1989-10-04

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38 Elizabeth II

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Published under authority of the Speaker of the House of Commons by the Queen's Printer for Canada
Available from Canada Communication Group - Publishing, Supply and Services Canada, Ottawa, Canada K1A 0S9.
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Wednesday, October 4,1989
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Prayers

Mr. Lawrence MacAulay (Cardigan):: Mr. Speaker, the government dealt a serious blow to the potato, vegetable, tobacco and grain farmers of Prince Edward Island when it decided to eliminate the interest free provision of the Advance Payments for Crops Act.
As a mixed farmer from P.E.I., I am well aware of the value of the Hon. Eugene Whelan's advance payments program. It provides interest free cash flow and orderly marketing which naturally brings better prices for farmers. Without the interest free aspect the program is useless. The farmer must pay the administrative costs of the program. The interest free advances covered these costs.
To meet their expenses, farmers will be forced to put their product on the market. This will cause a glut and prices will go down. Once again the farmer loses.
Everyone involved in agriculture in P.E.I. knows how important orderly marketing is to the agricultural industry and to the provincial economy. This is just another assault on the Canadian farmer.


VIA RAIL
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, today the Minister of Transport has dealt a deadly blow to Canadians who travel by VIA Rail. Like a hangman waiting for the secretly set hour of execution, the Minister of Transport stonewalled questions in the House, raised the public level of anxiety, cowardly avoided meeting concerned mayors, ignored the Tory
pledge to consultation and open government, and contradicted the Prime Minister's commitment to environmentally sustainable development.
In light of his statement today, does the Minister of Transport actually care about Canada? Does he really understand the nation building role of railways? At the present rate of dismantling, will there be a Canada left by 1992? How long can Canadians trust this government with its interminable record of broken promises?


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr.   Brian@: Mr. Speaker, industry is taking a leading role in the protection of the environment. This evening, in the riding of Elk Island, public hearings are being held by Dow Chemical into the effect that planned expansion will have on the environment. Using a team approach, industry, environmental groups, government and the public can work together to protect our environment.
In September, Proctor and Gamble announced that reductions of dioxins and furans by more than 95 per cent in pulp wood have been achieved in an aggressive research program. With the co-operation of the dioxin task force team formed by the Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada and the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association to deal with the challenges of dioxin and furan reductions, industry is demonstrating leadership and commitment to the protection of the environment.
Let us follow the lead of industry. Let us work together in Canada to protect our environment. Let us all work together for a better quality of life for all Canadians.


VIA RAIL
Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Transport today announced that VIA Rail will be cut by 51 per cent. For rural Canada this is nothing more than another indication that the Tory agenda is to get out of the business of being government.

October 4, 1989
What we are seeing today is another indication that the public infrastructure, so critical to this country, is on the auction block and that rural Canada is the Conservative Government's scapegoat for its economic failure.
Air Canada is for sale. VIA Rail is now for sale. Canada's postal service is for sale. Is there nothing that has been created for the public sector which is not for sale?
The Minister of Transport said that the routes to remote communities will be maintained, but it is pending a further examination of cost-effective measures, leaving the door open for even more cuts.
Rural Canada is being sold out. Selling off VIA Rail so the private investor can cater to the vanities of those who can afford luxury travel is an insult to rural Canadians. We will not accept it.


FISHERIES
Mr. Peter L. McCreath (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, last Monday I visited the vacant National Sea plant at Lockeport, Nova Scotia. It was, quite frankly, an eerie feeling walking through that modern, well-equipped but empty facility. The hard hats were on the hooks. The lights were still on the weigh scales. Everything was ready to go, except that there were no fish, so there were no plant workers.
Fifty five percent of the tax base of the town of Lockeport is that plant. Without the plant, quite simply, the town cannot function as a municipal unit.
I strongly urge the special cabinet committee now examining the fall-out for our Atlantic coast fishery to proceed with all dispatch and urgency in order that coastal communities like Lockeport and Port Mouton can receive the support and assistance that is now urgently required.


FREE TRADE
Mr. Gilles Rocheleau (Hull-Aylmer):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister will recall that during the last
election campaign, barely a year ago, I fought to have his Government make a commitment to paying the cost of adjustment and retraining programs needed by business, before going ahead with free trade, because I thought such programs were important.
The Prime Minister will also recall his memorable visit to Les Boiseries de VOutaouais factory where he put on a good electoral show, daring to call me a hypocrite because I insisted that his Government pay attention to adjustment and retraining programs. Today, the riding of Hull-Aylmer has been hit by the closure of Les Boiseries de VOutaouais', 60 families are directly affected.
Will the Prime Minister, who mentioned Les Boiseries de VOutaouais as a model for dealing with the challenge of free trade with the United States, say what he intends to do in future to stop the slew of plant shutdowns that we are now experiencing throughout the country? That is what I hope, Mr. Speaker.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. David Bjornson (Selkirk):: Mr. Speaker, recent attention has been focused on the horrible condition of the water quality of the Red River. Recent studies by various agencies have indicated that fecal bacteria levels are extremely high in the river.
The city of Winnipeg has been cited as the source of this pollutant, which negatively affects the water quality in my riding of Selkirk.
The river is of great historic significance to the area as it was the first settled waterway in western Canada, and has also been the source of a multimillion dollar sports fishing industry as well as tourism.
On behalf of my constituents, I am calling upon the mayor of Winnipeg and the provincial minister of the environment to move quickly to reach an agreement that would lead to the improvement of the quality of water in the Red River. Enough is enough.
October 4, 1989


MEECH LAKE ACCORD
Mr. Charles DeBlois (Montmorency-Orleans):: Mr. Speaker, the Meech Lake Accord, which provides for Quebec's return to the great Canadian family with respect, honour and dignity, is threatened by the persistent refusal of two provincial premiers to ratify this historic agreement.
By refusing to ratify this accord, the Premiers of Manitoba and New Brunswick are repudiating the signature of their predecessors, who at the time were the legitimate representatives of their people.
Mr. Speaker, Quebecers are deeply disappointed by the attitude of Messrs. Filmon and McKenna who are blocking the process of national reconciliation that was unanimously adopted by the House of Commons and eight (provincial) governments representing 93 per cent of the Canadian people.

In 1980, 1985 and also last September 25, a majority of the people in my riding of Montmorency-Orleans and also in Quebec said "yes" to Canada. They will not accept another "no" from Canada.


IMMIGRATION
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to bring to the attention of this House the plan by the immigration department to eliminate regional immigration offices in Winnipeg and Saskatoon. It is planned to centralize operations in Edmonton.
These regional offices were first established in each of the western provinces in the early 1970s, after studies indicated that large immigrant populations in each of these regions would warrant a high level of service in the late 1980s. This is perhaps truer today than it was at that time.
Where this misguided notion of amalgamating services comes from, members can only speculate. It certainly does not reflect the needs of those Canadians and
would-be Canadians in the different and distinct communities of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Removing and distancing the decision-making ability of immigration officials clearly does not provide the kind of sensitivity needed to give force to one of the Immigration Act's highest tenets, that of helping new Canadians adjust into Canadian society.
What it does show is the fecklessness of government members in Manitoba and Saskatchewan in defending the interest of their constituents and provinces, bowing instead to more powerful voices.
I ask the Minister of Immigration to reconsider this insensitive move and to act in the interest of Canadians for a change.


THE FAMILY
Mr. Louis Plamondon (Richelieu):: Mr. Speaker, since this is National Family Week, I think it is appropriate to talk about the need for a genuine family policy that meets the needs of modem society.
As the Prime Minister pointed out on August 25, for many Canadians, especially single parents, obtaining daycare for their children is not just a matter of lifestyle or personal enrichment but an absolute economic necessity. In this respect, the daycare program we hope to introduce very shortly will be a concrete response to the needs of all Canadian families.
The Labour Force Development Strategy announced by the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mrs. McDougall) is also aimed at eliminating certain restrictions regarding parental and maternity leave.
More is needed however. In addition to extending this type of leave to 20 weeks, remuneration during that period should be set at 95 percent, to avoid penalizing couples who want to have children.
Of course, considering the economic situation and the Budget deficit, implementation of these measures may be a problem. But families have their price, and as a Government, we will have to realize that sooner or later.

October 4, 1989
Oral Questions


VIA RAIL
Mr. Lyle Dean Mac William (Okanagan -Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, in taking his broad axe to VIA Rail today, the Minister of Transport has applied a strange logic to the future of Canada's tourism industry.
The government is slashing the transcontinental route from 14 to three times a week. The Rocky Mountaineer will run only once a week for four months of the year.
Even without these absurd restrictions VTA cannot meet the tourism demands during Canada's peak tourism season. Tour operators have had to literally turn business away. Yet the message we got today is that if the profitable tourism runs are to be maintained they must be picked up by the private sector. In other words, sell off our only profit-making runs and take a broad axe to the rest.
In doing so this government has finally exposed its hidden agenda to junk its commitment to passenger rail service throughout Canada.


SOVIET ARMY CHORUS
Mr. Marcel Prud'homme (Saint-Denis):: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you on behalf of all members for once again permitting us the pleasure of receiving at noon today the Soviet Army Chorus and Dance Ensemble under the able conductor Anatoly Maltzev.
Since these brilliant artists last performed here in February, 1987, the warm winds of change have swept their country and the prospect for greater international co-operation and understanding has been greatly enhanced. These artists were among the pioneers of this growing rapprochement. It is encouraging to see them continue in their worthy cause.

Your presence and that of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) and many Members from all parties has once again helped to breach the walls of misunderstanding.
I want to thank those who came to greet this group, including the Right Hon. Prime Minister and Mr. Alexei Makalov from the Embassy, who accompanied them.

Mr. Maltsev, thank you and our best wishes to all your group.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister, a man who in piecemeal fashion is dismantling the infrastructure of our country-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Napier Turner: -a man who today announced the destruction of a national dream.
The Prime Minister told Canadians during the last election that VIA Rail was safe. He never told Canadians during the last election they were about to lose that railway. The Prime Minister said to the people of Canada, "Use it or lose it". Last year 500,000 more Canadians did use it. The Prime Minister has committed political fraud.
I ask him why is it that he did not tell Canadians in the towns and cities across the country that they would lose the service? Why did he not tell the thousands of employees of VIA Rail they were going to lose the service. Why did he not come clean to Canadians during the last election?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I think my right hon. friend would agree that the principal responsibility of the Prime Minister, the government, and the Parliament of Canada is to try and manage the economic affairs of the nation in such a way as to provide greater prosperity, and to render the economy as competitive as we can, while retaining all the fundamental instruments of our sovereignty which allow for even greater prosperity.
During the last election we campaigned on a series of initiatives, fundamental and chief among which was our commitment to make the economy of Canada sound, to make the public finances of Canada sound, and to render the economy more competitive to produce more jobs and greater prosperity for Canadians.
October 4, 1989

This is a difficult decision. The subsidy for VIA this past year was something in the neighbourhood of $641 million which, if unchecked, would rise to in excess of a $1 billion a year for a service that was used by a very tiny percentage of the population.
It is our view that the plan announced today by the Minister of Transport retains passenger transport across Canada, gives us the opportunity to strengthen that infrastructure, and renders Canada more competitive. I think in the longer haul it will bring benefits to all Canadians.


John Napier Turner: The Prime Minister not only has a duty to manage the country on behalf of Canadians, he has a primary responsibility to tell the truth to Canadians.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: Today, the Prime Minister just did not destroy a dream or a notion of the past, he destroyed the possibility and the dream for Canadians to enter the 21st century with a modem efficient passenger service binding this country together. That is what he did.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, on October 14, 1988, the Prime Minister told residents: "We are prepared to submit all federal projects and all projects involving federal land to complete environmental impact studies".
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister did not say a partial study, he did not say an internal study. He said a complete and impartial environmental study.
How does he account for this one-page so-called study his Minister of Transport shook out of his sleeve today?
Oral Questions
Why did he not proceed with a complete environmental impact study? Why did he once again fail to keep the promises he made to Canadians during the election campaign?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, there are some omissions in the information quoted by the Leader of the Official Opposition. We are going to look at the whole document. What we have here is a misquote, since the Minister of the Environment is now developing an action program on the environment. It will be on the leading edge of what is being done in this field, not only in Canada but in most countries which have become major competitors in environmental science and international business.
A number of initiatives have been taken in this area. The Minister of Transport has already announced at a press conference that at the appropriate time and, in fact, very shortly, he will reveal the findings of the studies carried out by his Department.


John Napier Turner: We now hear the Prime Minister talking about an environmental impact study after the fact because a conversation between his two ministers as an afterthought will not satisfy the people of Canada.
We know that the Prime Minister today appointed a royal commission to attempt to deflect attention away from the cuts to VIA Rail.
How can the Prime Minister destroy VIA Rail and then, and only then, appoint a royal commission to study the issue after the fact? Why, in these circumstances, does he not impose a moratorium on all decisions affecting VIA Rail until this royal commission has had a chance to study it and until a committee of Parliament under the chairmanship of the member of Parliament for Annapolis Valley-Hants has had a chance to study it on behalf of the people of Canada? Why did the Prime Minister not allow this to happen before the decisions were taken?
One further question, Mr. Speaker. When the royal commission concludes, as it inevitably must, that Canadians need a modem, efficient passenger train service system, what is he going to do then to revive VIA Rail after he destroyed it today?

Oral Questions


Martin Brian Mulroney: To deal with the first, and perhaps the most important inaccuracy of the Leader of the Opposition, VIA Rail was not destroyed today. VIA Rail was maintained today in a manner that Canadians can afford.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: It is true, Mr. Speaker, that we do not have all of the answers in respect of the transportation needs of the 21st century. We have appointed a royal commission to deal not only with passenger transport but inter-modal transport, ranging from the infrastructure for airports, to train service, to passenger service involving buses and general transportation.
If this kind of thought and study had gone into these transportation problems at some time in the past, the Government of Canada could have avoided things like Mirabel.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, it is precisely to avoid the kinds of policies initiated on a whim by a Liberal government that we are going to seek the finest expertise to draw for Canada, a sophisticated nation entering the 21st century, a blueprint of our transportation needs to guide us all.


Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte):: Mr. Speaker, on the question of VIA Rail, this Prime Minister is beginning to sound like the American officer during the Vietnam war who said, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it".
Today, the Prime Minister sent his messenger to the Press Gallery to announce that 2,761 VIA employees no longer have a job, to announce that three million Canadians who rode the rails in 1988 no longer have a train to ride and to announce that over half of VIA's network is being shut down-in short, the end of VIA Rail.
Why has the Prime Minister, who was mute about this matter during the last election, betrayed the disabled, the elderly, the youth, the poor, the small towns, and the regions of this country?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I think our friends from the Liberal party are going to have to make up their minds. The Leader of the Opposition has just blamed me for saying too much about VIA Rail in the last election. Now this member says I was mute.
The fact of the matter is that the government has maintained a passenger link, and has initiated studies that we hope will provide for Canada's transportation needs well into the 21st century.
I think my hon. friend would be the first to agree that you cannot build a transportation system for the 21st century on a 19th century infrastructure. That is what we are trying to change.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, it takes incredible gall to announce a royal commission into the mess that this government has made of the transportation infrastructure in Canada, but that is what this Prime Minister has done.
How can the Prime Minister expect Canadians to believe the government wants impartial advice when it has already, without consultation, butchered VIA Rail? Is not this royal commission nothing more than an autopsy of the Prime Minister's latest victim?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition says we killed VIA Rail. Then, all of a sudden, it is less mortal, we have butchered it. I am saying we have saved VIA Rail.


Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Only the Prime Minister of Canada would say that cutting something by 51 per cent is the way you go about saving it. That is Conservative logic.
I want to ask the Prime Minister this. The announcement today by the Minister of Transport means the loss of a minimum of 11,000 jobs, directly and indirectly, by VIA and all those communities that it has an impact on. It means the destruction of regional services in Atlantic Canada and elsewhere-a major reduction in national transportation service. Then we are going to have a multimillion dollar royal commission.
I want to ask the Prime Minister why the government did not announce its commission and listen to its results before it made up its mind about this wholesale destruction across the country.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I suppose that when you strip the rhetoric away what the hon. member is asking me is in respect of the royal commission.
October 4, 1989

It is a fact that I do not have, and I do not think anyone in this House has, a complete vision of the requirements for intermodal transportation in Canada in the 21st century.
Clearly one of the elements of passenger rail will be VIA Rail. This is why we have taken initiatives to save VIA Rail and maintain it across the country, which will still cost Canadian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies every year.
Notwithstanding that, we have taken this decision to save VIA Rail, and concurrently appoint a royal commission, and I think that my hon. friend would only agree that it is prudent to invite experts from Canada and around the world to help us address the transportation requirements of all kinds into the 21st century.
That, together with parliamentary input from all parties, will I think give Canada the transportation policy into the next century that we now lack.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, my next question is for the Prime Minister. The government has been in power since 1984. It is the greatest admission of the disastrous Ministry of Transport and the ministers if now, after all that time in office, the Prime Minister says that he does not know what we should be doing going into the next century. Why don't you know what you are doing?
If we now have a royal commission that will systematically look at the integrated needs of transportation such as rail, car or airplane, and if in doing that it should reach the decision that we ought not to be laying off 11,000 people as we are today and destroying the infrastructure of Atlantic Canada and elsewhere, is the government prepared to reverse its decision when it hears from the royal commission? If it is prepared to reverse its decision, does it make any sense at all to make the decision now and then have a royal commission? How ridiculous can you get?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, first of all let me correct my hon. friend. There is no question of VIA Rail laying off 11,000 people. We do not have 11,000 employees. The service will be maintained. The passenger service will be maintained in a proper way across the country still at a cost of some hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
For example, when a passenger gets on a train to go from Montreal to Ottawa the return tab picked up by the taxpayer is approximately $100. There are areas in western Canada that when a passenger gets on a train for a trip the subsidy is in the neighbourhood of $475 per
Oral Questions
trip. I think my hon. friend will agree that subsidies which extend into the billion dollar mark and are a few hundred dollars per passenger are abusive by any standards, particularly for a country that needs to bring its deficit down, so that that deficit reduction can have a favourable impact on interest rates and economic growth.
One of the reasons we have combined the study is precisely because we are able to maintain VIA essentially intact concurrent with an important transportation study. I do not believe there has been a study of transportation of any substance in Canada publicly done for some 30 years since the MacPherson Royal Commission. It is just about time that Canada defined a new policy for the requirements of the 21st century.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister will know that in the United States, because it made the appropriate decision some years ago in modernizing Amtrak and attracting people to use the service, they now have a very minimal level of subsidization and that has continued in the United States. The Prime Minister knows that in Canada we now spend millions subsidizing roads. We spend millions subsidizing air traffic, and the people of Canada require in all regions some continuing level of subsidization in trains.
My question to the Prime Minister is the following one. Why don't we have the capital investment required to make a first rate modem rail service and continue that, like all other modem nations do around the world?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend asks the question rhetorically why Canada does not follow the intelligent policy invoked by Amtrak. The reason is the following.
In 1971 Amtrak scrapped 75 per cent of its passenger routes in the United States. By and large it kept the high density corridor traffic which given the different demographics makes Amtrak a more economically viable operation than the one we obviously have in Canada.
That is why we did not follow the Amtrak policy which quite frankly had we done so would have meant the complete termination of VIA Rail throughout Atlantic Canada and areas of western Canada and maintaining corridor traffic between Windsor and Quebec City. I want to tell the leader of the New Democratic Party that in our minds Canada does not extend from Windsor to Quebec City. It extends from one end of the country to the other, and that is why we are maintaining the traffic.

October 4, 1989
Oral Questions


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Robert D. Nault (Kenora-Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. I listened to his press conference very intently, and what he told us today was that there are 2,761 jobs lost because of this 51 per cent cut. Now I know for a fact that is not true. Just taking CN and CP employees alone it rises to 3,600 jobs. The minister did not put that into his little quotation of those jobs that will be lost.
Taking that into account, I have the following question for you, Mr. Minister. Exactly how many jobs? Can you tell this House the honest truth about how many jobs will be lost? There are not only 2,700; there will be way more. How many will there be? Tell us the real truth about how many jobs will be lost because of the 51 per cent cut.


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, this morning, I tabled official documents concerning job losses and for once, instead of referring to leaked documents that provide false information, I urge you to refer to the documents you were given this morning, where I say that the VIA Rail closures and cutbacks will result in 2,761 layoffs. We recognize the problems due to restructuring, but I must say at the same time that the collective agreements governing those who work for the railways in Canada are among the most generous in the country and will cost $140 million over five years. I think that the Government has been generous with these employees in accordance with the signed collective agreements, and I ask the Opposition Parties to admit that finally, we in Canada will have a rail transport system that we can afford and that can last.


Mrs. Diane Marleau (Sudbury):: Mr. Speaker, nowhere in this country-


An Hon. Member:: Here we go.


Mr. Speaker:: I don't want to hear what I just heard again. The hon. member for Sudbury.


Diane Marleau: Nowhere in this country is transportation more important or more vital than in northern communities. Yet, Sudbury and many other of our communities are receiving one blow after another to their transportation services.
Just this past Monday we were told that Air Canada was stopping all services to Sudbury and other communities in northern Ontario. Today, we have the shutdown of VIA Rail in northern Ontario and across this country.
Mr. Prime Minister, why have you brutalized the regions of northern Ontario this way?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, obviously, I do not agree with my colleague about the northern part of the provinces. For the particularly remote regions, we have maintained nine so-called remote routes in the national transportation system so that citizens who do not have other means of transport can still travel.
As for Air Canada, Mr. Speaker, deregulation has made it possible to develop a series of quality airlines like Air Nova, Air Atlantic, Air Alliance and Air Ontario in this country; these regional airlines provide communities with services they did not have before. Air Canada is a private company that has the right to withdraw from some of its activities. But at the same time, Air Ontario will continue to provide services and to give the people of Sudbury the services they had before. It has not been proven that the services of Air Ontario will be inferior to those of Air Canada.
Mr. Speaker, the Canadian transportation system is complex, but using private enterprise and public services, we are giving Canadians the best.


Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Transport just announced that more than 1,800 jobs will be cut in Quebec, including 900 in Montreal. He added that Montreal could easily absorb these losses. In other words, nothing to get excited about. What a relief for the employees who are being laid off!
October 4, 1989

Does the Minister have the nerve to rise again in his seat and tell these workers, right here in the House, there is nothing to get excited about?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I certainly do have the nerve to rise again in my seat, and I would even go so far as to inform my hon. that I don't understand why she didn't at least check her information against the figures I gave two hours ago. Mr. Speaker, Quebec will lose 994 jobs, including 912 in Montreal, which is certainly not what the figures the Hon. Member quoted imply. So before getting worked up about figures that are wrong -I kept telling them: Wait for the real documents! I can see getting the figures wrong with leaked documents, but now they have the real documents, and they still can't get their facts straight.
Once again, I wish you would check your figures, and I wish you would realize that the collective agreements for these employees are the very best in Canada, and that we will spend $140 million so employees can benefit from the advantages of the agreements they signed.


Mrs. Shirley Maheu (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville):: Once again, Madam Speaker, the Conservative Government has abandoned the entire Montreal region. More than 900 jobs are directly affected I said "more than" and thousands of other jobs in related sectors will disappear. What docs the Prime Minister intend to do to help the entire Montreal region which is already disad-ventaged, and especially the families affected by this decision?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, the Government of which I am a member has done for Quebec and Montreal what the previous government never did. Mr. Speaker, I repeat that the Conservative Government has done a great deal for Montreal and will continue to do so. However, when difficult decisions have to be made, whether those decisions happen to concern Montreal or other areas in this country, we make those decisions in terms of the national interest, which is the case with the decisions we made today.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw the attention of the House to the presence in our gallery of Mr. Charles-Ferdinand
Oral Questions
Nothomb, speaker of the Chamber of representatives, and Mr. Edward J. Leemans, senator and honorary speaker of the Senate, who are accompanied by a delegation of Belgian parliamentarians.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


VIA RAIL
Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
Earlier today in his press conference he indicated that he encourages any proposal to take over and operate a rail passenger service. In fact, according to a wire story tour operator Sam Blyth said today that he has permission from Transport Minister Bouchard and VIA Rail President Ron Lawless to start a luxury continental service from Toronto to Vancouver beginning next June. Tickets go on sale October 14. The cost is $2,495 a person. Anyone else who wants to buy a piece of the national dream need only contact Ron Lawless.
How can the Minister guarantee the continuation of a national rail passenger service if he is going to sell it off literally piece by piece?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, the information given by this member is absolutely false.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, perhaps he might want to talk to Sam Blyth who has put out a press release that was on Midday today.
I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Transport. It is interesting to note that in terms of cross Canada services the Minister of Transport has announced that the Canadian, which uses the Canadian Pacific lines, is to be cut out entirely, yet the Super Continental that uses CN lines, which according to his own documents is more expensive for VIA to operate on, is going to remain.
Could the minister tell this House whether this choice of routing, the choice of CN over CP, is based on the needs of the travelling public or on the needs of the president of VIA Rail who is also the president of the CNR?

October 4, 1989
Oral Questions


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, once again the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan sees problems where there are none. This morning, at a press conference, I explained that the northern Supercontinental route was to be preferred because of the higher population density, and as for the southern route, we already had a section that was partly covered by the Rocky Mountaineer line between Vancouver and Calgary. I repeat, Mr. Speaker, the decisions were made in terms of a national network, a network we can afford and a network that can be viable!


Mr.   Brian@: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
People in Canada would like to see the involvement of the private sector in VIA Rail. What consideration has been given to involve the private the sector in the operation of VIA Rail?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, what I said this morning and what I will repeat in the House is that we will be open to any good and reasonable proposal which will be made by the private sector and will be considered with a view to improving services for Canadians.


Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister says he saved VIA Rail. Well, he certainly did not save it in eastern Nova Scotia where its loss has been devastating.
This morning the Prime Minister spoke with a little girl who was a member of a group of students from Sydney Mines visiting Ottawa. She told him that if he did not save the trains her grandparents were not going to vote for him any more. The loss of those two votes is only the beginning.
Why has the Prime Minister, a graduate of St. Francis Xavier University, reduced eastern Nova Scotians to the level of second-class Canadians, when he stood in his place just a few months ago and said that there would be no second-class Canadians?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend indicates and probably quite accurately that as a result of this decision today we are going to lose votes. The fact of the matter is that we did not do this for votes. We did it because it is right for Canada.
My hon. friend refers to Nova Scotia where the rail link has been maintained six days a week into Halifax, where the maintenance centre in Halifax will be maintained. It is true that in Nova Scotia as elsewhere there are some lines that will be discontinued. We very much regret that. My hon. friend will recognize that we have worked very hard on behalf of Cape Breton with some of the initiatives taken and in eastern Nova Scotia, in particular.
My hon. friend is the first to know that the government and Parliament have had good results in some of the areas that we have involved ourselves in since 1984. The employment statistics are there to prove it.
It is true that there are these lines that are being discontinued, and we regret that very much. As my hon. friend examines the costs and the subsidy per capita required in each of these, I think he will come to the view that the taxpayers of Canada and the Parliament of Canada, which have other obligations in Cape Breton and we should assume more, can better spend taxpayers' money on behalf of a stronger Cape Breton and a stronger eastern Nova Scotia in ways other than those that we have followed in the past.


Mrs. Coline Campbell (South West Nova):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Prime Minister a question. Why did he not tell the electorate before the last election what he just told us now about the cuts to VIA?
Today they announced that the train which goes from Halifax to Yarmouth will be eliminated as of January 15, 1990. Ridership on the line that serves my colleague from Annapolis Valley, myself, and many thousands of constituents was up by 12 per cent in the first quarter of this year.
The Deputy Prime Minister gave the challenge to Canadians, and in particular to the people in the valley and in southern Nova Scotia, to use the train. They used it. The ridership was up by 12 per cent this year in the first quarter. Why did they cut it? They used it and now they have lost it. Why?
October 4, 1989


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, just for the record, I want to advise my friend who also has roots in eastern Nova Scotia that I would contest and be happy to discuss with her some of the figures that she has just used.
However, in fairness, I think should point out that on February 24,1986 the government, in a statement by the then Minister of Transport, said: "At the same time the government is committed to a major reduction of subsidy payments for VIA Rail. Federal funding will be reduced to $400 million by 1989." The Minister then went on: "Corridor or regional services may be discontinued if they fail to meet financial performance targets for any two consecutive years after December 31, 1986. Transcontinental services may be cut to three times a week if they fail to meet 60 per cent of specific costs for any two consecutive years after December 31".
The government did put out to my hon. friend and colleagues in the House of Commons very substantial advance warning of our intentions and of our obligations. The figures that my hon. friend uses to justify her argument are, may I respectfully say, quite wrong. The figures that the minister has produced today justify the decisions announced.


Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche):: Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government has decimated the region of Campbellton, New Brunswick with its destructive rail transportation policy and is now removing all local lines in New Brunswick.

My question is directed to the Prime Minister. Why doesn't the Prime Minister ask the Minister of Transport to declare a moratorium on all service cuts at VIA Rail, pending the report of his royal commission of inquiry? Or is this commission just a ploy to deceive Canadians?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, this morning I thought the Liberal Party would have understood the purpose of this royal commission of inquiry. VIA Rail is a problem that costs a corporation $900 million, a problem that needs an additional $250 million. These are the kinds of figures Canadians understand and these are the figures Canadians want us to change.
Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the VIA Rail decision deals with a corporation that is inefficient, that does not work and that costs too much.
Mr. Speaker, that being said, in the years to come, beyond the year 2000, we must be able to integrate our transportation network in this country. We must know how much we are going to invest in the railways in highway transportation and in the air and marine transport modes. If I followed the example set by the Liberal Party for 20 years, 50 years from now we would still be spending money piecemeal on transport.


Mr. George S. Rideout (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. The employees who work for VIA Rail are not numbers, not dollar signs, not person-years on a balance sheet. The ripple effect of the VIA job cuts will hit every home in the ridings of Moncton and Beausejour. It is nonsense to suggest that CN and CP were not making a huge profit on VIA's utilization of their lines and that profit is now going to be lost.
My question for the minister is as follows: Is the next shoe to fall the complete elimination of CN in Atlantic Canada?


Benoît Bouchard: Absolutely not, Mr. Speaker. The decision which has been made today about VIA Rail does not involve CN and CP.
I want to correct something here today that people on the other side use all the time. In 1983 the money that VIA had to pay to CN and CP was 65 per cent of the budget, but with the good policy of the Deputy Prime Minister today this money is 15 per cent.


Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich-Gulf Islands):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
British Columbia is severely affected by the cuts to VIA Rail. The Super Continental has been reduced to three times weekly. The Canadian has been done away with. On Vancouver Island the Esquimalt and Nanaimo run has been completely eliminated. These measures demonstrate this government's complete contempt for the regions of Canada. Passenger service on Vancouver Island was a condition of B.C.'s entry into Confederation.
Is this government serving notice to the people of Vancouver Island that they are no longer welcome in Confederation?

October 4, 1989
Oral Questions


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I can say as
a member of Parliament from Quebec who has been in British Columbia three times this summer that you are fully welcome in Canada, indeed.
I would also like to say that in British Columbia we have maintained the services that we can afford in the national perspective.
My colleague will understand that between Jasper and Prince Rupert the cost for every passenger who uses the train is $483 which is paid for by the Government of Canada and Canadian taxpayers and we continue to pay this amount of money. I believe that we have treated British Columbia as any other province of this country.


Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport and it relates to the credibility of this government.
In 1985 the government said to Atlantic Canadians: "Use it or lose it" with regard to VIA. Today thousands more Atlantic Canadians use the rail system.
Earlier today another member asked whether or not the Halifax maintenance yard would be closed. The Prime Minister said that that is not true. The document that was passed out today states that the Halifax maintenance centre will be closed. That is it.
When are you going to tell the truth to the people of Canada?
Mr. Bouchard (Roberval) Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said that the Halifax maintenance centre will be kept open, and the Prime Minister is right. I believe though that there is still some work to do at the Halifax maintenance centre.
I answer as the Minister of Transport to the House of Commons. I answer to the House of Commons once again that the Halifax maintenance centre will be kept open, and I will hold all necessary discussions with the president of the VIA Rail.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. David Walker (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of Transport. Instead of 14 westbound trains leaving Winnipeg each week, there will now be only three. The Rocky
Mountaineer which the minister himself admits is one of the most popular rides across Canada will be reduced to one trip a week for five months of the year. Considering that tourism is the fastest growing industry in the west, these cuts are a severe blow. How can this government claim it wants regional economies to diversify and prosper when they are dismantling the national transportation system?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I have heard this particular comment on tourism several times.
First of all, I think it is somewhat premature to assume tourists will stop travelling altogether, just because we have closed a certain number of lines. After all, other means of transportation are available to tourists.
Second, as I said earlier, the Government intends to promote any initiatives that will encourage Canadians and tourists in general to use various means of transportation.


Mr. Bob Wood (Nipissing):: Mr. Speaker, in northern Ontario in the past two days the actions of this government have caused the pull-out of Air Canada's service to North Bay, Sudbury, Timmins and parts of northern Quebec. Now the government has cut out VIA service by the loss of "The Canadian" route and also the removal of the Toronto to Kapuskasing run.
My question is for the Minister of Transport. Why is the Minister of Transport trying to make it really impossible for the people and businesses of northern Ontario to exist and at the same time compete at the same level as the large southern urban areas?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I believe that northern Ontario, northern Quebec, or any other part of the country, has been considered in the national perspective and within the capacity we have to pay for the services we have. The decision has been made in that perspective. That is why we kept services in many parts of the country. Once again, I will repeat again, we will pay for the service that we can afford, but we cannot afford any more,to put $641 million in a transportation system which carries 3 per cent of Canadians.
October 4, 1989


Mr. Speaker:: I want to advise the House that I will hear a single question from the hon. member for Nickel Belt, followed by a single question from the hon. member for London East.


Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
The cuts announced this morning by the Minister of Transport are directed at the economy of the country in general and of the Montreal area in particular, where half the VIA Rail jobs are located.
Is the Minister able to say exactly how many jobs will be affected in Montreal, both at VIA Rail and in local industry, by which I mean VIA Rail's suppliers-more than a hundred companies?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I just answered that question from another colleague, saying that the official figures, which you can use because they are reliable, show that 912 jobs will be lost.
But the Hon. Member tells me that we are jeopardizing Montreal's economy. Mr. Speaker, Hon. Members of this House will be glad to know that over the next five years, given the deficit we inherited from the previous government, these measures will save $1 billion in government operations alone.
Mr. Speaker, that is what I call enlightened government management.


Mr. Joe Fontana (London East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. In southwestern Ontario where one in five of the travelling public uses VIA Rail, where senior students, working men and women, and business people, need the service, where our highways are already congested and have become death traps, how can this government cut service to southwestern Ontario by more that 60 per cent? How can the minister justify this cold, callous, irresponsible action?


Benoît Bouchard: I would say, Mr. Speaker, that I am very proud to be able to say that we have maintained almost all services in southwestern Ontario. I believe that is what Canadians want. But at the same time, whether it be southwestern Ontario, Quebec, the maritimes, or any other part of Canada, decisions have to be made with a national perspective and they will continue to be made in that way. When I look at the number of trips which will be made from Toronto to
Oral Questions
Windsor, Toronto to Sarnia, Toronto to Niagara Falls, I repeat, I am proud of the decision.


POINT OF ORDER
Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, it is a time-honoured tradition in this House that when ministers of the Crown are announcing major new initiatives and major policies that it be done before this House and not before any other bodies. The Minister of Transport this morning made his announcement at the National Press Theatre instead of in the House of Commons.
Because of the exchange here in the House during Question Period it is clear why the minister should have made his statement here, where we have obvious information, differences of opinion, differences of fact being presented at the same press conference by the president of VIA Rail than were presented by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport today.
I would ask that you review the situation to determine if in fact the privilege of Parliament as a whole has been breached because of this announcement outside the chamber.


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the point that my hon. friend has made and I will deliver a letter to him as soon as possible indicating, I am sure, that this government has made more use of ministerial statements than any government in the past 10 to 12 years and to demonstrate that we are using the House for that type of thing. Today is Wednesday and my hon. friend knows that this announcement was made with all immediate haste and that-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: No, as soon as it was taken. The Minister made himself completely available in Question Period, and was here for the entire Question Period. The opposition has had full and ample time to question the minister and we will stand on our record on ministerial statements against any previous government.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, I think the point been made by the member from Thunder Bay- Atikokan is that we knew this announcement was coming down for a week. We had the leaked document which the government denied for one full week, day after day. It was announced that this statement was going to be made Wednesday.

October 4, 1989
Oral Questions
The problem that we have is that this statement was not made in the House of Commons. We have proof today from the conflicting answers that I received from the Prime Minister and from the Minister of Transport that we do not know whether or not the document given out at 11 o'clock is accurate because the Prime Minister says the Halifax maintenance centre will be kept open, and now we have-


Mr. Siddon:: So did the Minister.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Yes, and then the Minister of Transport got up and said exactly the same thing. The problem is that the document issued this morning says the Halifax maintenance centre will be closed. It does not say open part way. It does not say open for one or two people. The government should have made the point in the House, given us the documents in the House, and stood by the documents that it has given to the people of Canada.


Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport said very clearly today that the Halifax maintenance centre is going to be maintained. Now during the press conference after the announcement at 11.30 today, the President of CN and of VIA, Mr. Lawless, stated quite clearly in response to a question from a reporter that 190 jobs would be lost in the Halifax area due to the shutting down of the Halifax maintenance centre.
I think this government better get its act together and tell Canadians, the travelling public, and the people employed by VIA Rail what the truth is. Is that centre going to be closed down? Are those jobs going to be lost? Who is misleading whom in this case?


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, the answer that was given by the Minister of Justice to the point of order raised by the hon. member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan-


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: It wasn't a point of order.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: It was a perfectly good point of order. The answer that was given was quite unsatisfactory. The Minister of Justice says that this government has made more ministerial statements in this House than any other. The ministerial statements have not dealt with the major issues of government policy, they have dealt with announcements of family week or international fairness
week, or whatever they have been. They have been motherhood announcements on minor matters compared with this kind of item that is slashing the livelihood of thousands of Canadians.


Mr. Speaker:: The point of order is specifically this, whether it is appropriate for the government under the circumstances to have made an announcement by press conference other than by ministers' statements. That is the sole issue.
The hon. member for Kingston and The Islands might conclude on that point.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I was getting to that. I was trying to answer the comments that were coming from across the way. The fact is that there has been a practice in this House for years for ministers to come into this House and make major policy statements. It was a practice, I may say, Mr. Speaker, that was followed very, very carefully by the previous Liberal administration up until 1984.
We are faced now with a situation where the government has made a major policy announcement while the House was sitting. This House was sitting this week and the minister could easily have delayed this statement until Statements by Ministers in the next few minutes this afternoon. The minister could have made his announcement yesterday afternoon. We are told that the minister had to do it in a great frantic rush this morning at a press conference that was called only this morning. I say that it is a contempt of this House for the minister to avoid making his statement here.
Parliament sits to hear the policies of the Government of Canada and to comment on them. It is our job as members of Parliament to make comments on those policies as they are announced. Those announcements should not come out by way of press conference. We are not expected to respond by way of press conference and yet that is exactly the expectation raised by this abuse of the precedent and practice of this House.
I could quote extensively from previous members of the Conservative party. Mr. Diefenbaker used to chastise the Liberal Government constantly for making very minor announcements outside this House. Liberal governments made minor announcements outside but the major ones were all done in here. This was a major announcement that should have been done here.
October 4, 1989

Routine Proceedings


Mr. Speaker:: The Speaker, of course, is not supposed to have any personal memory of events in this place. But I do, and it has been customary from time to time over many years for complaints to be laid before the Speaker with respect to whether or not it was appropriate for the government to make a statement in the House which, of course, if that is done under the rules enables both opposition critics to have equal time to respond.
It has been argued by members that sit on both sides of this House on different occasions that that is the more appropriate way to proceed. I must advise Hon. Members and the public who are listening that that is not a practice which is stipulated in any rules of this House. Of course, as the Chair always says, if the House wishes to change the rules then the Chair will certainly abide by them. There are no rules to that effect, as I say, and the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan, in raising this point, raises a complaint.
The government has made a response which may or may not satisfy hon. members but it is not a point of privilege and it is not a contempt of the House. I would suggest that Hon. Members discuss with each other ways and means by which the practice of making statements in the House can be followed as often as possible.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2), I have the honour of tabling, in both official languages, summaries of the 1989-93 corporate plan for VIA Rail Canada Inc. and the 1989 capital and operating budgets.


PETITIONS
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Government House Leader):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 106.8 I have the honour to table in both official languages the government's response to petitions nos. 342-0879 342-0881, inclusive.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


Louis Plamondon: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34,1 have the honour of tabling, in both official languages, the second report on the activities of the Canadian Section of the International Association of French-speaking Parliamentarians.


Mr. Guy Ricard (Laval):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of tabling, in both official languages, the report of the Legislative Committee on Bill C-20, an Act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Excise Act.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to present to the House petitions that have been certified pursuant to Article 36 as being correct in terms of their form. These British Columbians are concerned about the government's proposals to slash VIA Rail. I suppose on a day when it has been slashed by 51 per cent the government would want to know that there are already thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are already opposed to what the government was proposing and are certainly proposed what it has done today.

October 4, 1989
Routine Proceedings


Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition certified pursuant to Standing Order 36 from 175 British Columbians expressing fear that the government was going to cut VIA Rail by one-third and perhaps more so now that the government has announced it is cutting it by 51 per cent.
We, the undersigned, call on Parliament to maintain the existing VIA network, upgrade VIA equipment and guarantee VTA sufficient support to carry out its mandate to provide passenger service to all Canadians.


Mr. Neil Young (Beaches-Woodbine):: Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36 from residents from Ontario and British Columbia who say that VIA Rail service is essential for many Canadians and has been a part of Canada for more than 100 years. They call upon Parliament to maintain the existing VIA network, upgrade VIA equipment and guarantee VIA sufficient support to carry out its mandate to provide passenger service.


Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster-Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, I also rise under Standing Order 36 to present a petition signed by over 150 people from the lower mainland in British Columbia. Most of these people are from the municipality of Burnaby and the City of New Westminster which is in my riding. They are very concerned about the cut-backs to VIA Rail service. They ask the government to maintain the existing VIA network, upgrade the equipment and guarantee VIA sufficient support to carry out its mandate to provide passenger service from coast to coast in Canada.


Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present to this House today a petition signed by constituents in my riding who are adamantly opposed to the tax on music lessons.


Mac Harb: Mr. Speaker,I have a petition signed by members of the Vietnamese community in my riding and throughout the region who are calling on the government to pressure the Vietnamese government to properly deal with the constituents in that particular area.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, it is my duty to present to the House a petition signed by residents in my riding. Your petitioners humbly pray that the National Arts Centre Orchestra be maintained, and their petition reads as follows:
That assurances by given, first of all, that the National Arts Centre will maintain the present number of musicians and the same level of excellence in its orchestra, and that a sound cultural background will be the main consideration when appointing new members to the NAC's board of directors


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by constituents of mine relating to the sales tax proposal. These people are very upset at the government's proposal to slap a 9 per cent tax on goods and services. They maintain that this tax will not only be hidden and inequitable, but the petition reads that Liberals on behalf of Canadians strongly oppose this goods and services tax which is an unprecedented tax grab from the pockets of Canadians and will hit them not only with higher taxes but with higher inflation, higher interest rates and higher unemployment. For those causes these people would like to see this tax rejected by this House.


Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be able to present pursuant to Standing Order 36 a petition signed by a number of Canadians from Ottawa, Montreal, Yorkton, Saskatchewan, my own riding of Surrey, British Columbia, Port Coquitlam. They all petition that the government maintain the VIA Rail service as it is a vital service connecting Canada.


Mrs. Barbara Sparrow (Calgary Southwest):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour today under the provisions of Standing Order 36 to present many petitions. In fact, I have hundreds of petitions containing 68,582 names of people from Calgary in particular, and from all across Canada, who want to retain the uniformity of the RCMP dress uniform.
October 4, 1989

These petitioners say that the RCMP has a long and honourable tradition known and admired around the world. They are not discriminating, Mr. Speaker. These petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to preserve the distinctive heritage and tradition of the RCMP by retaining the uniformity of the dress code with all the recognized colour and trappings that have such great historical value for our country.
All these petitions have been certified.


Barbara Jane (Bobbie) Sparrow: Mr. Speaker, I have a group of petitions containing 5,895 names from people of the area of Calgary southwest. These petitioners call upon the government of Canada to revise its extradition laws. I am pleased to join with these people who humbly pray and call upon Parliament to revise the laws of Canada relating to extradition to allow the Minister of Justice of Canada to order the extradition of alleged or convicted criminals at any time after their apprehension in Canada, even during their period of incarceration, for crimes committed in another country.


Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to present a petition on the great concern of people from the Vancouver region and my riding of Vancouver East, people who today will be appalled at the announcement regarding VIA Rail, and who call on Parliament to maintain the VIA network and to upgrade VIA Rail rather than cutting it.


Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to lay these petitions before the House today on behalf of the residents of southwestern Ontario and my own constituency in particular. These petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject the proposed goods and services tax and to provide a remedy.


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, under Standing Order 36 I rise to present the concerns of many Canadians about the present crisis in the negotiations of the National Arts Centre with the National Arts Centre orchestra, some of it because the Centre has been held at zero budget growth for five
Routine Proceedings
years. On this its twentieth anniversary these petitioners would ask for a demonstration of good faith by an immediate return to the bargaining table, a call which I hope the government will do this day while wishing the National Arts Centre a happy twentieth anniversary.


Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege this afternoon to table a petition from the required number of signators from Belleville, Ontario. These signatures were gained while we were travelling on VIA Rail. They pray that this government will rescind its orders regarding the closures of VIA Rail.


Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition signed by a large number of my constituents from Cardigan, P.E.I. My constituents call upon this Parliament to reject the goods and services tax. This is a hidden tax. My constituents believe this will be unfair and disastrous to the economy of Prince Edward Island.


Diane Marleau: Mr. Speaker, I am tabling before you today a petition against the goods and services tax. There are people from my riding of Sudbury who are asking that they be heard by this government. They are extremely anxious that this government go back to the drawing board and come back with a fair and equitable tax.


Mr. Eugene Bellemare (Carleton-Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to present a sixteen-page edition-

-from Canadian citizens from various municipalities against the proposed goods and services tax. This particular tax will be damaging to small businesses because of its complicated tax system. It will also be hurting the economy by reducing the purchasing power of Canadian citizens by the percentage points presented by the government.


Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and duty pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present to the House a petition signed by some 83 constituents in the riding of Hamilton West who humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject the proposed goods and services tax.

October 4, 1989
Routine Proceedings MILITARY EXPORTS


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Mr. Speaker, I also have the duty, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to present to the House a petition signed by 25 members of local churches, including the Westhill United Church in the riding of Hamilton West. The petition calls upon the government to provide full disclosure of Canadian military exports including the type, producers and vendors, purchaser and transporter, as well as the immediate and final destinations of the military exports to be printed in register form and available to the Canadian public upon request.


Mr. Fred J. Mifflin (Bonavista-TVinity- Conception):: Mr. Speaker, I rise pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present five petitions with a total of 150 signatures of Canadians who strongly oppose the goods and services tax. They feel it is an unprecedented tax grab from the pockets of Canadians and will hit people not only hard but it will result in higher taxes, higher inflation, higher interest rates and higher unemployment.
These petitions have been duly certified by the clerk and these people humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject the proposed goods and services tax.


Mr. Lyle Vanclief (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition from constituents in the city of Peterborough, some 639 names, who are calling upon the government to rescind the decisions that it has announced this morning in regard to VIA Rail.


Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and the privilege to present, pursuant to Standing Order 36, a petition signed by 5,400 of my constituents in the riding of Northumberland. They object to the government's proposed cut-backs to VIA Rail and, with the announcements today, suggest that the government should put a moratorium on all its proposed cut-backs. The petitioners have a concern that this government, which seems to be on the fast track to oblivion, is going to leave them on January 19, 1990, to freeze to death on the railway platforms in Trenton, Cobourg and Port Hope in my riding.


Gilles Rocheleau: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I wish to table 93 petitions, duly signed and certified, containing 2,808 signatures in all from people in the riding of Hull- Aylmer and the Outaouais region who are opposed to the imposition of a tax on sales of goods and services and who ask the Government to withdraw this tax.


Mr. Dan Heap (TVinity-Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, I rise in accordance with Standing Order 36 to present a petition signed by a number of residents of Toronto calling upon Parliament to join with the Innu of Labrador in demanding that the Canadian government end all the NORAD-NATO low-level flight training in Canada, oppose establishment of a NATO operation in Canada, including the tactical fighter and reference training centre proposed for Goose Bay and redirect Canada's NATO-NORAD funding toward enabling Canada's aboriginal peoples to regain control of their lands and their livelihood in promoting sustainable development for all Canadians.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and duty to table petitions signed by 74 residents of the community of Atikokan, a northwestern Ontario community that lost its rail passenger services some 10 years ago. They are concerned now that their neighbours in Thunder Bay, Diyden, Ignace, Nipigon, Red Rock, Terrace Bay, Schreiber all of the communities along the Canadian route will join them in having lost their transportation services and options.
The undersigned call upon Parliament to maintain VIA Rail, Canada's present national network, to upgrade VIA Rail with new equipment and to give VIA Rail a sufficient budget to maintain its national mandate for passenger services.
October 4, 1989


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand today.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall all questions be allowed to stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, would you be so kind as to call notice of motion for the production of papers No. P-15 in the name of the hon. member for Burnaby-Kingsway?
Motion No. P-15
That an Humble Address be presented to Her Excellency praying
that she will cause to be laid before this House copies of all documents
and proposals considered and accepted at the Paris Meeting on the
Human Dimension of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in
Europe, from May to June 23, 1989.


Albert Glen Cooper: The motion proposed by the hon. member is unacceptable for the following reasons: No. 1, the CSCE is an intergovernmental process which always operates under the procedural rules of consensus; No. 2, lacking a formal consensus on the part of all 35 CSCE countries to do so, the Canadian government is not in a position to release the formal proposal submitted at meetings such as the Paris meeting on the human dimension.
I would therefore ask the member to withdraw his motion.


Mr. Robinson:: Transfer for debate.


Mr. Speaker:: Transferred for debate.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 52,1 ask leave, through you, to propose a motion to adjourn the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration; namely the drastic cuts of passenger rail services by VIA Rail announced today by the Minister of Transport which will impose severe hardships on Canadians, especially those who are least able to find affordable alternatives.
Government Orders


Mr. Speaker:: First of all, so that it is clearly understood what we are doing here, under the orders which govern us, it is the right of members to rise and to ask for an emergency debate. The rules governing whether that should be accepted are well known to hon. members.
The matter that has been raised by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition is a very serious matter and has engaged this House for a number of days and again today. It may well engage the time of the House in the future.
I have given very careful consideration to the application which I received earlier this morning. I repeat, the matter is of great importance. It is veiy much the subject of discussion in the country and debate in the House. I find that at least for now it does not meet the criteria of the order. However, I reiterate it is a matter of national importance.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thesday, October 3, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-36, an act to amend the Advance Payments for Crops Act and the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee; and the amendment of Mr. Foster:
That Bill C-36, an Act to amend the Advance Payments for Crops Act and the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act be not now read a second time but that it be read a second time this day six months hence.
Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg-St. Janies):: Mr. Speaker, these are tough times down on the farm and tough times in rural Canada.
The entire Question Period this afternoon was devoted to VIA Rail cuts, which will be another severe blow to rural Canada. It seems that this government wants to shut down rural Canada. Of course, the matter at hand, this bill that we are considering, is another blow, particularly to farmers in the country. They have used the cash advance system for more than 30 years. They have found it to be of good use, particularly when they could use cash advances on an interest free basis. If this bill goes through, they will lose the ability to use cash advances on an interest free basis. They will have to pay interest.

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When I was speaking on the bill yesterday, I read into the parliamentary record a statement that was released a few days ago by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, which is opposed to this bill and wants the cash advance system to continue, but with interest free cash payments. I want to complete the reading of the statement into the parliamentary record:
The Advance Payments for Crops Act serves to shift sales out of the immediate post harvest season thereby reducing the extent of export sales in autumn and shortage induced imports during later months. It also reduces downward price pressure in the domestic market in the immediate post harvest season.
This is a well known agricultural organization and it should be listened to.
Another important farm group that is opposed to this bill is the National Farmers Union. The NFU, in a statement the other day, said this, and again I quote:
The Prairie Grain Advance Payments Program has for thirty years relieved grain producers from prolonged financial pressures in circumstances where poor delivery opportunities prevailed.
The fact that the advances were interest free was, of course, the most attractive feature of the program. It enabled producers to save on interest costs by meeting debt obligations to creditors earlier than might otherwise be the case.
That is another important farm organization that is opposed to this government initiative.
Ordinary farmers have become involved in this debate. In fact, just yesterday my colleague from Lambton- Middlesex received a long distance phone call from a farmer in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, who was deeply concerned about the withdrawal of cash payments on an interest free basis. It shows how concerned farmers are that they will make long distance phone calls to MPs here in the nation's capital.
Other politicians in other provinces, of course, are concerned about this government move as well. In fact, the agriculture minister in my home province of Manitoba, the Hon. Mr. Findlay, issued a statement the other day expressing concern about this bill. Let me quote one paragraph from his statement. Of course, we must remind the country that the agriculture minister in the province of Manitoba is a Progressive Conservative so he shares the party of members opposite. He said, relating to this bill:
As farmers requirements for cash advances are most critical during the first half of the crop year, I am requesting that Mr. Mazankowski give serious consideration to cash advances being interest free until January 31 of each year.
Those are some of the core arguments against this bill which is ill advised and should be withdrawn so that the government can enter into consultations with farm groups right across the country and get some advice on how it should proceed. What the farmers are saying, loud and clear, is that they want the cash advances to continue interest free.
Yesterday, when I was speaking on this bill, I said that I had been talking to a farmer friend and he could not understand what was in the government's mind, what was on its agenda. He found the government's performance very curious and confusing. He asked what this initiative is all about, whether it is part of a larger philosophy, part of some over-all program. That question was partly answered by the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday who said that this measure is an effort on the part of government to have Canadian farmers make their contribution to deficit reduction.
I really find that insulting. Farmers in this country do not need to be told what they have to do. I find that kind of statement condescending and insulting. Farmers have been asked over and over again to do their share. If there is any group of people in this country who do their fair share, it is the farmers. It seems that this government is bent on shutting down rural Canada. It is not just this bill that concerns me and the people of Canada, particularly farmers. There is a whole host of things going on in rural Canada. For example, there is the closing of post offices. It seems that almost every other week there is a post office somewhere in this country that is closed. Then, of course, there is VIA Rail. Today we got the announcement that 51 per cent of it is going to be shut down. I think most Canadians believe that if VIA Rail is cut in half, that will be the end of it. Pretty soon there will not be any more VIA Rail.
Continuing along with this program of shutting down rural Canada by the government, we saw as a result of the budget this spring the government wanting to close a number of military bases that are important to rural Canada, bases like Portage la Prairie in my province, Port Hardy in British Columbia and Summerside in Prince Edward Island.
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Another blow to rural Canada is the reduction in regional development programs. There have been a number of cuts in regional development programs and that has been a blow to rural Canada. There have been cut-backs in the crop insurance program. That was alluded to in one of my colleagues' statements in the House yesterday. This is another blow that has to be sustained by the farmers of Canada.
When you come right down to it, the government is just killing rural Canada. If we have to live with this government much longer, there will be nothing left of rural Canada. These kinds of vicious attacks on rural Canada have to come to a stop, and the sooner the better.
The Deputy Prime Minister yesterday indicated that there is some kind of emergency with respect to this bill. He wants us to ram it through as quickly as possible because he wants to reinstitute the program so that farmers can have cash advances. They will get the cash advances if this bill goes through but not interest free. They will have to pay interest.
Who brought on the emergency? First of all, the farmers did not ask for a suspension of this program precipitously and without any kind of notice. The program was suspended. It was put into limbo by provisions of the budget last spring. The farmers have been left with this hanging over their heads all through the latter part of the spring, right through the summer and now it is fall. Winter is coming. The grain is in the bin. Farmers have to pay bills and still this government dithers.
The government complains about getting this done. It has to get this bill through as though there were an emergency. Who caused it? It certainly was not the farmers of Canada. It certainly was not the members on this side of the House. It was those people over there. They have to take the blame for this. They have to take the responsibility.
I would say in my few closing moments that this program has to be rethought. It has to be reviewed. It is quite apparent that the government did this without consultation and without sitting down with the farm organizations and asking them what is best for farmers. If they had done that, the farmers of Canada would have
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told them to leave it alone, that it is a good program. It has been in place for 30 years, don't touch it. If you want to save money and fight the deficit, you have all kinds of areas where you can go. You do not have to kill a program that has been serving the farm community well and serving the entire country.
My plea is to have this bill withdrawn and redrafted. Go back to the drafting boards and come back with something that makes sense, something that is going to help farmers and the agricultural community and ultimately all Canadians and the country.


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for the very interesting speech which I listened to the other day. I continue to hear today that farmers are subject once again to the government's short-sighted view.
I would ask my hon. colleague if he feels that this government has said that basically there are no sacred cows in our society, everything is subject to meeting the yardstick of profit. Bottom line budgeting is the important goal. The links that bind us in such a unique way in this country that has a physical geography that is different than any other place in the world is not taken into consideration. Now out goes the infrastructure of a good VIA Rail transportation system. Out went Air Canada and Teleglobe to the private sector. Now you are talking about this new move with respect to the farmers. In my colleague's view, is this Tory view that the only sacred trust left is bottom line profit one that is shared by the farmers that he spoke to.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. friend because I think her questions reflect that she knows exactly what this government is doing. The fact is that there is nothing sacred in this country. There is nothing sacred about Canada in so far as this government is concerned. It wants to carry out a kind of revolution without consulting Canadians. Conservatives did not say in the election campaign that they were going to shut down half of VIA Rail, and we all know that if we shut half of it down the rest of it will wither away very quickly. Not only are they interested in only the so-called bottom line but they seem to be hell-bent on developing the great American model for this country.

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I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, the American model will not work for Canada. It may work for the Americans. If it works for them, leave it for them, but it will not work here. It is not going to work to destroy subsidies in this country. It is not going to work to destroy VIA Rail. It is not going to work to privatize the post office. You can go on and on. The government is on the wrong track and some day soon even it will understand it. I am hoping that it will not be too late because if it continues much longer, there will be nothing left of this country.


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend my colleague on an excellent address in the House of Commons. I am sorry there were not more Tory Members of Parliament from the west to hear this.
I have a press clipping saying that the Keystone Producers of the province of Manitoba wrote to the Prime Minister on September 15 demanding that this government keep this program in place so that the farmers are able to obtain their interest free cash advances on grains in storage. I also have a letter from the Manitoba Com Producers Association asking the same thing. They say that the program has always been an excellent method of increasing the orderly marketing of corn in Manitoba and prevents any dumping of com in the fall thereby having shortages of this commodity in the spring. It is only in recent years that corn has been developed as a cash crop and a crop alternative for Manitoba. I would like to ask my colleague what in his opinion the impact of the withdrawal of these interest free loans will be to the producers in Manitoba.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, the impact is going to be a very negative one. The Conservatives across the way do not have to take my word for it. In fact, they do not even have to take the word of any of us on this side of the House. All they have to do is listen to farmers and farm organizations.
It was pointed out very forcefully in this House just yesterday that 19 producer organizations met in Winnipeg and decided to make a plea to the Prime Minister to put a stop to this, to continue the advance payments interest free. When my hon. friend from Lambton- Middlesex asks what kind of impact it is going to have, I
cannot think of better testimony and a better answer than the one that comes from the producer organizations. They are in the front lines. They are at ground level. They know exactly what is going to happen. They know the impact and they say the impact is going to be horrific. It is going to be terrible. It is not in the interests of the farm community. In fact, one of the ministers is sitting over there right now, and I think all he has to do is consult some of his friends in the provincial government of Manitoba. The agriculture minister there has said it is not in the interests of the farm community. It is not in the interests of Canada to discontinue this program. If they would only listen, they would know that the impact of this bill is going to be very, very negative.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this bill. I guess I am like many people in Canada and probably in the House of Commons. If you scratch me very hard, you will find a farmer, and if not, at least a farmer's son, and I guess I fall into that category.
My grandfather farmed in the Eastern Townships in Quebec, moved to Alberta and farmed a very prosperous farm in central Alberta near Camrose. The farm was then run by my uncle and now it is run by my cousin. The next generation has already purchased the farm next to him so that the Nodan farm in Duhamel is growing.
I think that is typical of Canadians. Nearly all of us come from farm families and therefore we continue to have an interest in the viability of agriculture, not only because it is one of our major economic bases but because we have friends, relatives and families who are dependent on the viability of agriculture.
I am a little bit bewildered by this bill because what I have learned about the introduction of legislation and programs by the Conservatives since I have been here is that they take a problem and they make it worse. Certainly in the areas I am most familiar with, social services and affordable housing, they do everything they can to take a problem and see if they can make it into a total and utter mess, with high interest rates and cut-backs in services. Here is one area where there appeared to be no problem, so I thought at least they would leave it alone. They have followed their rule that if there is a problem they intervene and make it worse, and now they are starting to say that if there is no problem, they still intervene and create a problem.
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In talking with my cousin and his wife, because now in agriculture fanners farm as couples, I have learned that being a farmer now is much more complex than it was when I grew up and used to go to my grandfather's farm and then my uncle's farm. A farmer now has to be many, many things.
First, he has to be an agriculturalist. There are new crops that he must keep up with, new pesticides, new weed control, new methods of farming. It is no longer the simple thing it used to be 50 years ago in Canada when you knew what crops you were going to plant, what you were going to do in the spring and the fall. Now you have to look at new agricultural methods.
Most of the more successful farmers have gone to agricultural college or use very heavily the services of Agriculture Canada to keep them up to date as agriculturalists. Farmers also have to be mechanics and equipment operators. No longer is the equipment simple.
I can remember assisting my uncle with the old traditional John Deere tractor. Heck, even I could be a John Deere tractor mechanic. Now, in talking with my cousin, I find that you have a $75,000 or $100,000 machine that is very, very complex, that has computer controlled parts. It takes a skilled equipment operator to run it and a great deal of skill to maintain it.
The farms, if they are to be viable, have machine shops that are the envy of the old traditional machine shops in small towns. This is increasingly necessary as the small towns are disappearing. On my grandfather's farm, it used to be that between that farm and Camrose there were three small towns. Now there is nothing. If there is a breakdown, you either have to be able to repair your equipment yourself or be prepared to go all the way to Camrose, Wetaskiwin or one of the other major centres to have equipment repaired. Farmers just cannot do that. In addition to being an agriculturalist, you must also be a mechanic and an equipment operator.
Most important, both Doug and Irma tell me that they have to be business people. Running farms is now a complicated business. They must deal with complicated issues like cash flow, debt, debt ratio and advance payments. They must have lines of credit. It has become a complex business enterprise.
One reason the big corporate farms are too frequently taking over is because they have the business expertise. Too often in Canada we have seen the family farm disappear, not because the family farmer is not a good agriculturalist or a good machinist, but because he does
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not have the skills and the background in the business area.
This is what this bill is all about. This bill amends a piece of legislation that has allowed farmers to act as business people and to be able to deal with problems of debt and cash flow which are the major things that have got people into difficulty.
The government has said that there is an urgency to get this bill passed. I think it has already been mentioned that the urgency is of its own creation. There was a piece of legislation in place with which everybody was quite happy. It has been suspended and now there is an urgency to get this new piece of legislation through. It is true that farmers are now in a position where they are unable to get loans.
This bill simply has the net effect of doing away with the advance payments for crops, because if you can borrow and you have to pay interest, you have a line of credit at the bank and the bank will do it. It simply privatizes the whole exercise. It takes the government out of making the business part of farms economical in the sense that you are now a part of the total free market. If your line of credit is good at the bank, so be it. If your line of credit is a little shaky, maybe you will not get moneys advanced and then you are in the position where you cannot go ahead and put in your crops or do the necessary things to make your farm profitable. We have the government saying that there is an urgency while the farmers are saying, "Listen, the only urgency is that you created a problem".
One of the other things that I think is very significant in looking at the whole question of debt is that in 1971 there was about $11 billion owed by farmers in Canada. This figure was up to $18 billion as of 1986, which is a dramatic increase of 61 per cent. One has to remember that this was in a period when farms were viable economically. It was in one of our better periods for farms. We are now in a situation where there are problems with the financial viability of our farms.
Again, in 1987, the Senate report said that of the 22,500 farmers who borrowed money, there was a full 12 per cent who were in financial difficulty. In British Columbia, my home province, nearly one in 12 farmers who were borrowing were in financial difficulty. So it makes a vital difference to the business operation of the farm as to whether you are borrowing interest free, or whether you are borrowing an advance on your crops, non-interest free.

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At least the Conservatives can take credit for this bill hitting every region of Canada equally. It is devastating to the com and soybean producers in Ontario, to the market gardeners in Quebec, to the grain farmers on the prairies and certainly to farmers in British Columbia, including farmers in Surrey North.
I am delighted to be able to tell people that although my riding is considered an urban riding, it has a big agricultural finger to it that includes a lot of what we consider market gardening, boards; the B.C. Coast Vegetable Growers Co-op, The Island Vegetable Growers Co-op and the Interior Vegetable Growers Co-op. All of these boards are saying the same type of thing, that this bill not only distracts from the financial viability of the farms, but it is hurting the marketing system.
In Ontario it is going to force farmers to deliver their corn or soybeans as early as possible in order to get cash flow. If deliveries can be spread out over different periods of time, particularly in the spring, there would not be shortages.
In the prairies the whole marketing system has become very complex. I grew up in many little prairie towns around Calgary. Most of those prairie towns do not now exist. We had 100 people at a family reunion on my grandfather's farm two summers ago and the last elevator was being boarded up at Duhamel. What the whole town has stood for since the turn of the century has basically gone. A lot of it has to do with the grain marketing system. It has been consolidated into larger centres. The number of storage facilities on farms has increased dramatically.
One of the things I should have mentioned is that the farmer, at least on the prairies, not only has to be an agriculturalist, a machinist and a business person, he has to be an elevator operator.
Marketing is very important. The marketing system can only accommodate 40 per cent of the crops. There has to be some mechanism where the storage and the delivery is evened out over a longer period of time. There has been an attempt to encourage the marketing
so that there is less and less grain put into large storage facilities, but it is brought to the elevators and marketed when the transportation systems can accommodate it. The whole marketing and movement of agricultural products has become a very complex system in Canada.
The farm and marketing organizations say that one of the spin-offs in this bill is that it is going to make it that much more difficult to maintain the orderly marketing of farm products, and not only for grains. The same thing is true in vegetables. People are going to be forced, in order to get cash, to deliver to markets at an inopportune time.
The funny thing about this bill which I have also mentioned, is that it follows the Conservative tradition of, "If it is broken, make it worse; if it is not broken, let's create a problem". But also it follows the Tory tradition that nearly all of the Tories are opposed to it.
At Conservative meetings farmer after farmer and person after person representing organizations stood up and clearly denounced this measure. Yet what seems to happen is that the style of government that is being developed in Canada is, if it is not a problem, let's make a problem; if the government's actions are opposed by the Canadian public, by the people affected, and by the bulk of the people within the Tory party, that only makes it that much more gung-ho to go ahead. I just do not understand it.
I and the New Democratic Party are opposed to this, and we are opposed to it for three or four fundamental reasons. One, it makes the family farm less viable. We want to protect a way of life in Canada that allows families to stay on their farms. That is what has built this country, and made it unique. We do not want to get into a situation where the only people who can manage farms are the big financial corporate farms. It hurts the family farms. It hurts the consumers because it interrupts the marketing, whether those consumers be from marketing boards for farm vegetables or are international consumers. In our grains, which is a major part of our export trade, we are disrupting the consumer pattern and it hurts the smooth marketing of farm products.
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Finally, it does nothing of any substance toward the reduction of the debt. It is laughable. What is the saving, $27 million or $28 million? If the government would drop the interest rate one percentage point, it would save ten times that amount. This is absolutely ridiculous. We are creating havoc within a vital sector of our economy to save an amount of money that is almost insignificant.
I notice the Speaker is signalling time. I will close with this final comment. I urge the government to reconsider this bill. Family farms have built Canada. I hope that you are not the people that destroy them.


Mr. Crawford:: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member for clarification. He mentioned vegetables, especially pertaining to red beets, carrots and tomatoes. Would he please clarify the advance payments and the interest paid on those crops?


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: I am afraid I cannot give details as to what the advance payments were on specific crops such as beans. I know that in British Columbia, with the vegetable marketing co-ops, the advance payment is a significant part of the cash flow. In dollar terms I know that the total amount of borrowing is $11 billion, but in terms of the total borrowings with the bill the amount went from about $35 million in 1957-58 to $330 million in 1980-81, and up to $563 million in the last crop year. I do not have before me the breakdown by agricultural section.
I know that in all of the various farming communities it is not the total amount, it is what it means to the individual farmer. Whether a very, very large farmer borrows $10,000 or $20,000 with interest or interest free is insignificant. But to a lot of our family farmers the ability to borrow $30,000 interest free is of exceptional significance.
So while I cannot give details by agricultural section as to the amounts of the advances, I know that individual farmers, whether they be a market gardener, a farmer in Ontario growing grain or corn, or a farmer in Alberta, the ability to borrow money plays a significant part in his ability to keep operating.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of us in this country who see a disturbing pattern, and this particular bill, we believe, is a part of that pattern. The pattern that we see shutdowns at VIA Rail, the shutdown of post offices, cuts in the crop insurance program, cuts in
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regional development, and we could go on and on. There is this disturbing pattern.
The previous speaker alluded to the supply management system that we have in this country. I think he is concerned that the Conservative government will ultimately cripple the supply management system. I happen to believe that it is in peril because of government policy.
But there is something else, and this is the question I have for my hon. friend for British Columbia. I sort of smell a rat and I smell it from the point of view of the free trade agreement. The free trade agreement reminds one of harmonization and the level playing field, those types of things. Why would the government deliberately get rid of this program, at least the interest free portion of it which is a subsidy of a kind? It is not very expensive, only about $27 million. Why would the government eliminate this particular feature of the program just before it begins some serious subsidy negotiations with the Americans? I would like to ask my hon. friend whether he sees a pattern there with respect to the FTA.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: I think that there is no doubt that the free trade agreement permeates every move that the government makes. And yes, there are concerns that the free trade agreement, directly and indirectly, is going to attack our marketing boards and our management systems. I do not understand why at this time but the information I have American program to reduce or offset their equivalents in the 1989-90 year.
It seems that not only are we saying to the Americans that we will give them a level playing field but, if necessary because of the free trade agreement, we will give them more than a level playing field, we will give them an advantage. I think that that is what will seriously hurt us in the long run in Canada.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I want to comment on this bill and in particular to try to enlighten the Minister of Employment and Immigration, although it is virtually an impossible task to undertake, but I am always prepared to try for miracles, particularly for someone who is totally and completely abysmally ignorant about what is taking place in western Canada and conditions that pertain there.
Nevertheless, the House of Commons is a place where one must valiantly try his best to open up the closed minds that have been so dominant opposite. I think we all have read in our textbooks at one time or another about Chinese water torture, where drip by drip you wear down resistance, drip by drip you wear down the opposition to the point where they yell "surrender".

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That is a proper metaphor for what this government is doing to the agricultural community of Canada. Day by day, drip by drip, program by program, the agricultural community of this country is feeling the heavy hand of this government as it attempts to fundamentally restructure and reorganize the element of agriculture that has been built up over the last 100 years in this country. It is a design. One has to acknowledge that there is a certain implicit, if not nefarious agenda behind all these actions. It is simply to turn over agriculture to the corporate community of Canada, the big agrifarm system, to ensure that those who have given their support to the trade agreement and provided the contributions to their treasuries will find some satisfaction. The people who they can dine out with, who put on the tuxedos and get the high-priced tickets for the big dinners are the people who their agriculture policy is designed to meet.
We have seen, over the last couple of years, a whole series of decisions. Of course, this bill in itself represents perhaps one of the clearest examples of a direct attack specifically on the family farm itself.
It is an attack specifically on those smaller farmers who for years have been able to rely upon a combination of crops and activities but who need a cash flow, some sense of certitude there would be a cash flow so that they can do the bridge financing necessary to buy the seed and prepare the ground and to do all the necessary development for the next crop year. That is what the advance cash payments have provided. Year after year they provided a level of stability, a level of certainty and a level of planning into the food cycle.
I agree that the big corporate farm friends of the minister of grains and oilseeds do not need that. They have their own corporate reserves and their treasuries. The advance cash payments are not something that is essential to them, so of course, the immediate conclusion is to get rid of them. Why have a program that does not suit our friends, they say. Why do something that has its own social and economic implications but is not part of our universe, is not part of our little clique?
We have a government that does not govern for most Canadians. It governs for a small elite and the rest of us are abandoned. The rest are exiles in this country. They are simply part of a large, forgotten majority who does not feel that they have access to or any contact with the national Government of Canada.
One can imagine the dyspepsia in the stomachs of the ministers opposite because they realize all of a sudden that what they have been trying to do piece by piece in covert fashion is finally being exposed. Finally we are beginning to see that there is a master plan and that is to totally revolutionize and radicalize the system of agriculture in this country and that they are using a whole variety of instruments to achieve it. This bill is only one instrument, I would suggest to you,
I draw to your attention a series of developments that have taken place; the substantial increase in the grain freight rates, the cancellation of grain shipments to Churchill, the way in which it has niggardly provided a drought assistance program to the point where many farmers have yet to receive it or received only partial payments, the pull-out of certain stabilization programs and, one that I deal with on a day by day basis, the enormous problems being faced in the area of trade.
Agriculture in this country is an export market. As a country we have taken some real pride in that. Our agriculture has led export markets and has made fortunes for this country over the years for everybody, city dweller and farm dweller alike.
That is perhaps the area which has proven to be most vulnerable, most under attack, most susceptible to the kind of wrenching that is taking place. Look what happened. The minister of grains and oilseeds could not wait for the ink to dry on the free trade agreement before he blew out the Wheat Board on its responsibility for oats. The haste with which he did it was not even polite. It was not even a polite burial. He could hardly contain his glee when he ran off to immediately undermine the responsibility of the Wheat Board in that crucial area.
Then, of course, we have what I think stands as one of the great big lies of our time. I have sat in the House now since we have opened and listened to the Minister of Agriculture and the minister of grains and oilseeds saying-and I applaud their theatrics-with a straight face, with the solemnity of a Baptist preacher, that when it comes to the decision on GATT dealing with yogurt and ice cream it has nothing to do with free trade.
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Somehow they have convinced themselves, or are certainly trying to convince Canadians, that it has nothing to do with free trade. And yet I went back into Hansard, a useful record for Canadians to recognize, and I can quote to you the statements made by the former minister of agriculture, since retired, out and retire. Ete stood up in the House and said: "Now I recognize and I realize that taking the tariffs off these agricultural products will create a real threat to the marketing system". He said: "However, I have a solution for you, a solution that is airtight, guaranteed. We will put import controls on these products".
The former minister of agriculture fully recognized that the free trade agreement, by bringing to zero the tariff level for a wide range of imports, was going to put under real attack the market supply system and particularly the daily industry. But he knew that he could probably get through the election, aided by that multimillion dollar propaganda campaign, the great lie that somehow import controls would protect dairy farmers across Canada, particularly in Quebec, Ontario and other places.
Well, certain members on this side challenged that and said that it just will not work that well. As is so often the case, the questions we raised have become the reality and the truth of today. The fact of the matter is that they knew it would never work. They knew it was a placebo. They knew it was a subterfuge all the time. But rather than simply admitting what a dangerous, serious threat it raises to the entire supply and management system of Canada, they are now saying, "Oh, the GATT made me do it", somehow ignoring the fact that the free trade agreement was the catalyst, was the initiation, was the beginning of the process bringing the supply and management field to its destruction. What sophistry, what complete and total sophistry.
Of course, let us not stop there. I know that the Minister of Employment and Immigration is now leaving so she can go to the confessional booth and get off her conscience the sins that have been committed against the agricultural community of Canada. I would say a few Hail Marys more because there is more to come, Madam Minister.
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Let us talk about the pork decision, another matter of uncertainty for the farmers. We heard in this House from 1984 to 1988 the former Minister of Agriculture and others say don't worry, and we had the Canadian pork producers out there on the barricades fighting for free trade. Why? Because they believed and were told that there would be no problem, they had guaranteed access to the U.S. market. They said that free trade gives you guaranteed access.
I can remember the Prime Minister coming to western Canada and saying that the farmers would have to support free trade because it is the only way that the government could guarantee against U.S. harassment, and the multitudes rose up and said "Hallelujah, we've been saved".
Except, like Jimmy Swaggart and all the other fraudulent evangelists who have been defrocked over the last year, so has the Prime Minister, and his great call for salvation for the Canadian farmer has once again been exposed as simply one more false promise.
He knew again that the Americans, while we were off negotiating the free trade agreement, were also running through Congress a new trade bill and that trade bill carried new measures that gave U.S. farmers even more protection, more right to harass us, and that those measures were going to be cemented in to the free trade agreement. But did the government caution the farm community, did it warn the farmers what was coming? Did it say, "Look folks, I'm sorry, but the American Congress is out passing a new piece of legislation. That legislation is going to give them the right to tackle all our subsidy programs, our stabilization programs so we are going to have to stop the negotiations for a moment and see how we can provide for better protection". No, it went ahead, and the government signed the deal in full knowledge that it was committing the crime of dishonesty against the Canadian farmer.
Now we have a pork decision that comes out and we hear all these great cries of alarm from ministers opposite that we must appeal to the GATT. Is it not remarkable, is it not incredible, that only a few short months ago the government was saying "We don't need the GATT. We are going to sign a free trade agreement, that will give us secure access"? Now it is saying "God, I hope GATT can save us". We know that under the free trade agreement the only basis upon which we can challenge U.S. decisions now is whether they fairly administered their own trade law. We have to give Americans credit. They are honest, they are fair, they are administering their own trade law as they see fit.

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If that was not enough we come back to the latest row, U.S. fears Durum imports. Here is another little hooker in U.S. trade legislation that no one quite talked about, that the previous Minister of Agriculture or the Minister for International Trade did not quite get around to talking to our farm community about. That is that under the U.S. trade legislation, commodity groups, producer groups and industrial groups now have the right to petition the department of commerce when they see an export from Canada that they do not like. They can petition the U.S. commerce department to do their research for them, to do all the work for them. It is cost free harassment. Why would they not use it? Why would they not say "Well, I can carve out a bigger market for myself by pushing out Canadian exports and I can get the U.S. government to do the work for me. I do not have to pay anything, I just fill out a petition". Why would they not do it?
When we presented exactly the same case on the floor of this House when we debated the trade bill, our minister of trade said that we do not need it because we are going to defend our farmers.
The North Dakota Wheat Association is now taking a petition to the U.S. department of commerce to look at Canadian Durum imports. It is having all the research done for them. If our farm community is going to combat that it will have to raise a couple of million dollars to pay for those high priced Washington lawyers and lobbyists to make the case.
Is it any wonder that there is a great sense of disillusionment, one end of this country does not know where to turn.
I do not want to depress you further, Mr. Speaker, because I know you are deeply sensitive about these issues, but the fact of the matter is that it does not stop there either. As part of this new program, the new renascence for agriculture in Canada, we now have the Canadian delegation at Geneva tabling a new negotiating paper on agriculture subsidies. Let us put aside for a moment all the protestations of the Minister of Agriculture and the minister of trade that they are here to defend the Canadian farmer.
What they are negotiating as our senior officials at Geneva tabled is what they call a "tariffication program", which would lump together all of the subsidy programs and give it a tariff equivalent. Then they would negotiate how we can reduce that total bundle of tariff programs. The transportation subsidy programs, grain stabilization, drought assistance and advance cash payments programs-everything-are going to be put in the same bundle. A value is going to be attached to it, and then we are going to negotiate with all the other countries to bring those values down. What that means is that we put every single agricultural support program up for bargaining, up for negotiation.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, is that an honest approach for the Canadian farmer? Is that what we are saying to them? I suppose, if you are one of those big agri-corporate farm organizations with multi-billion dollar markets around the world, that is not going to bother you too much. But if you are a farmer with a section or two in western Canada or in southwestern Ontario, growing some com or with a dairy basis, it does bother you. All of a sudden you find out that you cannot pay your bills any more and that the kind of support program that you relied upon, like advance cash payments or grain transportation programs or whatever it may be, simply will not be there.
What do you tell your kids who want to keep on farming? What do you say to your son or your daughter? Do you say: "Stay in the farming business. It is a great opportunity"? Or, do you say: "Maybe you should become a chartered accountant so you can go to work for the government trying to figure out how the GST is going to really mess up the Canadian economy"? That is the biggest employment opportunity that Canadians will face. That is what we are going to tell them to do.


John Harvard: Be a tax cop.


Lloyd Axworthy: Oh, sure. My friend from Winnipeg St. James says what we could probably do is hire all of those people who have to leave the farm to become tax policemen, or maybe go to work for the banks that are now foreclosing on the mortgages. We can have an army of people out there determining how they can wring further every seed from the lemon of a farm community in this country. That is the new Tory plan.
October 4, 1989

Once they get the prices down, once they get the farmers surrendering, once they get the sense of frustration and hopelessness on a high level, that is when they can move in and buy up those farms at cheap prices. That is when they can begin reorganizing and restructuring the land into a corporate system. All of a sudden, we will have a new system in this country.
Mr. Speaker, I simply put forward to you that that is not the only way it has to be done. There was a time in this country when agriculture was not simply measured by the cost accountant's calculations. One did not bring out the slide rule or the computer, as we witnessed today from the Minister of Transport. We believed that there was a certain sanctity in federal presence and programs providing a stability and underpinning to certain kinds of communities. We believed that one of the reasons for maintaining the concept of a family farm was because it was the keystone of a way of life, a keystone of smaller communities and towns and villages. That is what is disappearing from this country.
Let me talk about a relative of mine who is a school trustee just outside North Battleford. Sitting down over lunch with her just recently and talking about what it is like to be a school trustee in a rural township, the crucial, critical question was: How do you keep a science teacher in high school knowing that you are going to have to increase the mill rate by seven or eight points and farmers cannot pay it? Yet you know that if the science teacher goes, your own kids will not get the same level of education as they would in a town or the city. This is the anguish they go through to make that crucial choice of how to keep one science teacher in a small town. It becomes for them not a statistic. It is not a calculation that you run through Statistics Canada to obtain what makes sense. It is a human problem. It is a real problem. That decision, once made, means a disappearance of a way of life.
It is the same every time the government pulls out of a post office or says: "The train will not stop here any more" and reduces even further the federal presence and activity, a sense that there is a government that is trying at least to give some elementary sense of underpinning to those communities. They are going to give up. They are giving up. They are leaving the farms by the
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hundreds of thousands, because they no longer feel that there is any real hope out there.
This legislation that we are debating today is not simply an isolated action, drawn to try to reorganize or rationalize the farm program. It is one of the most sinister and direct attacks upon an important way of life and an important set of communities in this country. We are going to pay an enormous consequence for it.
How much longer this erosion or ravaging of the farm community can continue is hard to say. We do not know where it will stop and how it will continue. What we do know is that if legislation like this bill continues-and we are seeing more and more of it-there will be a further feeling of people being exiled in their own country, being abandoned by their own government and feeling that there is no longer a place for them to call themselves Canadians.


Mr. Mills:: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague who spoke so eloquently and specifically about the situation that is happening to the family farm in Canada. In representing an urban riding there is one thing my colleague touched upon that many people in urban ridings understand, that is the sanctity of life when there is a family living and working on a farm-the caring, the approachability, the passion, and the integrity of these families. Many of us who live in the city are looking for ways to help preserve the family farm.
My question is: What specific advice can you give to the millions of Canadians who care about the family farm? What actions can those of us who live in cities take to make sure the care, attention and support a national government must give to the family farm are activated again?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, it is a good question. It is one that has not been asked often enough by people who live in our urban areas. Too quickly we forget our roots. Most of us have migrated as my family did. My grandparents were farmers in Saskatchewan, one or two generations removed. We forget very quickly when we come to a city that we are not that far away and how much of our own well-being in the country is dependent upon the continued existence of a stable farm food system.

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I think the first priority all Canadians must be asked to accept is that we must have a security of food supply. That is where I say to my hon. friend from Toronto that the interest of a downtown resident of Toronto is as crucial as it is for the farmer in North Battleford or in southwestern Ontario.
If we lose that sense of security that we can control and manage our own farm food supply, that we will not be dependent on other monopolies, we will lose not just on the price side but we will also lose something on the environmental side. We will be encouraging the ravaging of the forests of Latin America to provide beef or the incredible ravaging of the lands of southwestern United States which have been totally denuded because of the use of chemicals and pesticides. There is an integrated linkage or cycle that we all belong to.
When you pick up your com wrapped in cellophane in a package in your supermarket, it is a decision that if you did it in a different way and were prepared to pay a proper price you would not listen to these savage prophets on the other side who say: "If we get rid of supply management we can have cheaper food". Yes, maybe this month, but tiy next year or the year after.
It must be recognized that right now in Canada we have one of the most bountiful breadbaskets in the world. We also have been very careful because of our tender ecology and our fragile environment to build into it a system that supports farmers against the cycles of world markets and bad climate. That is what we have to get people to accept. It may cost more in terms of pennies, but in the long run we will save thousands of dollars in terms of what it means to be Canadian.


MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed the following bills without amendment: Bill C-6, an act to amend the Radio Act and certain other acts in consequence thereof; Bill C-17, an act to amend the Customs lariff; and Bill C-19, an act to amend the Canadian Exploration and Development Incentive Program Act.



THE ROYAL ASSENT

[Stage Direction]

Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:
Government House Ottawa
October 4, 1989
Sir,
I have the honour to inform you that the Honourable Beverley McLachlin, Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, in her capacity as Deputy Governor General, will proceed to the Senate chamber today, the 4th day of October, at 4.45 p.m., for the purpose of giving the Royal Assent to certain Bills.
Yours sincerely Jean M. Sevigny Deputy Secretary, Operations



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[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-36, an act to amend the Advance Payments for Crops Act and the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act, be read a second time and referred to a legislative committee; and the amendment of Mr. Foster (p. 4275).
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: On questions or comments, the hon. member for Winnipeg St. James.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, the remarks of the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre touched a chord, because I can say unequivocally that all of us have a lot at stake when it comes to the farm community. It is not just farmers or the small towns but it is people like the hon. member next to me who comes from Toronto.
I grew up on a farm in southern Manitoba. I know what it is like to go through a harvest period, getting up at five o'clock in the morning, getting the machinery ready for the work on the land during the day, milking cows, going out and combining all day. If you did not have dew on the grass, if you did not have dew on the stubble, you could perhaps combine until midnight, one o'clock or two o'clock in the morning. We would get perhaps two or three hours of sleep so that we could get up early in the morning and go to work and repeat the cycle.
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What I am getting at is that farmers do not do it just for fun or for just making a living. It is a lifestyle. They believe in it. They enjoy it. They want it to continue. It is this lifestyle that they are trying to continue to hold on to.
When they go out during the harvest period or during the spring planting, they work perhaps 16, 18 or 20 hours a day some days. They do not ask for over time. They do not ask for an extra stipend. They do it because they love to work on the land.
I have a question for the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre. It has to do with eliminating the interest free portion of the advance cash payments system. It seems to me that the government is throwing away an advantage or throwing away something in the forthcoming subsidy negotiations. To me, this is a subsidy.
What the government seems to be doing is saying: "We will take off all the subsidies, all the assistance that we give to farmers, and then we will go to the bargaining table". To me, that is putting the cart before the horse. I would like the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre to comment on that.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I suppose if you have watched this government negotiate in the last five years you would not be surprised. Everything is done backward. Somehow there seems to be a negotiating style which is that if I surrender right from the start everything I possibly have, maybe you will think me a nice person and therefore not tromp on me. It is a reverse style. It is not standing up, using the integrity of your own existing programs or defending them. It is simply looking at the agenda.
I would just like to provide members of the House with this advice. If they want to know what is next on the agenda, I refer them to the executive order that was passed by the U.S. President as part of the free trade deal. All the programs that the Americans identified as being unfair trade practices committed by Canada, left over from the free trade agreement, are the very things that this government is now eliminating: regional payments on unemployment insurance, grain stabilization
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and advance payments. It is all in the American document.
I simply say to you, Mr. Speaker, if we want to know what the negotiating style and agenda and blueprint for the Mulroney government is, we have to read what the U.S. President wrote a year ago.


Eugène Bellemare: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct my question to the previous speaker. I chanced to sit on a municipal council for a short while. The mayor of the council was a dairy farmer. He used to take a great amount of time to explain to me about the farm since I was from the city and I knew very little about it. I paid great interest to what he was saying.
He suggested that, the way things are going, perhaps in 20 years from now the dairy farmers like other farmers will most likely lose their farms because of the policies that we see. We could become a country where the farms would be owned by huge international companies like Shell Oil, for example, and the Canadian farmers of today would be the workers on those farms and no longer the owners. More and more we would see the farms become extremely huge and, as I said, owned by these international companies. I wonder if the member would make a comment on that suggestion.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, the prognosis is correct. Unfortunately the time frame is much shorter. I wish that we had 20 years because it would mean that we could get rid of this government, bring in a proper government, and try to repair the damage they have done.


Mr. Cardiff:: You had your chance.


Lloyd Axworthy: We did a good job for the dairy farmers in this country. What has happened is that because of the decision on ice cream and yogurt that was precipitated by signing the free trade deal, we are now faced with an immediate threat to the entire supply and market system of the dairy industry in Canada. That is not 20 years down the track; that is a month or two down the track. If that decision happens, then the structure of the dairy system that we have built up in this country will go into shambles. That is why time is of the essence.

October 4, 1989
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Mr. Jim Jordan (Leeds-Grenville):: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if my comments are going to conflict with the visit from the Senate or not. If they do, I hope you will give me the balance of my time.
I am pleased to take this opportunity to speak in reference to one of Canada's primary industries, that of agriculture. I want to zero in specifically on this bill and perhaps do it from a slightly different angle than what we have been hearing. As you know the bill will become part of the APCA-and most farmers know what that means-in addition to the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act.
I am particularly interested in the effect of the changes that this bill will impose on the industry and the fallout that it might have on the economy of the country. I am hearing great wails these days from the implement manufacturers and the implement distributors. There is just no business there these days, they tell me, because of the great uncertainties that exist in the industry.
The main purpose of the APCA was nothing more than a method of encouraging orderly marketing of goods. That staple arrangement was a good one. It is an excellent one. Most farmers appreciated it. The marketing program that we have now in place without any amendments has been very successful. It has put some order into the marketing of crops to the benefit of everyone.
If a producer can afford to put his crop on the market over a period of time, and that is what this bill would allow him to do if it is not changed, he can be assured of a better price. It is as simple as that. It is an old story. When there is a glut of produce on the market at harvest time the price goes down, naturally. But if the producer can store his product, keep it for a while, he can normally show, under normal conditions, a much better return on his investment. The present arrangement is a good one. It is an excellent arrangement.
It is not only good for the producer at harvest time; it is a good arrangement for consumers. It assures the consumer of a good supply of quality food year round. That is what it provides for.
I see some similarity in the way of orderly marketing that this provided for and the effect that it has on stabilizing the market with milk marketing boards. I think there is a tremendous similarity there. I just want to expand on that a bit.
The same good effects are realized with an orderly system of marketing dairy products. It supplies the consumer with an excellent source of supply year round at a good price.
I do not think anyone is determined to put the fanner out of business, even those on the other side of the House, but I really wonder sometimes if they have an appreciation of the dilemma that is starting to set in, in the industry, a dilemma brought about recently with a couple of decisions which they have been alluded to from all directions here this afternoon.
I will talk about those two recent decisions just for a second or two. Then I want to pursue, if I may, how I see the need to stabilize the agricultural industry and develop briefly the good effect that stabilization has on any industry, whether it be milk or produce of other grain or com. A stable industry is the best industry for all concerned-the producer, the consumer and the processor.
The supply management marketing system which I think is under some degree of threat right now-and I know dairy farmers agree with me on that one-in the dairy industry like the APCA is just another way, a proven way, and the best way for all concerned. Again the supplier, consumer and processor-everybody was happy with that controlled marketing system. It was the envy of the world.
Let us examine, just for a minute-and I can remember these days-the system that existed in the dairy industry before we had an organized marketing board. Anyone who was ever close to a farm 35 or 40 years ago will have to agree with what I am going to say. You can recall perhaps the flow of milk hitting the market varied. It depended on many factors. Many of those factors were out of the control of the individual farmer. It depended on the season. It depended on the feed. It depended on the weather. Many things could affect the supply of milk that was on the market on a given day or in a given week. It was a terribly unsettling situation for anyone who wanted to make a career out of farming. It was just too risky.
Most of the factors that I have mentioned affecting supply were beyond the control of the individual farmer. Somebody had to come in. Somebody had to impose some system on to it to put some order into it, or no one would stay in the industry.
October 4, 1989

As a result, because of the flow, because of the highs and the lows, there was a tremendous instability in the market. There was too much of the product at one time, followed along weeks later where there was a shortage. You can imagine the way that the price would be following the supply. When there was an abundance on the market of course the price would drop. When there was a shortage on the market the price would go up. Can you imagine anybody in the industry trying to decide that they were going to expand their industry with that kind of fluctuation in the market? It was just impossible to do.
There was no control then on the market at all, reflecting those great swings in supply, followed by dramatic rises in price, immediately followed when the supply became plentiful again with a fall out of the bottom of the market. As a matter of fact, there were times when you could not even give away the product. You pour it on the ground because there was no thought at that time that a marketing board would ever work. But the Liberal Government made it work. I think it is a credit to the former Liberal government under Eugene Whelan that set marketing boards on a path that they could follow. I find, as the days go by, that we are picking at those processes. We are picking at them through this proposed legislation. One by one the farmers are starting to fall under the pressure.
Without an orderly marketing system the problems just feed on themselves. Without stability in price farmers could not plan ahead. They could not advance their operations because of the uncertainties in their industry with the result that many got out. The problem was that it was too risky for them and occasionally too many would get out. Then you had the reverse effect of a shortage of supply and you were on the roller coaster again.
This bill puts some stability into the market. It is not an expensive proposition if you are talking about dollars. I really question the motive behind the government in tampering with that when it was a relatively inexpensive source of revenue. It was interest free. But why keep the program at all if you are going to pay interest on it? I am sure most progressive farmers would say: "Well, we will go to the bank and borrow our money there".
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The important thing in something as basic as food is that measures are needed to ensure a constant supply, a year-round constant supply of a good product at a good price. That is what this program was endeavouring to do. It would stabilize the market to allow a steady flow of produce into the market. This is so necessary when we are talking about something as basic as food. I do not think we should allow the basic supply of food to swing with the market, with the extremes that went with the market-place. It is just too important.
In stabilizing the market as it applies to the agricultural industry, whether it is grain or dairy product, it does not matter; the same support system is necessary and needed. It was appreciated by Canadian farmers. It is the best deal for all concerned.
To initiate programs where none exist now with this government seems to be a thing of the past. I am suggesting that the government could at least support the good programs that are in place. They are not expensive. I think everything possible should be done to see that they are protected because they have the effect of stabilizing a very important aspect in an industry in this country which is one of our basic programs.
That is what the program is designed to do. That is what it is all about. That is what it was doing. It does by making free interest loans available to farmers, allowing the farmer to release their crops onto the market in an orderly manner. Interest free loans allow farmers to do this. Otherwise, they would have to release their products onto the market as soon as they were harvested. We all know what the price would be at that point.
I am not sure if the processors and the multinationals would agree with me. I doubt very much if they would. They would like it very much if the cash strapped farmer would come with hat in hand, begging to sell his crops in a hurry because he is probably in the position where he has to get rid of his produce at bargain basement prices. You know the devastating effect that would have on the industry and on the individual farmer, even over a short period of time.
If the government could make some loan money available, the farmer would not be placed in that pressure situation where he must sell in order to stay afloat. That is what the concern of farmers has always been, the ability to stay afloat.

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What I am asking for is that the government try to appreciate the dilemma in which some farmers will find themselves and the effect that this will have on the industry.



ROYAL ASSENT

[Stage Direction]
A message was delivered by the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Deputy to the Governor General desires the immediate attendance of this honourable House in the Chamber of the honourable the Senate.
Accordingly, Mr. Speaker with the House went up to the Senate Chamber.
And being returned:
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that when the House went up to the Senate Chamber the Deputy Governor General was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the Royal Assent to the following Bills:
Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Radio Act and certain other Acts in consequence thereof-Chapter No. 17.
Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Customs Tariff-Chapter No. 18.
Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Canadian Exploration and Development Incentive Program Act -Chapter No. 19.



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[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-36, an Act to amend the Advance Payments for Crops Act and the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee; and the amendment of Mr. Foster (p.4275).
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Continuing debate with the Hon. Member for Leeds-Grenville.


Jim Jordan: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if the government appreciates the dilemma that the cutting out of this program, this ability to borrow money interest free, will put on farmers who are already very disillusioned about a couple of recent decisions.
They were given assurance through the free trade debate that ice cream, yogurt, and ice cream novelties as they are called were on the import control list so they were protected. That was a fallacy. The countervail on pork will come up again, I understand, on October 11. There is some sort of provision to have it appealed. We will see how they make out with that.
We must become more competitive internationally is the part that I take exception to when it comes to dealing with basic food supply. I can tell the members opposite that if they go toe to toe with the Americans in the dairy industry, they are going to lose. There is absolutely no question about that. I think it is significant that they appreciate that dilemma.
You do not need to go very far, about 10 or 12 hours drive from here, to see herds of cows which get milked three times a day. This was unheard of until recently. The cow is really a machine. They push feed through it and milk it. It is at the scale that Canadian farmers will not be able to compete with because things are largely out of their control. Good luck is a factor. It is great if you can get it consistently, but you cannot count on luck in the agricultural industry.
The only solution that I see for Canadian farmers is to get government assistance in developing government strategies to counteract that. That is the category in which I place this program. This is an excellent government strategy to counteract all the difficulties of trying to survive in the agricultural industry under our climatic conditions. Why then would you dispense with it? It is not, as I mentioned before, that expensive to maintain, and if it is going to keep some semblance of order in the agricultural community, why would you dispose of it?
We can support farmers by offering these programs which give them financial assistance until such time as they can market their products in an orderly fashion on an annual basis and hopefully be able to survive. Otherwise I see the multinationals moving in and buying the crops. They will buy the grain when it is harvested. Not because they need that grain or com at that particular time, that is not the point. They are not buying it because there is a need for it and because they have an immediate market for it. They are buying it because they are opportunists and they are taking advantage of the farmer
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who cannot weather it out because he is cash-strapped, and unless he is given some assistance he will soon be under. My plea to the government is that it try to appreciate the dilemma in which it is placing farmers in the climatic conditions under which farmers operate. The government must give the farmers some assistance and must not try to compete with the Americans in the dairy industry because I know who is going to lose.
If there is a program that is working these days, I think there is some moral obligation on the government to maintain that program. GATT said to put a freeze on some of these programs. GATT did not say to discontinue them. So I do not see any obligation on the part of the government to discontinue this program that is working. Leave it in place, support it, beef it up a little bit to help the farmer so he can survive.


Mr. McKnight:: Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to the member from Leeds-Grenville as he spoke, and to other members from his Party. I even heard the member for Winnipeg South Centre talking about the way that this government had reacted to pressures under the Free Trade Agreement.
Even his Party and farm organizations that had not supported this government in its free trade discussions and expanding the market-place for all Canadian products through free trade recognize and support GATT. The instruments that we believe, including free trade and GATT to benefit both agriculture and other manufactured products in Canada are a very necessary mixture.
The rulings that were discussed were rulings made by GATT. But unlike the member who spoke before I do not want to speak about something that I do not know anything about. I only want to speak about the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act as part of this bill.
The Liberal party, the Official Opposition, in assisting those farmers the Liberal member said needed assistance now, needed money now, has put forward a six-months' hoist as an amendment to delay the debate, to delay the implementation of this legislation that farmers want passed. That does not assist farmers. The Official Opposition has put forward a six-month delay
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when there are producers out there today who would like this bill passed tonight.


James Ross Fulton: Name one.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: The member from the New Democratic Party who comes from a wheat-producing area of northern British Columbia and the Queen Charlotte Islands wants me to name one. I can tell the hon. member that there are phone calls to the Department of Agriculture as well as phone calls to my office. I encourage every producer out there in western Canada to phone the Official Opposition, to phone those members of Parliament and tell them to stop this silliness of a six-month delay in legislation that will allow producers to receive cash advances at prime and in increased amounts, Mr. Speaker, from $30,000 to $250,000. What these members are putting forward is a delay in giving farmers an opportunity to receive cash advances on grain that they have produced.
The opposition is saying that this program will jeopardize orderly marketing. It will not jeopardize orderly marketing, because if people have an opportunity to receive a cash advance, then they are not forced into the open market. What the opposition is doing is forcing producers to go away from orderly marketing that we support in western Canada. They are saying, "Don't give them a cash advance. Delay it for six months". Then, Mr. Speaker, they will have to sell on the open market.
I ask the member this question. They will have an opportunity to receive increased amounts under the amendments, an opportunity for smaller producers, who, I am sure the member for the New Democratic Party knows, pay a larger interest. They have always said that the big guys get the breaks, the little guys don't. This allows a guarantee from the Government of Canada to the financial institutions, and they will be borrowing money as cheap or more cheaply than the large producers. Does he believe that that is good for small producers, or does he wish to force them into the open market system by not allowing this legislation to proceed for six months?

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Jim Jordan: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if the member is trying to run out the clock, but it took him a long time to tell us that he obviously does not understand the amendment. The amendment wants to delay changing the present legislation, withhold the amendments, because the farmer is just now harvesting his crop. He started out his year at seed time with the expectations, I suspect, that he would have access to this interest free money. If this legislation goes through without amendment at this time, he will no longer have this access to industry money. We are saying at this side of the House, delay that until at least we get through this harvest year, the crops are sold and the money is made available and then put it up again for discussion.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: On debate, the hon. member for Skeena.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on Bill C-36, and perhaps to educate the Minister of National Defence a little bit about the grain industry. One would have thought that someone from the Prairies would know something about the grain industry, but I suppose because I have one of the largest and most efficient grain elevators in the world in Prince Rupert, I have had an opportunity to learn a little more about grain than the minister has.
I might as well leap right off the top, Mr. Speaker, with what was quoted from The Western Producer. My friend from Prince Albert-Churchill River made note of it yesterday but certainly what the Conservative delegates, many of them farmers, had to say at the recent meetings on the Prairies are worth repeating here because the minister does not seem to understand what the implications are of wiping out the assistance that has been provided under the existing legislation through the government picking up interest costs and why that has added, not taken away, from orderly marketing of grains and crops.
They said despite official government optimism and selfcongratulations, conditions are bad down on the farm. And government policy is driving rural voters away from Conservatives, they warned.
There was scarcely a word of praise for past government performance or the new theology of market-oriented, subsidy-reduced farm policy being developed and promoted by agriculture minister Don Mazankowski.
As Mazankowski sat in the audience listening, delegate after delegate came to the microphone to complain about the state of the farm economy.
They complained about prices, high interest rates, uncertainty caused by government policy and the inequities of the drought program.
Russell Lakusta, of Wandering River in northeastern Alberta, complained that he cannot afford to turn his grain farm over to his son.
"Farmers are in very poor shape", he said. "If we don't get federal help, lower interest rates and get to the point where farmers break even - " At that point, his voice broke and the sentence trailed off.
Later the longtime Conservative said he does not find the government particularly sympathetic to the fanner's plight, despite the record of subsidies.
"I still think the government is sorry for the $3 billion they gave to us," he said in an interview. "I don't know why. I think if it hadn't been for Grant Devine's election, we wouldn't have gotten that either."
Farmer Bill Cole, from Ninette, Man., was equally blunt.
Fie was angry about the loss of the interest-free advance payment program this year and the way the drought payment was handled. Payments were late, administration too cumbersome and in too many cases, farmers are being asked to pay back thousands of dollars already received in interim payments, he said in an interview.
On his own farm, Cole received a $7 an acre interim payment and then, instead of the additional payment he expected to cover his bills, he received a notice from Ottawa that he had been overpaid by 52 cents an acre. He has to pay it back.
He went on to say:
"That program was a disaster", said Cole, a member of the executive-
The Conservative executive, Mr. Speaker-
-in grains minister Charlie Mayer's constituency organization.
This headline not only caught my colleague's eye, but it certainly caught mine because it said: "Rural PCs line up at convention to air their gripes". It goes on to say:
Conservative farm policies were attacked last week by rural delegates attending the Progressive Conservative national convention.
Here is what he had to say:
"I told Charlie last week to his face, you have two chances for re-election: slim and none."
Other delegates had other complaints.
A young Quebec farmer said the government should do more to help young people stay on the land.
October 4, 1989

An Ontario dairy fanner said reducing government regulation is not the answer.
A Prince Edward Island delegate warned that low prices and a lack of government action will send many family farms into the grasp of multinational, vertically-integrated food companies.
A southern Saskatchewan nurse said farmers are turning to alcohol, drugs and suicide because of poor conditions and a lack of government support.
I could go on, but let me deal with what some of the Conservative policies have been and what they have done.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Did you run out of Hansard, Jim?


James Ross Fulton: The members across the way are trying to get me going. They may live to regret it. This is the party over there that has been abandoning branch lines. What does that mean to farmers across western Canada and farmers in other areas of the country? What about the closing of elevators? The government members probably do not know that if you take all of the rail cars capable of handling grain and you take all of the elevators, including Prince Rupert, Churchill, and the Lakehead, that can only handle a small fraction, not even 40 per cent, of the grain coming off the prairies.
What they are suggesting with this amendment is that that grain kept on the farm should be encouraged to be pushed out on to the market as soon as possible because the farmers are the ones who are going to be left carrying the interest rate as it builds higher and higher and higher through the winter.
Government members are always wanting to talk about a level playing field, if they are talking to their American friends. We know where the pressure came from for this amendment. It came from Washington. This is not being suggested by producers nor is it being suggested by anyone across the prairies.
This will destroy orderly marketing. It does not give farmers in different areas in the country the same opportunity because they do not have the same access. They do not have the same branch lines. They do not have the same access to elevators. It undermines the Wheat Board, it undermines the quota on grain deliveries, and it undermines the pooling concept of pricing.
What other things have been happening on the prairies? We have seen the continued movement-first under the Liberals but now at an accelerating rate under
Government Orders
the Conservatives-of young people and long-time families off the farms in every single province in the country. We have seen the closing of schools, we have seen the collapse of much of the rural infrastructure that has made farming communities the vital driving force of this country, unlike most countries around the world. There is a real need for orderly marketing over as long a period as possible in order for farmers to get the best possible rate of return and also for this country to get the best rate of return in terms of balance of trade. This government is proposing to change the rules of the game once farmers have made certain calculations affecting this year and next year's operations.
Let us take a look at what precisely is being proposed here. These two programs provided producers of storable crops with interest-free government guaranteed loans at harvest time, based on a portion of the value of the crop up to $30,000 maximum, $60,000, and $90,000 in some circumstances, depending on partnerships and so on.
The producer was in effect able to sell part of his or her crop to pay bills even though the commodity stayed in his own bins or another storage facility. The loan was repaid as the crop was sold.
This Bill C-36, which replaces an earlier amending bill known as C-32, which the government withdrew in order to be enhanced, will make these loans interest bearing. The new maximum an individual producer can borrow is up to $250,000 and there is an interest guarantee in the event of loan default.
The Advanced Payments for Crops Act was initiated in 1977 and is essentially the eastern equivalent of its sister Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act. The APCA ensured the producers marketed their crops when prices were most favourable. Individual commodity groups and marketing boards administered the act on behalf of Agriculture Canada.
There is intense opposition to the cancellation of the interest free loan provision. The Ontario Com Producers Association, the OCPA and the Ontario Soy Bean Growers Marketing Board, the OSGMB, prepared briefs outlining their reasons for opposing the changes, proposals that have not been dealt with by anyone on the government side.

October 4, 1989
Government Orders
The OCPA says the program proved to be a major benefit in shifting corn sales from the autumn until later in the marketing year, thereby reducing the extent of export sales in the autumn and shortage-induced imports in later months. While the federal guarantee under a revised APCA would allow groups to borrow money at or slightly below prime, administration charges would mean an effective cost to producers at well above prime, providing no advantage over commercial sources of credit.
We know the pressure for this came from the U.S. and the Fraser Institute and these great think tanks this government relies on for cuts to VIA, for the clawback on pension and family allowance and for the cuts to UI.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: You are ad libbing, Jim. Get back to your text.


James Ross Fulton: We are looking forward to hearing from ministers on that side to seriously get up and debate the impact of their proposals.
My friend who was speaking a few moments ago was talking about the skulduggery involved with how this government has handled the whole question regarding yogurt and ice cream. We know how it has bungled and fumbled and misled farmers on that one. We know that that is the piece of wool that could unravel marketing boards in this country. There is not a dairyman in this country who does not know they were misled by the Conservatives during the trade debate and earlier this year.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Wool comes from sheep, not cows.


James Ross Fulton: Those same groups point out there is no offsetting reduction for the 1989-90 crop year in the U.S. loan program, the American equivalent to the APCA for grains and oilseeds.
After conducting a cost benefit summary for the 1986-87 and 1988 crop years, the OCPA calculates benefits to the producer to average, expressed as value increase of $4.54 and $36.30 for each tonne respectively, for a total dollar figure of $2,044,826 and $16,796,423. At the same time the interest cost to Agriculture Canada was $1,175,976 in 1986-87 and $1,121,022 in 1987-88.
The cash advance meant a value increase of $8.79 and $60.73 a tonne for soybean producers in these two crop years, or a value of $1,523,932 and $10,716,590 respectively. It cost the government $759,817 and $773,050.
Users of the APCA and major farm groups want the current interest free program to be extended for this crop year with discussions held to determine the impact of changes on the farm community. Many producers had planned their finances with the assumption that the money would be available and they had been left in the lurch. This is something the government members do not really want to talk about. I am glad to see the Minister responsible for Grains and Oilseeds here now. Perhaps he can respond to what was going on at the convention regarding Mr. Cole. He is from Charlie's own executive in his constituency. He said:
I told Charlie last week to his face, you have two chances for
re-election: slim and none.
We will be looking forward to hearing how he is going to respond to that one.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: That is what you said about the government in 1988, Fulton.


James Ross Fulton: We will see. My vote went up.
Users of the APCA and major farm groups want the current interest free program to be extended for this crop year. Many of them, as I said a moment ago, have been left in a lurch.
Horticultural groups say the changes will force vegetable producers to market their crops early in the season when prices are low. Putting all this product on the market will force prices even lower. Union des produc-teurs agricoles suggests that these low prices will trigger stabilization payments which could get producers in countervailable difficulty with the U.S.
Well, what about consumers? Let us think about it for a moment. It is great for a short burst to get a real good buy on some tomatoes or cucumbers or turnips or potatoes or whatever, but the government does not seem to have thought very carefully through what that means to the producer. What does it mean to the producer? This will be a great boon, a great boondoggle to California and a lot of the mid-west states which have a much longer growing season.
Once again, we can see where all this came from: the trade debate. The government side never wanted to talk about the reality of our geography and our climate, but limiting the period within which farmers can sell their produce does only one thing, it drives down the price and it makes farms less viable. It is a very simple fact that the Conservatives seem incapable of understanding.
October 4, 1989

Of course, the Conservatives have changed who they are after as voters. They do not really give a damn about farmers any more. They do not give a damn about northerners. Who are they really after? They are after the yuppie vote. That is who they are after.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: That's the NDP vote.


James Ross Fulton: The Minister of Defence, in promoting low-level flights in Labrador, is certainly not interested in the votes of Newfoundlanders. He certainly is not interested in the human rights of Inuit, but he thinks that the yuppie voters in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver might vote for him.
The Minister of Defence has not cut back on any of his expenditures and he has certainly never stood up in this House to stand up for the farmers on the prairies. We on this side certainly look forward to hearing him stand up and vote against a stupid bill like C-36 which is harming the very people that he claims to represent.


Mr. Funk:: He is turning plough shares into jets.


James Ross Fulton: Selling all his products so soon after harvest will short the market for Quebec's 12 year round crops such as turnip, onion and cabbage. Supply will run out in March and consumers will have to buy imported U.S. produce and pay higher prices.
The Prairie Grain Advance Payment Act is older than the APCA, having started back in the 1957-58 crop year. It is administered by the Canadian Wheat Board. By giving producers of board grains their money up front and hence an incentive to deliver their grain in a more orderly fashion throughout the crop year as the board asks for deliveries of grades and kinds of grain in demand, the program helped to solve the storage problem and the handling system.
The amount advanced to farmers through the PGAPA has fluctuated over the years, but in the 1957-58 crop the government advanced $35 million to producers. By 1980-81, this had risen to $333 million and in the 1987-88 crop year to $563 million in loans. Administration costs for the same crop year amounted to $1 million according to the Wheat Board 1987-88 Annual Report.
Government Orders
The continuing closure of grain elevators has left the system with less than 40 per cent capacity. Hence, killing the program through the elimination of the interest free provision will worsen the congestion problem. As well, the July 1988 amendment to the Canadian Wheat Board Act, Bill C-92, which allows farmers to ship grain in producer cars to avoid paying some of the handling charges, will cause the further closure of marginal elevators.
I am sure companies like Cargill are clapping their hands and phoning the minister responsible for grains and the Minister of Agriculture saying "ready aye ready, this kind of approach is just lovely".
In the 1989-90 crop year, which began August 1, the government has decided not to lend any money until C-32 is passed, now Bill C-36, otherwise, under the current terms of the act, they would be obliged to again offer the interest free provision which, of course, leads to orderly marketing. That is something that the Conservative mind seems incapable of understanding any longer.
The Advisory Committee to the Canadian Wheat Board wrote to the minister responsible for grains on July 13, offering the minister the following unanimous resolution:
That the Advisory Committee to the Canadian Wheat Board recommend to the federal government that for the 1989-90 crop year the cash advance program be operated as it was in the 1988-89 crop year.
In passing the motion the committee noted that it also wanted to give recognition to the fact that economic factors continue to create serious financial stress for many producers in western Canada.
The National Farmers Union offered similar advice in mid-August when they wrote: "A cash advance program is urgently needed for the 1989-90 crop year, since farmers need cash flow now to pay their bills".
Prairie pools say the changes will hurt orderly marketing and undermine the Canadian Wheat Board because it will be more difficult to manage deliveries.
Manitoba's Keystone Agricultural Producers noted in their June newsletter that the elimination of the interest free provision under both acts would be "particularly onerous for grains and oilseeds producers in Manitoba who are virtually obliged to ship their commodities through the port at Thunder Bay. Because that port is closed during the winter months, many farmers in Manitoba sit all winter with little or no opportunity to market grain, resulting, in turn, in their having little income with which to pay their bills and support the economies of their local communities".

Government Orders
One must wonder why the Minister responsible for grains would not understand that. It seems to be a fairly simple fact that if you have to get a loan and pay interest on it and you have got to maintain in your own storage facilities that grain until you can actually sell it, the longer you have to keep it on your farm, the longer you have to pay that interest, the more in debt you are eventually going to become.
If the Minister is interested in writing recipes for disaster for farmers in certain areas of the country, he has certainly done a good job of it. It truly defies the imagination to hear the Minister of National Defence go after the member who was speaking earlier, saying that a six month hoist is somehow denying farmers access to any kind of programs at all. What the government should be doing is keeping an orderly process in place and keeping the interest payment program in place. That is something they do not seem to understand.
According to the 1989 budget papers, the ones that were leaked to Doug Small and which the Minister dodged around and expected everyone to cheer for when they became public, the Minister of Finance said that he expects to save $27 million by dropping the interest free provision for each of the current and upcoming budget years; $10 million of the APCA and $17 million of the PGAPA.
What we have here is a proposal that does not sound like an enormous amount of money to a government, $27 million, but what it means to the fanning community is a great deal. The implication that it has, whether it is for the Port of Prince Rupert or whether it is for crop producers in Quebec or grain producers on the prairies, is disorder. That is why those Conservative delegates at the national convention who were going to the microphone were telling the truth. They were telling the truth, not only to the Minister responsible for Grains and Oilseeds, they were telling the truth to the government. The Conservative age is over. The flat earth society has to be thrown out of office.


An Hon. Member:: Hear, hear!


Murray Cardiff: Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out to the member that he seems to be focusing on the interest costs and the payment of interest under the old act. However, the market opportunities are the most important part of the act. It allows the producer to orderly market throughout the year.
That benefit is still there at a preferred interest rate, and the level has been increased. Each producer can participate at a greater level. I think it is wrong to focus on the subsidy or the interest rate. We should be focusing on the marketing ability. That is where the greater moneys can be derived back to agriculture. Does he realize that?


James Ross Fulton: I am not quite sure who the member is parliamentary secretary to, but if the member wants to have a close look at the legislation, I have a copy here on my desk. I will send it to him.
While one level of the loan may have been increased from $30,000 to a potential $250,000, if you are borrowing at prime or just below prime and you add on the administrative costs, you might as well go to a private lender. This is not going to lead to orderly marketing.
The member did not rise and dispute any of the facts that I put on the record regarding grain elevator capacity and the capacity we have in relation to rail cars and so on. That is 40 per cent of the crop. The rest is being held on the farm. This kind of a legislative approach will lead to attempts to sell off at lower prices rather than waiting throughout the year to when better sales can be achieved.
I know from tracking the prices at which grain is sold out of Prince Rupert at what times of year which markets will yield the best prices. This kind of approach will not lead to a kind of situation where a farmer will say that he will wait before he will start moving his grains until there is a better sign in the market.
I do not think the member or the government truly understand the implications of this bill.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, the member who just spoke talked about farmers picking a time to sell through this elevator in his constituency that he is very, very familiar with and that he understands so well. He says this will force farmers to deliver when prices are better. That is what he said. They will pick their opportunity. Does he understand that the Canadian Wheat Board controls the export of grain through that elevator that he understands so well, that inputs are pooled and that producers share equally in that pooling?
October 4, 1989


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the minister took the words that I was saying literally. I know a farmer does not pick up the phone to determine that on the Tokyo exchange the grain markets have gone up, so he will just load it on his truck and run it down to the elevator, pump it in, take it out to Rupert and load it on the boat.
If the minister thinks that is how the grain system works he really should not be in cabinet.


Mr. Foster:: Mr. Speaker, I just want to comment.
The parliamentary secretary talked about the importance of the opportunity to deliver grain. He obviously does not understand that this provision of taking away the interest free portion will result in the program being destroyed. The Ontario Corn Producers estimate that although in the past they have had something like 1,200 people use this program, possibly as few as 50 farmers will use it. The question is whether a group like the Ontario Corn Producers will even bother operating the program.
Talking about the advantages, if you look at the material provided to all members of this House by the Ontario Corn Producers you will see that the cost benefit of this program, of being able to market later in the year without having to pay those interest charges through the fall and winter months for the 1987 crop year, resulted in a 15 to 1 advantage. In other words, the cost to the government was something of the order of $1 million. The advantage in the increased price for those com producers in Ontario was some $16 million. That is 15 to 1. That is not a bad improvement in prices.
I think that the parliamentary secretary should obey the law. The law says that you are supposed to provide that money now. The existing law says that you are supposed to provide that money to the corn producers, to the Canadian Wheat Board and to other groups with the interest being borne by the federal government. You should obey the law and provide those funds to those groups now because it is crop time and those moneys should be provided. You are breaking the law by not providing that money and you should do it now.
Government Orders


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more. I think the member put it very well and I am sure that the parliamentary secretary will not even try to get up to respond to it because he knows that we are right on this side of the House. We know that what they are doing to the farm community in this country is wrong. They are doing something to impress their friends at the Fraser Institute and down in Washington. They don't really care about what the implications are for the farm community. I am sure that the parliamentary secretary and the minister will not even dare to get up to respond to the facts that the hon. member and I put on the record today.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, I think the member who represents the Prince Rupert area has made some telling points. I just want to say a couple of things. The government members have been saying over and over again that we should get this bill through because the farmers need help.
The fact of the matter is that it is they who are at fault. We had a program in place. The farmers were using it. The government members are the ones who have destroyed it. Now they are begging for help. Well, let's get things a little straight. Another point I want to make concerns the government wanting to enlist the support of the farmers to fight the deficit. This is their way of saying to the farmers: "come on, fight the deficit". Does the hon. member think that this is the right way to fight the deficit? Is this the way to eliminate waste? Is this the way to save money or can he think of better ways than attacking the farmers in this way?


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that very good question because anyone who has taken the time to look will see that the cash flow of the farm community in this country and the net income they are actually left with, either as individuals or as groups in this country, is falling. It is a very tragic situation. We have a government that has not just failed, but has refused to collect $34 billion owed by a small handful of profitable corporations and rich families in this country. That is not million, that is $34 billion. That is this year's deficit. There are 85,000 profitable corporations that paid no taxes last year.

October 4, 1989
Government Orders


An Hon. Member:: That is not fair.


James Ross Fulton: Eighty-five thousand profitable corporations. So who is the government going after?
Well, Mr. Speaker, we know. We can look at the clawback on pensions or the clawback on family allowance. According to Statistics Canada, the UI cuts will mean 130,000 workers, particularly seasonal workers, who would have been eligible for unemployment insurance, are now cut off. Communities are cut off by today's announcement on VIA Rail cuts. Who is getting the big deal? Who is the sugar-daddy in this deal? You do not have to look too far. The 150 corporations that funded the fight against the Liberals and the NDP in the last election, and gave all the cash to the Tories on the free trade deal, are doing very well. Those corporations that do not have to pay any tax-


An Hon. Member:: Welfare bums.


James Ross Fulton: That is right. David Lewis coined it in this chamber 20 years ago, the "corporate welfare bums". The political leadership is sadly lacking from the other side of the House. The idea of tarring and feathering and extorting more money out of the farm community should make every member of this House ill.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Charles Mayer (Minister of Western Economic Diversification and Minister of State (Grains and Oilseeds)):: Mr. Speaker, I guess many thoughts could not help but go through a person's mind when watching what is going on here this afternoon, although I do not know why anybody would want to watch what we do here. After seeing what happened here this afternoon, I have a feeling of sadness that motivates me to speak.
We did not learn anything about the bill. There were all kinds of misrepresentations being passed off for fact. It is a rather sad display of a system that a lot of us take considerable amount of pride in. Sure, we are not perfect in government, and sure anytime that you ask people to pay something that previously they have not paid for, they are not going to like it. We know that. No government likes to increase taxes or likes to reduce government spending. But when you face the kind of situation that we face in this country, there are some tough choices that have to be made. This is one of them.
It is interesting to listen to the members opposite- and I do not mean in any way to be pejorative-but we do not have any farmers getting up over there. There are members getting up, reading things of which they know nothing about. Unfortunately, they do not make any sense, and maybe from their own point of view it is just as well as they do not know what they are saying because if they knew what they were saying, they probably would not say it.
Let me try, if I can, to put some of this in some context. Anybody watching would think that a bill that provided cash advances to between 15 per cent and 20 per cent of the western farmers and certainly less than 10 per cent of farmers in other parts of the country was going to cause the total demise of the family farm. This is ludicrous. This is silly. Sure, it is something that is going to cause problems with people who have to pay interest. But there is another side to it. Think about the damage caused by interest rates that got to 22 per cent, 23 per cent and 25 per cent in 1982. We are still recovering from that as a farm community. Nobody talks about that.
Those who are connected with the farm community know that all of us work with borrowed money. If they want to inflict hardship on the farm community, the best way to do it is with interest rates. Let interest rates go up in this country and then you are going to see the opposition yelling. If that happens, they are going to have good cause to yell. It is true that farmers are going to have to pay a little bit more for some of these programs, but we firmly believe that without this kind of approach we run the risk of crippling not only the farm economy but the whole business economy in this country.
As I said, this legislation has been used by something in the order of 15 to 20 per cent of all the farmers in western Canada, who make use of it under the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act. The numbers are difficult to calculate, but the number of other farmers who have used it is probably less than 5 per cent. You mention the Ontario corn growers. There are 25,000 com producers in Ontario. Do you know how many use the program? About 500.
Sure, if you are one of the 500, it is going to affect you. But to suggest that this change will mean its demise is silly. The opposition does a disservice to themselves and the House to put some of the things on the record that they did this afternoon. Aside from that, if it is such terrible legislation, pass it and let us suffer the consequences with the farm community. You can point the finger at us and say: "That was bad legislation. We let you pass it. Let us go out there and explain it". Furthermore, you should know that this does not take
October 4, 1989

away the cash advance program. It is not going to cause interest rates to be charged 2 and 3 per cent above prime as was suggested. It is going to be a government guaranteed loan and my guess is that it will probably be available at prime.


An Hon. Member:: Your guess.


Charles James Mayer: Okay, challenge us. Wait and see what happens when it is implemented. In the case of the Canadian Wheat Board which borrows at less than prime, there is every indication that the rate could be even less than prime. To suggest that it is going to be just as easy to go to the bank, and you are going to pay the same interest, is wrong.
Second, cash advances, the limit which farmers have been asking for, are going to be increased. It is going to be a better marketing tool because it is going to be increased to $250,000. To suggest additionally that this is going to hurt orderly marketing is exactly the opposite. With a cash advance you do not need to sell your grain because you have your money. The board has all kinds of examples where it needed grain and it put on a quota. There is no point in the guy hauling in the middle of winter because it is 40 below and he does not want to start his tractor, blow out the lane, get his truck going and all that. He has got his money. But if he has got to haul the grain to get his money, that helps as far as orderly marketing.
The hon. member laughs. This is the case. Look what happened last year on the prairies. There were some canola crushing facilities shut down because they could not get the canola. I am not saying totally, but a factor in that was the fact that these farmers had a cash advance. So, do not suggest that this is going to hurt orderly marketing. I could make the case that if anything it in
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fact may help. It has nothing to do with the pooling price. Whether you sell to the board on the first day of the crop year, which is August 1, or the last day which is the following July 31, you get exactly the same amount.
The hon. member for Skeena should know better than to get up and read this rubbish that somebody put in front of him. He is a smarter member than that, but that is the kind of stuff that we have heard this afternoon. It has nothing at all to do with the bill. We heard about free trade. If we get an early winter or a squirrel out there that does something silly, it is because of free trade. Everything is free trade. It has nothing to do with free trade.
What it does deal with is some fiscal sanity in this country so that our farmers and our business people can pay and continue to pay modest interest rates. To suggest that this one bill, used by probably less than 10 per cent of the farmers in the country, is going to cause the demise of everything is ludicrous.


James Ross Fulton: You could close all the heart units in the country. Only a few people need a heart unit.


Charles James Mayer: That is a silly analogy. Again, he is a smarter person than that. The sooner we get this bill passed, the sooner people will have cash advances and the sooner they will be able to make use of it in the same way that they have in the past.
I see you are calling time, Mr. Speaker. I will continue tomorrow, if I may.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It being six o'clock, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11 a.m., pursuant to standing order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Thursday, October 5,1989