not think that it may be far more worth while for us to talk about corporate responsibility, for example, in terms of preventing deaths and injuries on the job, as there seems to be a far greater problem in that area? Is that not something on which we ought to spend more time and energy in trying to find the laws and processes that would prevent unnecessary deaths or maiming in the workplace?


Joseph Lloyd Reid: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez) will not catch me out in a moment of softness. The problem of employer-employee relations is not a subject for this debate. However, I believe much progress has been made in respect of safety in the workplace. I support measures which are being taken to introduce a greater degree of safety in the workplace.
I do not take the position that accidents, which happen as a result of carelessness or otherwise, can be brought into the same realm of consideration as deliberate homicides. I am sure that safety in the workplace is a matter of concern that all of us are addressing.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I join in congratulating the Hon. Member for St. Catharines (Mr. Reid) on his first-rate presentation on this subject.
April 28, 1987

1 understand that the Hon. Member is a lawyer and I should like to ask him a question concerning his profession. To what extent does he believe that the skill and intelligence of defence lawyers and prosecuting lawyers determine the outcome of a trial regardless of the guilt or innocence of the accused?


Joseph Lloyd Reid: Mr. Speaker, I thought I addressed that particular point in my speech. As a lawyer I recognize that it is a matter of concern.
There are variances of skills in lawyers, particularly criminal court lawyers. Some of them do a much better job than others. We also know that the law of the land provides a lawyer for a person charged with or accused of a capital offence. He will not go into court without one, but just as there are differences in the skills of parliamentarians in the House, there are differences in the skills of practising lawyers before the bar.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson) on a question or comment.


Philip Derek Lewis: And here is one now.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, 1 look forward to hearing from the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Lewis) in due course.


Philip Derek Lewis: I have already contributed.


Svend Johannes Robinson: I forgot we already heard from him. It was obviously a notable contribution to the debate.
I have a question for the Hon. Member for St. Catharines (Mr. Reid) referring to the support of major church groups in Canada for the continued abolition of capital punishment. He will know that all major church groups in Canada, including the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Anglican Church, the United Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec, the Canadian Unitarian Council, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Mennonite Central Committee, and the Religious Society of Friends, officially support the continued abolition of the death penalty. In fact, we are even waiting for PTL south of the border to pronounce itself on this particular question.
The Hon. Member made a comment in respect of some of the concerns raised by those who spoke in favour of capital punishment and made reference to biblical passages in so doing, the old "an eye for an eye". Does the Hon. Member agree that Christian people in the example of Jesus himself should follow an example of forgiveness and reconciliation? Christ himself, as a victim of capital punishment on the cross, after all, said: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do". He also saved a woman condemned to death by stoning for the crime of adultery by teaching: "Let he among you who is without sin throw the first stone".
I suggest that those who claim to live in Christ's image can therefore not abandon hope, faith, and the sacredness of life, even the life of a murderer.
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Would the Hon. Member like to comment in respect of the extent to which biblical passages are invoked in support of capital punishment in this debate?


Joseph Lloyd Reid: Mr. Speaker, I was in the House yesterday when the Hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Domm) pointed out the great number of communications received from United Church ministers and representatives of the clergy in a wide range of doctrine. I was careful to point out-and I firmly believe it-that the governing bodies of the established churches to which the Hon. Member referred are in their council in favour of the continuation of the abolition of the death penalty. There are some, perhaps in each congregation, in favour of restoration despite the fact that the councils have indicated by resolution that they favour the continuation of abolishment of capital punishment. I think that is so.
I have heard members of the clergy point out in their interpretation of the Scriptures extracts from different sections of the Old Testament, as well as the fact that Jesus was a victim of popular opinion. When Pilate himself could find no wrong, Jesus might be said to have been one of those who were innocent and condemned to death wrongfully by mass public opinion.
There is a difference in the interpretations. It takes a theological scholar to point out the differences and the inflections in each of the extracts. I do not want to dwell upon them particularly, but I certainly agree that the church councils are in support of continued abolition.


Mr. Della  Noce@: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the Hon. Member for St. Catharines (Mr. Reid). I think he made a very good speech, but that does not mean that we all agree. I hope my hon. colleague does not expect that to be the case. We are a normal family over here and everyone is allowed his or her rights.
There are five major jails in my riding of Duvernay which I have been able to visit in the last two years. When I visited the prisons, I spoke with inmates who had 25-year sentences. As the Hon. Member will know, when we removed the death penalty, we made a deal; we changed death penalty to 25 years firm. Is it more humane to keep someone inside for 25 years with no option, no solution, and no hope in a six-foot by nine-foot cell? I do not think jail is the best place to be even if our constituents say that they are better treated than in hotels. However, the jails I have visited are far different from a Sheraton Hotel.
Second, does the Hon. Member not think that a person who puts someone's life in danger puts his or her own life in danger? Is 25 years more humane? What is the Hon. Member's solution?


Joseph Lloyd Reid: Mr. Speaker, I will not say that I have a solution. I recognize, as my hon. colleague does, that a prison life is not life in a Sheraton Hotel. It is a life of confinement and it is not

April 28, 1987
Business of the House
intended to be a Sheraton Elotel environment. If a person commits a wrong, that person must be seen and known to pay the penalty.
The whole system of justice is an evolving one. We have come a long way since Elizabethan times when about 149 offences resulted in the death penalty. Even children under the age of nine who pickpocketed were put to death because they could not afford to keep them in jails. It was inhumane. Time and evolution have changed the system and the system will continue to change in the future.
If the consideration of a debate such as this dwelt on the system and improvements to it, perhaps we could find a better way of making certain that those who have committed a wrong who can be rehabilitated should be rehabilitated much more rapidly than those who do not have the capability of being reinstated into society. Only medical authorities, psychiatrists and others can have the expertise to determine whether or not a person should be released. I am satisfied that we have the talent and the ability to do that if given time and opportunity.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Before resuming debate with the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) I will recognize the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Lewis) on a point of order.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Philip Derek Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to advise the House that the business for tomorrow will be report stage of Bill C-22.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I thank the Hon. Member. The Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) on debate.


CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
[Stage Direction]
ESTABLISHMENT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON REINSTATEMENT The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski:
That this House supports, in principle, the reinstatement of capital punishment and directs that a special committee on reinstatement, composed of 15 members, be established, hold hearings and make its final report to the House no later than three (3) months following the adoption of this motion, such report to provide recommendations on:
(а)	which offence or offences should carry the death penalty, and in what circumstances;
(б)	which method or methods should be used to carry out the penalty of death, and in what circumstances;
That, pursuant to Standing Order 107(1), this special committee be hereby appointed as a committee to prepare and bring in a bill no later than three months following the adoption of this motion, founded on the committee's recommendations on (a) and (b) above; such a bill shall be the object of a separate and distinct report of the special committee, and such a report shall be its final report;
That such bill, when reported from such special committee to the House, be deemed pursuant to Standing Order 107(1) to have been introduced and stand on the Order Paper, in the name of the special committee chairman, for first
reading at the next sitting of the House; and that subsequent House stages of the bill be considered under "Government Orders'', with the bill standing under the heading "Government Business"; and that, when the said bill has been read a second time, it shall stand referred to a Legislative Committee;
That the Striking Committee be empowered to name the Members of the special committee, provided that once the Striking Committee report is laid upon the Table, it shall be deemed concurred in;
That the special committee have the power to sit while the House is sitting and during periods when the House stands adjourned;
That the special committee be empowered to report from time to time and send for persons and papers, and to print such papers and evidence from time to time as may be ordered by the committee and to retain the services of expert, technical, professional and clerical staff;
That the special committee be empowered to adjourn from place to place inside Canada and that, when deemed necessary, the appropriate staff accompany the committee;
That a quorum of the special committee be eight (8) members for any vote, resolution or other decision; and that the chairman be authorized to hold meetings to receive evidence and authorize the printing thereof whenever six (6) members are present;
That any substitution of membership on the special committee be made pursuant to Standing Order 94(4); and
That, notwithstanding the usual practices of this House, if the House is not sitting when the special committee is ready to issue its final report and the said bill, the special committee shall present its report and the bill to the House by filing them with the Clerk of the House provided that the report shall then be deemed to have been laid upon the Table, and the bill shall then be deemed, pursuant to Standing Order 107(1), to have been introduced at the first sitting of the House thereafter and to stand on the Order Paper in the name of the special committee chairman, for first reading at the next sitting of the House; and that subsequent House stages of the bill be considered under "Government Orders", with the bill standing under the heading "Government Business".
and on the amendment (Mr. Robinson) (p. 5311).
Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I very much regret that the Government has reopened the issue of capital punishment and made it necessary for me to participate in this debate.
During the last election I made it clear to my constituents that I am opposed to the reinstatement of the death penalty in Canada. My opposition is on moral grounds, on grounds bound to conscience. I believe that my constituents respect my decision and I would not be prepared to change my vote or my view on this issue even if that were the price of retaining my seat in the House of Commons.
A number of people during the course of this debate will be making a number of common arguments, and I basically support the arguments made by others who will be supporting the continued abolition of the death penalty. They will argue, and I agree, that capital punishment is not a deterrent and it is not, therefore, justifiable on that particular ground. They will argue, and I agree, that to restore capital punishment in Canada would be an uncivilized act and that we as Canadians should look at the precedent and practice of most western industrialized countries in western Europe, of Australia, New Zealand and all other countries in the OECD, with the exception of the United States, which have either banned the death penalty or in the case of Belgium and Ireland have not used it for a very long period.
April 28, 1987

They will note, as I note, that the murder rate was down in 1986 and that it has not risen in Canada since the death penalty was abolished 11 or 12 years ago. They will note, and 1 agree, that the chances of execution with the death penalty restored would very much depend on a person's social class, on how a person looked, whether he or she were of the middle class or seen as a loser, the court the person drew, the judge he or she drew, the lawyer, the jury, the defence lawyer, the jurisdiction in which the person appeared, whether or not he or she appeared before a jury, and a number of other factors like that. In other words, this application of a reinstated death penalty would be very unequal.
I noted, for example, in the statistics that the chances of being executed in the United States are a great deal greater if a person has murdered a white person rather than having murdered a black person. In the Republic of South Africa, that great example to us all, of the 115 executions in 1984, 113 were of blacks, only two were of whites. Your chances of being executed because you were black were something like 12 to 15 times greater than if you were white.
In my own constituency there was a tragic case a year or so ago, the death of Celia Ruygrok who was working in a halfway house in downtown Ottawa who was raped and then killed by a man who had a previous conviction for murder. That case has been brought forward. One cannot comment on it too greatly here except to express one's extreme condolences and regrets to Gerry Ruygrok and his wife, her parents and to all of those in the great, close-knit and loving family.
Gerry Ruygrok has expressed to my Leader and through him to this House his opposition to the death penalty. The evidence coming forward in the case and also before the inquest indicated that had our criminal justice system been working effectively, had parole been revoked, as it should have been in this case, then the incident could and should have been avoided. It seems to me that it is an example where we say we might have avoided this particular killing had there been the death penalty. The assailant would have been executed previously for his previous first offence. Therefore, this was an avoidable death.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is hypocritical of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), who says he is against the death penalty, to be perfectly willing to let Parliament spend time on this debate on capital punishment, in the knowledge that it might result in legislation that in the final instance could mean the death penalty for some of our fellow citizens.
Mr. Speaker, it is the Pontius Pilate approach. I believe the Government should have shown some leadership on this issue, either by deciding that its policy would be to reinstate capital punishment or by deciding to do nothing.
We are told that 70 per cent of Canadians are in favour of the death penalty. But, Mr. Speaker, very few of those Canadians consider it a priority. Incidentally, two-thirds of
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Canadians are opposed to the changes in the Patent Act being proposed by the Government, but the fact that the majority of Canadians object has not convinced the Government to drop the Bill. I agree that even if the Government is wrong about Bill C-22, it has the right and the duty, from time to time, to introduce legislation, even if that legislation is not supported by the majority of the people.
The Parliamentary Secretary who opened the debate said that now the Government had resolved the unemployment issue and dealt with Canada-U.S. relations and other problems it had been considering, it was time it kept its promise to hold a free vote on the death penalty.
Mr. Speaker, in seven provinces, the unemployment rate remains higher than it was during the recession from 1981 to 1983. An increasing number of jobs are part-time instead of full-time jobs, and some are for a short term only. In Newfoundland, the unemployment rate is 24 per cent. Among young people in Quebec, the unemployment rate is 16 or 17 per cent. The Government has yet to respond effectively to the youth unemployment problem that exists across the country. In fact, the recession is continuing. Mr. Speaker, there are all kinds of things for this Government to do. Ministers are complaining they do not have enough time to bring some very important Bills before Parliament and that we have many other Bills before the House that are just as important, but the Government will not be able to work on those Bills because Parliament is tied up with the death penalty.
Surely these other problems are more important than bringing back a measure which smacks of vengeance and which does not respond to the real problems of poverty, unemployment and the perception that there can and should be things done about security or law and order.
I would also point out that the scale of violence in Canada is grossly overestimated by many Canadians. One study that was done in Toronto indicated that Canadians felt that the murder rate in Canada was seven times higher than it actually is. In a single evening on the channels available in Metropolitan Toronto, more murders are perpetrated than occur in Metropolitan Toronto in an entire year. Most of the violence we see is fictional, and there is too much of it. From time to time, I feel thoroughly sickened by what I see on television. I see a set of values which, on the one hand is unduly commercial and appeals to people's vanity and greed, and on the other is perpetrating the myth that this is a violent society in which one can hardly dare to go out at night for fear of being attacked.
I have no problems when I walk anywhere in my constituency at any time of the day or night. There are some very limited areas in which I would recommend that a woman perhaps not walk at night, but in general our streets are safe. Our society in Canada is safe even though there are things we can and

April 28, 1987
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should do, particularly with respect to the concerns, feelings and rights of victims.
I would like to put some statistics on the record to put the question of capital punishment into perspective. In 1983, there were over two million Criminal Code offences committed in Canada. That is too many, but that included speeding and other offences which I would suspect would probably make virtually every Member of Parliament one of those who from time to time may have violated the Criminal Code. Of those offences, 8 per cent or 172,000 were violent crimes.
To put things into perspective, it is interesting to note that for each policeman or policewoman on duty in Canada, there was an estimated one and a half to two violent crimes committed in the course of an average year. In other words, the perception of police always fighting crooks is incorrect. In fact, police are doing many other things as well and they do not, day after day, come into contact with violent crime.
Of that violent crime, something like one-third of 1 per cent were murders. The average between 1977 and 1983 was 589. Of those murders in the same seven years, on average 178 were first-degree murders, 170 were second-degree murders, and 140 were unreported.
The rate of conviction for murder is relatively low. It is running at about 19 per cent for first-degree murder and 29 per cent for second-degree murder. That translates to an average of 32 convicted first-degree murderers per year between 1977 and 1983 and 120 second-degree murderers. Assuming for the sake of argument that half of the first-degree convictions would in fact go to execution-and I do not know if that is realistic or not-then we are talking about perhaps 16 murderers per year who would actually hang, be electrocuted, be given an injection or be killed in some other awful way. One then must ask oneself about the biblical principle of the sanctity of human life and the Commandment: "Thou shalt not kill". We as a state would violate it whether one or 1,000 persons were executed for crimes of murder.
If there is to be deterrence, one must ask, what would be the rational response, supposing there is one, of someone who is on the verge of committing a crime which involves murder? There are 600 murders in a year and 32 convictions for first-degree murder, 16 of which might lead to a hanging. That is a 2.5 per cent chance of hanging and only that.
Most crimes are committed in passion, in anger, under the influence of drugs or under the influence of alcohol, but we are to assume that despite that, the criminal or potential criminal will stop, have a moment of lucidity and rationality, and say: "If I shoot this gun, then I might hang for the crime. There is a 2.5 per cent chance that I would hang, but 39 times out of 40 that I will not hang". Is that a deterrent? No, it is not. It is ridiculous to suggest that criminals think in those rational terms when murder is essentially an irrational act, but I would suggest that that is a very real factor.
I would like to read into the record a few letters which have come from my constituents. Despite the opinion polls, the mail
I am receiving from my constituents, which is substantial, is eight to one against the reinstatement of capital punishment and in favour of continued abolition. I have a letter here from young Elizabeth Monahan who lives in my riding. Her letter reads in part:
I am 11 years old, my name is Elizabeth and I am totally against the death penalty. You say it's wrong to kill somebody and then turn around and kill somebody yourself now does that make sense to you. What's the point of killing somebody?
We say that of murderers, we should say that of the state as well. She goes on:
And if you make a mistake and only find out too late what happens then, somebody's family is going to be pretty upset.
Another constituent who lives on Cartier Street has this to
say:
Dear Mike,
I take this opportunity to add my voice against the imposition of the death penalty in Canada. I have lived in this country, my new home, for about thirteen years and the absence of the death penalty was-is one of the many humane institutions I enjoyed.
I consider the death penalty as being nothing less than an act of collective vengeance, indeed legalized lynching.
I trust that you and your colleagues will do your best to prevent Canada from regressing into the barbaric age of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth".
Another letter from a constituent reads as follows:
Dear Mike Cassidy,
I am writing to encourage you and all the other MPs to keep the death penalty out of Canada. I am opposed to any brutal or cruel punishments. 1 do not believe that fear will prevent murder. We see in the U.S. that the more fear, the more murders seem to occur. At least there is no solid statistical evidence that capital punishment works as a deterrent.
Families of victims deserve care & sympathy & support for their grief & anger. Those criminals who are out-of-control need restraint and also psychiatric care so they may change and not be tormented further by their own failings.
I hope you will follow your inner conscience & that it will lead you to oppose capital punishment, to support victims' rights to grieve & anger, and to call for further psychiatric help for all those who commit violent crime. I also feel tight gun control will minimize the number of murders we have.
Another letter from a constituent reads as follows:
Dear Mike
One issue concerns me more than any other facing Canada in the next few months. That issue is the death penalty. I had hoped the debate was behind us for good, the "hanging and flogging" wing of the Conservatives notwithstanding. Unfortunately, it is not.
He goes on to say:
We never should have to live again in a Canada which feels that legal murder is justice. All too much, the support on the other side is symptomatic of the kind of country people would like this to be-an Iran, a South Africa, a U.S.S.R., a China. No thanks, not my kind of Canada.
Another letter reads in part as follows:
We too know the death penalty is not a deterrent. Legalized killing of humans out of a sense of frustration at the lack of options or while pointing to the cost of prison sentences, is dehumanizing and demeans each of us individually.
Add to this the threat of executing an innocent party and you have a situation which is untenable on human, moral and legal grounds. We owe more to ourselves and our children.
April 28, 1987

We wish you well in your attempt to convince your colleagues to affirm the basic morality that civilization's history has been intent to show us, that killing people is antithetical to our existence. Teaching by example is the best tool we have to create Canada as a peaceful and secure society. The example that puts human blood on all our hands is the wrong one.
I could go on and on reading letters but I will only read a final letter from Mr. Ken Cunningham, the President of the John Howard Society of Ontario. He points out the number of organizations concerned with prison rights, the churches and the like, which have stood steadfastly in favour of abolition. Then he goes on to say the following:
As an organization which has worked for decades in the area of rehabilitation of offenders, we know that it is essential that the state's policies and practices model the behavior we expect of the offender. The death penalty, in our opinion is the ultimate hypocrisy. It does not reject violence, it embraces violence. It does not reject revenge, it elevates it to the status of law. It brutalizes us all. It removes the distinction between the murderer, who in his or her delusion feels justified in killing, and the rest of us, who in our delusions feel justified in killing the murderer.
I have quoted those views of my constituents at length and I subscribe to them.
This is a moral issue. The intensity of people opposed to reinstatement of the death penalty must be taken into account. I plead with my colleagues from all Parties. Listen to what Pope John Paul says. He calls for clemency and pardon for those who are condemned. The Canadian Council of Churches, representing 13 denominations, has said that it is implacably opposed to the death penalty. The Catholic Bishops in Canada have expressed very strong opposition. The Hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Domm) has come up with a handful of church people who are in favour. Of course there will be some. However, an overwhelming number of our moral and religious leaders say: Do not do it. Do not go backwards. They point out that the biblical precept of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was put into the Bible to stop wanton vengeance for minor crimes at a time when the death penalty was prescribed for such things as swearing, blasphemy, sorcery, or fornication. There would not be many of us left if those penalties were enforced today.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Order!


An Hon. Member:: Speak for yourself.


Michael Morris Cassidy: My colleagues suggest they have never been guilty of those sins. 1 wish them well.
The concept of an eye for an eye was a measure of penal reform in those days. It was to prevent worse penalties from being imposed. For God's sake, whatever your religious faith may be today, let us be guided by the religious teachers who are still, praise the Lord, around. I am a Unitarian. I respect the teaching of the Christian churches without being a Christian. I believe those things should be carefully listened to.
I want to say a final word about the process. The amendment put forward by my colleague, the Hon. Member for
Capital Punishment
Burnaby (Mr. Robinson) would effectively allow the parliamentary committee set up under this resolution to go around the country to examine the issue without being committed to reinstatement. That would follow the precedent set on child care, star wars, acid rain, the rights of the disabled, and so on. That is a good precedent. The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) quotes the McGrath Committee which recommended wider use of parliamentary committees. However, he neglected to point out that McGrath recommended that these committees conduct general inquiries when policy choices have not been made. It is an abuse for this Parliament to turn around and make such a profound decision without having inquired into it much, much further.
I believe the process is fundamentally flawed. If we have to bring it forward at all, and I wish we did not, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) could still respect his commitment to a free vote by sending a parliamentary committee out to investigate the issue. We have noted that several Members of Parliament have already changed their position. Having voted in favour of capital punishment, they are now opposed. That comes with deeper and more profound study and reflection on a very difficult issue. I believe a parliamentary committee, whatever its initial prejudice on the issue might be, could well come back and recommend against capital punishment, particularly when we note that this has been done in most other countries.

So finally, Mr. Speaker, I conclude by saying that I will vote against this resolution. For reasons of conscience I believe it is a moral question and I appeal to all my colleagues of all political Parties here in the House of Commons. If you have no doubt this is a measure which in the end is irreversible, and for this reason it is a bad way to make a decision when there is no consensus in the House of Commons. If there is no consensus, better live with the existing situation than restoring the death penalty and running the risk of legally killing certain people who have been found guilty of homicide, and then again change our point of view.
So I urge all those who may entertain some doubts to vote against this Government resolution.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Questions or comments?


Mr. Jepson:: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my friend from the NDP. He cited passages from the Scriptures about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. If I heard him correctly, I understood him to say he was not a Christian. As a Christian myself, it is my understanding as I study the Scriptures that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth really means that the sentence should be commensurate with the severity of the crime. That is not to say that if a person takes another person's eye, that person will lose his or her eye. It does not mean that a person who cuts off another person's arm is going to lose his arm. What the Scripture is saying very clearly is that you must have sentences commensurate with the

April 28, 1987
War Measures Act
crime committed. That has to be clearly indicated to society at large.
1 also heard his colleague commenting on the Catholic Church, the United Church, the Ontario-Quebec Conference of Baptist Churches, and so on. I think he was quite correct when he said the councils of those churches put forward their views on their opposition to capital punishment. What he did not say and what has clearly been expressed to those I have come in contact with, and is of course reflected in the polls we see across the country, is that they are not speaking for their total membership. In fact, I would respectfully suggest they are speaking for a minority. I know many United Church, Catholic and Baptist Church members who are in favour of the reinstatement of capital punishment.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, as 1 recall, the Member is an active Baptist and received the nomination in his constituency because of support from his friends and colleagues in his local congregation. I think he referred to the fact that the Ontario and Quebec Conference of Baptist Churches affirmed its opposition to capital punishment. I am not a Baptist and I cannot speak on behalf of all Baptists. Elowever, I certainly respect the views of the Baptist community leadership. From the early days of all religions people have looked to their religious leaders for guidance on these subjects. In the case of the Baptist community I presume that is the Conference of Baptist Churches. In the case of the Catholic Church it is the Pope and the Bishops. They are the teachers of today and should be respected. I say that very sincerely.
I would point out as well that the Hon. Member says that perhaps the leadership of the Baptist community is not representative. Perhaps we should question having a free vote in this House, given the indication that this House of Commons is not reflective of the Canadian people today. I would point out that the NDP MPs will be voting against this resolution, and have so indicated. It is a free vote and they will be voting against it. The vast majority of Liberal MPs will also be voting against it. According to the current polls, we would have a Parliament in which there would be a couple of hundred Members elected from the NDP and Liberal Parties and maybe 75 or 80 from the Progressive Conservative Party. Under those circumstances, this resolution would be sure to be defeated. I think it is not only hypocritical but the Government has no credibility in putting forward this motion which would be defeated if Parliament reflected the political sentiments of the public at large.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It being five o'clock the House will now proceed with Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.
[DOT] (WOO)


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-MOTIONS   WAR MEASURES ACT SUGGESTED REPEAL
Mr. Ernie Epp (Thunder Bay-Nipigon) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of repealing the War Measures Act, which authorizes unlimited and arbitrary exercise of power by the government of Canada during periods of war or apprehended insurrection without providing any review mechanism for such actions nor any basis for redress of the victims of unjust actions.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Before proceeding with debate, I have received written notice from the Hon. Member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson) that he was unable to move his motion during the hour provided for Private Members' Business prior to May 26, 1987. It has not been possible to arrange an exchange of positions in the order of precedence pursuant to the Special Order of the House agreed to on February 20, 1987. Accordingly, I am directing the Table to drop that item of business to the bottom of the order of precedence.


Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to move this motion asking the Government to consider the advisability of repealing the War Measures Act, and I appreciate the opportunity to debate the motion this afternoon. I am sorry that the motion was not made a votable motion because I think there are many Canadians who would support Parliament expressing itself on this particular long-standing piece of legislation.
There have been indications at various times that Governments were considering a change to this legislation, amendment of it to weaken its Draconian powers or, conceivably, replacement of it with other legislation, but that has not happened.
It is incumbent upon me this afternoon to speak for all those Canadians who, at various times, have said that the War Measures Act should not be on the statute books of a country which believes in the rule of law, that the War Measures Act should be replaced or, at the very least, should be removed from the books so that we might enter a better area of provision for emergencies perhaps, if that is necessary, but without having this particular power available to Canadian Governments.
The legislation itself, particularly in Section 6 of the Bill as it was originally passed in 1914, indicates the kinds of powers which Governments have. It reads:
6. The Governor in Council shall have power to do and authorize such acts and things, and to make from time to time such orders and regulations, as he may by reason of the existence of real or apprehended war. invasion or insurrection deem necessary or advisable for the security, defence, peace, order and welfare of Canada; and for greater certainty, but not so as to restrict the generality of the foregoing terms, it is hereby declared that the powers of the Governor in Council shall extend to all matters coming within the classes of subjects hereinafter enumerated, that is to say:-
April 28, 1987

(a)	censorship and the control and suppression of publications, writings, maps, plans, photographs, communications and means of communication;
(b)	arrest, detention, exclusion and deportation;
(c)	control of the harbours, ports, and territorial waters of Canada and the movements of vessels;
(d)	transportation by land, air, or water and the control of the transport of persons and things;
(e)	trading, exportation, importation, production and manufacture;
(0 appropriation, control, forfeiture and disposition of property and of the use thereof.
In this extensive clause are powers given to a Government of Canada to be invoked as a blank cheque to take practically any kind of action at all that it might think advisable in circumstances of emergency. We note that it is not only in situations of war, or even more, actual invasion of Canada, that these powers are available to Canadian Governments, but also in situations of insurrection in Canada, and not only actual situations of insurrection. The powers are available in a context of apprehended insurrection.
Anyone who thought in 1960 when the Bill of Rights was being debated in the House of Commons and when the then Prime Minister, the Right Hon. John George Diefenbaker, resisted suggestions that his Bill of Rights should supersede this legislation, that this legislation would not be used in peacetime discovered only 10 years later how wrong they were. In October of 1970 when kidnappings occurred in the Province of Quebec, as I am sure we all remember, and when the Canadian Government became anxious about maintaining order, as it claimed, and there was concern about finding those who had perpetrated these acts, the Government chose to use the War Measures Act, not only as a symbol, but as the reality of its exercise of power in the Province of Quebec. There were those far beyond the borders of Quebec who saw possibilities in this. I was living in the interior of British Columbia in those days. I was most shocked to hear a mayor of Vancouver speaking at the time of the possibilities of dealing with people in his own province under the new realities which the War Measures Act proclaimed.
The War Measures Act very significantly provided a basis for other actions. The proclamation of the Act was the authority for the publication of regulations. The regulations which were published made certain associations which had been legal before the Act was invoked now illegal. They made any sort of involvement with those organizations which had been legal before now a matter of crime.
In these contexts we saw the worst reassertion in our time of principles which long stood, back in the 1920s and 1930s, as Section 98 of the Criminal Code. These provisions followed the Winnipeg sympathetic strike which had been resisted by the first leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation year after year and were finally repealed in the middle of the Great Depression after the Liberal victory of 1935. A decade and a half after those provisions had been put in the Criminal Code providing for action against political organizations they reappeared in this context in 1970.
War Measures Act
It was not only that kind of abuse of law by the Government of Canada that made the War Measures Act possible. We have still before us today, in the declaration of the present Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mulroney) that there is a need to redress the action against Japanese Canadians, the reality that the War Measures Act was the basis for moving against the Japanese Canadian population of British Columbia. Canadian citizens found themselves dispossessed and relocated. Many of them found themselves detained in the process and afterwards. They found their lives completely disrupted. In a somewhat similar way as those several hundred persons who were arrested in 1970 never obtained compensation, there has never been adequate compensation for the Japanese Canadians who experienced this under the War Measures Act beginning in 1942 and continuing for at least the next half a dozen years.
It was for those reasons that the Special Committee on the Participation of Visible Minorities, which did such yeoman work in the last couple of years of the previous Parliament, in its Recommendation No. 34 called upon the Department of Justice to "review the War Measures Act with a view to proposing the safeguards necessary to prevent a recurrence of the kind of mistreatment suffered by the Japanese in Canada during and after World War II". It was Japanese Canadians of course who suffered this, not Japanese citizens in Canada.
That was the recommendation of all members of the committee. I would go further, as I do in this motion, to call upon the Government to consider repealing the Act altogether. If we need some sort of emergency legislation, let it be properly drawn up. In this area of the Charter we need provisions which prevent the kind of arbitrary action which has been taken in the past. We need protection for the rights of Canadians.
In emergency legislation we need review mechanisms so that it is possible for those who have been detained or have otherwise suffered under the legislation to obtain compensation for what has been done to them. Nothing less than that is necessary. Individuals must have a basis for redress. It is not sufficient for the Government of Canada to act in this way. It is an abuse of rights and was such long before the Bill of Rights. It is tragic that the Bill of Rights was not regarded as being violated if action occurred under the War Measures Act. I am sorry to say that the provisions of the 1982 Charter allowing for reasonable departures from freedom, opens the same kind of possibility that we found in the fall of 1970.
O)
Recognizing the possibility for arbitrary exercise of power, which needs always to be constrained by the law of the land in order to have the rule of law truly prevail, I call upon the Parliament of Canada to urge the Government to consider a repeal of this War Measures Act of 1914 and give us carefully considered legislation in peacetime that will not be rushed through as was done by our predecessors in 1914, in giving a blank cheque to the Government of Canada.

April 28, 1987
War Measures Act


Mr. Bob Hicks (Scarborough East):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon (Mr. Epp) is to be congratulated for a most sensible suggestion that is, doing away with the War Measures Act, the subject of much controversy today. It is too severe an instrument to be used in circumstances short of war.
Perhaps what we should do is to look closely at the vacuum that would be left by this Act and see what should replace it. Maybe we need more precisely conceived and worded legislation to protect Canadians in many emergencies.
Since Roman times, Governments have recognized that they have a fundamental obligation to provide for the safety and security of their peoples in times of catastrophe. This dictum is summarized in the Latin phrase: Salus poluli suprema est lex, or, the safety of the people is the supreme law.
The Government of Canada recognizes this fundamental obligation and is committed to improving the national standard of emergency preparedness and developing the national capacity to provide for the safety and security of Canadians in emergencies of all kinds. This is done on the basis of partnership with the provinces, with mechanisms to provide comprehensive, joint planning and the formulation of co-ordinated arrangements for dealing with all aspects of emergencies falling under their respective jurisdictions.
Officials of Emergency Preparedness Canada, and other federal Departments have been addressing the entire question of legislation surrounding emergency response in Canada and during the course of their review a number of gaps in the legal framework for emergencies have become apparent, raising questions about the Government's ability to provide for the safety of Canadians during national emergencies.
The current statutory framework for authorizing emergency powers has some shortcomings.
The War Measures Act is generally conceded to be too broad and sweeping for peacetime public safety or public order emergencies. While it provides adequate powers for war or invasion, it includes few safeguards against abuse. Less provocative legislation for dealing with a deepening international crisis in not available.
Other statutes such as the National Defence Act, the Criminal Code, and several others Acts contain some provisions that could be applied to emergencies. In most cases these provisions are unnecessary for a minor emergency and likely to be very inadequate for a major emergency. Some would possibly be subject to challenge under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. If invoked in combination, they would give rise to considerable confusion. Finally, few are adequately safeguarded. The Crown prerogative and the common law doctrine of necessity could possibly be used as the legal basis for taking emergency measures. However, the legal foundations of this approach are shaky and uncertain.
The Government could resort to the enactment of ad hoc legislation during an emergency, basing its legislation on the
"peace, order and good government" clause of the Constitution Act. However, the ad hoc approach could result in hasty and poorly drafted legislation if prepared in the heat of an urgent crisis. The process could be insufficiently rapid if Parliament were not in session, and would be impossible if Parliament were dissolved when the emergency arose.
Emergency legislation is an attribute of statehood. Canada is unique among industrially developed nations in not having comprehensive emergency legislation on its books. As well, all of our provinces and territories have legislation in place to deal with their responsibilities in emergencies.
As I said, I understand that the Government is reviewing the entire matter, and because revocation of the War Measures Act is on its agenda, I am certain that shortly we shall be discussing this matter publicly and in much greater detail.
There is no doubt that we in Canada must give greater attention to the entire area of emergency preparedness and to our ability to respond to crises. Emergencies take many forms and arise from many causes. They may be man-made in origin or may be the result of acts of God. They occur in peacetime and in war, and the range of precipitating causes encompasses natural disasters, such as epidemics, earthquakes, fire, floods, tornadoes or drought; technological mishaps such as industrial spills, pollution or major accidents; civil disturbances arising from revolts, terrorism or riots, conventional war and finally, the ultimate threat of nuclear attack.
The common factors in these disparate events are the sudden threat they pose to the community, the widespread harm they cause, and the need for prompt, often extraordinary measures to mitigate their effects and recover from them. In different ways and to varying degrees they may place in jeopardy the life and property of the individual, disrupt the peace, order and welfare of the community and, in the most extreme cases, threaten the continued existence of Canadian society itself.
Our ancestors lived in a less complicated age. With increasing population, especially in our urban centres, and with the threat of technological threats of all kinds mounting-ranging from chemical spills to the possibility of some madman launching a nuclear or biological attack-we are at the mercy of forces often beyond our control.
Our entire civilization seems to hang on an electrical thread. We saw what happened last summer when downtown Ottawa was without power for days; we know what happens in many emergencies when the power fails in the winter at temperatures of minus 40 degrees Celsius. Even in mid-summer, when tornadoes strike a community and the power goes off for a couple of days, freezers full of food can spoil. We have seen many instances in Canada when communities have been isolated because of floods and food has been airlifted in. Even those with freezers stocked with food found they had nothing to eat because it went bad. We saw what happened not too long ago in Montreal when fire put Air Canada's computerized reservation system out of action for days. Add to this incidents such as the Mississauga train derailment, when
April 28, 1987

escaping chlorine gas forced the evacuation of thousands, and it gives an idea of what kinds of things can happen in this country almost daily.
We are fortunate in having in Canada a sensible and effective emergency response system. Through the offices of Emergency Preparedness Canada, the agency responsible for co-ordinating the federal response to emergencies and for encouraging a uniform system of emergency response across the country, joint activities have been undertaken with provincial officials to evaluate current resources, both legal and material, assess actual needs, demarcate and co-ordinate respective responsibilities and to develop comprehensive plans for dealing with emergencies of any kind and of any scale.
The federal Government has concluded Memoranda of Understanding with all but three of the provinces and territories in order to demarcate respective responsibilities for emergency planning. A joint emergency preparedness program has been established with the provinces and territories to enhance the national emergency response capability and to encourage co-operation between the federal Government and the provinces and territories.
Further, disaster financial assistance arrangements have been put in place as a means of providing financial assistance to the provinces and the territories when the cost of dealing with the disaster would place an undue burden on the provincial economy. In general, the provinces and territories are well prepared to deal with the kinds of peacetime emergencies that have arisen in the past.
What we want in place of the War Measures Act is the kind of legislation other modern democratic states have had for many years.


Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate, but I am certainly not in support of this resolution. I think it would be the height of foolishness, if not idiocy, for a democracy that believes in the rule of law to disarm itself of the only method that it has consistent with the rule of law of dealing with crises.
Listening to the New Democratic Party and the arguments they raise that this should be repealed and that we should try to put something more modern and sensible in its place later, gives me one more reason to be glad that the Canadian people have never given the New Democratic Party the kind of support they have sought in election campaigns.
I have many reservations about the War Measures Act. If we had the wisdom that we have now when it was being drafted in 1914 it might have been a better and more moderate Act. I wish it were now possible to draft an improved version consistent with the principles which are fundamental to us in our democratic society today. However, the suggestion that that Act should be done away with, even if it means there is nothing in its place, is, to me, the height of irresponsibility. It is a way of betraying our democracy. It is a way of putting us into some predicaments.
War Measures Act
Let me give an example of one or two predicaments in which we would find ourselves if this New Democratic Party resolution succeeded. My colleague, the Hon. Member from Scarborough, referred to the derailment in Mississauga where a few tank cars full of chlorine gas fell off the tracks and might have killed a quarter of a million or more Torontonians, people living in the Mississauga area. The emergency team to which the Hon. Member referred, which is established and does work well with federal, provincial and municipal volunteers, and so on, would have arrived on the scene. It would have needed to commandeer some buildings in the area to use as hospitals. They would have had to rely on the Expropriation Act, which the federal Government introduced very proudly a few years ago, which gives 60 days' notice to the owners of that building, and if the owners of the building did not want to allow them in, they would have absolutely no authority to go in to establish hospitals.
There is nothing in the law of Canada, nothing in the law of necessity and nothing in the Crown prerogative, which permits the Government to take away a large building from its owner even if hundreds of thousands of Canadians are dying outside and need to be brought in and sheltered. Perhaps the owner would co-operate. Perhaps the owner could be spoken to and even pressured, but I do not believe that is the way to run the country even in a time of war.
I believe the country should be ruled by the rule of law, and the War Measures Act is consistent with the rule of law. The Act itself, as primitive as it is, requires the matter to be brought to the attention of Parliament. It has to be legislated. Procedures have to be set out in regulations. They have to be available for people to look at. Surely to God that is a better way to deal with the crisis which could have arisen and can arise any day of the week in this vast country of ours. To suggest that we should have nothing like the War Measures Act which could save hundreds of thousands of Canadians in a crisis situation is irresponsible.
Let me talk about the possibility of invasion. We may never be invaded. I hope we never are. But if we are invaded, how are we going to respond? I was once Solicitor General. Let us say we are invaded and have the problem of what to do with our prisons. Let us say there is a terrible tragedy of the sort which occurred in Europe. Should the prison guards have to stay on the job? Should the inmates continue to be fed three meals a day if the rest of the population is starving? Should they be moved somewhere? Should the prisons be used for prisoners of war if we are successful in capturing our invaders and want to use the prison for that purpose? Should the warden be able to turn his guards on the civil authority or on the military authority for wanting to use our penitentiaries for that purpose? That is ridiculous. How could we handle an invasion of that scale without having the possibility of rapidly reorganizing rights and freedoms and doing it according to some basis of rule of law.

April 28, 1987
War Measures Act
1 do not like the War Measures Act. I could visualize a better version being drafted. Elowever, to say we should do away with it, with nothing to replace it, is to say that there are circumstances where we are prepared not to have the rule of law at all.
I want to talk now about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because I think the Charter of Rights and Freedoms must be reviewed as a very important constraint on the War Measures Act. Let us say that in a regrettable circumstance we are at war and some measures are introduced under the War Measures Act which establish press censorship. What if our military plans of defence of Canada come into the hands of the media? If they are printed, the enemy can buy copies of the daily newspapers and learn where Canadian troops are going to be deployed over the next few months. We could call in the media and order them, if we did not have the War Measures Act, not to print those plans, but we have absolutely no authority to do that. That would be an illegal act and, in my view, it would be an infringement on the rights of the press and a violation of the rule of law. Or we could introduce under the War Measures Act some program of censorship which would make it very clear that the authority defending our country in those circumstances would be legally able to order the media not to print any plans of the Canadian Armed Forces which fell into their hands. Without the War Measures Act we would have no legal way of doing that.
I will take my third example as a way of explaining what the Charter adds. Suppose people start writing letters to the editors complaining about the way in which the war is being conducted, about the way the Government is handling the powers it has, and the censor decides under the powers of the War Measures Act, because they are stated in very broad terms, that the Government does not need these critical articles to be printed in the newspaper. That, in my opinion, would be a violation of the Charter. The censor could not prevent the media from printing criticism of the Government, but it should be able to prevent the media from printing plans which show the way in which Canada will defend itself in the invasion, and I am still using my hypothesis of invasion. There is no way we could justify criticism of the Government being censored, whereas there would be justification for censoring the plans of the Canadian Armed Forces being printed in the media.
The Charter does add something, and when my friend regrets the fact that all we receive from the Charter is protection of things that are reasonable-we do not get the protection of everything or things that are not reasonable- frankly, it does not bother me very much. I am relieved that protection extends to what is reasonable. I voted for the Charter and I am quite sympathetic with the idea that rights which are asserted beyond the point of reasonableness in a democratic society and its circumstances are not protected. Therefore, to make a point, the War Measures Act has a lot to offer the Canadian people. Perhaps it could be improved. Perhaps it has been abused. I would say that with the Charter
of Rights and Freedoms there is a considerable restraint on the way it can be exercised. For a politician who wants to be taken seriously to argue there should be no War Measures Act, that Canada should have no lawful way of dealing with emergencies until perhaps Parliament brings in another law, in my view disqualifies that person from participating in the discussion of what the rule of law ought to mean in a democratic society.
I want to conclude by saying that I defend the use of the War Measures Act during the FLQ crisis. My friend, the Hon. Member for Waterloo (Mr. MacLean), used the FLQ crisis as proof that the War Measures Act is a big mistake and not necessary. I was there and remember the circumstances. The City of Montreal and the Province of Quebec were demanding that the War Measures Act be introduced. Ordinary citizens were afraid to go to work. They were staying at home because of fear of terrorism in the streets of the city. I also remember the effect of the War Measures Act. It restored a sense of confidence and peace in the City of Montreal.
If the War Measures Act had been a more nuanced instrument, and it should be, there might have been able to be a more precise and relevant intervention into the normal rules and regulations of the community. However, that was the Act that we had. It was brought in and it accomplished what had to be accomplished. I feel that the War Measures Act proved itself in the FLQ crisis. That is far from saying it discredited itself during that FLQ crisis.
As a member of the Liberal Party who voted in favour of the imposition of that measure at the time, I honestly believe that history will show those whom Mr. Trudeau described as "bleeding hearts" to have been on the wrong side of the issue. These people were unwilling to have our society defend itself by the only means that it had at hand.


Mr. Marc Ferland (Portneuf):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to echo the remarks made by the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon (Mr. Epp) and by my Conservative colleague from Scarborough East (Mr. Hicks) to stress the need to repeal the War Measures Act.
Never twice without a third time, as the saying goes. Sadly enough, the War Measures Act made these words even truer. It will not be imposed a fourth time, three times is enough. A number of Canadians of Japanese origin and a lot of Quebecers are the living proof that the letter may not kill, but it certainly can cause serious injuries.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, the War Measures Act and its built-in excesses has caused enough harm. It is a dangerous weapon which no longer has its place, even in a legislative arsenal.
Appropriately my learned colleagues have pointed out that in recent years all political Parties have spoken against this unfair law and for the need to draft new legislation.
April 28, 1987

I do not think it is necessary to emphasize the fact that the former administration did not keep this promise. What matters is that our Liberal colleagues join forces with our NDP colleagues and with us on the Government side to give Canada emergency measures worthy of this great country of ours. Our laws should reflect what we are-one of the most democratic nations in the world. This is how we are seen worldwide, and this is how we see ourselves.
Mr. Speaker, my colleagues who rose before me gave us a good idea of the kind of Bill which will replace the War Measures Act. Once it has been the subject of exhaustive consultations with the provinces, this Bill will provide the essential guarantees which are lacking in the current legislation. The War Measures Act will be subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Bill of Rights and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights.
The interests of the provinces will also be adequately protected during emergencies. The consultation mechanisms provided under the proposed legislation are unprecedented in Canada's constitutional history, because they guarantee the provinces a major role prior to the declaration of a state of emergency.
Over the years, Mr. Speaker, the War Measures Act has given rise in this Chamber to comments where shame and anger were the predominant sentiments. That is why I want to say how proud I am of the steps being taken by our Government and why I want to share this sentiment with all the Members of this House.


Mrs. Mary Collins (Capilano):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that there is not a Member in this House who does not subscribe to the repeal of the War Measures Act and its replacement by a comprehensive safeguard of legislation with which to deal with a wider spectrum of possible national emergencies in an appropriate manner.
The Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon (Mr. Epp) will be gratified to know that this Government has every intention of presenting such legislation. The people of Canada and their elected representatives have for years been demanding that this blunt instrument be abolished. Its powers are too sweeping. On two of the three occasions on which it was invoked, it involved serious violation of fundamental freedoms in Canada.
Other modern states have had appropriate legislation to deal with national emergencies for years. Canada is lagging in this respect. Despite successive promises by the former Liberal Government, nothing was done about it. But the present Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) has, on several occasions, promised to do away with the War Measures Act, a blunt instrument designed for another age, and replace it with something more in keeping with our times. It is on our agenda, and will be presented to this House.
We want to be sure, Mr. Speaker, that what replaces this infamous Act is right and appropriate for our society and for
War Measures Act
our times. It is not simply a matter of throwing out an inadequate piece of legislation. Our society is much more complex now than in 1914, when the War Measures Act was originally enacted.
I do not know whether you are aware, Mr. Speaker, but that Act was passed without dissent and after just one half hour of debate.
The emergency powers granted to the Government were not spelled out in the legislation. Rather, the Governor in Council was given broad powers to declare a state of emergency, and then to pass orders and regulations that could replace any statute of Parliament, all without Parliament ever having its say. Under the Act, a proclamation is considered conclusive evidence that war, invasion or insurrection, real or apprehended, exists.
In the spring of 1971, realizing that the existing Act was too imprecise to deal with emergencies in a modern democratic state, proposals for legislation were considered. The Government of the day proposed the appointment of a special joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons to consider the enactment of such legislation. However, that committee was not appointed, and the legislation was never introduced. And so the War Measures Act, a totally inadequate and inappropriate Act, remains on the books.
One of the troublesome features of this Act, Mr. Speaker, is that in the past, regulations under the War Measures Act replaced statutes and normal laws, after an emergency was declared, without the consent of Parliament. We want to ensure that the new legislation brings Parliament further into the process and builds in other safeguards to protect the rights of Canadians should the legislation need to be invoked.
We have every intention of ensuring that the civil rights of Canadians will be considered first and foremost. We want to place limits on the use of the Act, and tailor it to specific emergency situations.
Some would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that perhaps we should just throw out the War Measures Act and pass emergency legislation when it is needed. I feel that that would be dangerous. Such an approach could lead to delays in responding to crises, and it would be impossible were Parliament not in session or dissolved when the emergency arose.
In addition, legislation rushed through in the heat of a crisis might be more likely to run roughshod over civil rights than would a properly safeguarded Act, calmly and carefully considered, by Parliament, using the instruments which Parliament has provided.
As we well know, Mr. Speaker, natural and man-made disasters are occurring with great regularity. Canadians who say it cannot happen here remind me of those who argued, in the 1920s, that there was no sense in Canada preparing for emergencies because we lived in a fire-proofed house far from inflammable materials.

April 28, 1987
War Measures Act
It is amazing how quickly developments can overtake the best prepared of organizations. One needs only to look at the recent New Brunswick floods, or the gas cloud that sent people to hospital in Calgary. Both New Brunswick and Alberta have superb organizations to look after the safety of their citizens. But things can happen out of the blue.
For instance, Mr. Speaker, did you know that more than 1,000 earthquakes occur in Canada annually? Because most of them happen in isolated spots, the damage is light, and they do not make headlines. But did you realize, Mr. Speaker, that scientists predict that within the next 25 years there could be an earthquake of catastrophic proportions in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, in my own home area? An emergency preparedness official claims that such an event could be so disastrous as to be considered a national disaster.
For reasons such as these, we need to have in place national legislation, to identify very clearly the responsibilities of various orders of Government under crisis conditions of national proportions. The citizens of a society such as ours have the right to know in advance how their rights and freedoms might be limited in a serious emergency; and on the other side of the coin, what limits will be placed on government action.
I should like to conclude, Mr. Speaker, by expressing our appreciation of the Hon. Member's efforts in bringing forward this proposal. I want to reassure him that the Prime Minister and this Government are committed to repealing the War Measures Act and replacing it with legislation that is fair and just. I can assure the Member that we will be doing that in the very near future.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon (Mr. Epp) for bringing forward this motion. While I believe that the War Measures Act goes much too far and gives the Government much too much power, I believe that if we repealed that law we would have to enact another law to give the Government the power it might need under certain circumstances.
I wish the Hon. Member for York Centre (Mr. Kaplan) were here. I heard him make the point that we need a law and talk about what happened in 1970. I also heard him say that perhaps the law gives the Government too much power and should have been amended.
When the Liberals were in government, Members of Parliament were promised many times that the matter would be discussed and that we would receive a report on what happened. The present Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) was the Minister of Justice in 1970 when the War Measures Act was used at the time of the FLQ crisis. He promised on more than one occasion that Parliament would be given an opportunity to have a full discussion of what happened, and that Members of Parliament would be given a report in great
detail of what really happened. That never happened in all the time the Liberals were in government.
I find it passing strange that the Hon. Member for York Centre would say some of the things he said. I was here in 1970 when the War Measures Act was used because there was a fear of insurrection. I understand the fear of the people of Quebec. After all, there had been bombings. There were also the kidnappings of James Cross and Pierre Laporte, followed by the murder of Mr. Laporte.
We could understand then the way the people of Quebec, and indeed the vast majority of the people of Canada felt. Not much was known about the real strength of the FLQ. 1 remember that a then Minister, a man for whom I had a great deal of respect, Mr. Jean Marchand, made the statement that the FLQ had more than 2,000 supporters and that they had infiltrated the unions, Radio Canada, and many other organizations. When the facts came out later, there was no truth in that claim. The FLQ never had more than a few members.
We opposed then, as we do now, separatism. We opposed then, as we do now and always will, acts of terrorism. However, we understood the fears and concerns of the people of Quebec.
We were not surprised by the stand of many people with whom we worked very closely in the labour movement, in the political area, and in the civil liberties area. People like Frank Scott who had fought the oppressive regime of Premier Duplessis for many years supported the imposition of the War Measures Act. We understood why he did that. We believed then-


Mr. Prud'homme:: Not all of you.


David Orlikow: Almost all of us. I did not take the time to look up the records-


Marcel Prud'homme: Well, I did.


David Orlikow: If I remember correctly, three or four of our Members voted with the Government and all Conservatives except one were in support of the imposition of the War Measures Act.
We believed then-and I think time has proven that we were correct-that the Government had over-reacted. Let us remember what happened. Troops were sent into Montreal. Over 250 people were apprehended and incarcerated, some of them for several days, some of them for several weeks, if I remember correctly. After the investigation was completed, not a single one of those more than 250 people were charged, brought to trial, or convicted. We said then-and I say it now-that the Government over-reacted.
We can understand why it did in the same way as we understand why the then Government of Canada took the action of removing all Japanese people from British Columbia. There was fear and racial prejudice in that case. That action
April 28, 1987

had the support of a huge majority of Canadian people at that time. With the passage of time, more and more people realize that the action taken during World War II was not only a mistake but should not have happened. Very few people, if any, would now defend what happened in the 1940s. I say that there are fewer and fewer people who will defend what was done in the 1970 FLQ crisis by the then Government.
While I believe that a government needs legislation which will give it power to act decisively in a time of emergency, the powers given to the Government of Canada, regardless of which Party happens to form the Government, under the War Measures Act as it was drafted many years ago go much too far. We need a very careful study of the present Act. We also need a redefinition and a redrafting of the Act so that the Government of Canada will be given the power it needs, not power which can be misused as I believe it has been on some occasions.


Marcel Prud'homme: Mr. Speaker, 1 realize that the Hon. Member for Charlesbourg (Mrs. Tardif) and several other Members wish to take part in this debate, so I will try not to use up all my speaking time for this very important motion.
This is a debate we were not expecting today, but when I heard the first Member who spoke to the motion, the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon (Mr. Epp), the mover of the motion, I had to come to the House because I witnessed those events, and I could not, not even for a few moments, let a political Party rewrite history to make itself look better than the other Parties at the time.
Mr. Speaker, I regret only one thing and that is that we do not have more time to discuss a page in our history which is certainly not one of the most glorious in the history of human rights in Quebec and Canada.
Mr. Speaker, many of us who were young parliamentarians at the time were agonizing about this issue.
We were not "bleeding hearts" as my colleague, the Hon. Member for York Centre (Mr. Kaplan) said earlier on. Many of us were agonizing as to what we were about to do. Having been very close to university students at that time, having had in mind the events of Kent University-I go by memory, not having prepared any notes, but I lived these events-when the army shot some young university students, all of us had those events in mind in the House of Commons on that famous unfortunate night when we voted for the War Measures Act. But one cannot say that one Party in this House has more virtue than any other. Thank God I reminded the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) that his Party was not unanimous that night. There was a tough debate in the New Democratic Party at that time as to what to do. I agree
War Measures Act
many New Democrats voted against the Act, but they had a tough debate. I remember it only too well.
My price for voting for the War Measures Act was that I be included as one of the speakers. I would like to re-read my speech here today. It was the price I made my Party pay for me to vote for the War Measures Act. I was concerned. I knew that abuse could take place. I said that night in 1970-and I rely on memory as I have not looked at any notes-that we were going to vote for a tough law because we had nothing else. I remember that my Leader, who was then the Minister of Justice, wanted to pass a different Bill that would address itself to crises here and there in Canada so we would not be obliged to use the War Measures Act, but there was no agreement between Parties as to what kind of Bill that should be. It is all very well to say that the War Measures Act-


David Orlikow: You had lots of time later.


Marcel Prud'homme: Let me say to the Hon. Member from Winnipeg that I have never seen his Party press that question since, if I may kindly remind him of that. Seventeen years later the NDP has come forward with a motion. But I have never seen New Democrats take an Opposition Day to try to impress in Parliament that we should get rid of the War Measures Act. Suddenly out of nowhere, maybe out of a new discovery of Quebec, they want to please some people.
I will say in English and in French that I will always regret having voted for the War Measures Act. I felt it was my duty as a Canadian with the kind of information that we had that I had to do so. I had no other choice.
When history is written we will know more. Maybe we will be told that we were not given the entire picture. Maybe we did not have good information on Canadians at that time. I will always remember and I will name him, the Ambassador of Tunisia-

[DOT] .. the ambassador of Tunisia and what he said to other ambassadors who were saying: "Mr. Prud'homme, how could a free country like Canada pass legislation like this? It isn't like your country". The Tunisian ambassador, the brother of the former Secretary General of the United Nations, then said: "Mr. Prud'homme, don't worry about them". And he turned to the other ambassadors, saying: "This kind of thing could never happen in your countries." And why not? Because the other countries who were attacking Canada's position on this issue had files on all citizens who did not see eye to eye with their respective Governments.
And I must admit that on that evening, Canada entered a secondary phase, in the sense that on that evening, we lost that pastoral aspect of Canada in which there was no intelligence service and we were not too familiar with the movements that wanted to change the order of things.
I could even use the remaining minute-because I promised to give the Hon. Member for Charlesbourg (Mrs. Tardif) an opportunity to speak-I could even say that today, this might

April 28, 1987
War Measures Act
be an opportunity for me, I am not ashamed to say so, to apologize to those who were unjustly arrested. But this is something that was discovered later.
The Hon. Member for Winnipeg should however realize that it is always easier to show virtue with hindsight and to suggest: I told you so, look at what happened. The decision that had to be taken that night was different. The atmosphere was different. And I would like to remind him that the Armed Forces were not sent to Quebec-they were already in Quebec.
And my own concern was to avoid the events at Kent University where young people challenged the military, knowing our military's loyalty and devotion, because it was people from the Royal 22nd Regiment that were there, rather than English-speaking regiments. And they were there to perform their duty. And I would have had lifelong regrets had there been bloody incidents. That was the great debate within our caucus, especially the Quebec caucus, whether we should do it or not. But when we thought of what could happen, we told ourselves: It is disgusting, and I repeat disgusting, but we will have to do something we do not like. Why? Because there is no other statute in our books. And 1 will conclude on a kind note by stating that the Hon. Member should be thanked for at least putting the matter up for debate.
If it could expedite this debate-Mr. Speaker, you are a man who is well-known within the legal community-we could have a legislation which is everything that the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mrs. Collins) and all the others want. . . But I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, and my NPD friends that if you think that it is easy to get a legislation on which all of us can agree, that is what we have been debating since 1970. We do not like the War Measures Act and we do not want it to be the only one in the statutes, but we have to find a replacement, and if NDP Members have suggestions to make, even after 17 years, I would be delighted to hear them, because we could have a legislation which is better, more in line with the spirit of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and more compatible with what we want to defend.
To conclude, I regret that we had to pass this legislation. I have something to say to those who were arrested, and I know them even better than the Hon. Member. Several of them since then have become political men and women. I am sorry they were subjected to the brunt of our police forces who abused a legislation we had given them by arresting just about anybody. But Parliament could no longer intervene because it had given them carte blanche.
If I take part in this debate, Mr. Speaker, it is to prevent a single political Party to rewrite history within such a short
period of time, and I hope that we may some day return to this issue in order to examine all aspects of the unfortunate debate held in 1970, which led to such regrettable events.


Mrs. Monique Tardif (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the testimony we have just heard from the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme) does prove that we are all here to do our best to serve the Canadian people who have elected us.
Mr. Speaker, in the few minutes left to me perhaps I should focus on what I would like to find in a statute designed to replace the War Measures Act.
As I see it, the War Measures Act should be replaced by a law which might be called, for example, the Emergency Measures Act which would provide the Government with the means to cope with the four major kinds of national emergencies. These include disasters-they were mentioned earlier- the state of emergency, the state of international crisis, and the state of war. We should keep in mind that it is important to respect Parliament's right of inspection, in consultation with the provinces, and with due regard for the individual rights of all Canadians. This legislation should be subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights. It should also be in accordance with the requirements of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and provide compensation for damages incurred by the victims.
Before resorting to this legislation or any part of it, consultation with the provinces would be mandatory. The length of time the legislation is in force should be limited, much in the same way as the nature of the special measures which will be defined in specific terms.
In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, all these elements ought to be included in the measure which should be introduced by the Government. I should hope that when the matter comes up for consideration by the House all those who have the national interest at heart, namely all elected Members of Parliament, will support an amendment to this law.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hour provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired. Pursuant to Standing Order 42(1), the order shall be dropped from the Order Paper.

It being six o'clock I do now leave the Chair until eight o'clock, at which time the House will proceed to the question of the current crisis facing Canadian grain producers.
At 6 p.m. the House took recess.

Tuesday, April 28, 1987


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.

Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Leave has been granted to the Hon. Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo) to move the adjournment of the House pursuant to Standing Order 29 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely, the current crisis facing Canadian grain producers.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: That this House do now adjourn.
He said: Mr. Speaker, we have asked for this emergency debate because, as every Member of this House knows, and as anyone who is even remotely connected with agriculture knows, there is a crisis in the industry. All of agriculture is suffering these days but we are particularly concerned at this moment and for the next year about the grain industry. This debate is an attempt to bring before this House and the country the real crisis grain farmers are facing.
This crisis has been building for years, but during the last week or so there have been a number of events which have moved it from a crisis to an emergency. First, last week the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) announced an 18 per cent reduction in the initial prices for grain. Every farmer knows that that reduction was a minimum, because when the grain spreads are announced that drop will become greater. That 18 per cent decrease in grain prices comes on top of a 20 per cent decrease inflicted upon farmers last year. Even before that grain farmers across the country were feeling the pinch.
Second, yesterday the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) announced that he was removing the 18-month old moratorium on Farm Credit Corporation foreclosures. That action puts at risk about 20 per cent of FCC borrowers who are in arrears. More than that, it sends a signal to financial institutions all across the country that the federal Government is removing its protection from farms. It sends a signal which indicates open season, not only on farms but on small businesses as well. It sends a signal that the Government will no longer make a commitment to retain the family farm.
Third, and perhaps this is the most devastating event of all, if you can call it an event, the Government has refused to commit itself to some kind of deficiency payment to make up for the reduction in grain prices. Many farm groups across the country, and many Members of this House, particularly in the Opposition, have attempted to get from the Government some kind of commitment which would assure farmers that some deficiency payment would be available.
Farmers realize that with the Government indicating much lower grain prices and that it will not commit itself to any level of deficiency payment, the crisis becomes an emergency. When the Government announces open season for farm foreclosures by removing the moratorium, the crisis becomes an emergency. The withdrawal of protection only applies to FCC loans, but every farmer in financial difficulty looked to that moratorium as a commitment by the Government to keep them on the farm. Why should a private bank go the extra mile to try and keep a farmer farming when the Government will not do it?
This crisis has manifested itself in many ways. First, we have had a large number of farmers leaving the farm. Quite often you will hear people say, well, it is not as bad this year as it was last year. It was not as bad last year as it was the year before. However, let us all remember that when a group of farmers leave the farm they do not come back. It is cumulative. Five hundred leave this year and 500 left last year and 1,000 farmers are off the land. If you extend it for three years, it goes up to 1,500, and so on.
The crisis has also manifested itself in a great deal of stress on the family farm, resulting in family breakup and discouragement for many farmers. Ordinarily spring is a time of great enthusiasm and renewal. Farmers are out cultivating, seeding, and this is the time the Government picks to take action it has taken and make the announcements it has made-lower prices, no protection. Many people think that life on a farm is not stressful; in ordinary and good circumstances that is possibly true. However, when your family depends on you, when the bank is looking over your shoulder and the Government is abandoning you, stress is something that you live with.
It is not that the Government has done nothing. It has done something. Previous Governments put in place the Western Grain Stabilization Program, and an insurance program. A drought relief program has been in place for many years. The current Government last year put in place a special grains program which supposedly gave $1 billion to grain farmers across the country. That promise was made last October. The money has not yet all materialized, but we expect it will come.

April 28, 1987
The Western Grain Stabilization Program pays for deficits incurred by farmers in the previous year. Those programs are in place and have helped but are not solving the problem. As one farmer told me, "they just keep you dangling a little longer but in the end you go under anyway".
How can the Government deal with lower prices set in an export market? They can negotiate, but Canada is basically a price-taker rather than a price-setter. Therefore, we must sell our grain on the world market at the available price. However, if the Canadian Government has a commitment to keep the agricultural industry viable it must take some action to ensure that farmers can survive. It must either guarantee the farmer a specific price for his grain or, if that is open to too many problems, guarantee him a basic return from his farm. All the Government really need do is assure the farmer that if he plants and harvests he can survive.
The Government says it has a debt review program in place and can, therefore, lift the moratorium. However, the review boards which have been put in place across the country have no teeth. They are unable to make judgments which will allow the farmer to remain on the farm if he is in trouble. The hated transition program makes no attempt to keep the farmer on the farm.
I think these two programs are an indication of the commitment which the Government has to the family farm. First, the Farm Debt Review Program does not have the mandate to keep the farmer on the farm. The Saskatchewan Farm Security Act has such a mandate and does everything to keep the farmer operating. The Farm Debt Review Board only brings the debtor and debtee together to talk.
The transition program is exactly that. The Government is spending money so that another 500 or 1,000 farmers can leave the farm. The moratorium should not have been removed until the Government had in place a debt relief program which would give the agricultural community confidence that it can survive and that the Government will help it to do so.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley J. Hovdebo: We can only ask whether we have a philosophical commitment to the family farm. Europe has such a commitment. In Europe subsidy programs have been put in place. Although we may not like them and may disagree with them, they have been put in place because of a commitment to keep the family farm operating. Subsidy programs may not work well for us, but they have chosen that method in Europe.
Japan as well guarantees their farmers a price for their products which will ensure them of a living wage. We do not necessarily want to mimic these programs, but they assure those farmers that they are wanted and that their Government is willing to commit a certain amount of funds to give the agricultural community the confidence it needs.
The Government apparently does not have the commitment to the agricultural community to allow farmers to plant and harvest crops with the assurance that they will receive enough return for the product to allow them to survive. Across the country we have been facing a situation for some time which requires, not a band-aid solution but a global solution which considers all the requirements of the farmer.
It does not help to reduce the price of diesel fuel if farm taxes are increased. It does not help to reduce the cost of fertilizer if, by the same process, the cost of chemicals is increased. All parts of the farming process are important. Doing something about each part will, in the end, impact upon the amount which the farmer will take home.
However, that will not solve the problem. Canada must take a good look at the entire agricultural industry and make the decision that we want the agricultural industry and the family farm to survive.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley J. Hovdebo: We must be willing to put in place a program which will allow that survival.
Today the President of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, which is the largest farm organization in the country, wrote to the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mulroney). He said:
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool believes that the rural way of life and related
service industries are in jeopardy.
The Pool asks that all Members of Parliament recognize the very critical
economic situation confronting western Canadian families and communities.
This crisis has far-reaching social and economic implications for the national
economy, as well as for the West.
Some of my colleagues will be telling you about the effects which the devastation of the grain industry will have upon them. The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool recommended that programs be immediately developed through federal and provincial co-operation to keep families on their farms in productive capacities.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley J. Hovdebo: The Wheat Pool is asking that we in the Opposition and Government put in place the political will to ensure that the agricultural industry, and particularly the farm family, can survive.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Second, the Wheat Pool recommends that early consideration be given to the acute need for a substantial deficiency payment for the 1987-88 crop year. We have been attempting to get that kind of commitment for several months. The Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster), the Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse) and myself have asked this question at least twice a week for the last month, but have yet to receive a commitment. Several farm groups
April 28, 1987

have asked for specific commitments but none have been received.
Third, the Wheat Pool recommends that the Government continue its efforts to restore sanity in the international grain market. While this would solve the problem if it could be done, I have already said that we are price-takers, not price-makers.
The letter concludes:
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool continues to be prepared to work with government
to achieve short and long-term solutions in the interests of the farmers and
communities of Saskatchewan and Western Canada.
That is the kind of commitment we need and are requesting. We asked for an emergency debate in order that we, as members of the Opposition, could suggest the kinds of programs to the Government that are needed to allow the farm communities to survive.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, the motion this evening reflects a serious situation in much of Canadian agriculture, especially that part which is very dependent on grain and oil seeds. The area which is most responsible for that production in Canada is western Canada.
The Hon. Member opposite raised some concerns during his remarks that I would like to address. I do so with a certain sense of satisfaction, because it allows me to put on the record the kind of action the Government is taking in response to a very serious situation.
The Hon. Member raised three points. He talked about initial payments, about the concern over the Farm Credit Corporation's situation and the lifting of the moratorium on foreclosures, and he talked about the Government's refusal to commit itself to deficiency payments.
First I want to address the Farm Credit Corporation situation. I believe it is useful to put the over-all situation into some perspective, as I did in the House earlier today.
Of the approximately 225,000 commercial farmers in Canada, approximately 76,000 do business with the Farm Credit Corporation. It is no secret that some people have been having trouble keeping current and making payments to the Farm Credit Corporation. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) initiated a program whereby the FCC was instructed not to proceed with any foreclosure actions as far as Farm Credit Corporation clients were concerned.
In order to allay some of the concerns that have been raised by Members opposite during some of their observations and questions today, I want to outline as clearly as possible what the FCC is doing.
First, the Farm Credit Corporation will be able to deal with approximately 50 such situations a month. Those who find themselves in that unfortunate situation will meet with Farm Credit Corporation personnel on a one-to-one basis. They will have an opportunity to examine the current financial situation
and consider alternatives to see how that farm can stay in business. Each farmer will be given a proper opportunity to work out the problems which, above all, will be based on his ability to pay. These cases will then be referred to the Farm Debt Review Boards.
Hon. Members will know that Farm Debt Review Boards were established last summer and are operating in nine out of 10 provinces. They have met with considerable success, with an over-all success rate in excess of 50 per cent and more than 60 per cent in Alberta.
In order to assist farmers to stay on their land, they will consider such things as set-asides of both principal and interest, interest rate write-downs, and setting aside or writing down interest in arrears. Farmers will be able to consider a lease-back option where, if it looks as though the immediate Financial position is such that it could sustain outright purchase, farmers will be given an opportunity to engage in a lease-back. That is another option to help keep farmers on the land.
They will also have the option of buying the building site so that if it is judged that the farmer's operation is not viable he will have an option of buying his building site at less than market value. This is another way to help keep farmers on their farmsteads.
In addition, FCC has developed two innovative types of loans that attempt to address the over-all concern about interest rates. One is a commodity based loan and the other is shared risk mortgage.
Shared risk mortgages now operate at approximately 9.5 per cent. If we consider the commodity based loans for farmers strictly engaged in wheat production, this year they will be eligible for a loan at approximately 6 per cent. It is simply not the case that there is an open season on farmers, as suggested by the Hon. Member at the beginning of his remarks. The figures simply do not justify that assertion.
If the FCC continues to deal with approximately 50 cases per month, as it has indicated, in a year it will have dealt with a quarter of 1 per cent of all commercial farms in Canada.
This farm debt review process takes into account all those options which I said will be considered with the objective of keeping as many farmers on the land as possible. I hope that when Members understand the process that will be used to deal with people who are having problems in respect of FCC payments, it will allay some of the concerns that were raised about a wholesale abandonment of farmers and a lack of commitment to agriculture by the Government.
Let me address the situation as far as initial payments are concerned. It has been suggested that we should have kept initial payments at $130 per tonne for wheat and $80 per tonne for barley. I want to quote from people who deal with initial payments. Garf Stevenson of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool said: "The Pool agrees with the Government's decision to set initial prices to reflect world prices". Mr. Brunton of the

April 28, 1987
Alberta Wheat Pool said: "The Wheat Pool is all in favour of the Wheat Board setting an initial price that reflects real market conditions".
There is considerable support for the setting of initial prices in direct relation to the existing world prices. If that is not done, two concerns came through to us loud and clear. First, most farmers do not want to see the Wheat Board system of selling used as an income distribution system. They want to see the pooling system we use, which has worked so successfully for Canadian farmers for the past number of years, kept separate from the system of income distribution or income support. The Hon. Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse) says no one said that but by implication that is exactly what was said when it was suggested that initial prices should be kept at a level which does not at all reflect actual world prices.
Hon. Members will know that the second concern which was raised is with the livestock industry, and that the secondary industries which use feed grain as an input operate on a North American market. They have to be competitive right across North America, and that means in the United States.
What do we do to the people who use barley, for instance, as an input in the livestock industry? The Hon. Member will know that in fact 60 per cent and sometimes higher of the barley grown in western Canada is fed to livestock. Therefore, if initial prices are kept higher than the world market, the domestic feed industry, which is a bigger customer for feed grain in western Canada than our export market, is forced to compete with an artificially high price based on world market expectation. That is why the president of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool exercised good judgment when he said that the Wheat Pool is all in favour of the Wheat Board setting initial prices that reflect real market conditions. That is exactly what we attempted to do.
I would like to speak now about what has been going on in agriculture. Let me try to put some semblance of balance into the situation. There is absolutely no question but that we face extremely low world market prices for grain and oil seeds, but there are other sectors of the Canadian agricultural economy which are not in that kind of situation. The beef industry, for instance, is in relatively good shape. Markets have improved considerably. I could say the same thing for the pork industry and for the supply managed industries, the feather industries and the dairy business. That is reflected in over-all estimates of Canadian farm income.
If we take the 1981 to 1984 average, we find that the net total revenue from all farm production in Canada is $6,165 billion. Last year it was up to $7 billion as opposed to $6.1 billion. This is net total revenue from all farm sources. If we want to talk about total receipts, then we are talking about a $20 billion industry. The projection for 1987 as far as all farm income is concerned is virtually the same as 1986. That is all
Canadian agriculture, for all commodities, no matter where in Canada.
Let us look at the situation which we all know is the most serious, what is going on in western Canada, the revenue from grain and oil seed production. That is where we have the problem. I will give some figures just to put the situation into context.
The 1981 to 1984 average was slightly over $3 billion. That is net total revenue, net income. In 1986 it dropped over $800 million to $2.2 billion. But the estimate for 1987 is that it will go up slightly to $2.5 billion. One can ask the question, how can we have net revenue go up when we are facing such very large declines in prices? It goes up for two reasons, Mr. Speaker.
First, the Government has taken the deliberate decision to assist the Canadian Wheat Board and other people who sell our grain commodities on the world market. In fact, we have been doing a very good job of selling. We increased our market share for the last crop year and we have the prospect of increasing our market share again this year. This year Canada, for the first time in a number of years, will account for in excess of 20 per cent of the world trade in wheat. That is a direct result of the Government supporting the Canadian Wheat Board in its efforts to sell.
The other reason the net revenue has gone up is because of the amount of support which has come largely from the federal Government. I would like to give some additional very startling Figures to show what has happened as far as federal support of agriculture in western Canada is concerned. From 1983 to 1987, it has gone up dramatically. The average income support from the federal Government from 1981 to 1984 was $336 million. In 1987, it is estimated to be $2.6 billion. We have responded tremendously to a very difficult situation.
Let me give you an example of some of the ways we have responded. With respect to the Special Canadian Grains Program, Hon. Members opposite ridiculed us last fall. One of the Members of the Provincial House in Saskatchewan called it "mythical". He said it would never happen. Hon. Members opposite said it was going to be a loan guarantee. They said it was not going to be cash. But it was cash, it is cash, and it came in record speed. The crop year starts on August 1. Two months into the crop year the Prime Minister announced in principle that $1 billion was going to be made available. He said that in the Throne Speech, if Hon. Members will remember. Four months into the crop year the details of how the money was going to be paid out was announced. It was announced in December at the Agricultural Outlook Conference. So that four months into the crop year for which the money was designed to help, this Government made available the details of how that money was going to be distributed. The first payment to western Canada went out in January. The final amount will be made available towards the end of May. That is three months before the end of the crop year. That full $1 billion will be made available three months before the end
April 28, 1987

of the crop year, which is exactly the time when that money is needed.
Farmers grow their crop during the summer season and sell it throughout the crop year which concludes on July 31. So the money would normally be received, if the price was higher, during that time period, and that is exactly when the $1 billion from the Special Canadian Grains Program is being made available.
Our response has been tremendous. Those of us who come from western Canada have long thought we have been left out of the decision-making process. Bureaucrats in Ottawa printed up forms and sent them out and we filled them in and sent them back. That did not happen this time. We sat down with farmers from right across the country, the majority of them from western Canada. That would be expected because the majority of the farmers who are in trouble come from western Canada; that is where most of the grain and oil seeds are produced. We sat down with the farmers and worked out a program together and on that basis I think we developed a very fair minded program.
The Hon. Member from Saskatchewan will know that Saskatchewan produces approximately 39 per cent of the grain. It received over 40 per cent of the benefit. Alberta produces 25 per cent or 26 per cent of the total grain. It received 26 per cent of the benefit. My own Province of Manitoba produces 15 per cent of the grain and it received 15 per cent of the benefit. It is a very fair minded approach to a very serious problem, and that approach resulted in money being put out at exactly the time of year it would have been received had prices been higher.
As far as the Western Grain Stabilization Act is concerned, one of the first things we did as the Government was to amend the Western Grain Stabilization Act to allow for interim payments prior to spring seeding. We have seen the affects of that in the last three years running. We had an interim payment in April, 1985, of, I believe, $450 million. We had an interim payment in April of 1986 of $580 million. We announced an interim payment 10 days ago of $705 million.
That is a tremendous amount of money to be made available at a critical time of the year for farmers' spring seeding. When we couple the $705 million with the remainder of the Special Canadian Grains Program, we get very close to $1.3 billion going into Western Canada at the most critical time of the year, spring seeding.
If we look at the amount of money going into Saskatchewan alone I believe we will see that it is $676 million, a tremendous amount of money being made available at a critical time of the year. So for Hon. Members opposite to get up and suggest that the Government has abandoned agriculture and that we have no concern about it bears absolutely no resemblance to the record of this Government in agriculture.


Mr. Althouse:: Read the motion.


Charles James Mayer: There is another approach that we have taken, one in which we have taken the lead as far as a Government and a country is concerned. We all realize that the problem we face is largely beyond our borders. It is international in scope.


Mr. Benjamin:: So?


Charles James Mayer: It is a problem with the European community and the Americans who are in a trade war. Most farmers and most thinking people realize that if there is to be a lasting solution then it has to come about internationally.
What have we done internationally? We have taken the lead-


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: You sound like R. B. Bennett.


Charles James Mayer: -in attempting to arrive at some solutions. It was our Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) who sat down with farm leaders in Vancouver last year before he went to the Tokyo Summit to indicate to farmers that he would raise agriculture at the Summit, which happened. It was Canada which organized the five major wheat exporters getting together for the first time. We have been taking the lead. We played the lead role at the GATT meetings in Punta del Este, Uruguay, and agriculture will now be addressed as part of the main agenda of GATT. We have been taking the lead internationally in seeking a lasting solution to these problems.
Members opposite talk about us having no policy. We have policy. If I had another half hour I could go through all of the items that we have done internationally and cover the initiatives we have taken.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Just tell us what the policy is for next year. That is what the motion is about.


Charles James Mayer: We are doing three things. First, we are seeking international solutions. Our Prime Minister is taking the lead in that respect. As he said today, we are getting some results. They may not be too dramatic, but they are steady.
Second, we have provided a tremendous amount of financial support, and I did not go into some of the things we have done in terms of reducing input costs. But we have taken considerable steps in reducing input costs. As I just pointed out, we have provided a tremendous amount of cash.
Third, and as important, we have encouraged and supported the Canadian Wheat Board in its over-all efforts to continue to sell our product around the world so that when these markets turn around-and we believe that they will-Canada will be in a position as a reliable supplier to maintain those markets and to supply them when prices go up. That is a decided difference from the approach of previous governments.
Some 15 years ago when we faced this situation in the early 1970s we had a Government which took us out of the international market, instituted a Local Initiatives Program, cut our production in half from one year to the next, and it was a disaster for us. It took us almost five years to recover our

April 28, 1987
production. That is not our approach. Our approach is to support a very important industry. We intend to do that through this very difficult time.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have a chance to speak in this emergency debate tonight concerning the current crisis facing grain producers. It was very interesting to hear the Minister talk about the controlled commodities such as dairy products and others. However, what the debate tonight concerns is the tremendous tragedy that is taking place in the western grain industry.
The Minister said that we will have a grain industry in this country with grain producers in two or three years when the market turns around. Most western farmers are not very certain in their own minds whether that will be the case. There is no commitment of a deficiency payment for the new crop year.
The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) told the House a few weeks ago, "We will spare no effort". I say to the Minister of Agriculture and to the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer), go to your banker and try to get money to put in a crop and say, the Minister of Agriculture said he will spare no effort, and give the banker 65 cents, and he will give you a cup of coffee. But he will not give you a production loan. That is what this debate is all about tonight. It is about whether or not the Minister and the Government, who brag day in and day out about how much they have done for farmers, will put up the money and give the commitment in the new crop year to see that we have a viable and operating grain production industry in Canada.
Clearly, the two actions taken in the past week leave great uncertainty about that. Grain prices are down by 18 per cent, on top of 20 per cent last year. Last year when grain prices went down by 20 per cent the industry said that in constant dollars grain prices were at the same level as they were in 1933 when the Bennett buggies were being used and R. B. Bennett was sitting in the seat which the current Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) occupies. I am not saying that Tory times are hard times; but a great many western farmers must think that tonight, because grain prices have gone down by 18 per cent due to international forces, and there is no question about that.
For the Minister to trot out the canard that somebody is saying that initial prices should be set above world prices is patently ridiculous. What we want to know, and what American farmers and farmers in the European Economic Community already know, is what type of stabilization deficiency payment will be provided. They want to know that. Maybe they do not have to know the exact amount. The Minister could simply come clean and say, "Look, we are going to provide the same returns, that is, what the market provides, plus the Special Canadian Grains Program, or a new special grains program, plus even throw in the Western Grain Stabilization Fund. We will give equivalent returns to what we gave last year".
The second thing about which farmers want some information is on the basis on which this will be paid. The Minister says that the farmers should only look at the market, that they should not assume that there will even be a program, which there probably will not be since there will be an election in Saskatchewan this fall. The Minister has said that they should not assume that there will be a special grains program, and that they should not assume on what basis it will be paid. It seems to me that a great many farmers might say that the only precedent they have is the one they had last year when it was paid on the basis of seeded acres.
A few weeks ago we had farmers from Lethbridge in southern Alberta saying, "What we will do this year is mind the land. We will do some recreational seeding. We can then say the land has been seeded. We will get the special grains program, if there is one, and if there is not one we will not have spent very much because we will not have put on any fertilizer, or worked up the land. We will not have used too much seed or too much weed control or anything else".
Surely, the Government owes it to the farmers of western Canada to tell them on what basis a deficiency payment, a special grains program, will be paid, as well as the amount. Surely, if the Government is to be fair it should come clean and give the farmers this information.
I believe that the pressure, not from us in opposition but from farmers from the three prairie provinces, will be enough that within a matter of a few weeks the Government will cave in and give this information so that farmers can go to their bankers, get their credit and know what is happening. American farmers know. They know exactly what the loan discount rate will be. They know what the target price will be. They know what the deficiency payment will be. They know on what basis conservation should be carried out, and so on. Western farmers do not know any of those things.
This afternoon I spoke to a western wheat grower who said that the crisis today is not so much with respect to the price of grain but the uncertainty of government policy. He said, "We do not know whether there will be a deficiency payment, or a special grains program, and we do not know on what basis".
Many believe that the payment should be completely neutral; that it should be on the basis of cultivated acreage. In that way, people would not be pressed to produce a certain crop, or even to seed unproductive acreage, unproductive land. But, no one knows on what the program will be based, or in fact whether there will be any program.
I was impressed by the fact that the Minister quoted the President of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. I talked to the President of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool today, and I can tell you that he is particularly concerned about this. It is for that reason he sent a special letter this evening to the Prime Minister, calling the attention of the Prime Minister to the fact that the rural way of life in western Canada is in jeopardy.
April 28, 1987

He points out in his letter the critical economic situation confronting western Canadian families and communities.
This is a crisis that has far-reaching social and economic implications for the national economy, and particularly so for the west. The letter makes the point that programs must immediately be developed to keep families on the farm. What the President of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool is highlighting is the lack of a program for restructuring the debt. He talks about the need for a deficiency payment, and about the acute need for a substantial deficiency payment for the 1987-88 crop year.
The Government has been stonewalling up to now. The pressure is now on, and eventually it will have to set out the parameters of a deficiency payment and the basis upon which it will be made. As a nation, we have to be prepared for at least two more years of massive payments from the public Treasury to meet the shortfall in the price of grain.
Several of us met with six U.S. Congressmen yesterday noon, and the same group met with the Minister. Those U.S. Congressmen made it perfectly clear that the U.S. Farm Bill is not going to be changed during the course of the Reagan administration, with the result that we are looking at least at the current crop year and the next crop year. In addition, they made it clear that the export enhancement program, a program about which my colleague from Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy) will be speaking in more detail, is going to be strengthened, thus increasing the competition for Canadian Wheat Board sales. That simply translates into the fact that the farmer is going to get less money.
If we are to have our agricultural industry survive in the face of these things, we are going to have to provide more deficiency payments, more special grains programs.
I should like to now deal with the precipitous action taken by the Minister yesterday in lifting the foreclosure moratorium imposed upon the FCC. Like Members of this House, Canadian farmers will be less than impressed with the mathematics of the Minister when he said that one-quarter of 1 per cent of the farmers will be subject to foreclosure. The FCC, when it talks about economic farms in Canada, does not talk about 225,000 farms; rather, it talks about the farms with gross sales of about $20,000 per year. Perhaps the Hon. Minister does not read the FCC literature. In any event, it talks about a figure of 75,000, with gross sales of more than $20,000 per year.
The Minister's action will permit foreclosure proceedings to be commenced against those farmers whose FCC loans are in arrears. They represent about 35 to 40 per cent of the longterm debt in the agricultural sector. About 6,000 of the 75,000 accounts with the FCC have been in arrears for more than two years, and the experience with the FCC is that if a loan is in arrears for more than two years, it almost invariably leads to foreclosure.
So, we are not here talking about a one-quarter of 1 per cent, but roughly 8 per cent of the FCC loans which are certain to face foreclosure proceedings. Well, the Minister
says: "Don't worry about that; we are only going to foreclose on about 50 a month. The staff of the FCC cannot process any more than 50 a month. As a result, only 600 farmers a year have to worry about foreclosure."
The question I put to the Minister is: Which of the 600 of the 6,000 loans which are subject to foreclosure will be acted upon? That is what the banker is going to ask when the farmer applies for a production loan. Once the bank points out that the FCC is pursuing foreclosures, the farmer can respond: "Oh, don't worry about that. Charlie says that they are only going to close on 600 a year, and there are 6,000 altogether. If I am the last one subject to foreclosure, I will not be foreclosed on for 10 years."
And the banker, of course, would then say: "Well, the FCC has said they are going to foreclose. If you are going to be the last one foreclosed on, then you had better get a statement from the Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board saying that you will not be subject to foreclosure for 10 years."
That kind of thing, Mr. Speaker, just will not wash. If the Government is lifting the moratorium on foreclosures, then it is lifted. That will then lead to action on these loans. Regardless of how the Minister wants to sugar-coat it, that is the way it is.
This moratorium has been in place for 19 months. During that time, the Government should have put in place a debt restructuring program to solve the plight of farmers. Had they put in place a proper debt restructuring program, the moratorium need not have been in place at all. But the Government did not have such a program, and the moratorium bought time. In the meantime, however, no debt restructuring program was put in place.
The commodity-based mortgage that the Minister spoke of this evening was described to the Standing Committee on Agriculture today by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture as a program that should be sent to the Better Business Bureau to determine whether or not it meets the ethical criteria of a properly run program. That is how that organization viewed it.
I asked why it is that no one was taking advantage of it, and the answer I got was that people do not trust it; that it is too complicated. It is simply not a good program. That is evidenced in the fact that while there are 16,000 FCC loans in arrears, 6,000 of them for more than two years, only 1,200 farmers have taken advantage of that program.
The Minister talked about the Farm Debt Review Boards. I do not have the figures with me for all nine boards, but I can tell you that of 400 applications that have come before the Ontario board, agreement has been reached in 195 cases, and only in two cases has an agreement been signed.
In some cases, the banks have agreed to an agreement verbally but then welshed on it and went ahead with foreclosure proceedings. So, the Farm Debt Review Boards are not functioning that well. In my view, the moratorium should be maintained, and we should take the time to put in place much

April 28, 1987
better programs. We should modify and strengthen the commodity-based mortgage, or throw it out. More funds should be provided for the rescheduling of debt by the FCC. As well, we need help for other groups.
Tonight I spoke with the president of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, the largest Wheat Pool in Canada. He spoke about a program which the pool is examining for rescheduling debt. That is what the Minister must look at. He must maintain this moratorium and put in place new programs for rescheduling debt. He is not kidding farmers. The crisis is facing western agriculture and much of eastern agriculture as well.
This is an historic event. Unless special programs are put in place to cope with it, we will see the loss of an entire way of life in prairie communities and rural communities across the country.
Action is needed now. The Government should come clean, give a commitment on a deficiency payment, stop foreclosures which will start on Friday of this week, and put in place a proper debt restructuring program. If the Government does not do so, the problems faced by western Canadian agriculture and agriculture in other parts of the country will be horrendous. People in the House and across the country who are concerned about agriculture are willing to make that commitment, and the Government must make that commitment now to our rural communities. It is absolutely essential.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Stan Schellenberger (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, I join in this debate with pleasure. The Hon. Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster), the Hon. Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo), and I have debated the agriculture issue in the House over many years, sometimes on different sides of the House than the ones we occupy at present.
My memory is long regarding the policies of Parties on agriculture. I listened with care to the Hon. Members when they outlined the problem, the serious situation facing grain farmers in the Prairies and across Canada today. I waited with anticipation to hear how these Hon. Members would assist the Government in solving the problem.
The Hon. Member for Prince Albert said that he was not too sure whether we should do what Europe and the United States were doing. Then he said that maybe we should help farmers. I waited a little longer, and suddenly he sat down. He did not give us the NDP policy on how it would handle the crisis facing Canadian grain farmers. He left the impression that all Canadian farmers were in the can financially, which is simply not the case.
I listened to the Hon. Member for Algoma outline the problem. I waited for the so-called famous Liberal policy on agriculture to assist grain farmers through the serious problem. At the end of his speech he sat down, after saying
that special programs should be put in place to cope with it, meaning the farm problem. He also talked about commitment, a member of that Party talked about commitment. In two and a half years the Government has responded in more ways than the Liberals responded in the 20-odd years when they were in government. I will outline some of their responses.
However, let me deal with policy because it is important. When there is a problem, anyone can outline it, but a problem needs to be solved. When we were in opposition about the same time in the term of the former Liberal Government, I recall very well six or seven members of the Tory agricultural committee sitting down and drafting a 10-point policy to deal with the same problem. Grain prices were lowering. Interest rates were at 22 per cent. Inflation was double digit. Farmers were facing a serious financial crisis on the Prairies. As I said, we drafted a 10-point policy which we put before the Canadian people. We took that policy to Prince Albert. We promised it in the election, and it is already in place.
Where is the NDP policy? I looked all over for it. I thought it would come tonight. I searched the records and I found a few things which NDP Members say still stand.
They say that it might be necessary, as well, to take into public ownership some existing farm supply retail operations, farm assembly plants, meat packing plants, and canneries. That sounds very interesting. Would that solve the problem in the farm sector now?
Other proposals in the resolution would be tantamount to the state taking over agriculture, with farmers taking their marching orders from Ottawa. In its policy the NDP says that it would regulate the distribution, sale, and servicing of farm machinery to promote standardization. This is another NDP policy on agriculture.
They would also regulate food processing, wholesaling, and retailing industries in the public interest through the use of price controls. I wonder whether farmers would think this policy would solve the problems of grain farmers at the present time.
They went on to indicate the establishment of a public commission to determine a formula for farm unit size on a regional basis. Are they going to tell farmers what is the optimum size or the best size for their farms? Are they going to say that if they have a quarter section or more it ought to be sold off because it is not an NDP policy? I could continue, but it does not get much better.
However, the best one came from the Liberal Party. I want to deal with the policy of the Liberal Party because I do not have too much time. I searched for its policy. I had hoped the Hon. member for Algoma would stand and give us an indication of what it was.


An Hon. Member:: He left.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: Yes, he left quickly. It seems that the Liberal Party has a policy which it announced a few weeks ago
April 28, 1987

in Winnipeg. I should like to refer to an article which appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press on April 11, 1987, because I think they said it better than I can. The article indicated that the authors of this feeble set of proposals were the members of an exclusive political group and that the task force consisted of two Members of Parliament, one being the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy). I am pleased to see him here tonight. I know he will take part in the debate. Perhaps he will elucidate this policy because it is very necessary for him to do so. He was one of the authors. The other author was the Hon. Member for Algoma who just participated in the debate.
The article went on to refer to 11 Senators from western Canada, the leaders of the Saskatchewan and Alberta Liberal Parties, and three Alberta Liberal MLAs who all came from cities. They really had an excellent group!
Perhaps they should have used another western Member. They have one more about whom they forgot, the Hon. Member for Vancouver Quadra (Mr. Turner).


Mr. Clark (Brandon-Souris):: He is a Toronto Member.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: Oh, I thought he was from Vancouver. He was a little farther west but apparently he did not participate in the Party's hearings. Maybe his interests are further away from agriculture.
The Winnipeg Free Press article continued:
Western Canadians who hope the Liberal Party might have learned something about their needs and aspirations during its two and one-half years out of office seem doomed to disappointment. Even the western members of the caucus remain sadly out of touch.
1 cannot argue with that, because I looked at its policy, its 17-page report. The article continued:
The 17-page report is an empty document offering ringing declarations of discredited party policy, outright distortions of economic reality and not a single firm proposal which would make any significant difference to the economy of western Canada.
It goes on and I will read only one more paragraph, but I would like to put this whole thing on the record. It says:
Western Canadians, of course, know all about mismanagement and a lack of understanding of their economy. They know all about the connection between political and economic decision making. They got a taste of both when the political decision of the previous Liberal Government led to the economic disaster of a National Energy Program which put a large part of the western Canadian oil industry out of business.
On and on it goes.


An Hon. Member:: The Winnipeg Free Press'!


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: Yes, The Winnipeg Free Press. I went through the report too. I was pleased to get a copy and I did not see anything different from what was reported there.
Now, what do we have? We have the Hon. Senator-I do not think they have ridings so I will have to use his name- Hazen Argue. He put his great big cowboy hat on and is
driving around in an air-conditioned suburban talking about the terrible crisis on the prairie farms. Where was he when he was Minister in the Liberal Government and interest rates soared to 22.75 per cent? Was he driving around on the Prairies at that time?


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: No, Mr. Speaker. He was not, but now he is trying for perhaps a little press because Lord knows the Liberal Party policy needs a lot of help. I do not think the Liberals will get it from the Hon. Senator who is driving around in western Canada in his truck pulling a trailer, trying to get a little press for agriculture. Did the Liberal Party deal with fuel prices, Mr. Speaker? Did the Liberal Party bring fuel prices down for western farmers when all Canadian farmers were going through that crisis? No, prices went up. The Liberals added taxes like the Canadian ownership charge, the Canadian compensation charge. Fuel prices went up for farmers. But what did we do?


Jean-Robert Gauthier: You increased taxes.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: I am not kidding, and the Hon. Member should sit down and listen. What is the Liberal Party's policy? It is terrible. There is none. Interest rates were at 22 per cent, inflation was over 11 per cent and debt was rapidly increasing to over $20 billion. I sat in this House and watched the then Minister of Agriculture Mr. Whelan for 10 years. What did he do? He flashed his green hat around this country making speeches. I have a whole filing cabinet full of them. His speeches said nothing. What legislation was brought into this House? In 10 years we had 13 Bills, three of which dealt with farm credit, variable interest rates and borrowing outside of Canada.


Maurice Brydon Foster: You fought western grain stabilization all the way.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: We had a better idea. It is starting to hurt Members over there.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. Could we allow the Hon. Member to continue his speech?


Jean-Robert Gauthier: As long as he sticks to the facts.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: The facts are there and they hurt, Mr. Speaker.
What did we have? The then Minister of Agriculture tried to put out fires, but he had no ideas. Several of his Bills were renewing old acts which the Tories had brought in during the Diefenbaker years. The then Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Whelan, ended his term with a gem and that was Canagrex which was going to solve all the farmers problems. That is what we got out of the Liberal Government and a Minister who was Minister for however many years he was Minister.

April 28, 1987
Mr. Clark (Brandon

Souris): We had 20 per cent interest rates.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: Yes, we had a wonderful time with interest rates. It took this Government with the policy that we announced well in advance of the election to deal with the very serious problems that farmers faced for a long, long time.


David Orlikow: Are they now all solved?


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: No, we still have much to do but we are working. We know there are difficulties. Let me take Hon. Members through some of the policies that have been put in place and have assisted agriculture.


Lloyd Axworthy: If you don't, we will do it.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: We talk about commitment. In the next five weeks $1.3 billion will be mailed out to western farmers through the Western Grain Stabilization Program and through the special grains program to assist farmers put crops in the ground.


Lloyd Axworthy: Where is the Agri-bond, Stan?


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: We are working on that.


An Hon. Member:: What about the PFRA Bill?


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: That is my Private Members' Bill and I would be glad if the Hon. Member would stand up and support it. Bring it forward and we will deal with it.


Lloyd Axworthy: What about agricultural research?


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: I don't know if I will have time but I will talk about that too.


Lloyd Axworthy: I will, though.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: In the Prince Albert declaration we said that we will remove the capital gains tax. We did that to the tune of a $500,000 exemption. We extended that to small business.


Maurice Brydon Foster: You did it for everybody.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: Absolutely. We do not show favouritism.
We removed the sales tax on farm fuels. This is reduced and will save farmers who farm 1,200 acres some $5,000 annually. We said we would change the western grain stabilization so that farmers could get the money when they need it at the beginning of the crop year. This is assisting them dramatically this year. An amount of $705 million will be sent out to farmers on April 20, 1987.
We said that we would change the Western Grain Transportation Act to remove the volume cap and to freeze the rate. We did that. Not only was the rate frozen but it was rolled back to
an average of $6 a tonne, which assisted greatly in the movement of grain out of western Canada.
We promised to increase sales and expand our markets for grains. We did, even in this difficult time of world surpluses, where the EEC assists its farmers to the tune of $36 billion and each of the individual states in the community assists probably as much, so that some $70 billion is going out to 11 million farmers in the European community. There are 340-odd million people paying the tax bill.
Let us go to the American economy. This year some $24 billion will assist farmers to export to try to take a market share. Through all of this, what was the Canadian Wheat Board doing? It was selling and increasing our market share. It was not leaving our bins full like we had under the Liberal Government which had a four bushel quota total in one year. Then we had a Prime Minister who came to western Canada and said "Why should I sell your grain?" That is what we got from the leadership of the Liberal Party. But we did not get that from this Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) who says that our problem has to do with the subsidies and it ought to be included in the GATT negotiations. What happens, Mr. Speaker? That is where the problem is. That is leadership. It is not going out to western Canada and saying "Why should I sell your grain?" What kind of leadership did we have then for western Canadian farmers?


Mr. Gustafson:: And then we got the LIFT.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: There are lots of examples of that type of leadership.


Lloyd Axworthy: It is better than the Gucci shoes.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: Under our Prime Minister, when the farmers were in difficulty a billion dollars was offered. Now the commitment is there if the farmers in the upcoming crop year face the same kind of difficulty. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) in his Budget said "We will be there". The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) said "We will spare no effort". Given past examples, I would buy those kinds of promises and commitments any time over what we got from the two Parties on the other side. That is commitment. The budget on agriculture has been more than doubled. It was 50 per cent the first year, and there is a 60 per cent increase this year. Just a 1 per cent decrease in the interest rates saves farmers $130 million. How much have interest rates gone down in the last two and a half years? Four points. That is a saving for farmers.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Exchange rates are set in the States, not in Canada.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: We have hundreds of commitments. I give a rounding applause to the House of Commons because it has assisted. The Minister of Agriculture and the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) are moving this legislation so as to assist farmers. Hundreds of commitments have been passed by this House of Commons under the
April 28, 1987

leadership of this Government to assist farmers. You would think, as we listen, regarding the difficulties in agriculture, that all farmers were in difficulty. That certainly is not the case. Some grain farmers are in difficulty. Others may get into difficulty. If you look at all the other types of agriculture, as the Minister of the Wheat Board pointed out, many are having an excellent year.
We find that many good borrowers are still coming to the Farm Credit Corporation. This year, it made some $300 million in loans. That was $70 million more that went out to the agricultural community than last year. Under commodity-based loans, another $300 million went out. Some $600 million-worth of loans went out to agriculture this year. These loans certainly would not have gone out to agriculture if everyone was in difficulty.
Comparing 1986 farm loans with those of 1985, one finds that year-over-year, almost $400 million more had gone out to agriculture. That shows that there is still a lot of good faith and many good borrowers, even with today's land prices and today's difficulties.
We have a problem and we will continue to deal with that problem which lies in the grain and oilseeds sector. I know these problems very well because my family went through bankruptcies. I know very well that it is difficult for any family to have to deal with a farm bankruptcy. As a Member of this House, I will do everything possible to see to it that as few farmers as possible have to face that very difficult trauma. Through the Farm Debt Review Board and the Farm Transition Program, we have offered even more assistance to those who will have to face that trauma.
This is not an easy time for any Member who represents a rural riding, but I will say in conclusion that I would far rather be here defending the policy of this Government than standing over there with the NDP and the Liberals defending their policies.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, tonight we are participating in an emergency debate called for two basic reasons. First, during the Easter break, the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board announced a decline in the initial price for Canadian wheat for the coming crop year. This year the decline was 18 per cent for No. 1 wheat. The previous year, the Minister announced at a press conference that he was cutting the price of wheat by 19 per cent, so we are getting pretty close to seeing a 40 per cent decline in the price of No. 1 wheat in the last two years.
There was a 28 per cent decrease in the price of No. 1 feed barley last year, but the Minister was not content with that. This year he brought that down another 25 per cent, so we are talking about a decline of just over 50 per cent in the price of No. 1 feed barley in the last two years.
What triggered the emotional outcry both in the House and in the country was not just that, I believe. It was the additional
totally insensitive announcement made by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) on Monday morning that he would lift the moratorium on Farm Credit Corporation loans, a moratorium that had been in place since February 17, 1985.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Just plain stupid.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: It was plain stupid, it was insensitive and it was not something we expected from any Government, particularly a Government that claims to have its finger on the pulse of agriculture and that boasts of its close relationship with Canada's farmers.
In their defence, the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister in charge of the Wheat Board have said that this decision will put only 50 farm families out of business per month. This reminds me a little bit of the Zundel defence. He said that it was not six million but it was only 100,000 who were killed and therefore there was no problem. Fighting with the figures is not the point here and the Chair recognized that when he decided to declare this matter an emergency.
How do these 6,000 farmers who may be on that list of 50 a month feel? No one knows if they are at the top of the list, the bottom of the list or when their loans will be called. They are already under a great deal of pressure. There have been some partial studies done in Brandon, Manitoba, and in Ontario of the kind of stress farm families are under. The study done in the Province of Ontario published reports indicating that more than 30 per cent of the farm deaths in Ontario which occurred during the course of the study were due to suicide. That means that there is a suicide rate among farmers of between 10 and 12 times that of the Canadian average. In its insensitivity, the Government has placed even more pressure on these 6,000 farmers who are facing extreme financial stress according to the Farm Credit Corporation. The Government has made certain that that extreme financial stress is made just a little more difficult. Those are the reasons we put this item on the agenda for this evening.
We along with a great many farm organizations in Canada say that in the short term, and I address this to the Hon. Member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Schellenberger) who said that we did not mention anything about policy in this debate, there should be an announcement, loud, clear and now, telling farmers what sort of assistance the Government is prepared to provide in the coming crop year.
A billion dollars was added to net incomes from last year and in order to maintain those incomes at approximately the same level, we will need between $1.8 billion and $2 billion to hold the line. That is the kind of figure about which Canadian farmers want to hear. They want to know if there will be that kind of firm commitment. They do not want to hear vague promises about how the Government has permitted the Western Grain Stabilization Act to function or about how there was a $1 billion Special Grains Program announced in the midst of the Saskatchewan election when it appeared that the Conservative premier would lose the election. The farmers want to know what will happen in the 1987-88 crop year and if

April 28, 1987
the Government will maintain those levels of support and they want to know that now.
The Minister of Agriculture has been telling us in the House and through news releases that the farm organizations did not want to know about anything more than his vague promises of support and concern. We have received letters by mail and Telex in the last few days indicating that at least two of the very large farm organizations, one from Manitoba and one from Saskatchewan, have in fact demanded some kind of assurance. Many other organizations said as much after returning from that infamous meeting the Minister held back in March in which he said that the farm organizations did not really want anything more than to see his smile and shake his hand at the door.
In a letter dated today addressed to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool asks all Members of Parliament to recognize a very critical economic situation confronting farmers and their families. It asks that programs be implemented immediately. The pool calls upon the Prime Minister to immediately develop programs through federal and provincial co-operation to keep families on their farms in productive capacities and, more to the point, it asks that early consideration be given to the acute need for a substantial deficiency payment for the 1987-88 crop year. That was said very clearly.
The same thing was said by the Keystone Agricultural Producers in Manitoba. On behalf of the grain producers in Manitoba, they call on the Government to announce as soon as possible an intention to introduce a similar program for the 1987-88 crop year with support levels at least equivalent to those of the 1986 program. The farmers want answers now and that is what this debate is all about.
The Minister of Agriculture said the reason he announced his lifting of the moratorium was because he had, in the time between September 17, 1985, and yesterday, initiated programs which would take care of the problem that approximately 20 per cent of farmers with loans outstanding presently face. He says the Government set up the Farm Debt Review Boards. It set up a transition program to assist people to leave agriculture if that is the only choice they have. The Minister of State responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) referred to some of those programs tonight. He called them great successes. According to his figures, you would be led to believe that 50 to 60 per cent of the farmers who put their names in front of the Debt Review Boards maintained their farms and were successful in staying on the land.
Nothing could be further from the truth. What the Minister perhaps meant to say was that 50 per cent to 60 per cent were processed. Our information from those Debt Review Boards is that less than half survived the cut. About half are rejected out of hand. Half go to the Debt Review Board and of those one-half or one-quarter of the total may stay on the farm.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: It is 60 per cent in Alberta.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: I stress "may" because very few of them get written and signed agreements. Sixty per cent may have gone through the process but they do not have their farm saved yet, Sir.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: Yes.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: They have not saved their farm yet, Sir. I point to the testimony by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture in the committee this morning. They said that so far in Ontario there have been 425 applications received in front of the Debt Review Boards, of those 193 actually were reviewed, that after seven months, and of those, two succeeded in getting signed agreements. So we know where two farm families are in Ontario having gone through the debt review process.
The farmers in difficulty are estimated by Agriculture Canada to have about $10 billion in debt at risk. In Ontario it amounts to $2 billion. The sad fact is that as these farms become more and more at risk, the value of the farm assets that Canadian farmers are working with is declining quite rapidly. There is no clear formula, as you might imagine, but basically once you get into a down slide in price for the basic commodity, grains in this case, when you have a price decline of something like 50 per cent, which we have faced for all grains, the price of land will drop even more than 50 per cent. The rents simply cannot sustain those prices.
I made a series of calls around my riding, speaking with municipal councils and attending annual municipal meetings where farmers come out to discuss farm problems just prior to the spring planting. In areas where production is very high, very good land with good rainfall, the Spalding area in the black soil zone, well-watered, very high-yielding crops, land which has been continuously cropped for eight or 10 years on a cash rental basis, I heard stories where they are having great difficulty finding anyone to look after the land. The landlords have got to the point where they are offering the land if the rent will pay the taxes. People are not jumping to take it up. That is what it has come to and the announcement of an additional 18 per cent decline in the initial wheat price had not been made at that point.
The situation is bad and has triggered a tremendous decline in the value of farm assets. That creates its own set of problems. I submit that the Minister of Agriculture, by pulling off his moratorium, has set to work a whole host of other credit institutions who will take action that I think they were delaying because they were awaiting a signal from the federal agency.
I note that the B.C. Farm Credit Corporation, which is relatively small on a national basis, with only about 2,300 loans, some 488 of which are in arrears for more than two years, has now decided or is expected to announce shortly that it will be lifting the moratorium it had on provincial-based loans. There are 12 immediate candidates for foreclosure, most of them in the Peace River district. The banks in British
April 28, 1987

Columbia, which has a very small agricultural base, are now estimated to hold, according to the B.C. Federation of Agriculture, some 40,000 hectares of British Columbia farmland. For those who think in Imperial, that is 100,000 acres. The FCC is now estimated to hold about 5,000 hectares, and with the lifting of this moratorium the B.C. Federation of Agriculture estimates that the FCC will be holding in excess of 35,000 hectares very quickly in the Province of British Columbia. Again, most of that is in the Peace River block.
Those are the kinds of things which have been triggered by what the Government's Ministers tell us were very simple and rather tame announcements. Those kinds of tame announcements put farm families out of business, under stress, trigger an even higher rate of suicide, and create distress and destruction, financial, economic, and social, throughout the farming community. That is the kind of announcement that only a Minister of Agriculture who was totally insensitive to the real situation could have made. I deplore it and find it very difficult to understand. Knowing him as a person, I thought he was in tune with what is going on in agriculture, but he seems to have totally missed the mark on this one.
We regret as well that no announcements have been made or no indication has been forthcoming from the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) as to what levels of assistance are forthcoming in the 1987-88 crop year. That is something we as New Democrats are looking for, but farmers represented by the Saskatchewan Pool and others, various federations of agriculture, and the National Farmers Union as well, have all called for more clear programs and clear intentions on the part of the Government.
You see, the problem is farmers' memories go back quite a ways. People my age and older hark back to the Diefenbaker Government which came out with an acreage payment under circumstances not unlike this in the 1960s. That was a very welcome program. I have to give the Progressive Conservative Government of that day great credit for having initiated the program. I also note with some awe that it managed to sell that $200 an acre maximum payment for two years before another payment was made, at which time there happened to be an election going on. They are starting to ask themselves whether this is not another of the same kind of political ploy.
Everyone, even four-year old kids on the Prairies, knows that the $1 billion came because Grant Devine was having trouble getting re-elected last fall. They noted that the pay-out did not come until the next calendar year which, I suppose, was to be expected, so they got through 1986 and 1987. The payment was broken into two pieces to spread it over a longer period of time.
With the signals they are getting from the two Ministers they are starting to think that some of the same shenanigans are at work here because it looks as though these payments will be stretched out as long as possible in order to keep everyone on tenterhooks and to keep it as a political issue
before the electorate in the west. The Government is hoping it will result in its re-election.
I want to remind the Progressive Conservatives who sit across from me that it did not work for John Diefenbaker. The last acreage payment did not get him re-elected. I submit that unless the Government is honest and straightforward with Canadian farmers now, it will not work this time either. There are no political brownie points to be earned for withholding this announcement. Make it now as the farmers and farm organizations are expecting and give some necessary underpinning to the incomes of Canadian farmers which, by the way, are being maintained almost totally by federal programs. A good many of those programs were in place and would be operating regardless of which Party were in Government.
The net income of farmers in the coming year will be between $3 billion and $4 billion. According to the figures of the Minister, the Government will be pumping slightly more than $4 billion into the farming industry. We do not hear members of the Government talking about the fact that they have almost made farmers public servants or making comparisons with Russia, but if our Party was in Government I am sure they would be taking those kinds of shots at us. The net income of Canada's farmers in the last couple of years has come almost exclusively from the Government. That is deplorable. It is time there were some international agreements to change that.


Charles James Mayer: Tell us what to do.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: If the Minister will listen, I will point out that we cannot realistically reach such international agreements within three to five years. Therefore, this sort of pay-out will have to continue and be made on a regularized basis with the announcement being made at the same time as the wheat price announcements so that people will have some idea of what they are facing. That is our policy.


Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, in the early part of the speech of the Hon. Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse), he made reference to the initial payments being a reduction in price of 18 per cent. Western farmers understand that that is not the price but simply an advance received when grain is delivered to the elevator on the price to be received later There are headlines all across the country stating that wheat prices are down 18 per cent. This frightens bankers and all other people who deal with farmers. By repeating it here in the House tonight the Member is unwittingly attacking the Canadian Wheat Board.
If he read the Canadian Wheat Board Act carefully he would recognize, as very few farmers do, that the Minister has literally no power under this Act.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: This is no time to brag about it.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: The Act makes it very clear that the setting of the initial price is the responsibility of the Wheat Board. It is an indication to farmers of what the directors of the Wheat

April 28, 1987
Board think the price will be for the coming crop year. The crop year lasts for another year and a half as far as payments are concerned.
I want to emphasize to all good Canadians that Members of Parliament, and particularly members of the Government, cannot make any comments about the Wheat Board which would attack its independence under this Act.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Who's doing that?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: This Act was set up to make it clear to the country that the marketing of grain was turned over to an independent board which was to do the best job possible for the farmer.
The directors of the Wheat Board have tried desperately over the years to set an initial payment which they know is less than what the actual price will be. They are human beings and sometimes make mistakes, but sometimes they are right. Last year was a bad year for them. There is always pressure from farmers to get the initial payment out as fast as possible. That is a natural thing for them to push for and Governments are guilty of it too. However, the fact remains, as the directors of the Wheat Board know, that if that price is set too high, as it was last year, the Government will stand good for it but the responsibility essentially falls on the Wheat Board.
When Members attack the Wheat Board for making an initial payment which is too low, they are attacking in advance because they will not know what the price will be until the crop year is over.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Who's attacking them?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I would like to suggest that the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) would be well advised to listen because I will come to him later.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: I've been listening to you for 20 years.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I have been trying my level best to impress upon the Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre, who is a fair person and a credit to the House, that by joining in this media misconception that the initial price is the price, he is unwittingly harming the farmers. I think that farmers in general understand that this is an advance payment.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: It is not. It's the price on delivery.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: It's the price on delivery to the elevator and is backed up by the Government with a floor price because the Governor in Council has to agree. By saying the things he has the Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre is adding a load on the back of the Wheat Board which it does not deserve. They are trying to be responsible. They remember when the Wheat Pool set the initial price in the days when the pools did the selling. They set the price at $i a bushel and, through no fault of the pool, the world price collapsed to 32 cents. The Manitoba Pool, the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and the Alberta Wheat Pool were all bankrupt.
The Bennett Government stepped in and bailed them out to keep them from going bankrupt. To this day the pools have not sold a bushel of wheat in spite of the fact that this was their purpose and they have a licence to do so. It is true, however, that they formed a group with the United Grain Growers approximately 15 years ago.
The fact is that we in the House of Commons, in our attempt to help the farmer, should not be creating a conception that the Wheat Board made a mistake by setting those prices too low.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Nobody said that.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I think the Hon. Member for Regina East (Mr. Benjamin) knows that several papers have mentioned the price being down 18 per cent. It was also mentioned today and tonight by the Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: No he didn't.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Are you saying that I am a liar, Sir?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: I can't do that.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Anyone who has the reputation of being known as "Mr. Suck and Blow" hardly calls me a liar.
The point I am making is that we must relate the facts as best we can so that a proper decision can be made. The main fact facing the farmer today is the high interest rates with which he must deal.
The Opposition can be very constructive on this point. They must remember that when the Farm Credit Corporation Act was implemented in 1959, the Government provided a statutory ceiling of 5 per cent for interest rates. Some of us in the House will remember when the NDP-Liberal alliance allowed the Liberal Government to remove that statutory provision and raise the interest rates of the Farm Credit Corporation. The farmers will never forgive the NDP for joining with the Liberals in that initiative, simply to oppose the Conservatives who were in opposition. We are paying a heavy price for the love affair that existed then.
As a result of the New Democratic Party's dissatisfaction and perhaps dislike for us, its alliance with the Liberals ultimately worked against the interests of western Canadians. Our Government faced many problems during that 1957-1962 period, yet we tried hard to implement our five-point national policy program which is still in place today. I feel strongly about this debate because our Government is trying just as hard to honour that fundamental agricultural policy that we put in place between 1957 and 1962.
When 1 was in opposition many years ago, I was very much concerned about the Farm Credit Corporation drifting from its original purpose. However, no one listened to me because I was in opposition. The Farm Credit Corporation is now paying a
April 28, 1987

heavy price as a result of the decisions by the bureaucrats who make the policy here in Ottawa.
In 1963, the Pearson administration established an agricultural task force whose members included the brightest agricultural and economic people of this country. That task force examined the past and considered the future, and reported in 1968-69. It predicted that there would only be a need for one-third of the farmers in Canada since we would only be selling three hundred million bushels a year by 1980. It recommended that young people be discouraged from farming and the acreage of farm land be cut in half in the west in three years. This was known in part of the west as the LIFT Program, lower inventory for tomorrow. However, the program turned out to be "lower income for tomorrow".
Although 87 per cent of the farmers were opposed to that program, they had to become involved because they did not have the reserves to survive through the year. Those memories will die hard in the west, and to this day they will hold to account those who supported that program.
I must give credit to the NDP that it was smart enough to dissociate itself from the LIFT Program and work for the farmers in opposing it. In the debate that took place between 1968 and 1972, the program was reversed so that I believe every seat in Saskatchewan became Conservative as a result of that debate.
My request of Hon. Members tonight is not to be so eager to shine in the House by reading these headlines in the paper about prices going down 18 per cent when only the advance payment has gone down.
I am saddened by the negative attitude from all Parties in the House toward the problems facing Canada. Therefore, I want to finish my remarks with a positive suggestion.
Let us consider, leaving the interest rate problem aside for the moment, how we can increase the price. When the Americans dropped their loan price last year, the natural response in Canada was to drop it as well. Furthermore, the Wheat Board sets its price as a result of a knee-jerk response to what is taking place in Kansas City and Chicago. But how do our customers react?
While the Americans dropped their price of grain and compensated their farmers at the same time, our customers did not take the bait of lower prices to buy American grain. Not only did the Russians and the Chinese refuse to buy from the Americans, they are asking us for more grain and pleading with us not to go out of production.
Economists tell us that the greater production of grains in the world is being equalled or surpassed by the number of people eating more bread grain than rice. This phenomenon has spread to Asia and North Africa so that no matter how much more the Chinese increase their production, they do not provide the type of wheat that their people want. They want fresh Canadian grain, and fortunately, there are innovative
Canadians using Canadian know-how to increase the production of grain. It is Canadian expertise that has sold our grain around the world, and that is why our customers still want us as a steady supplier.
In closing I wish to say that while there is an impression that there is a surplus of grain in the world, there is no surplus of good Canadian grain. The fact is that we are moving as much grain as the railroads can carry. We have to improve the railroads and bring them to top efficiency. There is hope for the future. A positive suggestion would be to take a look at a bonus payment on wheat which does not cost the Government of Canada a cent. Let us follow the American custom on protein bonuses. I think that is 6 per cent, and for everything above that the farmer gets 70 cents to 90 cents. Let us adopt a practical solution. Let us ask the advisory board of the Wheat Board. We cannot give advice because that would be interfering. We do occasionally, but we are not supposed to do so. Let us ask the advisory board, which is elected, give it all the facts as to how we can set up a system where there is a ceiling of 5 per cent and 10 cents for every percentage point above that. Therefore, if the farmer grows 14 per cent protein, he receives 90 cents a bushel extra, and our customers will buy that because they are accepting that principle from the United States.
They want us to stay in production so they have to help us to keep us there. Conservatives will buy that, I believe. I think we should start to talk to members of the advisory board publicly and ask them to make this proposal to the Wheat Board. They have the right as elected representatives of the people of the west to advise the Wheat Board. Let them advise the Wheat Board. They should not shy away from their responsibilities because they are responsible to the people.
In conclusion, I believe all Canadians should unite on a positive approach to remedying this problem in all agricultural sectors, but at the particular moment it is needed in the grain and oil seeds sector.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, over the past three or four months there have been in this House three or four opposition days dealing with the problems of western Canada. There have been two or three emergency debates. The purpose of each debate was to try to draw attention in the forum of this country to the growing and accelerating difficulties being faced by farm communities in the west. Each time the answer from the government benches has been the same. It is not a problem. Do not take it seriously. They bob, they weave, they duck, they hide. They dig back into the vaults of history to try to find someone else to blame. The clear answer is that they do not want to govern. They do not know how to govern and, in fact, the people do not want them to govern any more, as we can clearly see from the polls. They are afraid to face up to their responsibilities. They are afraid to come to grips with contemporary issues and answers.

April 28, 1987
What do they do instead? They do as did the Hon. Member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Schellenberger) who digs back in the old files when he was a member of the Opposition and pulls out the old arguments and the old hoary tales of wrongdoing. It has never dawned on that poor soul that he is a member of the Government, that he is going into a caucus tomorrow where he has Ministers in front of him who are derelict in their responsibilities in dealing with the farm issue. He is much happier looking back in his old files and digging out the old arguments because it has never dawned on him that one of the clear responsibilities of a Member of Parliament on the government side is to try to persuade his own Government to accept the responsibility and requirement to take action on real problems.
Like a lot of Canadians I was a little intrigued and somewhat curious when I read the story about the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), having to build a large closet for his 84 pairs of shoes. I wondered what someone could possibly need all those shoes for. Well, we discovered the answer tonight. I think every Conservative Member of Parliament must have a huge closet full of shoes because they are all up on their tippytoes dancing around the issues so hard that they wear out their shoes quickly. We do not have a Government, we have a ballet company. What all Members of the Government are doing is jumping around on their tippytoes trying to evade the questions. They pirouette, turn, and do all the kinds of gymnastics they can possibly do in order to evade coming to grips with an issue that goes to the very deep and fundamental roots of the western Canadian economy and western Canadian society. That is what this emergency debate is all about.
I find it exceedingly interesting that the message finally seems to be getting through. A report on the National News tonight is that the Tories are in disarray, that they are in mass confusion. So what is their answer? They are going to send the Prime Minister out west. I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the westerners will say: "don't send the PM, send cash instead". That is what they want. They do not want any more of the Prime Minister's blarney. They do not want him dancing around. They do not want an extra plane so he can carry his famous shoe collection with him. They simply want some assistance. All they want from the Government is some small sign that it understands what is going on.
Members of the Government love to get up and say: "We are farmers. We really know what is going on". Some of them may be good farmers but they are a lousy Government. They are lousy policy makers and lousy administrators when it comes to finding the kind of answers that will cut into the heart of the problem. My colleague, the Hon. Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster), quite correctly pointed out that for 19 months we had a moratorium on FCC loans. Surely one would think that in that 19 month period someone over there might have had the wit to come up with some answer to deal with debt restructuring. Farm organizations have done it.
The Hon. Member for Wetaskiwin asks where the policies are. There are many of them out there. We put some forward which the Hon. Member for Algoma presented. There was the world stability program put forward by the Wheat Pool. The policies are there, but the government Members must be
incapable of reading, comprehending or responding because there has been no attempt during the 19-month period to find an answer that will allow the responsibilities to be shared between the farmers, the banks and the Government, the Government representing society and the banks carrying the private loans and the farmers themselves. We are saying that everyone must take a fair share of responsibility. They must come together. However, the Government has not even brought the major players to the game to the table to find an answer. It has not even had the capacity as a Government to bring together the major participants in this issue, the federal and provincial Governments, the farm organizations and the banks.
When we asked today in the House of Commons if it would not be important to bring together the banks to talk about this issue because they carry 60 per cent of the debt, the Minister asked: "Why would we do that? Why would we talk to the banks?" We know why the Government should talk to the banks. It is because every banker tonight is looking at the statement issued on Monday by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) and is saying: "Well, if the Government can foreclose, so can we". They will begin to look at all their outstanding loans.
When farmers begin walking in and asking for their production loans, looking for the credit for the forthcoming crop year, Mr. Speaker, how do you think those banks will respond when the Government of Canada, in a disgraceful and despicable way, has said: "We are cancelling the moratorium. Instead we are going to let the grinding machinery of the FCC churn farm communities into bits and pieces"?
It is an open invitation to the banks and other credit operations to do exactly the same thing. What stops them now? What possible compunction would they have when the federal Government, which is presumably there to defend the farmer's interests-because it is a public interest organization, or at least it used to be-is acting in the crassest and most vulgar way possible? Yet the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board asks: "Why would I talk to the banks?" Is this something that does not involve them? Are they such generous, open-minded and charitable organizations?
The naivety and simplicity of thought which has been brought to this problem is mind-boggling. It would almost be laughable if the situation were not so serious. That is perhaps the worst condemnation that can be made. We have some jokes at the expense of all those Conservative Members who will not be here the next time around because, in western Canada, they have dropped 20 per cent to 25 per cent in the polls. They should ask themselves why. The reason is that the very people who elected them in 1984 no longer trust them, believe in them or have confidence in them.
One of their members had some courage. I refer to the Hon. Member for Edmonton-Strathcona (Mr. Kilgour) who stood
April 28, 1987

up and publicly said that the Government does not understand western Canada, is not responding to its needs and does not know how to cope with the problems. What did that Hon. Member receive as a reward for his honesty? He was chopped. He was sent off the team. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), who has suffered incredible types of transgressions, could not abide 24 hours of honesty from a member of his own caucus. It was a matter of shooting the messenger because he did not like the message.
If Members opposite will not even listen to one of their own members who are prepared to say those things, and they will not listen to the people of western Canada who are saying those things, then to whom will they listen? At what point in time do we simply say: "For God's sake, go. We have had enough. You no longer understand what is going on. You have been blinded by your own sense of omnipotence that was passed to you in 1984, but it is no longer possible for you to come to grips with real issues in a real way"?
I wish to speak to the Hon. Member for Wetaskiwin because he was so happy to say that he would read the promises that came from other Members. What I found particularly amusing was that the Hon. Member decided he would use the Winnipeg Free Press editorial page, not the news page but the editorial page, as his source of wisdom. That shows the bankruptcy of the Conservative benches. Conservative Members now rely upon the editorial page of the Winnipeg Free Press as their source of wisdom. Let us just follow that Hon. Member's logic through for a moment. He begged the indulgence of the House to listen to him. I would like to quote from the April 23 editorial of the Winnipeg Free Press which states:
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney is inviting the smaller Canadian provinces to
Meech Lake next week to enshrine their powerlessness in the Constitution.
It goes on to state:
-the effect of his proposals will be to entrench even further the powers of
Central Canada and to block any hopes of achieving the reforms sought by
other regions.
Considering that the Hon. Member for Wetaskiwin has placed such great faith in the editorials of the Winnipeg Free Press I ask him if he agrees with this editorial which states that his Government is now engaged in a process that will denude even further the powers of the western provinces and ignore the types of claims for reform coming from the Premier of his own province. If the editorial from the Winnipeg Free Press is so convincing to the Hon. Member for Wetaskiwin maybe he will get up in his caucus tomorrow morning and read this editorial to his Prime Minister and tell him that perhaps he is making a mistake in his approach to constitutional reform. I give this advice to the Hon. Member: Do not necessarily rely upon the editorials of the Winnipeg Free Press. Listen to the people. What they are saying is that the Government does not know what it is doing.
Let us talk about all the wonderful promises that the Tories made. My goodness, Mr. Speaker, how proud they were at the great Prince Albert meeting when they launched their
promises. They promised to allow the Farm Credit Corporation to offer agri-bonds. Do you see an agri-bond around, Mr. Speaker? I am looking under my desk and I do not see an agribond there. Are there any agri-bonds in Canada? No. I ask the Hon. Member for Wetaskiwin to show me his agri-bonds. I ask him to show me his solution to that problem. I guess that is a promise that the Government has not got around to fulfilling yet.
Here is another interesting promise. Catch this one, Mr. Speaker. The Conservatives promised that they would expand agricultural research and development by providing greater assistance to agricultural colleges. In 1985 agricultural research had a budget of $263 million. In the Estimates for 1987 the figure stands at $221 million. I know that Tory mathematics have a curious way of flip-flopping. But I think that even the Hon. Member for Wetaskiwin, even that Member who reads Winnipeg Free Press editorials and believes them, might be able to figure out that that is a reduction in agricultural research and development, not greater assistance. He might be able to figure out as well that when we are trying to meet toughened international competition, when we need to develop new crop strains and new products and value-added, where we will find this is in the type of research being done in the agricultural colleges. I ask the Hon. Member to explain to me and to western Canadians why his great Government that cares about agriculture so much has cut $50 million from agricultural research and development. I ask the Hon. Member for Wetaskiwin to explain that small inconsistency in the promises.
I could go on and talk about a great many of the other great promises that have not been developed by this great defender of the Government.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: Go on!


Lloyd Axworthy: The fact of the matter is that what the Government is carrying out is a camouflage operation. Let us talk for a moment about what the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) says with great frequency and in great seriousness. He says that his Government is doing all it can on the international front. He says that they are working diligently to bring to the attention of the world agricultural problems. Let us look at that proposition for a moment. Let us look at the proposition as to why the Government of Canada as yet has not put forward as yet its proposals on agricultural negotiation, even though it has had an invitation for over two months from GATT to do so.
A decision was made in Uruguay last fall and the GATT organization issued an invitation as late as last February for participating countries to put forward what their negotiating positions should be, what their priorities would be in agriculture and what they are prepared to deal with in terms of bargaining. If the Government of Canada is so active to show leadership and if it is so prepared to try to give direction, why has it yet been unable to find the wit or ability to put together

April 28, 1987
its proposals to show where we want to go in order to give a message to the rest of the world?
We met with members of the Congressional Agricultural Committee yesterday. We read in the U.S. press that those great friends of the Prime Minister, Mr. Reagan and all the rest of them with whom he has jaw-boned time and time again, the very week we are debating this resolution are putting proposals forward to the U.S. Congress to expand substantially the Export Enhancement Act to apply to all countries and to change the U.S. Farm Bill and the U.S. Trade Bill to give even further powers on agriculture to force us out of the market. If that is the result of the Prime Minister's jaw-boning, then God help us in all of the other negotiations that he is carrying out. I say that because we are getting the reverse of what we want. That is the end result of his great efforts. It is a failure to provide specific proposals and an encouragement to his allies, the Reagan administration in the United States, to include in the new Trade Bill incredibly damaging measures dealing with agriculture and the expansion of the Export Enhancement Act. After all those discussions and negotiations what does our friend, the U.S. President, want to do? He wants to drive it even harder into Canadian agriculture.
One has to ask oneself from time to time what the Government is trying to do. We recognize full well that the drop in international price is a decision being taken in Washington and other places. One of the reasons why this resolution says that we need an immediate announcement for a regular form of income support, a deficiency payment, for western agriculture is that until we get that kind of clear signal we will not let our farmers be pushed out of business by the Americans or the Europeans. Until we get that signal, we will keep on pushing.
While it is essential to provide the necessary cash support to keep our farmers in business, it is also essential that we provide a clear signal to the international marauders and pirates in agricultural trade that we will not be cowed and intimidated by them.
We need an immediate announcement now so that our farmers will be able to obtain whatever credit is necessary in order to continue operating over the next crop year. In order to get the necessary moneys, the lending institutions need this kind of guarantee. As well, it will provide a strong and uncertain message to the Americans and the Europeans that we are not about to be backed off.
The Minister of State for Canadian Wheat Board has said that he wants to have a strong international bargaining position, and the best way for him to achieve that is to rise in this House and announce a support system for the western grain producers for the next year, the year after that, and for however long prices are continued to be ratcheted down.
We have to send a strong signal to our competitors in the world markets that we are not going to be put out of business.
Such an announcement by the Minister would go a long way toward convincing these international pirates that it is time they backed off from this craziness and insanity in which they are engaging.


An Hon. Member:: What is your policy?


Lloyd Axworthy: The Hon. Member wants to know what our policy is. I have just outlined what our policy is. What I have outlined is an important policy to adopt. A second policy direction to take is to embark on the kind of debt restructuring that we have talked about. Our farmers need that kind of major assistance.
The Minister rose in his place and said: "Well, we are only going to crunch 50 people a month". It will be a game of Russian roulette. No one will know which 50 will be chosen. I suppose they will put all of the names in the hat and pull out 50. We will have 6,000 farmers who are more than two years in arrears all living in terror. They will not know from month to month whose name will be chosen from the hat. What a peculiar way of twisting the knife in the backs of these farmers!


An Hon. Member:: It will be a knock on the door.


Lloyd Axworthy: The fact of the matter is, that particular system has nothing whatever to do with the problem. The problem, as my colleague, the Hon. Member for Algoma, has said, is the incredible uncertainty which these farmers face. They are living in a state of never knowing exactly what is going to happen, or to whom.
What we have here is a failure of public policy. What we have here is a failure to put in place a farm policy that is relevant to the conditions we face.
All of the attempts by the Progressive Conservative Members in pulling out the old files and rehashing the old arguments will do nothing to assist in the crisis that our farmers are now facing.
If the members of this Government wish to redeem themselves in the eyes of westerners, they had better not send the Prime Minister out to do another song and dance number in those ballet slippers of his; rather, they need to show that they are prepared to come to grips with the conditions as they exist now, to deal with the problem as it is now.
If they do that, western farmers may have their faith restored in what we in this House of Commons can do, and what this Government can do.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski).


Maurice Brydon Foster: Here is the apologist.


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I have listened,
April 28, 1987

with interest, to the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy), and all I can say at the outset is that his remarks do provide a fairly accurate reflection of what the Liberal Party is and what it stands for.


An Hon. Member:: Nothing.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The Hon. Member chastised the Member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Schellenberger) for quoting the Winnipeg Free Press, and he went on to complain about its "bankruptcy of ideas". So perhaps I will quote the Edmonton Journal, which also has something to say about the Liberal Party.
In the April 14 edition, we have the following statement:
The Grits have a solid policy, Turner said recently. It's just that they haven't
"correlated, co-ordinated, communicated, repeated and honed the message."
Well, of course, that is absolutely accurate, because they have nothing to correlate, they have nothing to co-ordinate, they have nothing to communicate. And we have heard nothing further from the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry this evening. It is the same old rhetoric that we hear every time he gets up to speak.
The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry talked about debt restructuring. Where was he in 1981 when the Cabinet of the day, that august Cabinet that was so deeply concerned with the issues and affairs of western Canada, allowed interest rates to rise to such high levels?
The prime rate in 1981 stood at 22.75 per cent. Today, Mr. Speaker, it is 9.25 per cent-a difference of 13.5 percentage points.


An Hon. Member:: Right on.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: You voted with him on that. You voted with him.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I thought the Member for Humboldt- Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse) had already spoken. I can recall listening to him, and I wish he would give me the courtesy of listening to me. He did not have a heck of a lot to say. If he wants to speak from his seat, perhaps we can, by unanimous consent, give him the opportunity to speak once more.


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: You participated in the interest rate process by voting for the Bank Act. You supported it.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The Hon. Member speaks best from his seat, Mr. Speaker.
In 1987, the rate on farm improvement loans stands at 10.25 per cent; in 1981, the rate was 23.75 per cent.
We now have a Senator travelling around western Canada in his air-conditioned Suburban, pulling a trailer. He is travelling the highways and byways, saying how terrible the conditions are in the agricultural sector.
I can tell you about the disasters that were inflicted upon agriculture when the Liberals formed the Government. This particular individual was the Minister of State for Canadian Wheat Board in the last Liberal Government, and he did nothing. Now we have "blazing" Hazen Argue going around the countryside trying to drum up political support on the backs of the farmers. He is trying to use the farmers, who are in serious trouble, as a means by which to drum up political support. In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, he is not gaining much support, and he certainly is not gaining any credibility for the Liberal Party.
Here we have a communique headed: "Western Liberal Caucus Releases Report on Western Economy". This is the official policy, Mr. Speaker, that was issued by the western Liberal caucus on the western economy, not the policies that are put forth during these emergency debates. And what are they going to do? Well, they propose that a federal-provincial conference on economic union "be convened as the first step in developing an economic blueprint for the West." The communique goes on to say:
The conference would establish policy priorities for each of the major regions
and sectors of the economy including education and research and
development;.. .
That is what the Hon. Member for Wetaskiwin was referring to, Mr. Speaker, when he quoted the Winnipeg Free Press in respect of this hollow, shallow, empty document, a document that was not even concurred in by the Leader of the Liberal Party.


Lloyd Axworthy: Let's see what you will produce. Are you going to reopen the Science Centre?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: And what else do they propose? This is really a dandy. They are also going to consider efforts-


Maurice Brydon Foster: Don't let the polls go to your head.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: What was that?


Maurice Brydon Foster: Don't let the polls go to your head.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Polls go up and polls go down. As Mr. Diefenbaker once said, only dogs know what to do with polls.
What else do they propose to do, Mr. Speaker? Another of their proposals is that, by "considering efforts to rationalize the many federal and provincial programs, the federal Government maximizes the use of scarce resources and sends a clear message to both Canadian farmers and to the farmers and agricultural industries of other countries that Canada is committed to remaining in the business of farming".
Well, I can tell you that we have no difficulty with that.


Lloyd Axworthy: Then, do it. Do it.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, very clearly, never in the history of this country-


Lloyd Axworthy: Announce it right now.

April 28, 1987


An Hon. Member:: Let's hear it. Come on. Let's hear it.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: -never in the history of this country has so much support been given to the agricultural community. Never before in the history of this country has so much support been given to the agricultural community, both in terms of policy and support, direct and indirect.


Lloyd Axworthy: Let's hear it.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: My hon. friend says "Let's hear it". My hon. friends opposite were huffing and puffing last October about a deficiency payment. They said it would not happen; that it was going to be a loan. And then it was going to bear interest; and then it was going to be an interest-free loan; and then it was going to be shared with the provinces; and then it was going to be this, and then it was going to be that.
They were the most disappointed people in Canada when we said that we were going to pay $1 billion to our farmers, and they still are-and that is what is bothering my hon. friends opposite, Mr. Speaker. That is exactly what is bothering them.


Maurice Brydon Foster: So tell us about this crop year.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I do not know what my friends opposite know about farming. I know the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board gave them a lesson today. Our farmers are getting their money now, when they need it to put the 1987 crop in. That is what is happening now.


Lloyd Axworthy: He is going to have to go back to farming very soon.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: At least he has something to go back to-which is more than you can say.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Not for long. Another year and the farms won't exist.


An Hon. Member:: Are you going to go back to selling cars?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Certainly-and I am proud of it. It is an honest living.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Except no one can afford to buy cars any longer.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Well, Mr. Speaker, the NDP-


Lloyd Axworthy: You are getting hot under the collar, Don.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: No, not at all. I have lots of time, Mr. Speaker. I hope you are knocking off the interruptions.


Marcel Prud'homme: We will give you consent, if you want it.


Mr. Thacker:: They could not make speeches when they were standing up; now they want to make them when they are sitting down.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: It is quite clear that the NDP motion was more of a show than something of substance; a couple or three have stuck around for the debate. However, there is very little in terms-


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There has been some reference made to those who are here or not here in the House of Commons.
I guess I just want to point out that fewer than 10 per cent of the entire Tory caucus are present in the House this evening.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I do not think the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) referred specifically to the absence or presence of a Member. On debate, the Deputy Prime Minister.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I think the Hon. Member for
Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton) put this issue into perspective when he talked about the NDP wanting to maintain artificially high prices established by the Canadian Wheat Board. Of course that is not really supported by the farm community. Most of the things that have been advanced by the NDP are not supported by the farm community.


Nelson Andrew Riis: You guys promised agri-bonds.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: For example, to quote Mr. Wayne Easter-


Nelson Andrew Riis: What about Section 31? I remember you guys campaigned for three years on that before the election.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Could we listen to the speech of the Hon. Deputy Prime Minister, please.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: As the Hon. Member for Qu'Appelle- Moose Mountain pointed out, in effect the New Democrats have really been deliberately or unwittingly attacking the Wheat Board. The Wheat Board makes the recommendation for the establishment of the prices. To do otherwise would be certainly in violation of the spirit, if not the intent, of the Canadian Wheat Board Act.
They are asking for a further $1 billion pay-out. However, I should like to refer to the January 8, 1987 edition of The Ottawa Citizen which quoted the NFU president as follows:
I know the Government believes it's proceeding in the right direction with its
$1 billion grain program, but we need a program that actually deals with the
real problems we're having, not one that throws x amount of dollars at us.
These people across the way are asking for more money without really looking at the root causes. I will get to the root causes very shortly.
I should like to make another point by referring to the October 30, 1986 edition of The Ottawa Citizen, which reads as follows:
A past-president of the Canadian Grains Council. .. told delegates that the
federal $46.6 million Rural Transition Assistance Program designed to help
April 28, 1987

farmers forced off the land is an example of government policy that honestly
looks at the problem of debt-burdened farmers.
Those are the kinds of things that clearly reflect that the policies of the Government are on the right track. There is no question about that.
The Opposition is now charging that thousands of farmers will be put off the land as a result of the actions which the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) announced on April 27. That is absolutely false. It is malicious and it is misleading. If Hon. Members had had the courtesy of at least reading the news release and listening to the Minister of State for Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer), they would have a clear idea of why this action has been taken.
The moratorium was really beginning to create two classes of farmers in financial difficulty-the FCC farmers who were not facing foreclosure and therefore not applying for assistance through the debt review process, and the non-FCC borrowers who through the debt review process have access to an impartial review of their financial situation.
When the moratorium was put in place, it was put in place until such time as other programs such as the Rural Transition Assistance Program, farm debt review boards, commodity based loans, and shared risk loans, were put in place.
As has been indicated, every farmer who is in difficulty with farm credit will be dealt with on a personal basis, and arrangements will be worked out in a satisfactory manner. This action is not to force farmers off the land. This action is to help keep farmers on the land and to help establish a viable farm unit. That is the point which has been clearly lost, deliberately or perhaps unwittingly; I am not sure.
Our record in agriculture as a Government is clear. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) has not, is not, and will not abandon or ignore the farmers of Canada. We recognize, as do all Members, I am sure, that there are some very serious problems particularly in the grains and oil seeds industry. There are difficulties caused by actions beyond our control, but we have responded on several fronts.
The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry talked about the international front. A year ago, before the Prime Minister left for the Tokyo Summit, he met with the agricultural community and was successful, with the support of the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark), in bringing agriculture to the top of the agenda at that summit.
Since then there were multilateral trade meetings in Uruguay. The Minister for International Trade (Miss Carney) met with the Fair Traders group in New Zealand where she outlined five basic principles. Perhaps I should put them on record. They read:
Agriculture policies should be designed so as not to adversely affect
international trade.
To this end progressively over time:
(1)	agriculture policies must become more price responsive;
(2)	support should be provided for farmers not farming;
(3)	countries should freeze and seek to reduce governmental assistance measures that artificially distort world prices;
(4)	countries should not introduce new import barriers not mandated by existing legislation;
(5)	these basic principles must be implemented collectively.
Essentially those principles were accepted. Out of that meeting has been arranged a further meeting of the Cairns group which will take place here in Ottawa between May 21 and May 23.
At the present time the Minister for International Trade is in Japan furthering this campaign. I am pleased to report that momentum is building to deal with the crisis in agricultural trade caused by huge export subsidies. It is the only long-term realistic solution, and I think progress is clearly being made.
I should like to refer to the Sunday, April 26 edition of The Edmonton Journal which reads:
Canada, strongly supported by Australia, has championed the cause of
countries that have seen their agricultural trade suffer largely due to a farm
subsidy battle between the United States and the European Community.
I think that is pretty clear evidence that we are on the right track, and we are making progress.
That is what Mr. Fang believes in. That is what Mr. Turner of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool believes in. That is what Mr. Simpson or the editorial staff of The Globe and Mail believe in. That is what Darryl Kraft, the head of the University of Manitoba believes in. Perhaps the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry knows him. However, he has suggested that that is the right long-term course of action. That will provide the long-term solution.
What do we do in the meantime? We have addressed the input cost question. I just referred to the massive reduction in interest rates, which has been the result of good financial management by the Government. Every time the interest rate goes down by one percentage point, the farmers of Canada save between $130 million and $140 million. If we look at it, it has dropped at least 5.5 percentage points since we assumed office. That is a savings on an annualized basis of something between $600 million and $700 million.
Interest rates are the lowest in 14 years. FCC rates are the lowest in eight years. We removed all fuel taxes, 33.75 cents per gallon.
Those people over there did nothing. They put on fuel taxes. Farm fuel is now nine cents to ten cents per litre in Alberta, that is, 40 cents per gallon.
Do Hon. Members know what it was in February, 1984? Farm fuel was $1.45 per gallon or over a dollar per gallon more than it is today. There were 60 cents worth of taxes on that fuel thanks to the NEP. There were taxes on ammonia of something like $70 per tonne. Freight rates have been reduced.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Freight rates are going up by 50 per cent.

April 28, 1987


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I said that freight rates have been reduced. They were $7.70 when we came into office. It is about $6 now, and we will see what happens.


Maurice Brydon Foster: They are going up.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: We have to comply with the legislation which the Liberal Party brought in.


Lloyd Axworthy: You are the Government. Change it. Act like the Government.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: We rolled back the freight rates for a period of two years, as we said we would. We are encouraging diversification and broadening the economic base. We are also encouraging new opportunities in agriculture, research and development, demonstration projects, minimum tillage, soil conservation, and new techniques in soil management. Those are all things that are very much a part of our efforts to stabilize, broaden and diversify the western economic base, particularly the agricultural base.
In terms of direct support, Mr. Speaker, something in the order of $3.5 billion will be flowing into the agricultural industry, primarily to the western Canadian economy this year. That is an increase of 58 per cent over last year. When you look at last year's 1986 realized net farm income, it was up 20 per cent over 1985. The 1987 projections are that it will be about the same with the support. As a matter of fact, the Alberta Wheat Pool budget says that 1986 total realized net farm income in Alberta was $788 billion, a remarkable 45 per cent over the 1985 level. In 1987, Statistics Canada projects that the Saskatchewan farm income will be up by 34 per cent over last year. The Alberta farm income, as I said, is about the same. This graph, which was included in the Canadian special grains program, clearly demonstrates that with the $1 billion special pay-out the 1987 farm receipts will be roughly the same as 1986.


Charles James Mayer: That is right.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Perhaps that is not something to crow about but at least it does not reflect the kind of dismal situation that some people across the way would suggest.
What else are we doing? The Minister of Agriculture is working very closely with farm groups, and will continue to do so. I noted again that the Hon. Member across the way suggests that unilaterally we should do this, this and this without any consultation with the farmers. We believe that consultation with farmers is very much a part of the success of salvaging this industry and working with it.
I could go on. I just got a letter today from the Canadian Cattlemen's Association to the effect that it will be saving roughly $100 million annually as a result of the action we took to reduce the imports of subsidized beef from the EEC.


Maurice Brydon Foster: You backed down on that.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: There are a number of things that have been done.
We must put this into perspective. This Government inherited a legacy of crippling interest rates, high unemployment, burdensome debt, a huge deficit and a crippled economy.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: That is not washing any more, Don.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: In 1983 farm income was the lowest in 45 years since 1938, down 48 per cent from 1981. Let us look at the rise in bankruptcies. In 1979-that is when we were in office for a short period of time-there were 125 bankruptcies. In 1983 there were 488 bankruptcies, and in 1984 there were 551 bankruptcies, but since September, 1984, bankruptcies have declined-


Maurice Brydon Foster: You had a moratorium on.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: -by 8 per cent to 508 and to 440. They laugh on the other side.


Lloyd Axworthy: You are a joke.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Because we have addressed the fundamental problems. Members in the Opposition find that a joke.


Lloyd Axworthy: There were 837 applications this month alone.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: We will continue to price and sell aggressively, maintain and increase our market share. We will support our farmers on the international front. We will continue to work with them in reducing input costs. We will continue to work with them in diversifying and broadening the economic base. We will continue to give them direct support, something the opposition Members across the way would not do. The ultimate objective is to restore order and sanity on the international scene. We will continue to work at the international level under the leadership of the Prime Minister, supported by the Secretary of State for External Affairs, the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board, the Minister for International Trade and the Minister of Agriculture.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I think it is useful to note that the only time when we discuss agriculture in Canada is when members of the Opposition ask for emergency and special debates on agriculture.


Charles James Mayer: What a bunch of rubbish.


Nelson Andrew Riis: We wait month after month, year after year to spend some time debating some new policy, some new Bills to help farmers, to help those food producers. I cannot remember when we have taken two or three days in this House to debate a Bill on agriculture. The only debate, as tonight, is when the Opposition asks the Speaker whether or not he believes that the farm community is in crisis, that there is an emergency situation requiring a special debate.
April 28, 1987

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Lewis) said earlier that there is no problem in the farm community, there is no reason for a special debate tonight, there is no emergency. I would ask him to go out west and visit any prairie province. He should go out through Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic Canada and British Columbia and ask the food producers whether there is a problem in the farm community today. He would have to look long and hard to find a single farmer who would say no, that everything was fine.
That betrays the insensitivity of this Government. It has lost touch with reality. What we have found today, as a result of the last few announcements, is that the Government has abandoned the family farm. This Government has said that the family farm is finished; it is agribusiness and corporate agriculture. The family ranch and the family farm is no longer a viable operation that we are prepared to support.


Leonard J. Gustafson: That will not sell.


Nelson Andrew Riis: That is what he said, Mr. Speaker. That is what they are saying. The Minister responsible for the Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) said, "I was out here last year and said that the price farmers will get for wheat will go down 20 per cent", and then a week ago he said, "This year it will go down another 18 per cent". In the prairie economy men and women can no longer raise grain profitably. They no longer have prices to cover their costs. I speak about this from a personal perspective. My grandfather drove out to the western plains in an oxcart and a car with his family with him mile after mile, hundreds of miles on to the bald Prairie, with prairie wool that deep, Mr. Speaker. The Conservatives laugh at my grandfather who settled the west-


Donald Frank Mazankowski: They are laughing at you.


Nelson Andrew Riis: They are laughing, and the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) is now laughing and saying that this is a joke. Let me finish my story.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would never want to laugh at the parents or grandparents of anyone. It is the Hon. Member who is a joke.


Charles James Mayer: He is an embarrassment.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Let me expand on what the Deputy Prime Minister calls a joke and what the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board calls a joke. My grandfather settled in southern Saskatchewan. His sons and daughters built and expanded that farm. Their sons and daughters built and expanded that farm. Today they are uncertain whether they will be able to continue because of the inaction, in part of this Government. They feel this Government has turned its back on them. The Government has said, "We are no longer interested in a family farm that for three generations has struggled on the plains of southern Saskatchewan".
Let me tell you something else. This past month I have toured my constituency and I have attended three auction
sales, all ranches that have been forced out of business. They can no longer continue. On one ranch, the Bar P Ranch, the rancher's health has broken. He had run the ranch for two generations. He has a stress-related health problem because he simply cannot continue with this impossible 200 head cow operation. He can no longer continue and he is selling out. That was one auction sale, Mr. Speaker. I saw men who have worked 20 hours a day for their entire life, rough, tough cow men, standing there with their eyes bleary because they know that it is not the Cartwright family or the Brown family who own the ranch lands but the Bank of Montreal, the Royal Bank of Canada, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. The banks are taking over the country. The banks are taking over the ranch lands of central British Columbia. Today when the questions were put-listen, is the Minister now prepared to meet with the bankers to see what kind of a situation we can arrange? The Minister said he was not prepared to do that and was not even interested. It is time we had a Government in place that put farmers rather than bankers first. That is not what we are experiencing at the moment.
One might ask why the Minister would say that. I remember when the Hon. Member for Lethbridge (Mr. Thacker) was on this side of the House. For two or three years before the last election, he kept rising to say that when his Party governed, there would be agri-bonds, agri-bonds would save the day and enable the farmers to continue. As a matter of fact, I said that I thought that the idea of agri-bonds was a good one. The then Prime Minister who was running for re-election also said that he would put agri-bonds in place if his Party was in power. Do you see any agri-bonds here today, Mr. Speaker?


Felix Holtmann: No, you don't.


Nelson Andrew Riis: We do not see any agri-bonds today because the Conservatives have betrayed the people of Canada. They have gone back on the promises they made in western Canada while the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) was touring the food-producing areas of western Canada.
Then there was another idea, an idea for a farm creditors' arrangements Act, an Act introduced during the 1930s and 1940s to stave off the banks from foreclosing on quarter-sections containing homesteads. I vividly remember Members opposite saying when they were in Opposition that they would bring in a new version of the farm creditors' arrangements Act when they were elected so that they could keep the bank away from the doors of farmers and ranchers. Where is it? There has been not a word, not a murmur, not a phrase. They have abandoned it. Instead, they brought in a toothless Debt Review Board that quite frankly is a joke in the agricultural community.
The Conservatives did take a step in the right direction when they placed a moratorium on Farm Credit Corporation foreclosures. At that time, 673 farms that were on the brink of bankruptcy were saved. However, rather than developing

April 28, 1987
programs to assist those hard-pressed food producers, 19 months later when the situation is worse than ever, what has the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) announced? Ele has announced that he is lifting the moratorium, throwing these people to the wolves, opening them up to the banks. What would you do, Mr. Speaker, if you were a banker and there were all of these farmers who were overdrawn on their accounts?
When representatives of the Farm Credit Corporation appeared before the Agriculture Committee just a few weeks ago, they said that within their jurisdiction, there were 13,680 farms that they considered to be insolvent. There were a further 53,010 farms with serious, major, critical cash flow problems. There were 6,000 borrowers who were more than two years in arrears and more than 15,000 borrowers with serious arrears problems. Those are only Farm Credit Corporation borrowers. That is a small part of the agricultural community. We are talking about hundreds and hundreds of farms that are bankrupt and have now been abandoned by the Farm Credit Corporation. On top of that, there are thousands and thousands of farmers across Canada who will go bankrupt unless some action is taken but the Government says that there is nothing it will do now, it will back away from all of this.
I will continue to describe my visits to the various auctions. I attended a second auction only two weeks ago. I feel quite choked up when I vividly recall that evening. A family that had been on the land for three generations had experienced severe economic difficulties through no fault of its own. This family experienced difficulty because of high fuel costs, high fertilizer costs, high barbed wire costs, high costs right across the board. Farm credit rates were very high-


Felix Holtmann: Barbed wire?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Oh, they laugh. The Conservatives sit here and laugh.


Felix Holtmann: Do you know what barbed wire is? Barbed wire. You're a haywire farmer.


Nelson Andrew Riis: The Conservatives sit here and laugh at these stories. 1 want the people of Canada to know-


Felix Holtmann: Haywire is what you're talking about.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I apologize for calling something barbed wire.


Mr. Blaikie:: Ranchers use barbed wire, Felix.


Felix Holtmann: They don't use barbed wire but Bill Blaikie wouldn't know that if his life depended on it.


David Orlikow: Ignore him because he won't be here after the next election.


Nelson Andrew Riis: As my friend from Winnipeg says, I can ignore my hon. friend because his life here is very, very short.


Felix Holtmann: It's not barbed wire. I'm a farmer, buddy.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Ranchers use barbed wire. Forget it, Mr. Speaker. It is irrelevant.


Felix Holtmann: Pack it in with the barbed wire. You're a haywire outfit.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I do not want to get angry tonight.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Go ahead, get angry.


Nelson Andrew Riis: As they are laughing, I want to continue because the gentleman to whom I was referring, a cattleman, had lost his ranch after three generations. He lost his family. His wife and three children had left because of the severe economic problems. He was standing there while all of his household equipment went out. Even his personal guitar was sold for $25 or $30.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Are you opposed to the transition program?


Nelson Andrew Riis: The Hon. Member for Lethbridge is talking about the big program the Conservatives brought in, the one program that is designed to help farmers get out of farming. Rather than have programs designed to assist farmers to get out of the business, we say it is time we started to see programs introduced in the House of Commons designed to put people back into farming. Put them back on the land.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: You've got no will over there, that's your problem. You haven't thought it out. You've got no programs.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Ten days ago, I attended another auction. At that auction, I met a family whose youngest son had committed suicide as a result of severe difficulties in the family and financial problems.
Then I had a chat with the auctioneer at that auction. I told him that this was one of the worst months I had experienced, visiting the various ranch and farm communities in my constituency. I told him that these people had been forced off their land. He told me that he is an auctioneer but his father was a cattleman and he was born on a ranch. He said that his ranch went bankrupt and now he is an auctioneer but he would rather be a cowboy. That is the situation in parts of western Canada. That is what is happening to my own family in southern Saskatchewan. They are being forced off the land.
We say that there is an emergency here. The Hon. Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo), who introduced the motion asking for a special debate, reminded us of the various problems farmers are facing. He told us that the Ontario Government did a study in 1985 and found that 38 per cent of all farm fatalities occurred as a result of suicide. That does not happen in any other sector of the economy.
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture did a study and released its results a few months ago. It found that 80 per cent of farmers suffer from stress and stress-related illnesses.
April 28, 1987

We are sitting here waiting week after week. We ask the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) and the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board where the programs are. We ask them where the initiatives are. Where is the leadership to do something for our food producers? We do not get new programs. We do not see Bills brought into the House. We hear announcements like the one taking the moratorium off Farm Credit Corporation foreclosures. We hear the announcement that the price received by grain producers will be 18 per cent lower than it was last year. That is an abandonment of the family farm.
Other countries consider the family farm to be paramount. They believe that the family farm is a productive unit that must be kept in place and retained as a viable operation. My friend and colleague from Yorkton-Melville brought in a Bill for parity pricing so that food producers would be able to receive prices for what they raise on their farms and ranches that would at least meet the bare cost of running their operations. Did the Government support that? No, it did not.
Then we called for agri-bonds. There is no support for that. We called for a Debt Review Board with some teeth but got no support from the Government. We now call for a support package for the western grain producers and we hear no comment. How can a grain producer plan in the spring of the year for his future, for the months and years ahead, when the Government refuses to say whether or not it will bring in a package of support that will enable him to continue on as a farmer in western Canada? It is impossible.
Farmers in western Canada sit in coffee shops and over the kitchen table discussing whether or not they should plant this year and if they do what they should plant because there is no security, no indication what the Government plans to do, no indication of any kind of support. Then they read the newspaper that same day and find that the Prime Minister has dipped into the Progressive Conservative re-election fund to the tune of $308,000 to build in part special cupboards for his 85 pairs of shoes and 100 or so pairs of shoes for his wife. People wonder if this individual understands the problems in western Canada. Can he begin for a moment to understand the incredible duress and stress that western producers are experiencing these days? No, he cannot.
We will probably see tomorrow that the Bill introduced for discussion will deal with the abolition of Canagrex. The Government is still trying to get rid of Canagrex, a corporation that was out opening up new markets and new opportunities for Canadian farmers.


Felix Holtmann: What did it do?


Nelson Andrew Riis: I will tell the Hon. Member what it did. With a very limited budget it was finding all kinds of new market opportunities.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Felix Holtmann: It did not find anything.


Nelson Andrew Riis: It was going around the world identifying export opportunities for our farmers.


Felix Holtmann: Don't give me garbage like that.


Nelson Andrew Riis: We have respect for our farmers. We believe in them. We believe in the family farm. It is time the Hon. Member believed in the family farm and family ranch and got away from supporting corporate agriculture. What is wrong with the family farm or the family ranch? We in the NDP support them. Yet the Bills we debate on agriculture deal with how to get out of marketing our products.
Times must change. As the evening wears on my colleagues are going to be laying out a whole set of proposals and solutions. I suggested agri-bonds because you promised agribonds and you reneged on that promise. I referred to a Debt Review Board with teeth which you promised and you reneged on it. I referred to the Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act, or a version thereof, which you promised and which you have reneged on.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: We never promised that.


Nelson Andrew Riis: What on earth have you delivered on?
To allow the debate to continue to the fullest extent so that all Hon. Members who have positive, creative solutions to the problems faced by Canadian food producers, and pursuant to Standing Order 9(4)(a), I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie):
That this House continue to sit past twelve o'clock for the purpose of
continuing debate on this very important matter.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I find the motion in order.
Will those Members who object to the motion please rise in their places?
No one having risen, pursuant to Standing Order 9(4)(b), the motion is deemed to have been adopted.
Resuming debate.


Mr. Sid Fraleigh (Lambton-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, I wish that as a Member from Ontario I could say I was pleased to participate in this debate tonight. Unfortunately I cannot express that sentiment. I have listened with great chagrin to the theatre across the floor, particularly from the last speaker for the NDP, and it makes me sad to think that we have people in this House who can make fun of so serious a problem.
Agriculture is perhaps facing its most serious time since the 1930s. It is perhaps even more serious than that. What really bothers me is the absolute lack of knowledge on the part of some Members opposite concerning what is actually happening in agricultural communities. In my area the crops are going in. They are going in under great difficulty, but they are going in. Crops will go in across western Canada; under great difficulty

April 28, 1987
but they will go in. Farmers are a resilient group, always have been and will continue to be in the future.
Members from downtown Brantford and downtown Sault Ste. Marie who understand so much about basic agriculture have all these wonderful plans for agriculture. We just heard the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) talk about Canagrex, that great institution put in place by the former Liberal Government, supported by the NDP. It is supposed to have sold millions of dollars worth of commodities. It did not sell one thing. Not one thing.
Then we have the NDP proposing that we move to parity pricing. To do that would require that 50 per cent of the farmers now on the land go out of business. I want to ask Members opposite which of them are going to be prepared to leave the land? I have not heard from any volunteers.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: How do you figure that?


Sidney Arthur Fraleigh: Because of the simple fact that the only way you can implement parity pricing is to have production controls. What are you going to do with 90 per cent of the wheat produced across the Prairies? Feed it to the sparrows?
The Government will support our agricultural industry as it has in the past and will in the future. We are hearing all of this doom and gloom and how they want the Government to make an announcement right now about what financial support it will give to agriculture in the coming year. I think the farm community is convinced that the Government has shown it has some sympathy for the plight of the agricultural community. We are unfortunately having to place government funds in the hands of farmers to allow them to put their crop in this year.
There has been a great deal of debate tonight on the lifting of the FCC moratorium, and all kinds of allegations have been made about the great flood of foreclosures which will occur. I suggest that there will not be a great flood of foreclosures. If anyone would like to debate that point I would be more than pleased to do so.
The NDP and Liberals have asked what this Government has done for agriculture. They singled out one item from the Prince Albert statement which the Government has not delivered on so far. I want to take a minute and expand on some of the reasons for not delivering on that proposal. The Government formed a joint committee of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs to review the three financial problems encompassed in the 16 points made in Prince Albert.
Contrary to what the Liberals or the NDP might have done, we went out and consulted with the farm community. The farm community told us that they did not want Section 31 to be monkeyed with at the present time and we listened. A joint committee went to the United States to review their agri-bond program and we came back with all-Party agreement that there was too much slippage in such a program, that the benefits were going to the banks and investors rather than to the farm community.
The Opposition has asked what the Government has done.


Maurice Brydon Foster: No, what it's going to do.


Sidney Arthur Fraleigh: I will tell you some of the things that we have done, are doing, and will continue to do. After much dillying and dallying by the Minister of Agriculture under the Liberal Government the present Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) announced a long-range five-year dairy program for which the industry had been asking for six years. After a great deal of negotiation with the egg-hatching industry, we implemented a national agency for that group. In consultation with the farmers we implemented a program which the farm community wanted.
Since it was brought up by the Opposition, I will take a minute to review the 16-point agricultural policy which was announced at Prince Albert. I want to point out for their edification some of the things which were promised and carried out. We said we would remove the capital gains tax for farmers and we did. We gave the farm community a $500,000 capital gains exemption effective immediately. We said we would remove the sales tax on farm fuels and we did it.


Maurice Brydon Foster: But you put it back on.


Sidney Arthur Fraleigh: We did not put it back on at all.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Yes, you did. In September, 1985, you put it back on.


Sidney Arthur Fraleigh: The Member wanted to know what we are doing now and I am telling him what we are doing now. There is no federal tax on farm fuels. We said we would change the Western Grain Stabilization Act and we did. We said we would change the Western Grain Transportation Act to remove the volume cap and freeze the rate. We did.
We promised to increase sales and expand our markets for grain. In the past year, in perhaps the most depressed period for grain that the world has seen since the 1930s, Canada increased its share of the world market. I fully understand that we did it at a loss, but we did maintain those markets and they will be there when grain markets turn around. We said we would allow dual labelling with both metric and Imperial on chemicals and we did it. We said we would bring forth a new red meat stabilization program and we did.
I would like to stop for a minute, Mr. Speaker, and expand on that particular program. There has been a tremendous take-up in both the cattle and hog industries of the tripartite stabilization program. We have gone through a reasonably buoyant time in both of those sectors. A kitty is being built for those farmers to draw on in times of depressed prices.
We promised to reduce the flow of EEC beef and we did it. We said we would establish farm debt review boards and we did that. We said we would impose a moratorium on branch
April 28, 1987

line abandonment until all options and alternatives could be considered and we did that too.
I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that of 16 major policy initiatives promised by the Government, 14 have already been delivered upon and serious consideration is being given to methods to address the other two. That is not a bad record. It has been suggested by members of the opposition Parties, particularly the Liberals, that our agricultural policy has no substance.
I am not going to repeat all of the remarks that were made a couple of months ago after the introduction of the Liberal policy for western Canada. I am sure most Members in this House have read them all. However, the major response from western Canada was that there was absolutely no substance to any of those recommendations. It is a sad day for agriculture when it must depend upon the Government for hand-outs, but that is the reality of life. The Government has committed itself to support the agriculture community in the future and we intend to live up to those commitments.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Mr. Speaker, the evening is now getting late and there are still several Members who wish to speak on this emergency debate on the subject of the crisis on the farm front today which was forced on the House by the New Democratic Party. This crisis has not developed only in the last few weeks or months. Over the last several years we have seen the financial position of the farmers of Canada deteriorating, at first slowly and, in more recent times, rather quickly.
I should begin this evening by stating that in this debate I will speak primarily about farmers in my constituency in central Canada. However, farmers right across the country are suffering today as a result of poorly thought out government programs, world market forces, and the inability of successive Governments to respond to those world market forces.
I recall talking, not long ago, to a Conservative Member of Parliament from Westminster who was visiting Ottawa. 1 asked him why the British farmer today is doing quite well relative to the situation which had obtained in the United Kingdom prior to its entry into the EEC. He said that the British farmer is better off today than it was at that time because the Government made a conscious philosophical decision to preserve British farms. It was a Government's conscious, philosophical decision rather than an economic one. It was a commitment that farms in the United Kingdom were worth preserving.
After hearing him say that, I could not help but think that the major problem in this country is that we do not have a Government in Ottawa, nor did we have one prior to 1984, which was consciously prepared to make the philosophical decision that the family farm was worth preserving. Unless and until we have a national farm policy, the basic premise of which is that the family farm is a viable, worthwhile economic union and that the rural way of life must be preserved, we will not be able to tackle the day-to-day financial and economic
problems which plague that sector of the economy. Once the basic philosophic decision is made, the solutions will begin to flow from that basic decision. The fact that we have not yet arrived at that point is what is so deplorable about the reason behind this debate tonight.
I am convinced that if we had a rational national farm policy in this country to preserve the family farm, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) would not have announced the lifting of the moratorium on Farm Credit Corporation loan repayments a few days ago. It would have been logically contrary to a national farm policy because he would have realized that lifting that moratorium would injure perhaps anywhere from 50 farms a month to 600 or 6,000 farms a year.


Sidney Arthur Fraleigh: What would you have done?


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: It would not have been government policy and he would not have made that statement. He would have convened the best minds in the farm community to try to work out other alternatives. I am certain that if the will was there and the philosophical national farm policy existed, in principle, the financial solutions would have been forthcoming.
This evening we are not just debating a financial crisis on the farm front. We may very well be debating the end of the family farm as an institution in this country. I am not suggesting that farmers will go into bankruptcy in the near future. I am saying that this might very well be a watershed week in the history of family farming in this country.
From now on, an increasing number of farmers will be of the belief that Ottawa does not care and is casting them adrift at the darkest moment of their economic crisis. They will believe that Ottawa is telling them that they must pay up or go out of business.
This will first have a ripple effect that I predict will become somewhat of a tidal wave in Canada, under which people will finally give up. How much longer can we in Ottawa expect the resilience, to use the words that were mentioned by the Member opposite, the faith and determination of our farming communities-


An Hon. Member:: Don't worry about us, we will manage all right.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: -to keep the family farm alive? I do not think we can expect that to continue much longer.
The European Economic Community knows how to look after its farmers. I am not talking about subsidies but about breaking into new markets and selling their surplus products as well as subsidizing the farmers. The EEC has a commitment to maintain the family farm as well as farm and food production in western Europe.
Let us consider the United States, that bastion of free enterprise that philosophically does not believe in interfering in the market-place yet chastises us every time we do so. The

April 28, 1987
Americans introduced their American Farm Bill, which is contrary to their philosophy, in order to protect their farmers against the EEC.
What is the federal Government doing? I believe it is in the process of providing $1.3 billion or $1.4 billion. While I am not arguing against that or suggesting that the Government is doing nothing, I am saying that in the global sense of the financial crisis facing farmers it is only a stop-gap solution. It is not a long-term solution or policy.


Sidney Arthur Fraleigh: What is a long-term solution?


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: The farming problem in this country-


Mr. Gottselig:: Tell us about it. Give us your answer.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Stop-gap solutions are discouraging to farmers. They do not know whether they will have a reasonable income in order to continue. They go from seeding to harvest, and back to seeding without knowing what will happen in six months or a year.
Is it any wonder that farmers who are interviewed on television almost every night are saying that they will not seed 50, 100 or 200 acres this year because it will not pay them to do so? They ask: "Why should I go out to work on the field when I know that I will come up a net loser on it"?


Leonard J. Gustafson: You find that farmer and let us know.


An Hon. Member:: Only the socialists are saying that.


Leonard J. Gustafson: You find that farmer and let us know.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: I have been in the House many years and know that at this particular time of the night it is very easy to heckle. I do it from this side and Members do it on the government side.
As I look around the House, most of the Members in the House right now represent ridings in which there are many grain growers. I am not so certain that they are taking this debate all that seriously, and they should be. They should be telling the two Ministers responsible for agriculture in this country what they believe the solutions are for their farmers in their constituencies. I have yet to hear anything in a speech tonight that would indicate that they have any solutions or answers to the farm problems.


William (Bill) Gottselig: Let's hear yours.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: A couple of months ago I convened a farm forum in my constituency. We invited various farm producer groups to make representations in the morning, and 13 different producer groups came to present their briefs. In the afternoon the meeting was open to individual farmers. The Hon. Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse) and the Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo), who are farmers, were also in attendance. I am not a farmer, but I
helped to provide the forum for the farmers in my constituency to come and be heard.


Charles James Mayer: Why did you not ask me? I am a farmer. Why did you not ask me?


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: You are welcome any time, Charlie, to come to Brant and tell the farmers what wonderful things you are doing for them. I will not be responsible for your safety when you leave.


Charles James Mayer: I will be happy to come.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: But I do not want to be responsible for what may happen to you. Consider it an open invitation to come to Brant any time you want, but don't say that I personally invited you because I do not want to be part of something rather unsavoury that might happen.


Charles James Mayer: You are not going to invite me?


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Contrary to what you guys think over there, you are not quite as popular as you think on the farm front today. I know what is causing you to be nervous. I know what is causing you to be upset. However, nothing is coming from it. Farmers are going bankrupt day in and day out and all we hear are speeches from the Ministers. All we see are stop-gap measures.
The Hon. Minister was not in the House when I opened my remarks.


Charles James Mayer: I heard what you said.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: The problem is that you have not established a raison d'etre, a philosophical reason for maintaining the family farm. If you can devise a national policy you will probably find the answers.


Charles James Mayer: You did not listen to my speech.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Our meeting was a success in terms of receiving much input from very concerned farmers. I want to stress that this meeting was totally non-partisan and not made up of members of any political party.


Charles James Mayer: Why did you not invite me if it was nonpartisan?


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: I want to tell the Minister about some of their major concerns. I am not only talking about the lifting of a moratorium on debt, which is a major critical issue at this time, but there are many very difficult, complex problems facing the farm community today not just in southern Ontario or my riding of Brant, but right across the country. In that list we have, for example-and this will come as no surprise to the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board-low commodity prices, high production costs, debt, land values, depreciation or erosion, short term aid, long term solutions and the lack of them, marketing, free trade and political will.
April 28, 1987


Charles James Mayer: Cost of machinery.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: The farmers could pay for Massey Ferguson combines when farmers were making a decent living. They could afford those combines. They cannot afford them today because they are not making any money. That is one problem.
With respect to low commodity prices, and virtually everyone tonight has mentioned this as a major problem, obviously there has to be some kind of guaranteed assistance in the short term. The American Farm Bill is helping its farmers. The EEC is subsidizing its farmers. Are we going to sit back and let our farmers go out of business because the Conservative Government is opposed to some kind of subsidization which is guaranteed to farmers for, say, two, three or four years, not just every six months or from seeding to harvest?
We should be telling the farmers that we are going to guarantee them a reasonable return on their investment and hard work for the next five years, if need be, in order to give them a breathing space so that they can plan ahead instead of thinking: "Well, this may help me this growing year, but God knows where I will be next year".
With respect to high production costs, farmers in my riding today are receiving less today for a bushel of corn than they were in, I believe, 1975 or 1977. Yet their production costs go up every year. I may be wrong but 1 think they are something like seven-fold higher than they were in 1975. That is a lot. It may be five-fold, but the point is that production costs have gone up immensely and prices have gone down. I would like to know what small city industrialist who employs perhaps 15 or 20 people would stay in business under those conditions. But a business in the city can perhaps get out of one line and move into another line which is more productive. What can a farmer do? Can he give up the rural life, give up his traditions?
I talked to young farmers in my constituency and they feel embarrassed. I am sure that is true across the country. Our farmers are among the best trained farmers in the world. We have a sign on a farm gate in my constituency which says "Century farm". It was a project, I believe, of one of the young farm organizations in Ontario. Young farmers feel personally ashamed that they are getting deeper and deeper into debt and can see nothing but bankruptcy at the end, when their grandfather, greatgrandfather, and in some cases their great greatgrandfather, going back to the 1840s and 1850s, first started farming on that parcel of land. It is easy for us to say that they should not feel personally guilty but they do. That is what young farmers are like.
It would be different if the situation were as it was in the late 1950s when a lot of farmers refused to modernize, to study and to improve their ability to farm. But today some of the best farmers are going bankrupt. Is it true in city industry that the best industries are going under? I do not think so. I think the industries which are going under in our cities today,
certainly in southern Ontario where the urban economy is basically booming in the so-called "golden horseshoe", are seen as very poor businessmen, incompetent in many cases. But in farming it is the best farmers who are going deeper into debt and are staring bankruptcy in the face.
The other problem, of course, is debt, and that is what this debate is all about. I would like to ask the Minister, who is here, why, in God's name, did the Government decide at the end of last week to lift the moratorium? Why now? Was it pressure from the banks so that they could then go into lockstep right behind? Was it to give them further justification to pull the rug out from under their debtors?


Charles James Mayer: What has that got to do with the banks? It has nothing to do with the banks.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: The farmers are beginning to wonder whether or not the Government was pressured by the banks into making this move.


Charles James Mayer: It has nothing to do with the banks whatsoever.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Well, many farmers are beginning to doubt that. Many farmers are saying that perhaps the Government knuckled under to the banks and made the first move. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) is saying he is not getting his message across. The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) is saying that one of the reasons the Government is doing so poorly in the polls is that it is not selling its programs to the people. It is not informing the people. Perhaps the Government had better start doing that because the farmers in my constituency, generally speaking, are saying to me it is the banks which are probably pushing the Government into lifting the moratorium. If the banks are not, the Minister had better go down there and tell those farmers the true story.
I find it depressingly agonizing to participate in this kind of debate. I have been involved in debates like this before in this House, in my constituency and in other parts of Canada. We are dealing with some of the best farmers in the world. I am not exaggerating when I say that the suicide rate is 12 times the national rate by occupation. Something is obviously wrong. The incidence of nervous breakdowns, mental illness and emotional stress is highest amongst farmers, farmers' wives and their children. Something has to be done and it has to be done soon.
Let me end by simply saying that the solution to preserving the family farm in this country is not to fund its demise. It is not to pass on money to farmers so that they can get out of farming. My God, how hypocritical can a policy be? It is argued on the one hand that we want to preserve the family farm and on the other hand the Government is prepared to give them money to get out of farming. That is the national disgrace which we are debating tonight.


Marcel Prud'homme: Mr. Speaker, I see that Hon. Member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Clark), the Hon. Member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Gottselig) and the Hon.

April 28, 1987

Member for Lambton-Middlesex (Mr. Fraleigh) seem to be surprised to see a Montreal Member of Parliament participating in the debate. Even my esteemed colleague who just spoke, the Hon. Member for Brant (Mr. Blackburn), said: "You, Marcel, are not going to participate in this debate?" Well, yes,
I am, and very briefly. It may surprise a lot of people but it is for the Canadians who are watching us from across Canada. It is 10 minutes to 12 o'clock at night in Ottawa and in Vancouver it is 10 minutes to 9 o'clock.
I will try very briefly, if I could get your attention, Mr. Speaker, and that of my friend and esteemed colleague, the Hon. Member for Assiniboia (Mr. Gustafson), to explain to Canadians what is going on and I will do that a little in French so I can talk especially to those who understand French and try to get their sympathy and understanding for the plight of people in Canada who at the moment are going through tough times.
I am not going to be partisan because I am not familiar enough with the subject of the western economy. My colleague would be right in correcting me if I were to be wrong in my facts and figures.

But when I see, Mr. Speaker, that the price of grain was and-
I do not mind being corrected by my colleague if I happen to make an error. If I do make an error I will admit it right away. What I want to say will still make sense. But if I make a mistake I ask my colleagues, especially Members opposite from Brandon-Souris, Moose Jaw and Lambton-Middlesex, and my esteemed colleague the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister (Mr. Gustafson), a long-time friend if I may say so, to correct my figures. What I do see is that if it is true that in-

-in 1984, the price of wheat was about $170, in 1985, it was around $160, and in 1986, it was around $130, and in 1987, we have just heard it will be around $110, it doesn't take an expert to realize that we have a major problem here, and that there are Canadians in one part of this country who are suffering the tragic effects of an economic was being fought by the United States and the Common Market. Canadians have been caught in the middle.
I just want to ask the people of Quebec to stop and consider the tremendous problems facing Canadians in western Canada.
I make no apology for speaking here tonight because Quebecers, even if many of us have now become urbanized, do not have to go back very far in their history to discover a past that is firmly rooted in the rural communities of their province.

I for one could claim to be a Montrealer, that is true. However, my grandfather and all of my uncles and cousins in Two Mountains are all farmers. As I was saying, we do not need to go far back in Quebec society to find very strong attachments to the rural life. It should be understood by Quebecers especially that there is an immense problem in western Canada at the moment. I imagine that it is not easy for the Government to cope with it. It is for that reason I want to have my remarks on the record, even if they are brief.
I made some notes while one of my colleagues was speaking.
I wish to request in the strongest possible terms that the Government give a commitment now to save the family farm and the entire rural life of the country.
The lifting of the moratorium on loan repayments announced by the Government and the fact that it will now start foreclosing on thousands of farm loans causes great distress. There is no doubt about that. We have to understand the family concept. We have to understand what it means for someone who, suddenly, because of outside forces, finds himself in an immense difficulty. I do not necessarily blame the Government for this. I think it is the duty of all Canadians to follow closely the events that are taking place.
As a Canadian I do not apologize for taking the floor at this time. As I said in French, I am not an expert on the western grain economy. However, I want to have the same version in both languages. It is too easy to go from one to the other and not to say exactly the same thing.
People will probably say that here I go again on my Canadian trip. However, to me, that is the price that we pay when we are Canadians. Sometimes it is the Maritimes that suffer. When that happens western Canadians have to show generosity. Sometimes it is central Canada that is freezing. It is not good for Canada to hear people from western Canada say: "Let them freeze in the East". When the West is suffering it is not in the good interests of Canada to say: "I am from Quebec and $1 billion last year is too much and maybe another billion this year is too much". That limits the scope of what Canada should be for all of us.
We are all in this boat as one, supporting each other. That is the strength of Canada. That is why many of my colleagues and I said during the famous debate that took place some years ago in the Province of Quebec when some Quebecers wanted to pursue their future in another way, probably by moving out of Canada and having their own country, that the beauty of Canada, with a small population of 25 million, is in helping each other. We must understand that when there is a rough time in one part of Canada we should all be interested in the good of each other. It is late, I realize that, and when it gets to be this time my English leaves me, but

-in French, I would like to state that we must understand there is now a tremendous tragedy in western Canada. And I know Quebecers ask that question often enough. I see my
April 28, 1987

esteemed colleague, the new Member, and he knows there is often a tendency to say in Quebec: The Canadian Government always looks after western farmers, which always find themselves in a tight spot, and it always gives them a lot of money. But it must be added that the money that comes back to Canada brings a lot to Canadians from coast-to-coast. And this is why I believe we should unite in these difficult moments.

We have in these difficult times to get together and sacrifice. Some people in one part of Canada have to sacrifice so that other people in the rest of Canada can survive. Of course it will be an immense tragedy for someone like me who is still very attached to the rural farming area.
I do not know if I said it in French or English but it is well known in Quebec that my family comes from rural places in Quebec. I am very proud of that. I do not see why people should not repeat such a thing in public. I have learned a lot about the attachment to the earth and the values that one sometimes finds more in rural communities than in urban communities. For that reason, and for that reason alone, I want to say to the Government that I am positive that it will have the entire support of our Party in the decision, as difficult as it may be, that it must take in the future.
Of course the Government will have to find the money to carry out its decision. In finding the money it will help our rural communities to survive. It will keep what is so precious in Canada. I do not see that because I am from Montreal I should remain silent. I do not see why I should not show to the rest of Canada my attachment to rural communities and to the fact that it is a duty of all Canadians to support each other.


Mr. Cote (Lac-Saint-Jean):: Shame, shame! What have you done for them?


Marcel Prud'homme: Is the Hon. Member for Lac-Saint-Jean (Mr. Cote) saying "Shame"? Perhaps he would like to stand up. If he says that what 1 say is shameful I do not know on whom. Is it shame on him or on whom?


Clément M. Côté: What did you do for westerners?


Marcel Prud'homme: Perhaps the Hon. Member will make his own speech in a minute-

Let me say it in French: I certainly have no wish to allow myself to be let by the Hon. Member, because the tone would then be different. He knows it very well. I am simply trying . . . I have been provoked by a Conservative Member, a newcomer. If I wanted to be-
I do not wish to be unkind. Perhaps I should not attach too much importance to what he has said. It is not my habit to be unkind. However, if necessary, I shall indeed be so.
It is midnight now in Ottawa, and I would ask my hon. friend opposite to remain calm. I am merely trying to be helpful. If you do not wish me to be helpful, I can become viciously partisan-in which event I would be unhappy, because I do not think I would have contributed in any way to solving a very difficult situation across Canada.
I shall conclude my remarks in the French language to ensure that my explanation is accurately on the record.
If the Government provides $1 billion in aid for the grain farmers of western Canada, that is something that will have to be explained in other parts of Canada. Such an aid package might lead to further requests for assistance. The shoe and textile industries in the Province of Quebec are in need of assistance and protection.
One of the strengths of Canada is that we do help each other. Without that kind of understanding, Canada would have no raison d'etre.
Therefore, I once again make a plea-


An Hon. Member:: Oh, oh!


Marcel Prud'homme: I must admit that you are really unpleasant. If we want to have a serious debate and the Hon. Member continues to be that unpleasant, that is not the tone I like to use in this House. But each time the Hon. Member seems incapable of holding back, and I am referring to a Conservative Member I would prefer not to name, to make it less difficult for him to get re-elected in his area. But I find him really unpleasant, I must say, for someone who is still in this House until midnight. Anyway, Mr. Speaker, maybe with the passage of time he will learn that on occasion we can hold nonpartisan debates.
For this reason, Mr. Speaker, I feel you are showing a lot of courage to remain with us at such a late hour, and I feel you are being very patient. But you recognize, as I do, the significance of this debate, for you and I have deep roots in Quebec, a Quebec on the move and which remembers. In Quebec, our motto is: I remember.
Well, I should like people from western Canada to continue to remember that they exist and that if we do not come to their rescue and help them through these very difficult times, Canada as a whole will suffer. It is necessary to explain that to Quebecers. All Canadians will suffer if we do not help our fellow citizens from western Canada who are having a very hard time. I hope the Hon. Member who has now decided to keep quiet will understand that this is the right tone to use in this debate, which is being held under very difficult conditions.

April 28, 1987
I thank you for listening to me and I urge again the Government to do everything humanly possible to help these farmers who are experiencing extreme difficulties; the Official Opposition and the New Democratic Party will do their duty be supporting any action which the Government may announce, but we hope that such action will be announced very shortly.

I believe my young friend opposite is the Member for Chicoutimi (Mr. Elarvey). I think that is the case. I do not wish to accuse wrongly someone who is absent.


An Hon. Member:: He is the Member for Lac-Saint-Jean (Mr. Cote).


Marcel Prud'homme: -the Hon. Member for Lac-Saint-Jean (Mr. Cote) understands that that is what makes Canada beautiful. Yes, we are asking you to co-operate with us. Tomorrow morning, you will hold a caucus meeting just as we shall. Well, join our efforts. We want to tell you to go ahead, that we will not fight you. But go ahead, tomorrow morning, stand up in your caucus and say: We are Canadians from a different region.

I will say it in the French language. Were 1 to make these remarks in the English language, the French language Members would have difficulty following the debate.

I do it in French. Stand up tomorrow morning and tell my friend and colleague the Hon. Member for Assiniboia (Mr. Gustafson):

On this issue, I am going to stand up for you, and when the time comes that we need your support, I shall expect you to give it. I hope you can see where I am going. When we ask for your support on a matter that is important to us, be it on the question of the Constitution or other important matter, we will be asking for your support.
At the meeting to take place on Thursday next, my province will be requesting certain changes to the Constitution. I purposely do not use the word "demand".
While those changes may not be too popular in the rest of Canada, we will ask you to try to understand our feelings on it and provide us with your support.
While issues involving the Constitution and the need for aid to western grain farmers may not on their face appear to be related, they are in fact related in the sense of the give and take that Canada is all about.
You can count on my support in respect of any action you take on this issue. While it may not be popular in my province, I shall go about my province explaining to its citizens the importance of helping each other out.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
[DOT] (ooio)


Mr. Michel Champagne (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, obviously I am very surprised that my honourable colleague from Saint-Denis, a city dweller from Montreal, has come out this evening to speak on the subject of agriculture on behalf of the Liberal Party. Judging from what we have seen this evening, particularly from the NDP and from certain Liberals, it seems that just about anyone can stand up and say just about anything regarding agriculture. You know, Mr. Speaker, when I heard my colleague from Saint-Denis speak about the national scope of this issue and use well-known expressions such as mosaic and from coast-to-coast and speak about the importance of Canadian unity, I began to wonder why our predecessors, Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Turner, did not appoint him Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture. Had he in fact been appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture, we would certainly not, in my opinion, knowing the Member for Saint-Denis as well as I do, have encountered some of the problems we have had with agriculture in recent years.
Mr. Speaker, when my colleague, the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme), began his speech, he quoted approximate figures, from 100 to 160, in describing a real problem faced by farmers, particularly by grain producers. However, he is going a little too far by claiming in a roundabout way that these problems are due to the Progressive Conservative government's failure to take action.


Marcel Prud'homme: 1 never claimed any such thing!


Michel Champagne: Because, Mr. Speaker, if we look at this whole issue objectively, to use the words of my colleague from Saint-Denis, whom I would like to congratulate in being the only opposition Member in attendance, he is the only Member from Quebec to have spoken out on this matter. Perhaps he will be joined by his colleagues later.


Marcel Prud'homme: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Chair recognizes the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme) on a point of order.


Marcel Prud'homme: Mr. Speaker, I realize that the Hon. Member has a speech to make and I will stay to hear it. However, he knows very well that it is not a parliamentary custom to reveal who is or is not in the House and who has or has not participated in a debate. Indeed, this is a useless point to debate since I could say that there is not one single Minister seated in the front row benches. Then you would say that there is no one seated in the front row of the Opposition benches. Mr. Speaker, I would simply like you to remind the Hon. Member, for whom I have a high regard, that we do have an issue to discuss. I am interested in hearing what he has to say, but if he resorts to partisan politics, I believe I can find more important things to do at this hour of the night! I do want to listen to him, but I see no point in his noting either the absence or presence of members. It is not customary and it adds nothing whatsoever to the debate.
April 28, 1987


Michel Champagne: Mr. Speaker, I think that it does indeed add a very important element to the debate because, setting aside all partisanship, many federal Liberals are at the present time travelling throughout Quebec, Ontario and the Maritime provinces saying that the Progressive Conservative government is doing nothing for Canadian agriculture. I am not the one saying this, Mr. Speaker. The Liberals are. Is this partisanship or an objective debate? I cannot believe, Mr. Speaker, that the Member for Saint-Denis would say such things. If we want to talk about statistics, we could talk objectively about interest rates. In 1984, when we came to power, interest rates were in the 16 to 22 percent range. Today, they stand at 10 per cent. Yet Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy) accused the Government a while ago of failing to take concrete action. Mr. Speaker, interest rates have fallen from 16.75 per cent to 10 per cent, from 22 per cent to 10 per cent! The interest rate on loans is now 6 per cent! These are concrete actions on the part of the Prograssive Conservative government since coming to power in 1984. Mr. Speaker, to maintain that the Liberals and New Democrats will support the government motion in favour of agriculture-when in fact the Liberals and New Democrats opposed the introduction of the capital gains exemption. They claimed that it would only help the rich. They said that it would not help Canadian farmers. That's funny, because I represent a rural riding. I have travelled throughout my riding and I have met with farmers. They have told me that the elimination of the capital gains tax has allowed the family farms to survive to this day, because parents are not forced to sell at two, three or four times the price because of the tax. Now they get a capital gains exemption. Mr. Speaker, this is one concrete step we have taken to help agriculture. We have indeed taken action since 1984.
I could also speak objectively about our electoral platform. Some opposition Members will say that we have not kept any of our promises. Fine. But I remember the commitments we made in 1984. I'm sure the Liberals and New Democrats have them written down in their little books. We spoke of doing away with the capital gains tax. We have followed through on this. We also spoke of formulating a long-term dairy policy. This has also become a reality!
During the 1984 election campaign in Quebec, Mr. Speaker, I remember that the interest rates charged by the Farm Credit Corporation were 16.75 per cent. Farmers were saying to me: "You know, Mr. Champagne, if interest rates were in the 10 per cent range, that would be reasonable. Then we might be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel." In 1984, when the Farm Credit Corporation was charging 16.75 per cent in interest, the provincial Office du credit agricole was charging only 8.5 per cent. There was a difference of 8 per cent between the two agencies. This means that in 1984, the chances of survival for a young farmer wishing to take up the challenge, to take his rightful place on the Canadian agricultural scene and to assume the social role of economic "developer", worker and taxpayer, were slimmer if he turned to the Farm Credit Corporation for assistance instead of to the Office du credit agricole. Why was that? Because at the time, there was no
mechanism in place to provide for competitive interest rates between the two farm credit agencies. Therefore if two farmers borrowed the same amount, one from the provincial corporation and the other from the FCC, the one borrowing from the province had a better chance of coming out ahead. All the farmer who borrowed from the federal agency had to show for his efforts, in many cases, was a moratorium.
Mr. Speaker, we were not overjoyed about introducing the moratorium. The fact is we realized that there was a debt problem. The problem existed because to a certain extent farmers had not been dealt with in a responsible manner.
When our Government says that it represents fairly effectively the entire agricultural population, it means that it has Members involved in agriculture in almost every province. Although I have a great deal of respect for my colleague from Saint-Denis, he cannot say the same about the former Government which had no more than one or two sitting Members west of Ontario.
Mr. Speaker, what kind of treatment did western farmers receive over the last 10 or 15 years? It is normal for them to get what they rightfuly deserve now. It is normal for us to want to help out our western farmers and grain producers in their time of need. How did we in fact help them, Mr. Speaker? First of all, by instituting payment stabilization mechanisms. The former Government did not feel that such mechanisms were really needed, but we put them in place. We agreed, coast-to-coast, to use a well known expression, that it was important to agriculture to implement such mechanisms. We allocated one billion dollars in aid and we succeeded, Mr. Speaker-as for the New Democrats and the Liberals, I believe I see the Hon. Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster) laughing about the situation. I think that this is shameful indeed since when his Party was in power, he did nothing at all for agriculture. It was our government, Mr. Speaker, that distributed $1 billion equitably between the farmers from the west, the east and the Maritimes. We did this for a reason. We realized that Canadian farmers needed the government's support. During our 1984 election campaign, we gave our firm commitment that we would take action in this area.
Of course the opposition Parties claim that we are not doing enough. But you can never do enough. Mr. Speaker, we have to look at what was done in the past and what is being done today. Some of the expectations of Canadian farmers have been met through the introduction of the 6 per cent loan program, the signing of a long-term dairy policy for farmers in general and the one billion in aid. When the Opposition accuses us of not having done anything-and I am speaking here of those who want to raise this debate beyond the realm of partisanship-it should take a good hard look at what's happening across Canada. However, it should not view the situation across the country from the comfort of an air-conditioned limousine. It should travel to the rural ridings and look at what's happening with farmers. If it is truly objective, it will see that the Progressive Conservative Government has fulfilled about 80 or 90 per cent of its 1984 election promises.

April 28, 1987
I heard members of the New Democratic Party speak of agri-bonds and of the fact that our Government had not introduced any agri-bonds. However, I would like one opposition Member to rise just once and say: "Mr. Speaker, the Progressive Conservative Government, through the Farm Credit Corporation, has made it possible for farmers to take out loans at 10 per cent interest, rather than 16.75 per cent". Of course no Opposition member has ever once done this. No, the opposition Members have only risen to protest the lifting of the moratorium. Mr. Speaker, what is even more scandalous is the fact that the New Democrats supported the Liberals in their failure to take steps to formulate a clear, concrete agricultural policy.
It's true, Mr. Speaker. When have we ever seen the New Democrats rise and say to the Liberals: "When your Party was in power, interest rates were too high".


Some Hon. Members:: They kept them in office!


Michel Champagne: That's quite true, Mr. Speaker. I can see that some of the New Democratic Members are amused by this statement, but that's what really happened. Yes, indeed.
As my colleague from Saint-Denis pointed out, when one wants to work for the sake of unity-and I'm excluding my colleague from Saint-Denis here because he is the exception that confirms the rule in many cases-when one wants to establish farm programs and work in a positive way, this does not mean that one must put obstacles in the government's way. It means that one must look at the positive achievements and work to improve, rather than criticize, the situation.
All that we keep hearing in the agriculture committees and in reports everywhere and in the statements by the Opposition on the subject of agriculture, is that the Government has failed to keep its promises.
Our electoral platform, Mr. Speaker, was very simple. It contained 12 promises, more or less, to quote the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis: to provide financial aid to farmers, to renew their confidence, to establish the marketing boards of their choice, to sign a long-term dairy policy, to reduce the rates charged by the Farm Credit Corporation, to introduce a capital gains exemption, to have grain stabilization payments more in tune with reality and to deal equitably with the agricultural community as a whole. We have fulfilled our promises, Mr. Speaker. Why then does the Opposition continue to criticize us, why did it insist on holding an emergency debate to discuss the plight of farmers and why is it trying to make the Government out to be the villain?
Mr. Speaker, the opposition Parties must be very well aware of the fact that the current problem is the result of a trade war between the European Economic Community and the United States.
Canada, despite its efforts and the funds allocated to agriculture, does not have the power to control the United States and the European Economic Community or to demand that they act as it would like. I feel, Mr. Speaker, that we are being unfair in telling Canadians that the Government is irresponsible. When has any government, with the exception of ours, taken such a radical stand and provided one billion in aid to grain farmers? The Government took such action because it realized full well that farmers were experiencing difficulty on international markets.
The Government was acting in a responsible, moral manner toward farmers. In providing this aid, the Government was acknowledging its economic responsibility and its economic priorities and was admitting that Canadian agriculture, not simply agriculture in Ontario, Quebec or the Maritime Provinces, is the cornerstone of healthy, future growth and development. It was acknowledging the expectations of Canadians wishing to make farming their livelihood.
Never once did the Government claim to have resolved all of the country's agricultural problems.
We are continuing to work in this area. For the first time ever, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) met with his 10 provincial counterparts to negotiate a national agricultural policy. They continue to meet regularly and are scheduled to get together this summer in Quebec City. Together, they have given a new thrust and impetus to farming in Canada. They are trying to avoid what happened in the past when the federal Government disregarded the wishes and demands of the provinces.
Thanks to our innate knowledge, we believe we are doing what is right for agriculture in Canada. We have seen, Mr. Speaker, the effects of a $200 billion deficit in the agricultural sector and what happens with interest payments when this deficit must be reimbursed. Funds cannot be used effectively for agriculture.
Mr. Speaker, when the Liberal Government completely disregarded the demands of the provinces and sought only to create a climate of confrontation within a federalist context that clearly made no sense, it caused serious harm to agriculture. The impact of this confrontation will be felt by future generations.
Do the New Democrats and the Liberals object to our adopting a conciliatory approach with the provinces? Do the New Democrats and the Liberals object to our consulting with our provincial counterparts to ensure that agriculture remains the cornerstone of economic development? That's what I've been hearing all evening from the Opposition, nothing more than recriminations based 90 per cent of the time on partisan feelings. The 10 per cent exclusion is for my colleague from Saint-Denis.
April 28, 1987

Mr. Speaker, it is highly unusual that I have not heard one opposition Member say this evening that the government has done at least something good. I can say one thing, Mr. Speaker.
As a responsible Member and as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture, I can say that since 1984, our Government has worked to rebuild the agricultural sector. This task cannot be accomplished alone. It will require the concerted efforts of many parties. This means that meetings will be held and concessions will be made. Policy discussions concerning agriculture will take place with each province. Our Government will not indulge in navel gazing, as most of my Opposition colleagues who feel they are very knowledgeable about this issue are prone to doing. Mr. Speaker, we have seen what innate knowledge can accomplish. If the Opposition accuses us of not keeping our election promises, we can find a great deal to say about the broken promises of the former Government. And we could also say the same about certain provincial NDP Governments.
If we want to raise the level of this debate beyond the realm of partisanship, we must recognize, firstly, that Canadian farmers are in trouble, and secondly, that the Government has taken steps and will continue to take steps to turn the situation economic problems by instituting certain structures and mechanisms.
In all honesty, Mr. Speaker, when I see the Opposition criticize our Government for giving $1 billion to Canadian farmers to help them out, when I see the Opposition criticize our Government for providing a 6 per cent loan system- something which has never been seen before-when I see the Opposition protest shared-cost interest rates, when I see the Opposition criticize the drop in interest rates, the introduction of the capital gains exemption and efforts to formulate national agricultural policies with our provincial colleagues, I ask myself, Mr. Speaker, who is acting in the most responsible fashion, the Opposition or the Government. The Opposition only indulges in negativism. The Government, n the other hand, is showing its willingness to implement a policy that will save our agricultural industry, not in the short term but in the long term.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Mr. Speaker, I wish to join in the emergency debate at this early morning hour, at least it is in Ottawa, which has been requested by the Hon. Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo). There is obviously no doubt that agriculture, particularly western agriculture, is facing a crisis in many ways similar to that faced in the time of the Great Depression. There are similar as well as different aspects to the crisis that confronts agriculture today, and I agree that there are no simple, easy solutions. It is a very complex age with new developments occurring on the political
front, on the economic front and on the technological front which increase the uncertainty in agriculture today.
As I said, there are no simple, easy solutions. We have to deal with the economic problem that exists in the trade war between the European countries and the U.S.A. where billions of dollars from the public treasuries of Europe and the United States are being used to support their respective farmers. This has been explained by Members on all sides of the House. The Canadian farmer, in essence, is out there alone. He is suffering because he does not have the type of protection given to the European and the American farmer. There is talk about the uncertainty being brought about by technological changes, changes in genetic engineering and hydroponics which can change the face of agriculture in a very short period of time. These are some of the long-term uncertainties that farmers, particularly western Canadian farmers, face.
It is true that this Government has spent more on agriculture than any previous Government. There is no doubt of that. Given the magnitude of the crisis it would not really have mattered whether we had a Liberal Government, a New Democratic Party Government or a Conservative Government, because any responsible federal Government today would have had to have spent the amount of money that has been spent supporting the grain producers of Canada. Not to have done so would have created such a crisis that we would have had a worse situation made so much worse. No responsible elected Government could have withstood the political uproar that that would have created.
I agree that this Government has spent more than any previous Government on support for agriculture. However, we must ask if it has been adequate. Given the support the European and American farmers face, have we provided enough protection for our farmers to ensure that they will survive at least on a minimal level? To that question, the answer must be a resounding no. The policies have not been adequate. They have not provided the support that is necessary to enable the family farm to continue to be a viable economic operation.
Let us look at some of the figures dealing with farm bankruptcies. The evidence before the Agriculture Committee on March 24 dealt with farms with sales of over $20,000. We learned that 8 per cent of those farms are basically insolvent. That amounts to roughly 13,680 farms. Evidence also showed that 23 per cent had major cash flow problems. That amounts to around 53,000 farms across Canada.
Thousands of farms on the verge of bankruptcy are ready to go down the tubes. The policies of the Government have not been adequate. They have not prevented that crisis. They have not provided the security that would assure those farmers that they will not go into receivership. That is the simple truth of the matter.

April 28, 1987
A sense of betrayal is felt in many rural areas across Canada and I would say particularly in western Canada. For many, many years, western Canadian farmers have very consistently voted Conservative. They have continued to return Conservative Members of Parliament to Ottawa year after year. Of the 14 Members of Parliament who come from my home province, there are only five New Democrats. There is a sense of anger and betrayal in western Canada. Because western Canadians have voted Conservative in so many elections, they had the sense that a Conservative Government in Ottawa would at least be sympathetic to and would understand the needs and problems they face.
When I return to the rural parts of my constituency, the message I get is one of anger and disappointment. They are angry and disappointed because the Government has not been adequately addressing their needs and concerns. They feel that they are on the edge of going bankrupt and they have no confidence that the Government is aware of their situation or, more important, has any coherent plan in mind to prevent them from going into bankruptcy.
We in the House of Commons have asked time and time again for the Government to make a public statement as to its intentions. Farming in and of itself is a very risky business. There are a great many uncertainties including the weather, the market, costs and the grasshoppers. A farmer runs a gambit of gambles. One of the other gambles is what the government policy will be. Farmers are making business decisions about what to plant and how much to plant and they recognize it is a gamble because they do not know what the government policy will be. They do have the sense that in the end, the Government will have to provide some program of deficiency-type payments but they do not know upon what basis it will be provided. They want to act in an economically rational and sane way but they cannot because there is this other uncertainty, the uncertainty about the programs.
We in the House of Commons have been rising day after day trying to get from the Government some indication of its thinking. Does it have a coherent policy in mind? I have a terrible suspicion, and I pray that I am wrong, that the Government really does not have a coherent policy in mind. This is inexcusable because everyone knew that the trade war between the Europeans and the Americans would occur. When the U.S. Farm Bill was before the American legislators and when it was passed, we knew what the results would be. There was a lot of lead time that could be used to begin to get some sense of the problem for Canadian farmers and to begin to devise some mechanism that would afford some protection for Canadian farmers.
The first time we got to hear about a program was, I believe, a day or two after the Speech from the Throne was read in the fall of last year. In the speech itself, there was no mention of a specific program. In fact, there was very little mention of
agriculture. When this was raised in the House, the Government tried to justify it by saying that this was the first time agriculture was mentioned on the first page of a Throne Speech. Well, big deal. Obviously that would not wash on the Prairies.
At that time, there was an election occurring in Saskatchewan. When the Speech from the Throne was brought down, the Deputy Premier of Saskatchewan was in Ottawa trying to ensure that there would be something there for Canadian farmers because Mr. Devine's Conservative Government was in serious trouble back in Saskatchewan. Well, there was nothing in the speech so the Deputy Premier of Saskatchewan, the Premier of Saskatchewan and a fair number of Saskatchewan cabinet Ministers started phoning. They phoned senior cabinet Ministers from Saskatchewan and I am sure they phoned the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise). They did get something. When the Prime Minister spoke, inserted in his speech was the promise of $1 billion.
Then we in the House tried to get some idea of what this $ 1 billion was all about. Day in and day out, we asked if this was new money and what the thinking behind it was. It became apparent that the announcement of the $1 billion did not reflect something that had been thought through, something that had required some intelligence to determine how the Government would tackle the problem. It became obvious that it was a political response, not a response to the crisis facing farmers today, not a response to the wars between the Europeans and the Americans-


Mr. Gerin:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Chair recognizes the Honourable Member for Megantic-Compton-Stanstead (Mr. Gerin) on a point of order.


François Gérin: Mr. Speaker, I see that it is now 1.40 a.m. I have listened closely to the NDP Member because it was the NDP who called this emergency debate. I have listened to the debates in this House for the past six and a half hours and I have failed to note any emergency. What's more, I can see that there are only three NDP Members here tonight. Yet, they claim that there is an emergency. If there is in fact an emergency, I think that the NDP should prove it. From everything I have heard today, I can detect no emergency as such.
I am prepared, Mr. Speaker, to do my duty as an MP, attend the debate, intervene and listen to the speaker, provided that the Opposition can prove the urgency of the problem or that the Government is failing to do its duty. I believe, Mr. Speaker, and I'm sure you will agree with me, that Canadian farmers feel that we have done our duty.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: This is not a true point of order.
April 28, 1987


Simon Leendert de Jong: First, Mr. Speaker, you are being challenged with this point of order. Second, had the Hon. Member been listening to my remarks when I quoted the number of farms and farm families on the verge of bankruptcy, he would not come into this House and say there is no crisis. Third, I was trying to explain to the Hon. Member why there are many farmers in my constituency who are wondering what to seed and how much to seed. They are wondering right now, tonight, and it is an emergency for them.
It may not be an emergency for the Hon. Member of the government Party. That is his problem, but if he wants to understand the emergency nature of the crisis, I invite him to come to Fort Qu'Appelle, Qu'Appelle, Edenwold or Balgonie and talk to some of the rural members of those communities. In that way he will get some appreciation of the crisis which exists for some of the people whom I represent.
While giving credit to the Government for bringing in its $1 billion support program, I was trying to point out that this program was not a result of planning, thinking, anticipating and intelligence, but was a response to a political problem which existed for the Conservative Party in Saskatchewan. This became typified when a reporter from the Star Phoenix overheard the Premier of Saskatchewan, in the middle of the campaign in a small motel room in the wee hours of the morning, phoning senior cabinet Ministers in Ottawa and saying there was going to be hell to pay unless the feds came through with some package.
That is the story behind the so-called billion-dollar deal. The Government is trying to stretch that out as far as possible. It is trying to get maximum political results from minimum public involvement, effort and assistance. That is what it is all about. It is the barest of minimum and is not enough to cover our farmers who are totally exposed. That is the message we are trying to send to the Government. It is a message the Government is determined not to hear.
We have heard government Members in the House tonight dancing around the basic issues. They listed all the sins of the Liberals and the Liberals have many sins. It is all summed up in my mind and, I think, in the minds of most western Canadian farmers, in that one simple statement by former Prime Minister Trudeau: "Why should I sell your wheat?" The arrogance and the lack of understanding of what the country is all about is exhibited in that one quote. It says volumes. That one sentence will condemn the Liberal Party in western Canada for years and years to come.
The people of western Canada expected better from this Government and they did not get it. That is the cause of the sadness, frustration and anger which exists in western Canada today. That is why there are political movements beginning in western Canada which are thinking in terms of separation. They believe that the people they supported year in and year out in election after election have forsaken them now that they
are in Government. Significant numbers of western Canadians are now talking in terms of western separation.
Our frustration in the west is due to the fact that when times were good we paid our share. When the Liberals were in Government they made resource grabs. They tried to grab the potash in Saskatchewan. To set the record straight, we never supported the National Energy Program. The Conservatives continued to tell that lie. If they would go back to the voting record they would see that it is Goebbels propaganda of repeating a lie to insist that we supported the National Energy Program.
The National Energy Program took about $25 billion out of the west. We in the West say that the $1 billion that the Government has spent on farm assistance is the first billion dollars and there are $24 billion more to go. That is the position of the west and I have a lot of sympathy for that.
The economy and well-being of hundreds of thousands of farmers in Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba is at stake. From a federal Government we expect responsibility and the assurance that it will stand by us to see us through these difficult times and will not sell us down the river. Unfortunately, the Government has not yet given that message.


Hon. John Wise (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I had the good fortune to leave the city this morning and fly to the great Province of British Columbia and meet with a number of leaders of farm organizations. I participated in the opening ceremonies of a world-class research centre which was designed, sponsored and built by Agriculture Canada. I refer, of course, to the opening of the Summerland Station. I am happy that I arrived back here tonight in time to have an opportunity to listen to some of the debate in the House. I welcome this opportunity to participate in the debate regardless of the hour.
Mr. Speaker, I have been in this House for 15 years and I believe I have participated, almost without exception, in all of the opposition days in this House. I have never heard so many false statements coming from the other side; I have never heard so much untruth coming from the other side; I have never heard so many extreme statements coming from the other side and, indeed, so much hypocrisy, as I have heard within the last hour or hour and a half that I have been back in the House.
To stand up and say that the Government has done absolutely nothing for Canadian agriculture is absolutely false. It is untrue.


David Orlikow: Nobody said that.


John Wise: Although I was not here, many of my colleagues were who are knowledgeable on agriculture and understand and have a full appreciation of the situation. Many of them are farmers, which makes a big difference. I do not see too many farmers on the other side, particularly on the Official Opposition benches. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I do not see anyone sitting on the benches of the Official Opposition. To be accurate, I do

April 28, 1987
now see the Hon. Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster) in his seat, but I do not believe the Hon. Member is a farmer.
I do want to give some credit to the NDP Members, particularly the last speaker. I must admit that many of his comments were very sensible and I listened to the Hon. Member very closely.
However, I have notes on certain comments which were made. It was said that the Government has done absolutely nothing for Canadian agriculture and that is not true. We made 16 campaign commitments to which I guess I will have to refer again. I am sure previous speakers, particularly those on this side of the House, have utilized this opportunity to set the record straight. We have to keep doing it over and over again. The fact of the matter is that we campaigned across this country and made some 16 commitments. To date we have fulfilled 14 of those commitments and we are going to fulfil all of them. We are going to deliver on all of our promises, certainly well before the end of our mandate.
In addition to that we have to date taken some 414 agricultural initiatives. That is more than one initiative every other working day since we were sworn into office. We have delivered more than $6 billion, most of which went into the hands of Canadian farmers.
1 can remember being the Opposition dairy critic and then the Opposition agricultural critic and I remember many farm organizations coming to the capital and saying that if we have the opportunity of getting into Government, and they certainly hoped we would, if you have one thing to do for us would you do something about capital gains. Shortly after we were sworn in, in fact in the first Budget, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) delivered on that campaign commitment.
I can recall a number of people meeting with us and asking us to do something about farm input costs. Would we give some serious consideration to a rebate of the excise taxes on farm fuels. Obviously because of the priority we place on agriculture we responded to that request. In doing so we effectively eliminated all federal sales and excise taxes on farm fuels. That represents a saving to Canadian farmers of about $200 million.
On a subject which is fairly close to my own heart, that of the dairy industry, I can remember dairy farmers coming to Ottawa year after year since about 1970 asking the federal Government to deliver a long-term dairy policy. We responded, made the campaign commitment, and in January of last year this Government provided a long-term dairy policy. We made a long-term commitment of five years and $1.5 billion. Another request made of us was to amend the Advance Payments for Crops legislation. We did that and doubled the payments. We were requested to amend the Western Grain Stabilization Act. We responded and did so, and I am going to say something more about that. I am sure my colleague, the
Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) had something to say about that earlier.
For over a decade the provinces and meat producers in this country have been working together to try and put together a tripartite stabilization program for red meat. The previous Government was never able to negotiate successfully with the provinces or the producers. Indeed, it was unable to amend the Act and provide the legislative framework for tripartite stabilization. We were able to negotiate with the provinces and the producers, amend the Act, and deliver on another campaign commitment.
The list goes on. I am not going to use all my time to list all of the campaign commitments, but I thought it was appropriate to read into the record some of the major requests made to us by farm organizations and I think it was appropriate to remind people that this Government has responded. I am sure that with the help of the Parliamentary Library the record would show that the Government has delivered on more campaign commitments than any other Government in the history of the country. I am sure that if you look at our record, not only legislatively but also on delivery of badly needed financial support, it will show that this Government has responded to a greater extent than any other Government in the history of Canada.
When this Government was sworn into office, the budget to operate Agriculture Canada and pay for support programs required about $1.2 billion. Now here we are not even half way through this year and the commitments we have made amount to over $4 billion. In addition, we continue to work with farm leaders. We met them on March 5 and we will meet them again in the first week of June. We will continue to work with them to work out some new support program. I have heard some Members say that we should make some commitment about the kind of program we will have. We should make some commitment as to the extent we will be able to finance that program. What will be the distribution formula?
I would just remind Members of the fact that in our meeting of March 5 with 55 farm leaders, representing 35 farm organizations, we issued a joint press statement to the effect that farmers should make the decision themselves. Farmers must read market signals and I know their difficulty. However, they are in a far better position than you and I or all of the bureaucrats in Ottawa and in all the provinces, as well as all the politicians, to read the signals of the market-place.
We could put all these so-called great minds together but invariably we would not be in a position to read market signals with the accuracy that farmers and farm organizations can for themselves. That was precisely why we came out of that meeting with a press release. I do not have it with me, but I have read it into the record a couple of times and I would remind Hon. Members, particularly those across the way, that this was not a press release written by the Minister of Agriculture or his bureaucrats. This was not a press release by the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board.
April 28, 1987


Maurice Brydon Foster: It was written by your guys.


John Wise: The Hon. Member for Algoma was not there. He speaks with the same uninformed voice on this issue as he does on most occasions in the House. No question about it.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Most of them felt used so I would not bring up that argument, John.


John Wise: There is no question about the fact that there is a very clear message that we should not be making statements of this kind at this time.
1 have complimented the Member who spoke previously but he made a few comments that were not quite correct. He indicated that when the Government made the commitment to support Canadian farmers we arrived at a billion-dollar figure. He gave some political reason for why we arrived at that figure. Of course, he is wrong.
I cannot say when the Saskatchewan election took place, but I can say that we were meeting with farm leaders at the Prime Minister's (Mr. Mulroney) initiative and as a result of his leadership. It was at his request that the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) and myself, as well as the Parliamentary Secretary, the Member for Assiniboia (Mr. Gustafson), convened a meeting of farm leaders in Vancouver before he left for the Tokyo summit. The Hon. Member for Algoma speaks from his seat, but he was not there.


Maurice Brydon Foster: You were not here when I spoke.


John Wise: Perhaps that is a good thing. The fact is that we were meeting with farm leaders throughout the late spring and early summer and were working with farm leaders throughout the season. Indeed, we had come to the conclusion that it would require at least a billion dollars and we then continued working with them to devise some fair and equitable form of distributing that $1 billion.
We should not be critical of farm leaders but should compliment them. When we met in Ottawa at the Sir John Carling Building, many people thought that it would be impossible for 25 or 30 farm leaders to sit down with us to work out some type of program that would be fair and equitable, with a fair and equitable distribution formula. That can only be achieved by working together, and as a result of the leadership of the farm leaders involved in those meetings we were able to form the program. We were able to develop a formula that was fair and equitable.
If we look at that formula and consider a typical grain farm in Saskatchewan with the cropping pattern that the individual uses, and put that through the Special Canadian Grains Program formula, we will find that it triggers out about $9,300. If we look at southwestern Ontario and consider a typical farmer and his farm's cropping pattern, we will see that
it will trigger almost identical to what the typical farm could receive in western Canada.
Let me indicate that we are basically in the same position this year as we were last year. It is not appropriate for us, at this time, to indicate the degree of support that will be required. It is not possible to indicate at this time our financial ability as a Government to respond.
However, the commitment was made in the Speech from the Throne that the Government will spare no effort. Furthermore, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), in his February 18 Budget, extended a mandate to the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board and myself to reconvene those meetings. We reconvened the meetings and held the first one on March 5.
I have made reference to the statement that was issued and there may be some question about it. However, I will stand by that statement and I am sure, if you want to check with the farmers who participated at that meeting, the vast majority of them stand by that statement. I have talked with many of them since then and, indeed, they still stand by that statement. We will be meeting with them in June and will continue to work with them to develop some type of program.
There has been a fair amount of time and comment, perhaps quite properly, on why the Government made a decision to lift the moratorium. I remind the House that there is no question that the phase-out is very much controlled.
While I placed that moratorium on farm foreclosures, I must remind the House that the foreclosures only applied to FCC clients. The Minister of Agriculture has no authority to place that moratorium on clients other than FCC clients.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Yes, you have the authority.


John Wise: The Hon. Member says that I do. I do not. I took that initiative at the time for good reason. If I had the opportunity to do it again I am sure I would introduce it. I indicated when I placed this moratorium in September, 1985, that there were a number of things that we as a Government wanted to do. The first was to respond to the interest rate conversion program. We did that with an $80 million commitment, bringing down the 5,600 FCC clients from 16.75 per cent to 12.75 per cent.
I said that I wanted to introduce the shared risk mortgage. We introduced that.
I indicated that we wanted to introduce the commodity-based loan. We have introduced the commodity-based loan.
I indicated that we wanted to bring forward the Farm Debt Review legislation which, indeed, we put into place. I said that we wanted to establish Farm Debt Review Boards in all the provinces. They have been established in all the provinces.
I indicated that we wanted to let these review boards have an opportunity for some experience in order that they could be established and functioning. That has happened and they have been doing an excellent job. While some people are critical of

April 28, 1987
the legislation, there is no question in my mind as I continue to consult with the rank and file of the farm population that that legislation is right.
I am also satisfied that the farm debt review process is proper and that they are doing an excellent job, considering the very difficult cases that the Farm Debt Review Board must deal with.
I see that you are giving me a signal, Mr. Speaker. I have not really begun.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent to allow the Minister to continue?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


John Wise: I thank Hon. Members for the courtesy. I will try not to take too long.
I also indicated that we wanted to develop the Canadian rural transition program.
The Government has been forced to break new ground on just about every occasion in the last year and one-half. Any Government can enlarge, enrich or expand existing programs with very little difficulty, providing the financial resources are available. Although we have had the financial resources, the challenge is writing new legislation, developing new programs and new schemes. While this can be done, we must have the will of the Government and the co-operation of the Canadian farm population. We have had that will and that co-operation as well.
I suspect that those who are critical of the performance of the Farm Debt Review Boards have not taken the time to research and consider these questions on a case-by-case basis. I invite them to do so.
I also ask them to consider the question of the moratorium. I will always have to live with the question of whether it was the right decision for me to place that moratorium on FCC foreclosures in September, 1985. Has it been helpful or harmful to those people who have been held in that moratorium net? I can say that in some cases of which I am aware we might have been better off not to have placed that moratorium initially, or, perhaps certain people would have been better off financially if we had removed the moratorium earlier. I am sure that reasoning will make sense to Members if they consider that for some time.
If we look at the people who are in serious financial trouble we would probably find there is some exaggeration in these numbers. I think people have a tendency to make extreme statements.
The FCC does have a higher percentage of high risk cases. How did that come about? It came about very simply because the previous Government did not make sufficient funds available to the Farm Credit Corporation.
Second, the previous Government directed the Farm Credit Corporation, quite contrary to its mandate, to become a lender of last resort. When that direction is given, then the corporation has to assume, not by choice but rather by necessity, a far larger percentage and number of high risk cases. That is why the traditional -lending institutions have a figure of probably 4 per cent, 5 per cent, 6 per cent or seven per cent in very serious trouble, and if we look at the Farm Credit Corporation we find these figures much much higher.
Hon. Members opposite are critical of the performance of the Farm Debt Review Boards which, incidentally, have about a 55 per cent success rate across the country, about a 66 per cent success rate in the Province of Ontario and about a 65 per cent success rate in the Province of Alberta. If we look at those individuals who are in trouble on an almost case by case basis, we find almost without exception they go back to the mid 1970s. What happened in the mid 1970s? The so-called experts around the world looked into the late 1970s, the 1980s and beyond, and sent out signals. The signals were very dangerous, very inaccurate and wrong. They have caused a great deal of difficulty to many people who are in the farming business today.
The experts indicated that farmers should expand their operations. They should not bother renovating a barn, they should bulldoze it down and build a new one. They advised not to borrow $25,000 to renovate something, but just tear it down and they would be happy to lend the farmer $100,000 or a quarter of a million dollars.
Farmers were told to buy more land, that they were not going to have any difficulty at all because interest rates were going to remain stable. Well, the experts were wrong. They said the inflation rate was going to remain stable. They were wrong. They said farm input costs were going to remain stable, but they were wrong. They said that we would be going through a time right now of record high commodity prices and they were dead wrong there. They said as well that we would be going through a time of world shortages in commodities and we have gone through a period of world surpluses.
We have heard the predictions and encouragement of the previous Government. I can go back into Hansard and dig out speeches of my predecessor who travelled the country sending messages to young Canadian farmers to go out and produce to beat the band because the future was theirs and would be secure. Of course, we have now found out that all of those things have turned out to be wrong.
Upon examination we find there was another factor. One of those conditions which the experts said would not happen, which did happen, was probably the major contributing factor to the farmers' downfall and to their difficulty, and that was the interest rate increases. A lot of people really could be in a much better position today had they had not been caught up in the interest rate increases which occurred in 1981 and 1982. During that period of time interest rates increased from 9 per cent and 10 per cent up to 25 per cent, 26 per cent and 27 per cent. Anyone who operates a farm or business will
April 28, 1987

automatically and immediately recognize the damaging effects interest rate increases of that kind have.
Members of the Official Opposition in particular are indicating to us that we have not done enough for agriculture, yet we have increased our Budget from $1 billion to $2 billion to $3 billion to $4 billion. I do not know what more will be required, but because of the priority the Government places on agriculture, we have been with Canadian farmers in the past and we are going to be with them in the future.
We have seen tonight the hypocrisy of the Liberal Members of Parliament who have made critical comment about the Special Canadian Grains Program. That $1 billion was the single largest payment to Canadian farmers by any Government in the history of the country. A billion dollars is a tremendous amount of money.
What was the added input costs to Canadian farmers because of interest rates increasing from 9 per cent to 24 per cent or 25 per cent? The fact is that an added input cost of about $2 billion was extended by the previous Government in allowing interest rates to run from 9 per cent to 24 per cent and doing almost nothing about it. There was one measure, the Special Farm Assistance Program, which assisted about 1,900 people. The interesting fact about that was the added cost of that program was carried on the backs of other Canadian farmers. There is an input cost which exceeds by quite a lot the harmful effect on Canadian grain prices as a result of the U.S. Farm Bill, the Export Enhancement Program and the trade war between the United States and the EEC.
I would like to conclude by setting the record straight with respect to the lifting of the moratorium. I made some earlier comments about it and 1 could still talk for quite a while and give a number of experiences with respect to it. However, I am not going to take the time of the House to do so. Some people, again the uninformed-the uninterested I suppose-have indicated that the Farm Credit Corporation will be going in and seizing farms left, right and centre. All Hon. Members, if they want to be honest with themselves, know full well that I have always been complimentary and will continue to be complimentary to the Farm Credit Corporation. It has served Canadian farmers extremely well over the last 55, 56 and 57 years. I was complimentary of the Farm Credit Corporation when I sat across the House and I will continue to be supportive of that corporation.
Canadian farmers know that the Farm Credit Corporation is more understanding, and more sympathetic in dealing with their cases than any other lending institution in the country, and it is going to continue to be that way. The Farm Credit Corporation, by lifting the moratorium, will not be going out seizing farms and putting farmers off their land. That is not its task. That is not what it wants to do. Its philosophy is the same as the Government's philosophy. We are going to do everything possible to keep farmers on the land and in the business of producing food. There is no question about that. So let us put aside that inaccuracy.
The Canadian farming population have enough difficulty as it is. They do not need to read statements to the effect that the Farm Credit Corporation is going to go out and seize farms and put massive numbers of farmers off the land. They do not need that. It is not going to happen. The corporation does not want to put large acreages of land onto the market-place for very obvious reasons. Everything that can be done to reach agreements will be done.
The Farm Credit Corporation will be going out and sitting down on a one-to-one basis with every individual who has been affected and held by the moratorium. Again, every effort will be made to reach an agreement, to reach a settlement. We will look at the utilization of longer term leases than we have been able to sign up to this point in time. We believe that under the Act we can sign a lease for five years. That is not bad, but it is not long enough, and for very obvious reasons. We know that.
We know as well that it might be possible for us to extend the five-year lease to perhaps seven or 10 years. We believe that we can do that through the Order in Council process. If we can use the Order in Council process to provide a longer term lease, then we will do it. Do Hon. Members know why? Because we want to keep people on the land. We do not want to put them off it. We will be looking at every opportunity, at utilizing everything that we have-


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: How come they're still going off the land?


John Wise: The Hon. Member raises a legitimate question. He asks why some are still going off the land. It is very obvious that it is the same with the speculative number that is used as far as those people who are held by the moratorium are concerned. When we start to negotiate with them we know already that during that period of time a large number of clients have come forward on a voluntary basis. In some cases settlements have been reached. We know that some of them will come forward on a voluntary basis to indicate to us that they have had an opportunity to assess their situations, that they have had an opportunity to look at their futures and they have determined that it would be better for them to go. In fact, some of them have told me that they might have been better off had they gone earlier on their own. That is why I raise the question with respect to whether or not the moratorium has been helpful or harmful.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: They had no choice.


John Wise: But that process will only allow the corporation to deal with upwards to 50 cases-I say upwards, Mr. Speaker, to 50 cases per month on a national basis. That is not 50 cases in Alberta or 50 cases in Ontario. It is 50 cases on a national basis per month. They will then have communication on a regular basis, whether it be weekly or monthly, with the farm debt review boards in each province.
There will be some cases in which the corporation will recognize that a settlement can be reached if these people are

April 28, 1987
referred to the farm debt review boards. Thus they will be referred to the farm debt review boards. Other settlements will be more difficult to reach. Then, there will be others which, obviously, will have to be referred to the review boards by the Farm Credit Corporation. The Farm Credit Corporation is the same as any other lending institution.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: That's the problem.


John Wise: It is bound by the Act. It is bound by the farm debt review legislation. Therefore it will not be seizing lands. There will not be a large number of farmers losing their farms.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: The banks will do it.


John Wise: The other important thing to remember about this is the fact that when a farm debt review board in a province believes it has an adequate number of cases with which to deal it will then signal the Farm Credit Corporation that no further action be taken until such time as it has adequate time to deal with the cases with which it has to deal.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am sorry to interrupt the Hon. Minister. I appreciate all the matters he is going into. Will he permit a question?


John Wise: Absolutely.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. gentleman this. Is it not correct that it is not the FCC that seizes the land, it is the lender of first resort, the banks, through which the FCC guarantees loans and it is the banks that end up as the holders of the land and not the FCC?


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member has asked a legitimate question. The danger is in generalizing. If I were to give the Hon. Member a general answer it would be no. However, it would carry with it some inaccuracy because in some cases the action of the farm debt review board is not the decision of the FCC. It holds a secondary position, shall I say, and the primary client or creditor is the bank. So of course the bank would be the one that would petition it. Regardless of whether it is the bank petitioning or if it is the FCC petitioning there is still that process.
I could go on for quite some time, Mr. Speaker, but I know that there are a large number of Members on this side of the House in particular who wish to participate in the debate.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: We want to hear them.


John Wise: I thought that it would be advisable to concentrate on some of the larger measures we have taken. This Government has done more for Canadian agriculture than has any other Government in the history of the country. I wanted to point to some of the reasons why we have some very serious financial positions in the farm community today. I wanted to give some clarification as far as the moratorium is concerned.
I could take a considerable amount of time to indicate where the real problem lies and where the Government has really concentrated its efforts. I could indicate where the Government and, in particular, the Prime Minister have played a leading role in the international forum with respect to bringing this problem to the attention of world leaders. I could also mention the new round of multilateral trade negotiations. The Prime Minister has been successful in placing agriculture on the agenda and some real progress has been made in terms of bringing about an earlier resolution.
I ask Members opposite to examine the record. I ask them to look at the make-up and the composition of the caucus which speaks for itself. I ask Hon. Members opposite to look at the composition of Cabinet and the statements that have been made. If Hon. Members were to check the record they would find that this is the first time in the history of the country in which the Prime Minister has referred to the plight of the Canadian farmer and the subject of agriculture more frequently than any other Prime Minister in our history. There is no question about that.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Wise: We have been supportive of Canadian agriculture in the past. Our mandate is clear. Our schedule is clear, as is our timetable. We will continue to work with farm leaders. At the appropriate time we will make announcements. But it is inappropriate at this point in time to indicate exactly what the financial support will be. It is certainly inappropriate at this time to indicate what type of repayment or formula of distribution will be required.
As I talk to Canadian farmers they are quite appreciative of what we have done. They recognize that the Government recognizes the industry. They know that the Government places a priority on their industry. We have been helpful in the past and we are with them today. We will have to be with them tomorrow and into the future particularly when we consider some of the grain and oil seed sectors. Those problems will not go away tomorrow. They will be there tomorrow and for quite some time. Because of the priorities we have we will continue to hold them in the same priority as we have held them in the past. We will be there with them in the future.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Leonard J. Gustafson: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to follow at 1.30 in the morning the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) and to see the tremendous support that agriculture has here in the House of Commons. While this debate may have its downside at 1.30 in the morning, I want to assure the constituents of Assiniboia, all the western Canadian farmers and all farmers across Canada that there has never been stronger representation in the House of Commons for farmers than what we have witnessed here today.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
April 28, 1987


Leonard J. Gustafson: The leadership that has been given by the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mulroney), by the Minister of Agriculture and by the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) has never been equalled before in this country.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Is that the Anvil chorus or the Greek chorus?


An Hon. Member:: That is the truth.


Leonard J. Gustafson: That was just a warming up exercise.


Maurice Brydon Foster: It is the Hallelujah chorus.


Leonard J. Gustafson: I should like to speak for a moment about the questions put forward by the Opposition this evening. There is a major problem in the way in which the NDP and the Liberals have put forward this debate.


An Hon. Member:: There is a major problem with the NDP!


Leonard J. Gustafson: In bringing forward the debate in the way they have, the Liberals and the NDP are challenging the Canadian Wheat Board and the decision made and supported by farm groups, thus undermining the Canadian Wheat Board.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame!


Leonard J. Gustafson: I wish to read to the House some of the things that the farm groups have said. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise), just a few minutes ago, reiterated the support that the Government has had from various farm groups across the country.
I quote from the Winnipeg Free Press, as follows:
Canada cannot possibly match the power of the treasuries of either the U.S. or
the EEC. The government would have made a bad choice had it announced
initial grain prices that were unrealistic and had dealt with the resultant deficit
after the fact.
Neither the NDP nor the Liberals recognize where the problem comes from.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Sure we do.


Leonard J. Gustafson: The problem stems from the U.S. and EEC agricultural subsidies.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: And what are you doing to protect our agricultural sector?


Leonard J. Gustafson: In introducing these subsidies, neither the EEC nor the U.S. has looked into the future. Well, we have a Government in Canada that is looking into the future. In so doing, we have come to the conclusion that the answer rests in an international solution.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: That takes three to five years, if we are lucky. What are you going to do tomorrow?


Leonard J. Gustafson: It is obvious to me that the Opposition, in wanting to intervene on the initial prices of grain as set by the Canadian Wheat Board, is not looking for a long-term solution to the problems in the market-place.
For the benefit of the Opposition, I want to read-


An Hon. Member:: Why don't you tell us what SaskPool is saying.


Leonard J. Gustafson: If the Opposition would just listen for a moment, I can tell them what the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool has to say. I quote Garf Stevenson, President of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, as reported in the Western Producer of April 23, 1987:
-the Pool agrees with the government's decision to set initial prices to reflect world prices.
That is what SaskPool is saying. That is one of the largest, if not the largest, farm groups in western Canada.
Next, let me tell you what the Alberta Wheat Pool is saying. I quote:
-the Wheat Pool is all in favour of the Wheat Board setting an initial price that reflects real market conditions.
That is the Alberta Wheat Pool. Next, let me quote what the Cattlemen's Association is saying. Again, I quote from the Western Producer of April 23, 1987:
Chris Mills, policy adviser to the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, said the CCA agrees with the grain groups that initial prices should be set realistically to provide "one clear signal'' what world prices are and to avoid distorting domestic feed grain prices.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: A tough cookie!


Leonard J. Gustafson: I could go on and on. We have the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association saying the same thing: They support it.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: An arm of the Tory Party.


Leonard J. Gustafson: In fact, I have not been able to find a farm group that does not support this policy. We have heard all night that the farm groups do not support the position the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) is putting forward, the position that the Minister of Agriculture is putting forward, the position the Minister of State for Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) is putting forward on this subject, both in Question Period and over the last week.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I am wondering whether the Hon. Member will permit a question.


Leonard J. Gustafson: Certainly.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member has quoted Garf Stevenson, the President of SaskPool. Does he agree with the request in Mr. Stevenson's letter that the Government

April 28, 1987
provide, on an urgent basis, substantial deficiency payments for the 1987-88 crop year?
Since he is quoting Mr. Stevenson with regard to the setting of initial prices, perhaps he can tell us whether or not he agrees with the request in this letter from Mr. Stevenson to the Prime Minister.


Leonard J. Gustafson: Certainly, we have no problem with that kind of request. The Minister of Agriculture has made that very clear. He has said that he was at a meeting less than a month ago at which Mr. Garf Stevenson was in attendance- and indeed, 1 was at that meeting. At that meeting, it was indicated, very clearly, that the Government had already set in motion a request to the farm groups for advice along these lines.


An Hon. Member:: This is a letter dated April 28, 1987.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Are you agreeing with the request set out in this letter?


Leonard J. Gustafson: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member must understand that it is a process of seeding and harvesting. We are dealing with a crop year now that will not end until July 31, 1988. The farmers will receive, this week, a payment from the Western Grain Stabilization Fund, amounting, in the case of the average farm of two sections in Saskatchewan, or Manitoba, or Alberta, to something in the order of $14,000. In less than a month from now, the farmers will receive, by way of a deficiency payment, up to $25,000, and that payment will be relative to the crop year ending July 31, 1987.
I think there has to be a clear understanding as to what it is we are talking about. It is clear that the farm groups understand it. And so, yes, a letter from Mr. Stevenson looking forward to the future is quite proper. But for the Opposition to make the accusation in this House that this Government has not been dealing with the situation is uncalled for.


An Hon. Member:: It is outrageous.


Leonard J. Gustafson: It is totally uncalled for. I am sure the farmers recognize this. Farmers are very knowledgeable when it comes to agricultural issues. They realize the importance of the situation and appreciate the problems they face.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Stevenson's request is set out in this letter.


Leonard J. Gustafson: No one here would deny that the agricultural sector is facing problems, and will continue to face problems; but we, as a Government, are dealing with those problems, and we have a record of dealing with them.
As we look to the future, the agricultural community can have confidence in the direction that this Government will take on its behalf.
I wish to get back to the point I was making about the setting of the initial prices for grain. This Government has taken the position that we will support the farmer in place of
supporting the commodity-something which can only distort the international market-place. I think that is very clear.
The Minister of State for Canadian Wheat Board has provided leadership in this area internationally, as has the Prime Minister.
The Minister of Agriculture spoke about the meeting held in Vancouver attended by some 30-odd members of the agricultural community, a meeting was held before the Prime Minister attended the Tokyo Conference.


An Hon. Member:: That was after the smoke and mirror show here in Ottawa.


Leonard J. Gustafson: I was at that meeting personally, and it was very interesting to see both the interest of the Prime Minister and the response of the farm groups to the Prime Minister in terms of what could be done internationally.
There has been a great deal of co-operation on the part of the farm groups, on the part of the Prime Minister, on behalf of the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board, and on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture and the Government in general, and that kind of co-operation has resulted in Canada providing leadership in the international arena toward finding a solution to these problems.
If anyone has a quick formula to solve these problems, we would certainly be open to hearing it. Canada will be providing leadership in this area. No other country is in a better position than Canada to provide the necessary leadership.
Canada recognizes that one of its great building blocks has been and will continue to be agriculture. The Government sees the importance of that building block. We intend to build upon it.
There is no question that we face difficult times. The initial price certainly was a disappointment. We on this side of the House do not like the word "subsidy". We are not particularly elated by the fact that we have to bring in subsidies, but at this point in time there is no other choice but to subsidize farmers.
What about the Farm Credit Corporation? I should like to refer to my own riding. Many farmers facing difficulties have been in my own livingroom. It is to the credit of the FCC that I have seen more flexibility on the part of that corporation in the last few months-and I see several Hon. Members nodding their heads-than I have ever seen before.
The Minister of Agriculture just made statements in the House about the fact that the review process is a move to help farmers. A number of us met with the committee chairmen who attended before the standing committee. They put forward the difficult situations faced by farmers in all provinces. A past Member of the House of Commons, Doug Neil, is serving the committee from the Province of Saskatchewan very well. He gave an excellent presentation to the standing committee on the work being done in Saskatchewan
April 28, 1987

which faces one of the more difficult situations in terms of bankruptcies. The flexibility on the part of the FCC is a credit to that organization.
What was the cause of the problem? I should like to deal with it. The basic cause of farm bankruptcies goes back to one thing-high interest rates. I am talking about interest rates of 22 per cent, 23 per cent, and 24 per cent. We had those kinds of interest rates three years running. If we take 20 per cent interest rates and multiply them over three years, we find 60 per cent of the principal debt of the farmers involved. Farmer after farmer has said to me as a Member of Parliament-and I am sure others have experienced it in their ridings-that his problems began with 20 per cent interest rates. They ask why the then Government of Canada did not do something about them.
I can recall the situation after we were elected in 1984. Day after day we heard the following cry: "Get interest rates down". Do Hon. Members know that they are down by 10 per cent to 12 per cent? I do not hear Hon. Members opposite giving any credit to the Government in this regard. There is a lack of vision on the part of the Opposition. It does not seek a solution.
The Liberals failed farmers drastically. That is one basic reason farmers in western Canada have very little confidence in the Liberal Party.
Let us look at the record of the Government. It was a difficult time to represent the Government as chairman of the task force on drought in western Canada. In my riding, especially in the Bengough and Swift Current areas, that drought went on for about three years. However, it was not until the Conservative Government was elected in 1984 that something was done. The Prime Minister, the Minister of Agriculture, and the Minister of State for Canadian Wheat Board said that something had to be done. The Government set up a committee. We went to Bengough, Saskatchewan where there were 1,500 farmers. Hon. Members probably remember seeing it on television. One farmer was going to kick us all the way to Ottawa and back. They wanted an instant solution. We were saying that we wanted to hear from farm groups and from farmers. We were asking for just a few days.
The Government responded to the drought. Certainly some farmers were not satisfied. There was an odd problem here and an odd problem there. Few things in life are perfect. For the most part farmers in southern Saskatchewan, southern Alberta, southern Manitoba, the Peace River area, and wherever else there was drought were satisfied with the way in which the Government treated them.
There is a parallel situation now with the deficiency payments. The Opposition is asking us to do something quickly. It is asking us to respond momentarily, before we have had a chance to hear from farm groups or to move in a seasonal way.
I am going to close off now because I have covered the ground. I could tell the House about our record again and
again. We will put our record up against the record of the other Parties in the House. We are proud of what we have done. We have not done enough. More must be done. Agriculture is important. However, when it is done, it will be this Government that will do it.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I represent an urban constituency, but I do not hesitate to participate in the debate because many of the people I represent are railway workers, farm machinery industry workers, oil workers, truck drivers, and dairy workers. They know from experience that their welfare depends upon a prosperous agricultural industry.
When farmers suffer, they suffer. If there is a drought or a flood, there are no crops. If the price farmers receive for their crops is not enough for them to make a living, then my constituents suffer.
What is happening to farmers? They are efficient producers. They are as efficient as any in the world. We must ask ourselves why they are in trouble. It is not because they have failed. They are in trouble because of the tremendous subsidies which the United States Government pays to its farmers and which the Governments of countries belonging to the European Economic Community pay to their farmers.
The Government is on the right track when it tries to persuade the American Government and the Governments of the countries belonging to the European Economic Community to stop the insane levels of subsidy. However, the Government is kidding itself-and it is certainly kidding farmers-if it thinks that the subsidies paid by these Governments will be reduced very much in the next short while.
The farmers of this country are in trouble, Mr. Speaker. No member of the New Democratic Party who has spoken in the debate today has said that the Conservative Government has done nothing to help the grain farmers of western Canada. We know, and the farmers know, that the Government produced a deficiency payment of $1 billion. I do not have time today to debate why the Government produced that payment or whether it was pure coincidence that the Government did that in the midst of a Saskatchewan election, but the Government did produce it. What we say and what the farmers are saying is that that one shot payment is just not enough.
What is the situation of our farmers, Mr. Speaker? Let me quote from the Winnipeg Free Press of a week ago, April 21, dealing with the decision of the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) to reduce the initial payment by 18 per cent. The paper reported that decision as follows: "Prairie grain farmers will receive a record $705 million payment to offset an 18 per cent drop in initial prices, Wheat Board Charlie Mayer announced yesterday. It is the second straight year prices for wheat, oats and barley sold by the Board have

April 28, 1987
dropped. The University of Manitoba agricultural economist Darryl Croft said increased funding will not offset the low prices set by the Board. He said that prices in government funding, while realistic, are disappointing to all farmers who rely on grain sales for their income". I could quote further. Then the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) announced that he would terminate the moratorium on farm credit foreclosures. The following is the way The Globe and Mail reported that in yesterday's newspaper. I want to quote from part of the The Globe and Mail's report because of the claims of the Minister of Agriculture and of the Hon. Member for Assiniboia (Mr. Gustafson) that farmers were satisfied, were happy, with the Government's decision with regard to the reduction in the initial price and with regard to the finishing off of the foreclosure program. Here is what The Globe and Mail reports in yesterday's issue "Garfield Stevenson, President of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, said that the termination of the moratorium will cause a further decline in the market value of farm land. It is completely irresponsible and just not acceptable. I thought the Minister had more on the ball than this". I see the Hon. Member for Brandon- Souris (Mr. Clark) here. Then The Globe and Mail also quotes the President of Keystone Agricultural Producers, an organization which represents all the farm producers in Manitoba. This is what The Globe said: "Jack Penner, President of the Manitoba Keystone Agricultural Producers said termination of the farm credit moratorium will make it more difficult for farmers to get loans from banks and other lenders. At this time of year many farmers are trying to borrow money to purchase fuel, seed, fertilizer and chemicals for the coming crop season. A farmer needs a lot more cash at this time of the year than at any other time of the year. This is an extremely unfortunate time".
Maybe Members will say that the two newspapers misquoted or took out of context what the farm leaders said. Let me put on the record part of a letter sent yesterday which was addressed to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) by the President of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, Mr. Stevenson. "The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool believes that the rural way of life and related service industries are in jeopardy. We specifically recommend (1) that programs be immediately developed through federal and provincial co-operation to keep families on their farms in productive capacities. (2) that early consideration be given to the acute need for a substantial deficiency payment for the 1987-88 crop year. (3) that the Government continue its efforts to restore sanity in the international grain market".
Let me go back for a second to what farmers are saying about deficiency payments. They say that they want early consideration. They want a substantial deficiency payment not for last year's crop year but for the 1987-88 crop year.
Last week the President of Keystone Agricultural Producers, Mr. Jack Penner, a good friend of the Minister in charge of the Wheat Board, wrote to the Prime Minister. Here is part of what he wrote: "On behalf of grain producers in
Manitoba, we call on your Government to announce as soon as possible an intention to introduce a similar program for the 1987-88 crop year with support levels at least equivalent to those under the 1986 program. We feel strongly that any such additional program should be based simply on acreages to keep the production neutral. The farm financial crisis is so serious that we feel action must be taken prior to the end of April to assure grain farmers in the business community that the federal Government is supportive".
He goes on to say, "A second important step should be a bold new initiative through the Farm Credit Corporation to save thousands of commercial farms from insolvency. In addition to new loan funds at affordable rates, the FCC should become a full service lender to the farm community. This we feel will provide the assurances required now by the farm community in times when other lending institutions are threatening to withdraw services".
I find it very strange that when Members on this side of the House raise these kinds of questions and make these kinds of suggestions we are told that we are being alarmist and that we are making the situation worse. We are told that farmers are satisfied, that they are quite happy with the Government. I happen to believe that when the President of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool speaks, when the head of Keystone Agricultural Producers speaks, they know what their farmers need. Obviously we can see just by reading from those two letters that they are far from satisfied with what this Government has done. We are always accused of being wild-eyed radicals and the things that we say are said for partisan advantage.
I found some very interesting information in a January issue of the Western Report.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Another socialist magazine.


David Orlikow: I do not know of a more right wing free enterprise publication that is printed in Canada. Let me read a couple of paragraphs from this issue. Here is the situation of an Alberta farmer, from a province which has been represented for so many years by nothing but Conservative Members of Parliament.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: And what did it get them?


David Orlikow: Yes, what did it get them? Let me illustrate what it got them from this issue of the Western Report. In 1970, Marvin Dahl, 47, he joined his father, Clifford, on the 50-year old family farm 12 miles south of the ranch. The younger Dahl is now trying to pay off half of a $600,000 debt by selling 640 acres. He would like to sell to his son Richard, a hired hand until the faltering economy forced his lay-off.
Richard's yearly loan payments on such a purchase would be about $27,000 and, with annual operating costs of at least $35,000, he could not make ends meet. Marvin says it would take 15 uninterrupted years of profitable farming to turn the
April 28, 1987

Dahl operation around. Ele is not hopeful. Neither is his 85-year old still-working daddy who absolutely loves farming. I think it is very painful for him to sell off a piece of land.


Clément M. Côté: Are you ashamed to read such a thing?


David Orlikow: Is it a shame to read such a thing?


Clément M. Côté: Are you ashamed?


David Orlikow: I think it is a tragedy that that kind of thing happens in Canada.


Clément M. Côté: And you make this happen.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member says that I made this happen. This Party to which I belong has never been in federal Government in this country. It was the Conservative Party which promised the farmers of Canada that if elected, it would bring in programs which would help solve the problems of the farmers. In fact, the problems are worse than they have ever been.
We heard from Conservative Members and from the Minister that we are exaggerating the difficulties. The same article indicates that the Alberta Agricultural Development Corporation estimates that from 770 to 850 Alberta farmers exited their operations in 1986, including almost 400 who went into either receivership or bankruptcy. That is the same number as was recorded in all of Canada during the 1960s and the 1970s.
An agricultural economist from Lethbridge has said that about 5 per cent of some 7,000 farmers in his area are leaving every year and he predicts that if the economic climate does not improve, the region could lose up to 30 per cent of its farmers over the next two years. Those would be the ones he considered to be in serious financial difficulty, mostly young men.
That is the situation which is facing farmers, particularly in western Canada. What goes along with those economic difficulties are tremendous psychological and emotional problems. Studies done by two professors of Brandon University have revealed that stress symptoms such as headaches, marital problems and irritability were three or four times more prevalent in the average farmer than in an RCMP officer three days after being involved in a shooting. It is not surprising to hear of these kinds of reports when we know the difficulties farmers are experiencing all across Canada.


Felix Holtmann: That's Charlie Mayer right there, Maclean s magazine, you want to see it, as a farmer.


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: You should have that crutch for your brains.


David Orlikow: I know it's late and I suppose the Hon. Member for Selkirk-Interlake (Mr. Holtmann) is getting
tired, but I would suggest that he observe the rules of the House and stay in his own seat.


Felix Holtmann: I can't walk by here, seriously? Yes, I can.


David Orlikow: We are calling for at the very least an immediate government commitment to provide Canadian grain farmers with the guarantee that total incomes received for crops being planted now, the 1987-88 crop year, will equal those of last year. It would cost between $1.5 and $2 billion. We also ask that such assistance be available and known to farmers, not just for one year but for the next three or four years so that farmers will know the problems they face.
We know that the Government is working on the international front to bring peace to world grain markets. We hope it succeeds. However, even with luck, we know that this will take a few years. There will be no quick fix because the Americans and Europeans are not ready for it.
I have already said that the Government has provided assistance to the farm sector in this last year. The Government says it has consulted with farm organizations but if I understood what the letters from the President of the Saskatchewan Pool Elevators and the President of Keystone Agricultural Producers were saying, the Government may have consulted with them but it certainly did not listen to them.
We say that government assistance, though significant, has simply been inadequate. Even while the Government provides assistance with one hand, it takes it away with the other. The Conservative Government has increased taxes, service fees, freight rates and a host of other direct and indirect costs to farmers. The Government should not-


Felix Holtmann: Here's a couple more for you.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: That should not be done in the House.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, could you have the Sergeant-at-Arms remove this idiot?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) has the floor.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Get out of here.


Felix Holtmann: Try and get me out of here.


David Orlikow: The Government should announce a deficiency program for the coming crop year now. It should not have lifted the moratorium as it did and it should not have done so until it had addressed the broad question of farm debt, which now amounts to about $25 billion across Canada. Much of it is still held at the high interest rates with which farmers had to deal during the Liberal regime.
The Government has said that it cannot afford to do more for farmers. We remember that the Government was able to find $1 billion to save a bank. We remember that the Government recently allocated $350 million to help small oil companies. We do not object to that. We know that the Government

April 28, 1987
permitted a $500 million tax break for the purchasers of Gulf Canada. We know that the purchasers of Dome will probably get $2 billion in tax credits. We know that the banks were permitted to loan several billions of dollars to keep Massey-Ferguson going. We know that the Government has been able to find hundreds of millions of dollars to help modernize a paper plant in eastern Canada. We do not object to all of this but we say that if the Government was able to find that kind of money for those things, the Government can and must do much more than it has done for farmers. After all, they are the backbone of western Canada and there have been limits to what the Government has been willing to do. We say that has not been good enough.


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to join in this debate which focuses on a very important problem facing our economy at this time. I would be remiss if I did not compliment the Hon. Member who just spoke, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow), for a very reasonable and responsible contribution to the debate.
I think it is important that Canadians be reminded again of the crisis that is facing Canadian grain producers. It is important also that Canadians understand that the mover of the motion which brought about this debate and his Party do not have a monopoly on concern for the farm community or for Canadian agriculture. The fact is that this Government, in spite of the legacy of past debt which hampers it, has made an unprecedented response to agriculture and particularly to the hard-pressed grains sector.
I believe prairie grain farmers understand very well that the problems they face are caused by factors that lie beyond our borders. The disastrous grain trade war that is going on between the European Economic Community and the United States, both economic superpowers which are determined to retain and enhance their share of the world grain export market no matter the cost, is such a factor.
Both the common market and the Americans are subsidizing their farmers considerably on wheat production and then dumping that production on the world market at virtually any price through export enhancement programs. In the result, Canada, which is heavily export dependent, in fact exporting 80 per cent of its wheat production, and with a population of 25 million, is facing unfair competition from the EEC which has a population base of 330 million and exports perhaps 20 per cent of its production. Of course, the Americans have a population base of some 250 million and an enormously larger treasury. Obviously it is extremely difficult for Canada to match the treasuries of western Europe and the U.S.
Canadian farmers know this. I believe the great majority of them feel the response of this Government has been fair and reasonable. However, I have a fear that there may be some misunderstanding in some of the urban areas of Canada. I hear rumblings of disquiet over what some urban dwellers
appear to perceive as very handsome payments being made to the farm community. There are stories in the press that the average amount of government payments to farmers is in the area of $25,000 to $30,000 in cash each year. One hears mutterings of discontent about this from those in urban areas who do not understand the importance of the agricultural sector to this country.
I think it is extremely important that in this debate we outline again the seriousness of the plight facing grain farmers. As a Member from Saskatchewan I would like to give some figures. They will relate solely to the Province of Saskatchewan. This information has been given to me by the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and Statistics Canada.
Total farm receipts in the 1986 calendar year, crop, livestock and other, was in the area of $4.1 billion. Operating expenses were $2.8 billion, depreciation $674 million, leaving a net realized farm income of some $636 million, down 9 per cent from 1985. At first blush, $636 million in net income might sound pretty good, but the fact is that this is divided up among approximately 66,000 farmers in Saskatchewan. The average net income in 1986 per farm was in the area of $9,600, representing a return on capital and a payment for labour. Out of that sum obviously the farm family must not only meet its everyday living expenses such as food, clothing, heat, utilities and so on, but also pay the principal on loan payments. By way of comparison, the minimum wage in Saskatchewan at $4.50 an hour, based on a 40-hour week, returned some $960, obviously without the kind of intensive capital investment that the average farmer has made.
I should point out that these revenue figures include contributions from the federal Government of considerable magnitude. In 1986 there was crop drought assistance of $71 million, under federal-provincial crop insurance some $120 million, the federal farm fuel tax rebates accounted for another $43 million, and the western grain stabilization accounted for $450 million.
The fact is that without these federal programs farm income in Saskatchewan for 1986 would have been a negative figure. Projections for 1987 point to gross farm receipts of $4.2 billion, operating expenses of $2.7 billion, depreciation of $678 million, leaving net realized income of $849 million or around $12,500 per farm. That is up 33 per cent from 1986. Federal government payments contributing to this gross farm income in Saskatchewan for 1987 include $415 million under the special grains program, roughly $50 million in fuel rebates, and $382 million being Saskatchewan's share of the interim western grain stabilization payment, and those cheques are now in the mail with more to come. By June the federal contribution to the Saskatchewan grain sector will be in excess of $850 million. That equals the entire projected net income in farming in Saskatchewan for 1987.
While this is going on the equity position is eroding. In 1984 the average capital investment was some $460 an acre. The average farm size in Saskatchewan is around 1,000 acres. There is an average capital investment of $460,000 in land,
April 28, 1987

machinery and equipment. I know that some may find these figures rather tiresome but I think it is important at some stage in this rather lengthy debate that up-to-date figures go into the record in order to try and illustrate the impact of government assistance in turning around, indeed in keeping afloat the farm sector in Canada at this time.
The latest figures for 1985 indicate an erosion of equity as capital investment dropped to $420 an acre as a result of falling land prices. Undoubtedly the 1986 figures, when they are available, will indicate a further diminution of land values and a further erosion of equity. That represents a brief summary of farm income and equity positions in Saskatchewan. It is an indication of the importance of the federal response.
The mover of this debate cited lower grain prices, the lifting of the FCC moratorium, and the matter of deficiency payments for the next crop year as reasons for the debate. We all know that the initial price for No. 1 wheat in 1985-86 was $4.35 a bushel. It fell in the current year to $3.54 a bushel, and for the next crop year, 1987-88, it will drop to $2.99 a bushel. Canadian farmers also know, as do opposition Members, that this disastrous decline was caused by the subsidy war originating beyond our borders.
In order for Canada to retain its traditional share of the world export market it is necessary that the Canadian Wheat Board lower its prices in order to meet world competition. That is the reality. The Canadian Wheat Board has its sensors in the market-place and recommends to the federal Government what the initial payment should be. Farmers know that quite clearly and I think opposition Members should understand it as well. One would hope they are not questioning the integrity of the Canadian Wheat Board in that regard.
Opposition Members lament the lifting of the FCC moratorium which has been in place for some 19 months. The fact is that the employees of the Farm Credit Corporation, and I am not talking about head office people in Ottawa but the people who work in the field and deal every day with farmers in Saskatchewan, tell me that of the farmers who are experiencing difficulty in making their payments, the good operators come in ahead of time. If they are having difficulty making payments, they come in and talk to their counsellors and discuss the problems and find ways to overcome the difficulties. The FCC counsellors also say, unfortunately, that there is a small minority of borrowers in difficulty who tend not to co-operate, who tend to avoid the situation. They have to be called in or badgered and some suggest they hide behind the moratorium.
What the FCC people tell me is that the moratorium might as well be lifted because it is not going to make any difference at all insofar as a responsible and co-operative farmer is concerned. There are ways of assisting those people and they are being used at the present time and will continue to be used. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) indicated earlier in this debate the possibility of some further initiatives and alternatives.
The FCC field people do make the suggestion that perhaps the commodity-based loan criteria of equity might be changed somewhat in order that existing FCC clients whose equity has eroded might still be able to qualify for a commodity-based loan. I think it is a sensible suggestion and I urge the Minister of Agriculture to seriously consider the proposal.
The Opposition is asking for assurance of a deficiency payment for the next crop year which begins August 1, 1987, and ends July 31, 1988. We are 15 months away from the end of that crop year. One might ask whether they do this in order to gain some political points, whether they would expect the Government to do this without knowing all of the factors; the size and quality of the crop, world prices in the future, and conditions in other countries.
They ask this with the full knowledge that $705 million in interim payments under the Western Grain Stabilization Act is already in the mail and the fact that there will be another $700 million paid to Canadian grain and oilseed producers in the next month under the final instalment of the Special Grains Assistance Program. They know, too, that last fall the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) made a commitment in the Throne Speech that the Government would spare no efforts in protecting the interests of Canadian farmers and that that commitment was followed up with a $1 billion Canada Grains Assistance Program.
Actions speak louder than words. I believe that most western farmers know that the Government is solidly behind them, not with the empty rhetoric which characterized the previous Government, but with action, programs and cash.
I would be less than honest if I did not indicate that I was somewhat disgusted by the antics of some members of the Liberal Party earlier this evening. I find repugnant their smug response that somehow it is the fault of the Government that world grain prices have dropped and their temerity in suggesting that the Government is insensitive to the Canadian grain sector.
This comes from a Liberal Party which brought capital gains to western agriculture in 1971 and initiated the infamous LIFT program which brought 23 per cent floating interest rates to Canadian agriculture in the early 1980s which amounted to a time capsule, a delayed reaction which is being released even at this time. Interest rates were the root cause of the debt problems of many Canadian farmers.
The Leader of that Liberal Government said, "Why should I sell your wheat?" During the good years in this country that Party not only failed to balance the books but in fact went head over heels in debt for magnificent and outstanding programs such as Katimavik. In the good times the Liberal Party saddled the nation with a debt of such magnitude that the interest charges on it now consume virtually one-third of federal Government revenue.

April 28, 1987
This massive debt servicing requirement makes it extremely difficult for the Government to be able to respond to the urgent needs of Canadian agriculture without running up the deficit further, increasing inflationary pressures, and putting upward pressure on interest rates which can only harm the farm community. That, I think, represents the Liberal legacy. What do they offer today? A 17-page report, Directions for the West, which the Winnipeg Free Press quite properly describes as "pathetic and empty".
I want to touch briefly on some of the initiatives which the Government has taken with regard to Canadian agriculture, some large and some small, which I believe indicate that the Government has paid attention to prairie grain farmers, initiatives which contradict in a very real and concrete way the allegations put forward by the mover of this debate.
For all practical purposes the Government got rid of capital gains immediately upon taking office, the fulfillment of a campaign commitment made when land prices were higher. The Government instituted a program of farm fuel tax rebates which, in effect, has eliminated federal taxes on farm fuels. It changed federal-provincial crop insurance to increase coverage without premium increase.
It amended the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act to tidy it up and eliminate the need for the landlord's signature to be obtained in order that a tenant can secure cash advances. It amended the Western Grain Stabilization Act to provide for timely interim payments each spring in time for seeding. These were sizeable payments; $580 million in 1986 and $705 million this spring.
The Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) today, or I guess I should say yesterday, in Question Period noted that the Western Grain Stabilization Fund is presently in deficit. It has been exhausted and in view of the fact that the accumulated past contributions by both the Government and producers have run out, the fund will have to be replenished with new money. This may well be the time to open up the Act to enable the approximately 17 per cent of western producers who are not part of that program to enter. I believe the Minister indicated that he is certainly prepared to examine that situation.
There is the situation of the No. 5 Durum which a number of producers on the Prairies have and, unfortunately, cannot get rid of other than by mixing with hay for animal feed. In the circumstances they have a crop and therefore cannot secure crop insurance. They cannot contribute to western grain stabilization because they have not sold the product. I wonder, as do producers, whether there is some mechanism by which contributions to the Western Grain Stabilization Program might be made in such circumstances. That is the type of problem which all Members in this House, regardless of their partisan stripe, ought to try to address themselves to for the benefit of agriculture generally.
The Government supported Canadian cattlemen in their successful countervail application against European Economic
Community beef. It instituted Debt Review Boards which I believe are generally working well. It instituted the commodity-based loan program, an innovative and experimental approach to existing Farm Credit Corporation mortgage clients. As I mentioned earlier, I think there may be room there to ask for consideration of changing the equity requirements.
I should compliment the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. MacKay) who noted an ill-conceived heavy equipment overallowance special audit being performed by the bureaucrats, a program which threatened the farm community with the spectre of field auditors from Revenue Canada examining every single machine deal which has taken place in the last four or five years and trying to substitute their idea of the fair market value of that piece of equipment for that fairly arrived at in the market-place between the dealer and the farmer.
After reviewing that situation in detail and noting that farmers are already subject to the same kind of audit procedures as is every other taxpayer, the Minister believed that there was indeed no need for a special over-allowance program targeted at the farm community. As a result, he has responded to the representations of Members on all sides of this House and cancelled the program.
For years we witnessed the almost annual shutdown in the flow of grain from the farm gate to the ports through stoppages at Vancouver and Thunder Bay. There is presently a Private Member's Bill, Bill C-244, coming before this House, the intent of which is to substitute a process of binding conciliation for the strike or lock-out mechanism. 1 urge Members of this House to support that Bill.
The Western Canadian Wheat Growers and United Grain Growers have already indicated support. Perhaps the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool which is, quite properly, quick to ask for assistance for farmers, might consider publicly getting behind such a Bill which would help to maintain Canada's reputation as a dependable supplier of quality wheat and would also enable farmers to avoid those inevitable demurrage charges which result from these stoppages. Certainly many pool members individually want this legislation and I suggest that if the NDP are genuine about wanting to help the farm community they will get behind an initiative of this nature.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that interest rates generally are down 4 per cent as a result of the prudent approach of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), as a result of downsizing of Government which, incidentally, has been battled every step of the way by the Opposition in this House, in spite of low world oil, grain, potash and uranium prices owing to factors beyond our borders, and in spite of the monumental deficit build-up of the past.
Against all odds the Minister of Finance has been able to find ways to service that awful debt, to help out the agriculture and energy sectors, and still reduce the growth in the deficit. The result of that is 700,000 new jobs and 500,000 people in the workforce.
April 28, 1987

Clearly, the answer to the problems here is $6 wheat and the solution lies internationally, beyond our borders. In the meantime, producers can rest assured that the commitment in last year's Throne Speech that the Government will spare no effort to assist the farm community during these difficult times will be met. There is no question that western farmers and all Canadian farmers will know, in terms of actual cash received, and action rather than words, that the Government will live up to its commitment.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the debate tonight. 1 was impressed with some speeches, amused with some, and disgusted by others.
I say to the Hon. Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster) with the greatest respect, that if there is anyone who is in no position to complain about what is happening in agriculture today it is the Liberal Party.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Don't wake him up.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: That is all right, they were like that then.
There are not many of us left here, but I am one of those who had to suffer through operation LIFT at the hands of the Liberal Party and Otto Lang. I saw the abandonment of 3,000 miles of railway track in the prairie provinces at the hands of Otto Lang and the Liberals.
When they introduced the Grain Stabilization Bill, I can modestly say that I helped four farmers take the Liberal Government to court where we won the case and $100 million. The ultimate irony is when we consider who led the fight and introduced the Bill to get rid of the statutory grain rates. It was the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy), who had the unmitigated gall to get up and cry about the high cost of production for farmers. If he had at least the courtesy to blush, 1 would have accepted his conversion on the road to his own Damascus. However, he did not have the courtesy to do so.
As well, there is a Senator travelling around southern Saskatchewan on a mission called "Journey for Justice". In October, 1983, we had a reception here to deal with retaining the Crow's Nest Pass rate for grain producers. Three hundred farmers from Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba gathered in the Railway Committee Room and asked the Hon. Senator if he would resign from the Senate if the Bill to eliminate the statutory grain rate was passed. The Senator left the meeting. I do not believe we need to hear any more from Liberals because they are the ones who are responsible for this dilemma.
I want to deal with the Party that is perpetuating the sins of omission and commission. Since Confederation, grain producers have only wanted what they believe is rightfully theirs, which is a price for their product which provides a return for their cost of production and their cost of living. They have never asked for more than that.
Grain producers have never been able to set their own price for their production yet a union member can bargain for his wages in an attempt to meet his cost of living. If he is not satisfied he can go on strike.
Professionals can set their fees to recover their costs and maintain their standard of living, as can Members of Parliament. However, as soon as a farmer asks for a return that meets his cost of production and provides a half decent living the Government decides to lift the moratorium on his mortgage. The concern is not that the Government will seize the land of one farmer or 500 farmers, but that it is prepared to lift a moratorium on their mortgages at the FCC. It means that the Government does not give a damn.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: That is not true.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: It means that it is not prepared to provide the same standard of living for agricultural producers as it is prepared to provide for every other sector of our economy that can set its price and recover its cost or shut down.
Agriculture is so fundamental to our country that it cannot shut down.
There has been much said in the press about the fact that Mexico, Poland and Brazil owe the banks of Europe and North America tens of billions of dollars. There is a consortium of eight banks-six American and two Canadian-which are owed $6 billion by Poland, Mexico and other countries. Furthermore, a consortium of six airlines in North America owe those banks $6 billion.
One does not often read amusing stories in the financial pages of The Globe and Mail, but I was amused to read the interview with the vice-president of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the spokesman for this consortium of banks. When asked if he was worried about the money owed to the banks by Mexico, Brazil and Poland, he said: "I know that six months from now Poland will still be there. However, I am not so sure about those six airlines".
When we apply this reasoning to the Farm Credit Corporation, we see that the land stays, the bank stays, but the farmers must leave. There is something fundamentally wrong in a system that allows us to bail out other countries, airlines, railroads, automobile companies by writing down their debts and writing off interest charges but when it comes to farmers-


Mr. Shields:: And we can pay the Crow's Nest Pass rate to the railroads under the direction of the NDP.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: My hon. friend should either sit down or fall down.
I find that double standard unsupportable and I think my hon. friends opposite will agree that there is a double standard. The land stays there, the banks stay there, and the farmers have to leave. Every civilization going back to the Babylonian

April 28, 1987
destroyed itself when it destroyed its agricultural community, and that is what we are in the process of doing.
The Government talks about lifting a moratorium and tells us it will not review more than 50 farmers a month. Is that not nice of the Government? It could review 100 farmers a month or 500 farmers. After all, there are upwards of 7,000 in them in hock up to their eyeballs. But it was very nice of the Government to say it would only do 50 farmers a month. I thought that was sort of half decent. Fifty farmers a month is only 600 a year. If we give this Government another couple of years, that will only be 1,200 or 1,300 more farmers who have been called up on the carpet.
Why does this Government not say to the farmers: "You cannot possibly pay the principal and interest on the loan on your land and machinery, therefore, we will cancel the mortgage. You get the land. You pay a lease fee which covers the minimum interest charges and land taxes and it is yours"? It stays in the family. It does not go to anyone else. Banks do not know how to run farms. Why does the Government not do that? I hesitate to mention the word but 1 have to bring it up again, it is called "banking land". It is called a "land bank". It is the means to preserve our rural communities and family farms. It is not just farmers, it is every bulk dealer, corner grocery store, postmaster, local school, curling rink, you name it, in every province of this country, which is at stake. So it ain't just wheat and it ain't just farmers.
The Hon. Member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton) talked about initial prices. I want to remind you gentlemen, when he accuses us of attacking the Canadian Wheat Board, that he is the man, as Minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board in 1960 who removed feed grains from the jurisdiction of the Canadian Wheat Board. He was the one who started the attack on orderly marketing in the Canadian Wheat Board, and that was endorsed and continued by the Liberal Party when it took over, which means there ain't no difference. Let us bring interest charges under the Farm Credit Corporation at or below the bank rate. Let us not only put in place a moratorium, let us say to all the family farmers in this country-


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: What is a family farm?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: This fellow wants to know what a family farm is. Would the Chair give me a few minutes extra time so 1 can explain?


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Tell me what a family farm is.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: This is the Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and he does not know what a family farm is.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: I am waiting.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: That is a hell of a place for him to get an education. A family farm is a farm which is operated by a family. Will that suffice? Does the hon. gentleman need more of an explanation?


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: No size limit?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: What has that got to do with it?


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: I do not know, I am asking you.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: What the hell are you doing over there?


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Incorporated?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: What is the difference? That just shows you the mentality of these right-wing, private enterprise, bottom line Tories who say it is all right if you have a family farm but if you cannot make a buck, tough cookie.
Government policy tells farmers that the Government will not defend them against world markets. It expects the family farmers to pick up the costs of competing with other countries. We are into a war and the last thing we need to do is lift a moratorium on farm mortgages. That is the last thing we need to do. In fact, it is not an advance payment when they announce initial prices and the Hon. Member from Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain is totally wrong. That is the price the farmer receives when he delivers his grain. It is not an advance payment.
An advance payment is not dictated by the Canadian Wheat Board. It is dictated by the Treasury Board and the Government of Canada, and no one else. The Hon. Member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain and my hon. friend, the Hon. Member for Kindersiey-Lloydminster (Mr. McKnight) who is sitting there grinning like something else, try to peddle that nonsense. The fact is that the Canadian Wheat Board wanted to set initial prices based on cost of production to get some kind of reasonable return, and the Treasury Board and the Government of Canada said to lower the initial prices.
What is needed in addition to not cancelling this moratorium on mortgages is for the Government of Canada to say to the Canadian Wheat Board: "You have an initial price. Tell the grain producers of western Canada that we will provide a final payment".


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: How high should it be?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: It should be the cost of production which has to be not less than $5.50 or $6 a bushel. I will not argue about 50 cents. That is what it has to be. That will cost at least $1.5 billion minimum. That is what is required just for the grain producers. In addition to that, all the other producers who have Farm Credit Corporation mortgages, whether they live in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario or British Columbia, are also entitled to their cost of production on their prices.


Jack Wendele Shields: How about the farmers in the Territories?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: My hon. friend from British Columbia-no, that is not where he is from. He is from somewhere. I wish he would at least sit in his seat. Wherever he is from, we are going to send him back.
April 28, 1987

There are some farms, by the way, for the edification of my hon. friend, near Yellowknife and Whitehorse. They grow great vegetables up there. But rather than pay attention to the vegetable who is sitting there, I want to conclude, if Hon. Members are lucky-


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Cancel all FCC mortgages?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: No. I say you place a moratorium on all Farm Credit Corporation mortgages. You put a moratorium on the whole works. Those farmers who are viable will pay up. Farmers are honest people. They will not fall into arrears. Why do Members opposite not trust the people instead of the banks?


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: And the ones in arrears, do we give them the land?


Jack Wendele Shields: No. He wants a federal land bank. That is what he is after.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, could I have another half hour to teach these dummies something? In the dirty thirties the Tories were in power followed by the Liberals. But it was the CCF who had to bail out Saskatchewan. They told us that money did not grow on gooseberry bushes. Who was it that victimized farmers with seed grain debts, relief debts and property tax debts in the dirty thirties and early forties? It took a war and a CCF Government to clear that situation up. But we declared a moratorium. We cancelled those bloody debts. We told the banks to go to hell. We brought in a farm security Act which did not allow anyone to take a home quarter of land and a farmer's home away from him.
I want to tell my hon. friend opposite that he should get the courage and the intestinal fortitude, to put it nicely, to say to the financial institutions, including a government financial institution, that no longer will we allow our agricultural producers to receive less than their costs of production. That has to be a minimum goal of any Government of any political stripe. If that means higher costs for consumers it means that we will offset it for old age pensioners and the poor in other ways. And the rest of us can darn well pay our share of the costs of that agricultural production. We must stop preventing the one and only sector-although I guess we could add the fishermen to that-in all our economy from receiving a price that covers its costs of production.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: How about forestry?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: They have always had that. They never missed on that, never. Agricultural producers and fishermen are about the only two sectors of the economy which have never been able to institute a price that covers their costs of production. That is all we are asking.
I want to compliment the Government for what it has done thus far. It has done a lot more than the Liberals did, which is
not a hell of a lot to brag about. It has done better than the Liberals. The Government is like the two guys out fishing. The boat tipped over and one of them hollered: "Help, I can't swim". The other one said: "This is no time to brag about it".


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. Would the House be inclined to give an extra one minute to the Hon. Member?


Some Hon. Members:: No way!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Will the Hon. Member conclude his speech immediately, please.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you and the gentleman standing at your side for your courtesy and patience. I have not quite finished. I am sorry that my friends opposite do not want to hear more of what I have to say.


Clément M. Côté: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak in this debate after the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin). When he started his comments, the Hon. Member told us that he had been both amazed and disappointed when listening to the speeches made here in the House this evening. Mr. Speaker, I was expecting a Member with the extensive experience of the Hon. Member for Regina West to produce a truly excellent speech. Unfortunately, we were treated to a flood of verbiage totally devoid of ideas, something the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) is particularly good at. Mr. Speaker, it takes incredible nerve to ask for an emergency debate on the situation of western grain producers. Nerve, however, is something of which the Hon. Member for Regina West and his seatmate from Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) have an abundant supply. Mr. Speaker, this is not an emergency because many western grain producers are in intensive care and others are enjoying extended care. With the kind of policies we had for the past 20 years, certain producers went from emergency to intensive care, others to extended care, some years ago, nevertheless, our socialist friends have changed the words to their tune and now keep repeating this Government is not doing enough.
Mr. Speaker, whatever we do, it will never be enough, and there are producers, not only in western Canada but across this country, who have gone from the emergency stage to the terminal phase. Their financial health has deteriorated to the point where treatment would be to no avail. They are doomed. The tragic part is that we got into this situation as a result of the socialists being hand-in-glove with the Liberals. Mr. Speaker, this crowd of unfrocked capitalists never had to manage a single dollar of taxpayers' money and never will. They will never have a chance to run this country. The closest the Hon. Member for Regina West has come to a western farmer is in his air-conditioned Cadillac with the windows rolled up tight. That close.

April 28, 1987


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have not paid for my last car, let alone drive a Cadillac. I am a socialist from Saskatchewan. I do not have a Cadillac and I have never had one.


Clément M. Côté: Mr. Speaker, those unfrocked capitalists, as I said before, probably leave their Cadillacs in Ottawa when they go out west. And if they don't have a Cadillac, they borrow or rent one.
Mr. Speaker, our socialist friends can go on with their campaigns to win members. They were campaigning all over the country, not just in Western Canada but also in Quebec: operation charm. Well, moral victories will be about as close as they will get to power. Between elections, their operation charm, led by the kind of leader they have now, a leader who-
Mr. Speaker, when one has no responsibility for running the country, no administrative concerns, one can afford to make promises and bend socialist principles so far as to promise the capitalist banks will be making the same enormous profits they are making now. The banks are making these profits because our unfrocked capitalists, our Sunday socialists supported the Liberals for so many years. Mr. Speaker, you will never see one of these socialists rise in the House to support one of the Conservative Government's policies. Never! That is because their support comes from the west. There are no Liberals in the west. There are Conservatives. So how can we logically expect our Sunday socialists to support a good policy introduced by the Conservative Government?
Mr. Speaker, they can go on harping on the fact that it is not enough, but that is not going to stop us from trying to correct 20 years of irresponsible administration by a Liberal Party supported by its socialist bedfellows. Mr. Speaker, that is not going to stop us from fulfilling our election promises. It will not prevent us from further developing our agricultural industry and trying to keep it on a sound basis, to improve the situation and do everything we can to help those who are in financial difficulty today.
Earlier I was listening to the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) giving us a lecture. Mr. Speaker, 1 shall refrain. I will not bore you with another lecture. You have had enough tonight. It is past three o'clock in the morning. The Hon. Member recalled the case of the young farmer who had taken over the family farm from his father with a great deal of courage and goodwill and enthusiasm, and who was now facing tremendous financial problems. The Hon. Member was trying to impress western farmers with his knowledge of a situation that they know a lot more about than do our socialist friends.
But, Mr. Speaker, sitting here I found it hard to imagine that the accomplice of the Liberals would even dare before the House-indeed, Mr. Speaker, this is not a theater because, if a hockey game had been scheduled for this evening in western
Canada, would our socialist friends have asked for an emergency debate? No way! But you know that the Edmonton Oilers have defeated the Winnipeg Jets. So, considering that Eastern and Central Canada had something to watch, like hockey games, they thought they would simply have to perform for their electors and others they are trying to woo. And they have managed to do just that.
Still, Mr. Speaker, I thought it was my responsibility to remind them that these sittings are doing them good only in between election campaigns. It will probably give them a roller-coaster image in public polls, but it will not lead them to power.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, because I know that many of my colleagues also have interesting comments to make, certainly more so than what we have heard so far from our colleagues opposite, I should like to remind our Liberal friends that the commitments of the present Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) are quite different from those of their former Prime Minister, Mr. Trudeau, who once told western grain producers: I am not going to sell your wheat.
Now then, Mr. Speaker, a Prime Minister who dares mouth such inanities has little in common with a man who had the courage to put on the economic summit agenda a topic like the economic problems facing farm producers, as Prime Minister Mulroney did in Tokyo.
Mr. Speaker, 1 want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to set the record straight in the House. We simply could not sit still after listening to some of their remarks, there has to be a limit somewhere. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that our socialists friends, this tiny group of unfrocked capitalists, have almost gone too far this evening.


Mr. Van  De Walle@Acting Speaker: The Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie).


Felix Holtmann: He is not a farmer, but he will do the best he can.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I should begin by first addressing what has been said in jest by the Hon. Member for Selkirk-Interlake (Mr. Holtmann) about my not being a farmer. In many of the exchanges in the House, both in Question Period and in debate, I have been disturbed by the presumption-and I understand it to a degree because I think it is a natural tendency-that people who are not farmers by vocation or by occupation somehow have some diminished right to speak about agriculture. Today during Question Period certain members of the Opposition had a few remarks to make about my Leader in respect of the fact that he was not a farmer. I have seen that in the House since I came here in 1979. I want to say that I reject that.
April 28, 1987

1 respect the knowledge which farmers have by virtue of the fact that they are farmers. Therefore, obviously they have a unique and important perspective on any debate when it comes to agriculture. Elowever, the fact of the matter is that this is the House of Commons, this is Parliament. All of us are charged with the responsibility of being as informed, as reasonable, and as intelligent as we can about all issues before Parliament.
What would happen if we restricted a transportation debate to those people only who have had experience in the railways? What would happen if we restricted a health care debate to only people who were formerly nurses or doctors before coming to the EEouse of Commons? I use these as examples. In that event surely we would not be able to do our jobs properly.
I simply ask Hon. Members, some of whom are farmers and some who are not, to respect the fact that even though some of us may not be farmers we have taken an interest in agriculture. In my own case-and I am not the agriculture critic or anything like that-I have taken an interest in agricultural matters, particularly from an environmental point of view, for many years.
I think these perspectives must be thrown into the mix whenever we are debating something. I hope that will be respected by Hon. Members.
I do not come from an agricultural family although my grandfather was a homesteader in Saskatchewan. We are not primarily a farm family; we are primarily a railroad family. When Members talk about the railways, I do not get up and say that because they do not have any carmen, machinists, switchmen, or hogheads in their families they do not have any right to comment on matters pertaining to railways. I think the same respect should be shown when it comes to other matters.
We all know that it is late. We have had some sharp exchanges tonight. We have also had what one might call, in a more negative way, partisan debate. Surely we all agree that it falls to the Opposition by virtue of the procedures of the House, not by virtue of anything else, to call for emergency motions. Obviously the Government does not call for an emergency debate; it is the Opposition which does that.
1 hope it would be fair to say that all of us recognize that there is a crisis, indeed an emergency, in the agricultural sector. If it is not an emergency, it is at least a continuing crisis. Even though we may disagree with each other strongly, I think it is very useful for the House of Commons and for Members of Parliament to have it out about the issue, so to speak. The only problem I have with that is that there is a tendency in which we all engage-and I am not pointing fingers here, except to point fingers at all of us including myself-to want to ridicule the arguments of others or to have a laugh at some of the claims or policies espoused by various Members.
However, I hope we can all agree on two things, the first one being that there is a crisis. The Government itself acknowledges that. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) acknowledges it when he rightly claims that he is trying to put this matter on the agenda of various international meetings, both bilateral and multilateral ones. The Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer), the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise), and others acknowledge that we have a crisis. They may not agree with our analysis of the emergency or crisis, but they agree that there is a crisis. Certainly that should be common currency in the debate before us.
The other thing upon which we could agree is our mutual desire and commitment to solve the crisis or to reach some kind of solution however we might disagree about the solution.
I begin by saying that I do not doubt the commitment of many members of the government Party to trying to find a solution to the crisis now facing us in respect of agriculture. I do not think that we should get into impugning the motives of each other in respect of the particular crisis. I think we should have a real debate, and we have had some of that tonight.
That is what the House of Commons is for. I make a plea for Parliament being what Parliament should be, that is, a place where people of differing views who represent the people of Canada get together and debate, albeit in a lively fashion, but in a serious fashion, what might be some of the solutions to the serious problems faced by the country. One of the most serious problems which the country is facing is indeed the crisis in the agricultural sector.
I sometimes sense a problem, and I hope I will have the time to get into it. I hesitate to say it to a certain extent. There are two sides in this House and there are really only two sides to the debate, that is, that of the Conservatives and that of the New Democrats, because the Liberals went home a long time ago. They do not really care about western Canada or about the agricultural sector. I think it is fair to say that both the Conservatives and the New Democrats care in their own particular ways about the future of western Canada, even though we disagree sometimes with each other.
The one Liberal Member who has been here all night has just wandered back into the House. However, I think it is fair to say that we might both be open to the accusation that we are two sides of the same coin. We might be open to the accusation that the argument we carry on with each other about agriculture is within the limits of a certain understanding of agriculture and of Canada's place in the global agricultural economy that has grown up over the last 40 years, a place which many Canadians take for granted and regard as simply a fact of life.
I do not have the answers to the questions, but I hope I might be able to ask some of the right questions. I think that is what Canadians will be looking for, particularly farmers. I do not think farmers are particularly impressed by either side or by both sides of the House getting up and saying what they would do for farmers or what they have done for farmers. I

April 28, 1987
think farmers and Canadians in general are looking, when it comes to agriculture and a lot of other questions, for who is asking the right questions. I think they are looking for, to use a phrase from a novel by Robert Eleinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, "who has Grokked on" to what is really going on in the agricultural sector.
In the time remaining I hope to ask some of the right questions. I hope in doing so that we begin to listen to each other in a way that we have not been doing all evening and in a way we are not in the habit of doing in the House. Surely there should be a way for us to arrive at, if not some common solution, some kind of description of the problem. A lot of talk has gone on here tonight about the family farm. The Hon. Member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Clark) is not yet on the record. Everything he has had to say tonight so far has been from his seat.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: My turn is coming.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: But he tells me that his turn is coming and that he will be on the record soon.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Don't go home too early.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: He says, don't go home too early. I won't. I will be here until the last dog is hanged, not to refer to any other debate that is going on in the House, Mr. Speaker. What I hope to do is to raise some of the difficult questions. Just yesterday we had another emergency debate having to do with ownership, and a great debate, again primarily between the New Democrats and the Tories-


Geoff Wilson: Where are the Liberals?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: -about the ownership of the Canadian energy sector. The debate was focused on the New Democrats' abhorrence of the fact that Dome Petroleum may be bought by an American multinational, and the Conservative Government's arguments that this is the best solution in the circumstances, et cetera. Fair enough, that is the debate. What we were talking about was the question of ownership. What we are talking about, when it comes to the question of the agricultural sector, is also a question of Canadian ownership and of who will own the land, not tomorrow and not even five years down the road. We can talk about all the statistics surrounding bankruptcies, et cetera, but we are really talking about whether or not in 50 or 100 years we can fairly forecast or speculate on whether the agricultural land in Canada at that time, either 50 or 100 years from now, will continue to be owned and farmed by families, by owner operators, by people, as opposed to institutions. I know that the Conservatives, some of them anyway for what I think are partisan political purposes, like to brand New Democrats as people who want to nationalize the land, and all this sort of thing. That simply is
not the case, Mr. Speaker. I think there is a common commitment between the Conservatives and the New Democrats to individual ownership of farms.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Not to interrupt a fine speech, but would my hon. friend opposite permit one brief question?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, why did the New Democratic Party, in the debate on the entrenchment of the Constitution, oppose the entrenchment of the right to property which would have guaranteed absolutely that people would have individual ownership of property for 10 years, 100 years or 1,000 years?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: The Hon. Member raises an old favourite of his concerning property rights. He continues to ignore the fact that during the Constitution debate one of the main obstacles to entrenching property rights in the Constitution was the provinces of Canada, most of which had progressive Governments at that time. I do not make any apologies for the fact that the New Democratic Party at that time was opposed to the entrenchment of property rights because it is quite illusory for the Hon. Member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker) to imagine that property rights have only to do with the rights of individual farmers. Property rights could well have to do with the rights of banks and multinational corporations and could well have to do with the rights of a great many other institutions which make claims about their property which are at odds with either the environmental, the social or the longterm well-being of either society as a whole or of regions of this country. 1 can imagine a great many situations in which the property rights of large and powerful institutions like the banks would be at odds with policies that various Governments might want to adopt from time to time for the very purpose of preserving individual ownership of land.
I ask the Hon. Member to consider that, but to note that one likes a certain degree of predictability in political debate. If there is one thing that is predictable in this House of Commons it is that in the course of my speeches about a variety of subjects the Hon. Member for Lethbridge-Foothills will get up and raise the matter of property rights. To the extent that I am a small "c" conservative and like some things to be permanent in this world, I welcome that intervention once again by the Hon. Member.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Tell us more.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Tell us more about the small "c" conservative business. It seems to me that one of the ironies of Progressive Conservatives, politics in this day and age is that although certain values are espoused, and presumably authentically espoused, about the preservation of the family farm, of traditional values, of smaller communities, a rural way of life and all these sorts of things, one has to ask whether or not those are the primary, the fundamental values of the Progressive Conservative Party. When a Progressive Conservative
April 28, 1987

Government has to choose between intervening in the marketplace in order to preserve the economic and social structures and so nurture and enhance those values or of allowing the market-place to take its full effect, a certain kind of conceptual paralysis takes over Conservatives at that point. They are unwilling to do so, and I think this is part of the debate that is going on here tonight.
It is not a question of the internal commitment, at the feeling level, of Progressive Conservative Members of Parliament to preserving the family farm or preserving the rural way of life; it is a question of whether or not they have the capability, ideologically or philosophically, if you like, to imagine acceptable solutions to those problems. I would contend as a New Democrat that most of the solutions to these problems- and I do not pretend to know all of them but in my judgment, whether Progressive Conservatives want to hear it or not-will be interventionist in nature. They will require more than simply standing back from trends in the international marketplace and simply trying to put out brush fires here and there or throwing a billion dollars here or having a program there. Part of what is involved will be the kind of intervention, the kind of reshaping of our agricultural economy, to preserve those values and to preserve the family farm, that most Progressive Conservatives will find unacceptable. That is the problem. Otherwise, it seems to me that what we are facing is a situation in which we will literally, over the course of time- perhaps not in the lifetime of very few people in this Parliament

have a return to a kind of feudalism where one of the very foundations on which this country was built, which was the widespread individual ownership of land, will have disappeared.
What I cannot understand for the life of me is why certain members of the Progressive Conservative Party cannot see the danger to the very things which I believe they genuinely cherish in not resisting trends which now exist in the agricultural market-place. I cannot for the life of me understand that.
I see that you are giving me the high sign, Mr. Speaker. I hope to touch for just a moment on some of the environmental questions which I think perhaps would take us a bit above or at least to a different dimension of the debate with respect to agriculture in Canada. With the permission of Hon. Members, perhaps I could be granted time beyond the normal time.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent to allow the Hon. Member a few more minutes to complete his speech?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about the environment. Copies are available of the report of the World Commission on the Environment, the United Nations Commission headed by Norwegian Prime Minister, Gro Brundtland, dealing with the future of the world environment. One of the most pressing environmental questions the whole world must address is the question of agriculture.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: The right-to-farm legislation?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I am not sure what the Hon. Member for Brandon-Souris is going on about but perhaps if he would give me a chance to explain what I am talking about, then when he gets his turn, he can tell us what he means by right-to-farm legislation.
In Canada, there is a tendency to see environmental problems as being primarily problems of trans-boundary air pollution, acid rain emissions either coming from the United States or from our own smelters and hydro plants or water pollution. Globally, one of the more pressing environmental problems is the disappearance of productive arable land. We have not faced up to that question here in Canada because I think many Canadians have been under the illusion for years that unlike other parts of the world, we live in a boundless environment, we can do what we want when we want and to the extent that we want with our environment.
When I was growing up and going to elementary school in the 1950s and early 1960s, the impression that was created among young Canadians was that Canada was a land of boundless resources and that the future lay in exploiting those resources to the fullest. We were given the impression that there really was no end to the exploitation of our natural resources. One of those resources is the soil of western Canada. We heard western Canada called the bread-basket of the world and so it was.


William (Bill) Gottselig: It still is.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: So it is and so it could remain. However, it will have to be that bread-basket in a changing world.
When I grew up, the world was full of countries that were unable to feed themselves. This provided a demand for Canadian grain, a demand that in many respects does not exist any longer. It is not that the world does not need Canadian grain any longer, as the Hon. Member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton) mentioned. Our grain economy has been based on providing grain to countries able to pay enough for grain that the production of it was made sustainable in Canada. We may be moving into a different era now, not only with respect to costs of production but also because most of the people in the world who need food cannot pay for it. There, of course, I am alluding to the question of world hunger. I do not propose to try to deal with that tonight but I think it is something that should be on our minds when dealing with grain production.
I wanted to touch on the question of soil erosion. I would call the attention of the House to the report on soil conservation prepared by the Standing Committees on Agriculture, and Fisheries and Oceans for the Senate of Canada.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Don't filibuster all night just because we gave you some extra time.

April 28, 1987


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: You can rest assured that I will not read the whole report since the Pages have gone home for the night and I do not have a glass of water. Reading from the beginning of the summary, the report indicates the following:
Soil erosion may well be the most underrated yet most damaging natural resource problem of the 80s. Must we wait for crisis conditions before action is taken to safeguard our scarce and dwindling soil resource base?
There the report quotes the Soil Conservation Society of America, Ontario Chapter. I see Hon. Members are trying to bring my speech to a close. I will say what I have to say and then Hon. Members will have their chances as well.
We have been literally mining our soil. We have been treating it not as the renewable resource it should be but as if it were a gold mine or a nickel mine. We are taking away from it as much as we possibly can, as quickly as we possibly can, without having regard for the future. In doing so, we have developed attitudes toward production that have resulted in other environmentally destructive tendencies.
As the environment critic for the federal NDP, one of the things that has come to my attention has been the extent to which, by virtue of the system that is in place now, farmers are pressured into putting as much land into production as possible. This is a concern shared by groups like Ducks Unlimited, for instance, hardly a socialist organization. Not only is this pressure put on farmers but another pressure is put on the habitat of waterfowl through the environment. All I am saying is that everything is connected to everything else.
When we consider the economics of agriculture or for that matter the economics of anything else, we do not take into consideration the fact that we have to do more and more in order to get the same result. Input costs are going up astronomically, not only for agriculture but for forestry. We have to go farther and farther to get to the mature trees. The same is true of the fisheries and of many of our natural resources because we have not managed those resources properly.
It is the environmental dimension of the agricultural crisis that all of us should be able to jointly address. Perhaps in addressing that we could find some common ground, some way of asking ourselves the difficult questions that must be asked if we are to have sustainable agriculture well into the 21st century. We should not be faced with history's judgment that we left our children with a disaster in western Canada and that is precisely what is in danger of happening if we do not smarten up.
The summary of the report on soil conservation to which I referred earlier reads in part as follows:
The Committee found that much of the problem lies with the great pressures being placed on our agricultural sector. Canadian farmers have been asked to demand the last ounce of productivity from our soils-largely because of economic necessity, international prices and technological progress.
As well, both old and new agricultural practices have contributed to the problem.
Old practices and technologies such as summerfallowing and the use of mouldboard plows contribute to salinity and erosion in certain parts of the country.
New practices and technology, such as the use of monoculture and large, heavy machinery contribute to loss of organic matter, soil compaction and erosion.
It then concludes by saying that over the years the priority put on production has taken its toll on soil quality.
There are many other criticisms contained in this report which has received a lot less attention than it should have. We do a lot of talking, and I am as guilty as anyone else, about high profile environmental matters like acid rain, but in the meantime our soil is disappearing. According to this report that is not an environmental problem which can be rehabilitated. Once it is gone, it is gone.
I ask Hon. Members to think about the ways in which we have externalized the cost of the way we do certain things in our economy. We now have to pick up a lot of the costs of the way we do things. The fact is the costs, which have been externalized and not taken into account because we have regarded soil and air and water as free commodities which we did not have to take into account in the way we accounted for our economic activity, we now have to take into account. We now have to ask, what is the cost of replacing fertile soil? What is the cost of good clean air? What is the cost of having potable water? What is the cost of doing all these things?


Felix Holtmann: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. I believe the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) has gone quite over his time limit in talking about soil erosion and I think you ought to recognize me as the next speaker.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: We will when I am finished.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member did get unanimous consent to continue and I am sure he will not abuse the courtesy given him by the House.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I will not abuse the goodwill of the House much longer.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: How about 30 seconds?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I sense that Members are absolutely mesmerized by what I have to say.


Nelson Andrew Riis: You can call it that.


Charles James Mayer: We are all nodding. Off.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I do not see anyone nodding off.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Vic is sleeping behind you.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I cannot speak for the people I cannot see. I look across the House and see Hon. Members on the government side are truly fascinated with some of the things I have had to say. I note that the one Liberal was not mesmerized.
April 28, 1987


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Where is he?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: He is either under his desk or he has gone back into hibernation. It is very difficult to tell when Liberals are conscious and when they are not.
With respect to the environmental dimension of our agricultural crisis-


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Which you are now concluding.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: -I would just like to conclude by saying, in all seriousness, that this is something which has been quite neglected, not only with respect to agriculture but also with respect to a lot of other environmental problems we are facing. The chickens are coming home to roost. We are beginning to reap what we have sown. We have ignored all kinds of things which needed to be taken into account in the beginning and as long as we have Governments committed only to organizing things with respect to short-term economic realities, which are the only realities that Governments who worship the marketplace can have any regard to, we will not get the kind of solutions we need.
That is what the Senate said in its report Soil at Risk. One of the greatest factors in our inability to address these problems is our-they do not quite say it this way, but our idolatrous relationship with short-term economic realities. We need to have some leadership from Government in this country. We have to look 10 years, 20 years, 100 years down the road and begin to ask how can we reshape our economic priorities, our economic incentives, our economic structures, to take into account the fact that we have a moral responsibility when it comes to soil or air or water, or whatever the case may be, to leave to our children and grandchildren a sustainable planet. That is what we should be talking about.


Felix Holtmann: Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to address this House tonight. It also gives me a great deal of pleasure to follow the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie). If he could get me a glass of water, seeing as how we have dismissed the Pages, my headache might go away. At any rate, that kind of thing happens from time to time in this place.
I would like to start off by congratulating the NDP. They are not the Official Opposition, although they would like to be. However, I would like to congratulate them for bringing this motion forward.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: We are satisfied to be the real opposition. In the short term.


Felix Holtmann: They can debate that whenever they want.
They have done a great service to agriculture tonight by focusing on what this Government has done for agriculture. They have brought that to everyone's attention. No one will ever deny them that opportunity whenever they want to focus on what this Government has done for agriculture.
I would like to point out, and I am sure you understand this, that the people sitting in this House tonight, like myself, who are farmers are here and we are not even tired. There is many a time a farmer at four o'clock in the morning is still harvesting his grain. He is still getting dirt under his fingernails. He understands what farming is all about, as does the odd member of the NDP, and the even odder member of the Liberal Party. They do not farm. That is not their fault. It is their fault that some voters do not vote for them. We all know they try to represent a part of agriculture. They try to represent a part of this great nation.
I think the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill was a brave individual this evening to stand up and try to defend the undefendable in his Party. I give that man credit. We all have to give him credit because what we heard before he spoke was garbage. Nonsense. You understand that, Mr. Speaker. What was going on here in this House today was the Laurel and Hardy show of the Opposition. To call this an emergency debate after all the things that this Government has done is ridiculous. To sit here at four o'clock in the morning and say this Government has not done what the Opposition says it should do is pure hypocrisy, and I will prove my point in the next 20 minutes.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Do not criticize the Speaker while you are doing it. He decided it was an emergency.


Felix Holtmann: Just relax over there, you will have your shot at it.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Just giving you advice about the Speaker.


Mr. Angus:: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am just wondering whether the Hon. Member is actually questioning the decision of the Speaker in accepting the fact that this is indeed an emergency. Perhaps you would like to rule on that.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I do not think there is a need to rule. I will let the Hon. Member go on.


Felix Holtmann: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Never once did I think of challenging the decisions of the Chair. It was the NDP who proposed this motion, no one else.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: The Speaker decides whether it is an emergency.


Felix Holtmann: I thank them for it because Canadian farmers have had another opportunity to find out what this Government has done. Members of Parliament in the Government, farmers and otherwise, have told Canadian farmers one more time what the Government has done. I thank the NDP.
I will now go on. I want to refer to Grain News. Opposition Members quote different things from time to time without giving the whole story. Grain News is circulated to most

April 28, 1987
farmers in western Canada. The headline reads: "Manitoba Farm Budget Swamped by Saskatchewan and Alberta". For those Canadians who do not know it, Manitoba has an NDP Government. The Opposition has accused us of doing so little for farmers, of not addressing the issue of farmers at all.
However, of the total budget of $3.9 billion of the NDP Government of Manitoba, it will only spend 1.8 per cent of it for the 1986-87 year, $70 million, for the farmers in Manitoba. The NDP Opposition suggests that the Conservative Government does not do enough but the fact is that it has done more for agriculture than any other Government in the history of Canada. It will continue to do more and to address the problems of farming in agriculture and I am very proud to be a part of it.
Let us compare that with the Province of Saskatchewan, which has a Tory Government at the present time. Its budget for 1986-87 is 4 per cent or $134 million. That is a significant effort by a Tory Government to help agriculture in the main grain producing area of Canada. The Province of Alberta goes so far as to spend 5.3 per cent of its budget, $570 million. That is a commitment. It does not solve every problem, but who in the dickens said it would solve every problem for every farmer?
This afternoon we heard from a member of the Opposition that a farmer in his riding committed suicide because of the hardships of farming. That situation exists in every riding, but not only with farmers. It exists with people on welfare and people whose businesses have gone bankrupt, perhaps because of interest rates of 22 per cent. It is not the present Government which is responsible for that. If the Opposition chooses to condemn us for low interest rates, I will accept that condemnation. Canadian farmers know all too well that low interest rates have saved them millions of dollars.
My little Province of Manitoba has an NDP Government led by a Premier by the name of Pawley. The Premier of Manitoba decided to urge the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) to turn down lower initial grain prices. He could not give a doggone about the wheat growers in Manitoba. The Members of the New Democratic Party are not farmers. They are in bed right now under the sweet covers when real farmers who have dirt under their nails are probably seeding their crops on the Prairies.
Where are their Members during this debate which they initiated? They are very much ashamed to present their case on an emergency debate because they knew I would bring up the NDP Government in Manitoba. That is why they are not here. They have lots of words but no actions.
The Premier of Manitoba says Canada should pay farmers the cost of production. The Premier of Manitoba would not do what the Tory Government of Saskatchewan has done, that is, to put the province into serious debt to help farmers. In fact, the federal Tory Government of Canada has probably extended the highest deficit for farmers ever in the history of
the nation. The Party which introduced this motion is tremendously lacking.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Tell us about fuel prices.


Felix Holtmann: I am going to get into fuel prices. I have said enough about the New Democratic Party because it does not have the background to do anything. The one province in Canada which has an NDP Government is obviously not listening to their representatives here in Ottawa. Words do not create action.
One would think this would be the motion of the Official Opposition. It was very comical to see the Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy) get up to speak this evening. I was not in the House but I listened on the tube while I was having my supper tonight. I listened to the Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry talk about farming.
Western Canadians do not want to hear that guy from Fort Garry talk about agriculture. He does not know a darn thing about it. That is the fact. It makes them absolutely sick to hear that hon. gentleman talk about how he and his Party are going to help farmers in western Canada. They do not believe him. They would like to believe him but they have been led down the garden path for 22 years, and there are Members in the New Democratic Party who have followed the principle of the Liberal Party of helping western farmers.
I will tell you a very sad story, Mr. Speaker. My dad was a devout and very strong Liberal for many years mainly because when he immigrated to this country there was a Liberal Government in power. He associated his ability to immigrate and start a life in Canada with the Government in power in 1926. He changed his mind when we had the likes of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and the Liberal administration, of which a good number are still here.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Hazen Argue.


Felix Holtmann: The Member can name a lot more than 1 can because I am a new Member of Parliament. My father changed his mind about what a Liberal Government can do for western farmers in general. He had no use for them any more because not only did that arrogant group not give a darn about us, but they told us so. They literally told us exactly that.
As long as I am a Member of Parliament there is not a western Canadian who will ever forget what the Liberal Party did to us, whether with regard to interest rates or its attitude about selling our grain. As a matter of fact, the Liberal Party could hardly elect one Member of Parliament and now that the Government has done so much for agriculture all across Canada it is pretending, through the Member for Winnipeg- Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy), to now have all the solutions for us. It is true that there is an emergency on hand, prices are going down and there are real problems. However, that Party will never be a Government with representatives from every province who understand farming. A Liberal Government will never be in that situation again because farmers do not forget.
April 28, 1987

Many Members who do not represent farming areas may believe farmers are not intelligent. I suggest any Member who rises to speak on this issue better know something about farming because farmers will not be fooled by those drugstore cowboys we have heard tonight. I do not take this issue very lightly and anyone in the Opposition who wishes to speak better know something about farming because, quite frankly, my constituents do not want to hear their rhetoric, garbage and promises.
During the Easter break I met with farmers. Some Hon. Members may be shocked to learn that not only do farmers not like subsidies, they hate them. In fact, many farmers in my area refer to the Special Canadian Grains Program as a kind of welfare payment. They will accept it because it helps them to buy grain, fertilizer, and pay for the gas in their tractors to seed their crops, but they have never received such a payment in the history of this country. They are grateful.
I challenge Members opposite, especially the New Democratic Party who proposed the motion, to suggest that the Government has not done enough. I challenge them to reflect on what has been said in this debate.
The only New Democratic Government in this country, in Manitoba, does not care. I will stay to the end of this debate and if I hear a member from that Party defend this motion, every person in my riding will hear about it because I will tell them personally that the idiots who are giving us this rhetoric are not farmers.
The New Democratic Party accomplished something tonight. They provoked the Government into telling Canadians what has happened in the last two and one-half years. Canadian farmers have never had such a direct input into this Chamber as they have had under this Government. The opposition Parties have demonstrated that they play an important part in this Chamber by allowing us to explain that.
I want to draw the attention of the House to a magazine article in a periodical that one can hardly consider a farming magazine. It is Maclean's magazine. Of course, the main story in Maclean's this week concerns Dome. I will not deal with that issue now because the NDP will suggest that we borrow, loan or give money as a Canadian solution to buy Dome. I presume the NDP can find money under shoe boxes to pay for these solutions. Farmers pay taxes as well, but how do New Democrats know that farmers want to buy Dome Petroleum? That may be another of their suggestions, considering the ridiculous proposals they have made already.
In any event, page 10 of Maclean's magazine contains a photo of our good looking Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer). I have heard that members of both opposition Parties actually believe the Minister is doing a favourable job for Canadian farmers. He is a farmer and, in this photograph, he is farming and actually holding a grease gun. I wonder if anybody in the Liberal Party knows what a
grease gun is, but I know that there are some members in the New Democratic Party who know what grease is.
I am proud that we have a man representing the Wheat Board who understands the grain industry. If the New Democrats were ever the Government, I would not doubt that they would make the Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board. Incidentally, at one time he belonged to the Young Conservatives. He admitted that.
Mir. Blaikie: Youthful folly.


Felix Holtmann: There are those in the New Democratic Party who believe they can run the Government. I suggest that they have a lot to learn, especially as far as their Leader is concerned, when he talks about agriculture.
The Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill said that one does not necessarily have to be a farmer to speak about farming and agriculture. That is a fair comment, but you will never hear me begin to talk about science and technology because I do not think I am capable of doing so.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: That may be true.


Felix Holtmann: Or about the environment.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: That may be true.


Felix Holtmann: But I would not have you out on my farm milking cows, either.
Yesterday and today the Hon. Member's Leader attempted to demonstrate the plight of the farmer and the plight of agriculture. From time to time one must admire their Leader, but from time to time one must wonder about him as well.
In closing, I suggest that the Leader of the New Democratic Party should carefully decide in which direction he wishes to take his Party because he has nothing on this Government in terms of what it has achieved, in terms of its interest in farming, and in terms of its interest in all types of production.
We introduced enabling legislation for tripartite agreements. It is interesting to note that only one province decided not to get involved in that tripartite legislation. It was none other than the Province of Manitoba that did not want to work together with other Governments so as not to bring its budget for agriculture any higher than 1.6 per cent. Will the Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill ask his Premier to help farmers a little more since it will only cost another quarter of a per cent or three-eighths of a per cent of his Budget? He will not do it. Let me tell you something. It will not help you in the next election. I see that my time is up.


Mr. Speaker:: The time may well not be up, depending on the mood of the House. However, I must say to the Hon. Member for Selkirk-Interlake (Mr. Holtmann) that the custom in the House is not to refer directly to any other Member, but to make reference through the Chair. The Hon. Member is certainly pursuing his comments with vigour. It

April 28, 1987
may be the wish of the House to allow the Hon. Member to continue. If that is the case, I am quite prepared to continue to recognize the Hon. Member.


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Felix Holtmann: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield further time this evening to some of my colleagues on all sides of the House. However, I would also like to impress upon the Canadian public and the farming community-


An Hon. Member:: They are watching right now.


Felix Holtmann: The Hon. Member says they are watching right now. The farming group out west are watching right now.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: They were up to about 20 minutes ago.


Felix Holtmann: That is another thing which someone ought to point out. Farmers do not like the high-faluting talk we heard here tonight. There has been a lot of fancy dancing and reading out of books, worrying about soil erosion. When the New Democratic Party introduced this motion, it did not introduce a motion on soil erosion. It was about grains. Yet we heard quite a lot of rhetoric about the environment and so on. Those Hon. Members should stick to the subject.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I did stick to the subject.


Felix Holtmann: No, you did not stick to the subject. This motion is on farming.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Yes, I did.


Felix Holtmann: Let us not get into debate because I have something that I want to show you folks over here. It is 4.10 in the morning, Mr. Speaker, and if I miss addressing the House through the Chair, I apologize. Something happened in Manitoba and it is just the tip of the iceberg. A Member of the New Democratic Party at one time talked about the tip of the iceberg and I thought it was an appropriate point of view at that time, and this is another tip of the iceberg. Manitoba came down with a new budget. It did not help the farmers very much but I will tell you what it did, Mr. Speaker; it scared the dickens out of the bankers. They were scared so badly that banks are now closing in the rural areas of Manitoba. Banks to help farmers are closing. I do not know what members of the New Democratic Party are thinking about. The headline of the article reads: "Royal Bank Blames Taxes for Rural Closings". I am sure all parties would want to pick this up because the NDP Government in Manitoba is making things difficult for the banks and farmers are not going to be protected. What Mr. Pawley hopes is that they will go to the credit union. Some day, if he gets his wish, every province in Canada will have an NDP Government and the federal Government will be NDP. Do you know who is going to run the banking in this country then, Mr. Speaker? It will be the credit union.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Felix Holtmann: We know where the New Democratic Party stands. When the next election comes, and we are all out campaigning, I want every Member of the New Democratic Party to tell the people that their next bank will not be the Royal Bank, the Bank of Commerce or the Bank of Nova Scotia, because the NDP is going to franchise them into the credit union. There might be a lot of people running away from this country.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Let us have an election right now, Felix.


Felix Holtmann: They are really excited about that. That is what they are going to campaign on next time. I am going to close by saying that Canadian farmers really want fair representation. They want people who understand their business. I think they also recognize that no one can represent them better than a Tory Government and a Tory Member of Parliament. That is what they have so far and they know that is what they are going to get in the future.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, I am also very pleased that you found there was an emergency which permitted us to stay up all night, it now being 4.15 a.m. You found an emergency yesterday and I hope you can find an emergency tomorrow so we can come back here again and again because there is a record of this Government which needs to be shown to the country.
This Parliament is built for the Opposition. The national media queue in only to Question Period, which is designed for the Opposition and which we, when we were the Opposition used very effectively. It does, however, have the effect over time of giving a false impression which people will pick up and the effect of these debates is to give us a chance to even the score, so to speak. Over the course of last night and this morning we have been able to show what a truly wonderful record the Cabinet, under the able leadership of the Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, has put in place and I would like to talk about that in terms of my own riding.
I know my riding very well. I have been here for eight years. I have many, many good friends out there. In 1984 when we had barely come to power, the livestock industry was in serious trouble, and the Prime Minister was there. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) was there and the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) was there.
We in Alberta have great pride in our Deputy Prime Minister who has served Alberta and this country so well and who is still here at 4.15 in the morning. The Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) are here. These are Ministers of the Crown and they have stayed here throughout the night. I do not ever remember that occurring when we were in opposition and the Liberal Government was in power. There was never a Minister of the Crown who would stay on. I remember one
April 28, 1987

time speaking at 6.30 in the morning in an all-night debate and there was not a Minister of the Crown in the House.
In 1985 my constituency got into a serious drought problem. The highest payments went to my riding. The farmers in Pincher Creek and down through Cardston had the highest per acre payment of this entire country. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board were there when I, as the Member of Parliament for Lethbridge-Foothills, told them that we had serious problems and needed their help. The Cabinet was there and the Progressive Conservative Party was there and we received the highest per acre payment in the entire country.
Again in 1986, through no fault of any individual farmer, but because of subsidies caused by socialist Governments and other Governments in Europe which built up over the years, we got into serious problems. The Americans then took them on nose to nose and we had that enormous battle between these economic super powers. We now have serious problems, and they are affecting my riding. Again, when we came as Members of Parliament to Cabinet and said we needed help, they were there. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was there when he was needed and the Deputy Prime Minister was there, not only for the $1 billion, but for a stabilization program which has been richer than any program in the entire history of this nation.
Then we put in sound agricultural policies like tripartite stabilization where we have a producer who has to make a premium payment, a provincial Government, because agriculture is a concurrent jurisdiction in this country, and the federal Government. That is the way to set up a program which will last for years and years. This Government was there.
In my riding I have some 600 plus sugar-beet growers. There were some 600 in Manitoba and some in the Province of Quebec. They were in deep trouble and in fact in 1985 we did not produce any sugar-beets in Alberta. But I went as a Member of Parliament and said we needed help for the sugar-beet industry. We initiated a program through the officials in Lethbridge, brought the farmers down and talked to Conservative Members of Parliament from every province, and the Progressive Conservative Party was there, the Cabinet was there.
For 20 years, the Hon. Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster) should understand, sugar-beets were a designated commodity under the Agricultural Stabilization Act. That meant that every year members of the industry had to come to Ottawa and get on their knees to beg the Minister of Agriculture for help. It was a yearly, fragile situation. Within two years-


Maurice Brydon Foster: You refused to make the payment in 1984 and 1985.


Blaine Allen Thacker: -we have made the product of the industry a named commodity. We signed a 10-year agreement to that effect the other day.


Maurice Brydon Foster: You refused to make the payment under the ASA.


Blaine Allen Thacker: The Liberal Government was responsible for 1983 when the industry did not receive an ASA payment. That was under the regime of the Liberals.


Maurice Brydon Foster: We made the payment every year as required. Look it up.


Blaine Allen Thacker: It is now a named commodity. The industry is immensely proud, and we have saved the sugar-beet industry in Alberta.
What about Manitoba that is controlled by a socialist Government? Because sugar-beets are grown in Conservative ridings in that province a mean and vicious socialist Government refuses to help farmers. They are human beings who are going down the tubes. There are suicides, yet the socialist NDP Government of Manitoba refuses to help. That is a mean-spiritedness in a way that is unknown.


Jack Wendele Shields: Typical NDP.


Blaine Allen Thacker: We have a research institute in my riding called the Animal Diseases Research Institute. Ever since I have been a Member of Parliament we have been trying to get a new building. The Institute is manned by 12 top-notch scientists who have a research staff and technicians who bring the complement up to a total of 58 to 60 people.
For years these scientists have been doing vital research on viruses. They have been working with very dangerous animal viruses which, if allowed to escape, could cause havoc in the livestock population, let alone in the human population which lives in the vicinity of the Institute. For years and years the Liberal Party delayed the construction of the station. Every year I would come before the committee considering the Estimates and ask the Minister when we would get the building. I would talk to officials in order to keep the pressure on. It was promised every election. And after every election its construction was delayed.
Our Party formed the Government in 1984. Because of the enormous national debt and the deficit there had to be all sorts of cut-backs. But not to the Animal Diseases Research Institute in Lethbridge-Foothills. So my people in Lethbridge-Foothills know-


Maurice Brydon Foster: The Liberals approved it in 1983.


Blaine Allen Thacker: -that the Conservative Government gave them that building. All sorts of other ones were put on hold, and this one could well have been put on hold as well.


Maurice Brydon Foster: The Liberal Government approved it in the spring of 1983 and you know it.

April 28, 1987


Blaine Allen Thacker: Had the Liberal Party been re-elected the building would not have been constructed. Its construction would have been delayed again.
I would now like to talk about the Lethbridge Research Station which is another research institution at which fabulous research on soil conservation and irrigation in southern Alberta is carried out. There is also a feed mill involving some $6 million.
I would now like to talk about the airport in my riding. For years and years we have needed a garage. It was not improved until the Conservative Party came to power. For years and years we have needed a new fire hall. This matter concerns the safety of people. I heard members of the Opposition yelling and screaming about safety at an airport the other day. We needed a fire hall and it was not there when the Liberals were in power. When the Conservatives came to power a new fire hall was constructed, one which is absolutely first-class.
Our airport runways needed to be hard-surfaced. That is something which should have been done for years and years. But it was never done until the Conservatives came to power under the present Prime Minister. It is a fine airport now as a result of changing Governments.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Brian needed a shoe cupboard and he got it.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Waterton National Park is a site that we hold out as Canadians to attract tourists from around the world. It has a main street which is in an absolute shambles, a disgrace to a nation such as Canada. We could never get it changed. It is now being redone. It will be a proud main street which will attract tourists who will come back again and again.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Tell us how your farmers are suffering.


Blaine Allen Thacker: There is a coal town in the Crowsnest Pass which is in very deep trouble because for years and years the Liberals would not do anything about coal. Within months of being in power we had a joint federal-provincial task force put in place. There is a very distinct possibility that we can export more coal to Ontario. In spite of the federal Liberals we may have a better chance with the provincial Liberals since they seem to be talking sensibly about the subject.
There is also a Community Futures program. Tonight the Minister signed a document for the Crowsnest Pass to become a Community Futures town, which will give it hope. We have an enormous infrastructure of towns, houses, water facilities and sewage facilities, schools and churches, but it is a one-industry town. Like 800 others it is in very deep trouble. It now has a chance under the Community Futures program.
I could go on and on and talk to you, Mr. Speaker, about the advance payments that were doubled by our Minister of Agriculture. I could also speak about the Western Grain Stabilization Act which has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into western Canada.that would not have been poured into it under the Liberal regime because we changed the statute. Under the former Minister of Agriculture, Eugene
Whelan, the Liberals averaged about one agricultural Bill a year. We have had well over 10 Bills go through all totalled, which affect agriculture in major ways.
I would now like to refer to cash advances which are simple measures which could have been taken years and years ago but were not. Which Party doubled cash advances? It was the Conservative Party under the present Prime Minister. Which Party changed the Western Grain Transportation Act? It was the Conservative Party under the present Prime Minister.
Let me delve into the other Parties. What does the New Democratic Party have to say about agriculture? I want to read some of the Party's resolutions on agriculture. Mr. Speaker, I want you to ignore its position on NATO which would totally abandon our allies. The NDP wants to pull us out of NATO.
I want Your Honour to forget the Party's position on NORAD. It would isolate Canada so that we would lose our freedom far faster by being outside NORAD than by being in it.
I want you to forget the Party's insult to President Reagan, Mr. Speaker, who was here as a representative of the people of America and as our invited guest. Members of the New Democratic Party did not have the courtesy even to hear him out. That was a very real error of judgment on their part. What it shows, and it comes out on occasion, is what they would be like in power. It shows a lack of tolerance and a lack of respect. That is what we would get if that Party were ever to form the Government.
I do not want you to speak, Mr. Speaker, on the justice question. I have been a member of the Justice Committee for some four or five years now. I have sat in committee when members of the NDP have put forward motions which would have had the effect of legalizing anal intercourse between boys 14 to 18 years of age. That is what the NDP stand for. It is the Conservative Government that defeated those motions which would have legalized anal intercourse between boys 14 to 18 years of age. This is what Canadians need to hear because that Party is so sanctimonious.
The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) talked about his Leader. Members of his Party have said some very unkind things about the Prime Minister, things that are not fair at all. What is fair about the Leader of the NDP is that he refused to take a reduction in salary. The Leader of our Party, the Prime Minister, took a reduction in his salary. We threw out the same challenge to the Leader of the NDP. We said: "Okay, if you want to help ordinary Canadians then reduce your salary by 15 per cent". He refused.


Mr. Langdon:: That is not true, and you know it.


Blaine Allen Thacker: I have seen that gentleman day after day leave the Chamber in his lovely fur hat and his lovely fur coat, with a big cigar, and get into a limousine and drive off. He refused to take any drop in income. How does that help the old
April 28, 1987

people of Canada? Our Prime Minister led by taking a drop in his income.
Let us not talk about that. Let us talk about what the NDP plans for farming. The way one can find out what a Party wants to do is by going to the resolutions that are on its books. We have all of the resolutions.
I wish to read for Members the NDP resolutions on farming. First, I will refer to something under the subtitle "Process of Planning". That sums up the NDP-the process of planning-since every socialist nation in the world believes in central planning. They believe that a small group can make decisions that will affect the masses, and the masses have to accept those decisions; and if the masses do not like the decision, then the system becomes more and more oppressive, and on it goes, as will become apparent when I read to you what the NDP has to say about farming.
Under the subtitle "The Process of Planning" they have an omnibus resolution on the future of the family farm. They recommend the "establishment of industrial plants to be cooperatively or publicly owned for the processing of food and the manufacture of farm supply items in the region of production".
There it is, Mr. Speaker: There is the nationalization; there is your Canagrex, plus.
And I can go on. The resolution goes on to state that related industries and services "should be encouraged through industrial estates and planned communities".
The NDP philosophy calls for collective estates and planned communities.
This is their resolution, Mr. Speaker. I would like to have them rise in this place and tell us-


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: You will find that type of planning in every major city in this country.


Blaine Allen Thacker: It goes on and on. If this is not the policy of the NDP, I invite them to rise in this place and say so.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: It is not terribly radical. Everybody has been doing it for some time.


Blaine Allen Thacker: If the policy of the NDP is not that well represented by the resolutions it has passed, what is that policy?
The resolution goes on to say that it might be necessary, as well, to take into public ownership "some existing farm supply retail operations, farm machinery assembly plants, meatpacking and canneries". If they wish me to cite the number of the resolution, it is D. 1.1.
That is the policy of the New Democratic Party. Why is it that the members of that Party are not telling people about that policy?


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: It is not-


Blaine Allen Thacker: When I tell my constituents about these policies, the immediate response is: "My God, I had no idea they stood for that type of thing. I didn't realize that they stand for abortion on demand". And that is right up to the day before the child is born. That is the NDP policy, and it is done through the injection of a saline solution into the amniotic fluid which burns the skin off the foetus.
That is the reality of the NDP policy. Once abortion is removed from the Criminal Code, that is what we are faced with; and that is what we are now telling people.
There was a time when the New Democratic Party could be ignored as a lunatic fringe. Now that it is up in the polls, people are starting to look at it, and we now have to tell people exactly what it stands for.
We can no longer afford to be smug about the New Democratic Party. It is a Party that is coming down in the polls, and it is going to come down real hard.
The proposals contained in this NDP resolution are tantamount to the state takeover of agriculture, with farmers taking their marching orders from Ottawa. We all know what that is like. I can remember the LIFT Program, where we were taking our orders from Ottawa.
For example, under this resolution, government bureaucrats would decide what equipment a farmer could buy, as they, to quote the resolution, "regulate the distribution, sale and servicing of farm machinery to promote standardization".
There it is again, Mr. Speaker: The NDP wants everybody to be exactly the same. They would not want to see private ownership of property for fear that someone might get ahead in this world.
I have had enough, Mr. Speaker, of the NDP. I cannot take it any more. But what about the Grits? They, too, have a resolution on agriculture. This is a resolution that is hot off the press, having come out only a couple of weeks ago.
The Liberals conducted a study on the western Canadian economy, coming out with some proposals-proposals which the media has had a fine time with, and quite properly so. Everybody sees these proposals for what they really are.
For the agriculture sector, here is what the Liberals say:
It is vital that the Canadian government take action that gives a clear message to both Canadian farmers and to the farmers and agricultural industries of other countries of the world that Canada is committed to remaining in the business of farming.
That is exactly what the Progressive Conservative Government has done.
In making this statement, what are the Liberals talking about? Are they talking about market share?
The paper goes on:
The Western Caucus recommends that the federal government consider efforts to rationalize our many and diverse federal and provincial agricultural programs so that our scarce resources can be put to maximum use-

April 28, 1987
In this proposal, Mr. Speaker, they use the word "rationalize"-and we all know what that means. It means "to cut back". According to Webster's, "rationalize" means to provide plausible but untrue reasons for conduct. That is the Liberal Party of Canada. That is the misinformation and false material that they have been putting out for years and years.
But what is it they are going to rationalize? Which programs will they cut out? Will they cut out the Western Grain Stabilization Act? Will they cut out the Agricultural Stabilization Act? Are they going to cut out crop insurance, the dairy policy, the marketing products boards?
These are all "safety net" programs serving western Canada, and indeed all of Canada, in a very fine way; and yet, the Liberal Party is going to "rationalize" them. It is going to take these programs away.
Are they going to take away the Farm Fuels Tax Relief Program? Are they going to take away the capital gains exemption? They certainly will. Every farmer in this country, every small business person in this country needs to understand that the moment a Liberal or NDP Government is elected, they will lose their capital gains exemption.
This very thing happened in Ontario. The first thing the Liberal Government did in Ontario was to take away the capital gains exemption, thus taking away one of the fundamental rights of the citizens of this country.
Because of the policy of the Progressive Conservative Government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Mul-roney, every citizen of Canada has the opportunity to amass $500,000 in capital exempt of taxation.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: There was a capital gains exempt program in place in Saskatchewan long before the federal program.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, once an individual accumulates $500,000 in capital exempt of taxation, he or she will no longer need government hand-outs. No NDP Government will be able to influence them. With $500,000 in accumulated capital, Canadians would be able to stick their fingers up at an NDP Government and tell that Government to get out of their lives.
But that is not what the Liberals and the NDP want. If they have people in senior citizens' housing, if they have them in public housing, if they have them on welfare and on child care payments, they have them exactly where they want them. If one needs the cheque that one is receiving from Government, that individual has to be respectful toward the Government.
Under a Progressive Conservative Government, we have the opportunity to build our own estates, and even ordinary Canadians can build an estate worth $500,000 very easily, and they will; and once they do so, they can be free of Government.
It is for that reason, Mr. Speaker, that we need a Progressive Conservative Government, not only for the current four-year term, but for at least two more terms. If that comes to pass, we will truly get this country turned around.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, at the outset, let me say that I appreciate the opportunity, at 4.27 in the morning, to join in the debate that faces the grain farmers of our country, and particularly those in western Canada.
We have heard a great deal of nonsense from the last two Progressive Conservative speakers, who chose to talk about the crisis primarily by attacking us and the Liberals as being opposed to considering what actually needs to be done for the farmers of Canada.
I suspect that the farmers of Canada will see through that kind of guff, turfing Progressive Conservatives out at the next opportunity, as the public opinion polls across Canada suggest will happen.
There is certainly a crisis in agriculture in Canada, and that becomes apparent in an overwhelming way when one tours any of the agricultural parts of our country. I had the opportunity to spend the last week of February in southern Manitoba. In fact, I started out in the riding of the Member responsible for the Wheat Board, the riding of Portage-Marquette, and went south and west from there.
I very quickly discovered the sense that farmers have of no one dealing very effectively with the problems that they face in the production of grains. Our farmers are looking about desperately for answers. Instead of being used for partisan gain, the farmers of Canada want their Members of Parliament to consider real solutions to their problems, thus enabling them to carry on their operations.
The Hon. Member for Selkirk-Interlake (Mr. Holtmann) wondered about the amount of experience in farming that might exist within the New Democratic Party caucus. I say, with pride, that I grew up on a Manitoba farm. Before going off to the University of Manitoba, I lived on a mixed farm in southern Manitoba. I know what it is like to work the grease gun, to drive a tractor, to care for pigs, and to do the various things that are required in a farming operation. 1 have to admit, of course, that it has been years since I have had the pleasure of working on a farm and experiencing first-hand what is involved. To be away from the farm is not necessarily to be removed from the problems, the challenges, and the recognition of the importance of agriculture and the need to come to grips with the situation facing us today.
We in Thunder Bay have a very large interest in prairie agriculture. We move more than half of the grain grown on the Prairies year by year, or at least we want to move more than half of it. We have 1,200 workers-and not many years ago we used to have 1,800 workers-moving from 20 million to 25 million tonnes of grain each season. We have our own interest in agriculture and our own reason to be concerned about the situation facing us now.
April 28, 1987

The Hon. Member for Selkirk-Interlake had something to say about the contrasting record of the prairie provinces in dealing with the farm situation facing them. It is worth recognizing that the Province of Manitoba has a much smaller farming area than is true in Saskatchewan and Alberta. That would immediately suggest that expenditures on agriculture would be a smaller proportion of the budget in Manitoba than is true of the two provinces to the west.
However, it is worth recognizing that in the Province of Saskatchewan the Conservative Government became involved in one of the most incredible pieces of buying itself power which we have seen in a long time. The loans offered to Saskatchewan farmers before the last provincial election amounted to well over $1 billion in total. They went to farmers whether or not they needed them.
It is a scandal of the program that farmers took the money and put it in the bank in order to earn interest on it. They knew that they would have to pay less interest than the bank was paying. They used taxpayers' money to give themselves a bit more of a cushion.
In some cases farmers who have been at it for a long time do not have the burden of interest which oppresses so many of the younger ones. For farmers in reasonable circumstances, this was a nice addition to their incomes.
I was in Saskatchewan a few weeks ago. I was told that one of the results was-and it was on the front pages of the newspapers-that communities and cities in Saskatchewan were facing cut-backs in provincial government expenditures. Of course the consequence was incredible unrest among the people of Saskatchewan in its cities, towns, and perhaps country areas.
In fact, I was told that the Conservative Government in Saskatchewan was hesitating to recall the Legislature because of the reaction to what it was doing as a result of its incredible deficit. Thanks to the farm program, a total of $1.2 billion or more had been added to the deficit. That Conservative Government faced the possibility that as many as half a dozen MLAs might cross to the opposition benches to sit as independents. In such circumstances the Government would lose the majority which it had just spent an incredible amount of taxpayers' dollars trying to win.
That kind of politics or that kind of assistance to agriculture is incredible. Farmers cannot have any respect for it. It is simply incredible that an agricultural economist, as Premier of a province, could indulge in that kind of political adventurism with the resources of a province. It is just an indication which matches the kind of partisanship we have seen in the last two Conservative speeches. They are prepared to do anything in order to maintain power and, in the process, achieve only a short-term answer to the difficulties facing us.
When I was in Manitoba in the last week of February I was struck by the fact that there is a diversity in the experience of farmers. For example, there are those involved in the dairy industry who are not doing all that badly. There are those
farmers who have been able to take advantage of supply management arrangements as a result of thinking ahead and the kind of planning which New Democrats, in the resolutions in our policy book, have put forward over the years. Those farmers find themselves able to carry on.
In dealing with the crisis facing us in agriculture these days, it seems to me that the beginning of wisdom is to recognize the need to consider the possibilities of supply management in other sectors of agriculture beyond dairy, egg and poultry production and so on where we have seen successful application of marketing boards in various provinces.
It is not easy to consider supply management for grain production when the grain growing areas of the Canadian west have flourished in many years on the basis of production for world markets. Considering the possibility of managing the world's supply as Canadian Governments have done for many years in the past through international wheat agreements seems almost impossible these days. There is no point in wasting breath on partisan rhetoric when the first problem faces us.
Subsidization of production in the United States and in Europe-in fact it is in many countries of the world-has created a situation of over-supply and has driven down prices to such an extent that prairie farmers who have gloried in growing grain for the markets of the world find themselves unable to sell their products at any kind of remunerative price.
I must confess that in visiting with farmers in Manitoba in February and talking with them about their situations these circumstances were driven home to me particularly. No matter what crop one took, if it was a grain crop designed or destined for large commercial markets, the prices farmers expected to receive for production were driven home. Of course the announcement this week of 18 per cent less than the level of last year only underscored the urgency of the situation. The distressing or profoundly shocking reality of the industry was that for crop after crop one could look at the value of output per acre and discover that it would not match the cost of production, the cost of various inputs, particularly the fuel, chemicals, and fertilizers required in order to produce grain on the basis that farmers presently produce it.
I talked with one large commercial farmer in Winkler who showed me the calculations he had made in the days before I was there. In crop after crop he expected that, on the basis of a good yield and at the prices one could expect at that point, he would be losing from $15 to $50 per acre.
That of course is the brute reality which has had the Hon. Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo) and the Hon. Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse) calling upon the Government, almost day by day, to make clear to farmers what it would do to ensure that they can cover the costs of production in this season and be assured of it at the time they made their decisions to seed.

April 28, 1987
If one faces that kind of situation, what is the logical thing to do? It would be not to grow anything. When a grain farmer can plan reasonably in February, 1987 to make a profit only on the certified seed business-and of course there is a small number of farmers who are able to do that-we recognize how serious is this crisis. It is a crisis which has resulted from the grotesque subsidization policies of the United States and in other countries as well. That is at the root of the difficulty. Clearly having international discussions with the various Governments concerned to cut back on these things to do the rationalizing which the Hon. Member for Lethbridge- Foothills (Mr. Thacker) was disparaging a few minutes ago when he was looking at one of our resolutions, to come to some kind of reason in these areas, surely it is a kind of lunacy to disparage it when that is exactly what is required. It will not be easy to do that. There is always the possibility in the present circumstances that the grain which Canadian farmers want to produce will not be saleable in these next years because it is not actually needed on the world markets, almost aside from the policies of the United States, the European Economic Community and other countries.
1 hesitate a bit to say that because there is by no means an end to starvation on the globe. Rather the contrary. The debt situation in which various countries find themselves is such that they do not have the resources these days to buy food. Of course what we find in many cases is the production of cash crops in these countries for export in a desperate desire to earn the foreign exchange they need to meet the interest payments on the borrowing which they did in years past. Those activities require rationalization.
What we need is to come to grips with the international debt crisis facing us these days. It was made so much worse by the interest rate depression of the early 1980s which loaded countries down as it loaded Canadian farmers down with the enormous debt. We need to recognize that we are sliding toward depression rather than moving to prosperity. That requires intelligent thought, not partisan wrangling of the sort we have had here this morning.
If it becomes clear that prairie farmers can grow far more than we are going to be able to sell this year over the next five or 10 years-I should not try to add up the years into the future because it becomes too difficult to know those things- but if it is not possible to sell anything like the kind of output we can achieve, then what are we going to do about it? What are the possibilities that we can deal with the human dimensions, the environmental dimensions, the economic social dimensions of the problems that face us? What are the possibilities that we can come up with means to enable older farmers whose expectation just a few years ago was that their pension would be drawn from the sale of their lands? That is why we New Democrats are determined to maintain the capital gains exemption for the family farm, because it is exactly that. It is a source of the farmer's retirement income so
he can sell his farm and buy a new one or do whatever he will with the money that results from the sale.
What if it is not possible for an older farmer to do that any longer? I met farmers in Manitoba who were desperately anxious about that happening to them. What are we going to do about younger farmers, the people who entered the industry in the last few years, those who were encouraged by professors and faculties of agriculture in various places, such as the University of Manitoba, to do it big, who had bank managers encouraging them to load up with debt and to go with the most advanced kind of agriculture which is incredibly capitalintensive, who then found the Bank of Canada following faithfully behind the Federal Reserve Board of the United States? The Canadian Government allowed the Farm Credit Corporation to do the same thing. The Liberal Government did nothing to reduce the impact on farmers of loading them down with incredible burdens of debt. What are we going to do when these young farmers find themselves faced with a Government allowing the Farm Credit Corporation to lift a moratorium on foreclosures?
The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) may do his best to minimize the number of farmers who are affected. My God, what will these young farmers do when they find themselves faced with banks and the Farm Credit Corporations approaching them? I got one sense of the desperation, the change in mentality. Conservative Members of Parliament may still think they know what is going around them in the prairie provinces. Farmers are prepared, in Manitoba at least, to think about the possibility of land banking arrangements of various sorts that they would not have thought of a few years ago because they face the possibility now of farming bank land and not owning the land any longer. In those circumstances what is one going to do about that situation?
These Conservative MPs may still think they know what is going around them in the prairie provinces. What are the possibilities of using various pro agricultural programs which the federal and provincial Governments have? What are the possibilities of taking the crop insurance schemes, the western grain stabilization arrangements, the special grains programs as an instance of what the Government can do as a kind of one-shot special program? The farmers are desperately anxious these days that it might be pretty close to a one shot arrangement. The politics of it will force the Government into doing something similar, I am sure, for the next crop year, but how long will it be before the farmers know what that action is?
What are the possibilities that these various arrangements could be integrated into a plan that would not necessarily cost any more than is presently the case but that could be operated on the basis of a crop insurance and a price assurance scheme?
What are the possibilities that through the offices already existing for crop insurance we add to the activity there and to the arrangements without necessarily adding very much to the cost in order to provide the farmer with protection both against natural disasters, which will occur some of the time, and
April 28, 1987

against the consequences of the kind of price decline we have these days?
Across the West a great deal of thought has been given to these plans. The great grain growing Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta, even more than Manitoba, are areas in which Governments and farmers and their organizations are wrestling with these questions. Instead of serving up all the partisan guff we have had last night and this morning, why is the Government not considering the possibility of doing something in the way of long-term planning, if you will? If planning is a dirty word, come up with some other word that assures farmers that their needs will be met.
I want to say in addition that the speech made by my colleague, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie), in which he talked about environmental concerns seems to me immediately relevant when I note that the Agricultural Institute of Canada in a presentation it made to all three of the federal caucuses here in Ottawa not very long ago declared the need for an effective strategy to halt and reverse the long-term effects of soil degradation. It recognized that although many current practices are effective in controlling soil degradation, they are frequently uneconomical in the short term. This means that innovative soil and crop management practices combining soil conservation measures with sound economics must be developed, and the performance of these must be monitored beyond the first few years. That surely points to another of the directions in which we should be going.
Surely if the soil itself is in question, the basis for agriculture in the long term is also profoundly in question. What we want to do is to consider the possibility that we might bring our supply down to a level which would match the market in Canada and abroad while at the same time we provide farmers with the financial resources required in order to allow this land to be restored.
I want to suggest seriously the reduction of acreage in order to reduce production with the intention of renewing the soil, taking land that is being cropped year after year with the use of chemicals, the summer following having been abandoned. We should consider ways in which that soil could restore itself over several years perhaps but be out of production in the process of restoring itself. Surely in the present circumstances that is the kind of thing that should be done. We might remember that it was in the "dirty thirties" of the Great Depression and drought experience of the 1930s that the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act was passed and the Canadian Government began to provide resources for that.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member. I see that he has not completed his speech. Is it the pleasure of the House to allow him a few more minutes to continue?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Abram Ernest Epp: The PFRA activities over the years have been very important in restoring land in areas where the kind of cropping that has been taking place previously did not make sense.
S00)
I would suggest that that instance from half a century ago is one that we might well keep in mind today as we recognize what the agrologists are telling us, which is that we need to deal with soil degradation. Surely taking land out of production in order to bring us closer to producing a crop that can meet Canadian needs and find sales abroad, combined with a crop-insurance and a price-assurance scheme, would provide a long-term plan for agriculture. The farmers are desperate for that sort of a plan.
I was struck by the urgency of one of the constituents of the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board who swept the Liberal proposals off the table with the back of his hand. He recognized that the Special Grains Program was something more than a mandate though it had not been as carefully targeted and well carried out as it might have been. He said that we need progressive planning for agriculture. On the basis of what I have heard tonight, we are not getting that planning from Conservative Members. I urge the Government to take up the thoughts that I have put forward, though they are hardly original to me. I have listened to farmers carefully, talked with them about the situation and recognized the good sense of what they were saying.
Let us get together with the provinces. Let us realize that we need a long-term plan for agriculture and let us get it by doing something. The Minister responsible for the Wheat Board is himself a farmer in Manitoba. Surely Members like that have the sense to know that this must be done. I hope he has the clout in Cabinet required to move the Government toward just that kind of future for grain growers, a future that might match the reasonable prosperity farmers in various other sectors have experienced thanks to the supply management programs worked out over the years by marketing boards.


William (Bill) Gottselig: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise this morning at three minutes after 5 a.m. to add my words to this debate that has been going on since early last evening. I would first like to comment on some of the speeches that have been made and particularly on the speech made by the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme).
The Hon. Member for Saint-Denis is a very experienced parliamentarian and certainly speaks very eloquently in both official languages. I thought he made a very reasoned presentation, pointing out the difficulty facing Government when dealing with this crisis in agriculture. He pointed out that regardless of the Party in power, it is a very large problem and one that will cause a good deal of difficulty for a Government.
I thought the reasoned approach the Hon. Member took and the way he expressed his feelings did him credit as a parliamentarian. That type of debate is more needed more often

April 28, 1987
than debate containing the rhetoric in which we often engage and the interchange back and forth across the Chamber. Tonight, though, I thought that some of the very friendly interchange that went on across the floor added greatly to the debate.
The problem with which we are faced has been highlighted many times, not only in this Chamber but certainly around the country. The Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon (Mr. Epp) who just spoke made mention of the fact that he was in southern Manitoba last week in the riding of the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board. I myself have had meetings in my riding,
I recently attended a meeting that dealt with a railway problem and the problem of wheat prices and farm financing came up at that time. I heard about the crisis, the extreme interest rates some people are paying and the cost of servicing those debts. I heard of the difficulties that are being caused by the cost price squeeze in which agriculture is involved.
The problem has been highlighted over and over again. It is generally agreed that this problem began in the early 1980s with the high interest rates of the time. Last week, while I was driving to my constituency office in Moose Jaw, I happened to be listening to a CBC radio program on which a group of farmers from Manitoba were discussing their spring planting plans and the financial situations on their farms which varied from small farms to very large farms. As I recall, the largest farm had 2,500 seeded acres. The only farm that was not in extreme financial stress was the small farm because it had absolutely no debt. This farm was owned by a lady and the land was farmed by her son. She made mention of the fact that they were in no difficulty because they had no debt load. The actual cash cost of operation was the only cost they had to bear. They did not have a big mortgage to service.
One of the other farmers had a large mortgage to service and he made mention of the fact that his troubles began in the early 1980s with the high interest rates. That is a story that is very familiar to me. I often hear it from constituents of mine and from other Members who relate stories their constituents have told them. The problem is the inability of producers to service their debts based on today's costs, the cost price squeeze.
Many of us came through the high-interest years. 1 am a farmer and I still operate a grain farm in Saskatchewan. As a matter of fact, I was on my tractor on Monday getting ready to plant the 1987 crop.
Another fallacy that is being promoted by the media, by some agricultural groups and certainly by some opposition Members is that land will lie idle this year. I can assure the House that in the area of Saskatchewan with which I am familiar, the south central portion of Saskatchewan more commonly known as the federal constituency of Moose Jaw, I do not know of one acre that will not be planted this year.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Good land.


William (Bill) Gottselig: My colleague, the Hon. member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Clark), has mentioned that it is good land and it is. He knows that very well. I am sure he has some real estate in that area. It is a great part of Saskatchewan and the land there is very, very productive. It is farmed by people who for the most part are second or third-generation farmers whose ancestors came from overseas, as did mine. My grandfather came to Regina in 1901 and farmed in that area. My father farmed there all his life and I am now farming some of the land my father farmed. The land means something to me. I feel great compassion when constituents relate the difficulties they are having servicing their debts.
It is often said that these farmers must make management decisions. That may be so, but they make those decisions after consultation with bank managers, farm credit field men or people who counsel them to buy land. Often they make the decision on the basis of interest rates that were reasonable at the time but later almost doubled. A lot of farm mortgages that I am aware of went from 12 per cent to 18 per cent, 19 per cent and 20 per cent. An operation that was viable at 12 per cent simply is not viable at 20 per cent. There is absolutely no way you can service that debt.
You really cannot say that the producer made the management decision. He made the decision at 12 per cent, but he certainly did not anticipate interest rates getting to the level they did. He was probably told by a bank or some other financial institution that he probably did not have to worry about interest rates getting to that level.
When we talk about this production problem we have, I want to point out that my area of Saskatchewan has very, very productive land. With any kind of break at all in the weather, with some rain, and we do not need a lot if we get it at the right time, we produce abundant yields. We must export about 90 per cent of our production. For us export is a necessity and a very large part of our operation. The European Economic Community has an over-production of only about 20 per cent. That means mountains of butter and grain and beef and all those other commodities, but it is only a 20 per cent problem for them. The Americans also consume much more of their produce than we do. They do not have the same problem. The Americans and the EEC are both determined to bring the other to its knees. They are going to have this shoot-out in the international market-place and we are caught in the middle. We know that we simply do not have the treasury to fight this subsidy battle. There is just no way we can take them on. Our treasury will not stand it.
Having said that, we have to put something in place and we have done several things. The most recent thing we did, I guess, was put in place the special Canadian grains program. We put $1 billion into the farm economy. That money went to grain producers. It was certainly a big help, and that commitment was made by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney). We are not going to abandon agriculture this year. We did not
April 28, 1987

abandon it last year. We changed the western grain stabilization process over the last two years and made record pay-outs.
One of the most important things we have done is to get the major world grain exporters to sit down at the table and discuss the subsidy problem. We had the chairman and two other Members of the British House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture here last fall and they appeared before our Standing Committee on Agriculture. They admitted that the subsidy war had to end. Even in Europe they were not going to be able to keep up the subsidy forever. The problem there is that it is part of their social policy. Some members of the EEC are involved in elections each year. If there was even a hint of the farm subsidy program being cut back or dropped, Governments would fall.
We are all political people in this House, I presume. We know that in order to accomplish programs, you must remain in power. That is the number one rule. So, to get them dealing with this problem will take some negotiations at a very high level, and I think it is to the credit of our Prime Minister and the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) that these discussions have been initiated. They are dealing with the problem at the highest level in the GATT negotiations.
We have kept up our grain markets. Certainly we have had to meet the competition. That is the reality of the day. Anyone who is an agriculture producer in Canada today must certainly be aware of the uncertainty in the international market-place. I spoke to many of my constituents before the last initial price of grain was announced. They were anticipating a decrease. Everyone felt it had to come. There had to be a decrease in the price to meet world competition today. However, they also stress the need for a special Canadian grains program this year. Certainly I have voiced that concern to the Ministers at our agriculture and national caucuses. Other Members have as well. We are well aware of the necessity to put in place a special Canadian grains program again this year.
We are told that farmers are going to get anywhere from $25,000 to $35,000 this year in direct government subsidies. Granted that is not enough, but think of the stress there would be if we did not put that money in place. We are never going to be able to put out enough money that people would finally say yes, it is enough. However, within the fiscal restraints placed upon us we must look after our agricultural producers. Agriculture is the front line in any country, and having an adequate food supply is necessary.
We also know that the high quality wheat we produce sells very well year in and year out. Through the Canadian Wheat Board we have gained a far larger share of the world market than other countries. At the Agriculture Outlook Conference last year here in Ottawa we had a professor from a U.S. university who mentioned the fact that although the Americans had much more grain, it was of a lower quality and was not selling as well as ours. He said in a tight market situation we are actually gaining a much larger share because of the high quality grain we produce. He commended us for stressing
high quality and remaining competitive by producing that high quality. Both Americans and the EEC are producing varieties of grain which produce more bushels, although of a lower quality, in order to get the maximum subsidy. We have maintained a consistent quality in our hard red wheats and that is something we are going to continue. The high-protein wheat is in great demand. It is selling well and commanding a premium price in a tight world market. We have to continue with that.
We have done several things, one of the really important ones being the lowering of the price of fuel. The average farm in Saskatchewan is 1,000 to 1,200 acres. The reduction we brought about in the price of fuel means that on a 1,200-acre farm the saving amounts to $5,000. That amount in today's tight economy is a lot. That is one of the very real things we have done. The lower interest rates we have today represent a considerable saving to agricultural producers. There is hardly a farmer today who does not have to get an operating loan some time during the year.
People tell me that they never used to have to be concerned with operating loans but that now, because of increasing costs, some time during the year they need to have operating money. They have to go to the bank first thing in the spring and arrange for operating money to plant the crops. The special Canada Grains Program which is coming out, the Western Grain Stabilization Program, and the fact that we are moving grain at record levels this year will assist producers greatly in dealing with those costs.
The Minister responsible for the Wheat Board recently returned from a trip to the Soviet Union. While there he made some excellent contacts with the Russians, resulting in the firming up of some of the long-term sales agreements we have. We have some long-term sales agreements with Brazil as well. We amended the Western Grain Transportation Act. The projected rate would have been $11 per tonne under the formula which was in place when the Liberals were in power. We have reduced that to an average rate of $6 per tonne.
I would like to quote the responses of some farm papers to some of the programs which were announced by the federal Government. The Manitoba Co-operator of May, 1986, commented on the farm package which was announced by the Prime Minister. It said:
It is a far cry from former Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau who told prairie grain growers: "Why should I sell your wheat?" ... It is also unlikely Trudeau would have vowed to bring up agricultural problems at the economic summit or talked about the need for government action on them.
I believe that represents a very solid endorsement from a newspaper with a rural voice.
Ray Guay, commenting on the rural transition program said:
In short, the program is pure common sense and will help only those who have no choice but to leave the farm.

April 28, 1987
Barry Wilson was quoted in The Western Producer, another rural newspaper.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I notice that the Hon. Member has not completed his speech. 1 gather it is the will of the House to allow him a few more minutes to conclude. The Hon. Member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Gottselig) may continue.


William (Bill) Gottselig: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I was saying, Barry Wilson was quoted in The Western Producer of May 15, 1986, with regard to the Prime Minister's agricultural initiative. He said:
It-marked the first time in at least six years that a Prime Minister devoted a
press conference primarily to agricultural issues.
That speaks well of our Prime Minister, the record of our Government, and the input which western Members of Parliament have.
The representation which the Conservative Government has from western Canada and the Ministers from western Canada who have very key portfolios are an indication of why agriculture is getting the additional attention and cash which it is receiving. I think that demonstrates very clearly that we have a strong commitment to agriculture.
We recognize the need to provide assistance to agriculture, which is a very troubled sector at this time. As the Member for Saint-Denis mentioned in his remarks, next year it could be the Maritimes and after that it could be central Canada. The areas that need special attention because they are going through particularly stressful times must be addressed. Our record in that regard speaks for itself. It is a good record and shows a commitment to agriculture by the Prime Minister and all Members on the government side of the House.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, 1 would like to begin with a few complimentary words for the Member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Gottselig) who made a very straightforward and sincere speech. He is obviously quite well informed about conditions in the Saskatchewan economy. Two key points which were stressed by the Member deserve to be emphasized.
The first is that the 12 per cent management decision which gets translated to a 20 per cent interest rate situation is an extremely difficult situation for any farmer to face. That is something which the House has not yet sufficiently addressed in order to reverse that situation and make it possible for good farmers who made a correct management decision at the 12 per cent interest level to get back to the point where they can once more make decisions without the huge debt overhang which the change to 20 per cent eventually brought about.
The second point which the Hon. Member made was what he called the international shoot-out which is taking place in the grain trade. There is absolutely no doubt that such a situation exists. However, the Member went on to say that our treasury obviously cannot' afford to respond to that. My comment in response is that this country, this treasury, and this society cannot afford not to respond to that situation. If
we fail to make sufficient response to that international shootout there will be a great many family farms going down the drain, a great many people badly hurt, and our economy, which depends on good solid economic conditions in the farm sector, will be in much worse shape.
This is not only a western problem. I am not trying to suggest that it is not a western problem. Western farmers are facing immense difficulties. However, I want to make it clear that in Essex County in southwestern Ontario farmers are feeling precisely the same kinds of economic stress, the same kinds of pressures, and the same sense of frustration and fear as is being felt throughout western Canada. We conducted a survey of farm families within my constituency, concentrating on farm women in particular. I have 200 or 300 of the survey results in the House this morning in which the responses are consistent.
One family says that they feel very much under pressure and that it is the financial crunch which is causing that sense of stress. When they were asked what issues are of most concern to them as part of the farming community, they responded that they wanted to make a decent living to survive. That answer was given by a farm family from Pointe aux Roches.
Another farm family from Stoney Point responded that the issue of most concern was the price of produce and a need for low interest rates.
The response from Maidstone suggested that the main issue was crop prices, the price of machinery repair, and fair marketing boards. The response from Wheatley asked for adequate income. That family states: "We have sold one-third of our operation just to remain solvent".
A response from Tilbury states that the price of our crops, bank interest rates, keeping input costs down of fertilizers, sprays and fuel were the main issues.
Another response from Wheatley states better prices and lower interest rates. A response from Comber is for better pricing on grains, fairer taxes for farmers, and better farm insurance rates.
Another response from Comber identifies commodity pricing, better marketing of crops and so on as primary issues. I could go on to list a whole set of responses to the surveys, but these responses form a clear picture of serious impending disaster which faces a great part of our farm community in Essex County.
Earlier this year in Essex County we conducted a farm forum to give farmers and farm organizations across the county an opportunity to speak both with our provincial and federal agricultural and trade representatives. There were 16 organizations from the whole breadth of commodity groups speaking to us. These groups included the National Farmers Union, the Essex County Federation of Agriculture and groups of farm women.
April 28, 1987

The message which they placed before us was one of extreme urgency. First, they felt that the deficiency payment which had been made especially by the Government-the so-called $1 billion which the Member who just spoke suggested had done so much to solve the distress in the farm community-had simply not been nearly enough to try to meet the debt pressure, price pressure and cost of production pressure which farms in my community experience.
Soybean producers in particular suggested that the way in which that pay-out had been calculated, crop by crop, had not been sufficiently thought through to be fair to soybean producers, compared to those who were producing other commodities. They also expressed a tremendous concern about what would happen to them, their marketing boards, and their protection from low cost imports from the United States under a potential free trade arrangement with that country.
They stressed that help was very badly needed with respect to the debt crisis and that the Debt Review Boards which had been set up simply did not have enough power to be able to reach real solutions which would put them in a position to survive satisfactorily as effective farmers.
As part of that, they felt that more financing was required for the Farm Credit Corporation. They also stressed to us that it was necessary to have improved marketing structures for farm commodities and thereby gain improved pricing levels for crops across the board in this country.
Finally, they stressed to us that one of the promises which the Conservative Party made in the last campaign, to improve significantly the operation of Section 31 of the Income Tax Act to permit farm loss deductions from off-farm earnings, had not been carried through. They stated that it was crucial that this be done if farmers in Essex County were going to survive. We are facing a serious crisis that affects not only the west but Ontario as well. It is a crisis that is sure to continue.
On Monday, we had a meeting with a group of U.S. Congressmen, primarily from western states, who stressed very strongly to us that the U.S. Farm Bill will not disappear and that the Americans would not back away from the extremely high levels of subsidy they have been providing their farmers.
They stated that from their perspective the shoot-out in the international grain trade will continue and the assistance they are providing to American farmers, which is having such a devastating effect on prices for Canadian farmers, will continue to be a reality.
I do not question the sincerity of many government spokes-people who are trying to develop a response, but so far it has simply been inadequate. As the Ontario Federation of Agriculture told us just yesterday morning, with respect to Debt Review Boards, there are simply not enough enforcement mechanisms to permit the debt review process, first, to establish a clear-cut agreement in the case of a farmer who faces high debt, and second, to turn to the courts if necessary to ensure that some kind of debt relief is achieved for that farmer.
There is simply not enough done with respect to fighting back with financial help to farmers in the face of the tremendous grain war which continues. It has not worked in the past sufficiently; at least that is the very strong message I receive from my farming community, and it is certainly not working so far as the future is concerned in that there has been no commitment made to this point. There has not even been an inference that deficiency payments, which are so crucial for this coming crop year, will again be made available by the Government.
With respect to input costs, we have not seen any action taken seriously to bring down the cost of inputs, especially fertilizers, which for many of the farmers in my community are a key part of their costs.
My farming families also look at free trade not as something that is going to assist them but as something which is a very serious threat to their future livelihood both because of the import competition which they will face from the United States and because they see it as a very serious threat to the future of their marketing board structures where these have been established.
Finally, we have to say that there has been a great deal of talk with respect to the problems of the international grain trade. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Minister for International Trade (Miss Carney) have talked a great deal about it. The Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) has also talked about it a great deal. Despite this, there has not been a single concrete step taken actually to do something about the serious problems of the international grain trade.
The story we heard in Uruguay at the GATT meetings that took place there was that our Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board had not pushed forcefully to try to get immediate and strong changes to improve the situation in the international grain trade. So I have to ask how much of the talk which is taking place is simply for rhetorical purposes and how much is a serious hard hitting effort to try to save Canadian farmers from the crunch they are facing?
When I think of the future, and as the farmers in my community think of the future, we look for action, and action of a definite and immediate character. We look for action first to establish orderly marketing arrangements for a much wider range of commodities. Second, we look for action with respect to giving much more strength and effectiveness to debt review boards. Third, we look for action to cut back the costs of inputs and, fourth, we look for action with respect to trying to reduce the threats which are coming from that international grain shoot-out which is taking place. Those are the challenges which face the Government. I have to say, looking at it from the perspective of my farming community, that the challenges have not been met. They are challenges which have to be met not just for the sake of farmers in Essex County, not just for the sake of farmers across Canada, but for the sake of a sound

April 28, 1987
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and effective economy and economic future for us as a country.


Mr. Bob Porter (Medicine Hat):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to be here this morning to take part in this debate. I think I can indicate to the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon) that we do take this debate in a serious manner. I think the fact that there are those of us here on the government side representing agriculture in such numbers indicates that we do have a commitment and concern.
I see it is about 16 minutes to six o'clock, which would be 15 minutes to four o'clock in Alberta, and that is about the time a lot of our people are getting up to go out on the land to do a lot of things. I have never gotten up in the House at this time of the day to do anything but I have done some strange things at this time in the morning. I have been in the livestock business and agriculture all of my adult life. I got into the cattle business when I was 18 years old, buying some cattle in the fall and seeing the price of that livestock cut in half with foot and mouth disease in February of the following year.
I listened to the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) indicate the background of his family as they moved west. A lot of us, I think, came from a similar background. My family went west in 1883 with the railway. They took out a homestead and developed a horse ranch. After the country was settled my family turned primarily to livestock production. Horses were needed in those early days as settlers came in to develop western Canada. Everyone needed a team and a saddle horse. We ran a lot of horses then and I still maintain the brand which was used in the early 1880s on our horses. We still run cattle with the same brand.
I have two sons at home who, if things are going well, should be getting ready to continue seeding again this morning. I have two sons who are producing grain and livestock on some of the same land their great great grandfather developed before the turn of the century. 1 think it goes to show that with good animal husbandry and a commitment to agriculture, we can ensure that another 100 years from now other generations will be making use of the same land which is so important to the development of agriculture.
I do agree with some of the comments made by Members of the New Democratic Party on soil degradation. It is important and we should look into it. But I get a little nervous at times when, after agreeing with Members of the NDP, they come back and say something which makes it very difficult to agree.
Speaking at this time of day, one thing I can tell, Mr. Speaker, and I do not know if it is appropriate in the House of Commons, but in the livestock business, a number of things work out better in the early morning. I spent 11 years breeding cattle artificially. I found that cows were more romantic at this time of day. It was easier to pick up a cow that was in heat. The other thing is that if one is moving cattle any distance this is the best time of day to do it. The sun will just be coming up and it will still be cool. The flies will not be too bad.
I found that I could move a little bull a lot further this time of day. I do not know whether it works the same in the House or not. In listening to speeches tonight I think it has become obvious in some cases that that may in fact be true.
I can sympathize with a great many of those people we are talking about tonight, those people who are in agriculture and who are in debt. As I indicated earlier, I have been in it all my life. I could also tell Hon. Members that I have probably been in debt most of that time as well. Most of us in agriculture have never been out of debt. We are either using operating capital or we are expanding. It has been difficult, I know, and I have met a great many of those farmers who will eventually meet with our farm debt review panels. The difficulties they face are as a result of a number of things, certainly the result of what we see happening on the world market.
A great many problems in the country would go away with $6 wheat and $25 oil, problems created outside Canada, but also problems to which the Government has attempted to react in both of these areas. More measures have been taken in these areas. I think people in western Canada will appreciate, knowing the difficulties they are in at the present time, that the Government has tried to do its utmost to bring forward programs which, in some cases, have been emergency programs. The Hon. Member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker) talked about the drought program in particular. These are programs which respond to matters about which we cannot make forecasts.
Those of us who have been in agriculture, and this is where I probably take exception to some of the comments made by members of the New Democratic Party, realize that there are no guarantees. I guess we are in agriculture to do the best we can to make a living, to try to do what is best in the region in which we live to take advantage of the climate and soil conditions to produce livestock, grain, hogs, whatever it may be, and to make the best use of it. But nobody ever said that there was a guarantee because you wanted to be a farmer.
I think we have seen that in the business sector. People in other areas have come to realize that we do take some risks. It is risk-takers who developed the country. If there had not been people willing to go west in the early 1880s when the country was developed, people willing to take risks without any of the guarantees that we seem to need in place today, then this country would never have developed into the type of land about which we, as Canadians, can be proud.
I am sure that a great many things can go wrong when one is in the agricultural sector. Some 20 years ago this month we had a severe storm in southern Alberta. I am sure some Members will remember the spring of 1967 when feed was airlifted by helicopter into the Foothills. I recall it very vividly. We were almost through calving at that time. The weather was not that cold and we had about a foot and a half of heavy wet snow. The sun was high, as it is at this time of year. In my case the sun happened to come out, which reflected on the snow. I
April 28, 1987

had Hereford cattle. The udders of the cows were sunburned and before the situation was over we had lost 75 cows. Those are the types of things that can happen. Good management could not have made any difference in that situation.
I think a great many people who were hurt, certainly more than I was at the time, felt it was part of the risk one takes in being in the real world of business. I do not think anyone ran to Government for help. They tried to do the best they could. But we are in a different situation now. Certainly, much of it is caused by the financial crisis in which we have found ourselves. Almost all of us in agriculture are still paying off the debt from the times when interest rates were as high as 23 per cent and 24 per cent. I had cattle in the feedlot. A feed bill which had to be paid regardless of the interest rate came in every month. I am still paying that debt, as I am sure many people are.
The ones who are having the difficulty, and I have met with them as I said earlier, are a great many young farmers who have come into my constituency office. It is the young farmers who got into agriculture in the late 1970s who have been hurt. Other established farmers, probably through good management, saw their way clear to be able to expand and did go out and use money that was expensive at the time to buy land that was extremely expensive. I think Hon. Members will realize that the price of land from Valuation Day went up dramatically from 1971. In some cases it went up five and six times as much as it had been when we valued that land for tax purposes in 1971. If there was someone here to recall it from the Official Opposition they would remember what happened when capital gains came in. Capital gains did a number of things. I can tell Hon. Members that it did a number on agriculture. What it did was help to escalate the price of land.
When credit was relatively easy to obtain and a piece of land came up for sale, the person selling the land, after consulting with his accountant, felt that whatever he needed out of it he needed after the capital gains tax was paid. So that was added on. It was added on again and again and again. The land in parts of southern Alberta that was valued at $12,000 a quarter, by the late 1970s, by 1978, was hitting around $40,000 and peaked at about $75,000 to $80,000. That was about the top. It is on its way back down now. At that price, with high interest rates, there is nothing that one can produce in agriculture that would sustain it. I am surprised that the situation went on for as long as it did before we reached a point of collapse. I suppose some people who are in this serious financial situation could have survived, but a great many of them were very badly hurt.
I think that those people who have complained about the $500,000 capital gains exemption should sit and listen to some of the people who tried to sell out prior to the exemption being put in place. There were elderly people who wanted to sell out and transfer their land to the next generation. However, because of taxes, because of some of the debt load they were carrying, there was very little left by the time they liquidated the farm and paid off the debt that most farms carry, as well
as the capital gains. So it certainly had an effect on agriculture.
The fact is that the capital gains exemption has been put in place for all Canadians. It should be an incentive to Canadians to work to invest. There is something about having initiative. I do not think initiative is a dirty word on this side of the House. I do not think guts or backbone are, either. I think it takes people who are willing to get out and work. If one does and if one is successful then probably one should have the right to enjoy some of the rewards of that success.
I think those are the things to which Canadians can look forward. We have gone through numerous programs, and a great many other Members have commented on the programs that the Government has put in place. I have listened to members of the Opposition who have criticized most of the areas in which we brought in programs.
I went to the presentation that was made in the case of the Liberals, something called "Directions for the West". It was put out by the Liberal western caucus. I believe there were two Members of the Commons and about 10 or 11 from the other place who went out and held a series of hearings and came up with a long list. It is a good page long and the last page summarizes some of the problems. I think we are all aware of these problems. Some of the recommendations have already been commented upon. I would hope that they would not bring forward a program similar to the LIFT program they put in place in 1971, the full name of that program being Lower Inventory For Tomorrow.
I had a permit book at that time, and still do. Some aerial photographs were taken of my land, and I received a letter from Winnipeg stating that my permit book did not match with the expert analysis done as a result of the aerial photographs that were taken. I was asked to make the necessary corrections in my permit book. They had inadvertently included some of my neighbour's land and some land that had been used to raise horses.
That program was brought in as the answer to some problems that existed at that time. Certainly, it created additional problems. It did not do anything for the agricultural sector-other than perhaps leading to a change of Ministers.
The Liberal policy paper talks about ensuring that "returns from grain production in the new crop year will at least equal the level of the 1986-87 crop year".
It asks that we make initial payments at some level that has nothing whatsoever to do with the market-place, and nothing to do with reality, thus depriving those in agriculture of some indication of the direction in which things are going. We need only look to Europe to realize the problems that can result from such an approach.
If you have $6 a bushel wheat, $7 a bushel wheat, $8 a bushel wheat, people are going to grow it until it literally buries them-and that is exactly what has happened.

April 28, 1987
There seems to be a real problem in having the public understand what we are talking about when we speak of initial payments, final payments, stabilization payments, and deficiency payments. The public does not seem to realize that, in most cases, these payments represent the moneys due to the farmers for the products sold.
Certainly, the market price has to be there to indicate the reality of the market. Looking back to last year and what happened to barley, of the $203 million deficit that we saw, $179 million was attributable to the problems in marketing barley.
That meant that livestock producers in Canada were paying 75 cents a bushel more to use Canadian barley to feed Canadian livestock in Canada than we were selling that barley for on world markets.
This is the type of thing that we have to be very careful of. It is fortunate that the livestock situation turned around. Elad our livestock producers been losing money in addition to paying that premium for barley, we would have heard a lot more from that sector.
The Liberal policy paper also speaks of maintaining the current freeze on grain freight rates charged to farmers.
Had we continued with the Liberal structure, those rates would now be somewhere around $11 a tonne.
Another proposal is to reduce farm input costs "through methods that include measures to deal with high chemical prices". What did the Liberals do in this regard? They switched to the metric system of measurement for chemical containers, with the result that we never knew the precise price or rate of application.
The last of the five proposals is as follows:
-in view of the worsening farm debt crisis, to provide greater assistance to preserve the family farm as the primary means of production and a vital part of rural Canadian life.
These are the recommendations flowing from the Liberal task force on the western Canadian economy. Those constitute the total sum and substance of what came out of that tour across western Canada.
Let me quote again from the Winnipeg Free Press of April 11, 1987, as follows:
The 17-page report is an empty document offering ringing declarations of discredited party policy, outright distortions of economic reality and not a single firm proposal which would make any significant difference to the economy of Western Canada.
The Liberal Party was in power for a great many years and had the opportunity to bring in all kinds of programs, and yet its members rise in this Chamber and criticize whatever this Government brings forward.
As the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) indicated earlier in this debate, this Government, in the last two and one half years, has brought in more programs for the agricultural sector than any past Government.
Let me now turn to the New Democratic Party. I have here a resolution reference, a document published last fall outlining a number of resolutions that that Party has in place-and I gather that they are current today. Under the subtitle "The Process of Planning" we have an omnibus resolution on the future of the family farm, recommending the "establishment of industrial plants to be co-operatively or publicly owned for the processing of food and the manufacture of farm supply items in the region of production".
The resolution goes on to say:
This industrialization in rural Canada would provide new employment and enable those who migrate out of farming to find alternative jobs within the region.
This Government has come up with the Rural Transition Program. It is not something that is intended to move people out of agriculture; rather, it is intended to give those in our agricultural sector the same opportunities that are taken for granted by people in other sectors of the Canadian economy. That is its only purpose.
Certainly, with funding of $46 million, it is not a rich enough program to cause people to flock out of agriculture. But for those who do-and there will always be people getting out of agriculture-the program is there to provide some assistance.
And why shouldn't the self-employed in agriculture have the same benefits that others in this country have taken for granted for years?
I see that my time is drawing to a close, Mr. Speaker. In the remaining time, I should like to highlight one or two other items arising from the resolutions of the New Democratic Party. Under the same subtitle, we have the following:
It might be necessary as well to take into public ownership some existing farm supply retail operations, farm machinery assembly plants, meat-packing and canneries.
1 can assure Hon. Members right now that as long as I am in the livestock business, I will be very reluctant to ever take a product that I have produced to a government-operated packing plant.
The same resolution goes on to recommend limits on farm sizes. It is the policy of the New Democratic Party to establish a public commission to determine a formula for a farm unit size on a unit basis.


William (Bill) Gottselig: Big Brother looking over our shoulders again.


Robert Harold Porter: How would you like that? What does that do for one's initiative?


William (Bill) Gottselig: The socialist answer: control.


Robert Harold Porter: I invite the Canadian people, when thinking about the New Democratic Party, and its Leader, to remember that the doctrine of "socialism" goes hand in hand with it. The members of the New Democratic Party stand in this Chamber and very proudly announce that they are socialists.
April 28, 1987

I remind those Canadians looking for an alternative to keep in mind that there are socialist Governments in other countries, and they should look to the experience of those countries.
While I know that there is much that can be done to alleviate some of the problems facing the agricultural sector in Canada, I think we should acknowledge the support that we have received from this Government. The Ministers of this Government who are involved in the agricultural sector are to be commended for their efforts. The various farm organizations and individual farmers have been able to work with this Government and its Ministers in bringing about solutions to the current problems. I know that more has to be done, and I have no doubt that it will be done.
There are Members on the government side of the House who are willing to make every effort to see that the appropriate initiatives go forward.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Cyril Keeper (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I do not know that I can say that I am happy about debating at this hour of the day, though I must commend the Minister for his presence throughout this long debate. I hope that his presence means that this Government will take further action in alleviating the problems facing the agricultural sector.
Obviously, the Government does deserve some credit for the increased support that has been forthcoming for the agricultural sector, and particularly for the grain farmers of western Canada.
However, as one considers the over-all situation, what stands out is the crisis in the farming sector of western Canada. While there has been help, it has not been sufficient or adequate to give farmers the security they need in order to continue their struggle to survive and to continue their efforts at planting and producing crops.
I just wanted to ensure that I put forward at least my understanding of what is going on. To put it quite simply, while farmers are receiving some increased aid, what they need at the moment is to know whether or not they will be receiving a deficiency payment for the crop they will seed this spring. I know that my colleague will correct me if I am wrong, given that he is a farmer. Farmers need to know that because they need to know how their books will balance at harvest time. If everything goes well-and of course the weather is beyond their control-and they have a good harvest, they need to know whether they will make a profit on it or whether they will suffer a loss. Farmers need to know whether they will have incomes as a result of their efforts so that they can decide whether or not to seed.
Of course it is not a viable alternative to say that given the fall in prices the odds are that they will lose money on their crops. Over the last few years farmers have been struggling to
keep their operations going. They need an assured income so that they can continue to hang in.
We all know-and I am sure farmers know it better than any of us-the international context in which grain farming in western Canada exists today. The fact is that there is a trade war between American farmers and their Government and European farmers and their Governments. These powerful and large Governments are pouring billions of dollars in subsidies into their farming sectors which put at risk our entire grain industry. One of the first aspects of the grain trade at which we must look is the whole question of international trade. The Government has undertaken an initiative in what they call free trade. It has sought to negotiate an agreement with the United States. While Mr. Reisman is meeting with Mr. Murphy, what is going on in reality is that the American Government is grossly oversubsidizing its grain industry, which is threatening the very existence of Canadian grain farming. The American Government is threatening the way of life in western Canada, and the Government blindly proceeds with its trade initiatives and says that it will negotiate a trade agreement with its American friends.
Given the present action of the Americans with regard to grain and what it is doing to the grain sector in western Canada, with friends like that, who needs enemies? The Government is blithely going ahead and promising prosperity as a result of a trade agreement with the United States.
If we were to have some confidence in the capacity of the Government to address vital issues affecting Canadians, such as the whole question of international trade, particularly in grain, and therefore the survival of grain farming and the western Canadian economy, we would want to see some results in terms of the present actions of the Government.
However, the Government is cosying up to the Americans, and Ronald Reagan is singing songs with the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) while our farmers are suffering. That does not leave us with much confidence. In fact, it leaves us with a sense of worry, because it looks as if the Government believed in the tooth fairy, that if it could only sign an agreement with the Americans everything would be okay. It seems to close its eyes to what is actually happening.


Jack Wendele Shields: Let's socialize the country and that will really fix things, won't it?


Cyril Keeper: I hear a voice over there which is attempting to distract the debate.


Jack Wendele Shields: I am not trying to distract.


Cyril Keeper: He is not addressing the question before the House. He is simply seeking to label other people and to raise a kind of ideological bogeyman.


Jack Wendele Shields: I don't know why they resurrected you out of bed, Keeper, because you are not contributing a heck of a lot.

April 28, 1987


Cyril Keeper: Has this Hon. Member spoken, Mr. Speaker? Why does he attack from behind the curtains a Member who is seeking to contribute to debate on one of the most urgent questions affecting the whole of Canada? How dare a Member of Parliament, a member of the Conservative Party, refuse to participate in the debate before the House yet have the unmitigated gall-


Jack Wendele Shields: I have been here all night while you have been home in bed.


Cyril Keeper: -to shout as he wanders among the empty benches over there.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Thacker):: I would want to assure the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Keeper) that the Hon. Member for Athabasca (Mr. Shields) has been here all night and is awaiting his turn. He is on the list, and I am sure we will hear from him shortly.


Cyril Keeper: I am glad that the Chair is so impartial. I thought if there were one institution in the House which is supposed to maintain order and to represent all sides of the House that it would be the Chair.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Are you challenging the Chair?


Cyril Keeper: I would welcome the Hon. Member for Athabasca (Mr. Shields) entering the debate rather than abusively shouting from that side of the House.


Jack Wendele Shields: 1 was not abusive at all. 1 was stating facts.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, he continues. 1 notice that you sought to constrain me in my comments, Mr. Speaker. I hope you will constrain him as well.
Having commented about his lack of participation in the debate up to this point and about him shouting from his seat, 1 am disappointed at the moment by the lack of participation on the part of the Liberal Party over the last few hours. Where have the great Liberal defenders of western farmers been since midnight? Where are they?


Jack Wendele Shields: They are where you were.


William (Bill) Gottselig: Home in bed.


Jack Wendele Shields: That is where you were.


Charles James Mayer: We are better off without them. Who cares?


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, it is entertaining to hear the shouts from the Conservative benches, even those from the front-bench on that side. The kind of loud noise I should like to hear from the Conservatives, since they are in office, is that of their standing up and saying that they will make a deficiency payment and that they will guarantee farmers an income during this crop year equal to that of last year. That I would like to hear. If I heard that coming loud and clear from the
other side, I would applaud. In fact I would sit down and I would congratulate the Government on having recognized the urgency of the agriculture situation in western Canada.
I do not come from a rural riding. I cannot say that I have farmers in my riding. I come from an urban riding, but even Members of Parliament who come from other ridings have to recognize the agriculture crisis existing today. People are now making their decisions about whether to seed. People need assurances from the Government that they will have security of income so they can seed and can stop living in fear of losing their farms so that families can live a normal life rather than be under constant stress. My colleague, the Hon. Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo) put forward this motion calling for an emergency debate concerning agriculture because the situation is urgent.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Where has he been all night?


Cyril Keeper: I hear again more Conservative voices out of the dark.


Charles James Mayer: It is not dark outside, it is light.


Cyril Keeper: If only those voices could say, yes, we understand the threat to the western Canadian farmer, we understand that a whole way of life is under threat in western Canada, and not only do we understand it but we are willing to do something about it; we are willing to use the instrument of Government to provide the basic minimum of security to western farmers so that the farm community can continue to exist and that farmers can at least survive, if not aspire to a half decent sort of life. Those types of interruptions I would welcome. They are yet to come. I hope the government Members realize that one of the reasons we kept them here all night and that we will continue to do so is the very real crisis exists that on the farm. We want action. We want the Government to wake up. This is the time of day when the Government should be waking up. We want the Government to wake up to the reality that people have a right to security of income.
I was saying earlier that I am a Member of Parliament from an urban riding, that I do not have farmers in my riding. I may have the odd one, but by and large my constituency is not a farming community. Even as an urban Member, I am aware that there is a crisis in agriculture, that there is a crisis in grain farming in western Canada. All you need to do is to listen tentatively to the mass media. Peter Gzowski had a group of farmers recently on his program. He did a magnificent job of reporting the human situation of western Canadian farmers. He had a number of men and women speaking from a personal perspective about the situation on the Canadian farms. These people got to the point where they were starting to share what they called "sick jokes" about the present crisis on Canadian farms. One was about a farmer who was taken to task by the
April 28, 1987

Children's Aid Society for child abuse. They said, "We cannot believe that about this upstanding member of the community". What he had done was to turn over his farm to his children, and they said that was child abuse.


William (Bill) Gottselig: That is the type of joke you would tell.


Cyril Keeper: I hear the Member over there saying that that is just the type of joke I would tell. That joke, described as a sick joke, was told on the Peter Gzowski show, and it is an indication of the crisis in western Canada. People's whole way of life is threatened. The capacity of people to make their living is threatened. People who have lived on their farms for generations are now having the rug pulled out from under them. When people are under such stress then it is time for the Government to act.
We had a Prime Minister who came out to western Canada and said, "Why should I sell your grain?" That is what we got from the leadership of the Liberal Party. But we did not get that from this Prime Minister who goes out into the world and says that our problems have to do with the subsidies and that grain prices ought to be in the GATT negotiations. What happens, Mr. Speaker? That is where it is. That is leadership. Not going out to western Canada and asking, "Why should I sell your grain?" What kind of leadership did we have then for western Canadian farmers?


Leonard J. Gustafson: And then we got the LIFT.


Cyril Keeper: Why have a Government? If governments are not to act, why bother to have governments? Let us just rely on the so-called market and let everybody come and go at the whim of the market. Obviously, in the present case we are not just talking about a market, we are talking about the American and the European Governments that have intervened in the grain market and have subsidized their farmers. We have an international trade war going on and that is why our farmers are suffering.
When farmers are suffering so greatly, it is time for the Government to step in and take action. The individual farmer cannot defend himself or herself in the present circumstance. We do need our elected institutions to provide the basic security that farmers need in order to continue to survive. In a couple of years when this crisis is resolved we should be sure that we have farmers who will be there to grow the grain and take advantage of the international markets, not having been driven out of farming because the Government failed to act and failed to get the message that the whole way of life in western Canada is threatened. It is impossible for farmers to face the present circumstances without solid action by the Government. We wanted this debate so we could get across to the Government that while its increased support for western agriculture is appreciated, the Government has to take another step.
The Government needs now to tell western farmers that they will have a deficiency payment for the present crop to be seeded now so that farmers know, when it comes time to
harvest, that they will make money on the crop. We need that additional security. We in Canada in western liberal democracies have used the Government ever since the 1930s, even since the election of Theodore Roosevelt in the United States, to provide a measure of security for citizens. We would not say to people, "If you haven't got a job or if you don't have unemployment insurance, then we won't give you any social security to enable you to eat". We are not willing to be that harsh to allow the whole of people's existence to depend upon the market. In the same manner in terms of agriculture we need to say that it is the function of Government to provide at least a minimum basis of security.
I see, Mr. Speaker, that you are indicating that my time is coming to a close. It is a legitimate function of Government to provide a base of security for all Canadians, for western Canadians, for western Canadian farmers, for the grain farmers, and now is the time to do it. Now is the time when the whole way of life in western Canada is under threat. While the Government deserves credit for the action taken so far, it needs to take another step and provide that minimum of security, and it needs to do it now.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, let me begin with a personal observation. As I sat here throughout the night, I thought back to my nomination night. Some of my friends in the House were there then. I remember making my acceptance speech at 1 a.m. and thinking that was really quite an incredible time of night to be making such a speech. I see it it is now 6.30 a.m., dawn has arrived in Ottawa, and as others have indicated, the farmers will soon be on the land in the Prairies if indeed they have not worked all night like some of us have.
I also want to note with approval that throughout the night we have been honoured with the continuing presence of several cabinet Ministers. My time here is not all that extensive. It is only about three and a half years now. However, I remember other all-night debates and I do not remember Cabinet Ministers being present.
During the course of this evening we have seen the continuing presence of the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer), the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise), the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. McKnight), and the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski). I hope I have not forgotten anyone. As well, we have had many of our caucus here during the night. Perhaps it is only coincidental but many of those are either farmers or have a continuing interest in agriculture. Let me say at the beginning that I have never pretended to be a farmer as such, but I am proud to say that I grew up on a farm and I continue to own farmland. I think I recognize, therefore, the importance of this debate on the issues before us.
I also want to make it clear that we on the government side recognize the gravity of the problem which exists in the grain and oilseed industry in western Canada. We have recognized

April 28, 1987
and continue to recognize those problems. The proof of that recognition lies in our record to date and the fact that we readily participate in a debate such as this. I for one will agree that the NDP are sincere in sharing that concern as well. I must say that I am disappointed, however, that throughout the last four and a half hours only two Parties have been represented in the House, to the best of my recollection. I think that is unfortunate because it suggests there is not as much interest as there should be.
The Hon. Member who just spoke made reference to two or three points which I would like to refer to. He made reference to the freer trade talks, if I remember correctly, and did so in a critical fashion. 1 have just had the opportunity to look at the Western Producer dated April 23, 1987, and I thought Members might be interested in a story contained therein. The headline reads: "Free trade would help Manitoba hog industry". In light of the fact that both the Hon. Member who just spoke and myself are from the Province of Manitoba I think this is a particularly interesting story.
The story says that an increase in exports is a key to a healthy hog industry. William Boggs, Chairman of the Manitoba Hog Producers' Marketing Board, said Manitoba must export 70 per cent of its present pork production. In order for the industry to grow, export markets must be developed further. That implies freer if not free trade. The U.S. market in particular is important to the province's hog producers. Boggs said that three-quarters of its exports go to the U.S. He said we must keep a door open to U.S. trade. We in Canada must be constantly on top of potential Canada-U.S. trade road-blocks and we must be in a position to remove or, better yet, prevent their formation.
Later on in the same story he said in spite of the fact that some analysts predict gloomy hog prices toward the end of this year, he was more optimistic and still looked for a very positive market in 1987. That forecast is based on the fact that the hog kill in the U.S. is 50,000 head short of what it was a year ago. Hamburger from the dairy herd buy-out will soon be moved off the market and the Americans predict an 8 per cent to 10 per cent decrease in slaughter cattle for later this fall, and that the amount of red meat in cold storage in the U.S., particularly pork, is the lowest it has ever been.
What that story suggests very clearly is the very significant importance of the freer trade talks to at least Manitoba's hog industry. I think you will find if you look at the future of this industry in other parts of the country there are benefits to be derived. I say that because the Party which has proposed the motion this evening has consistently downplayed, criticized and ridiculed the significance of the freer trade talks. I think we on this side have perhaps done ourselves a disservice by not adequately rebuking their criticisms to this point in time.
With respect to the problem which does exist in Canadian agriculture today, there are two or three points which have been made earlier this evening but it is important to reiterate them.
First, as you know, the high interest rates of the 1970s had a devastating impact on a certain group of farmers. That group of farmers are those in their thirties and forties who, through no fault of their own, began farming at a time when inflation was beginning to occur and interest rates were beginning to rise. As a result that group found itself with a very heavy debt load. During the days of rising inflation the significance of that debt load was not as apparent as it would subsequently become.
Unfortunately, in the 1980s a combination of that debt load, deflation, and the trade war currently under way between the EEC and the U.S., put a generation of farmers in a very vulnerable position. For me this was a very tragic situation and one which the Government must continue to address. 1 stress that because I think our record to date is an excellent one, particularly bearing in mind the legacy we inherited some two and a half years ago.
When I speak of that legacy I am referring of course to the size of the national debt and what it means with respect to interest rates. As you know, this Government must spend somewhere around $28 billion or $29 billion on interest alone to service the national debt. That is an incredible sum of money which, if it were available to us, would give us a great deal of latitude to deal with problems, whether they be in agriculture, the forest or fishing industry, or wherever. We do not have that flexibility today, to a large degree because of the debt we inherited from our predecessors.
As to our own particular record, I think there are several points which need to be stressed. The most important thing I want to say at the outset is that I for one am particularly pleased that the Canadian agricultural community is served by two particularly distinguished Ministers. As you may know, I have been a teacher most of my life. I have had a strong interest in Canadian history and I do not recall anywhere in Canadian history, at least in the last 30 years, when Canada has been as well served, and Canadian agriculture has been as well served, as it presently is by the Minister of Agriculture. He is very sensitive to the needs of the community.
There seems to be some strange sounds coming from the Chamber.


Iain Francis Angus: It is your dentist.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Maybe it is a legacy of the previous Government. They are feeling uncomfortable. They may not be present in body but perhaps some of them have consciences acting up.
In addition to the leadership provided by the Minister of Agriculture, I want to make particular note as well of the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board. First of all, in that Minister we have had leadership provided by someone who is a prairie grain producer and who continues to operate a farm in partnership with his wife and who knows all too well the problems experienced by Canadian agriculture. It is for
April 28, 1987

that reason I am very confident of his sensitivity and understanding, and I think that has been evident in his policies to date.
Let me just make a couple of comments about two of the points discussed here in the course of the evening, the question of initial prices and the FCC moratorium. First with respect to the moratorium, it was very clear when that was put in place its purpose was to provide time for certain programs to be developed. The moratorium was never perceived to be, by any spokesman on this side of the House at least, a solution in itself.
Since that time two programs in particular have been developed which have reference for the farmers who would be affected by severe economic conditions. I think particularly of the Farm Debt Review Boards which are now in place in each of the provinces. My understanding is that many of the initial start-up problems have been alleviated. When the chairman of that group appeared recently before the Standing Committee on Agriculture he spoke with confidence about their responsibilities and the future.
I would like to address a few remarks, if I may, to the Rural Transition Program because I think it has been very unfairly criticized by some politicians, some farm organizations and, unfortunately, by the media as well. I happened to be at the press conference where this program was announced. One of the things which disturbed me at that time was that, seemingly out of the woodwork, there arrived at that press conference of the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Bouchard) a number of journalists whom I never see at meetings of the Committee on Agriculture.
Although there are some 350 journalists who work on the Hill, I regret that there are only four or five who, with any consistency, appear at meetings of the Committee on Agriculture. The unfortunate significance of that is that when a major event comes along which does attract the attention of the Gallery at large, it seems to me that many of them come to their responsibilities with an inadequate background which is often reflected in their reporting.
The Rural Transition Program has been badly maligned by its critics. I happen to believe it is long overdue and am very pleased that it is now in place and is able to provide a service to those who wish to participate in it. It provides, albeit perhaps in an inadequate way, the types of opportunities for retraining and financial assistance for relocation if desired which have long been available to other sectors of the economy but have historically been denied to the agricultural community.
Having been involved in education most of my life, I have been aware that many young people have received assistance to achieve upgrading. Older people in urban communities who wish to go back to school have had programs available to them
but these types of programs have consistently and tragically never been available to the farm community. In addition, it has been denied the opportunity of participating in programs such as unemployment insurance.
Transition from rural areas to urban areas is not a new phenomenon. However, when it occurred in the past the people who were compelled to or chose to make that transition, for whatever reason, were denied the basic economic and counselling support programs which were often available to their urban neighbours.
The Rural Transition Program is now providing those services in a small way. I am pleased that in the Province of Manitoba, for example, a major part of this program is being provided by a research team and support program in the City of Brandon. Through fairly constant consultation with them I know that both the dollars and the counselling which is now being provided to the rural community, which was not available previously, are much appreciated and, quite frankly, much needed.
I have heard Members opposite suggest that this program is somehow or other designed to either persuade or force people to move off the land. Nothing could be more ridiculous than that assertion because it implies that you could persuade someone to leave the land for approximately $6,000 per year, which is the type of support of which we are speaking. It is, quite frankly, an insult to the Canadian farming community to imply that they would make decisions about this issue based upon that rather meagre sum of money.
People who are leaving agriculture today deserve the kind of support which the Rural Transition Program is trying to provide. I dare say that we should be doing more to benefit them. For example, one of my criticisms of that program is that it will provide assistance for only one year. As you know, Mr. Speaker, someone who wishes to enter into a university program of more than one year is not eligible to participate in the Rural Transition Program and I think that weakness should be remedied. Another deficiency in the program, as I understand it, is that they cannot participate in part-time programs. I think that is also something which the Government should address.
However, the concept is extremely valuable and has been long overdue. I feel nothing but frustration and anger with regard to those who deliberately misrepresent that program to the public because, in so doing, they are adding to the aggravation felt by those who are compelled to participate in it because it is implying that they are somehow being bought off. As I say, Mr. Speaker, that is both inaccurate and insulting.
It is important to look to the future and I see some signs for positive encouragement. Speaking as an individual Member of Parliament rather than on behalf of the Government per se, I believe that the Government will have to continue to provide assistance in the future comparable to that which it has provided in the past.

April 28, 1987
I say that because I recognize, as do others, that the 18 per cent decline in initial prices, which is an accurate reflection of what is unfortunately occurring in the world market, has created a real financial crisis on the Prairies. I have confidence, however, because the Government has demonstrated its sensitivity to this problem with the $1 billion program-


Michael Morris Cassidy: By lifting the moratorium, that's sensitivity? Is that what the Hon. Member says?


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: The Hon. Member who has just awakened and returned to the House will have a chance to speak in the near future if he will let me conclude.


Michael Morris Cassidy: The Hon. Member's sensitivities are dulled by being here too long.


Charles James Mayer: Oh, he woke up grumpy.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: The $840 million which has been made available to prairie grain producers is the largest program in Canadian history. The $705 million interim payment which is going to western grain producers this week is an insurance program with the farmer putting up $1 for every $3 put up by the federal Government. That program will provide a record payment as well to prairie grain producers this year. The total cash flow of $1.3 billion which will move on to the Prairies in April and May is a record amount of cash flow from any federal Government to the Prairies and will very much assist with the financial needs of the farmers at this time.
Speaking again as an individual Member, I suggest to the Government and the House that in the fall when we know what the world market is, what the supply of grain is, and what the grade of that grain is, we will be able to address the problems which exist at that time.
I believe the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of State responsible for the Wheat Board can feel very good about their contributions to western Canadian grain producers at this time because none of their predecessors at any time in Canadian history have provided either a greater amount of leadership or a greater amount of financial assistance. For that prairie grain producers are very grateful.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. This debate began 11 hours ago. Many of us have been here throughout the night and I want to make sure that we recognize the support we have received throughout this debate. We do not know how long it will continue. The table officers, Hansard reporters, translators, those working in broadcasting, the employees in the cafeteria and the bus drivers have been here all night, along with the Pages.
Many things take place that are not obvious in terms of the operation of the House. We have been and continue to be very well served by all the people who looked after the proceedings of the House this evening.
On behalf of all Members who have been here throughout the night and are here now, I want to recognize the contribution they have made and say thank you, because we appreciate the way they have looked after us throughout this night during the debate on a very important issue.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my Party, I want to add comments to those of the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer). It is very clear that the staff who work behind the scenes are extremely important to the operation of this place. From time to time there are occasions when we keep them long past the normal time they return home. We thank them for their work tonight and most other nights when they are here to provide the support that is necessary for this place to continue. I thank them on behalf of my caucus.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I want to echo the sentiments expressed by my hon. friends.
I want to participate in this debate because I am very concerned about the situation facing western agriculture and eastern agriculture not only for the crop year into which we are entering but for the future as well.
This debate was triggered by the Government's decision to lift the moratorium on the FCC loans. We are talking about whether agriculture in western Canada has a future and whether the Government's record will be one of a Government that turned its back on western Canadian agriculture after making many promises when in opposition, and of a government which effectively brought on a situation where western Canadian agriculture was cut to half or one-third of its traditional place in the Canadian economy.
Under current circumstances, the moratorium being lifted on Farm Credit loans is not just a direct threat to some 7,000 farmers who are currently behind in their payments and may now find themselves being foreclosed by the FCC, it is also a signal to every supplier, bank and financial institution that is involved in western agriculture that the Government has lost faith in western farmers.
The Government, through the Farm Credit Corporation, has lost faith and since the FCC is effectively the lead lender in this particular area, the message will be absorbed and acted upon by banks and other financial institutions.
I suspect that as early as yesterday morning when the announcement was made public in the press, people in the boardrooms, the headquarters of Canada's major banks and in the financial institutions in New York, London and Tokyo were asking about the situation with lending to Canada's western agriculture now that it appears the Government is lifting a moratorium that was initially imposed to protect farmers in September, 1985.
The financial institutions will examine the actions of the Government over the succeeding period of some 18 months to
April 28, 1987

see that the Government did make a certain commitment for a while. It has taken initiatives in terms of international trade, through meetings with other countries that are involved. Clearly, the subsidies from the United States Government to its farmers and the subsidies from the EEC to its farmers are a major reason for the problems currently facing farmers in Canada.
These financial institutions will also note that the Government came through with the Special Canadian Grains Program for the 1986 crop year, albeit possibly because of the Government's hopes of keeping Saskatchewan as a Conservative province at the time of its provincial election.
They will want to know the significance of this latest measure in terms of the future of agricultural policy in Canada. Does the Government intend to help western Prairie farmers remain in operation and ensure that they can survive the difficult period until this subsidy war between the United States and the EEC has been successfully concluded, or has it decided that the stakes are too high and is pulling its chips from the game, thereby foreclosing on western grain farmers if necessary?
Any financial institution would be justified in concluding that the Government is turning its back on western farmers. That is a sad fact but the FCC itself estimates that some 8 per cent of farmers, 14,000, are essentially broke and that 23 per cent, 42,000, are under serious financial pressure.
If I was running a financial institution and was conscious only of protecting my investment; if I was being harassed because my loans to Brazil, Argentina and other Third World countries were turning sour and could not be collected; and if I was being told that Dome will bail out its secured loans at 65 cents to 75 cents on the dollar and my bank was heavily involved, and was also told that the Government no longer had faith in western grain farmers, I would be issuing orders to the prairie branch in Winnipeg that it start to cut back and not extend new funds to those farmers. I see some Conservatives nodding their heads.


Charles James Mayer: We are nodding our heads in amazement at how ignorant the Member is.


Jack Wendele Shields: He does not understand the issue one bit.


Michael Morris Cassidy: If the Government Members say that they know this is the case, why is the Government turning its back by invoking this moratorium?


Jack Wendele Shields: You do not understand the issue.


Michael Morris Cassidy: When the issue was raised, why did the Government not recognize that a mistake was made and tell the Farm Credit Corporation what it was doing to western farmers.


Charles James Mayer: Go talk to the farmers. The only thing you know about agriculture is that you probably had eggs for breakfast.


Jack Wendele Shields: Leave Ottawa once in a while. Go and see what happens on those farms.


Michael Morris Cassidy: The Hon. Member says that I should leave Ottawa once in a while. I was in western Ontario just four days ago.


Jack Wendele Shields: My God, he went west.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Let me tell Hon. Members from western Canada that the problems in agriculture are not confined to western Canada. They are also being experienced in eastern Canada.
London, Ontario is the heart of the western Ontario farming belt. I want to tell Hon. Members that land that was being rented for $100 an acre a few years ago is now going begging because farmers cannot afford to farm it themselves and cannot find anyone else to farm it.
I talked to a friend who was farming 450 acres five years ago in the area of London. She is now only farming 85 acres. The reason that she is essentially going into retirement is that she cannot make a dollar from the farm. She pointed out that the input costs have continued to rise, as anyone will know, but that the prices she fetches for her produce goes down. Last year she had a white bean crop which almost failed totally because, after an excellent summer, weather conditions turned against her.
I cite these facts to indicate to Hon. Members opposite that one can be an urban Member, as I am, and still have a good idea of the situation facing farmers in the farm economy. I suggest to Hon. Members from western Canada who were barracking a minute ago that I believe the crisis in western agriculture is a crisis that affects all Canadians, whether they be represented by urban members or rural members. If they try to wrap themselves in the flag and suggest that only they alone are qualified to talk about this issue, they are talking hooey. If they try to wrap themselves in the flag and say that they alone are qualified to talk about this particular issue, then they are talking hooey.


An Hon. Member:: What is hooey?


Michael Morris Cassidy: The Hon. Member should know. He would find it on his farm if he looked for it.
We are talking about a very serious situation, and as the finance spokesperson for the New Democratic Party I have been pointing out that we are facing a situation of unreasonable and unjustifiable world competition, and the choice we face in Canada is whether we are prepared to weather this out with our western farmers or whether we are going to have a Government which decides to abandon the western farmers and just simply throw them out to the free market hoping that somehow some will survive. The Farm Credit Corporation figures would indicate those farmers will not survive under those circumstances.

April 28, 1987
The transition program mentioned by the Hon. Member who just spoke is certainly not going to bring them out of that particular situation. It will affect too few. We have to make a choice, and this is what my Leader was saying yesterday when he was asking questions of the Government on this particular issue. Are we as a country prepared to seek to maintain western agriculture during this period of transition or is the Government intent on imposing a short, bitter and devastating shock of readjustment on western farmers which, in the next year and a half, could easily mean 10,000 to 20,000 western farmers forced out of business, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of acres of prairie grain producing land, the most efficient grain producing land in the world, forced into idleness and in many cases forced back into prairie with no agricultural uses at all? These are the choices we are talking about.
I am very concerned as well because I represent urban workers, many working for the Government of Canada and working in high tech industries which serve rural as well as urban uses. It is quite obvious, as my friend the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Keeper) indicated as well, that urban workers and the urban economy in Canada are also affected by the crisis which is now taking place in rural Canada.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to emphasize how serious the problem is now that the Government has decided to lift the moratorium on FCC foreclosures. The crises affects not only western wheat growers, but also farmers in eastern Canada. The figures of the FCC show that about 8 per cent of Canadian farmers are going through very hard times and are probably bankrupt. In addition, 14 per cent of farmers, or about 42,000, are having serious financial difficulties. As a whole, nearly one third of our farmers are now affected.
In addition, it is quite clear that, while one third of the farmers are directly affected by the financial crisis, the picture is not that good for the rest of them either. In western Canada, farm income will be substantially lower because of the announcement that decrease the prices paid under the Government program will go down by 18 percent, after a 20 per cent decrease last year. The crisis is affecting everyone. This means that even the farmers who are still financially healthy, who have resources, who have finished paying for their land and, who do not have large mortgages or bank loans to reimburse have seen their incomes and profits go down.
As I have just noted in English, the situation in eastern Canada is also difficult. Last weekend, I was in London, Ontario, where I spent some time with a farming friend who worked about 500 acres some five years ago. She told me that people used to pay $100 an acre to lease farmland, but that the land-owners in her region of rich farmlands in south-western Ontario cannot find any farmers willing to lease their land. They have to let it to the farmers free to ensure that someone will work the land and keep it from deteriorating. My friend, who used to work 500 acres, now works only 85. She decided
to reduce her acreage because the rest was not bringing in any profits. The profitability of agriculture is therefore affected in both eastern and western Canada.
The situation in Western Canada is particularly serious. The moratorium on Farm Credit Corporation foreclosures has just been lifted. This gives a message not only to the farmers who are directly affected, but also to all banking institutions. It is now time to seed for the 1987 crop year. All the farmers who need bank credit to begin their activities in the spring will therefore be affected. All the farms and all the farmers with mortgages or bank loans will be affected because the banks will have to reassess farm credit, especially in western Canada. The banks will consider the fact that the Government has lifted the moratorium and will see in this a very clear message, namely that the Government has decided not to continue to support the farmers until the subsidy war with the United States and the Common Market has been resolved. It is a fact, Mr. Speaker, that the agricultural crisis began with the decision of the Common Market to subsidize farming and the decision of the American Government to respond by subsidizing American farmers instead of letting them face this difficult situation by themselves, going as far as subsidizing wheat sales to what President Reagan called the evil empire, the Soviet Union. What can we, in Canada, do in such a case?
On a point of order, I object to the comment of the Hon. Member. I believe that such a comment is out of order and should be withdrawn.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I am not sure what the Hon. Member for Athabasca (Mr. Shields) said.


Jack Wendele Shields: Then I will repeat it, Mr. Speaker, so that you may rule.


Michael Morris Cassidy: You had better not.


Jack Wendele Shields: The New Democratic Party was referring to the President of the United States being in Canada addressing this body and the Hon. Member started to make remarks about the President in his speech. I said: "And that is the time the NDP made complete asses of themselves". I think that is quite in order.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I would hope the Hon. Member would not use that type of language. However, I must say it is not unparliamentary because it referred to a Party. However, I hope in future Hon. Members will refrain from using that type of language, even though we have been debating the matter for some 12 hours.


Michael Morris Cassidy: I would point out the hour. This has been a prolonged debate. However, I will bear in mind that while I cannot refer to an Hon. Member as an ass I certainly can refer to his Party as a group of jackasses and I may seek to do so in the future.
I do not want to enter into that kind of retribution because this is an extremely serious situation. What I want to say is
April 28, 1987

that this Government came to power because of the alienation of western Canada and because of the concern among westerners that the Government of Canada was somehow dominated by Ontario and Quebec and that the Government of Canada under the Liberals was really not conscious and aware of the situation which existed in western Canada. This Government came to power, therefore, intent on redressing, or so we were told, that particular situation. It has been so successful that at the present time the Conservative Premier of Alberta is proposing a Triple E Senate, a specific change which I doubt will ever be accepted by all the provinces which would have to agree to such reform. This is being done because there is a feeling in Alberta, and the other western provinces, that the Conservative Government has failed the farmers and the people of western Canada.
The feeling that the Government has failed was already abroad and can only be exacerbated by the decision to lift the moratorium on Farm Credit Corporation loans. People out west will very rightly say: "Look, we have to make our decisions today about the crops we put in the ground for 1987. We cannot wait under current situations. We are so squeezed now with two cuts of 20 per cent apiece, or thereabouts, in the initial payment that we cannot afford to wait until the fall to find out whether or not there will be another special grains program".
There have been suggestions from the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and from the Minister responsible that the Government may do something. But westerners are not fools. We know that there will be no election in Saskatchewan to save their bacon next year in the fall. There is no election scheduled for Alberta or Manitoba. They know that there is a very strong correlation between special grains programs and elections that the Conservatives hope to win provincially. They do not want to be left to hang out to dry and to have the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), who I suspect is the genius behind this particular move on the moratorium, go to his colleagues in August or September, fold his arms and say: "Boys and girls, I know what it is like. I am awfully sorry but there is no money left in the kitty. I am not prepared to come up with the money that is necessary in order to keep western farmers in business because I represent Bay Street. My constituency is in downtown Toronto. The people 1 really listen to are those who run the banks, and the investment dealers and other people like that, the world from which I came. As far as those people are concerned, you can put 'paid' to western agriculture".
He, in August or September, will then try to impose his will on the Government and pull the plug on western farmers. He pulled the plug by having the Farm Credit Corporation which comes under the authority of the Minister of Finance impose-


Jack Wendele Shields: Socialist clap-trap!


Michael Morris Cassidy: This is not socialist clap-trap at all. The Hon. Member objects like he does because he knows that this is what happened. One Minister pulled the plug on western farmers. The Government should now come through and redress the damage by doing two things.
In the first place it should say: "We were wrong to lift the moratorium. Now is not the time". In the second place, as we indicated in Question Period yesterday, the Government should now, this month, this week, today, very clearly indicate to western farmers what they can expect in terms of total revenues from the grain production in the 1987 crop year. As far as the New Democratic Party is concerned that is what we are saying.
The farmers have been so battered that they cannot afford to go into the future with a hope and a prayer and nothing more. We need specific, bankable promises from the Government. So far we have not had them.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Athabasca (Mr. Shields), finally.


Jack Wendele Shields: Mr. Speaker, I came to the House for the emergency debate that was authorized through Your Honour's august Chair. I arrived at eight o'clock, which was the starting time for the debate. I had to smile because Members of Parliament on the government side were waiting, as is the custom in the House, for the sponsoring Party to form a quorum so that we could get started in this debate that was called by a member of the New Democratic Party. Do you know, Mr. Speaker, for 15 minutes we stood and waited for the two opposition Parties to come up with 20 Members to sit in the House so that we could start the emergency debate that they triggered?


Michael Morris Cassidy: You tried to kill the debate. That was your concern.


Jack Wendele Shields: No. In the end government Members had to make up the quorum, which is not the way tradition goes in this place.


Michael Morris Cassidy: You tried to kill the debate. That is what you were doing.


Jack Wendele Shields: The Hon. Member says that we tried to kill the debate.


Charles James Mayer: Who was here all night? Where were you?


Jack Wendele Shields: On the contrary, we wanted to hear what Members opposite had to say, and they could not form a quorum to get the debate started. Approximately 20 or 30 members of the Government have been here at any time all evening. I want to tell Hon. Members that the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) was here all night. The Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) was here all night, as was the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise). The

April 28, 1987
Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. McKnight) was here all night. That is unprecedented. We have been here speaking in this emergency debate.


Michael Morris Cassidy: You have more people than the two opposition Parties combined.


Jack Wendele Shields: We now hear from old "Senator Fog-horn" across the way. He just arrived here. He went home last night, went to bed and has come here pretending to all who can hear that he has been here taking part in this debate.


Charles James Mayer: He snored all night.


Jack Wendele Shields: The Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) just arrived. He did not take part in this debate. He does not even know what has been discussed, which is obvious. He would not have brought up some of the matters which he did bring up in his comments if he had been here.
The Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre talked about the moratorium of the Farm Credit Corporation. He then said that the banks would receive a clear signal and so on. I want to make sure that the Hon. Member understands that there was never a moratorium on bank loans.


Michael Morris Cassidy: That is not what I said.


Jack Wendele Shields: The moratorium was placed on the Farm Credit Corporation because-


Michael Morris Cassidy: You should have been listening harder.


Jack Wendele Shields: Perhaps the Hon. Member could listen for a moment. I do not mind him interjecting once in a while but I suggest that he just listen. He might learn something, he just might. 1 doubt it but he might.


Iain Francis Angus: Especially from you.


Jack Wendele Shields: The moratorium was placed on the Farm Credit Corporation because it was given a mandate by the previous Government, which came out of the legislation, and it became a lender of last resort. A great many farmers, because of the disastrous interest rate policies of the previous administration, were caught in the credit squeeze that went on. Some of them got into tight situations.
I want to tell the Hon. Member that I have farmers in my riding and that I have worked with the Farm Credit Corporation. I have always found the corporation to be very helpful. I have always found when I went to the people there with a farmer who was having a problem, and we had to do some work on a loan to redo it, to stretch out the payments, or to refinance it in some way, that they were always there front and centre ready to do it.
The need to put a moratorium on the Farm Credit Corporation was as a result of the legislation under which the Farm Credit Corporation was operating. We brought about the moratorium so that we could put in place farm debt review
boards to assist farmers and so that we could also put in place a transition program to assist farmers. These were the measures which had to be taken so that farmers who were experiencing financial difficulty could sit down and so that we could work with them to help them through a crisis situation.
Let us look at what is happening now that we have the farm debt review boards working, and working well, and now that we have the transition program working, and working well. We had farmers, instead of making the effort, some of them, who were quite able to pay their loans and keep current with the Farm Credit Corporation. But all they did was look over down the road and say: "There is not much need for me to keep myself current because there is a moratorium". What were the banks saying? The banks were saying to farmers in my area: "We are going to cut your loan off because you can now go to the Farm Credit Corporation to borrow because they have a moratorium". That is the type of situation and climate we would have been creating if we had carried the moratorium on any further. The moratorium served its purpose. It allowed us the time to do what we wanted to do. We will now be able to work with those farmers in a sensible way.
I also smiled to myself when I listened to a number of Members of Parliament, particularly from the NDP, since Liberal Members of Parliament were not here past midnight. I have not seen anyone in their benches all night long. There were perhaps three speakers from the Party during the whole debate. I had to smile because about every second Member who stood up talked about the $1 billion or the 5.30 phone call that Premier Grant Devine made to Ottawa seeking help for farmers. I think they missed a very significant point. The very significant point about Grant Devine phoning Ottawa was that there was somebody here in Ottawa to take the call. There was somebody here in Ottawa to take the call and to say: "Yes, we understand that you have a problem; we understand the Province of Manitoba has a problem, and we will do something about it."


Michael Morris Cassidy: That was last year. What about this year?


Jack Wendele Shields: The significant thing to bear in mind, Mr. Speaker, is that there was somebody in Ottawa who would answer a call from Grant Devine.
Can you imagine Allan Blakeney calling Pierre Trudeau and asking for some assistance for the agricultural sector in Saskatchewan? Pierre Trudeau's response would probably have been: "Why should I bother helping you? Why should I sell your wheat?"
This is the kind of thing we are talking about.
Can you imagine Peter Lougheed telephoning Ottawa requesting help for the farmers of Alberta?
The whole point is, there is now someone in Ottawa who is there to answer the telephone call when it comes and respond-and I think that is important.
April 28, 1987

We now have a Prime Minister in Ottawa who responds to the concerns of western Canada, and he has made that clear on a number of occasions. Ele made that clear with his actions on the National Energy Program; he has made that clear through the Prince Albert Declaration.
We on this side of the House do not take the position that there are no problems in the agricultural sector. We do not say that we have all of the answers. What we do say is that we have a Government in Ottawa which is going to respond to the regions, and in fact it has responded in an unprecedented way to date.
Without taking into consideration interest rates, we know that farm income in 1987 will surpass the farm income in 1986. We know today that farm incomes for 1987 for grain and oil seeds will exceed farm incomes in 1986.
Given current commodity prices and the situation that exists between the EEC and the U. S., one should consider that a tremendous accomplishment of this Government.
Let's talk about some of the reactions to the Government's record on agriculture.
Prime Minister Mulroney, in April of 1986, announced a farm package. Alex Binkley, as reported in Manitoba Cooperator of May 8, 1986, had this to say about that farm package:
It is a far cry from former Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who told Prairie Grain growers: "Why should I sell your wheat?" -It is also unlikely Trudeau would have vowed to bring up agricultural problems at the Economic Summit, or talk about the need for government action on them.
Next we have Barry Wilson of The Western Producer, who had the following to say:
It-marked the first time in at least six years that a Prime Minister devoted a press conference primarily to agricultural issues.
Let's see what they had to say about the Rural Transition Program. Ray Guay of the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, on September 12, 1986, had the following to say:
In short, the program is pure common sense and will help only those who have no choice but to leave the farm.
Gren Winslow, of the Cattlemen Magazine, in August of 1986, had the following to say on the Farm Debt Review Act:
A good idea has come out of Ottawa which deserves support. It's the Farm Debt Review Act. It has merit, not for what it does, but for what it does not do-it does not impose mandatory solutions on negotiations between farmers in financial trouble and their creditors.
These publications, Mr. Speaker, are organs of the farm communities. These are the people who speak for the farmers of western Canada.
On December 4, 1986, we had an editorial in the Manitoba Co-operator on the Western Grain Stabilization Act amendments and the 1986 final payment. I quote from that editorial:
Just when government officials must wonder if they can ever do anything that will please a restless or seemingly unappreciative agricultural community and farm press, along comes an action that warrants curtain call after curtain call. The recent payout from the much-improved Western Grain Stabilization Program is such an action.
That is the view of the Manitoba Co-operative, a publication that has not always been kind to this Government and the actions of this Government.
What has been said about the Special Canadian Grains Program? I quote from the Regina Leader Post of December 10, 1986, as follows:
Farm leaders from across the country have praised the federal Government's decision to provide farmers with $1 billion to offset the impact of an international grain war.
Avery Sahl, First Vice-President of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, said: Tm pleased there are no strings attached to the money. It is cash and not a loan and that is good news.'
As I said, that was the view of the Regina Leader Post, as expressed on December 10, 1986.
And what did the Opposition do with respect to this announcement? They spent the time between the Prime Minister's pledge of $1 billion and the Government's delivery of the program unnecessarily scaring farmers.
On countless occasions, thoughtless Members opposite stood in this House and asked if this $1 billion was new money, a loan, or what.
Time and time again the Leader of the New Democratic Party stood in this House and asked: "Is it new money?"
All that the Members opposite were doing through that tactic was to add to the fear and uncertainty on the part of the farming communities of this country.
Let's look at some of the things the New Democratic Party, the Party of the socialists, was perpetrating on the Canadian people.
My colleague from Lethbridge, earlier in this debate-and I think it was around two o'clock this morning-made a couple of points that I should like to reiterate at this point.
One point he made was that traditionally we did not have to worry about the socialists; that we always looked upon them as the "kooky" left. But now that they are up in the polls, they are beginning to think that they can smell substantial successes in an election-and God forbid that they ever form a federal Government.
In the light of the standing of the New Democratic Party in the polls, I think we should make perfectly clear to the Canadian people exactly what it is that these socialists, masquerading as the New Democratic Party, stand for.
The New Democratic Party consider convention and NDP Federal Council resolutions to be binding. Over the years, they have developed an extensive list of resolutions, covering everything from the nationalization of the meat packing industry to legalized prostitution.
And what are some of those resolutions? Last fall, Mr. Speaker, the NDP published a consolidation of those resolutions in a publication entitled Resolutions Reference-and I want to thank my hon. friends for doing that. We are now

April 28, 1987
going to be able to use this published document to show the socialists for what they are.
I have a copy of this publication, and I suggest that all Members of Parliament and all Canadians obtain a copy. They will find it to be an enlightening document.
For those who are seriously thinking of embracing the socialist horde known as the New Democratic Party, this publication should be mandatory reading.
As the Foreword to the book states, this book contains those resolutions passed by New Democrats since 1961 which are still current today, that is, resolutions which have not been overtaken by events or superseded by subsequent resolutions.
Let's look at some of these resolutions. While there are many of them, I want to highlight but a few.
We have a resolution on exchange controls. We all know what exchange controls are.
The NDP realizes that there would be a massive flight of capital from Canada if they were ever elected.
As such, the NDP has a resolution which is still current today. It calls for the NDP to use exchange controls to prevent the flight of capital. What a difference that would be. We have created nearly one million jobs since taking office two years ago because of the attraction Canada has become for investment.
We are a trading nation. We are an international nation. We need capital to develop our resources. We have attracted unprecedented numbers over the last few years and have created jobs. Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, what would happen if the socialists in the NDP were brought to power and they put on exchange controls? The jobs would go.
Let us look at sexual offences. One NDP resolution, which is still current today, calls for amendments to the Criminal Code which eliminate the definition of crime on the basis of consent in adult sexual activity in Sections Nos. 155, 157, 158.1, 179.1, 180.1(d), and 193 and define such activities as crimes only on the basis of commitment of acts of violence. Unlike those who attend NDP conventions, most Canadians cannot cite the sexual offences provisions of the Criminal Code section by section.
Let me translate it into layman's language. This resolution states that the NDP will legalize prostitution, common bawdy houses, sex in public places, and group sex, provided that everyone consents and provided that there is no violence. What about the neighbours who may not consent to having a brothel next door? Is it not strange that a Party which claims to have principles will sometimes try to hide them?
Let us now look at population growth controls. I am talking about a socialist Party which is parading itself as being an alternative Government or even an alternative Official
Opposition. Some NDP resolutions sound as though they were plagiarized from Mao Tse-Tung's little red book.
One resolution which is still current today states that population growth will be directed toward areas that require more people. Does this mean that the NDP will tell people where they may live? Does it mean that the NDP will solve the problem of regional unemployment through mass migration?
We are talking about resolutions which are current today and have been published by the New Democratic Party. The NDP not only wants to control where Canadians live, but it wants to control what consumer goods they would be allowed to manufacture and purchase.
Another resolution which is still current calls for legislation to define and prohibit the manufacture of socially useless energy consuming devices, for example, electrical gadgetry. What is included in that definition of socially useless electrical gadgetry? Does it include VCRs, electric razors, blow dryers, food processors, dishwashers, and electric lights?
The NDP also has resolutions to look after airport expansion. Its Members do not want any more. They have a shopping list of Crown corporations which is quite extensive.
Turning to the area of farm planning, one of its resolutions indicates that it might be necessary, as well, to take into public ownership some existing farm supply retail operations, farm machinery assembly plants, meat packing plants, and canneries.
I know that my time is coming to an end, but there are just two more resolutions to which I want to refer. They are very important because we are talking about agriculture. One resolution recommends limits on farm sizes. The NDP wants the establishment of a public commission to determine a formula for farm unit size on a regional basis. The commission's findings would be subject to local approval. Can we imagine that?
The very last one is a current resolution which is still on the books of the NDP. It indicates that farm income would be negotiated directly with farmers on an industry-wide level and would be based on costs of production, family need, and the productive potential of various farming operations in relation to what was produced. It is to be negotiated. Will it be negotiated in the way industrial unions negotiate? How do farmers shut down their operations for six months? It blows the mind. Truly it is what socialists stand for. Canadians should recognize this debate for what it really is-headline grabbing by the socialists in the NDP.


Mr. Walter Van  De Walle@Pembina: Mr. Speaker, never in my wildest imagination did I think that I would be speaking in the House at 7.35 a.m. I have been here since eight o'clock last night. It is amazing. The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) said to me: "Walter, stick around. This will be interesting".
It has not only been interesting but very revealing. I suppose in some ways we should thank the NDP for this debate. The
April 28, 1987

Conservatives have capitalized on this opportunity to expose the socialists and their policies. Farmers will not be fooled.
If efficiency and competitiveness could guarantee a fair return, Canadian farmers would not have as many problems as they have today. There are no better, more efficient or more competitive grain farmers in the world. We have good land and a good grain growing climate. Canadian farmers produce quality products. However, those things do not count as they used to in the world market-place.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Walter Van  De Walle@Pembina: Mr. Speaker, I have been waiting for-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. We have listened to Members for 12 hours. Could we listen to a few more.


Mr. Walter Van  De Walle@Pembina: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that some of these Members have just come into the Chamber.


Mr. Fulton:: There are five Tories in the House.


Mr. Walter Van  De Walle@Pembina: Should I count them for you?


James Ross Fulton: One, two, three, four, five.


Mr. Walter Van  De Walle@Pembina: Count the ones in the back too.
We must recognize the reality of subsidies. Only a few countries have treasuries rich enough to meet that of the United States. Canada cannot possibly meet it. Everyone who thinks otherwise should consider the facts for a moment. Farmers do not want subsidies. They want a fair price and a stable market.
Let us look at the happenings in the European Common Market. About two-thirds of its budget is spent on agriculture. The common agricultural policy of the community is providing $33 billion Canadian in farm expenditures. European farmers are now receiving about $480 per tonne for Durum wheat, compared with Canada's 1987-88 initial price of $110. Their farmers are receiving $285 per tonne for barley, compared with Canada's initial price of $60 in the next crop year.
Because of these heavy subsidies, the European Common Market has moved from a net importer of 24 million tonnes of grain 10 years ago to being the third largest exporter today behind the United States and Canada. That is what we are up against.
The U.S., with a huge treasury, has a five-year Farm Bill. For the 1986 fiscal year alone, the Bill will provide in the neighbourhood of $35 billion in direct farm program payments. In addition, the United States is targeting markets with heavy export subsidies under its export enhancement program. Those are the stakes in the subsidy war. Canadian farmers are victims of this war.
Subsidies and surpluses have combined to push world grain prices to ridiculously low figures. Often they do not even cover
the farmer's cost of production. Western Canada is being particularly hard hit because that is where most of the grain is produced. A number of farmers are suffering the consequences and the economies of the many rural communities in the west are feeling the impact. That is why this Government has taken the unprecedented action to provide direct assistance to grain farmers during these difficult times.
Actions within our boundaries are not enough. Canada is a major grain exporter. Grain producers derive the great majority of their farm income receipts from exports. The reality is that we face an international problem that will require an international solution. I just want to point out that the federal Government has placed a very high priority on seeking fairness in the world agricultural trade. It is this Government's objective to establish fair international rules of trade in agriculture for all countries to follow.
Let us talk about the Government's action on the international solution. Canada has placed agriculture on the GATT agenda. Canada has organized meetings of the producing countries. That is positive. That is leadership; yes, leadership that was provided by our Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), by our Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise), by our Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer).
As a former director of a large grain company, a farmer-owned company, I was pleased to see the statements concerning initial prices by the United Grain Growers and the prairie pools. What did they say, Mr. Speaker? These companies, speaking on behalf of their farmer members, indicated their support of the Canadian Wheat Board's setting of initial prices that reflect world market prices. I think that is very important. I was surprised that some of the Members opposite are questioning the Canadian Wheat Board's decision. Initial prices have to reflect the world market-place. That is a sound decision. We have to come to grips with reality.
These are difficult times for grain farmers. During the few months that I have been in Ottawa, I have listened to Hon. Members in the Opposition state the problem over and over. I did not come to Ottawa to have the problem restated for me. As a grain farmer, an agri-businessman and a former director of a farm organization, I know the situation. I am pleased to be a member of this Government, a Government that is addressing the situation, a Government that is showing leadership. When was the last time that a Canadian Government paid $1.3 billion to the farmers? I ask the question, Mr. Speaker. When was the last time?


Blaine Allen Thacker: Never.


Mr. Walter Van  De Walle@Pembina: That is right. Never in the history of Canada has any government ever made those kinds of commitments to farmers. I want to indicate to you that farmers will plant their crops this spring. I am amazed at the negative attitude that exists on the part of some of the Members. Do they not have any future? Do they not see a future in Canada? I do and I know the farmers do. We have heard all this doom and gloom about the family farm, how it is

April 28, 1987
going to disappear and all that sort of thing. But let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that my parents came to this country and it as the land of opportunity. We have a family farm. That family farm will continue to exist, along with the other family farms, because we are resourceful, innovative and we will survive. More than that, I know that all Canadians want to see agriculture prosper.
In conclusion, may I say that here in Canada it is my belief that we have demonstrated that this country can produce quality grain. We have maintained our share of the world markets. Agriculture is important to the economy of Canada. It means employment and food. Farmers know only too well that this Government is committed to agriculture. A strong viable farm industry is in the interests of all Canadians. Our Government has provided assistance to farmers when it was needed in the past and I know that we will provide that kind of assistance again so that agriculture will be viable.


Hon. Bill McKnight (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate this evening.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: This morning.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: I started this evening, but you are right, it is morning. I entered the House shortly after eight o'clock last evening and was able to listen with great attention to the debate. As my colleague, the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer), did earlier I would like to pay tribute to those servants of Members and servants of the House who have been up all night. They were up the night before in another emergency debate and I want to express my thanks and gratitude to the people who serve us so well.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: It is not unusual for farmers, like the Hon. Member who just spoke, or the Members from this side who have been taking part in this debate, to be up all evening. I have been up many evenings seeding my crop. 1 have been up many evenings taking off my crop, as have other colleagues. I have been in and out of a nice warm bed at calving time.
I think the Liberal Party put up three speakers. I see that a Liberal Member is present now. I hope he said goodbye to his teddy bear and rushed over to the House at the call. It is nice to see him here.
There has been much debate this evening and I would like to pay a compliment to two Hon. Members of the Opposition who took part in this debate. When Hansard is reviewed sometime tomorrow or later today, Hon. Members and Canadians in general should read the speech delivered by the Hon. Member for Brant (Mr. Blackburn) on behalf of the New Democratic Party and the speech delivered by the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme) on behalf of the Liberal Party. One would find in those speeches that the concern for western
agriculture and agriculture in general can be very well expressed by Hon. Members who may not be as closely associated with the agricultural industry as some of us are.
The Hon. Member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton) mentioned earlier that the Government does not set the initial price of wheat. The Government seeks advice from the Canadian Wheat Board and accepts, rejects or compromises on that advice when necessary in establishing the initial payments farmers receive for grain. Members of the NDP have long espoused support for the Canadian Wheat Board. Today, speaker after speaker condemned the initial prices set by the Canadian Wheat Board as being too low, not just this year but last year as well.
I find it strange that members of the NDP have been leaderless throughout this debate. The Hon. Member for Oshawa (Mr. Broadbent) was much more concerned about the shareholders of TransCanada PipeLines and Bell Canada during yesterday's debate.


James Douglas Manly: Where's Mulroney?


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: The Hon. Member from the New Democratic Party asks where the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) is.
I am sure the Prime Minister is in his office watching this debate with great interest.


James Douglas Manly: Why isn't he here speaking?


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: I would suggest that the Hon. Member take his time. I presume that the debate will go on and in all likelihood, other people will enter into it.
I would like to take a minute to talk about the contribution the Government made to agriculture and particularly to the grains and oil-seeds industry during the last crop year. The Canadian people have supported the grains and oil-seeds industry in western Canada to the tune of $27,000 per commercial farm. That was a commitment made by the Government, but it has been supported by the taxpayers of Canada.
In my Province of Saskatchewan, net farm income will increase by 34 per cent this year. Why will it increase? A couple of reasons are quite apparent. The Special Grains Program was delivered. I remember when that program was announced. I remember that the Leader of the New Democratic Party in Saskatchewan said that it was a charade, it would not be new money, it would be a loan, it was flim-flam. I remember the Liberals here in Ottawa-we do not have too many Liberals in Saskatchewan-saying, as did the Hon. Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster), that the money would have to be repaid and would come from existing programs. His Leader said the same thing.
We now have proof to the contrary. In the Province of Saskatchewan, the Special Grains Program delivered $415 million while the anticipated net farm income before that program was about $425 million. That one government
April 28, 1987

program doubled the net farm income in the Province of Saskatchewan.
Let us take a moment to look ahead. Totalling the production of wheat, feed grains and oil-seeds with what could possibly be $4 million of support in this crop year could amount to an assistance package to the producers of $2.50 per bushel, and Hon. Members will be able to check this at the conclusion of the year.
I made a comment earlier about $4 billion. The Hon. Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse), the spokesperson for the New Democratic Party, concluded his remarks by saying that about $4 billion will be paid and that that was terrible because the net farm income of farmers in western Canada would come almost totally from Government. He said that that made farmers public servants. Then in the same breath he told us to put in more money-


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am not sure if there is a rule, but I think it is generally the practice for Hon. Members who are quoting other Hon. Members to quote them accurately. Had the Hon. Member been a bit more awake, he would have noted that I said that given those figures, were we Conservatives, we would probably complain about farmers being nothing better than civil servants and we would make a lot of politics out of it. However, I had no intention of doing that. I think the Hon. Member should at least quote other Hon. Members accurately.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: That is a matter for debate.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, I will take the Hon. Member's words under advisement. I will have a look at Hansard and see-


Don Boudria: With due consideration.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: The Liberal Member who has now arrived said, "With due consideration".
Of the three members of the Liberal Party who spoke, I paid a compliment to the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis, but I would like to mention now the Hon. Member for Winnipeg- Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy) who was a Minister of the Crown in the last administration. He condemned this Government for not doing enough. Hon. Members opposite said that last year grain prices were reduced by close to 20 per cent and this year wheat prices by 15 per cent, with the total close to 18 per cent. Compare that with 1981 to 1983 when the Liberal Government was in power. At that time, there was a decrease of 48 per cent, but what did the Government do? That decrease was the largest since 1938. It brought the value of grain down to 1938-dollars. The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry railed and condemned this Government, but what did his Government do? It did nothing.
Senator "Blazin" Hazen from the other place is travelling across southern Canada with his whiskers, his big hat and his pointy-toed shoes. He is saying: "We want justice". Where was
he? He was a member of the Cabinet of the Liberal Government. Not only that, he was the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board. In 1983 did he do anything? No. Did he go to Cabinet? We are not sure because we do not know if he was allowed to go to Cabinet. It is sometimes alleged that he attended Cabinet but we never saw anything that would make us believe he was there.
In 1981 the prime rate in Canada was 22.75 per cent. Now, in 1987, it is 9.25 per cent. When the Liberals were in power with their high interest rate policies in 1981, FCC loans were at 16.75 per cent. Today FCC farm loans are at an eight-year low at 10 per cent. Farm improvement loans were 23.75 per cent in 1981. Today they are at 10.25 per cent. Yet the Liberals have the audacity to condemn the Prime Minister and this Government for not doing enough for western farmers. They did absolutely nothing. They did not even have the courtesy to recognize that there was a problem.
Let us look at subsidies in the U.S. and the EEC. The Americans subsidize agriculture to the extent of $3 billion a month. The EEC is spending $6 billion on storage alone. We cannot compete with that, but if we could, would it be right? The Americans took on the EEC and what happened to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina? What happened to our producers? If Canada joined in this madness what would happen to Australia, New Zealand and Argentina? If Australia joined in this madness what would happen? It is sheer lunacy to enter into this form of competition. As much as it is needed at this time Canada cannot afford it and it is not the way to solve the problem.
I want to talk briefly about some statements made yesterday and early today. First let us talk a little bit about the removal of the moratorium as a sign of confidence. I hear the NDP and Liberals laugh and snicker. Yet it is a sign of confidence because this Government and the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) have put in place programs which will allow the removal of that moratorium. It is a sign of confidence because we started with interest rate write downs, we put farm debt review boards in place, shared risk mortgages in place, commodity-based mortgages in place, and a rural transition program in place.
I heard members from the NDP say the rural transition program is wrong. If that is so, then it must be wrong to have unemployment insurance. With that attitude the NDP must believe that unemployment insurance is wrong for the workers that they claim support them. They must believe it is wrong if they condemn the rural transition program.
This Government and the people of Canada contributed to agriculture in the form of the special grains program. We put money at the disposal of western farmers and agriculture in general.

April 28, 1987
Instead of supporting that, instead of building confidence and making the financial institutions believe that this is going to work, what did the NDP and the Liberals do? They spread gloom and doom. They dragged down that confidence. They refused to assist and buoy up the farmers. Farmers are by nature confident people. We put a crop in the ground in the spring and we know we are going to be taking it off in the fall. We get calves in the spring and we know those calves are going to be worth money in the fall. We have confidence.
Yet what do the Liberals and NDP do? Because we have removed the FCC moratorium, because we have confidence that we have programs in place to keep farmers on the land, they send signals of doom and gloom. I heard the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy), whose only concern and knowledge about agriculture is that as long as Safeway is open he is sure it is in good shape, say that this is a bad signal to the financial institutions. The bad signal is being sent by the NDP and the Liberals. They have negative thoughts.
Mir. Riis: Are things getting better?


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: The Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) has returned from his nap and wants to take part in the debate from his seat. Yes, things have gotten better. I want him to know that bankruptcies have declined.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Do you want to put your seat up?


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: The Hon. Member can wait. In due course there will be an election. Look at the nervousness of the NDP. They are concerned about what they are doing. They are concerned about the gloom and doom they are spreading. They are concerned about what they are doing to drive farmers into not believing the effort made by this Government and the people of Canada. I cannot understand why, when the people of Canada, and the Government and the Prime Minister, put effort and energy into programs designed to assist farmers to stay on the land, why those two Parties opposite-not so much the Liberals because they have not been here-forecast nothing but doom and gloom.
I had an opportunity to see the Leader of the National Farmers Union on television talking about the moratorium- more gloom and doom. I do not know, but maybe he was caught up in the moratorium; maybe he was in a conflict of interest; maybe he was one of those who were in default. That is possible. I can see no other reason why a leader of a farm organization would be so negative about all of the programs put in place by this Government. I do not understand it. I may be jumping to conclusions but I cannot find any other reason for that happening.
I would like to say in conclusion that I compliment the NDP for allowing government Members to take part in this debate in order to clearly enunciate the actions taken by the Prime Minister and his Government, and the support the people of Canada have given the grains and oilseeds industry in this country.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: This emergency debate commenced at eight o'clock last night and has been pursued vigorously by Hon. Members on both sides until now. I think all Hon. Members would appreciate that it would be appropriate now for the Chair to recognize the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney).


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have an opportunity to participate briefly in such an important debate which involves the wellbeing of farmers in general, the agricultural community and, in a special way, the well-being and future of western agriculture. I suppose that in many ways this debate is about attitude as well. It was called by the NDP in a fit of interest for western agriculture, yet the NDP could not summon enough Members for a quorum to begin the debate. That is a question of attitude. They did not even care enough about western agriculture to have a quorum to begin the debate.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame, shame.


Iain Francis Angus: Where were you all night?


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton) rises on a point of order.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, with regard to the Prime Minister's (Mr. Mulroney) remark made just a moment ago, less than five minutes ago there were less than five Conservatives in the House.


Iain Francis Angus: We can all play the same game.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame, shame.


Mr. Speaker:: There is a tradition in the House that Hon. Members refrain from remarking on who is or is not in the House. As Speaker I have been in and out of this House for a good many hours. I do not think any Hon. Member would want me to begin to identify who has been here and who has not been here all night. The Right Hon. Prime Minister should proceed.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that my hon. friend took such offence at my remark.


Nelson Andrew Riis: There were no Tories in the House at all by the way, Brian, to begin the debate.


Lynn McDonald: Why don't you deal with the issue?


Martin Brian Mulroney: The NDP seems to be offended by this. It is a question of attitude.


Lynn McDonald: Deal with the issue.
April 28, 1987


Martin Brian Mulroney: If the matter is important enough to generate an emergency debate the NDP should ensure that its members are here, because this Party is here to defend the interests of western Canada. They had better stop saying one thing and doing another because western Canadians are fed up to the teeth with the hypocrisy of the Liberals and the NDP on western Canadian issues.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Check the polls. You're at the bottom of the ladder. They're laughing at you and your Gucci shoes. Have you got your Guccis on?


Martin Brian Mulroney: I will acknowledge to my hon. friend that it is true that last autumn we received a call from a western Premier saying that western farmers are in trouble in agriculture and are asking for help. My answer to that was, yes, we will help western farmers.


Nelson Andrew Riis: You should be embarrassed.


Martin Brian Mulroney: A former Prime Minister got a call in not dissimilar circumstances and said, "Why should I sell your wheat?" The Prime Minister of Canada and all Members of Parliament have an obligation to sell western Canadian wheat because that is our duty to western farmers and to Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Your Parliamentary Secretary didn't even want a debate. He said there was no need for a debate.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Do you want to make another speech?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Yeah, I'd like to make another speech.


Martin Brian Mulroney: The Hon. House Leader of the NDP is an outstanding member of this House and will be given opportunities to make more speeches, and I will listen to him with respect as I always do. I know he will want to do the same for members of the Government as they address some pretty fundamental issues.
I indicated that this is a question of attitude. It is very much a question of attitude. We indicated to western Canada very clearly in the campaign that we would get rid of FIRA. We said that we would get rid of the NEP. We said we would implement the Prince Albert declaration designed to be of assistance to western agriculture, western energy, and western Canada in general.
We said we would deal with the question of interest rates. Lowering interest rates is not just an abstract theory. For every percentage point they are lowered farmers pay approximately $150 million less to the banks. We have lowered them between 4 per cent and 5 per cent which results in $600 million to $700 million that farmers are not paying to the banks but using to reinvest in their own farms.
We said that we would deal with a capital gains exemption for the family farm. We said we would get rid of the tax on
farm fuels. We have done this. We made a series of commitments to western Canada and we have honoured them because by building a stronger base for western Canada we are contributing to Canadian unity.

Mr. Speaker, francophone or anglophone, Conservative or New Democrat, we must all face up to the regional realities of this country. Western Canada is going through difficult times. It is true that certain regions of Canada-for instance, Ontario, Manitoba, some regions of Greater Montreal-are experiencing a rather significant economic recovery. We have serious problems in western Canada, in Alberta, in the interior of British Columbia, in Saskatchewan, and our fellow Canadians in these provinces quite properly expect national assistance from the federal Government.

I am here to say on behalf of all Canadians that this is not something for which western Canadians or farmers are asking. This is something which Canada must respond to in the interests of not only fairness to western Canada, but to our own citizenship and the building of a stronger united Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: I saw Alvin Hamilton participating in this debate late last night.


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Martin Brian Mulroney: I apologize. I referred to him as Alvin only because that is the way the country has known him and loved him. It was a great privilege for me to work with him 25 years ago as a private secretary, to have travelled with the Minister of Agriculture to every village and town in western Canada and to have seen first hand the tremendous strength of western agriculture and the tremendous commitment of farmers; their devotion to family and their devotion to hard work.
An extraordinary situation has developed in Canada. It is not to be blamed on political Parties, but it is here. Farmers in Canada in general, but western Canada in a special way because of the nature of the territory, have always been told that if they work hard and make sacrifices they will increase their productivity, contribute to the national wealth, and will be rewarded. Western farmers have devoted their lives to making Canada a richer and better place. They have increased their productivity and have been penalized for it. That is wrong and must be reversed. Farmers must receive a greater degree of fairness.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Martin Brian Mulroney: The matter of the climate in which this is dealt with is also important because it has been placed in the context of western Canada. I doubt if there has ever been a federation within which there has not been regional strains and tensions. It is the duty of federal politicians, not to exacerbate those strains and tensions but to try to reduce them, to try to

April 28, 1987
harmonize the interests of the people of Saskatchewan with those of the people of Nova Scotia.

The interests of Matane with the interests of the residents of Esterhazy in Saskatchewan.

The beauty of Fort St. John, British Columbia, must be brought into harmony with the interests of Port-au-Basque, Newfoundland. That is the obligation of federal Members of Parliament and that is what we are here for. That as well requires a degree of fairness in representation.
This is indeed a country of regions. Thousands of miles of geography are bound together by a small population base essentially in the south. There are indeed discernible regions with different interests. This is a vital part of our citizenship. We have to respond to it not in a parochial way but in a recognition that these regions make our national strength when brought together by a national Parliament.
Let us examine those from western Canada who sit on this side of the House. The trade issue, which is the top issue in Canada today, is being handled by a person from British Columbia.
The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Siddon), the Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Oberle), the Deputy Prime Minister and Government House Leader (Mr. Mazankowski), the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark), the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Andre), the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada (Mr. Hnatyshyn), the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. McKnight), the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) and the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) are representatives from western Canada in the Government of Canada. I invite Hon. Members to objectively analyse this and compare it with other administrations. I believe they will come to the conclusion that never, since this Parliament was founded, has western Canada been more powerfully represented in the Government of Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Not only are the internal workings of government important, all of us must realize that we have a role to play and a place of strength and importance in the national Government. This translates as well into a number of different instruments. We are all familiar with how the House and, in many ways, how the Government works.
For example, it is important to mention that there are very powerful visible committees of Cabinet. The Government Operations Committee of Cabinet, which is so important, is chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister, who is from Alberta. The Foreign Policy and Defence Committee, which is second
most important, is chaired by a member of the Government from Alberta. The committee on social policy, which is responsible for all social policy spending by the Government of Canada, is chaired by the Minister of National Health and Welfare, who is from Manitoba. The committee dealing with economic expenditures is chaired by the Member from Quebec.
I suggest it is an indication of the tremendous respect for regional realities and the tremendous role that western Canada plays and must play in the heart of the decision-making process in Canada. I made a commitment to the people of western Canada that these things would happen, and that, most of all, western Canada would be brought back to the centre of the decision-making process in Ottawa from which it had been estranged for 20 years. I stand in the House today to tell you that western Canada is very much playing a leadership role in the decision-making process in Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: The issue today is not about partisanship. On a question involving agriculture, alienation and concern, the issue is about human beings. Today it involves farmers, their spouses and their families. I believe it is a great tribute to the House that we are all here doing our best to try to improve the lot of farmers.
Regretfully, I doubt very much that our great newspapers will reflect the prominence that this issue should have. The subject of this debate on western agriculture and agriculture generally should be on the front page of every newspaper, English and French, from St. John's to Vancouver. I doubt we will see it, but I say to those responsible for establishing the priorities in the media that this is an opportunity for them to prove their involvement in the true national priorities. If ever there was a question that should be dominating the front pages of the eastern press, it is the problems of western agriculture. I invite them to get with it, deal with an urgent and important issue, and give it the publicity that it deserves so that all Canadians can be aware of this dilemma.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Later, we can see what those front pages reflect, but I say with sadness that I doubt very much if this tremendous priority that is shared by all Members of the House will find that kind of reflection.
The issue today deals with a number of vital areas that go to the heart of federalism. These areas include the perception of estrangement by western Canada, the question of agriculture and the implicit question of transportation. Also inherent in this issue is the question of protectionism internationally and our role internationally.
I cannot imagine anything more important for an easterner-someone from Toronto, Peterborough, Halifax, or St. John's-than to understand this clear sense of frustration of western Canada. They are crying out, asking Canadians to try
April 28, 1987

to understand, not that they are dissatisfied with their Canadian citizenship, but that there is a sense of delaissement and that western Canadians are not receiving the priority for their concern that western Canadians are being hit with a double whammy in declining energy prices and commodity prices in agriculture.
May 1 say in tribute to all Members that the House of Commons has responded very nobly to that concern and will continue to do so. It is important that all Canadians, from Vancouver to St. John's, English and French, understand the cri de coeur of western Canadians. By our actions in government and in the House of Commons we are trying to signal to western Canada, as we would to any other region, that without fairness and a sense of justice and a perceptible feeling that indeed this is a reasonable country, we have failed western Canadians and all Canadians in our duties as national parliamentarians. That is a duty which we never lose. Today we are talking about the lives and welfare of people who work the soil and contribute to our national well-being and are going through extremely difficult times.
I know that statistics have been mentioned throughout the debate last night, and arguments have been made back and forth. May I touch on one aspect of our attempt as a Government to resolve the international grain subsidy wars which, in many ways, are at the heart of the problems facing our producers today.
No one is scott-free. In this business no one is perfect and no one is without the stain of sin. However, these subsidies, particularly those that have emanated recently from the United States and the European Community, which can only be characterized as a trade war, have driven down world prices and have distorted both production and marketing patterns. This war is having disastrous implications for traditional exporting nations such as Canada and Australia.
As I indicated a year ago, my Government is not prepared to stand idly by while Canadian farmers go down the tubes through no fault of their own. I recognize that when we responded with a billion dollars for western grain farmers that inadvertently we were contributing, not to the immediate resolution to the problem, but perhaps in some way to at least getting Canada a position at the table so we could tell the others that in the name of God we cannot let our farmers go down the tube while they are fighting wars. But if the war continues we will all lose.
Canada's treasury is not large enough to compete with the Europeans and the United States while they wage this fratricidal war that can only doom Canadian farmers. That is why I know Members of Parliament recognize the importance of government programs and of bilateral arrangements with provinces. Indeed, that is what we did.
I make no apologies for having authorized the emission of $1 billion in cheques to western farmers last October. It was the right thing to do. Western Canadian farmers were hurting; we received the request and we responded affirmatively. It was the
right and proper step for the Parliament of Canada to take. However, it does not solve the problem.
The alternative is more billions and more billions of dollars. When this is added to the burden of debt we inherited, there is an increase in interest rates which are then passed on to the farmers who are placed on the treadmill to oblivion from which we, as parliamentarians, must try to remove them.
If there is one issue that should not be partisan, it is an approach to international commodity difficulties on behalf of farmers.
As an initial step, Canada chose to make agriculture its top priority at the annual economic summit of industrialized nations in Tokyo last year. That marked the first time in the history of economic summits that any country had made agriculture a priority. Before leaving for the summit, I, along with the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise), the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer), and the distinguished Secretary of State for External Affairs met with farm leaders. We got them together in Vancouver and discussed Canada's strategy for the summit. The summit was an effective step forward in our efforts to get agriculture on the GATT agenda.
Following the Tokyo Summit, Canada organized a meeting with the five major wheat exporters in Whistler under the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board. A second meeting was held in San Diego. These meetings have increased mutual understanding about agricultural trade and have strengthened our collective resolve to restore fairness to the world grain trade.
Another of the key steps involved a group, a very important group we have come to refer to as the Cairns Group, 14 countries including Canada, all of which consider themselves fair traders in agriculture. By co-operating, these countries are aiming to balance the power of the European community, the United States and Japan. We do not have to go much further than a trip which is taking place this week between two economic super powers to see the debilitating impacts of protectionism even against a power like Japan.
Where the United States reacts, rightly or wrongly, against an economic power like Japan, one can see the incredible effects not only economically for those two countries but the powerfully negative impacts on currency transactions around the world and the way in which that ultimately impacts, strange to say, on the guy who always gets it in the chin, the Canadian farmer. All of these variables cannot be seen in isolation. Currency transactions in Tokyo, economic summits in Punta del Este all impact on the Canadian prairies and those who make the Canadian prairies grow, namely, the farmers.
This interlock of interest, I think, is shared in the House of Commons by Members of all Parties because if there were an easy and one-shot solution, I think Members would have

April 28, 1987
shared it with all of us a long time ago. So we got together for the first time in Cairns, Australia, last August and our representative was the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board. There we agreed on a common approach for agriculture which could be taken to Uruguay at the launching of a new round of multilateral trade negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. These negotiations, which are now under way, will seek agreement on new rules governing international trade. There is no miracle or overnight solution, but the fundamental building blocks are in place for a sane resolution of a complex and tragic problem.
The co-operation and solidarity of the Cairns Group was a major factor in the eventual success at the GATT launching. We obtained agreement for a very explicit reference to trade in agricultural products which has never happened before, a fact the House Leader of the New Democratic Party, who knows a lot about this, will confirm. Year after year the Europeans tried to avoid the inclusion of this kind of discussion. Members of the Common Market, for reasons we can well understand, tried to avoid Canada's insistence on bringing this matter forward simply because of the very structure of their own agricultural basis and the enormous and overwhelming subsidies which are paid to European farmers, which then engender the kind of reaction in the United States which impacts so negatively on our own producers. So we obtained that agreement for a very explicit reference to trade in agricultural products. It called for talks aimed at establishing greater discipline on the use of all direct and indirect subsidies in agriculture with a view to achieving more open and fairer trade.
It is predicated on a simple proposition as far as Canadians are concerned. We believe that Canadian farmers, if uninhibited and unfettered, are tremendous producers who can compete with anyone in the world. It is only when they are crushed by subsidies coming at them from the competition that they cannot compete, and this is designed to free up the entrepreneurial genius of the Canadian farmer so he can compete and build a stronger Canada through his own efforts.
Following the Uruguay round, I personally met again with farm leaders and other Ministers to keep them abreast of our efforts, our imperfect efforts, because this is a long and difficult struggle. It has been a year of hard work and of building bridges with other countries. I think I can tell the House with a modest degree of satisfaction that our efforts on behalf of agriculture are beginning to pay off. But it is far from over. Now that agriculture is on the GATT agenda, Canada is continuing to push for an agreement that would establish fair rules governing world agricultural trade.
The Cairns Group will meet again next month, this time in Canada, down the street, and 1 invite Members of any political Party, when the representatives of the Cairns Group are here, to please take the time to visit with them. Please take the time to share your views and the views of your Parties with the international representatives who, at our request will be meeting down the street here in Ottawa prior to the Venice
Summit so that we can have the kind of common front and approach which Canadian farmers expect from responsible parliamentarians. I assure all Hon. Members of the full cooperation of the Government in their efforts to participate in this process.
On another front, when the President of the United States came to Ottawa earlier this month we discussed at very great length two things; first, the choice we were given last year. Canada was given, as all the participants were, one item which could be raised at the industrialized summit. As Prime Minister of Canada, I chose to raise the issue of western agriculture at the summit. We made the first case which has been made for agriculture in those terms at the industrialized summit and at my meetings with President Reagan here.
Because of the tremendous impact, obviously, that the United States has on this kind of venture, I worked closely, as did the Secretary of State for External Affairs, with Mr. Shultz in seeking joint approaches, this time in Venice, so that measures we initiated last year in Vancouver and carried to Tokyo could now be brought to some degree of fruition with the support of the United States of America and other industrialized countries which surely must have come to that conclusion when we were telling them last year, that this was lunacy. The $24 billion and $25 billion worth of subsidies going to the agricultural producers in the United States would cripple not only people in Australia but throughout western Canada, would imbalance traditional markets, would be unfair, debilitating and would have the kinds of anti-free trade implications that we are all trying to resist. I think it has dawned on all of the others that perhaps that was right and perhaps it is time for us to come together in a sense of maturity and reasonableness to protect people in all countries.
I preach for my own parish. I have no hesitation in saying it. When I go there, I defend the interests of Canadian farmers. But I think the interests of Canadian farmers are defended fairly. Western and European farmers find solace in that because their interests are being fairly represented by their leaders, as are the interests of the United States farmers.
So it is a complex and a socially challenging issue.
The Minister for International Trade (Miss Carney) met last week with the Trade Ministers of Japan, the United States and the European community. It was their first meeting since the launch of the Uruguay round. Our Minister stressed that agricultural issues are at the top of our agenda for the summit in Venice and for the GATT. She told them that for the Government of Canada no issue is more important than agriculture. I think all Hon. Members would agree-because we are pleased when a Canadian succeeds in representing our interests so vigorously-that the Minister scored a victory for Canada by getting their commitment for the first time that this matter be properly discussed as an agenda item at the OECD meeting in Paris next month.
April 28, 1987

So the work and the pressure continue. Sanity will not be restored to world agricultural trade overnight. We recognize that. It is a long and a difficult process. No one invented this problem yesterday. The problem was some time in coming. It has been exacerbated by nationalistic impulses in other countries. It has had very grave and serious consequences for western producers. It is something that I think the farmer more quickly than anyone else understands-there is no quick fix. It will not be resolved satisfactorily overnight.
However, I think Canadian farmers will watch the Government of Canada and the Parliament of Canada to measure the seriousness of our commitment and the logic of the steps we have taken. Farmers are saying: "Do not give us a quick fix that is not going to work in six months. We know there are grave international implications. We know that they can only be solved in co-operation with the summit countries and with the GATT. We want the Parliament of Canada and the Government of Canada to work in harmony with their trading partners to ensure that this trade war stops and that Canadian farmers get every reasonable opportunity for fairness and prosperity".


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, internationally our principles state that the agricultural policy should be designed so as not to adversely affect in any way international trade. To this end, and progressively over time, agricultural policies must become more price responsive. Support for agriculture should avoid production incentives, namely, support should be for farmers and not necessarily for any specific kind of farming. Farmers are the key.
Individuals, human beings are what this debate and what this commitment are all about. Countries should seek to reduce governmental assistance measures that artificially distort world prices and contribute to an accelerated trade war. Countries should not introduce new import barriers that are not mandated by existing legislation. These basic principles must be implemented collectively so that the United States, the Community, Canada, Australia and the Cairns Group can respond in a timely and effective manner.

Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of all farmers in Quebec, Ontario, the Maritimes and western Canada, I think this was an excellent opportunity for parliamentarians of all political factions to air their views on the agricultural sector which is so important, so vital with respect to the future of Canada. We have a serious and even a moral obligation towards our agricultural community. For decades now this community has been making a generous contribution to the national wellbeing, and now as parliamentarians we have an opportunity to respond directly to the concerns of both this community and the individuals who belong to it.

That is what it is about. In my judgment the debate is about finding long-term solutions to very complex problems that escape the simple writing of a cheque yesterday. I say without the slightest fear of contradiction by anybody that the influence, the real influence, in the decision-making process by western Canadians that I have talked about-I see my friend from Winnipeg has just come in.


Lloyd Axworthy: Let's talk about the CF-18, shall we?


Martin Brian Mulroney: I can tell my friend from Winnipeg that he missed the area of the debate in which we talked about maturity. He would not recognize maturity and fairness if he tripped over them. This is a debate about western farmers.


Lloyd Axworthy: And I was in the debate last night!


Martin Brian Mulroney: If you want to talk about something else, you can talk about it any day, because my Government and I have always stood for the interest of western farmers, and that is what we are standing for today.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lloyd Axworthy: And I talked about six hours before you got around to it, my friend. I was here six hours before you were here.


Martin Brian Mulroney: I say to the Hon. Member for Winnipeg- Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy): Where were you when a Liberal Prime Minister-


Lloyd Axworthy: Get off your dancing shoes, Mulroney!


Martin Brian Mulroney: -said that you did not want to sell western wheat? Why did you not resign? If you had any honour you would have resigned from the Liberal Party.


Lloyd Axworthy: Get on your dancing shoes, Mulroney. Come on, get on your dancing shoes.


Martin Brian Mulroney: If you had any guts and honour you would have stood up in your place and you would have said: "This is an insult to western Canada and 1 will resign from the Liberal Party".


Lloyd Axworthy: Let's see your shoes, Mulroney. Come on, let's see your dancing shoes.


Martin Brian Mulroney: But you did not have the gumption to do it and that is why the Liberal Party is paying the price it is today.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry was doing well today, until he got up. This is early for him. He usually struggles in here around Question Period to ask his question. I realize that this is a little early for him, but farmers have been up for hours. They know who has

April 28, 1987
been here participating in this debate. They know that this is a complex and difficult challenge.


John R. Rodriguez: Where were you?


Lloyd Axworthy: Where were you last night?


Martin Brian Mulroney: They know that we have had 19 Members participate, as have the NDP. I believe that there have been 18 or 19 Conservative Members participate in the debate and at least 15 NDP Members. What do I see? Three Grits?


Some Hon. Members:: Shame, shame!


Lloyd Axworthy: I was one of them!


Martin Brian Mulroney: There they are, Mr. Speaker: Foster, Axworthy and Prud'homme-Faith, Hope and Charity of the Liberal Party.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria) on a point of order.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, it should be important for the House to note that four Conservative Members of Parliament have spoken consecutively since I have been in the House, and I have not yet been recognized today.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Don Boudria: 1 am glad that they let others speak because they have been in the House longer than I have been here. But I do not expect the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) to engage in that type of partisan nonsense. After all, I was up before he was this morning.


Maurice Brydon Foster: He has his black Guccis on today!


Lloyd Axworthy: Show us your shoes, Brian. Get up on your toes and show us your shoes.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Lloyd Axworthy: Go back to your renovated bedroom.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Hon. Members will know that this debate started at eight o'clock last night and it is now 8.50 this morning. The Chamber has been visited from time to time by Hon. Members. However, it seems to the Chair that there is no particular advantage to be gained by commenting on who was and who was not here during these many hours. As a consequence I think that perhaps the House would be pleased to hear the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) complete his remarks.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we have gone from the commitment of John Diefenbaker as Prime Minister to the very distinguished Hon. Member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton) to a great Minister of Agriculture who spoke in this debate. This has been the tradition of the
Conservative Party in regard to western Canada and to western problems.
I indicated at the beginning of my speech that in my judgment, apart from the complexity of the issue that we will try to resolve together, that this is also a question of attitude. It is a question of the perception of estrangement, the kinds of difficulties that western Canadians feel far removed from Ottawa, which is why I tried to deal with this in very real terms. But it is a question of attitudes. I thought it was best summed up, if the truth be known, by something that was met with some criticism by the Liberal Party here in the House which I acknowledge to be true. It is true because when we get right down to it, it is a question of how a federal Government will respond to a region, or an individual, or to a group of individuals. And it is true that in the autumn of last year, when you get right down to it, the attitude was there. We did receive a call for help from the western Premiers, who said they were having difficulties-
SS0)


Maurice Brydon Foster: At 5 a.m.


Martin Brian Mulroney: The Member opposite says, "at 5 a.m.". What is wrong with a call coming in at 5 a.m.? Does he not know that there are time changes between the west and the east? I am here and available to take a call from a western Premier at any time of the day or night. I do not refuse to take the call because it comes at 5 a.m. If a western Premier telephones, I take the call and I try to work with him and his Government to solve the problems confronting western Canada.
When you get right down to it, the main criterion for progress is attitude. It is true that we received a call for help, un cri du coeur, from western Canada. The caller said: "Look, western Canadians are hurting. Our farmers are hurting. It is going to cost an arm and a leg to solve these problems. Will the Government of Canada help the farmers of western Canada?" And the answer by the Prime Minister of Canada was: "Yes, we will help western Canadian farmers", as I undertake to do now.


Lloyd Axworthy: Let's hear the announcement.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, there was a previous call for help from western Canada. A western Premier called a previous Prime Minister and asked for help in selling Canadian wheat, and the answer the caller got was: "No, I will not. Why should I do that?"
I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, as Prime Minister of Canada, our obligation to western Canada and to the east, to the north and the heartland of Ontario, and to all other regions, is the same: We will respond when called.
The Hon. Member opposite finds it unusual that I would respond at 5 a.m. I do not find that strange at all. If there is an area of Canada that is suffering difficulty, if there is a group
April 28, 1987

of Canadians suffering any kind of difficulty, it is the obligation of the Prime Minister of Canada, on behalf of his Government and the Parliament, to respond.
It happened that we received telephone calls from western Canada for help-and I can tell you what the position of my Government was then, what it is today, and what it will always be: When western Canada asks for help, to the extent humanly possible, Brian Mulroney and the Government of Canada will say, "Yes". We are there to build a stronger western Canada and to build a stronger Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I wish to pick up where the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) left off. The Prime Minister has spoken for half an hour or so talking in general terms about the problems of western Canada and alluding to problems elsewhere, and his concluding words were to the effect that if someone calls from western Canada and there is a need-


Jack Wendele Shields: We got you out of bed, did we?


John Edward Broadbent: If there is a need-


Jack Wendele Shields: Did we get you out of bed, Ed?


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Lloyd Axworthy: You guys are sensitive this morning, number three in the polls and going down. It really hurts!


Mr. Speaker:: Order. While under the strict rules of this debate, the Prime Minister would have been limited to 20 minutes for his remarks, no Hon. Member interrupted his remarks to raise the issue. All Hon. Members extended to the Prime Minister the courtesy of allowing him to continue his remarks well beyond the 20-minute time allocation. That is simply the usual courtesy that is extended by Hon. Members of this House.
The Hon. Member for Oshawa (Mr. Broadbent) now rises to take part in this debate, and I would expect that all Hon. Members would extend to the Hon. Member for Oshawa the same courtesy that was extended to the Right Hon. Prime Minister.


Jack Wendele Shields: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Athabasca (Mr. Shields), on a point of order.


Jack Wendele Shields: Mr. Speaker, I was extending to the Leader of the New Democratic Party the same courtesy that the New Democratic Party House Leader extended to the Prime Minister of Canada at the outset of his remarks this morning. I thought that perhaps my point would be made much clearer to the socialists on the other side were I to do to the Leader of the New Democratic Party precisely what the House Leader of
that Party did to the Prime Minister when he commenced his remarks.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member has made his point. I repeat what I have said: A great courtesy was extended the Prime Minister this morning, and I would expect that all Hon. Members would extend the same courtesy to the Leader of the New Democratic Party, the Hon. Member for Oshawa.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With that slight altercation behind us, I shall now get on with the substance of the debate.
I was about to say that the Prime Minister spoke at some length, as it is entirely appropriate for him to do, and during the course of his remarks he made the point that when a western Premier calls and demonstrates a real need in respect of particular problems in the west, he, the Prime Minister, responds. Well, Mr. Speaker, during the course of his 30 or 35 minute speech, the Prime Minister talked in generalities. He did not give a single new response.
1 say to the Prime Minister, if the situation was bad last fall, when the Prime Minister did respond, in the middle of a Saskatchewan election, to a call, the situation in western Canada is worse today, and now is the time that action is required; now is the time that the Prime Minister should be responding.
Let me take a moment to deal with that situation. We are having this debate by virtue of a motion brought by a Member of the New Democratic Party, the Hon. Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo), who himself is a farmer. He is one who recognizes the absolute necessity for the Government of Canada to respond, not simply in the long term-and I will come back to that in a moment-but in the short term to the very serious crisis that is taking place today in western Canada.
In that context, I want to say that it was interesting to again hear the Prime Minister talking about the long term. As the Leader of a Party that has always believed in planning, I can tell you that when one hears a Progressive Conservative talking about the long term-and with your background, Mr. Speaker, you will appreciate what I am about to say-one can be very sure that he is not prepared to do anything about the short term. The only time Progressive Conservatives are interested in the long term view, Mr. Speaker, is when they have nothing to offer in the short term.
The situation in western Canada is indeed serious. I had the occasion to attend a meeting last night at which various farm groups from southern Ontario expressed their concerns and apprehension about a free trade agreement being entered into with the United States with nothing being done about the need of farmers to have effective marketing boards.
It was pointed out at that meeting that somewhere between 23 per cent and 25 per cent of Canadian farmers are on the

April 28, 1987
point of bankruptcy, or are at least in a very precarious financial situation-and that applies to farmers in all agricultural sectors: grain producers, corn producers, hog producers, dairy farmers, and so on. While the costs of production have been on the increase, commodity prices have been on the decline.
I say again to the Prime Minister: If the situation was bad last fall, it certainly has worsened since that time; and we recently had the announcement that grain producers are going to suffer another 18 per cent drop in prices. So, if action was needed in the context of a Saskatchewan election-or, to put it bluntly, to buy votes-now action is needed to save farms all across Canada.
In this context I wish to say something about two immediate areas where we thought action could have been forthcoming, two areas that we in this Party asked questions about in Question Period yesterday and to which we received no answers; two areas that we kept front and centre in the contributions made by the members of the New Democratic Party in this very important debate.
The first one was the credit position of farmers. As the House knows, the Government, with what seemed to be calculated insensitivity, announced that on Friday the moratorium on farm foreclosures will be lifted. When the moratorium was put on some 19 months ago, it was said by the Government at that time that there were good reasons for it.
Indeed there were good reasons for putting a moratorium on foreclosures. Farmers were in the midst of a crisis over which they had no control. The vast majority of farmers who then found and now find themselves in difficulty are not in this position because they were incompetent or did not know what they were doing. It is because they were caught in an international crisis in part and a domestic crisis in part, the general nature over which they have no control. For the men and women, whether they are industrial workers, miners, or agricultural workers, in this kind of situation, a Government with any sensitivity should rapidly move in, bail them out, and protect them in the short run. That is what is needed now.
However, the point is that when the moratorium was put on some 700 farmers specifically, at that time, were on the verge of losing their farms. It was a serious situation, so action was taken. Now when the situation has not become better but has become worse, and when there are about 6,000 farmers in the same position as the 700 were in 19 months ago, does the Government say that logic should compel us to extend the moratorium? By no means should it be forever because farmers are self-respecting and, as Canadians in other walks of life, they want to make their contributions and to ensure that they have responsibility over their farming operations. They want to live up to those responsibilities, so they do not want an indefinite extension. If there was a crisis when there were 700 farms on the verge of bankruptcy, surely when that number has now risen to 6,000 we should be announcing an indefinite
extension of the moratorium until farmers are out of the crisis, not lifting it on Friday.
I do not need to remind the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) that not long after he came to office certain banks at the other end of the economic ledger required in his judgment immediate bail-outs. They got billions of dollars. That decision was made over a week-end. I say to the Prime Minister that many more Canadians, specifically Canadian farmers, are being threatened at this time. If he could take that action for the banks, surely he should be taking it in the interests of prairie producers.
We will continue to press right up until Friday for the Government to rethink its decision to put an end to the moratorium. It must think about the serious situation of farm families and the importance of a farm family as a continuing and crucial element to the social fabric of the country. It should think about those farmers, think about those families, and announce by Friday a change in its decision to lift the moratorium on foreclosures. That is one specific with which the Prime Minister could have dealt today. He could have come into this important debate and said, "Yes, there has been some reconsideration and we are going to change that". However, he did not do that.
I should like to refer to the second area. If anything is perhaps more serious-and certainly it is equally serious-it is the income position of farmers who are rising this morning across the country as we sit here. With the time difference between here and the Prairies, they are up now and are seeding. They are making crucial decisions about the income fate of their families for the coming year because they are putting in their present crops.
What the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) did yesterday frankly surprised me. I have respect for the attitude of that Minister. I think he takes his responsibilities most seriously. I do not agree at all with the policies he is implementing right now.
When he responded to questions which I put to him yesterday he left the impression that there was something off about my question. Well, I do not think there was. I did not pretend then-and I do not pretend now-to have the same detailed knowledge of agriculture as the Minister of State for the Wheat Board who happens to be a farmer. I respect that there are certain things in this area, to say the least, on which he has more detailed knowledge than I have.
I asked the following question yesterday on behalf of grain producers who were making decisions now, and on behalf of my colleagues in the NDP who know the details of agriculture, would the Government of Canada be prepared to guarantee farmers who are currently seeding that when they look at the final results of their crops in terms of net income it will be no lower than it was for last year's crop? The question was relevant, and I ought to have received the answer that the Government of Canada would guarantee that the income would not go any lower. Again I ask the Prime Minister that
April 28, 1987

question. We will get back to it in Question Period today. He could have dealt with it.
The Government of Canada should recognize that grain producers had a 20 per cent drop last year. The announcement indicates that they can expect another 18 per cent drop unless they receive a deficiency payment. We are saying that a deficiency payment should be announced to ensure that farmers working out there and putting in new crops as we are debating today will not have a drop in income which will take them below what they got last year. That is the point.
I say to the Prime Minister quite seriously that we agree that long-term solutions are needed. We agree that action must be taken through GATT. We agree that all pressures ought to be put on the European Community to stop its counter-productive, massive subsidy program which has been equalled and exceeded in good measure by the United States. With these massive subsidies by these two large economic entities in the world-the European Community on the one hand and the United States of America on the other-we cannot compete over the period of a decade. Canadian farmers do not want that. Canadian farmers can produce competitively and they have shown it. They are the best in the world in the grain sector if the competition is fair.
We agree that steps should be taken at the international level to get the EEC and the United States to live up to their own rhetoric. The rhetoric, particularly in the case of the United States, is to put an end to these kinds of subsidies. If the Americans are going to preach to others abroad, they should start practising it at home.
Indeed there are long-run steps which must be taken. I could talk about other measures such as stabilization of income programs for our producers as well as certain international steps. However, I want to return to the emergency.
By definition, the emergency concerns steps which should be taken now. We cannot stand back and watch our grain producers getting some S3 per bushel, which is well below what it costs them to produce. We cannot tolerate depression level prices. We cannot stand back and watch 23 per cent to 25 per cent of our farmers being on the verge of bankruptcy. We cannot stand back and watch a moratorium, which was appropriately put on farm foreclosures 19 months ago, being lifted on Friday.
We want the Government of Canada to live up to its short-run obligations as well as its long-run obligations. This means that the Government must come to the aid of Canada's prairie producers now, at a time when there is not an ongoing provincial election and when the need is much greater than it was last fall when there was one.
I would conclude by saying that from now until Friday, we are going to keep the heat on. We are going to get the Government to realize what it must do about the moratorium on foreclosures. We will put the pressure on the Government
.S'. O. 29
so it will announce an appropriate deficiency payment for farmers who need it and deserve it.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, this morning we heard the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) say that his Government would be prepared to respond to a call from the farmers of Canada. Before this debate began and, indeed, during its currency, the Prime Minister received an urgent wire in the form of a telecopied letter from Garf Stevenson, President of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, relating to this emergency debate on, as he puts it in his letter, the farm economic crisis. Though there was no response made by the Prime Minister this morning to this particularly urgent call, Mr. Stevenson did call upon the Prime Minister to bring to mind the fact that the rural way of life and related service industries are in jeopardy. Mr. Stevenson said the following:
The pool asks that all Members of Parliament recognize the very critical
economic situation confronting Western Canadian families and communities.
This crisis has far-reaching social and economic implications for the national
economy, as well as for the West.
Then the President of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool set forth what he believes would be a minimum program including joint federal and provincial co-operation to keep families on their farms in productive capacities, early consideration to be given to an acute need for a substantial deficiency payment for the 1987-88 crop year and the continuation of the federal Government's efforts to restore sanity in the international grain market.
My colleague, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy), and myself held a joint press conference in Winnipeg and Ottawa last week dealing with this very issue. My colleague, the Hon. Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster), spent a good deal of the Easter break dealing with this issue. Last week, for the thirty-second time since the election, I as Leader of the Opposition travelled to western Canada, not only to meet the commodity crisis in wider terms but to again respond directly to the agricultural crisis.
We are desperately concerned. We are dealing not only with a cyclical crisis affecting part of our economy, we are dealing with the survival of the family farm, we are dealing with the survival of a way of life in rural communities and we are dealing with something that is now beginning to affect the infrastructure and tax base of all of western Canada. It is affecting the survival of rural municipalities in the western provinces. We have a major situation on our hands, a situation that is not cyclical but is structural. If the Government of Canada does not respond in urgent and immediate terms, we risk sacrificing an entire way of life.
The Prime Minister spent some time dealing with the international grain crisis and describing in rather vague terms what the Government was doing to try to bring together the major producing powers in an attempt to restore some sanity to international grain markets. That was just one of the items mentioned by Mr. Stevenson in his urgent letter to the Prime Minister of last night. What the Prime Minister did not say is

April 28, 1987
what the Government will do by way of an urgent and immediate response.
We on this side of the House believe that we need now an announcement of a deficiency payment sufficient to restore this year's prices to last year's initial prices and to guarantee to Canadian farmers at least the same returns as they received last year. That is number one. Second, we believe that not only must this cash flow be maintained and maintained so that farmers know when to seed, what to seed and whether to seed, we also believe that the growing credit crunch and avalanche of debt, punishing Canadian farmers, should be resolved soon and in some meaningful way.
Yesterday during Question Period we said that we could not understand the cruel, insensitive timing of the lifting of the moratorium on farm debt by the Farm Credit Corporation. One week after the initial grain prices were lowered by 18 per cent, the Government lifted the moratorium and threw the 6,000 farmers who were at risk into immediate jeopardy. That we cannot understand and we want a rationalization of it.
1 have studied recent interest rates applicable to prime, efficient farmers. On 15 or 20-year mortgages the interest rate under the Farm Credit Corporation, which is supposed to be a preferential rate, is 11 per cent.


Mr. Blenkarn:: Oh?


John Napier Turner: It is 11 per cent and longterm, 15 per cent to 20 per cent. I could say that the Hon. Member from Mississauga is a short-term operator. He ought to look at the long-term rates. I have them right here.
Subtracting the current rate of inflation, which is running at approximately 4 per cent-and here I am sure I will again get some gratuitous advice from Mississauga-from the 11 per cent, the real rate of interest faced by farmers under the preferential status of the Farm Credit Corporation is 7 per cent. That is higher than the rate farmers had to pay during the height of the recession in 1981-82 when in effective terms they were paying a real rate of 1.5 per cent. Now they are paying 7 per cent.
Western farmers are in deep trouble and the response of the Government is totally inadequate. Initial prices for grain as announced by the Wheat Board last week have been cut by 18 per cent over last year's prices. Last year initial prices were down by 20 per cent over the year before. In 1984-85, the price per tonne for No. 1 wheat was $170. In 1986-87, that price was reduced to $130 per tonne. This year, under the initial prices just announced by the Wheat Board, No. 1 wheat is down to $110 per tonne. In three years the initial price has gone from $170 per tonne to $110 per tonne. That is lower than the cost of production.
Last year the Government could say that it was eating into the profit margins of farmers. Most farmers could not even meet the cost of production last year, but this year it is certain that even the most efficient farmer who is all paid up and has his family working with him will not be able to meet the cost
of production. I challenge the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board to argue that point.
A couple of years ago, in 1984-85, No. 1 barley was $125 per tonne. Last year, 1986-87, it was down to $80 per tonne. In 1987-88, this year, under the initial prices just announced, it is down to $60 a tonne.


Maurice Brydon Foster: No deficiency payment.


John Napier Turner: And no deficiency payment. Farmers have a decision to make. They have to decide what to seed, when to seed and whether to seed. The Government has made no commitment to the farmer at this time when the farmer needs answers. The farmers need answers and they need them now, not next July or next October.
It seems that the only time western farmers see any activity on the part of the federal Government is when a provincial election threatens a sitting provincial Government.

At the minimum, we want the Government to guarantee to farmers that the return for this year's crop will be at least the same as last year's levels. We must tell farmers they will get the support they need and deserve and we must send a strong signal to rural Canada and the agricultural industry that we as a nation are in the grain business to stay.

I think we must also send a strong signal to the United States and the European Community indicating that we will not let our farmers continue to be the victims of our officially low grain prices, provoked by a treasury war between Europe and the United States which has prompted an artificial surplus and has lowered prices throughout the world.
As I said to the President of the United States when he was in this country three weeks ago, the U.S. Farm Bill, with its export subsidies, is killing the Canadian farmer. I was bitterly disappointed when the President spoke in this Chamber to hear not one word on agriculture, not one word in response to the Canadian farmers' plight, not one word to indicate he would attempt to rationalize the North American market, not one word in response to what I hoped the Prime Minister said to him in those private meetings that there must be some rationalization of the North American and world grain situation. If the American Congress continues to artificially ratchet down grain prices by way of subsidy, our grain producers are going to be driven off the land and we are going to be a different kind of country. Yet there was no public response to that by the President of the U.S.
Farmers are not asking for hand-outs. They are asking only for what is rightfully theirs, a fair price for their grain and fair market conditions. This is not just a cyclical economic crisis. It is taking its toll in human terms. Farms are facing bankruptcy.
April 28, 1987

The psychological pressures on farm families, the concern about whether children will stay on the farm, is forcing family breakups. A whole way of life is being threatened.
I have said that the only way western Canada seems to be able to get assistance these days from the Government is through threats. The fear of an election loss in Saskatchewan last year brought aid to farmers last fall. A threat from Premier Getty to split the Alberta Tory Party finally brought some help to the oil industry. Farmers are getting ready to seed their 1987 crop. They have tough decisions to make and they need answers from the Government and they need them now.
I want to conclude as I began by saying that we in the Opposition call upon the Government to do two things immediately: Announce a deficiency payment sufficient to raise the return this year to farmers equal to last year's return, and do it now so that farmers have some assurance that when they seed they will have a return that will cover at least the cost of production. Second, we call for a rationalization of farm debt and a revocation of the decision of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) to lift the FCC moratorium.
I end where I began by reciting the urgent letter telecopied to the Prime Minister from Garf Stevenson last night during the course of this debate. If he has not already seen it, he will find it in his files. On behalf of western farmers Mr. Stevenson calls upon the Prime Minister directly for immediate action. Fie wants joint programs to keep the family farm alive. He referred to the deficiency payment. He wants restoration of sanity in the international grain market and I would add, as well, the rationalization of farm credit to assuage the overwhelming avalanche of debt which is absolutely crushing the family farm in Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, it is amazing to see the change which has come over the NDP and the Liberals during the last few days.
I would like to deal with some of the things which are the cause of farmers being in the position they are in today. A lot of it is because of policies put forward by the Liberal Party and supported by the NDP. I am not talking with the wind like some members of the Opposition. I spent four days of last week visiting farms and towns in my constituency. I know what farmers are saying.
Farmers are not crying crisis as the Opposition is today. Sure there is a crisis. They know the Government will come through at a proper time and in a proper way. That is the message the farmers are sending. They are not worried as they were a few years ago. They can recall that in 1979 we had good prices. Inflation was driving the price of food up. Things were good on the farm. Young farmers said here is our chance to expand. We will buy more land and so they did. They
expanded their holdings so they could make a greater contribution to Canada. Then what happened? The situation changed entirely.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I hope the Hon. Member will move over to his own seat so that he can participate in the debate. I regret to point out that he is now at the wrong seat. I know the debate has been going on all night, and I regret I have to interrupt the Hon. Member.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, the only thing I was trying to do was get closer to the Government. I know the Government is going to come through at the proper time with help for western Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Gordon Edward Taylor: I apologize for being at the wrong seat. I thought there was something funny over here, but I did not realize it was me.
As I was saying, prices started to change and interest rates went up and up and up. We pleaded with the Liberal Party to do something about interest rates. They went up to 22 per cent. That is the main cause of farmers being in trouble today. The international situation is certainly serious, but not as serious as the problem caused by the increase in interest rates which was permitted by the Liberal Party and not opposed by the NDP.
Many young people have already lost their farms. They were losing their farms during the Liberal Government; but what did the Liberals do? Not a thing. They let interest rates rise and rise and rise. Now they are crying the blues. Now they are suddenly interested in the western farmer and farmers in general. I say "suddenly".
Sometimes when we asked the Liberal Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Whelan, when he would do something, he would say "soon". His only reply was "soon". Well, "soon" never came. There were more than 1,400 farmers in this country who went bankrupt during the term of the Liberal Government because they did nothing about interest rates. They may have short memories but farmers do not. Neither do Members on this side of the House. We pleaded with the Liberals to change that policy but nothing was done.
Today there are still farmers who are stuck with interest rates from that time. This Government is doing something about it. We are going to the banks and asking why they set interest rates at 14 per cent, 15 per cent and 18 per cent today when the prime rate is below 10 per cent? That should be changed. We are doing our utmost to have that changed. However, it is not the Government, it is the banks who have a lot to do with it.
The problem lies with the Bank Act passed by the Liberal Government. Our banks should have a mandate that when interest rates drop from as high as 22 per cent and 23 per cent to below 10 per cent, there must be a corresponding change in mortgages which were taken out during that time. Otherwise

April 28, 1987
there is simply a massive amount of money going to the banks which is unearned and unnecessary. The banks have to keep going, but they have to be realistic as well.
What is one of the main causes of many farmers being on the verge of losing their farms, or in fact losing their farms? The international situation is only a small part of it. The main cause was the interest rates permitted by the Liberal Government during that time. They are still stuck with those rates and we are feeling the aftermath now. So is the farming community. It is the aftermath of the Liberal Government.
The same thing applies to the energy situation. What is the problem there? Again it is the aftermath of the National Energy Program. That is what ruined the energy situation in Alberta.
It was a deliberate attempt to destroy the energy industry in the Province of Alberta and, to a lesser extent, in the Province of Saskatchewan. The Liberals can talk all they want today but they cannot change that. They did their utmost to get every rig possible out of Alberta. There was a line-up of rigs leaving the country because of the national energy policy. Today we are suffering the aftermath of the Liberal administration and no one can deny that.
The Member who was the Minister of Energy in the Liberal administration said there is more drilling going on today than there was last year. The Hon. Member for Lethbridge- Foothills (Mr. Thacker) had shown pictures of rigs lined up at the border leaving the country along with the expertise and their capital.
It is no wonder that western Canada is in a depression today. It is a created depression almost as bad as that imposed upon Ukrainian people years ago. I have read the history of how Ukrainian people had to submit to giving two-thirds, 75 per cent or 90 per cent of their production to the communist regime. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian people died, not because the land did not produce, but because food was taken right off their tables for taxation. It is a blight on the history of the world that that was ever permitted.
That is almost comparable to the depression created by the Liberal Party with the national energy policy. It affected every farm. One of the main causes was the increase in fuel costs because of the national energy policy and the massive taxation imposed upon the people. It is comparable to what the Communists did in Ukraine during the 1930s when people died right and left because of a lack of food.
The same thing happened in Alberta as a result of the national energy policy. I saw the effects on our towns and villages, our merchants, and even on our churches. Everyone felt the depression which was created by the national energy policy deliberately to hurt one part of the country.
They now stand up and ask what the Government is doing for western Canada. They cry because the Premier of Saskatchewan phoned in the middle of the night. Well, the
Premier of Saskatchewan was so concerned that he was up in the middle of the night worrying about what could be done to help the farmers of western Canada.


John Napier Turner: The walls were too thin.


Gordon Edward Taylor: The Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mulroney) did not mind getting up a three o'clock in the morning to answer the call. When we told the Liberals about the national energy policy they scoffed and the people of western Canada will not forget that.


Mr. Rossi:: No, they know you're bluffing.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Members can smile all they like but the western farmers did not smile because that policy resulted in scores of them losing their homes and farms. One of the major reasons that scores of them are on the verge of bankruptcy today is the high interest rates which were supported by the Liberal regime which did nothing about it. It is not the international market which is causing them to lose their farms today. The international market will have an effect from now on and I will deal with that in a moment, but let us not kid ourselves. The Liberals and the NDP are not pulling the wool over my eyes or over the eyes of the farmers of Canada.
Farmers know that the main cause was the national energy policy and the high interest rates during the Liberal regime. I ask any Member on that side of the House to prove that that is not so. That is a proven fact which has been notarized by many, many people.
I have sat in farm homes with people who are today still paying 15 and 18 per cent interest. When a man on the farm weeps, you know there is something wrong. The whole family was crying because the bank was going to take over their farm, not because of anything the present Government did, but because of the interest rates which were permitted to be charged during 1981, 1982 and 1983.
I asked the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) in this Government to plead with the banks and he did that. One fine young third or fourth generation farmer in my constituency saw the opportunity to expand his holdings in 1979, thereby making a better contribution to his country and providing a better living for his family. He bought more land. How was he to know that the Liberal Government would permit interest rates to go up to 22 per cent? The bank then said it would take his farm because he could not make his payments. What farmer can make payments with a 22 per cent interest rate? What business in Canada can stand up under an interest charge of 22 per cent? It is impossible.
I lived through the depression years. I was teaching during the hungry thirties and saw an insurance company remove a farmer from his farm. I went to the company and said, "This man has farmed here all his life". They said, "He owes money and if he cannot pay it, off he goes". Other farmers pleaded but nothing happened.
April 28, 1987

I will tell you the story of that farmer. His wife had TB. There was no medicare, no free medicine for tuberculosis in those days. The most important thing for him was to save his wife, so he borrowed the money to send his wife to the best doctors he could find. He borrowed the money when wheat was selling for about $2 per bushel. He expected to repay bushel for bushel plus a little more for interest charges. His wife passed away. The insurance company then said that he was way behind in his payments. How could he make the payments when the price of wheat had dropped to 19 cents a bushel and the price of eggs had dropped to six cents a dozen? This was in 1934 and the insurance company would not even listen. It said, "Off he goes."
That farmer pulled a granary which was on skids to another piece of land which another farmer said he could farm for him because he was being treated shabbily. That farmer lost his farm through no fault of his own. There was no compassion or consideration. The company even threatened to take him to court for moving the granary which was on skids.
I have seen many such things during my lifetime. I have recently been in farm homes where the same thing is happening. The high interest rates which prevailed in 1981, 1982 and 1983 are now catching up to farmers just as the interest rates of 1918 and 1919 caught up with the farmer of whom I just spoke. At that time scores of people were moved off their farms. In 1935 a moratorium was put on by the Government of Alberta, supported by the Government of the Right Hon. John Diefenbaker. After 1936 we were able to save hundreds of farms in Alberta.
However, the moratorium had some bad effects. Farmers in my riding tell me today to be cautious with moratoriums because they suffered for many years as a result of the moratoriums imposed by the Government in 1937 and 1938.
The farmers said that without credit they cannot operate and want us to proceed carefully when using moratoriums. There are better ways to deal with the issue because moratoriums hurt farmers who are able to get credit and need it to operate. We must be careful that we do not adversely affect the farms that are not in trouble. While there is some merit to moratoriums, I have suggested to the Government that it proceed cautiously. Not all the farmers in my riding want moratoriums to be extended, and many of them are completely against a moratorium because it ruins their credit.
Our Government realizes the necessity of moratoriums and the Minister of Agriculture has extended moratoriums on FCC a number of times. However, if we follow the Opposition's suggestion and impose too many moratoriums, many farms that are solvent could go on the rocks. We want to save the farms that are already suffering, we do not want more farms sent down the drain.
In 1937 we established Debtors Assistance Boards which were able to bring together the principal lenders and the
borrowers. Those boards were given the power by legislation at that time to roll back the interest rates because they were completely unfair.
The Minister of Agriculture has established boards that will be able to allow both sides to meet. These boards do not yet have the power to force back mortgage interest rates, which may become necessary if the financial institutions and insurance companies insist on retaining interest rates of 15 per cent to 20 per cent that were in effect between 1981 and 1983. The farmer, or anyone else, cannot make ends meet at such interest rates, no matter what the Government does. The farmers who are experiencing difficulty today are those who tried to expand their holdings during better economic times in 1979 and 1980. They had no idea that interest rates would jump so dramatically, which is one of the major causes of farmers losing their homes today. They have not been able to catch up to those interest rates and are therefore losing their farms.
The Minister of Agriculture is considering what should be done. It may be necessary to amend the Bank Act, which I support if it can be done. I believe the banks should receive a fair rate to which they are entitled for repayment of their loans, but they have no right to expand their financial holdings by ruining farmers in this country.
We must help the farmers who are still paying interest rates of 17 per cent. If the financial institutions refuse to take action, I hope the Government will do so.
You are signalling that my time is almost up, Mr. Speaker, but I have much more to put on the record. I listened to Opposition speeches. I am amazed how they have suddenly realized what is happening in the agricultural industry, as if a great light suddenly shone upon them. I wish they had come to that realization between 1982 and early 1984 because today we are suffering from the agricultural policies that were enacted during that time.
The agricultural community is receiving help from the Government. The crop year does not begin until July 1. The farmers I have visited are not worried about the seeding because S700 million will go to them very soon. That money was authorized by the Prime Minister, the Minister of Agriculture, and the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer). They are men of compassion and understanding. I sometimes get nauseous when I hear Members opposite talking about the problems of farmers when I realize what they did only three or four years ago. Furthermore, some of them do not know the front end of a hog from the back of a cow, yet they stand up to plead for the farmers. They should have given them more consideration when they were in power because now we are suffering the aftermath of what they created.
We will correct the situation, but it will take time. The Prime Minister, the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board are anxious to pull the

April 28, 1987
country together and help every farmer. That is what we are determined to do.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Before 1 recognize the Hon. Member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria), I want to advise the Hon. Member for Cowichan- Malahat-The Islands (Mr. Manly) that we gave the three leaders an opportunity to speak. Therefore, we are returning to the regular rotation which is now to the Hon. Member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell. I will then recognize a Member for the Government and the Hon. Member for Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The rotation of leaders meant that a Liberal spoke, then a Conservative. Now it should be the time of the New Democratic Party to talk and I respectfully ask that I be allowed to speak.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is not a point of order. The Hon. Member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria).


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, we have been sitting all night, and the debate may go on for a couple of hours, to discuss the crisis situation in our agricultural industry, especially in western Canada. However, the situation is not unique to that part of the country because the same problems exist elsewhere in Canada, and in fact in the very province and riding which I represent.
Before I continue my speech today, Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a few moments to speak on behalf, I hope, of all Members of this House and thank our parliamentary staff which has had to work all night.

Sometimes some of us tend to forget about the people who assist us in doing our job here on Parliament Hill. This morning, when I came to the House at approximately 7 a.m. and took the familiar mini bus that brings us here, I was talking to the driver who informed me that he had been working since two o'clock yesterday afternoon.
Indeed, the people who work for us and spend those kinds of hours, whether they work for us as messengers, bus drivers, clerks at the Table, interpreters, or camera personnel, certainly deserve special recognition on a day like this, when we have subjected them to a very tough time. I certainly hope that the Speaker will issue the appropriate thank you on behalf of all of us to the staff who serve us so well.

Mr. Speaker, Canadian farmers have suffered two major setbacks in the last few days. First, we heard about the lifting of the moratorium on Farm Credit Corporation loans, and second, the Government, or should I say the Canadian Wheat Board, announced that initial payments for this year will be 18 per cent lower than last year. The impact of this price drop will
be particularly severe if we consider the fact that the situation in the industry was not very good to start with.

How did we get into this situation? I listened to speeches by Members opposite. The Prime Minister and other Members have alluded to some of the issues. There is one essential point that I believe has not been raised yet. First, we should remember that the current crisis in the prices of commodities is due to the U.S. Farm Bill. There is no point in calling it anything else. That is in fact the cause of the difficulty we are in.
Some people will say that the U.S. Farm Bill was implemented in order to react against similar legislation initiated by the European Economic Community. That is at least partially accurate, but not totally. There is some measure of accuracy to that suggestion. However, we should remember that the effect we are seeing now in this country directly results from an initiative of the United States Congress, signed by the President in December of 1985, known as the United States Food Security Act, 1985, commonly referred to as the U.S. Farm Bill.
That Bill was debated for months in front of the U.S. Congress. From April 22 to April 24, 1986, a delegation of Members of this House went to Washington in order to be briefed on the U.S. Farm Bill and to find out just what effect it would have on Canadian agriculture. We listened to presentation after presentation describing to us the ill effects this legislation would have on Canadian farmers.
First Bank Agri Services, a division of Bank of Montreal, published a document in February of 1986. It was a document prepared for them by Chase Econometrics and in it we were given the effects of the U.S. Farm Bill. The predictions at that time of Chase Econometrics for the Bank of Montreal were that in 1986 the price of wheat could vary between $2.40 and $2.70. In 1987 it could vary between $2.28 and $2.85. In 1988, it could vary between $2.17 and $2.71. In 1989 it could vary between $2.06 and $2.57, and in 1990, it could vary between $1.95 and $2.44. You have obviously noticed, Mr. Speaker, the dire predictions here and the direction in which the prices will be going, according to Chase Econometrics for the Bank of Montreal.
Knowing that this would be the effect of the U.S. Farm Bill on Canadian agriculture, I have to ask a question of the Government. Where was the Government at the time that Bill was going through the U.S. Congress? We have an embassy in Washington, as we all know. I was at the Canadian Embassy and in view of the deplorable effects of this Bill I asked who we hired to lobby Congress and why were they not more successful in providing some relief for Canada. The answer was that no lobbyist was hired to try and defeat or modify the Bill or convince the U.S. Congress to do something with that legislation.
April 28, 1987

The Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor) talked about the fact that commodity prices are low because of the previous Government. That is utter nonsense. I do not pretend that everything was perfect under the previous Government but at least this Member of Parliament, coming from the region he does, should know better.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am sure the Hon. Member wants to be accurate. I never at any time said that commodity prices were low because of the previous Government.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria).


Don Boudria: We will review Hansard later, Mr. Speaker. I definitely recall hearing the Hon. Member telling us that the agricultural prices to which farmers are subjected today, and the agricultural crisis, are because of low commodity prices and he said that was caused by the previous Government, and even accused the previous Government of doing things which were similar to what the U.S.S.R. did in Ukraine some 50 years ago. I remember hearing the Hon. Member saying that. He should not have made those remarks. They were totally inappropriate, but were nevertheless made by him. He should apologize for them to everyone, including the Ukrainian-Canadian community, for uttering such nonsense.
1 would like to raise with you, Mr. Speaker, other effects of the U.S. Farm Bill. First, there is a law in the United States which has $70 billion worth of subsidies designed largely to displace other world markets. We are "other world markets" because we sell our products on the world market as well.
According to the United States, and this is information they gave to me in Washington-I am reading from notes I took there-in 1980 the United States decided to boycott sales of wheat to the Soviet Union. It did that for the specific reason that the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Because the United States cut off sales to the U.S.S.R. it resulted in a large surplus of wheat at that time. The Americans said that the other countries took advantage of them. They expanded their own markets and the U.S. even accused Canada of having done that.
That is totally ridiculous. Obviously, someone should be straightening that out in Washington. The Americans said they had to do something. They said that Argentina, Brazil, Canada and Australia expanded their markets at the expense of the United States. They said that prior to the embargo they had 32 per cent of world wheat sales but that had now gone down considerably and that the 49 million tonnes they produced in 1982 was now in great measure surplus rather than used for foreign sales. The Americans also said that there is another cause of all this.
At the same time this phenomenon of the Afghanistan boycott was proceeding, there was another situation. Many countries in the Far East, for instance, became largely selfsufficient so that has caused the surpluses we have today.
What is the American solution? They will embark on this program and depress prices until the others are out of business. The Americans were quite candid about that.
Do the others get discouraged with their own subsidies, particularly the EEC? I do not pretend to know Europe as well as perhaps some, but a number of us have ancestors who came from Europe. We know that Europe suffered greatly during the Second World War from hunger, and to believe that the Europeans are going to stop producing because they have to inject too many subsidies is not to remember history very well. There is a will in Europe to be self-sufficient in food which is quite powerful. In my view it is a great deal more powerful than the Americans believe it to be. The subsidies in western Europe will continue, contrary to what the Americans believe.
We now have large U.S. subsidies which will continue on until 1990 since the U.S. Farm Bill will be in effect for five years. There are EEC subsidies which will not stop for reasons which I described earlier. Canada is stuck in between with only two choices. The first choice is to convince everyone else to reduce their subsidies, particularly the United States. The second choice is to increase our subsidies to the level of theirs so that our farmers can exist. There are no other choices. We cannot enlarge the planet in order to find new markets. We cannot do that. What we have to do at this point is to convince the Americans to cut it out.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) went to great pains complimenting and congratulating himself, forgetting of course to mention that at the Shamrock Summit of 1986, though we all received glossy pictures of the Prime Minister and fancy booklets, there was no mention of agriculture. Four months after the U.S. President had signed into law the U.S. Farm Bill the Prime Minister in the booklets, leaflets and information kits concerning important issues to be discussed in Washington, failed even to mention the U.S. Farm Bill.
He now has the unmitigated gall to stand here in the House, chastise everyone else, saying that some opposition Members did not speak, when we sat down to let him speak early this morning out of courtesy-not to him but to the office which he holds. He then has the nerve to make remarks such as he did earlier today in the House.
The Prime Minister should get a little bit more serious about this issue. It is important to western Canada. It is important as well to regions such as the one which I represent, which is largely agricultural but in a very different part of the country.
The Prime Minister said that he talked recently to President Reagan about this very important issue that he described. He forgot to tell us that there is talk of increasing the export subsidy under the U.S. Farm Bill. There is talk now of increasing it, after the President left here. That is what the U.S. is now planning to do.

April 28, 1987

The Prime Minister also referred to GATT and spoke in glowing terms about the steps he had taken in this respect, but unfortunately, he forgot to mention that the documents requested by GATT two months ago, on the specific position Canada was taking, have yet, as far as I know, to reach GATT. And this is about the very subject we spent the night discussing in the Elouse. I think the Prime Minister would be well advised to go back to his office, instead of putting on another pair of Guccis, and to act on GATT's request and provide the necessary documents so that we can put an end to this subsidy war through multilateral negotiations.
The Canadian farmer is no longer competing with the American farmer. Efe is competing with the U.S. Government. How is he ever going to win, Mr. Speaker? Nobody in Canada can win this fight. The Canadian farmer is not begging for subsidies, he seeks justice and, if he is to compete against the American Government, is it not normal that he should expect some kind of assistance from the Government of Canada. The Government of the United States is certainly not going to hand money over to farm producers in this country. Will Canadian farmers have to apply for foreign aid? How can they rely on the Prime Minister to get what they need? Members opposite were telling us earlier that the season has just opened, that perhaps we will hear better news later on. Mr. Speaker, we simply cannot seed retroactively, we have to do it right now if we want a harvest this fall. A farmer cannot wait for subsidies at a later date and then decide that he should have seeded two months earlier. The farmer needs this information, and he needs it now.
I urge the Members of this House to continue to raise these important issues today for as long as it takes to convince the Conservative Government to do something. True enough, subsidies were made available last year, Mr. Speaker, but this happens to be the worst agricultural crisis ever in this country, and it calls for whatever action is required on the part of the Government. The Government would not be doing our farmers a service nor showing how generous it can be with them, because anyone producing food does so for the good of all Canadians and not only for those who are directly involved in the agricultural sector. Therefore it is the duty of the Prime Minister, the duty of the Government, and the duty of all Members of this House to make a positive contribution to ensure a sound agricultural economy.


Mr. Ken James (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to have an opportunity to speak on this very important issue. I have a very personal feeling about entering into this debate since I was born and raised on a farm and have farmed, as have my father and my grandfather. In fact, my great grandfather came from England to Ontario and broke the land. I feel something very different than I have ever felt before in the House of Commons when I hear the rhetoric from academe and Bay Street about farming.
Farming is very different from any other profession. I do not know who can really feel it better than someone who has been there. Farmers think long and hard about things. They do not make a lot of rash decisions. They also have some interest in their fellow man and they would probably listen instead of milling around behind me. I listened with interest as the Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Turner) was talking. I did not see one farmer elected to the Official Opposition sitting in the House today. I say to them, do not beat up politics and get into long-winded rhetoric when you are dealing with such important people.


Don Boudria: Say that to the Prime Minister of all people.


Kenneth Albert James: Farmers sitting here this morning would probably not make the type of interjection that I just heard from behind me.
I want to tell Hon. Members, because I feel very personally about this matter, that as a boy we did not have a lot. My father took over the farm from my grandfather; through some adversity it carried a great amount of debt. When my mother and father got married they had two old cows and a debt-ridden farm. They did not ask for a whole lot from the Government. They put their heads down and went to work. I would like some of the people who have talked so much today experience that. As kids we did not have anything. We had hand-me-down clothes. I had to milk cows by hand in the summer when the perspiration would roll right from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet; my head was up against one old hot cow with another behind me. By this time we had at least 10 or 12 milking cows. I am glad that I had those experiences. We have at least 20 farmers sitting on the Government benches today, each of whom has I am sure, at least as much farming experience as have I. As such, we have a good understanding of what is needed to address the serious problems facing the agricultural sector in Canada today.
It is with reluctance that the various farm groups approach governments for assistance. In cases where assistance is forthcoming they want it developed with some thought and understanding. They want input from the very learned and qualified groups within Canada, as was the case with the recent grain subsidies.
Just this past weekend I had a discussion with my brother, the full time operator of our farming operation. It is an operation that is not making huge amounts of money. However, that does not cause me to come into this Chamber and fly into a rage against the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise), as has happened during the course of this debate.
Both the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of State responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) are farmers, and as such have a good understanding of what is required. Certainly, they know more than those who have practised their professions on Bay Street, none of whom have ever had to milk a cow or lift a sheaf of wheat. These people
April 28, 1987

did not have to get mired and dirty in order to make a living. In order for the children of farm families to attend university the family itself had to work that much harder.
I am very concerned about the way in which this whole question is being approached. I am sure that my neighbours in the Sarnia-Lambton area are chuckling at the kind of rhetoric we have been hearing during the course of this debate, particularly from people who have little or no understanding of the problems of the farming community and the way in which they should be addressed. We need a thoughtful approach to these problems, with important input from the farm groups and organizations that exist in this country.
In 1981, the prime rate was at 22.75 per cent. Farmers today are still trying to get out from under the debts incurred during that period. Where were these people then? This is a point raised by the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor), an individual who has lived with the problems of the farming community longer than I. He was no doubt appealing for a saner approach to interest rates in those days. Today, an FCC five-year loan is at the rate of 10 per cent.
As we went into the 1984 campaign, as a farmer I was certainly impressed by the 16 point agricultural policy developed by the Progressive Conservative Party. I am sure my colleague from Bow River was instrumental in the development of that policy as, no doubt, was the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Minister of State responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board, and others.
That policy came out of a conference held in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and became known as the Prince Albert Declaration. The Progressive Conservative Party in that policy said it would remove the capital gains tax for farmers. Since forming the Government, we have provided for the accumulation of $500,000 exempt of taxes. We said that we would remove the sales tax on farm fuels. Of course, we have done that. We said we would change the Western Grain Stabilization Act. Again, that certainly has been done. We said we would change the Western Grain Transportation Act to remove the volume cap and freeze the rate. Again, that was done. Going into the 1984 election campaign the Progressive Conservative Party promised to increase sales and extend our markets for grains. Certainly that has been done. We said that we would bring forth a red meat stabilization program, which we did. We say that we would allow dual labelling, and we have. As well, we have acted to reduce the flow of subsidized beef from the EEC. We said that we would establish Farm Debit Review Boards. We have done so.
I am proud of this Government, a Government that put together that Prince Albert Declaration and in fact followed through on it.
We have heard a lot of rhetoric and yelling about how the western farmers feel. In that regard, let me quote from the Winnipeg Free Press of Thursday, December 18, 1986. The article is headed: "Pool praises PM." It states:
The Alberta Wheat Pool has praised the government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney for his handling of problems in the agricultural industry-
It is really quite an extraordinary hard time in agriculture right now and we feel that so far the present government has responded well.
Certainly the score card, according to the Winnipeg Free Press-a very important newspaper when it comes to the agricultural sector-comes down in favour of this Government. That is an article that was written at the time the deficiency payment was made.
Next I have a publication entitled: Wheat Pool "budget". Under the heading "Farm Income Record in 1986" we have the following:
Alberta Agriculture estimates that 1986 total realized net farm income in Alberta was $788 million, the highest level on record, and a remarkable 45 per cent over the 1985 level.
The record was achieved because of lower operating expenses, a healthier livestock sector and substantial government program payments.
Payments under the Western Grain Stabilization Plan, crop insurance and other programs accounted for an estimated 17 per cent of total farm cash receipts in 1986.
That is not to say, Mr. Speaker, that there is not a problem, and one which we need to address, in western Canada and in Canada generally in connection with grain sales. I do wish to emphasize, however, that this is a Government that has shown the way. It is addressing the situation in a very forthright and planned manner.
I know that our farmers do not have the same confidence in the opposition Parties, the members of which have given us so much rhetoric since the start of this debate.
In that connection, I should like to quote from the Winnipeg Free Press of April 11, 1987. The headline is: "No hope from the Liberals".
The article states, in part:
Even the western members of the caucus remain sadly out of touch-
The 17-page report is an empty document offering ringing declarations of discredited party policy, outright distortions of economic reality and not a single firm proposal which would make any significant difference in the economy of Western Canada.
It goes on to say:
Most of the actual proposals of the task force are so vague as to be meaningless.
Then it went on to indicate:
On agriculture, the task force boldly recommends that "income support measures such as the Alberta Liberal Party's suggestion for a negative income tax for farmers should be examined more closely".
It continued:
Significantly missing from the group are two other elected Liberals: Manitoba Liberal Leader Sharon Carstairs and John Turner, Member of Parliament for Vancouver Quadra and Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Both should consider themselves lucky to be out of it.
That certainly reflects some thoughts from western Canada on the vague, quickly thrown together, wild promises in connection with agriculture.

April 28, 1987
We have a Government with many actual working farmers who know what it is to have callouses on their hands. They are part and parcel of the way in which we think a government should address the problem.
I should like to refer to the document entitled "Directions for the West-Proposals for the Western Canadian Economy". This Liberal proposal was immediately dismissed by the Winnipeg Free Press as an empty document.
Who are these experts on western Canada? Is it the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy)? I do not know how many cows he has milked or how many sheaves of grain he has stooked. I do not know how understanding he is.
Let us reflect upon what has happened in terms of federal support for agriculture in western Canada since 1983. According to the graph which I have before me, it would be about $300,000 million. In 1984, when the Conservative Government came into play, it shows that federal support of agriculture went up to $1 billion. In 1985 it was about $1.7 billion. In 1986 it was about $2.2 billion. For 1987 the forecast is in the area of $3.2 billion.
I think farmers in western Canada understand a Government which is moving toward assisting in a thought provoking, organized manner, not flailing about with rhetoric. I think that is very important to my farming colleagues across Canada, especially those in western Canada-and we grow a lot of grain in Ontario-in this depressed price time, the result of large amounts of subsidies by the United States and the European Economic Community. They are depressing the prices and we are caught in the middle. It is something which we must address in an organized way.
At the same time it is important that we remember that the Government has brought forward over 400 separate initiatives providing $5.76 billion to the benefit of Canadian agriculture, in sharp contrast to what the previous Liberal administration did. Farmers in Lambton County must chuckle a lot about the statements of Hon. Members on the opposition side as they reflect on what they did. Of course the NDP could not do anything because it has never been in Government. 1 am sure those farmers remember what the Liberals did not do when they were in Government.
On the grains and oil seeds side, a $1 billion payment has provided and will continue to provide a needed boost to cash flow. There have been a number of other issues including new grain deals, advance payments for crops, the record interim payment under the Western Grain Stabilization Act, cash advances for unharvested grain, and amendments to the Western Grain Transportation Act. The producer freight rate was maintained. There is a new domestic feed policy, and commodity based mortgages were introduced. Farm debt review boards were put in place. There was the Canadian Rural Transition Program, and of course, reduced interest rates.
I see you signalling, Mr. Speaker. I will probably not have time to deal with all the initiatives we have introduced as a
government. Of course the farm fuel tax relief was introduced. We also assisted specialty groups. Our long-term dairy policy was lauded and appreciated by that industry.
As a farmer who has deep roots, serious concerns, and an understanding of the industry, I ask the Government to move toward addressing the international pricing situation of grain farmers with a lot of thought, sincere study, and certainly the help of the farming community and its important organizations.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak in the debate, and I want to say a word of appreciation to the Hon. Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo) for having initiated it.
The Hon. Member for Sarnia-Lambton (Mr. James) who just spoke complained about what he called opposition rhetoric. I do not think that the people in western Canada see it in quite that way. They recognize that we have identified very clearly the crisis facing farmers in western Canada and that we are asking the Government to do something about it.
I also heard the Hon. Member read a list of things which the Government has done. Our Party is in full accord with some of those things. We appreciate that those measures have been taken. However, right now we are facing a crisis which demands further immediate action to save the family farm economy of western Canada. It is not good enough for the Conservatives to say that they have done thus and so and the following. They must address the present crisis. They cannot live on the basis of what they did a few months ago. That is not good enough. That will not help the people facing the crisis today.
Also the Hon. Member seemed to suggest that there was something wrong because some of the Members who have spoken were not farmers themselves. He suggested that if academics or business people became involved in the debate, somehow it reflected wrong priorities.
I recall a story which was told by Bill Irvine, a pioneer member of the CCF. I think he was first elected as a member of the Labour Party back in the 1920s. When he and some of his fellow members from western Canada came to Ottawa, they were looking to address some of the urgent issues facing western Canada at that time. The first issue with which they became involved related to Cape Breton coal miners. It was a real eye-opener. He represented western interests. He was very concerned about the needs of western Canada. However, when he came here he had to be concerned about the crying needs of Cape Breton coal miners. It gave him a new vision of what Canada was all about.
I think Hon. Members of the House recognize that, whether we come from a farm in western Canada, a fishing community in British Columbia, or an auto manufacturing town in Ontario. I think we are all concerned with the over-all economy of the country. The fact that we do not come from one particular occupation should not prevent us from being
April 28, 1987

able to speak when a crisis threatens a particular sector of the economy.
The emergency today has been very clearly outlined by our Party. It has three basic components. Of course the first is that initial grain prices announced by the Canadian Wheat Board are down 18 per cent on average from what they were last year, and they were already down 20 per cent from what they were the year before. This results in the lowest initial prices in 15 years and creates a real problem for farmers as they plan their crops for the coming season.
The second part of the crisis is the fact that on Monday of this week, the Government announced that it was lifting the moratorium on the Farm Credit Corporation loans. If the first of those can be said to be due to international markets, and we certainly recognize that international markets are important and that the price of grain is determined on international markets, the second of those is the direct responsibility of the Government. The Government chose the worst possible time, both financially and psychologically, to take that kind of action. It completely undercuts the confidence not only of farmers in their own abilities but it also undercuts the confidence of the financial community in the farmers to whom they will be extending credit. They see that the Government itself is not standing behind farmers.
When the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor) spoke, he said that the problem relates back to the high interest rates that were a result of the previous Government. I remember when the Bank Bill was introduced by the previous Government. At that time, the New Democratic Party introduced amendments that we hoped would help to bring this matter under control. The Conservative Party supported the Government rather than the progressive amendments that would have done something about high interest rates. It is a little late for the Hon. Member for Bow River to complain about high interest rates.
The Hon. Member said that they might have to bring back the Bank Act and take a look at it. It comes up for review every 10 years. We hope that this time, Conservative Members might take a little more progressive approach to the Bank Act than they have so far. Every relationship I have seen between the Conservative Party and the Canadian banks does not give me very much hope and I do not think it gives the farmers of Canada very much hope either. I doubt the Hon. Member himself has much hope since, knowing his background, I believe that he does not have any great love for the banks.
The final part of this crisis is the refusal of the Government to guarantee that prices paid to farmers this year will be no less than what they were last year. If there was such a guarantee, the farming community would at least know that there would be a floor beneath which it would not have to sink. The Hon. Member for Bow River said that the Government will come through at the proper time and in the proper way. This is the proper time. Farmers are facing the crisis now.
They have to make decisions about their crops now. They face this huge question mark now.
We heard the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) speak for 35 minutes. It had been hoped that intervening as he did in such an emergency debate, he would have had something to say. It was hoped that he would have announced the reconsideration of the decision to lift the moratorium on FCC loans or that he had decided to institute deficiency payments. That would have given a real sense of hope and confidence to the farmers. Instead, we listened to 35 minutes of diatribe against the Opposition and then a long list of some of the things the Government has already done. We heard the suggestion that this was an international problem that had to be solved on the international stage. We agree that international efforts are required to solve this problem but it also requires some immediate short-term action that will help farmers right now.
The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. McKnight) said that the lifting of the moratorium was an expression of confidence in the farmers and accused us of not having any confidence in them because we wanted to see that moratorium kept in place. What nonsense. It is as though a swimmer had decided to swim across a lake, a storm comes up and the driver of the boat that had been guiding the swimmer suddenly says that he is confident that the swimmer could make it to the other side of the lake and then takes off and leaves the swimmer by himself. That kind of confidence is not really very helpful. We need the kind of confidence that stays with the farmer, the kind of confidence that tells the farmer that we believe he can make it and we will stay with him every step of the way until he does make it. That is the kind of confidence the Government should be showing in farmers rather than the kind that abandons them. I say to the Hon. Member for Bow River that now is the proper time for the Government to be taking some action.
The House of Commons often suffers from a degree of unreality. I suppose that is perhaps inevitable in this kind of a deliberative chamber but in order to help us keep in contact with the reality that is facing Canadians from coast to coast, we are given good travel budgets, phone privileges, mailing privileges and constituency office budgets. That should help us keep in touch with what our constituents are thinking.
I know my colleagues from Saskatchewan and Manitoba have been bringing the needs of the western economy and prairie farmers before the House because of the representations they have heard from their constituents. I presume that at least some Conservative Members have been availing themselves of the resources available to them to hear what their constituents have to say about the real problems they face. I presume they even try to raise some of these issues in caucus. Why has the Government not acted? Why has the Government chosen this particular time to lift the moratorium on Farm Credit Corporation loans? Why has the Government refused to give the kind of guarantee to farmers that would enable them to go ahead and plant with hope and the confidence that they will be around next year at this time?

April 28, 1987
As I was preparing for this debate, it occurred to me that it has been exactly 49 years since my own family left a farm in Saskatchewan. My father had spent 22 years of his young manhood on that farm and my mother had spent nine years there. They literally had to walk away because of a combination of poor crops caused by rust, dust, grasshoppers and Russian thistles, low prices and a Government that either did not care or could not help. They literally walked away with nothing but a few possessions. Today's details are different but the basic issue is the same. The family farm is threatened and the whole economy of the prairie provinces is under threat.
Just three or four years ago, one of my brothers-in-law who was a farmer in southern Alberta faced this same situation. Because of over-expansion, high interest rates and low commodity prices, he found that he had to sell a family farm and go into another business. Of course, he was not unique nor was my father. I represent a riding in British Columbia in which there are hundreds of retired prairie farmers. Some of them retired after good years, some, like my father, got out because they were literally forced out by poor crops and worse prices.
We face a very serious situation. The Government is refusing to take action to address it. The Government is relying on the fact that it did some things in accordance with its election promises but it is not meeting this current crisis. That is what we must emphasize over and over again. In this respect, the Government is following the same line it is taking with other primary producers.
We have seen the bungling on the softwood lumber issue. The Government was completely incapable of standing up for the interests of Canadian lumber producers. As a result we now have a 15 per cent tax on softwood lumber products. That can perhaps be managed by some producers when markets are buoyant, but it will decimate the interest once there is a bit of slack in the market.
In the same way we have seen the Government's refusal to really come to grips with the needs of the fishing industry. We have a decline in our small craft harbours program. Officials have come before the committee and testified that in order to meet the needs of small craft harbours they need literally millions of dollars. Some $127 million a year is needed and they are getting less than $50 million, we are going to have to shut down small craft harbours across Canada because the Government is not taking seriously the need to maintain an infrastructure for one of Canada's primary resources.
We have seen the back down by the Government in its dealings with France over St. Pierre and Miquelon, refusing to stand up for the needs of Canadian fishermen. We have seen the destruction of habitat while the Government brings in what it calls a no net loss habitat policy which allows fishery habitat to be traded off to other industries. The result is the destruction of valuable fish habitat. We have seen the postponement of promises to create a salmonoid enhancement program.
We see one area after another where the Government is abandoning the primary resources of our country. The latest issue of course is the sell-out of Dome. We are no longer going to maintain any kind of Canadian ownership or control of that very important company. We have to ask why. What are the Government's priorities? Of the 137,000 jobs created last year all but 5,000 were in the Province of Ontario. We certainly have nothing against Ontario. That province needed 132,000 jobs. More power to them. Yet we need jobs in British Columbia. They need jobs in western and Atlantic Canada and in Quebec. Why do we not have policies that would help the economy right across the country?
Getting back to the issue at hand, we need a commitment by this Government to keep the family farm as a workable, economic unit. The land will not go away. Even if some of the people currently farming that land go bankrupt and are forced off the land, even if commodity prices are depressed, at some future time the land will be important and someone somewhere will be interested in farming it. However, unless the Government takes action now the people who are going to be farming it will not be the family farmer. It will not be the people who have invested their lives, the welfare of their families, their savings, their energy, their hopes and their initiatives into building up a farm. They have seen all that destroyed by a combination of international commodity prices and a noncaring Government. It will not be those people on the land.
What we are asking as a Party is that the Government should take action. It should recognize the situation of Canadian farmers, see it as an emergency. Now is the time when the Government should be taking action, not six months from now. Give farmers a chance now so they can plan their crops properly.
It is interesting that some of my colleagues have already pointed to the element of stress in the life of Canadian farmers. They pointed out that the picture of an idyllic life on the farm is completely false. Growing food, they conclude, is one of Canada's most stressful occupations. The stress is chronic and dangerous. The Western Report of January 12, 1987, says that the study revealed that stress symptoms such as headaches, marital problems and irritability were three or four times more prevalent in the average farmer than in an RCMP officer three days after being involved in a shooting.
What is more, the stress on the policeman is transitory, a one-time event, but for farmers the stress just goes on and on. We are talking about stress on our primary producers, the people we require to produce food not only for Canada but for other parts of the world. These are the people we look to to earn primary income for Canada. We are abandoning them in a time of difficulty. They are always under some stress. Now they are under particular stress and we are abandoning them.
For our part we call at the very least for an immediate government commitment to provide grain farmers with a guarantee that total grain receipts for crop being planted now, the 1987-88 crop year, equal those of the 1986-87 year. The Government should not lift the FCC moratorium until it
April 28, 1987

announces a deficiency program for the upcoming crop year and addresses the broad question of Canadian farm debt, which is about $25 billion across Canada.
I urge the Government to recognize the seriousness of the situation we face now. It is not a question of rhetoric. It is an emergency out there on the farm. It is not good enough to simply reiterate what has already been done. Let us have some action now.


Mr. Murray Dorin (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased you were able to recognize me today because I think this debate, more than any of the debates we have had recently, clearly demonstrates what our Government has done, is doing, and intends to do in comparison to what some speakers on the other side have had to say.
I would like to first address a couple of the issues raised earlier in the debate by the Leader of the NDP (Mr. Broad-bent) and the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner). The Leader of the NDP complained about the Government bailing out the banks. He said that Government had $1 billion for the banks but nothing for the farmers. I would like him to know that we did not bail out any banks at all. Those banks are gone. They are dead. They are in receivership. The people we reimbursed were the people in western Canada who had money in those banks and organizations such as municipalities, school boards, credit unions, the City of Grande Prairie, hospital boards, co-ops and farm businesses. These were the kind of people who needed support.
We recognized that the economy was in a sensitive situation. The western economy could not stand the blow of losing $1 billion. We came to the aid of the west when it was needed because those organizations and groups depend for their revenue on people who pay property taxes, farmers and others. That is their only source of revenue. We recognized that so we supported them and the farmers. The Leader of the New Democratic Party should recognize and understand that. The fact that he does not clearly demonstrates that he does not understand the west or farmers, and probably never will.
I will say a little more about the Leader of the Opposition. If there was ever a speech from Bay Street, we heard it this morning. He told us something about nominal interest rates and real interest rates, trying to suggest that the interest rates of today are somehow higher than the interest rates of 20 per cent, 25 per cent, and 30 per cent which we had three and four years ago when the Liberals were in office. He made some kind of argument on inflation, nominal interest rates and real interest rates.
The fact is that while you can listen to some ivory tower economist or Bay Street lawyer, to the farmer "interest rates" means what he pays out in cash. To the farmer cash is cash and money is money. If your payments are half today what they were five years ago that is all that matters. Frankly, it does not matter one bit to the farmer whether some Bay Street lawyer or ivory tower economist from the New Democratic
Party tries to tell us that interest rates of 10 per cent or 12 per cent are really higher than interest rates of 23 per cent because the farmer knows better.
This debate demonstrates the kinds of people there are in the two Parties. Part of the problem with the Liberal Party is that they do not have any members who understand farmers and the west. They never have. The problem with the Liberal Party is that they cannot assemble enough members of their caucus who know something about agriculture to have a game of checkers.
A Member has just handed me some figures on interest rates and I will read them into the record before I go on. The prime rate today is 9.25 per cent, the FCC rate is 10 per cent, and the Farm Improvements Loan Act rate is 10.25 per cent. In 1981, when the former Government was in office the prime rate was 22.75 per cent, we had a 20-year FCC rate of 16.75 and the Farm Improvements Loan Act rate was 23.75. That is more than double what they are now. Where were Hazen Argue and the Leader of the Opposition then? Well, we know where the Leader of the Opposition was. He was on Bay Street. He was the one collecting these interest rates.
I want to talk about farming and agriculture in the west. We have heard from many Members on our side today, from farmers and Members from agricultural ridings. I happen to represent a city riding, but I can remember my roots. I can tell you a little about my roots to illustrate that while some of us may represent people in cities today we know what it is like to live on the farm.
I spent my first 17 years growing up in a place called Bruce. Those of you who read Quorum may have noticed an article a couple of weeks ago about a visit paid there by Don Mazan-kowski, the Member of Parliament for that area, as well as John Wise. They addressed a group of 300 farmers in a little community of only 75 people. The commitment of the Government is illustrated when the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) is prepared to meet with people in such a small community and tell them about the Government.
During the 17 years that I spent there my father was a machine dealer, a hog buyer and a cattle buyer. We did a little farming as well. I shovelled my share of fertilizer and grain and some of that other stuff, too, at least enough of it to give me some experience in how to handle some of the things which the Opposition throws at us from time to time.
For your benefit, Mr. Speaker, I would indicate that I got to know the present Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski), the Member of Parliament who represents the area where I grew up, a long time ago. I met his wife even earlier than that. She was the nurse in the delivery room when I was born.
I was in Prince Albert just about three years ago in early July when the Conservative Party, then the Opposition, unveiled its program for western agriculture and western farmers. There were 53 or 54 items in that program. I was in Camrose last week in the riding of a prominent western

April 28, 1987
Member, the chairman of the Alberta caucus, Arnold Malone. There were many farmers there. I was reviewing that program and saw that 44 of those 53 points have been addressed in the time since we have been in office. The other nine are currently at some stage of development.
The Government has always been aware of the needs of farmers and agriculture. We have a long history of involvement. The importance of maintaining a strong and dynamic agri-food industry has always been well understood by my Party. Indeed many, perhaps the majority, of agricultural institutions which all farmers and all Members of this House will be familiar with were brought forward by Conservative Governments, including that of Mr. Diefenbaker. The Canadian Wheat Board, the Farm Credit Corporation, crop insurance, the Agricultural Stabilization Act, ARDA, and the PFRA are primary examples of our concern for Canadian agriculture.
I want to make it clear, however, that these institutions and organizations and legislation are only support mechanisms. They were never intended to interfere with farmers' personal freedom and responsibility for their own success.
Any farmer is aware of the harsh realities of agricultural life. He knows that farmers have to be careful, have to be frugal, and have to work hard and live within their means because of the narrow margins, the traditionally poor returns on capital, and the terrible risks which farmers face both through natural hazards and market risks. The market-place is no less threatening to farmers than flood or drought or frost.
Each farmer must take primary responsibility for coping as best as he can with these hazards. Farmers understand that there is no escape from these harsh realities and no excuse for bad management. In short, they must carry their own weight, take their own risks, and live with the consequences. Every independent businessman must maintain that sort of attitude toward his or her enterprise.
However, the federal Government recognizes that there are some aspects of agricultural life which are unique; the vulnerability to the weather and to international political and economic forces for example, plus the historically low rate of return on capital, all of which require governments to adopt special programs for farmers. This is not done to guarantee every farmer a living, but to ensure a general environment in which Canadian farmers may prosper and also to ensure that Canadian consumers have a continuing supply of high quality food at reasonable prices, something which is particularly important to Members such as myself who represent urban ridings. In addition, government support to the agriculture industry enhances that industry's contribution to the national economy, for example, its contribution to the balance of trade.
If hard work and farming skills could solve the problem it would be behind us by now. However, farmers know that they have no control over their problems and that is very frustrating for them. The cause, as has been stated here earlier by other speakers, is rooted outside Canada's borders. An international
subsidy war between the Europeans and the United States has pushed world grain prices so far down that farmers today cannot even cover the cost of production.
This is an incredibly costly war. Literally billions and billions of dollars are being spent. Canada's treasury simply cannot compete dollar for dollar. However, we are not backing away from the problem one bit. We are approaching the situation on three fronts. First, we are working hard to maintain our current markets for grain and we are seeking new ones. With aggressive marketing we are stressing Canada's strengths: dependable delivery, reliable supply and, above all, high quality.
Under the leadership of the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer), and even in the face of massive export subsidies, this approach has earned Canada a larger world market share for grain. It is expected to increase to 21.5 per cent for 1986-87.
Our second approach is to fight hard at the international level for fairness in world agricultural trade. Canada pushed successfully to put agriculture on the table in the new round of multilateral trade negotiations. Agriculture is our number one priority in the GATT negotiations, in contrast to the former Government that bargained away, neglected, and ignored agriculture in trade negotiations. If it had not done that and had placed agriculture in the priority position that we have, we would not now be facing these problems.
My colleague, the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) has met twice with Ministers from the world's leading grain exporting nations. In fact, Canada organized and hosted the first meeting. Canada is also organizing a meeting for late May, which will bring together 14 of the world trade Ministers to deal with the agricultural trade issue. They will consider their collective position to be carried to the Venice Economic Summit of western nations by Prime Minister Mulroney. These initiatives will eventually restore fairness to world grain trade and a realism to world grain prices. But solutions will not come quickly.
That is the reason behind our third approach. We are providing substantial assistance to grain farmers. It is assistance of a size never matched in this country's history.
In the past two years, prairie farmers have received record payments from the Western Grain Stabilization Program and this year's payment will easily set a new record.
We took the initiative to amend the Act so that farmers would receive interim payments in the spring. Those farmers who participate in the program can expect a substantial interim payment to be announced before the end of the month.
In addition, the Special Canadian Grains Program, the billion-dollar package to which has been referred in this debate, was $1 billion in direct cash to grain and oil seed farmers who have been hurt by the international subsidy war.
April 28, 1987

Alberta farmers will get more than $265 million of that amount. So far, we have mailed cheques for $76 million to farmers in Alberta, and the final payment is going out in May.
The program is going well. There are some hitches and some concerns, but we are dealing with them. We will resolve them.
In the meantime, Charlie Mayer and John Wise are continuing to consult with farm organizations-


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. Would the Hon. Member resume his seat for one moment? He has done this throughout his whole speech, but I hope he will mention Ministers only by their portfolio. It is not necessary to name them. The Hon. Member for Edmonton West (Mr. Dorin).


Murray Dorin: Mr. Speaker, I apologize for that oversight. As you know, I prepared quickly for this debate. I scribbled a few notes and was not as careful as I should have been.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Say hello to your mother.


Murray Dorin: I do not know if she is watching. She is probably working.


Svend Johannes Robinson: She just joined the NDP.


Murray Dorin: Not likely. You do not know my mother.
All of us agree that seeding decisions must continue to be based on the market-place, not on the expectation of what sort of formula may be used for future government support. To the extent possible, any program that we devise must be market-neutral.
Farm leaders were instrumental in putting together the formula for the billion-dollar program. We will continue to meet with them to discuss further options. The bottom line is that our grain industry must be maintained. We must emerge from the current problems in a strong international position.
Because Canada, especially western Canada, is in the grain business and we intend to stay in it, it is important to work on all of the three fronts I have mentioned. We are in the grain business to stay. We will hold on to our markets and build new ones.
The Government of Canada intends to stand firm behind our farmers. That is a commitment we have backed with action in the past. It is a commitment that we will back with action in the future. Farmers want results, not rhetoric. They have been getting results, not rhetoric.
This morning we heard some examples of what we have done. In the time I have remaining I want to mention one or two of those examples.
Members have talked about the Special Canadian Grains Program. The total of western economic support for farmers during 1986 was an average of $21,500 per commercial farmer, not including that special billion-dollar package. That
is a significant amount that is unmatched. That amount indicates the support and commitment of the Government to western farmers, Canadian farmers and agriculture in general.
I could go on to list 40 or 50 other initiatives we have taken in the last two and one-half years, but I believe that you have signalled that other Members want to speak. I am pleased to have an opportunity to hear them because we want to know what the Opposition has to say. We know that when people compare what we have done to the initiatives and programs the Liberals have brought forward in the past couple of weeks, they will realize who is on their side, and who supports and understands them.


George Roland Henderson: Mr. Speaker, I want to take part in this debate because it deals with the most serious farm crisis that western farmers have probably witnessed since the Depression.
I heard a number of Members opposite say that many of us in the Opposition should probably not speak on farm policy. They suggest that since 20 of their back-benchers and Cabinet Ministers are farmers, they are the most knowledgeable about agriculture.


Murray Dorin: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I never suggested that members of the Opposition should not speak. In fact, I encourage them to do so because the more they speak the better we look.


George Roland Henderson: Mr. Speaker, I was not in the House to hear all of the Hon. Member's speech. I was not referring to him, but to other Members whom I heard during the night and this morning. The message came across quite clear, as it does daily in the House, that they believe we on this side of the House should not become emotional about our agricultural sector because we do not understand it. I suggest that members of the Opposition should check our backgrounds more carefully.
The Hon. Member for Sarnia-Lambton (Mr. James) said today that he was brought up on a farm, was involved in the agricultural industry and knew a great deal about that industry in Canada. I do not doubt that the Member was very sincere in what he was saying.
However, I want to tell him that I have a similar background. I was born in 1935 in the Province of Prince Edward Island. I grew up on a family farm and probably milked as many cows-by hand-as any Member of Parliament here today. I know a little about the black flies in the summer and cows swishing their tails when we tried to milk them. Of course, those were the days before milking machines; farmers have progressed a great deal since then. In 1935, the year I was born, my father's total income for the year was $366. When he passed away a few years ago, we still had the old receipts, bills and mortgages which were paid by my father, who was trying to hold on to a family farm on a total of $366 a year and raise a family of three as well. He also looked after my grandmother. At that time there were no senior citizens,

April 28, 1987
homes and the grandparents lived with the son and his children. So I know a little bit about hardship and a little bit about agriculture. Indeed, I dabbled in cattle, operating a small beef herd for many years up until the time I was elected to this House in 1980. My son is still operating the family farm which goes back to my grandfather, some 140 years ago. So before we start commenting on whether or not someone is qualified to speak, we should check their background.
I must say that I am very pleased to see lawyers, veterinarians, doctors and former school teachers take part in this debate because I think they also have a deep interest in our agricultural sector. I want to also point out that the debate which has been going on since eight o'clock last night is not just a debate about western farmers. Yes, that is where the crisis is today but I remind all Hon. Members-and they have heard me on the subject many times since I became a Member of Parliament-about the plight of our potato farmers in the Province of Prince Edward Island. For the last three years, up until this year, we have had a crisis situation in our potato industry. This year the price is a little better. Farmers are certainly able to meet their costs and to pay off a few of their debts.
1 just came back from my riding where I talked to a number of farmers. One individual in particular told me that he is going to show a bit of a profit this year and will be able to pay off a few of his bills but his problem is that he is getting himself into a situation where the banks may foreclose on him. They could not do it last year because he was so far in debt. They knew there was nowhere else to go. The problem is, in some cases, when one has a heavy debt load and gets near a point where one's assets cover one's debts, that is when the banks get a little shaky and can foreclose very quickly. We have seen a lot of that in my province over the last four or five years.
This is what is happening in western Canada today, and it is happening not only in western Canada. The lifting of the moratorium on foreclosures by this Government is going to have a tremendous affect on eastern Canada, Ontario and the west, as we mentioned before, because of the decline of world market price for grain. It is down 18 per cent this year and was down 20 per cent last year, that is 38 per cent below what it was in 1985.
There is no question about what is taking place. One does not have to be a Philadelphia lawyer to figure that one out. Whether one is a farmer, a lawyer, an economist or a dentist, it does not make much difference. It is very simple arithmetic and certainly everyone in Canada can understand it. I hope that everyone in Canada does understand the serious situation in western Canada. More than that, I hope the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, his inner circle, will understand. We know there was $1 billion put in place last year to help the grain farmers, particularly those in western Canada. That was appreciated. I think I would be less than honest if I said
anything different. It was a help. However, government Members say to us: "Look what we have done for farmers". That $1 billion was set aside for the farmers, we agree, but why was the $1 billion put in? It was because there was such a serious crisis. If the money had not been put in most of the farmers would have been gone. Any government with any compassion would have done that, and should have done more.
What we are saying in this debate today is that the Government must move and move quickly not only to put in another $1 billion but to ensure that farmers in western Canada and right across the country are able to put in their crops this year and be guaranteed a price no less than last year. That is not much to ask.
I have heard people asking why we are always standing up and fighting in the House of Commons and elsewhere for the farmers. The farming industry is the real base of our economy. Any country in the world which loses its agriculture sector is kaput, as they say in Newfoundland. It is gone. We cannot be held hostage to other countries, if we lose our agricultural industry, because that is when Canadian consumers are going to pay through the nose.
We all know that farm prices are far too low and we do not have to tell the farmers how to produce. Canadian farmers are the most efficient farmers in the world-any statistics will tell you that, Mr. Speaker even with all the obstacles they have to face such as climatic conditions and so on. They are the most productive farmers in the world, but they have to be given some least a return on their investment. If we do not do something immediately and disallow foreclosures on farm properties in Canada, I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, we will be in the most serious crisis this country has ever faced. I say that because when a farmer has a large holding of land and goes bankrupt, the price of that property also declines. It affects all the other farmers. Their collateral is gone. That is a very serious situation. It will have a snowball affect. So we must maintain our integrity as a national Government and as Members of Parliament and see this issue very clearly.
I was looking at the May 4 edition of Macleans magazine and came across an article entitled "Down and out on the Farm". This is not news to me, Mr. Speaker. I would just like to quote one paragraph:
Western farmers can recite a litany of economic misery. In Saskatchewan, which relies most heavily on grain farming, total farm debt climbed from $3.4 billion in 1981 to $4.8 billion in 1985. During the same period net farm income dropped to $699 million from $1.1 billion.
In response, the value of land in southeastern Saskatchewan has dropped as much as 40 per cent in the past three years.
That is exactly what I am trying to point out. We have seen it in my province when we used to pay $1,000 per acre for good potato land. Today and last year some of that land was going for less than $400 per acre. But the farmer had worked for 25 and 30 years on that land. He had put in hard work, blood and sweat. His wife and kids also worked on the farm. The family
April 28, 1987

farm is not a one-man operation. Farming involves a whole household. If we lose our family farms, if we allow them to disappear, it will be an extremely sad day for us all.
The Government has to come up with a program. It has to do so immediately. It is not good enough to say that when world prices go up in two or three years' time that we will still have enough farmers to produce grain at a good market price. I am as much for free marketing as anyone but there comes a time when we have to stand up to provide from the Treasury some money to help an industry. We had no problem in this Chamber and the Government had no problem when the banks in western Canada got were in trouble. We were there very quickly to help that situation out, to bail them out.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Bail who out?


George Roland Henderson: Bail out the depositors. Some of these depositors had millions of dollars on deposit . There was no risk at all and they were receiving a high interest rate. The reason they had their money in those banks was because of the high interest rates they were receiving over and above ordinary bank interest rates. That is the same sort of principle as if I were to go to the horse-races tomorrow and bet on a long shot and lose my money. I could take my ticket back to the Government of Canada and say that I took a chance, I lost, now come up with the money. The Government had no problem coming up with solutions to those types of situations. But I can tell Hon. Members that when our primary producers are concerned, whether it be in agriculture or fisheries, we seem to be very slow in acting. That is disgraceful.
I come back again to the $1 billion payment. I recognize that some people say that this $1 billion was paid out on account of the election in Saskatchewan. I do not know. But whatever happened with respect to the $1 billion we are glad. We support that amount of money going to western farmers. What we are saying is that that was not enough. It is not the farmers' fault that the world price of wheat is down as low as it is. It is the fault of the European Economic Community and the fault of subsidization in the United States.
We have to look at these issues in a clear and concise manner. We have to make up our minds, as does the Government, with respect to whether or not we want an agricultural industry in five years' time or three years' time or two years' time or whether we want to see it disappear. I can tell Hon. Members that I have seen in my own province over the years some of the small family farms that disappeared and went into more corporate-type farming operations. It is a sad day when something like that happens, because when they get into trouble the whole community is in trouble. This happens when we get into specialized commodities. At one time we were very general in agriculture. Certainly, in Atlantic Canada in my province we had beef, pork, grain, potatoes and in the wintertime there was the woodlot. There was some diversification. But when we get into specialized farming in just one commodity and the price drops, as it has dropped for wheat, which is also what happened with potatoes, one is left with nothing.
There was nothing to pay off some of one's debts to tide one over.
I know that my time has expired. I am pleased that I had this opportunity to speak out on behalf of farmers as one Member of Parliament among many who understand the agricultural industry and who worked hard at it over the years. I think every one of us in the House of Commons should take a sober second look at what is happening in western Canada today, especially in respect to our agricultural industry. We should once and for all make a commitment here, before this debate is through, that we will support agriculture and maintain the industry. We should commit ourselves to doing our best to create more and better markets. The problem in agriculture today is with respect to the consistency in the market-place. As I said before, there is no problem to produce. The problem is to sell. I fought the Bill which dealt with the demise of Canagrex. It may not have been a panacea for all the ills of the agricultural industry. No one here said it was, at least no one on this side of the House. But anything that helps in creating and developing new markets in agriculture is good. It is good for our agricultural community which is the basis of community life in Canada.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, I normally would not be expected to speak on an issue concerning agriculture. Mississauga South is not an agricultural constituency. But I must advise the House that I have been directly and heavily involved in farming for the past 25 years. I am a partner in a very extensive dairy operation, as well as a partner with my son in a fish farm. I have some interests in embryo transfer and the transfer of cattle by air to other parts of the world. That type of activity has made me quite conversant with what is in fact happening in the reality of agriculture.
This debate got off on a very foolish footing. I am surprised it was even brought to the attention of the House. I wish to read into the record an article from the Alberta Wheat Pool magazine dated April 10, 1987. The heading is: "Farm Income Record in 1986". The article states:
Alberta Agriculture estimates that 1986 total realized net farm income in Alberta was $788 million, the highest level on record, and a remarkable 45 per cent over the 1985 level.
The record was achieved because of lower operating expenses, a healthier livestock sector and substantial government program payments.
Payments under the Western Grain Stabilization Plan, crop insurance and other programs accounted for an estimated 17 per cent of total farm cash receipts in 1986.
Payments in the form of farm fuel rebates, and feed grain adjustment payments and other expense reduction programs reduced total operating expenses by an estimated 12.6 per cent.
Total farm cash receipts for 1986 was not significantly different from that in 1985. Lower grain prices were largely offset by higher government subsidies and higher livestock prices. Total crop receipts were down by 7.7 per cent from 1985 and total livestock receipts increased by 6.7 per cent.
Total operating expenses for 1986 declined by 9.8 per cent. This is the lowest level of operating expenses since 1980.
Net farm income in 1986, which includes the value of inventory change, is estimated to have surpassed all previous records. Record total crop production

April 28, 1987
in 1986, following two consecutive years of drought has increased the value of inventory change by an unprecedented $582 million from 1985. This, combined with record program payments, has pushed net farm income to an estimated $1.28 billion compared with $457 million in 1985.
Mr. Speaker, where is the emergency? The Leader of the Opposition, totally non-conversant with what has happened, has indicated that the interest rates for Farm Credit Corporation loans are at an all time high. Let's get the record straight. The interest rate on a five year fixed interest term mortgage is now at 10 per cent, compared to a previous rate of 10.75 per cent; loans under the Shared Risk Mortgage Program dropped 1.25 per cent, to 9.5 per cent; the rate for a 10 year fixed term is 10.75 per cent, a reduction of one quarter of 1 per cent; loans with fixed terms of 15 years or more remain unchanged, at 11 per cent.
Under the Corporations Commodity-Based Loan Program, the interest rate remains at 6 per cent for the fully indexed option, while the rate for the partially indexed option has been reduced to 8.375 per cent from 8.50 per cent. And I could go on and on.
Mr. Speaker, the fact is, this Government has made sure that the interest rates charged to farmers by the Farm Credit Corporation are lower than people pay on their homes, lower than business pays on its activities.
If one can borrow long term money at 10 per cent at a time when the prime rate is at 9.25 per cent, that amounts to decent financing-and that is what has been made possible by this Government.
Let's talk about this Government's spending on western agriculture. When we formed the Government in 1984, the federal Government was assisting agriculture in western Canada to the extent of about SI billion. This year, it is estimated that federal government assistance to western agriculture will amount to more than $3 billion.
It has been said that we are abandoning the farmers. What utter drivel! It is little wonder that we stand in this place today responding to this fool motion, answering this fool's suggestion that there is an emergency.
Yes, there are problems. But, is there an emergency? I say, "no".
We have made sure that the farmers of western Canada have sufficient cash in their hands to plant their crops and to make sure that their bills are paid, they have sufficient cash to run their operations.
It has been said that we should guarantee future prices; that we should intervene in the market-place to guarantee crop prices next fall, next year, the year after and two years down the road.
The farmers today are on their tractors and are planting, and they will be doing so for another month. Assuming they get decent weather and that they are not bothered by hail, drought, flood or insects, they will have a crop; and hopefully
farmers right across the world will have a crop. But that isn't always the case.
While the future market may look glum today, it is a market that can turn around in an instant. We have seen it turn around.
Mr. Speaker, you and I were Members of this House in 1972, when there was a limit on how much grain a farmer could sell. Farmers who had grain but no permit to sell sold it under the table for as little as 50 cents a bushel.
We have been here before. We have seen the prices change rapidly.
Sir, it is about time that we all recognized that the real problem in agriculture, and indeed the real problem in business generally, has been too much government interference. We have guaranteed too many things.
We now have a problem in world grain prices because other Governments have subsidized the production of grains. Because of the over-supply, the market balance has been upset.
You and I both know, Sir, that it is the market-place that determines reality. We can wish to our heart's content that the wheat price be set at $8 a bushel or $9 a bushel. We can wish to our heart's content that Ontario corn would sell for $150 a tonne. But in the end, it is the market-place that will determine the price.
We can sit back and pretend that the cost of production is approximately average right across the country. People talk easily about the cost of production. But what in fact is the cost of production? The cost of production can vary dramatically from farm to farm. There are many factors involved, including the individuals working the land, the make-up of the land, the kind of equipment used, the kind of weather experienced, and so on.
Those are the factors that determine the cost of production. One farmer can make money at $90 a tonne for corn, whereas his neighbour couldn't make money at $120 a tonne for corn. And why is that? One has to look at the cost of production. One has to look at what it costs to produce that crop on the two farms.
The attitude that the Government can come in and guarantee the cost of production is absolute nonsense. It is something that varies from farm to farm, from district to district, from farmer to farmer, from week to week, from year to year. It is absolute nonsense to say otherwise.
Farming is the type of activity where you buy retail and sell wholesale. When a farmer is sitting on his tractor planting a crop, he doesn't know whether or not he will have a harvest in the fall. He doesn't know whether a newly born calf is going to grow; and if it does grow and is bred, he doesn't know whether he is going to end up with a heifer or a bull, and how it is going to grade. There are simply too many variables involved. You put your best efforts forward and you take the risk. The world is full of risk.
April 28, 1987

Let's get down to the real problem that is affecting agriculture right across the country, that being the price of land and what has happened to the price of land in recent times, with the consequent result on net farm equity.
Through the 1970s, the price of agricultural land was bid up far beyond all reality. The Member for Egmont (Mr. Henderson) cited the case of potato lands in Prince Edward Island being bid up to $ 1,000 an acre. Good potato land near Alliston was bid up to over $3,500 an acre. One wonders why land gets bid up that high. Somewhere along the line, there was a financial system in place that was prepared to put more money into agricultural lands than it should have; and we had people gambling perhaps a bit more than they should have. But that is the way the world goes. People do bid up properties beyond their value. The reality is that the value of the land is only equal to the value of the crops that can be grown on it.


An Hon. Member:: Right on!


Donald Alex Blenkarn: It is worth no more than that. The fact that the crop prices do not reach astronomical prices leads to the conclusion that land prices cannot stay astronomically high. That being so, who is going to be hurt?
Well, the land-owners themselves are going to be hurt, the banks are going to be hurt, the Farm Credit Corporation is going to be hurt. Lenders generally are going to be hurt.
That is what the market does on occasion. Somewhere along the line, you have to wash out some of these ridiculously high prices.
To suggest that we could somehow step in and guarantee some of these inflated values is utter and complete nonsense. It wouldn't do anybody any good. As I said, land is worth what one can grow on it and sell. If one has to plant and grow crops of lesser value, then the land is worth less money.

We have had a few things going for us. Interest rates have dropped, which has helped considerably in terms of financing. We cannot control world prices for commodities, and if the prices of land have to drop, then they will have to drop.
We have incorporated farm review boards and have tried to make it easy for people to settle their claims. A number of banks have taken substantially less than 100 cents on the dollar on their mortgages. They have rewritten their mortgages at less than face value and allowed existing good operators to continue to operate their farms and get them back in shape. They have recognized as lenders that they made a mistake.
The Farm Credit Corporation will have to recognize that it has made some mistakes and will have to take substantially less in some cases than the amount on its books.
Co-ops which advanced money that they should not have advanced to customers are going to have to take less than they have on their books. That is the nature of falling land prices.
However, there is sunshine at the end of the rainbow. The sunshine is that young people entering farming will be able to get in at a decent price level again. As well, people will be able to buy machinery at a decent price level again. The marketplace will work the whole issue through. If we sit back and say that we must maintain a moratorium on mortgages forever and ever, we delay facing the realities of the time. Realities of the time not faced today must be faced tomorrow. When we put a moratorium 19 months ago on FCC mortgages, people were facing foreclosures. Those people are still in difficulty, and to that extent it is time that they perhaps looked at and reorganized their affairs and lifestyle. If it means that some people who have borrowed more than they should must find another occupation or be something other than farmers, sometimes that is the way it has to be. There are other people with experience who want to become involved in farming.
I notice you signalling, Mr. Speaker, but let me indicate briefly that I have been involved in financing for a long time. In my years as a lawyer I only issued a writ of foreclosure on three occasions. However, I was involved in repossessions to settle mortgages on houses, farms, and businesses. The best thing we can do for someone is to say: "You are not going to make it. Let's settle it so you can start a new life, have new prosperity, and have the debt taken off your back". To say that to do some foreclosing or do some pressing on debts which cannot be handled is not to understand the reality of financing.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to participate in the debate and to speak in favour of the emergency motion brought forward by the Hon. Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo). Both that Hon. Member and the Hon. Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse) are agricultural spokespersons and farmers themselves. They have been out there on the Prairies in western Canada with their ear to the ground.
They and most farmers in the country would be somewhat astonished at the chilling remarks just made by the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) who really sort of summed it up by saying: "Let the market take its toll". The Hon. Member for Mississauga South did not deal with the cash flow issues facing farmers in western Canada. I intend to do that because farmers who are listening and watching in this debate know the agony among themselves as primary producers of what is really going on out there in the west. They trust that the emergency action taken by the New Democratic Party will in some way alert the Government to what they have been saying to us as we travelled throughout western Canada. Many Members, particularly from the government side, who have spoken in this debate talked about their roots in agriculture. The roots in my family go back over 300 years when my forefathers arrived in the Maritimes from Ireland as spud farmers. There are relatives of mine in almost every province and territory in Canada who are involved in agriculture in some way or another.
In my constituency in northwest British Columbia there is a deep and long-standing interest in what happens, not just in

April 28, 1987
agriculture, but certainly in terms of grain. We have one of the most modern, state of the art grain terminals in the world at Prince Rupert. With the upgrading of the CN line, people from Smithers to Prince Rupert are abundantly aware of the importance of the grain trade to our constituency and to farmers right across the Prairies. We see those grain cars coming through every day on their way down to Prince Rupert to service not only the Pacific Rim but other markets of the world.
Within my constituency as well there are hundreds of farmers. Most of them are involved in dairy and beef. There is some limited grain production, but principally in northwest British Columbia they are involved in various mixed operations.
I should like to spend a moment referring to the remarks of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) who spoke in the debate a couple of hours ago. He urged the media to make this issue a front page one from coast to coast in the newspapers and on the radio. Then we heard the remarks of the Hon. Member for Mississauga South who suggested that he was surprised the issue was even brought before the House. We also heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister (Mr. Gustafson), who is from the Prairies himself, saying yesterday as the debate began that there was no reason for it. Earlier this morning the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. McKnight) said that it would be lunacy for any further assistance to be provided to the farmers in the West.
Who is really speaking for the Government? Why does the Prime Minister say that this should be a major number one issue, not just in western Canada but right across the country, upon which the media should be focusing and talking about to farmers, banks, machinery producers, and everyone else? That is what the Prime Minister said, but the majority of other Conservatives who have spoken have said that we should let the market take its toll, let the farmers go down, take away the moratorium, and not provide any floor price in terms of grain for the coming year.
One has to wonder who is really speaking for the Government. Because of the announcement in terms of the lifting of the moratorium-and we saw a 20 per cent price reduction last year-we will see a further 18 per cent drop for the 1987-88 crop year. One thing we know is that the Cabinet in the present leaderless Government has overridden the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) and the Minister of State for Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer). It certainly did not sound like the view they hold as those who are in most direct contact with Canadian farmers.
The Prime Minister now plans to make a grand tour of western Canada for three days to find out what is really going on there. I am sure that as a result of the emergency debate brought forward by the Hon. Member for Prince Albert there will be farmers at every place he touches down, unless he just touches down briefly for quick Conservative meetings where people are rallied in and rallied out and there is no opportunity for western farmers to have their views heard. I am sure
western farmers will try to tell the Prime Minister what they think about what his Party has been saying, that the emergency debate is unnecessary, unwarranted, and so on.
We in the New Democratic Party are calling for a number of things. At the very least, we are calling for an immediate government commitment to provide Canadian grain farmers with the guarantee that total grain receipts for crops being planted in the 1987-88 crop year will equal those of the 198687 crop year. That will cost between $1.5 billion and $2 billion.
We heard the Hon. Member for Mississauga South crowing about the lucrative area of agri-business in which he is involved. He said that he was surprised the issue was being raised and that we should let the market take its toll. There are farm families sitting out there in communities-men, women, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives-who are capable of calculating with the greatest of care.
We in this House have a responsibility to dispel the myth that is held in many of the urban areas of Canada, on Bay Street and among certain financial groups, that every farmer in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia has a huge farm, a huge bank account, a Winnebago, goes golfing for six months in Florida and keeps his feet up the rest of the year just planting a quick crop in the spring and harvesting it in the fall. That is hardly what actually goes on on the farm. Farmers take great care with everything, Mr. Speaker. At this crucial time they determine what to plant, how much to plant, whether or not to fertilize once or twice, what kind of farm improvements to make, whether to do some fencing somewhere, whether to move some of the grain sheds, what kinds of livestock to have, what kind of machinery could be bought, leased or borrowed.
All of these crucial questions are honed with a sharp pencil day after day in trying to figure out where a few pennies can be saved. The Hon. Member for Mississauga South for the Government says some producers can produce corn on a piece of land for $90 a tonne whereas someone on a farm nearby cannot make money unless he is getting $130 a tonne. We all know that, Mr. Speaker. We are talking about the broad issue of what is happening to the farming community in western Canada. We all know that. Members in this House were not all born yesterday. We have seen the Government increase taxes, increase service fees, increase freight rates, bring in Bills C-18 and C-19 which will see the dismemberment of all kinds of branch lines and add a whole new layering of costs to all kinds of prairie producers.
There are some things the Government has been doing that have been worth while. I am never one in this House not to point out the good things the Government has been doing as well as pointing out what it should be doing and should be addressing itself to.
This Government is working hard on the international front to bring peace to the world grain markets. We know what is
April 28, 1987

happening concerning the subsidization in the European Economic Community to its farmers, and then the rash move by the Republican Government in the United States to bring in the U.S. Farm Bill which provides, in some cases, to some buyers, one bushel free for every three they buy. In some cases it is even more lucrative than that. We know what the impact is on our Canadian farmers.
The sheer illogic of what government Members have been saying has to be pointed out in relation to that. They say, "Now we cannot continue the moratorium. It is creating a credit crisis and so on. Let the market take its toll". This is the same Government that 18 months ago brought it in. Let us take a look at the evidence given by the Farm Credit Corporation on March 27 before this House. With regard to farms with over $20,000 in sales, 8 per cent of those farmers are involved, so of the 171,000, there are 13,680 farmers involved, and 23 per cent of Canadian farmers have major cash flow problems, that is 39,330, for a total of over 53,000 farms in western Canada facing economic difficulties.
The same evidence comes from the Farm Credit Corporation. Six thousand of their borrowers are more than two years in arrears. Twenty per cent are in arrears at some level, 673 farmers were near the foreclosure level 18 months ago when this Conservative Government brought in the moratorium. The situation is worse and it comes up with a totally wrong-headed argument that now all of a sudden a moratorium should not be kept in place. The Government says it will be there forever and ever. What an interesting time it is to pull the plug on the moratorium right at the time when farmers are heading on to their farms to seed and consider what kinds of crops they will be putting into the ground!
We have the statistical information before us, but let us not just think of them as statistics as the government Members seem to want to talk about western farmers. They are men and women out there. My colleague, the Hon. Member for Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands (Mr. Manly), pointed out the stress level that is found in the agricultural community, not just in the grain sector but in the beef sector, the dairy sector and the fruit sector. Throughout the agricultural sector in this country we are finding stress levels that are being studied by physicians far above those that you find in supposedly high stress occupations. As my colleague pointed out, an RCMP officer three days after being involved in an incident involving a shooting has only the same levels of stress that the average Canadian farmer experiences every day. For the Government to put such chilling remarks onto the record saying that this debate should not be going on, it is not an emergency, let the market-place take its toll, is sheer hypocrisy. It is ludicrous and the Government's arguments in this debate so far have been totally illogical.
The Government should not lift the moratorium until it announces a deficiency program for the upcoming crop year and it addresses the broad question of farm debt, which is about $25 billion across Canada, much of which is still held at
the high interest rates caused by the former Government, a point made by Members on the other side.
Government Members are always asking, "Where are you going to get the money if you need a couple of billion dollars to help the farmers now so you can put a floor back in the system and maintain some kind of reasonable and reliable financing for those farms?" Let us think back to the remarks of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) when the Little Egypt Bump came along for the Reichmann brothers in the Gulf deal. He said, "This is terrible". But once the loophole is closed it is closed, but after the cattle have left the barn. They get the billion dollars.
Let us look somewhere else, Mr. Speaker. Let us look at big corporations. There are over $30 billion in back taxes. Why don't we get the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. MacKay) to collect some of the money owing from big corporations, particularly those which are capable of paying readily and easily right now rather than using their capital to gobble up other smaller companies which are proliferating from one side of Canada to the other? Why not collect some of that back revenue?
An interesting point was made at a convention I attended recently in Vancouver, perhaps one on which a lot of Canadians have not reflected. One gas station attendant working in Red Deer pumping gas pays more tax than any one of the major oil companies in Canada. That is a travesty, Mr. Speaker. Any single farmer in Canada pays more taxes than any of the large banks or any of the large oil companies. One bank teller in Regina pays more tax than any of the banks, including the bank that he or she might be working in. There is money out there that can be brought in to address problems which this House must respond to when emergency situations arise.
We are in a world that was crisis-ridden in terms of the availability of protein in particular, but in terms of grain we have to think about what is going on and think about what the Government is saying. The Prime Minister says, "This is a long-term problem. We have to think about currency decisions made in Punta del Este. We have to think about all these international issues". Of course we do, Mr. Speaker. That is why we were elected here and that is why we have a Government. What the Government is failing to address logically in terms of cabinet decisions is what are the effects in Canada of not addressing the ability of the farmers to remain solvent, not addressing the need for farmers to have a floor price whereby they can have reliable information on cash flow so they will know how much fertilizer they can buy, what they can spend on fuel, what they can spend on clothing for their kids, what they can spend on fencing, what they can spend on everything else on their farm. Instead, they are left in a crisis situation.
Let us look at what the farm leaders are saying. Let us have a look at what Wayne Easter, President of the National Farmers Union had to say yesterday. The Prime Minister says that this should be the major issue in Canada, front page, everywhere, a major issue on radio and television. All of his

April 28, 1987
back-benchers says no, no, no. That is not the case. This is not a big issue. Let the market operate freely. But with what does the Government start this session after Easter? A Bill on hanging. The Government did not start this session dealing with the crisis in agriculture. It started with announcements saying that the moratorium has ended. It is not going to do anything about setting a floor price. As a matter of fact, the Government is going to let it drop another 18 per cent after a 20 per cent drop last year. Here is what the National Farmers Union had to say yesterday as reported in The Globe and Mail:
I just can't understand why he would announce it now, said Wayne Easter, President of the National Farmers Union.
"Normally farmers feel a sense of optimism at this time of year", he said. But this tears the heart out of thousands of farmers".
Mr. Easter noted that the Canadian farm economy has deteriorated steadily since the moratorium was established in 1985.
"I think it's ironic that they are making this announcement on the same day as Parliament opens its debate on capital punishment," Mr. Easter said.
"To lose your farm is the same as capital punishment. When they lose their land, farmers feel that the life has gone out of them."
"Garfield Stevenson, President of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, said the termination of the moratorium will cause a further decline in the market value of farmland.
"It's completely irresponsible and just not acceptable," Mr. Stevenson said.
"I thought the Minister had more on the ball than this".
Another spokesperson for farmers, Jack Penner, President of Manitoba-based Keystone Agricultural Producers, said that the termination of the Farm Credit Corporation moratorium will make it more difficult for farmers to get loans from banks and other lenders.
Let us think about what some of the Conservative Members have been saying. The Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor) has said that one of the factors involved when farmers are getting credit is the moratorium that is in place. Where do government Members get this airy-fairy idea that everything is just fine in western Canada? Where do they get the idea that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) can come in here and blow hot air about Punta del Este and all of these other matters for 35 minutes without dealing with the reality of what is taking place on the farms? When there is that stress level, that cash flow problem and those family farms in trouble, the Government has to act. To say it will wait a year or two and then see what kind of consolidation of land base there will be is not good enough.
The Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) says that this is great because, as existing farmers are moved off the land, opportunities will open up for young farmers. What hypocrisy. Anyone who has read any of the history of Manitoba, Saskatchewan or British Columbia knows that the overwhelming majority of farms are intergenerational. When generations of farmers are driven off the land, we cannot expect someone to pop freshly on the scene to buy a couple of
sections of land and suddenly get it going as a major grain concern.
Let me touch on a few of the things the Government has done that have been important, but have not fully addressed the issues before us today. The Government has provided assistance to the farm sector, but it is now saying it will do so no longer. It provided assistance during the Saskatchewan election because the Prime Minister was awakened from his sleep, next to his Gucci shoe parlour, at five o'clock in the morning by Grant Devine saying that he would lose the election, he needed some money. The Prime Minister acted quickly then and made a big announcement of $1 billion.
The crisis is exactly the same now. We are facing major losses of markets to the United States because of the crippling effects of the U.S. Farm Bill and what is happening in the European Economic Community. To simply say that we will let as many farms sink as required over the next couple of years and then come forward with help is hypocrisy. The action the Government took to bring in the moratorium absolutely requires it to maintain the moratorium. The Government that gave $1 billion last year under exactly the same circumstances should give the same kind of money and more to the farming community now.
The Government has consulted farm organizations but it clearly has not listened. It has not heard what farmers have been saying. Simply put, what the Government has done to date has helped a little, and it is doing a little on the international front, but the arguments that have been made in this debate over the last 16 hours demonstrate to me and to every farmer in Canada that it is time to throw the bums out. Conservatives are not representing the farm community. Farmers will wake up and realize it the next time an election is called, and I hope that will be very soon.


Hon. Frank Oberle (Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague and friend from British Columbia who is relieving his frustrations through this primal scream therapy.


Svend Johannes Robinson: It's the farmers' frustrations we are worried about.


Frank Oberle: All of us are frustrated. I cannot say that 1 derive any great pleasure or satisfaction from having to rise in the House today to speak on this critical issue. The debate has been going on all night. That points out just how critical we all believe this matter to be. For a moment, however, I thought I was in the wrong place. As I was walking through the Chamber, I saw no one in the benches of the Official Opposition. There is still no one there. Oh, I am sorry, someone is there now.
Of course, it has been a long debate. All of us addressed ourselves to the issues. It is not a simple matter. As you know, Mr. Speaker, I represent an area in British Columbia-
April 28, 1987


Mr. Alain Tardif (Richmond-Wolfe):: Mr. Speaker, about the latest comments concerning the attendance of opposition Members, 1 would point out to the Chair that there are barely five Conservatives in the House-and there are more than 200 of them all told-whereas we have 10-odd opposition Members.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order. That is not a point of order. However, as Hon. Members know, we have been debating this particular motion all night and we are continuing to do so. We have been debating it since eight o'clock last evening. Hon. Members are walking in and out of the House at this stage of the debate. I would not want anyone to reflect on who is here and who is not. There are Hon. Members behind the curtains and in the lobbies. I know they are all here ready and waiting to debate the matter.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate those remarks. Throughout the night there has been on both sides some abuse of the rules regarding reflecting on the presence or absence of Members of Parliament. I know that quite a few members of my caucus are in the lobby and I understand that there are government Members in the government lobby. We appreciate that Members cannot sit here for 24 hours. We also appreciate that some Hon. Members have phone calls to make; we also understand your ruling and we will follow it very assiduously.


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, if it was perceived that it was my intention to cast any aspersions on members of the Opposition, that was not my intention. Indeed, I said that I myself was out of the House to attend to some urgent business in my office. I merely expressed my fear that I may have missed the debate. Obviously other Hon. Members feel the same pressures after a debate of this length.
I want to point out that I represent an area which is heavily dependent on agriculture for its economy; that is the Peace River country of British Columbia. That area has been a very productive wheat and forage-crops-producing sector, but it is an area that is perhaps suffering more than other prairie regions because it is the newest such area. Some of the area is still being developed. That it has not been settled for very long points to the fact that there is a heavier per capita debt load in the area. Of course, farm financing is the root of the crisis we are debating today.
In the 15 years that I have been here, I have experienced nothing that has caused me more anxiety and pain than this situation. I share with my constituents, my friends and my neighbours the suffering that has resulted from this serious problem.
I deal with people who have inherited farms which have been developed over three generations. Many of these farms were paid off at one point and were debt-free. Often, young farmers who had gone to school came home and encouraged their fathers to get into partnership with them, buy equipment
and develop the farms in the modern way. These people then would go to the bank or the Farm Credit Corporation to borrow some money, but they would find after a few years that the roof had collapsed and the land had eroded beneath their new machinery. They would then have to walk away from what their grandfathers had pursued as their first dreams, from a business that had sustained families for a long period of time.
Sir, you cannot explain in words what goes through the minds of these people as they have to make these decisions. All of us deeply sympathize with them. The question is, what can you do about it? What can a Government by itself do about this? In order to answer these questions one has to look at the costs. One has to first understand that agriculture in Canada is an export industry. We are not just feeding our own population. If we were, we would have to decrease our farm output in a major way. We do not have a population base to sustain the farm structure we have in place. Therefore, we are left heavily dependent on foreign trade.
World markets have undergone a critical adjustment in this century. I looked at some statistics the other day and found that at the turn of the century in North America 46 per cent of the people were engaged in the production of food. Today it is less than 4 per cent. Farmers have become more efficient. Research and development has produced better, healthier and faster growing crops. We have improved our market share. We have built on the strength that we have in Canada through improved species to put our land into production and help feed a hungry world.
However, we have become too dependent on world markets and there is nothing we can do about it. We are now in a situation where we are very much dependent on price trends, transportation facilities, climatic conditions, and other similar factors. We are perhaps more dependent than any other country on the policies of other countries and groups of nations who have chosen to pool their agricultural policies to become more efficient and better satisfy their own needs.
What has brought on this present crisis is an agricultural trade war between the European Economic Community and the United States. In attempting to find a long-term solution, as I see it, we should look at what the EEC has done. Certainly it is the cause of the situation we are in right now. Agriculture is perhaps the biggest factor in keeping the EEC together and developing in the way it has in the post-war period. What the EEC leaders said many years ago, as the community came together, is that a farmer ought to be able to earn as much in return on his investment and labour as anyone in any other industry.
There are of course countries that joined the EEC who are as dependent on agriculture as are we in Canada. It would not have been fair if the average income of their citizens was something less than that of the highly industrialized countries like Germany and Austria. So the EEC said it would have to

April 28, 1987
develop a program that would assure the farm-oriented countries an income comparable to that of the industrialized countries.
They immediately discovered that if you passed along the cost of securing such an income for the farmer to the consumers of the EEC, which would be the obvious thing to do, food prices would have to triple. Those prices were already high in Europe. Consumers were already paying in excess of 40 per cent of their disposable income for food. Therefore it was quite obvious that that could not take place. They could not permit the farmer or the farm dependent countries to increase prices to the consumer. There had to be some kind of subsidy.
The conclusion they came to was very simple. Instead of raising food prices to the point where half the population could not afford to eat, they would have to subsidize the farmer to continue producing cheap food and pass the cost through to the rest of society. They then taxed other industries to support the farm economy.
So far so good. If that were the basis on which the Europeans had developed their farm policies, that would have been fine. However, they should have as well brought in some production limitations and supply management. They did not. Because of the farmer's new-found wealth, production went up to the point where they are now heavy competitors in world markets. They compete with Australia, the U.S., the Argentine and Canada in the production of cereal grains. Had they put some limits on their production it would have perhaps worked, but they did not and now they have a serious problem. The EEC finds it very difficult to sustain this kind of policy.
In addition, they have created an even greater problem for Canada, the U.S. and other countries. The U.S., with its 240 million consumers, could afford to take a very aggressive stance against these EEC policies and subsidize their farmers until they were once again competitive. However, there just is not enough money in our treasury for us to compete with those kinds of measures. We are being ground between the U.S. and Europe as a result. We are sitting between those two millstones and desperately looking for ways to bring some sense to the whole situation.
What are the solutions? First, you have to break them down into the long and short terms. We hear the NDP lamenting the fact that we should be spending another $2.5 billion subsidizing our farmers. We should announce deficiency payments for the next crop year so we create some stability. Yesterday they told us we should borrow $5 billion to buy Dome Petroleum to keep it in Canada.
As I hear these things I ask myself where is the money going to come from? What difference does it really make whether a foreign company owns part of our oil patch or a foreign banker owns the whole country? There is no money tree sitting outside this place. You have to borrow the money, you cannot create it. We are being pushed more and more abroad and offshore in our borrowing. So I ask the question, how can you responsibly
mortgage the future of our children by going abroad to foreign bankers and borrowing the money to sustain these programs?
If the farmers need an indication of what they might expect from this Government let them examine the record of the last two years. What have we done? We have tripled the farm support systems that are in place. We are spending in this crop year over $3 billion, which is three times more than the previous Government spent in one year. Let us look at some of those programs. We moved very aggressively to keep the banks honest and to improve the services of the Farm Credit Corporation. We have made deficiency payments of $1 billion for last year's crop. That was not intended to do anything other than permit the farmer to put his crop in the ground this year. Then we will see what happens as we go along. We will see where we are in the fall. We will see if our efforts in the international arena, in GATT, our discussions with the industrial countries, discussions which we introduced, produce any results.
If farmers want an indication of what they might expect at the end of the next crop year they can examine our record. We shall not sit here and preside over the demise of the family farm, nor shall we preside over the demise of the farm economy, because it is part of our culture, part of Canada, part of our history. We shall ensure that it remains that and that farmers will get a fair shake.
However, it is not easy. There are no easy solutions. Perhaps we ought to look, in a global sense, at what the Europeans have done. Perhaps we ought to remind countries like Japan and some of the Asian industrial countries that they, too, have a responsibility to feed the world. They cannot rely on only the food-producing countries to do that and starve in the process. Perhaps we ought to develop a global scheme similar to that which the European Community has within its own borders. We are working toward that. We have introduced that debate in the national forum.
We have made a deficiency payment of $1 billion. There will be a payment made under the stabilization fund, which all comes from the federal Government. There is nothing left in the fund. There have been transportation subsidies, feed grain assistance, and crop insurance. There are freight rate subsidies and interest subsidies. We have also introduced a Farm Debt Review Board.
When the moratorium was put in place we said that it would stay in place until such time as there were checks and balances and another program in place. We have put another program in place and we are told it is working well. In 80 per cent of the cases which are examined a solution is found which is good for the bank, good for the farmer, and fair to the taxpayer.
We are not going to foreclose on 6,000 farms tomorrow morning. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) has clearly stated what the policy of the Farm Credit Corporation will be. We have put in place programs which will permit the farmer,
April 28, 1987

when all is said and done, to make the transition to another way of life.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, before the Conservative Government came into power a farmer who lost his farm was not entitled to unemployment insurance or any of the benefits to which every other citizen is entitled. He walked away from the farm. He did not even have his house because that was part of the land on which the bank foreclosed. He walked into the city and stood in the soup line without a place to sleep. That has all changed. Adjustment programs have been put in place for the most extreme cases.
There must be more because the adjustments and prices which we are experiencing are not just temporary. The longterm outlook is not that good. We must develop long-term solutions and find different uses for our grain. In Dawson Creek we are building an ethanol plant, with the help of the federal Government. The province has been generous in helping us promote this concept. When it is in full operation it could potentially use all the grain produced on the B.C. side of the Peace River country. It will be converted to ethanol and, hopefully, be used in motor fuels. That is only one solution to which we could perhaps look in the future.
This is not a simple matter. It is a very serious crisis. All of us on all sides of the House recognize this crisis and we welcome the support of the Official Opposition and the NDP in helping to find a solution. There is no doubt in my mind, Sir, that in the short term we will have to find additional resources through the Western Grain Stabilization Fund, and others, to stave off the most serious of the impacts which we are experiencing. However, in the long term Canada has committed itself to taking the lead, to bringing together the producing countries and discussing this serious global crisis with the other industrial countries. We have introduced this debate in the international community and shall pursue it with great vigour.
As the NDP, in particular, points out, we must send out a signal indicating where our farmers will be at the end of the next crop year and what will happen to the crop they will harvest this fall. I cannot predict that at this point. If they need an indication they should review what the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) said in many meetings with farmers before he travelled to Japan to discuss this matter with the seven industrialized countries. They should review the speech which the Prime Minister made early this morning in the House. They should judge us by our performance over the last two years.
They will find that we will be their friend rather than their competitor. We will ensure that Canada remains a strong producer of agricultural products, that we will continue to play a vital role in maintaining a vibrant farm industry, and that we will continue to preserve the family farm which is so much a part of our culture and history.


Alain Tardif: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank you for allowing me to take part in this important debate which concerns a historic crisis affecting our farming industry, perhaps especially in Western Canada.
The attitude of the government Members in this important debate can be summarized quite simply. Most of them claimed to know all about agriculture. They tried to prove it in various ways. Some said that they had lived on a farm for many years. Others told us that they knew about agriculture because they were married to someone from the farming community. They have quoted all kinds of facts to explain that they know all about agricultural issues. They have also told us that they know all about farming because of their large constituency in western Canada. It is indeed a fact that there are many Conservative Members from western Canada.
This automatically tells us what the most important agricultural issue is in the eyes of the government Members.
First, they told us that they knew all about farming, and then they said that they would explain what they have done for farmers. They listed a whole series of initiatives which they judge useful enough and relevant enough to give farmers hope for the future and security. We have been told time and again that this Government is spending one billion dollars to alleviate the dramatic problems of agriculture, especially in western Canada. In spite of the seriousness of the situation, farmers have been told: Do not worry, we shall take care of the problems; the past is a guarantee of the future; we shall be there to help you.
However, Mr. Speaker, in view of the seriousness of the problem facing these people, it is obvious that we need more than vague commitments. We need clear statements, firm commitments and official guarantees. We are now going through a crucial period in terms of our strategy.
The producers need to know in advance what the future holds for them, and they need to know exactly what the commitments of the Government will be. However, the Government has systematically refused to announce its plans and to give any indication that would enable the producers to face a very uncertain future.
It is as if a worker who needs his car to earn his living were to be told: We have repaired your shock absorbers, repainted your car and fixed your rearview mirrors, but we cannot do anything for you if there was a major problem, with the motor, for instance. This is what the producers need, Mr. Speaker, a commitment that the Government will do something about the sources of the problems facing this essential industry.
Faced with that, I conclude that if one is optimistic, one may believe or feel that one might be entitled to another billion dollars, for instance. But it is my view that in any serious analysis, in any intelligent reflection, producers have every reason to be extremely concerned, and for a number of

April 28, 1987
reasons. I listened a few moments ago to the Elon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) when he said: Listen, the situation is serious, I agree, the problem is dramatic, I acknowledge that, but we must be realistic, the market will have to straighten that up, market forces will have to apply. So what need have I to be more explicit? What need have I to give further details-all this means that those who are having difficulties, those who have accumulated significant amounts of debt will be wiped out by market forces, and they will have-I am using his own terms-to change trades, they will have to redeploy, change direction.
There are thousands of farm producers who right now have enjoyed a breathing space because of the moratorium, who sincerely believed remedial action would be taken, they could relax, difficulties could be met, especially financial difficulties. We have that Member here, who has been in this EJouse for a number of years, who supposedly is well placed to know the concerns and the needs, and this is what he has to say: market forces will have to decide; farming is no exception to rule, we must face up to the fact that the weak will go belly up, to the detriment of bigger ones. These are the facts, and that kind of statement in my view deeply concerned western farmers.
We have another farmer, a Quebec Member this time, the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture, the Elon. Member for Bellechasse (Mr. Blais) who stated a few months ago: Farm producers in the near future will have to stop being welfare bums. That statement made a lot of noise, because in fact agriculture is a strategic industry in our economy, and it is an industry that had, has and will have to be supported by the Government, for all kinds of reasons, the two major ones being that it is an industry where participants do not have the ability to make fully informed decisions, the required information including two factors, the first of which of course is wheather conditions, the necessity to abide by nature. This in itself is something of basic importance, because farm producers do not have the ability other businessmen have to take enlightened and intelligent decisions based on all the facts. Producers do not have the capacity nor the possibility to predict what Nature holds for them. This is the first aspect.
The second aspect, Mr. Speaker, is the issue of international markets. At present, international markets are all-powerful, deregulating or, to be more accurate, destabilizing prices so that a country such as Canada has to perform in a very difficult and painful environment. For that reason also, Mr. Speaker, producers cannot take enlightened decisions and plan ahead as businessmen do. They cannot go and see their banker and tell him: "Sir, I cannot meet my commitments. On the other hand, I anticipate a fine season and good revenues." This is precisely what a businessman can do. Thanks to some studies which can be made, he can convince the banker or the bank manager to wait, to make him understand what basically makes sense. The producer cannot do so, because as I mentioned it, he cannot control nature, not to mention international markets. Such being the facts, the banker and the financier
is not an ally of the producer but his enemy, because with his conservative mind, the banker will expect the worst. And the worst, given what happened during the past few years, is quite dramatic. And as a result, several farms and facilities are now in very difficult situation.
Throughout that debate, we heard moving testimonies of farmers, of families of producers who are really desperate as there is a very strong possibility that they might lose in the very short term what it had taken them 25, 30, 40 years, and even in some cases, several generations to build.
In view of the attitude of this Government, Mr. Speaker, I think that farmers have every reason to be concerned, to shout aggressively and to demand concrete measures. An in my opinion, the Canadian Government must on the one hand take quick action as I believe it is essential to preserve that part of the market which we could only secure through several generations of work. On the other hand, I also think it is important to fight aggressively, on the international markets of course, while hoping that a relative harmony may be restored at some point. I believe there is a basic need to support producers for reasons which in my opinion are self-evident.
I would be willing to accept a statement like that of the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) who said: "Market forces should be allowed to work, and those who cannot compete should get out of the business, consider selling their farm and learn another occupation or relocate themselves"; I would be willing to accept that kind of theory if we were talking on an industrial level, if we were dealing with small and medium businesses. However, let me remind you, Mr. Speaker, that it is an absolute shame to adopt and spread such a philosophy with respect to the agricultural community. We should understand that the agricultural industry is what enables us to feed our society, what provides us with the most basic commodities, those commodities which are essential to the welfare of society. Just on that account, and just to that end, I believe the Government should take an exceptional, distinctive and specific stand with respect to the agri-food sector. I think it is not decent or acceptable to view the agricultural industry as an ordinary economic activity on the same level as any other economic sector. In this respect, and for those reasons, the Government should have a reassuring, comforting attitude, an attitude which would enable producers, in particular western producers who are faced with a tremendous crisis, to look to the future with a maximum of safeguards. The producers who are now having problems should be able to go to their banker and say: Here are the statements of two senior Ministers of the Conservative Government who have made a firm commitment that, if the international problems are not resolved, they will make whatever decisions are necessary to help us. As I have already said, the Government should urgently announce its intentions so that the producers who are in the most difficult position will not make any hasty decisions in the belief that they cannot get what they need, and systematically abandon their farms.
April 28, 1987

Mr. Speaker, in view of the very vague and confusing commitments made by the Government, I am trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who is affected by the crisis and who wonders: Should I seed, and since the moratorium has now been lifted, should I take the trouble to go to banker and try to get an individual moratorium or to come to some sort of an agreement with him? Should I take all these steps? I have to ask myself these questions. First, it seems that one way to look at the problem is to say that the past is a guarantee of the future. This is a very common attitude which is admittedly acceptable from many aspects. However, if we apply this principle to the present problem, the western producer must still ask himself whether it is worth it to do these things.
Objectively, I believe that he should consider the statement of the Hon. Member for Mississauga who very clearly and honestly said that we have to get rid of the weak and that the market forces must be allowed to take their toll. There have been all sorts of statements to this effect, and we also have to look at the record of this Government after two and a half years.
As far as their achievements are concerned, government Members will naturally tell us, with the Figures to support their claim, that they have made so many promises and kept so many of them. As you know, Mr. Speaker, most of these promises were about minor issues. However, if we examine the basic problems of agriculture in the light of Government achievements, we naturally have to look at Canagrex. What has happened to Canagrex? It has gone down the tubes. What was its main purpose? To use the phrase we have heard in all the speeches, the purpose of Canagrex was to develop and identify external markets, which is a basic problem for Canadian agriculture. What has happened to Canagrex? It has simply been done away with.
When Canadian producers analyze what has happened, they must also consider the position taken by this Government with our American neighbours on the infamous 15 per cent tax on lumber.
As my allotted time is coming to an end, Mr. Speaker, I shall try to quicken the pace as I make my last few points.
We have also seen this Government increase inspection costs in what can only be described as a cruel and savage manner. The Government decided, just like that, to ensure that producers will pay for inspection costs: some $30 million were taken away from our producers' ability to pay, to the detriment of course of the quality of our products which always has been our international hallmark. We had a corporation for marketing, and we had good quality. The corporation was dismantled, then inspection costs were increased by $35 million.
Everyone is also aware, since it is in the news, of this Government's disquieting approach to the important matter of free trade. Everybody is concerned, nobody knows for sure what is the right banner. This is a picture admittedly that is somewhat summary. But, on the other hand, we have this Government's sales attitude, a Government that helps the
banks that do not have to put up with weather, that have control over shocks, that can plan in the light of financial statements, but that lose $1 billion because of very bad decisions. Very rapidly, on its own initiative, the Government decides to pay $1 billion to a few hundred people. Let me remind you, Mr. Speaker, that in the current circumstances that $1 billion would be most useful.
I will conclude, Mr. Speaker, by saying that in the absence of strong actions, in the absence of clear measures, in the absence of self-evident measures, farm producers and especially western producers-although their concern is shared by Quebec producers-are extremely worried, and I think that as politicians, we should also be most worried in the face of such inaction, such totally irresponsible attitude on the part of this Government.


Mr. Pierre Blais (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to address the subject before the House today. I spent over two years acquiring a wealth of experience in the agricultural industry, and I had the privilege of being raised on a family farm that has been in the same family for over 300 years. I am therefore in a position to appreciate the constraints that have been placed on the agricultural sector over the years.
The Hon. Member for Richmond-Wolfe (Mr. Tardif), who quoted me earlier, and unfortunately I will have to respond from the television screen, referred to an engine breakdown in Canada's agriculture. My father used to tell me, and I came to realize this myself, that the principle driving force behind our agriculture is often the heart and soul of the farmer. And if anything has been lacking for 20 years in this Chamber and in our Governments, it was that very heart and soul. The previous Government which ran the country for twenty years and allowed interest rates to rise above 20 per cent certainly did not have much soul. They were quick to forget it ever happened.
When the Hon. Member for Richmond-Wolfe quoted me earlier on the subject of farm producers who do not want to go on welfare, I was, as so often, quoted out of context, and if the Hon. Member had taken the trouble to make enquiries and meet with farm producers ... 1 have 1,300 in my own riding, and I'm certainly not ashamed of that. In fact, I am very proud of the farmers in my riding, Mr. Speaker. I met them, and I spoke and still speak for farm producers who want to make a decent living in Canada and be treated as first-class, noi second-class citizens, and that has always been my message, in everything I have said and written. I think the Hon. Member for Richmond-Wolfe should check his sources. These are just a lot of rumours which he took at face value, without checking any further.
Mr. Speaker, never has any Government done as much for Canadian agriculture as this one, and that has been crystal-clear ever since we came to power. When we came to power, Mr. Speaker, the previous Liberal Government had practically broken off every dialogue with the industry, and we know that Canada has 750 agencies involved in the agricultural sector.

April 28, 1987
Under the previous Government, however, and we remember its arrogance, there was practically no discussion or consultation with the agricultural industry. In fact, that Government went on tolerating a system that literally gouged our farmers with interest rates as high as 20 per cent and even 22 per cent and 24 per cent. Our Government restored the country's economy. It was not just a matter of dealing with agriculture but of considering the economy in general in this country. Our Government restored the economy by dealing with fundamentals, with factors that have a major impact on the economy such as the inflation rate, which was brought back to manageable levels, and also and especially interest rates. How can they say we were insensitive, when today interest rates are down to around 10 per cent?
Mr. Speaker, when I was travelling through my great constituency of Bellechasse during the election campaign, interest rates were the main issue raised by farm producers. In that respect, Mr. Speaker, we have fulfilled our mission and we will continue to monitor the situation very closely. How many millions and billions of dollars can this represent? A drop from 20 per cent to 10 per cent in interest rates on billions in mortgages and various kinds of loans made to Canadian agricultural producers. We are talking about billions of dollars, Mr. Speaker, and it was through the measures we took that interest rates were brought down to levels which agricultural producers could live with. The previous Liberal Government had never been unduly concerned about such issues.
For over two years, Mr. Speaker, I had the privilege-I repeat, privilege-to act as Parliamentary Secretary to both Ministers, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) and the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer). The other privilege I had, Mr. Speaker, was to work for my peers and colleagues as chairman of our Party's agricultural caucus. As a matter of fact, our Party's agricultural caucus alone has more Members than the whole Opposition put together. Never before we took office had a Government spent so much time and energy looking after agricultural interests. The reason is simple: For the first time we had a truly national Government representing all regions of the country, whereas the previous Liberal Government spoke up for central Canada, Ontario and Quebec, completely ignoring the other regions of Canada. It was never in a position to listen to a group of people who, gathered around a table, did represent all regions of Canada. We set things straight. We restored the delicate balance, Mr. Speaker. We are aware of that. Not to mention our many meetings with the leaders of the agricultural community over the past two and a half years. To become familiar with these questions our Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) himself went out to see the leaders of the farm community both at their annual meetings and here on Parliament Hill. Both the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board as well as
our caucus held several meetings with Canadian agricultural leaders to find out just what their problems were and to gain first-hand knowledge of the agricultural situation in Canada.
There is no ready-made solution. Perhaps it was easier in those days when none of the Liberal Members could represent certain regions of the country. The Government could go about its business with its customary arrogance, totally disregarding these regions. But that is not what we did. We would much rather discuss and consult these people right across Canada with a view to finding solutions which did not come easily but which are already giving obvious results. Besides, the national strategy put forward during the meeting of First Ministers who had mandated the Agriculture Minister to develop an agricultural strategy has been fruitful and an unprecedented consensus has already been achieved about that national strategy. Not a word has been said about this today. They tend to forget it. The Hon. Member for Richmond-Wolfe (Mr. Tardif) would rather dream of statements that go back a few years without even checking his sources.
Perhaps we could, Mr. Speaker, if you would let me, although many of my colleagues have already quoted some figures that speak for themselves about the plight of farmers in Canada . . . Mr. Speaker, for the past couple of years, $6 billion have been injected in the farming industry through more than 400 separate initiatives in every agricultural sector. That is a lot of money, Mr. Speaker. That is a lot of money and it shows that we have come seriously to grips with the problems faced by the farming community. More than 400 separate initiatives have been taken in the agricultural sector. What is the Liberal record? Let us go back 20 years in the past. Nothing was done.
Mr. Speaker, for the past two and a half years, our Minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board has continuously met with wheat producers and their representatives both here and throughout the world, in spite of the inherent problems of that sector. If you set aside any partisanship in this regard, everybody is aware that international trade of agricultural products is a world-wide problem. We are dealing with surpluses. We are faced with countries like Europe and the United States that subsidize heavily the farming industry. Our Prime Minister and our responsible Ministers have already "rung the bell" about that issue and ensured that it is one of the major concerns during meetings between farmers' representatives and Ministers and leaders of the most industrialized countries.
Also we have made sure-and the Liberals never did it in the past-that for the first time, agriculture would be one of the main items on the agenda of economic discussions and especially during the new round of negotiation of the GATT agreements. That is what we have to do, Mr. Speaker. As a priority we must get all parties to sit around the same table. That is exactly what the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board has done on several occasions. He is constantly
April 28, 1987

travelling the world to try and maintain our share of the markets and we have succeeded repeatedly with several countries, the USSR in particular not so long ago. We are currently negotiating with China and Brazil. Everywhere in the world we are holding on to our share of the market. That was our duty and we defended with the utmost energy our Canadian wheat producers. I have not mentioned yet the money we invested during the last two and a half years.
Let us now talk about farm financing. One of the points I raised during my campaign-another one was interest rates- was the whole question of loans. Farmers were not happy with the loan structure set up by the Farm Credit Corporation. To give you an example, in the whole Province of Quebec, in 1984, there were only 75 loans. It had become laughable. The Farm Credit Corporation was giving out less money than the smallest credit union in my riding of Bellechasse, where there are some 60 municipalities, Mr. Speaker. Consequently, we had to put some life back into the Corporation in order to meet the needs of the Canadian farming community. That is what we did, Mr. Speaker, and I think we did well.
What about the new 10-year loan program of the Farm Credit Corporation, with a financing of $700 million, where payments are based on commodity prices, with a floor rate of 6 per cent. They never mention this program. They never did anything themselves. As for us, over $100 million in loans have already been granted under this program. This has helped to meet a need. The Farm Credit Corporation has already granted six or seven times as many loans as before in Quebec alone. These are the figures. We are therefore meeting the needs of the farmers better than the previous Government had done before the 1984 election. The figures prove it.
What about another initiative, the Farm Debt Review Board? In spite of the concrete action taken by our Government during the last two years and in spite of our lowering the interest rate to about 10 per cent, we found that a number of farm producers had unfortunately not succeeded in recovering from the black period, before our coming to power, or should I say the red period, since they were substantially in the red at the time.
What we have done, Mr. Speaker, is to show some compassion in dealing with the problems of the farm producers who are the most affected by the crisis. This is why we set up the Farm Debt Review Board. Under this compassionate program, local people analyze the files of farm producers and try to find ways to keep them on the farm. We are not trying as you said earlier to get farmers out of farming. That is completely untrue. What we said, and the Opposition should not try to distort our words, was that some farmers cannot remain in business. It would be structurally impossible. We cannot set up individual loan structures for all 280,000 Canadian farmers. We have to set certain standards. However, we have to try to make these standards more flexible. This is what we have done and thousands of farmers have been able to remain on the farm thanks to the Farm Debt Review Board. In some cases, it
may happen that some producers, in spite of that, are forced to get out of agriculture. We are all sorry, but there is no choice.
We also established a program to meet those requirements-


Alain Tardif: Unemployment insurance.


Pierre Blais: No! If you had taken the time to read the program we set up, the financial aid program to help make the transition, the relocation, the search for a job and the training of farm producers in other fields. Under your Government, there was no provision at all. Farm producers, being small entrepreneurs, were entitled to none of those programs. We opened the door for them, and the Minister of Employment and Immigration ensured that those programs were made more flexible to meet that need. This is what I call responding adequately to the representations of farm producers. Shared risk mortgage programs-already, a quarter of the FCC current loans are eligible to that program. The $500,000 capital gains program. Yes! They sometimes scoff when we refer to tax reform and ask that such a provision be abolished. But the provision had a direct impact on farm property transfer from father to son, and it enabled many young farmers to get started. It opened the door to young farmers, and this was an urgent request of the farming industry. We responded adequately, Mr. Speaker. There is still more to do. We are aware of it. We established a dairy policy that involves thousands of farm producers, $1,5 billion in that area. This is how we supported farming.
Consultation, Mr. Speaker, and I will conclude on this, consultation since we came to office ensured that this Government's Ministers of Agriculture, that is, the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board and the Minister of Agriculture proper, met regularly with all their counterparts in Canada to find together solutions to the problems that confront us. I urge opposition Parties, both the Liberals and the New Democratic Party, to help us, to sit down with us to earnestly look for solutions to the problems that confront us and to try and forget their partisan attitudes and their narrowmindedness in order to evaluate situations, and I would say the many benefits we extended to Canadian farm producers.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to participate in this special debate. We have a crisis in rural Canada the likes of which we have not seen since the 1930s. Despite that crisis, we have a Government that has announced that, as of tomorrow, the moratorium on Farm Credit Corporation loan foreclosures is going to end.
Assuming the moratorium on Farm Credit Corporation loan foreclosures ends, the banks and other lenders will take that as a signal that they can be a lot tougher on farmers who are indebted to them-and that would be like putting a skunk into

April 28, 1987
the hen-house. The banks will be going after the farmers with avengeance.
Mr. Speaker, this Government thought things were so bad a year ago that it put in place a moratorium on Farm Credit Corporation loan foreclosures. Yet this year, with crop prices going down another 18 per cent, it proposes to lift the moratorium.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame!


An Hon. Member:: It doesn't make any sense.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, that is the kind of Tory logic we had in the 1930s with R. B. Bennett. That is the kind of logic that led to my grandfather saying that "Tory times are hard times".
In those days, the farmers of this country were forced to remove the motors from their cars and hitch their cars to horses, calling them "Bennett-buggies".
As a result of that kind of logic, this country rejected the Progressive Conservative Party for a couple of generations.
What we are seeing now, Mr. Speaker, is a re-enactment of the 1930s. Crop prices have reached the level they were at in the 1930s, while production costs are at the levels of the 1980s.
Mr. Speaker, as the Member of Parliament for Yorkton- Melville, I shall not sit idly by and watch the Progressive Conservative Government of this country destroy the family farm, destroy a way of life-a way of life that my forebears built in rural Saskatchewan and across this great country of Canada as they pioneered this land.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, this Government has taken the decision to end the moratorium on Farm Credit Corporation loan foreclosures. At the same time, it has announced that, on top of a 19 per cent rollback in wheat prices last year, this year the Canadian Wheat Board will be paying 18 per cent less on the wheat crop.
Mr. Speaker, we haven't seen these kinds of prices in rural Canada since the 1930s.
For the last 20 years, the people of western Canada have been looking for some fundamental changes in the way this country is run. What they want is fairness from Ottawa; what they want is equality from Ottawa.
Over the course of the history of this country, western Canadians have voted for a number of different political Parties. In the west, we had the formation of the CCF and the Social Credit Parties. Many western Canadians turned to John Diefenbaker and the Progressive Conservative Party.
After 20 long lean Liberal years in western Canada, the Progressive Conservative Party was elected to office in 1984. People had some hope, some optimism that things would change; that there would be fairness, justice and equity for the people of western Canada.
And, Mr. Speaker, what do we get? We get worse times now than we have had since the 1930s, when another Conservative Prime Minister, R. B. Bennett, was the Prime Minister of Canada, and he shafted the western part of this country during the Great Depression.


An Hon. Member:: Are you being honest?


Mr. McDermid:: Let's talk about the 22 per cent interest rates that prevailed during the term of the last Liberal Government.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, there is great disappointment in western Canada. There is-


An Hon. Member:: Nonsense.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: My friend says, "nonsense". One needs only to look at the results of the Pembina by-election in Alberta, a riding that had a Progressive Conservative majority of 30,000 votes reduced to a pathetic 200 votes in the by-election.


An Hon. Member:: It was good enough to win.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: They can be as cynical as they wish, but the people of western Canada are speaking, and they are saying "no" to this Progressive Conservative Government.
In fact, the Minister of Labour for Saskatchewan, a good friend of mine and a Progressive Conservative MLA from Melville, said at the recent Progressive Conservative convention in Yorkton that the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mulroney) should go to the west and get his shoes dirty. In that way, he might better understand the problems of western Canada.


An Hon. Member:: He should get his Guccis dirty, you mean.


An Hon. Member:: He is visiting western Canada next week.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I do not know what happens to Guccis when one wears them into a barnyard, but I wouldn't want to be around afterwards.
Here is a man, who can build a closet for some 84 pairs of Gucci shoes and whose wife can tear up a carpet three or four times, using public money and using money of people who contribute to the Conservative Party of Canada. That is the kind of man who is the Prime Minister of Canada, and that is why people in western Canada are saying no to the Conservative Party.
Let us look at the headline which appeared in this morning's edition of The Globe and Mail'. "Getty to caution leaders on western separatism". Premier Getty, a Conservative in western Canada, has said time and time again in the last few months that we have a Government which is so insensitive to western problems that unfortunately some western Canadians are turning toward separatism.
April 28, 1987


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: They know that. I know that. The man who had the courage to get up in the House of Commons and say that is the Hon. Member for Edmonton-Strathcona (Mr. Kilgour). He had the courage to get up and say that we have elected a Government which is insensitive to the problems of western Canada and because of that he would wait until the end of June before deciding whether to stay in the Conservative Party.
I know that some long-time distinguished members of the Conservative Party like the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor) must be sitting in the back-benches gnashing their teeth and just cursing the insensitivity of the Government across the way.


John Horton McDermid: You should have heard his speech this morning.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: It is not only Mr. Getty, the Premier of Alberta, who is disappointed with these birds. He said about three weeks ago that he might separate the Alberta Conservative Party from the federal Conservative Party because it is so insensitive. It is not only the Hon. Member for Edmonton- Strathcona. It is also the voters of Pembina, as well as the people of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba who are saying that it is time for a change and time to get rid of the Conservative Party which is destroying the country and western Canadian farms.


Mr. Fennell:: What absolute nonsense.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Tory times are tough times.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: If John Diefenbaker were alive today, John Diefenbaker would be extremely upset and disappointed about how the Conservative Party has strayed from its roots.


Thomas Scott Fennell: He is turning over in his grave listening to you.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: At one time the Conservative Party was a great nationalist Party. It stood up for a strong Canada.


Thomas Scott Fennell: It still does.


Mr. Belsher:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Hon. Member is now talking about western Canada. I trust that he is not including British Columbia in his harangue at this point in time.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Yorkton- Melville (Mr. Nystrom) has the floor.


Ms. Mitchell:: What have they done in British Columbia?


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, in British Columbia the Conservative Party is a dismal third, and the Conservatives know it.


Gerry St. Germain: Let's talk about British Columbia.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: If he would get up and fight a little harder for the people of British Columbia, perhaps the Conservative Party would not be third.
Later on today we will have some speeches from the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell), the Hon. Member for Vancouver East (Ms. Mitchell), and the Hon. Member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson). They will tell us how the Conservative Party has sold out British Columbia along with its friend, Premier Vander Zalm.
I appeal to my friends in the Conservative Party to wake up. What is happening in prairie Canada is that a way of life is now being threatened like it was in the 1930s.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: They are cynical.


An Hon. Member:: Sucker.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: "Sucker", he says. Now they are cynical. They should have been with me last Friday in the little town of Danbury in my riding when I met with some farmers. We talked about the problems which they had. They are seeing their neighbours going bankrupt. They are seeing neighbours like Jim Feeley of Preeceville who had an auction sale last Monday. These farmers are seeing farmers selling out because they are not getting the kinds of prices for their commodities which they should be getting, and they are seeing farm input costs going up. They can be cynical if they want.


William (Bill) Gottselig: What happened last fall?


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Come with me to the city of Yorkton some time. 1 also met last Friday with three people who run a crisis centre in the city of Yorkton, a place which did not have a crisis centre a few years ago. In that small community in the last year over 1,300 people called the crisis centre. Many of them were suffering from stress. Many of them were farmers with financial problems because of the Conservative Government.


John Horton McDermid: Because their Member of Parliament would not go home to meet with them.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: This Member of Parliament will take on any Conservative in my riding in the next campaign. I invite the Prime Minister to come and run in Yorkton-Melville. We will talk about the problems of real people in that campaign if and when he dares to call it.


An Hon. Member:: You should have done your job.

April 28, 1987


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I hear a British Columbian talking down to us prairie folk once again. I know I am just a prairie boy and a farm boy. I picked up a copy of the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix- and I see the Hon. Member for Saskatoon East (Mr. Ravis) is here-which contained the following headline: "Food bank restricts help to those near Saskatoon". The Saskatoon food bank had so many people coming to it that it had to make a decision that it could only give food to people within the near radius of Saskatoon. This is Canada. This is 1987. This is Canada with its resources, yet we have food banks giving food to people because they cannot get money to buy food and we have a Conservative Government which wanted to change things for people in the west.


Mr. Ravis:: What has that got to do with it?


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: The Hon. Member for Saskatoon is asking what a food bank has to do with assistance to farmers. It is incredible to hear a Conservative Member of Parliament from Saskatoon saying that. John Diefenbaker must be turning in his grave.


Donald Paul Ravis: What an actor.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: What do food banks have to do with the assets of farmers? If the farmers in our province are better off, everyone is better off. If farmers are better off, there are jobs for people in towns and cities including Saskatoon, and we would not need food banks.
The newspaper indicated that the agency decided and voted at its last meeting to restrict its operations because of heavy demand from rural Saskatchewan, from rural people. That is what it has to do with farm prices, and the Hon. Member for Saskatoon East should know better than that.
Also the article indicated that the food bank was getting people walking in off the street and asking for food. According to the article the director of the Saskatoon food bank said: "It is damn scary. People are having trouble getting food on their table and clothes on their back". If Conservative Party Members think that that is funny and that it has nothing to do with the farm economy-


John Horton McDermid: Be nice, Lome. Nobody is laughing.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: The Member asked what it has to do with farm prices. It has everything to do with farm prices.
One reason is that we have a Conservative Government which has driven down prices to the lowest level we have had since the 1930s, and we will not stand for it.


John Horton McDermid: What absolute nonsense.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I hear the Hon. Member saying: "What absolute nonsense". What nonsense is it that people in Saskatchewan are suffering? What nonsense is it that people in my riding are selling out because we have a federal Government which is providing grain prices for No. 1 wheat at $2.99
per bushel, while the United States has a guarantee of $6.10 Canadian per bushel of wheat? What nonsense!
We have a Government which is not supporting farm prices like the Americans and the EEC, and we have Government Members saying: "What nonsense".
Our farmers want a guarantee from the Government of Canada that as a minimum the final income for farmers next year should not be any lower than their final income last year. That is exactly what farmers want.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I will tell you what else our farmers want, Mr. Speaker.


Donald Paul Ravis: They do not want a socialist Government.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I see the Hon. Member for Saskatoon East giving me thumbs down, indicating that farmers do not want that. I will remember that as well as I campaign in his riding in 1989.


William (Bill) Gottselig: All the MLAs in your riding are Tories now.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: The Hon. Member is saying that all the MLAs in my riding are Tories. They were Tories before. That is the biggest thing I had going for me. I have no bigger allies than the Tory MLAs in my riding, because people see them every day and are reminded about the fact that Tory times are tough times. That Party no longer stands for things that John Diefenbaker stood for. The best thing I have going for me is those five Tory MLAs. They will be the biggest asset I will ever have. Those same Tory MLAs are afraid to call the Saskatchewan Legislature into session.
Let us look again at this morning's edition of The Globe and Mail. It must be serious if it makes the eastern press. It indicated that Saskatchewan was warned about spending. The Lieutenant-Governor of Saskatchewan is warning that he will take action because the provincial Government seems to be continuing spending indefinitely without approval from the Legislature. We have a Government in Saskatchewan which is spending money without a budget and without calling the Legislature into session. That has never happened before.
They are afraid to face the people of Saskatchewan. They know that Tory times are tough times. We have a deficit now which is larger than we ever had in the Province of Saskatchewan, because of an irresponsible, insensitive Conservative Government. That is why I say the biggest asset that I have in my riding is five Conservative MLAs because when the next federal campaign comes I am sure even the Liberal Party and the Rhinoceros Party will move ahead of them and be my stiffest opposition.
I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that we want a guarantee that next year's price will not be a dollar lower than this year's price. We also want a guarantee that this Government will
April 28, 1987

come to its senses, and instead of ending the moratorium tomorrow on Farm Credit Corporation loans and throwing over 600 families to the sharks, what 1 want tomorrow is a guarantee that that moratorium on Farm Credit Corporation loans will continue. In addition, I want a guarantee to extend the moratorium to the private banks and financial institutions so that they will not be able to go out and take away a farmer's land. I see the Hon. Member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Gottselig) is smiling in agreement. I am sure he is embarrassed to be a Member of the Conservative Party because he is afraid to get up in this House and speak to the Hon. Member for Edmonton-Strathcona and talk about the insensitivity of Gucci boy, the Prime Minister and the problems of western Canada.
The Hon. Member for Saskatoon East was shouting from his seat a few moments ago. He said what about the NDP and the CCF. Back in the 1930s when the Bennett administration drove us to despair and into poverty all across western Canada, when we had Bennett buggies and starvation in western Canada, the Saskatchewan people elected a CCF Government. At that time the banks were foreclosing on thousands of Saskatchewan farmers.
What did the CCF do? The CCF brought in the Homestead Act and said that a bank could not foreclose on the homestead of a farmer and take away the farmhouse and the farm from an ordinary farmer and his family. That is what the CCF did with Tommy Douglas. Who opposed that? Members of the Conservative Party. If Tommy Douglas did that in 1944, if he could bring in a Homestead Act to protect the family farm, the family homestead and protect the home for the kids, the wife, and everything else, why can we not do it in 1987? I ask that question of my friends in the Conservative Party. They are remaining silent now because they know if we did that we would be talking to their friends, the big bankers in this country. Of course that is where they get their campaign funds and when the banker says jump, the Conservative Party asks how high?


An Hon. Member:: Be honest.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Honesty again. Take a look at the reports of the Chief Electoral Officer of this country. Take a look at the reports of where the Conservative Party gets its money. The Party that gets the most money from the banks is the Conservative Party of Canada. If anybody wants to challenge that, please get up and challenge it now.


John R. Rodriguez: Then they lend it.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: That is why the Conservative Party will not stand up for the farmers. That is why it will not impose a moratorium on the banks taking over farmland and that is why we are having more and more farm suicides, depressions, crises, family problems, drug problems and alcohol problems all across rural Canada. That is why for the first time in the history of Canada we have a national Government that is running not second in the polls but is running third in the polls from one part of this country to the other. That has never
happened before. The people of Canada are rejecting the Conservative Party.
As I say, there are many things we can do. I would like to see the Conservative Party bring down farm input costs. Why doesn't the Government bring in legislation for generic farm chemicals so we can reduce the price of farm chemicals in Canada? Why doesn't the Conservative Government bring down fertilizer prices in Canada?
Why does the Conservative Party sit idly by when the CTC allows the CNR to charge variable rates, and with variable rates in Canada, which is like free trade and deregulation, the CNR and the CPR will play God. They will decide which community pays which rate and the small communities will be wiped out. Where is the Conservative Party when the CTC makes those kinds of decisions? The Conservative Party is silent. It is silent as it stands on the side of the railways, the banks, and on the side of the big private grain exchange.
The time has come in this country when western Canadians should unite in a crusade to demand our fair share of the national economy, a crusade that says Canadian farmers should receive as much as American farmers, a crusade that says American farmers and Canadian farmers should receive no less than what farmers get in the European Common Market. Why do Conservative Party Members rest content when the Canadian farmer receives $3 a bushel for wheat and the American farmer receives $3 a bushel for wheat and the American farmer receives $6.10 a bushel for wheat. I think that is shameful. I think it is disgusting and I appeal to the Prime Minister of Canada to call an election as soon as possible so the people of this country can vote and elect into office for the first time in Canada a people's Party that represents the ordinary average Canadian and make Ed Broadbent the Prime Minister of Canada.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I have been here most of the morning, and I was here last evening listening to the debate. With this last performance, that is what it was, the Hon. Member should go to Hollywood. The walk would do him good.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Go out west. Have you heard of Calgary?


John Horton McDermid: I used to have a great deal of respect for the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom) but after that performance, after the half-truths, the quarter-truths and the no truths that were presented, as well as the rhetoric that came from the Hon. Member, I lost a great deal of that respect. I do not think the people of Yorkton-Melville will really think that that was a great performance. It was 100 per cent rhetoric. It was all nonsense. There were no solutions to the problems, very serious problems which the agricultural community is facing these days.


Nelson Andrew Riis: What did the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) do?

April 28, 1987


John Horton McDermid: As soon as an urban Member from Ontario stands up who does have a rural area within his constituency, the intolerance of the NDP comes forward. "What is a guy from Brampton doing speaking on agriculture?" That was the first thing the New Democrats all started yelling. That is the intolerance of the New Democratic Party. That is what will put them down in the polls come the next election. The Hon. Member talks bravely between elections, but at election time we will see how brave the Hon. Member is.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh,


Nelson Andrew Riis: What are you going to do about agriculture and farming?


John Horton McDermid: The Hon. Member knows full well, when he says that the Conservative Government had driven down prices, that the farmers themselves know that we have a world commodity price problem on our hands. If the Hon. Member is honest, the farmers have told him, as they have told me, that the high interest periods in the early 1980s when the interest rate went up to 22 per cent were when they got into trouble. If the Hon. Member is honest, he will say that, but he does not say that. He does not tell the truth in his speeches. That is why I lost a lot of respect for the Hon. Member, something I used to have. He is normally a very fair person. His speech today was a bunch of socialist rhetoric drivel. It was nothing more.
The Hon. Member knows that the moratorium on farm credit was put in place until we had a chance to bring in farm debt review boards. They were brought into place.


David Orlikow: What are you smoking these days?


John Horton McDermid: Eighty per cent of the cases that they have studied have been handled successfully.


Nelson Andrew Riis: What does that mean?


John Horton McDermid: That means they have refinanced and that they are operating and have reached successful conclusions for the farmers.


David Orlikow: For the banks.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Have you talked to a single farmer?


John Horton McDermid: Sure.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Table a list of the farmers who have been rescued through this.


John Horton McDermid: I will tell the Hon. Member that I am participating today because I want to talk about-


Nelson Andrew Riis: Farming.


John Horton McDermid: No. I want to talk about the long range areas that we in the Department of Trade-


Nelson Andrew Riis: It is a crisis now.


John Horton McDermid: Here are the New Democratic Party Members. We sat and listened to the New Democrats speak and we sat and listened to the Liberals speak, but the New Democrats will not give the same courtesy to the Conservatives.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Say something.


John Horton McDermid: If you will let me. If the Hon. Member would quit harping and yelling all the time and sit and listen to some facts, I could tell him what the Government and our Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) have done.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Tell us what you're going to do.


John Horton McDermid: That is exactly what I am going to do if you give me the chance. Would the Hon. Member please keep his mouth shut so I could do it? I would really appreciate it. Just show a little courtesy.


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I'm going to listen carefully. Will you?


John Horton McDermid: Thank you very much. This Government has had in mind the interests of the farmer since it first took office.


Nelson Andrew Riis: You're going to say what you're going to do now?


John Horton McDermid: That's right. The Department for International Trade was led first by the Prime Minister who met with farm leaders. He did not tell farmers to go sell their own wheat, he did not tell them to go peddle their own implements. He met with them-


Nelson Andrew Riis: That's history. We don't need an history lesson.


John Horton McDermid: But you do need a history lesson.


Nelson Andrew Riis: We don't need a lecture either.


John Horton McDermid: Members of the New Democratic Party do need a history lesson. After listening to what the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom) just said, it is obvious that they do need a history lesson because he was less than truthful in his presentation.


Nelson Andrew Riis: You haven't got a single thing to offer the farm community, admit it.


John Horton McDermid: The Government is leading the world in agricultural matters as they concern the trading nations.


Steven W. Langdon: Oh, come on.


John Horton McDermid: The Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon) is making snide comments as well. I read the comments about the Hon. Member who has all the answers to the problems.
April 28, 1987


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, 1 rise on a point of order. I wonder if the Hon. Member would permit a question.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I will be happy to answer the Hon. Member's questions if he gives me a chance to make my presentation. After that, I would be happy to answer questions.
As I was saying before being so rudely interrupted by that intolerant bunch across the way, the Prime Minister was the first international leader to bring the problems of agriculture to a major summit meeting. From that point on, the Government has been pushing at every single opportunity to get agriculture to the top of the agenda in the trade discussions, and it is having success.


Steven W. Langdon: Were you at GATT?


John Horton McDermid: Let me explain this to the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor who likes to heckle. I am telling him about our position in agriculture.


Steven W. Langdon: I'm just asking you, were you at GATT.


John Horton McDermid: It was our Government and our Minister for International Trade (Miss Carney) who, by the way-


Steven W. Langdon: She didn't even get to the GATT meetings.


Nelson Andrew Riis: She wasn't even there.


John Horton McDermid: This is the intolerance and insensitivity of the New Democratic Party. The Minister's mother died when she was on her way to the meeting and she had to go home. That is the insensitivity and nastiness of the New Democratic Party. That is a prime example of the way members of the NDP act.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. That is a totally inaccurate description of what took place. It is not possible to make accusations like that when the facts are that the Minister was kept in Canada until after the meeting with the premiers on Wednesday-


Some Hon. Members:: That's not a point of order.


Steven W. Langdon: It's a point of truth.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I must rule that that is a matter of debate and the floor has been given to the Hon. Member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid).


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw the facts to the attention of the Hon. Member. The Minister was in the air on her way to Uruguay for the meetings which were still going on when she called home and her mother had passed away. The Hon. Member is being totally unfair.


Steven W. Langdon: The meeting was finished.


John Horton McDermid: The real NDP is beginning to show.
I would like to return to what is going on in the department of trade as it relates to Punta del Este, Tokyo, Portugal and the meetings of international trade Ministers that took place in Lake Taupo, New Zealand, where the Minister for International Trade laid out the principles that should affect world discussions on agriculture and trade at this time.
It is a world problem, there is no question about that. Yes, the short-term things must be done and they are being done. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise), the Minister of State for the Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) and the others have discussed that. However, I think it is important that the public understand that there must be some long-term solutions to a problem that is not the fault of farmers or of Canadians. It is a world commodity problem that must be tackled and it takes time. That is why we are now getting it to the top of the agenda. This Government is the first Government that feels that agriculture is so important that it has to be at the top of that agenda when world leaders meet and we are getting it there.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: What about Diefenbaker?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Who called this debate?


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Don't criticize Diefenbaker.


Nelson Andrew Riis: More history.


John Horton McDermid: Members of the NDP quote Diefenbaker quite frequently. They like quoting him better than they like quoting Tommy Douglas. I got a chuckle out of the Hon. Member quoting him again today.
Agricultural policies must become more price-responsive. Support for agriculture should avoid production incentives. The support should be for the farmers, not for farming. Countries should freeze and seek to reduce governmental assistance measures that artificially distort world prices, as we are seeing with the European Economic Community's subsidization contest with the United States. Of course, Canadian farmers are being caught in the crossfire. It is very important that agriculture be kept on top of the international agenda. Countries should not introduce new import barriers not mandated by existing legislation. These basic principles should be implemented collectively. 1 do not think they can be implemented separately. Those are the principles on which we are working now.
I can tell Hon. Members that momentum is gathering for these kinds of principles. More and more, the Ministers of Trade and heads of state are realizing that agriculture is the number one problem in the world commodity base today and that something must be done about it.
Because of the momentum that was started when our Prime Minister insisted that agriculture get on the agenda of the Toyko Summit, many more actions have been taken by the Prime Minister, by the Minister for International Trade, by the Minister of State for Finance (Mr. Hockin), who also played a very important role in Uruguay, as well as by many

April 28, 1987
others in the Government. We are making headway on the international scene and we will come to successful conclusions in the negotiations that are going on now.


Nelson Andrew Riis: What are you going to do about the farmers now?


John Horton McDermid: The Hon. Member can sit there and criticize the activities of the Government, but I think the Government is playing a leading role in the world. I do not think any Government has consulted more with the agricultural industry, has kept them more up to date about it activities, has taken so much of their advice and has worked so hard with them.
Among all the farm groups and farmers I meet the Minister of Agriculture is held in very high regard. The Government fully understands the problems of agriculture, not like Governments of the past. The Government is taking action. There is no sense in me listing that action in my speech, but this action will continue to take place because the Government is sensitive. Well over $1 billion will be in the hands of farmers within the next five weeks because the Government is taking action. That is a very important impetus for the farm community. They know this Government cares for them. That is why they support us and will continue to support us.
Members of the NDP are great; between elections they are on top. You know what we should have in this country for the NDP; we should have elections between elections so then they might win.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Let's have an election right now.


John Horton McDermid: Unfortunately for the NDP, but fortunately for the Canadian people, they are not going to have one. I can assure the Hon. Member of that. We have a mandate and we are going to fulfil it. Come election time, when the Canadian people look around and see what this Government has accomplished, they are going to support us. They will support us next time around because they know we are on the right track and we are doing the right thing. That applies especially to agriculture. For once agriculture in this country is at the top of that important pecking order. Previous Governments placed it so far below that it was totally ignored.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Hon. Member which he indicated earlier he would answer. He is correct when he says that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) and the Minister for International Trade (Miss Carney) have raised a question at international meetings concerning the harm done to farmers all around the world by the tremendous subsidies paid by the American, Japanese and EEC Governments to their respective farmers. Those Ministers have suggested that there is movement, that we are going to see action, that we are going to see a reduction in those subsidies.
Will the Hon. Member tell Members of this House and the farmers of this country when the Government thinks those subsidies will be reduced in a real way? Is it five years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now? If it is going to take 10 years, a hell of a lot of farmers in this country will no longer be farming.


John Horton McDermid: I thank the Hon. Member for his question and I agree with him. I cannot give him an answer as to when. I have stated right from the beginning that there are long-term and short-term problems. This is a long-term problem.


David Orlikow: In the long term we will all be dead.


John Horton McDermid: I listened patiently to the Hon. Member's question, perhaps he would give me the courtesy of listening to the answer. Be fair about it.
I wish I could say it was going to be next year. I do not know. All I know is that for once at the OECD meetings coming up agriculture is going to be at the top of the agenda for discussion. It never was before. All countries are now beginning to realize the seriousness of the situation and how it is disrupting the agricultural industry right around the world. They want to do something about it. That is important and it gives hope to farmers. At least something is being done. It was ignored before. It is not any more. This Government is leading the charge and I am proud to be a part of this Government.


Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke):: Mr. Speaker, we have heard talk in this House about interest rates and who has done the most for farmers. The debate has been going back and forth across the floor between the NDP and the Conservatives. They are calling each other intolerant. They are so intolerant of each other that they have almost lost track of the issue under discussion. I have heard comments today from speakers blaming-


John R. Rodriguez: Considering that you have been out for the last 24 hours!


Leonard Donald Hopkins: -the Liberals for high interest rates in the early 1980s. Today, when we have a grain problem, who is the Conservative Party blaming? They are saying this is not a Canadian problem, it is the fault of someone else outside our country altogether. If they want to be intellectually honest in this debate they will fully appreciate and understand that the high interest rate problem they are always throwing up in this House was an international problem affecting every nation in the industrialized world. That is a fact of life. It is not just a matter of debate and conjecture back and forth across the floor of this House.


John Horton McDermid: Tell us how you handled it.


Leonard Donald Hopkins: I was quite interested in hearing the Hon. Member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid) state that the Government was leading the charge on agricultural problems in the world today. We have all heard of the Charge of the Light Brigade. We know what happened to them. The
April 28, 1987

same thing is going to happen to the Government. When a crisis arises it is not what the Government says it is going to do, but how it handles that crisis that will determine how it is perceived by the Canadian people. The Government has been perceived as incapable of handling such crises.
We have seen all these arguments and debates on free trade. At the time we have an American Farm Bill creating problems for Canada the Government does not want to raise any fuss, simply because it does not want to create bad relations with the U.S.
I seem to be making such an effective presentation here in the House that someone is drilling a hole through the wall up there.


William (Bill) Gottselig: Someone is trying to get out.


Leonard Donald Hopkins: If that is a Government ploy I wish it would call off the driller. It is up to Mr. Speaker to protect all Members in this House, their rights and privileges. I would thank him for sending someone to ask that Conservative up there to put his bit and tools in the box until after this debate is over.
It is quite obvious that the Government is on the defensive on this issue. That is why it is so arrogant about other speakers. I was appalled this morning to hear a couple of Members get up and talk about members in the Opposition who have no right and no qualifications to speak in this debate. I would simply like to say to them that there are a few of us who have that right and those qualifications.
I have a very deep and abiding feeling for the agricultural problems of this country and for the grain farmers. I grew up on a farm. I lived on a farm for many years. I taught school in rural areas and lived in farming communities, not just in one location but in a few. I go back to the day when my mother and father hardly had a cent to their name, but their name was good. That is what happens in rural communities. That is what happened in those days. The word of people who owned a farm was good. It was as good as a certified cheque.
I can remember an all-day trip of 25 miles to town. You stopped at every swamp along the way to put water in the radiator. My father and mother, as I say, never had any money but they were very genuine, loving people. It is because we had parents like them that we got a solid footing for the rest of our lives. That comes from farm communities.
I can well remember driving up to a gas station with my father in a Model A Ford, asking to have $1 worth of gas put in the car and charging it. There was no question asked. They simply did it. It was fully understood. A good lesson to be learned in this debate is that a person's name is probably one of the greatest assets one can carry in this life. We are again seeing people who are having trouble getting $ 1 in these times when $1 is not worth very much.
I have stated that I have great feelings for the problems of farmers. There must be some form of debt restructuring worked out. People who have had problems with mortgages in the past, which the Farm Credit Corporation is still holding, should be given the opportunity to repossess their farms and start anew. That is only fair ball. Otherwise, in many of these cases the banks or the Farm Credit Corporation will sell those farms at a loss. Not only will they have lost money on the farm, they will have lost the farmer, who will have lost his livelihood and will have to find another way to make a living.
I can remember very well the days when we drove teams of horses for two, three, or four weeks at a time, from farm to farm, on threshings from early morning until darkness fell at night. Farm women do not and have never received enough credit in this world. When my father and the rest of us were working until dark my mother used to milk every one of the cows by hand, turn the separator, feed the calves, and clean up everything after she had done her own day's work. I say this because 1 do not want to hear remarks from the other side of the House that no one in the Opposition is qualified to talk about farm problems. That is an arrogant attitude that this place would be well rid of.
During this debate on grain in western Canada the farmer's pride is coming to the surface. He believes his credibility is at stake. When farmers cannot make their payments they tend to blame themselves and feel guilty, even though they are living in an environment over which they seem to have no control. That is the time when the sympathy, the empathy, and the understanding of their financial plight must come to the fore.
The credibility of farmers and their desire to continue to farm will affect the entire community in which they live. It will affect the fertilizer dealer, the farm implement dealer and the local garages. The farm economy reaches into almost every facet of our society. It is not strange that that is so today, because that has always been the case extending back to pioneer days. Fish was a major economic item as was timber and agriculture, and western grain in particular. Western grain was the reason for the great boom in railway building across the west. That is the type of thing which is in jeopardy today.
Parliamentarians should have pride in those three major economic factors which have been the foundation of Canada. We should have pride in the people who built up those farms and who have carried them on, in the people who built up the transportation systems to serve them, and, indeed, the people who are trying to sell grain today.
Why are we pussyfooting around with the American Farm Bill rather than saying up front, as the Government should, that it is absolutely bad international relations for Washington to have brought forward the Farm Bill which is highly subsidizing grain and practically putting the Canadian farmer out of business? If one government is going to do that, another government is either stuck with doing the same thing or it will ignore a large sector of its own economy.

April 28, 1987
This is the test of the Government. Will it bring in a plan for debt restructuring for the farmers to try to get them over the hump? Will it then become more aggressive in the international market on their behalf? It is all right to stand up in the House and talk about trade talks and how the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) took his efforts to Tokyo or Uruguay, but that is not much help to the western grain farmer today when the Farm Credit Corporation will have the opportunity to foreclose on Friday of this week, two days hence. Banks will move in too, because they will see this as a cave-in of the Government with regard to supporting the moratorium on mortgages. It is a sad day when the Government has lifted the moratorium on farm mortgages without having anything else in place to support the farmers, anything for them to work toward, anything to give them some hope.
I have here a list of the various grain and seed prices, the cost of production and the return from sales. It is sad that the American Farm Bill is subsidizing American farmers and their grain to try to outdo the European Economic Community, which is itself trying to outdo the Americans. Agriculture is so structured and financed by government in all those countries that the only position the Government of Canada can take is to be prepared to fight the international markets. It must get together with international governments and come to an agreement, because everyone is hurting each other.
This is a time for solid leadership in this country and throughout the world on agricultural problems. We do not need the Charge of the Light Brigade, about which the Hon. Member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid) speaks. We need someone sitting at the table with a firm knowledge of the subject and with empathy for the farm community back home which is witnessing tremendously tough times, which is putting in crops, buying fertilizer, and selling the product for far less than the cost of production. The only way the farming community will exist is by being subsidized in the same way as is the European Economic Community and the American farmers.
This is a tough question and the solution is debt restructuring. That is what should be put in place instead of the removal of the moratorium from mortgages with absolutely nothing to prop the farmer up until we get over this international hurdle.
I come back to my original statement that the Government cannot handle these crises in a knee-jerk fashion, as they arise. Governments will be judged on the manner in which they handle each crisis as it arises. The Government has pulled the rug out from under the farmers by telling the Farm Credit Corporation that as of Friday of this week it is free to move into those farms and foreclose on mortgages. Is that the policy of the Government?
During the last election campaign my opponent said that the Conservatives would solve the agricultural problems in Canada in two years. The Conservatives have had almost three years,
yet today we see that the farm community is facing a bigger disaster than ever.
People are not impressed when they see the comparison between past issues and present. They are not impressed by the Government passing the buck or by the Government becoming so intolerant that it cannot conduct a civilized debate.
Let us consider other questions relating to the farm community in this country. Let us consider rural post offices as they concern the farm community. The Government does not want to attack the real problem of economics within the Post Office corporation, so it singles out the small postmasters in the small rural communities where they believe there is no clout to fight back. They will force every mail contract to go up for tender. It does not care whether that mail contractor has been doing an excellent job or whether that mail contractor has excellent relations with the people along the rural route. The Government will bring in someone else unless that person is fortunate enough to retain the contract.
The sad part is that rural mail contractors have only recently reached a price which makes it worthwhile for them to operate a rural service. For years, they worked for nothing. I was one who supported them over the years because those who come from a rural riding know the service that they provide and the necessity of that service.
In order to get the message of the farm community across it is necessary to have television and news media that relate to their problems and understand the real crisis that they face. The recent terrible decision by the CRTC to allow John Bassett and his friends to bring in another major television station into Ottawa must be the most inconsiderate and unworthy decision of intelligent people. It will destroy the advertising market and the income that already exists for the mid-Canada television network that has stations across eastern Ontario, northern Ontario, Pembroke, North Bay, Sudbury, and Timmins. Furthermore, it will be to the detriment of the CJOH Station here in Ottawa because it will remove revenue from it.


Mr. McCain:: You are really interested in the farmers.


Leonard Donald Hopkins: It is very interesting to farmers because when people want to get news on farm problems in this country it will not come from a major city network bringing it into Ottawa, which is really located in the middle of a large urban area of eastern Canada. I hope that the Government will send the CRTC back to the drawing board to review that case again. I hope that the Government will announce before Friday that it will come in with a debt restructuring program for farmers who are in trouble and thereby show the great empathy which it claims to have for the farm community. I hope it will attend international meetings and tell the leaders of the world that we must come to our senses as leaders because if one subsidizes, the rest will follow suit. The only proper step to take is to agree to bring down those subsidies and let the market stay where it should be. If you are not going to do that-
April 28, 1987


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member's time has expired. Is it the pleasure of the House to allow the Hon. Member one more minute to conclude?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Leonard Donald Hopkins: Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief, and I thank the House for its consideration.
Let me return to the economic problems and whether the Government has enough sympathy to understand the plight of individual farmers. One need only imagine the farmer who is wondering whether he will even put in a crop, knowing full well that if there is no help coming from Ottawa he will be selling his product for less than it is worth, and if he does not go down now he will go down later. What a future!
When we consider the great contribution agriculture has made to Canada and the contribution we have made in research and development to assist other countries in the world, I think it is time that some of that considerate attitude was displayed at home in dealing with our farmers. They not only have to risk the weather, they must risk dealing with the world market.
I mentioned the European Economic Community. Our farmers also must risk the results of the American Farm Bill, as well as the Conservative Government which promised them everything in the last election. Farmers do not know where they stand today, and I call upon the Government to bring forward a constructive plan that will lay the groundwork to save the farm community in this country. I call on the Government to show some of that empathy because it reflects the heart and soul of the pioneering and modern industries that relate to the agricultural community in this country.


Fred Alward McCain: Mr. Speaker, 1 listened with interest to the Member for Renfrew-Nipis-sing-Pembroke (Mr. Hopkins) as well as to the Member for Egmont (Mr. Henderson). Both of their speeches contained some rather startling facts.
Let me deal with the Member for Egmont. He was a member of the P.E.I. Legislature and subsequently became a Member of the House of Commons. While I give him credit for having taken some interest in agriculture, when he was a member of the governing party in the Province of P.E.I. and the House of Commons, at no time did I hear him speak up for the farmers when the Liberal policy that was in place was to the disadvantage of his constituency.
The Hon. Member for Egmont spoke of corporate land ownership. Corporate land ownership came about because the Government of Canada, particularly under the leadership of the former Minister, the Hon. Eugene Whelan, ignored some of the very basic and historical policies that had kept the family farm in place. He abandoned price stabilization payments. Historically, price stabilization payments were made before planting. That is the request of the NDP and the Liberals at the moment. They say the farmers should get their money beforehand so that they can plant.
However, I never heard any member of the New Democratic Party bemoan the fact that the horticultural industry could not get price stabilization payments before planting. As I made representations in this House on behalf of the potato industry, about which the Hon. Member for Egmont (Mr. Henderson) and myself are very basically and critically concerned, there was not a squawk when they could not get the money, if they could get it at all, in time to plant. Why then is the New Democratic Party so concerned at this moment of seeking agricultural support when its policy has not been agricultural at any time in a meaningful way, and when it has never supported anyone but the Liberal Party, whether it be in committee or in the House? The NDP objective has been to keep the Liberal Party in power, not that there should be good government in Canada.
I want to say to you, Mr. Speaker, that as soon as one touches on the truth, the chirping from the NDP begins, the interference, the heckling, because they know they are extremely vulnerable historically as it relates to agriculture. The Member from Vancouver who has not been associated with agriculture, laughs. I think that merely emphasizes the lack of concern and knowledge the bulk of NDP Members have as it relates to agriculture. Certainly, with the exception of two or three, those Members are devoid of good advice and have not acted on behalf of agriculture. In the process of my remarks I will emphasize-


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I used to own a small herd of cattle.


Fred Alward McCain: I am not going to pay any attention to those guys, none whatsoever. Let them heckle and show that they cannot stand the truth because that is what they are demonstrating to the people of Canada.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: We can't stand your truth.


Fred Alward McCain: They cannot stand the truth of the weakness of their historic position and their determined intention to exploit the downtrodden for their vote regardless of what may be the consequence and without having specific suggestions and policy which would correct the position of the downtrodden.
If those Hon. Members want to get down to cold hard facts of policy and become believable, then I think it is time for Canada and this House to pay attention to them. However, in the past they have been grossly supportive of agricultural neglect by the Liberal Party, and only now are they waking up to the fact that historically they have been wrong and they would like to be right for a change.
There was no response from either the Liberal or the New Democratic Party when 10 per cent of all the potato farmers in Carleton-Charlotte and in the constituency of Madawaska- Victoria fell through the economic skimmer. It was then that corporate land holdings began to develop. It became so bad in Prince Edward Island that I believe the Government of P.E.I.

April 28, 1987
passed legislation to prevent corporate acquisition of land. The little family farm could no longer survive under Liberal policy, yet Liberal policy was supported religiously and without concern for the farmer by the Hon. Member for Egmont and received total support from the New Democratic Party.
Where was the Hon. Member for Egmont, for instance, when feed freight assistance became of very little value to Atlantic Canada? Where was the New Democratic Party? Where was the lady from Vancouver at that point in time? Her voice was not heard.
I would like now to raise a few other questions. Where was the New Democratic Party when apple juice flowed into Canada and we became the gateway to the American market for subsidized product by the European Economic Community for shipment to the United States? Not only did the Europeans export a highly subsidized product and destroy the apple juice industry in Canada, but we were the gateway for damages it might do in the United States, supported, of course, by the NDP with no action by the then Liberal Government. Where was the New Democratic Party and where was the Liberal Government, because they then held the seats in the Niagara Peninsula? Where were they when foreign fruit arrived in Canada at less than the cost of containers and packing in Canada? Where were they as a large portion of the Niagara Peninsula and the Okanagan fruit industry were destroyed because of that? Where were the members of the NDP at that point? They were supporting the Liberal Party, which had a policy to have industrial trade and to hell with agriculture.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Who supported the Liberal Party? What are you talking about, supporting the Liberal Party?


Fred Alward McCain: Those Hon. Members have now become extremely conscientious in their support of the agricultural community of Canada after ignoring it utterly and completely.
One of the difficulties in Canadian agriculture today was caused by the abandonment of the price stabilization policy which Jimmy Gardiner, who was a good Minister of Agriculture, even if he was a Liberal, conscientiously, assiduously and regularly supported. When that was abandoned, where was the NDP? They paid no attention to the pleas of the Conservative Party on behalf of the fruit and vegetable industry of the Okanagan and the Niagara Peninsula. They were not with it. But I believe they now feel they have an agricultural community which might support them if they could now sham their way in an attack on the Conservative Party while still virtually on every occasion conscientiously voting with the Liberals?
It seems rather unjust that this debate should be taken on without any recognition of the contributions which have been made. Where were those members of the NDP, those heroes of the west today, at the point in time when a shipment of grain went from the European Economic Community and the subsidy paid for that shipment exceeded the price the Wheat Board was paying the western farmer? The subsidy alone exceeded the Wheat Board price for the grains exported on
that day. There was not a word of that from the NDP, not a word.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: We went to Brussels directly and we protested.


Fred Alward McCain: Not a single member of the NDP criticized the Liberal Party's stupid trade negotiations which permitted that to happen. But we took their apple juice to the detriment of the Niagara Peninsula.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: We ran against the Liberals in the election of 1980.


Fred Alward McCain: You ran against the Liberals so you could get a chance to support them by your behaviour after you got elected.
I have to say that I have some sympathy with some of the remarks made by the Hon. Member for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke (Mr. Hopkins). I too saw some of the things he has related in his remarks. However, at that point in time it was the policy of both the Liberal and the Conservative Parties to keep the farmer in his place by recognition of his need with subsidies or price stabilization payments when the market was down. It was the Hon. Mr. Whelan as Minister of Agriculture who abandoned that. It was when the Trudeau Government took over this country that the Minister of Agriculture began to have no voice. That encouraged Canada, province by province, coast to coast, step by step, but not necessarily in order. It encouraged the Province of British Columbia to use its own treasury to support its agriculture. It encouraged Alberta at a later date to do the same thing, and it encouraged production of items which were already in surplus supply in Canada. It encouraged the Province of Saskatchewan to get a land bank and to support the increase in herds, which proved to be absolutely devastating to the cow-calf operation. Where was the NDP at that point in time? They were still voting with the Grits who mismanaged that structure as well. The NDP was still voting with the Grits, and the quicker it is known that this was an act of a chameleon, the quicker the public will know what this show is.
The New Democratic Party has not mentioned that the interest rates for FCC are now lower than they have been since 1979. It is not mentioned that certain emergent loans are made to the farmer at a rate of 2.5 per cent. It has not been mentioned that $750 million was paid out of the grain stabilization fund. It was not mentioned that $1 billion has been paid to the western farmer in addition to that.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Via the Saskatchewan election.


Fred Alward McCain: the farmer had money on deposit in that bank how would he get it if it were not bailed out? As has been mentioned several times, how would one sit with a multitude of municipalities in Ontario and in the West which had moneys deposited with those banks, and where would one's Party stand on the basis of the policy enunciated in this debate and in others?
I submit that it is ridiculous to compare the idea that banks have been assisted, because agriculture in the west has been assisted to an even greater degree than were the two banks, with a credit liability of all of the banking system of Canada.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Poor banks!


Fred Alward McCain: Whether they are rich or poor is not significant. Their presence in Canada is indispensable. How the Hon. Member may wish to regulate and control is his baby.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: It's the peoples' money that is indispensable.


Fred Alward McCain: However, the people of Canada cannot get along without a secure banking system as ours has been historically. In fact, it is better than that in any other part of the world. That is a credit rating that we need to have for the nation, for our farmers, our fishermen, our manufacturers and all who are interested in money. That could not be rejected.
Furthermore, the commitment of the Conservative Government has been that it shall not neglect agriculture. It has not neglected agriculture. It will not neglect agriculture. That is the commitment that has been made but that has not been mentioned at any point in time in this or in any other debate.
I say again-and it has been repeated both in attack and in defense-the presentation by both the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party is totally and utterly misleading. It is recognized by every honest Member of the House that there are some people in the farming community who cannot ever, ever handle the debt load which they have undertaken. None are more willing to admit that than the farmers who have appeared in Saskatchewan before the appeal boards or the farmers who have appeared before other appeal boards under Farm Credit Corporation arrangements. None have been more willing to admit that than the farmer. It is absolutely and utterly impossible that every single last farmer can be held up. It is just not possible.
If members of the NDP want to heckle, let them remember their total inconsistency in terms of their support of the Liberal Party as it governed this country.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: We never supported the Liberal Party. What are you talking about?


Fred Alward McCain: They supported the Liberal Party by their votes in this House in 1972-74.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Where did you get your facts? Sit down!


Fred Alward McCain: Members of the NDP supported the Liberals in 1979-80 to the ouster of the Clark administration. They
wanted Liberal policies which have by no means produced anything like the assistance the Conservative Government has extended to agriculture on a national basis.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Where is the support of the Liberal Party? Tell us. Give us one vote.


Fred Alward McCain: Where was the NDP-


Ian Gardiner Waddell: We never supported the Liberal Party.


Fred Alward McCain: You supported the Liberal Party in your votes which ousted the Clark administration. The vote of confidence in 1979-80 is the only one you need.


Gordon Edward Taylor: In bed with the Liberals.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: We voted against the Clark Government?


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Tell us about Petro-Canada in 1979.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: The people voted against the Clark Government.


Fred Alward McCain: Do you suppose those fellows are run down yet, Mr. Speaker?
The Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom) is quite knowledgeable, I think. I was very disappointed with the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville who should be knowledgeable in agriculture by who made a speech which was at best misleading and at worst-I guess I am not allowed to use the language that I would like to use in the House. Let us say that it was misleading and much, much more. It certainly did not depict the situation of agriculture in the west or in any other part of Canada. But the thing his speech did do is to ignore agriculture in every part of Canada except the the grain grower, and that is absolutely and utterly inexcusable. I say that because from Vancouver Island to St. John's, Newfoundland, there are farmers who need recognition, and they shall get it from this Government.
I want to repeat one of the remarks that I have made. If the NDP were conscientiously and historically interested in agriculture, why did it support the Liberal Party which failed to negotiate a deal with the GATT structure and which did not recognize the expenditure of billions of taxpayers' dollars to subsidize agriculture both for domestic consumption and for export? Why did members of that Party not upgrade the Liberal Party at the point in time when that subsidy exceeded the Wheat Board's payments of the day for the export of grain into our own markets?
I have seen hypocrisy, Mr. Speaker, but I submit to you that the NDP at this moment in time on the basis of its history and its present plaintive representations to Canada can very properly be accused on an historic basis of a hypocritical structure and a hypocritical presentation without the facts and of failing to recognize the contributions that have been made. It is quite proper that an opposition Party should ask for more. That, perhaps, may be the exact position that the Opposition

April 28, 1987
should take. But to fail to mention the assistance that has been extended to agriculture is not good moral behaviour which is expected by the Canadian population from a Party within the House.
When one tries to exploit the farmer when he is in difficulty by an about-face imposition and by a pursuit of the vote and the vote alone, I submit that that is the cruelest exploitation that the farmer of the country has ever experienced as it relates to the Liberals and their historic performance, and as it relates to the NDP and its support of the Liberals.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have a chance to stand and to speak to this very important topic today. I must say to the Hon. Member who just resumed his seat that I think it is quite an indication that he sees the New Democratic Party as a threat. Indeed, the polls should confirm that for him. I say that because he devoted his whole speech to a listing of references to the NDP. As the hon. gentleman who sits at the Table could tell him, most of the facts were, of course, distorted. However, I will not waste time in refuting them.
I wish to concentrate my remarks today on the impact of the economic situation with which the families of Canada are faced, which is stressful and which has become even more so this week. I would like to look at it from the point of view of the critic of social policy. I would also like to pay tribute to the many, many thousands of farm women across the country who face intolerable stress along with the rest of their families and who are carrying tremendous workloads.
We know that today we are very concerned. In fact, the reason this emergency debate went on all night last night and will continue to go on as long as this Party has speakers to put up is that we are extremely concerned at the announcement made this week that the Farm Credit Corporation will be given information to begin to foreclose on family farms. This comes, of course, as my colleagues have said over and over again, on a deepening crisis, where we have seen prices for Canadian grains plummet by 20 per cent last year, and a further 18 per cent this year.
This must be simply terrifying for farm families who already are coping with unbearable pressures and feelings of hopelessness. It is those pressures and sense of hopelessness that will be the theme of my remarks today.
A number of Hon. Members have spoken from their experience as farmers themselves, or having come from agricultural communities. I grew up in an agricultural community in southern Ontario, and I continue to share some of the very strong feelings that our rural population hold for their communities.
In my remarks today, I shall be speaking to the findings of some very significant authorities. Before getting into the main
theme of my remarks, I should like to repeat once again that the New Democratic Party is today calling for a commitment from the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney)-and I would hope that this commitment will be forthcoming-that, at the very least, Canadian grain farmers be provided with a guarantee that total grain receipts for crops planted in this crop year will equal at least those of last year, $1.5 billion to $2 billion, moneys which are so essential for our western grain producers.
We acknowledge that the Government is working on the international front, and that many of the problems can be attributed to what is happening on the international front. However, as Canadians, we cannot tolerate this threat to the basic economy of Canada.
As well, we hope that the Prime Minister and his Government will reverse the proposed lifting of the moratorium on foreclosures, at least until a deficiency program has been announced for the upcoming crop year.
It is important, also, to address the broad question of farm debt, much of which is still at very high interest rates, interest rates which were, of course, tolerated and in fact escalated by the previous Liberal Government.
Many thousands-not just a few families, as the Minister said earlier in this debate-of farm families will be adversely affected by the lifting of the moratorium on FCC loan foreclosures. In addition, we know that the banks, credit unions, trust companies, and other lending institutions will follow the lead of the FCC, thus leading to increased foreclosures.
This is a very serious problem. What I should like to do in the remainder of my time is to focus on this problem from the point of view of farm families and farm women. In that regard, I shall have reference to a report presented to the Standing Committee on Agriculture on May 12 of this year. This is a report prepared by Dr. Jim Walker, a research psychologist at Brandon University.
Dr. Walker and his colleagues carried out a very extensive study of farm families. During the course of their work, they heard farmers describe the "heartbreak of trying to cope with impossible economic situations". They heard from farm wives and husbands describing how their marriages are slowly falling apart; they mention the fact that they saw farmers break down in tears while filling out the survey.
In addition to the traditional stresses that our farmers bear, farming has now become an almost intolerably stressful occupation. The policies of this Government do not recognize this, nor do they deal with it. This Government, through its proposal to lift the foreclosure moratorium, is adding the additional threat of foreclosure.
This particular study highlighted a number of stress factors. It is a study that should be of great interest to those who are interested in human nature, human behaviour. The researchers found that rising expenses are at the top of the list when it comes to creating stress, followed by low commodity prices.
April 28, 1987

The lives of farmers are stressful because of their concern with the continued financial viability of their farm. They find that they have too much to do in too little time, particularly the stressful work at peak times.
These are all situations that cause stress in farm families. But even more important, and I note that this fact has been documented in other reports I have studied, up to 80 per cent of the respondents quoted Government policies and regulations as causing stress. Other factors are long work hours, weather and crop loss due to wet weather, not to mention equipment failure and the Government's cheap food policies. Those are just some of the factors that lead to stress in farm families.
The study to which I have reference was conducted over a year ago. Added to the stresses that those families were facing at that time is the additional stress that the current situation imposes on them. Day in and day out, farmers and their families have to deal with a great number of stresses, many over which they have little or no control. They are powerless to control many of these stresses.
Farmers are strong, independent and resourceful people, and today we see them turning to professional help as they never have before, and all because of the physical and psychological stresses they have to suffer.
I should like to highlight some of the situations outlined in the report. The report cites the example of a Saskatchewan farmer who complains of being under a lot of stress. It quotes him as saying, "I feel I have a lot of stress, and I am always so tired, without any reason". Fatigue is a common symptom of chronic stress. Of those surveyed, 49 per cent reported frequent fatigue.
The threat of stress to the family unit also shows itself in many different ways. One farm wife was quoted as saying, "I was 30 hours a week off the farm. The stress was incredible during peak periods. There is more stress than I can handle. I hope our marriage makes it, but I do not know that it will."
We have physical symptoms within families. I will not go into them. We have reports of serious disruption of sleep patterns, personality problems, health problems. Indeed, these stresses not only constitute a threat to the marital situation, but in fact lead to behavioural problems.
All of these things are related to family stress, stress which is caused by the intolerable economic situation in which our farm families are living.
Another farmer had this to say. "I often wonder what I would do or how our family would manage if we quit farming, or were unable to continue to farm. I am presently 32 years old. I have two pre-school children, and I really do not have any reliable farming future. We are just living to have three meals a day."
The Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom) in his speech, spoke of the food banks in Saskatoon, and that is something that is astounding to me. Being from Vancouver I am used to seeing food-banks in that city. That in itself is an
immoral and deplorable situation. However, I had not realized that we now have members of our farming communities going to food-banks. The food producers have so little money to buy food for their table that they are now going to food-banks in Saskatoon and are in fact being turned away.


An Hon. Member:: Tory times are tough times. Shame on the Tories!


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Getting back to the survey, another farmer is quoted as having asked those carrying out the survey whether they knew of anyone who wanted to buy a half section farm in the south western corner of Manitoba. That was a year, maybe two years ago. It may be that that farm has since been the subject of a foreclosure application, or perhaps it has been sold. In any event, my suspicion is that that farmer has now lost his farm.
It is little wonder that the members of our agricultural sector look to the future in despair. In fact, according to this survey, 11.4 per cent of those interviewed had in fact thought of killing themselves. According to the survey, the rate of suicides in farm communities is extraordinarily high. The instances of suicide in rural areas in Manitoba where the study was done were much higher than in urban areas. As I said, there has been a tremendous increase in people with mental and other health problems.
The report refers to another farmer who put it this way. "Many days I feel I cannot face another day". He indicated that it was extremely stressful to try to make ends meet and hold things together,that he had his best 30 years in the farm, and that if he lost it he would have worked all his life for nothing. Then he asked: "Does this make me a total failure?"
This farmer and his fellow farmers have not contributed to the situation. They contributed labour to their farm operations by working night and day over the years, yet they have no control over the situation. They have elected Members of Parliament from the west and from other parts of Canada to do something about it. The Members in the House can do something about the situation which is hurting these families. I appeal to my fellow Conservative colleagues to get to their Prime Minister today and to do something about it. They have the power to do it.


Some Hon. Members:: He was here.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: I hear them saying that he was here, but what did he say? He said nothing. He spoke for 40 minutes and made no commitments to the farmers of western Canada. I think it was absolutely immoral.
I also want particularly to mention the increase in violence occurring in rural communities. 1 have heard this from many women's organizations. We tend to think of it as an occurrence in urban communities. Transition houses for battered women have been set up. For instance, there is one in Brandon,

April 28, 1987
Manitoba, which has experienced a 50 per cent increase in the number of women who have sought shelter because of family violence in the rural community around that city. Also there has been a 70 per cent increase in the number of children who are in shelters because of family violence.
I have attended many hearings as my Party's critic for the status of women. Children who are battered now will grow up to be batterers. There are many long-term problems.
I hope Elon. Members will read this excellent survey in detail which was taken in May, 1986 before we had the present punitive policies and lack of action. It concluded as follows:
We believe the danger signals are all there. We believe it has reached the point where farm stress is killing people. We believe that the risk in the increase in the incidence of rural violence appears great. We believe we owe it to those who feed all of us in Canada to respond with action, with compassion and with humanity.
Again I appeal to the Government, particularly to the Prime Minister and the Minister responsible, to reverse its policies and to respond with action which will relieve the situation today, at least temporarily, until the more complex problems can be turned around. I appeal to the Government to ensure that the foreclosure policy is not allowed to go forward, so that we protect family farms and those who are facing devastating situations in their homes.
I should also like to refer to the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women. We do not usually think of this group being concerned with farmers, but it also talked about over a million people living on farms, less than half of whom are women. It dealt with the financial stress which is pressing in on farm families. Although the report was written a couple of years ago, it indicates that they are experiencing intolerable stress.
The number of family farms decreased by 13 per cent in 1981. While the net farm income in Canada decreased, total farm debt increased by 17.5 per cent over a 10-year period. It is much higher today. The 1984 survey by the Farm Credit Corporation showed that 17 per cent of farms were in severe financial difficulty. Surely it is up to almost 75 per cent today. In 1982, 19 per cent of farm families in Canada lived below the poverty line, as compared with 13 per cent of non-farm families who lived below that level.
I have attended child care hearings and Secretary of State hearings before which farm women have appeared. We have been told that they can hardly find enough money to buy groceries and about the nightmares they have because the bills are piling up. We were also told about the triple burden of farm women. Usually they are working with their partners on the farm in farm activities. Often they must take their children along with them on tractors. They are also carrying on traditional home-making roles in caring for the home and the children. In addition, they are often the ones who must go into nearby villages to work part time or full time so that there will be some cash to put food on the table. We talk about double discrimination and double disadvantage for women; these women are triply disadvantaged.
Let us add to the situation the current drop in farm prices this year, and the fact that there has been no commitment on the part of the Government to help farm families even as much as it did last year. We commend the Government for stepping in last year, but we must have it again this year. There must also be a commitment to do something about the foreclosure problem.
I see that my time is almost up. I had many more comments I wanted to make, but I should like to mention particularly the whole question of child care because it is a very current and important issue. We were told by many farm women, and also studies showed it, that there has been a very high incidence of accidents involving children on farms.
It is very critical that we have a different kind of child care for farm communities, one of the issues which was written up at length in the report of the Special Committee on Child Care. It recommended, in addition to normal funding, that Agriculture Canada should promote the safety of children.
Our own NDP report entitled "Caring for Canada's Children" strongly recommended that the federal Government establish a community initiatives fund which would receive $26 million this year and would be continued over the next five years, so that farm communities could develop innovative child care, such as buses picking up children or child care workers going to the farms. It must be a different kind of care than that in the cities.
In addition, we know that farm women share the concern about general agricultural problems. They also have concerns about equality from the point of view of their role on the farm. A whole new generation of farm women is adamant that they must be recognized as equal partners in both their marriage and their farm business. I am very glad to say that this is beginning to happen, with younger farmers particularly.
Farm women have many difficulties getting financial recognition in their own names. They must have land in their own names. They must qualify as operators. Farm women should be recognized for Prairie Grain Advance Payments and other farm assistance programs. I am glad to say that one of our Members has been working on that.
Stabilization plans and marketing boards should recognize both producers-the husband and the wife. Farm spouses cannot contribute to their own future under RRSPs. We are also very concerned about wages, contributions to the Canada Pension Plan, and unemployment insurance coverage. Rural women want a recognition in matrimonial property laws. I could go on and on and on. Farm women and support groups come out with recommendations and I hope when we have more time we will look at them.
[DOT] (M50)
I appeal again to the Government to rescind the decisions it has made that will increase the pressures on farm families, particularly on farm women, and to provide financial assistance, to make sure there will be no foreclosures either through
April 28, 1987

the Farm Credit Corporation or, even better still, something further.


Lise Bourgault: Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak in the House today. As a member of the Standing Committee on Agriculture, I have had the honour and the privilege of listening to farmers from coast to coast talk about the problems and challenges they will be facing in the months and years to come. The Hon. Member for Vancouver East (Ms. Mitchell) who spoke earlier mentioned the crisis situation and state of shock being experienced by families in western Canada. I agree, and I share her concerns. In any case, I must admit that unlike her colleagues, she showed some common sense in what she said, except where she referred to day care centres in rural areas. I think that logically, and if we want to be sensible, our priority should be helping farm families and not opening Government-supported day care centres, at a time when families are in such tremendous difficulty.
Mr. Speaker, since we are discussing agricultural problems, I would like to mention to the House that I toured the rural areas in my riding recently and met all the organizations in my riding, from the Outaouais to Mirabel.
I found that in my riding, at Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix which is not very far from here, potato farmers are having serious problems. They know how concerned I am about this, and I would like to remind them today that my riding office and I have taken steps to try and find ways to help these farmers.
Mr. Speaker, I think I can say with some pride that it may be thanks to my efforts that today, the Office du credit agricole du Quebec may be willing to help these potato producers.
Mr. Speaker, I come from a riding that has suffered a great deal as a result of the policies of the previous Government, and 1 would like to say that once again, we have been able to deal with a serious problem created by that Government. I am referring to the obscene expropriation of Mirabel farmland as a result of which at the time, hundreds of farm families in my riding were uprooted.
Mr. Speaker, the very Liberals who today claim to be the sole defenders of the poor and the homeless had no hesitation at the time in evicting for the purposes of their own shameless liberalism, entire farm families which have never fully recovered from those barbaric measures.
Today, many of these families have gone back to their homes and their land, feeling that at last, a Government has given them their due. Mr. Speaker, the people of Mirabel are no fools. They know that going back to farming after so many years is not easy, and that they will have to think of ways to find a niche within a controlled market such as the market for milk, for instance.
Mr. Speaker, Mirabel farmers have set their sights on objectives that may seem very ambitious today, but I am sure that in the medium and long term they will be vindicated. I am
referring to their export projects. The Mirabel UPA is about to develop a unique expertise in international agriculture. They intend to combine foreign expertise with their own and then export their methods to developing countries.
Mr. Speaker, I wanted to emphasize these facts in the House today to indicate to what extent farmers in my riding, in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada can, as the Prime Minister said in his remarks this morning, be ingenious when we give them a chance to show what they can do.
The Government of the Progressive Conservative Party took action. The Minister for International Trade (Miss Carney), bolstered by the Prime Minister's (Mr. Mulroney) leadership, made it a point to give top priority to the agricultural sector because of the war of subsidies between American and European producers which drove prices even further down and threatens our traditional markets. For quite some time now the farm commodity trade has been the weak point of GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, particularly so since 1955 when the Americans demanded exemptions with respect to their domestic production subsidies. The conference held in Uruguay made it possible to reach a compromise so that at least the matter will come up for debate. We are not satisfied with talking about it, Mr. Speaker, we take action.
Since yesterday I have been listening to the speeches of NDP and Liberal Members and I am quite simply bewildered by the paralogism of opposition Members who have the nerve to say that the Conservative Government has killed agriculture. They have the nerve to say that. Mr. Speaker, how can anyone be so blind, how can anyone stand still when listening to so much verbal trickery on the part of New Democratic Party Members who would have Canadians believe that if they were in office-Heaven forbid!-they would have done better than the Liberals. They would do better than the Conservatives or any other Government which would have been in power during times of such serious crisis as the one we are experiencing now. I can hardly wait to talk about such absurdities during the next election campaign. I am really looking forward to the day when the written and spoken press will at long last write and tell the truth about the economic illogicalness of this political Party which would go as far as bringing relations between men and women under state control.
It is unbelievable, Mr. Speaker, newspapers these days are full of articles about the contributions of opposition Members and their insanities. How do you explain the fact that the press does not even bother to mention the interventions of Government Members so that Canadian who are listening to this debate might have a better idea of what this Government has done? There is still room for improvement, of course, and nothing is perfect, as the Prime Minister said in his remarks this morning. Still, for the sake of equity, people must be made aware of our record. Mr. Speaker, I must tell you this, I think this House has become a sick place.

April 28, 1987
I regret having to say so, because it is incredible that no reference has been made to the tax rebate of 6.5 cents per litre of fuel in addition to a special discount of 1.5 cent granted to farmers as well as mortgages based on primary agricultural products, the setting up of committees to review farm debts, the Canadian rural transition program, reduced interest rates of the Farm Credit Corporation, the Agricultural Stabilization Act, the capital gain exemption of $500 000 on a farm, the Grain Advance Payments Act, the long-term dairy policy. No mention has been made of all that, because there was no scandal to be denounced. They are good news. Special programs worth several million and the most recent program worth 1 billion for grain producers, and I could go on. What is the matter, Mr. Speaker, with our parliamentary system? Lies make the headlines while true facts are not mentioned. People can talk through their hat in this House and any sensational news item is reported and when Canadians are wondering what is going on, we are unable to tell them the truth.
Farming is experiencing a serious crisis. I deeply regret it. Mr. Speaker, I am telling you from the bottom of my heart that we should help our western farmers who are indeed desperate, I know, having read and heard the many representations made. 1 think it is really unbelievable that because of farm debts, our colleagues representing other provinces should witness the breaking up of family farms which were the cornerstone of our western economy. Mr. Speaker, no government or elected member can remain insensitive to that. That is why we are part of this great country.
It is the "raison d'etre" of our Confederation. It is in times such as these that we should close our ranks and show generosity. Mr. Speaker, it is nobody's fault in Canada if the Americans and the European Economic Community subsidize unreasonably their respective farming communities, making it possible for purchasing countries to get the lowest prices imaginable.
Mr. Speaker, when our commitee on agriculture visited Washington last year, we met the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. I asked him the following question: How can you say that you are our friends and extend to us such a warm welcome, when your Farm Bill is causing so much damage to the grain industry which is so dear to all Canadians? The Secretary replied that he understood my point quite well, but that Canadians themselves should try to understand the United States which is faced with huge farm problems.
The Prime Minister of Canada is not to blame. Mr. Speaker, I hope and trust that all Canadian voters, yours and mine, honourable friends, will realize that what the Opposition is saying is sheer nonsense. I am sure of that, Mr. Speaker, and perhaps I mention this unnecessarily, for Canadians are certainly much more enlightened than the Opposition gives them credit for.
Mr. Speaker, it is clear that our trading partners cannot boycott European or American goods which are cheaper than ours just because their subsidies are hurting our farmers. These countries are faced with serious problems too. People
are all alike. When we go shopping, what do we do? We choose what is the least expensive. That is quite natural. How can a country as large, but as sparsely populated as Canada compete on an equal footing with the United States where the Government can collect revenues of billions of dollars each time a tax increases by one cent? We have a small population and limited resources. I find it quite incredible that we should talk about nationalizing. A commitment of $1 billion was announced a short time ago. After our Government hade made this commitment, the New Democrats and the Liberals immediately said: Give us another billion! This would make $2 billion. I do not even know where we can find $13 billion to subsidize day care. They speak about billions as though they were speaking about nickels and dimes. We have to be realistic. Matters are getting out of hand, Mr. Speaker. Fortunately, the Canadian public saw what was happening in 1984 and elected a Progressive Conservative Government with a Minister of Finance who knows about figures and who knows that one plus one make two.
To conclude, Mr. Speaker, as I have not much time left, I would like to say that we, in Quebec, were proud to hear the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) announce a long term dairy policy. We were proud to be able to tell Quebecers recently that, for the first time ever, a Canadian Government had allocated $1 billion to Western farmers. This is not peanuts and this money was being spent in Canada. For the first time ever, $30 million will be spent in Quebec. That is a lot better that nothing! These are real initiatives, Mr. Speaker, these are real policies. We have taken action and we want people to know it. Perhaps more people would know about it if it were not for television reporting which gives the impression that there is no one on this side of the House. Yet, there are 211 of us. We speak, but no one ever reports what we say. The focus is on the Opposition Members who believe that they are the only ones who have anything worthwhile to say. There are limits, Mr. Speaker, and the truth has to come out. This is why I wanted to take part in this debate. I have been a member of the Standing Committee on Agriculture for two years. I have been listening to the Hon. Members and they do not even know what they are talking about. They should come and see what is going on in the Standing Committee on Agriculture. They would realize to what extent Canadian farm groups are supportive of what our Government has accomplished and that they keep on saying so week after week. Listen! I do not know where you get your stories, but if you bothered to drop in during the Standing Committee on Agriculture, you would realize that what you are saying does not make sense.
It was said in the Throne speech, Mr. Speaker-and I am very proud and honored to be a part of a government, of a political party, the Progressive Conservative Party, that does things .. . We do not only talk, Mr. Speaker, we do things. I would like to recall what the former Prime Minsiter said one day in a conversation. Prime Minister Trudeau was so arrogant in those days that he thought that he was the
April 28, 1987

permanent one man show. No one, he thought, could match his wits an his talent. So, one day, he asked western farmers how it was that they had to sell their grain. Imagine, Mr. Speaker, what brains it takes to utter such absurdities.
So it is easy for someone outside the ring, watching a boxing match-I love boxing-to say: "If I had been in his place, I would have pounced him, I would have done this, I would have done that!" But when you are inside the ring, it is not the same.
I look at the Hon. Member opposite who once was Solicitor General and who must remember from his time in office that things are much easier on the other side where Members can say whatever they want and pick at any small news from reporters who are themselves too busy to make their own research. A reporter I will not identify, Mr Speaker, said that he relies on what Opposition Members say to be part... Reporters have become the Opposition's researchers. Imagine! Opposition Members come to the House saying: "I have learned from a reliable source-" when, imagine, Mr. Speaker, the information appeared in the Toronto Star. They hold as the absolute truth whatever is published in the Toronto Star.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I say the Government has acted. I am proud of the Prime Minister. For the first time, the agricultural matters are on the GATT table. For the first time, they were discussed when President Reagan came here. There are even some on the other side of the House who have no respect for visitors, who allow themselves to say anything at all, even to interrupt a speech by the President of the United States. That is going too far, Mr. Speaker. There will be an election, Mr. Speaker, and we will see then the effect of their behaviour if they keep this up. It will be fun, Mr. Speaker. I am anxious to start campaigning and reveal the truth.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Having had the pleasure to hear from beginning to end what the Hon. Member for Argenteuil-Papineau (Mrs. Bourgault) had to say, I intend to address some of the points she raised. I will not try to answer her questions about the Toronto Star article, for this newspaper did not seek my advice as to what it should print, and I said what I said to the Toronto Star reporter because I believed it to be the truth. The Hon. Member has made a few statements which I should like to repeat, for I believe they are quite funny. First, she said that farmers todays are happier than ever before. They appear before the Standing Committee on Agriculture to say that they are happy. Then she said that they are faced now in western Canada with the worse disaster since the Great Depression of the 1930s. I just cannot see how farmers can be so happy when they are faced, as she said, with the worse disaster since the Great Depression. Third, she emphasized that the Prime Minister can do nothing. Why ask the Prime Minister to do nothing. Canada is a very small country compared with France which is now selling much more grain than Canada, and it is certainly not as large as the United States. Now, Mr. Speaker, I should like to deal with these statements as well as with others.
A final point which she raised is that Parliament is facing very hard times, that we are wasting our time with such a debate, that we should consider other matters and stop talking about this problem for which she feels there is no solution or at least about which the Prime Minister can do nothing.
There are no farms in my riding. There are no farmers living there. I am a city slicker, I suppose you could say. Why would someone from the city want to stand up and participate in a debate like this? I would like to begin by putting a marker on the farming industry of this country on behalf of city people.
We in the cities of Canada are very proud of our agricultural community. We are proud of the fact that this is a great agricultural power. We are disturbed to hear that France now produces more wheat than Canada. We are concerned that the price of wheat dropped 20 per cent this year after dropping 18 per cent last year.
We look across our country and see an industry hurting and people suffering. Yet we hear government supporters saying there is nothing that can be done about it. There is nothing the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) can do. They have given the farmers $1 billion and they should be content with that. That is not enough.
We in the cities of this country are not satisfied and we do not accept the fact that the Government just this week announced that foreclosures will begin on farmers who have defaulted on government-financed loans. We are taxpayers just as they are, but we do not accept that. We do not think the Government should be making the situation of the farmers worse and worse at a time when the Government has failed to announce whether there will be deficiency payments or not. You cannot expect a farmer in this terrible plight to just roll along, as in the 1930s, and go looking for private financing while being unable to tell the banks or the co-ops or the mortgage companies that there is going to be a deficiency payment and what it is going to be.
Another thing we know about farmers is that they are the biggest risk-takers in the public interest in the whole of the economy. I do not know a businessman or a worker in urban areas who takes the kind of risk that the farmer does. He has to decide whether to plant, what to plant and how much to plant. He has to sit back not knowing what his interest rate will be or the exchange rate on the Japanese yen, French franc or American dollar. He does not know what the weather will be. One or two rainfalls at the wrong time can make all the difference. Yet the agricultural sector takes those chances year after year with the backing of the Government, the Canadian Wheat Board and the backing of a certain set of policies which, to a certain extent, subsidize the risk they take. Yet this year, after a terrible year last year, the rug is pulled out from under them by the Government. City people, although we are not direct sufferers in the situation, do not like it, do not agree with it, and do not accept it.

April 28, 1987
I would now like to come to the Hon. Member's point concerning Parliament. Because there were not many Members on either side of the House at the time, I had the distinction of hearing the whole speech by the Prime Minister this morning.


An Hon. Member:: A good speech.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: It was a good speech. You could say it was a speech I listened to from one end to the other. However, what the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) does not realize is that speaking is not good enough. It is not good enough for him to stand up and tell us what is wrong with us. It is not good enough to go on at great length insulting the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy). That is not what Canadians want from the Prime Minister.
I agree that Parliament is a place where talking goes on. The opposition Parties talk; they have criticisms, ideas and questions. Yet there is only one Party here that can act-the government Party. After the last election that Party came into office with 211 seats and with promises to solve all the problems of the country, particularly those of the west were there is a deep sense of grievance. The Government brought with it from the west the great hope that its concerns were going to be the concerns of the Government.
I heard every government Member who stood up criticize Mr. Trudeau for asking, why should 1 sell your wheat? He said it. I read it after he said it. However, the Government of Mr. Trudeau sold wheat. He asked, why should I sell your wheat? He then went on to sell it in record volumes year after year after year. So much for talk. That Government is doing nothing but talk.
The only reason the opposition Parties are dragging this on is to get the Government to do something. What are we getting? The Government is not doing something. It is telling the country how terrible we and the NDP are, how terrible are the policies of the past. The Government is telling the Canadian people how much it loves the farmers. Every speaker has said that the farmers are the backbone of the nation, that we count on the industry, that farmers are needed, that we have a special mandate as a country to produce grain better than other countries who can do it only with subsidies. Yet what are we doing about it? Nothing.
We have to keep this up in spite of the objections of the Hon. Member for Argenteuil-Papineau (Mrs. Bourgault) until the Government stops talking and starts acting. It is the Party with the mandate to act. We are the ones, if you like, with the mandate to criticize, to make proposals, to carry on a debate, to surrender Question Period for a day to make a point. It is the Government that has to act.
We call on the Government to act. Not to tell us things which in its opinion have brought us to the situation we are in, things that we should have done while we were the Government, things that the NDP are doing or not doing in relation to the Liberals.
What does that have to do with the plight of farmers in western Canada who were told by the Government that they would be represented in this House and who have been betrayed in this one week by the opening of the door to a foreclosure process on government mortgages and a refusal to indicate whether there will be a deficiency payment and what that payment is going to be?
This is a terrible time for farmers. This morning my Leader referred to some figures dealing with what it means to a farmer to be paying interest at current rates. Members opposite jumped up and reminded us what interest rates used to be in the past. In some years they have been higher. However, there has not been a year when the real rate of interest paid by farmers over the Consumer Price Index at an annualized rate has been higher. In other words, the real interest rate that the farmers of Canada are paying on these mortgages is very, very high and growing. The Government has to take account of that as well, but it is not doing so. It is not looking at the burden farmers have to bear.
I listened with interest as well to the Hon. Member for Carleton-Charlotte (Mr. McCain) when he talked about how the farm situation was so terrible that we just had to let some farmers go down the drain. He said we just had to recognize that there would be farmers who would go down, family farms which would have to fold. That is just not good enough for the Government. That is fine for him to have as his opinion; people have opinions like that, but that is farmland which can be used.
The process of foreclosure and sale which is now being contemplated by the FCC will only result in some other farmer being on that land after the legal process is over. That is unfair, uncaring and wrong from a Government which made so many promises and has had so much support from western Canada.
The Government must do more. Before this debate is over it must stand up and put something concrete on the table, rather than this continuous criticism of us and this obsession about what is wrong with the NDP. The Government must put something on the table to support the farming industry which put so much confidence and faith in the Government.
I was looking at the story of the sugar-beet industry before I came in here. This is another example of a western agricultural application by a Government which gave that sector so much promise. The Conservative Government claims to be committed to western farmers, yet has still reached no agreement with the Manitoba sugar-beet farmers. They are at loggerheads. The farmers have done no seeding yet this year, or at least they had not a week ago when this material was prepared.
What excuse is there for the Government not getting on with solving the problems of the sugar-beet industry and the other problems which are being referred to by so many of us so well? As I keep saying, we can refer to them but only the
April 28, 1987

Government can do something about them. The time is now, today, for the Government to do something about them.
The Prime Minister wanted us to realize, and he explained very well, that there are a lot of international problems, that other countries are subsidizing their industry. I am not in favour of a world solution which will result in over-production and over-subsidization. That does not make sense to anyone. 1 understand that the Prime Minister wants to have such a policy ended in whatever countries practise it. However, Canada must recognize that until that is done, that is the kind of world we are in, that is the kind of international market in which our farmers are producing. If the competition is subsidizing their farmers and their production, I do not see how we can escape helping our own industry in the same measure.
A few weeks ago the most important politician in the world addressed this Chamber; the President of the United States. The United States is a great friend of ours and a great competitor of ours in a lot of industries including agriculture. The Prime Minister has made a great deal of the importance of having a good relationship with the United States and with the President of the United States. Canada has already paid a pretty high price to obtain, for the Prime Minister, that so-called good relationship with the President of the United States.
The United States can be criticized for a number of its policies in the agricultural field, policies which actually violate agreements which the United States has entered into and undertakings which the United States has given. One would have expected that the Prime Minister, who wants to help the agricultural industry in Canada and do no more subsidizing than he has to, would be working hard to get Canada's competitors, such as the United States, to reduce their unfair subsidies and unfair support and trade programs which are damaging the Canadian agricultural industry.
We heard the most important politician in the world stand in this place, make a long speech and say not one word about agriculture, not one word about wheat, nothing to indicate that the Prime Minister of Canada had made the point to him that our agricultural industry was suffering from unfair American policies, or even that the Prime Minister had raised the subject with him.
We know that Canadians have brought a long grievance list to the attention of American legislators. I want to draw your attention to a document put out recently by our Embassy in Washington. It is an unclassified document in which Ambassador Gotlieb makes point after point, in black and white, as clear as can be, ways in which the United States is unfairly competing with the Canadian agricultural industry. For example, with regard to food assistance, Section 616 of the American legislation provides that the American Secretary of Agriculture shall require that, in each food assistance agreement with a foreign country, the recipient country agree to give preference to the United States in future food purchases. That is in violation of a number of international commitments,
as the Ambassador says, including the principles of the Food and Agricultural Organization of Surplus Disposal and the Wheat Trade Convention under the International Wheat Agreement.
Did the Prime Minister raise that with the President of the United States when he was in town? We do not know, but we do know that the Americans are not doing anything about it. They have decided not to act and not to respond.
With regard to export enhancement, Section 622 of that same statute would extend the Export Enhancement Program, an export subsidy, for an additional two years, and the Americans are giving it an extra $1 billion in funding. Our Ambassador tells anyone who will listen to him that this measure will continue to depress world agricultural prices and increase the pressure on other countries to strengthen their own support measures. Our Ambassador says that Canada will not allow its traditional markets to be eroded through the use of such export subsidies of other countries, in this case, an export subsidy of the United States.
The Government has failed in many, many ways. It has failed the people who sent it to office. It has failed to keep its most important promises. It has failed to help its friends, because the agricultural industry in western Canada has certainly been a great friend and supporter of the Prime Minister and the Conservative Party. Today is the day that the Government should show that it cares and will not allow this industry to continue to suffer.
I see that my time is up, but I want to assure the Prime Minister that city people will not object and will not complain if he takes steps to bring the agricultural industry of western Canada through these tough, tough Tory times.


Mr. Robert Toupin (Terrebonne):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to explain our policies, the policies of the New Democratic Party, with respect to our farmers, both in western Canada and in Quebec.
Following numerous discussions with my party colleagues, I realized that basically, the problems facing Western farmers are the same as those facing farmers in Quebec.
Mr. Speaker, I also realized that my Party, the New Democratic Party, speaks for all Canadian farmers and is a Party that is historically rooted in the agricultural movement.
It is a fact that one out of every four Canadian farmers is facing serious financial problems. Today, and this has been going on for a number of years, we have a very serious crisis facing farm families and entire farming communities. We know that with free trade, the situation can only get worse. In fact, representations made by the Union des producteurs agricoles du Quebec were most emphatic in this respect. I have met with UPA representatives in my office in Repentigny, the riding of Terrebonne, and also in Ottawa. I can say that their fears are entirely justified, and that as far as our party is

April 28, 1987
concerned, we fully support their concerns. Free trade will have a direct impact on the entire marketing board system-


Clément M. Côté: I would like to ask the Hon. Member for Terrebonne (Mr. Toupin) whether I may ask him a question?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: No, I am sorry but I cannot allow any questions at this time. That is not a point of order.


Robert Toupin: As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, free trade will have a direct impact on the whole marketing board system. The direct impact will be felt by dairy producers in Quebec as much as by western farmers who need the Canadian Wheat Board. Free trade will have dire consequences for Quebec farmers in particular. This is why I entertain many doubts, Mr. Speaker, and I should like to say that there has been some double talk from the word go. In Quebec we talk about free trade, whereas the Government of Canada talks about freer trade. To put it another way, from the outset the Conservative Government has been using double talk, referring to free trade in Quebec and to freer trade in the other provinces of Canada.
Second, therefore, like all Quebec and Canadian farmers, I believe that all Canadians are entitled to know the basic facts concerning free or freer trade. Let me explain. Some economists will divide the various industries into 34 groups, more or less. What is needed before we take a position, contrary to what the Conservative Government is doing, is to know for each industry, first what firms cannot survive free trade, what firms or groups of firms will need an adaptation period to survive, and what firms can compete immediately. Then, at the level of each category of business and each particular business, we must know the human costs, which is the most important factor-the number of jobs that will be lost in any given industry, in any group of firms, in any given firm. Also, how many new jobs will be created, in order to make a value judgment.
Mr. Speaker, why have this debate today? Simply because the Conservative Government decided to lift the Farm Credit Corporation's moratorium on foreclosures, which in principle was to be effective this coming Friday.
Now, Mr. Speaker, we know that the banks in turn will now be in a position to foreclose on those farm loans. All they will need to do is follow the example set by the Farm Credit Corporation, in other words this Tory Government.
We also know that the price of wheat has come down 18 per cent this year, after declining some 20 per cent last year, and that, very soon if this is not already the case, prices will no longer cover production costs.
Mr. Speaker, Canadian farmers, Quebec farmers are going through a most difficult period. I feel that as a Government, in the case of such a basic industry as farming, we must take all
the steps needed to save our farmers, to save our family farms and to save that industry. We in the New Democratic Party, are saying that the Canadian Government must give farmers the assurance that their return this year will not be lower than it was last year. The agricultural economy of western Canada, the farmers' families and communities of western Canada, must be protected. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that Quebec farmers and the Quebec farm community are aware of the seriousness of the situation, not only for themselves, but also for their fellow farmers in western Canada and that they sympathize with them.
Quebec farmers also know that a solution has to be found to the problem of our debt, a $25 billion burden in Canada for our farmers. We know, and they know, that the problem of excessive interest rates for farmers is unjustified. In that respect, I wish to emphasize that about a year and a half or two years ago, in the Finance Committee, at about the same time in the House of Commons, we dealt with a number of specific points with respect to farmers, including Section 31 of the Act which deals with part-time farmers. We had suggested a number of solutions to help them.
There was also the tricky question of funding for Canadian farmers, in particular the matter of interest rates. There had been some discussion on a tax measure, an inadequate one by the way, which had been developed in the United States but which would not have been profitable to Canadian farmers because of a fiscal loss, and which was rejected. We had however suggested a direct approach by saying that to help our farmers, in Quebec as well as in western Canada, the Farm Credit Corporation should be allowed to take direct action by charging appropriate and reduced interest rates.
Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned earlier, one farmer out of four is faced with serious financial difficulties. I ask the Conservative Government: What will happen to them after the moratorium is lifted? What will the banks do? Follow the example of the Conservative Government?
Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that the farmers' debt load is too high. It must be reduced, and that is what our Party, the New Democratic Party of Canada, advocates.
I am proud, Mr. Speaker, to be taking part in this debate today, a debate that went on all night. I may point out that none of the Liberals saw fit to come and defend Canada's farmers, western farmers.


An Hon. Member:: Right on!


Robert Toupin: One of my colleagues says: Right on! And it is the truth.
I also want to say that the problems of western farmers are very similar to the problems of farmers in Quebec. As a French-speaking Quebecer, I also want to say that French-Canadians, including farmers, whether they live in northern
April 28, 1987

Alberta, Manitoba or Saskatchewan, in Lafleche, St. Paul, St. Albert, Gravelbourg or elsewhere, have not been forgotten by the farmers and the people of Quebec, and that they can count on our support and the support of our Party.
In concluding, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that the New Democratic Party of Canada, that its members, defended the interests of farmers yesterday, last night and today, as they have for so many years, and that we will continue to defend the interests of farmers in the west, in Quebec, in Ontario or in
any other province. It is now up to the Government to listen to us and to act accordingly.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Question, question? It being past 2 p.m., Wednesday, April 29, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 3(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 3.44 p.m.
[Stage Direction]

Thursday, April 30, 1987
[Stage Direction]
Prayers