LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF
Thursday, June 9, 1994
The House met at 1:30
p.m.
PRAYERS
ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS
Introduction of Guests
Mr. Speaker: Prior to Oral Questions, may I direct the
attention of honourable members to the gallery, where we have with us this
afternoon from the
Et aussi cet après‑midi, nous
tenons à vous signaler la présence, dans la galerie publique, de 22 étudiants
de la sixième année de l'École St. Germain sous la direction de Madame
Allard. Cette institution est située
dans la circonscription du député de Seine River (Madame Dacquay).
[Translation]
Also this afternoon, we have twenty‑two Grade 6
students from the St. Germain School under the direction of Mrs. Allard. This school is located in the constituency of
the member for
[English]
On behalf of all honourable members, I would like to
welcome you here this afternoon.
* (1335)
ORAL QUESTION PERIOD
Grain Transportation Proposal
Impact on
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of
the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the First
Minister.
Since 1992, we have been opposed to the reduction in
support for the railways in the transportation of grain that was announced in
the original statement by Mr. Mazankowski in the previous government. This reduction in payments has been
accelerated in the last federal budget, and we have been given notice that the
federal Minister of Transport intends on cutting some $650 million from western
producers. [interjection] If the Liberal Leader (Mr. Edwards) wants to defend
the federal Liberal government, that is fine by us, Mr. Speaker. We are here to defend the farmers, the
railway workers and the
Mr. Speaker, we have one federal minister previous to the
election promising a million tonnes of grain.
We have another federal minister, the Minister of Agriculture, meeting
with agricultural producers and railway workers across western Canada and
consulting with them, and a third federal minister promising to cut $650
million out of the budget for transportation.
The federal Minister of Transport says farmers will now have to haul
grain by trucks. The last time we
looked, in the province of Manitoba there was no road to Churchill.
I would ask the Premier (Mr. Filmon) what impact this will
have on the Port of Churchill to have this massive reduction in transportation
subsidies to the railways and the transfer of grain by truck in terms of the
Port of Churchill?
Hon. Glen Findlay
(Minister of Highways and Transportation):
Mr. Speaker, I certainly thank the member opposite for this kind of a
question today because‑‑[interjection] The member for Dauphin (Mr.
Plohman) is very right. This is a very
serious issue. It has hit us like a
lightning bolt. We did not expect in any
fashion that the federal Liberal government would do what they are doing to us
today.
In my previous life as Minister of Agriculture, we talked
about changing the method of payment. We
never, ever talked about eliminating the payment. The past two federal budgets have eliminated
15 percent, and that is moving towards our commitment to the GATT process. Nowhere in the GATT process was there any
request that we must eliminate the entire support to western Canadian
agriculture.
This present Liberal government is talking about doing away
with safety nets, which have kept grain farmers in business the last four years
and for the next two or three years. Now
they want to do away with the transportation subsidy. This is our birthright in terms of
Confederation in western Canada.
Mr. Speaker, we have a U.S. government who is out there
maligning us all over the world in terms of what we are doing in the grain
industry, and we get a federal Liberal government that is playing right into
their hands by taking away our subsidies that will cause us to collapse in
western Canada in the grain industry if they follow through with their agenda
that Mr. Young announced yesterday.
Government Intervention
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of
the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, members on this side of the
House were opposed when Mr. Mazankowski made the first cut, and we are further
opposed with this massive cut by the year 1995.
Mr. Speaker, after the GATT set of negotiations, the
federal Minister of Agriculture said, and I quote, that no producer, no farmer
would lose any income as a result of the GATT negotiations.
Today, the federal Minister of Transport is saying that we
will have a situation where $650 million is reduced from the railways without
any indication of what alternatives will be in place for grain.
I would ask the Premier (Mr. Filmon), will he be contacting
the Prime Minister to get a handle on the two conflicting messages from the
Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Transport, and ask the federal
government to put this $650‑million cut on hold, so we can have an
intelligent debate in western Canada and keep the payments to the railway and
keep Churchill viable in the province of Manitoba?
* (1340)
Hon. Glen Findlay
(Minister of Highways and Transportation):
Mr. Speaker, what this will cost the western grain industry is
approximately $20 a tonne, or 50 cents a bushel will be taken right out of
their income side to pay for what the federal government is taking away from
western Canada.
Both the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) and the Premier
(Mr. Filmon) and our entire government are very, very concerned about what
direction we are going in at this time.
I want to table the letter that has been sent to Mr. Young, the Minister
of Transport, copy to Mr. Goodale, the Minister of Agriculture, signed by both
the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns), and myself, the Minister of Highways,
laying out our very serious concern that we will not accept this because this
is a birthright for western Canada, and if they follow through with this, it
will shut down the grain industry in western Canada.
Rest assured, we as the provincial government did not put
hundreds of millions of dollars into a safety net program to have a Liberal
government come along and destroy the industry overnight.
Legal Opinion
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of
the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, the federal Minister of
Transport, who I think really does undermine our negotiating position with the
Americans, has said that this is GATTable and therefore it must be
eliminated. Now, this is a federal minister,
of course, whose statements can be used as evidence by the U.S. government.
The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool has already been quoted as
saying that it is not GATTable, that it is not subject to GATT. We were not told after GATT was signed that
this would be subject to GATT.
I would ask the Premier (Mr. Filmon): Does he have any legal opinion that the
Transport minister is absolutely wrong in his legal interpretation and is just
using GATT as a way to eliminate $650 million to the producers of western
Canada, to the railway workers of western Canada and to the Port of Churchill
which relies on railway shipments?
Hon. Glen Findlay
(Minister of Highways and Transportation):
Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a paragraph out of the letter that we
have sent: The option of eliminating the
WGTA has never been discussed or considered in western Canada. GATT does not require its elimination. Only a 36 percent reduction over the next six
years is required in GATT. In the last
two federal budgets, they have already eliminated 15 percent. The federal minister is absolutely wrong on
this. It does not require the
elimination of the WGTA subsidy to meet the GATT.
Mr. Speaker, what he has really done is sold out to
American interests who are trying to kill our grain industry in western
Canada. He sold out completely.
The Winnpeg Jets
Provincial Obligation
Mr. Jerry Storie (Flin
Flon): Mr. Speaker, yesterday, after many attempts
by my Leader and members of the caucus to get information on the degree of
potential liability the province faces in terms of its agreement with the
Winnipeg Jets, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey) tabled
some figures that suggest that in 1991, the province and the Premier of the
province knew that the province may be on the hook for some $43.5 million.
At that time, Mr. Speaker, the Premier of the province and
the mayor of Winnipeg signed a letter of endorsation, signed a letter that said
we give our personal endorsement to this package.
Can the Premier tell the people of Manitoba why he did not identify
what the province's obligations might be when he signed this agreement?
Hon. Gary Filmon
(Premier): Mr. Speaker, I find it a little unusual‑‑I
should not find it unusual to see a degree of hypocrisy from the members
opposite on any issue, but on this particular issue, members opposite did not
jump all over this issue and say out loud that they were very opposed to this
issue. No, no. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer)
played possum on this issue because he said he did not want to make this a
political issue. He hid in his shell on
this issue because he did not want to go out on it.
The reason is, first and foremost, there were figures put
out. Mr. Shenkarow projected losses‑‑they
were well covered in the book‑‑that were even in excess of what is
in that estimate. This government took
that as a best‑case scenario; that is, their best guess at the worst
possible obligation.
This government did it on the basis of one thing and one
thing only, that the revenues to government from the operation of the team
here, the total revenues to the three levels of government is double what the
cost is estimated to be, even in the worst‑case scenario. When you can make an investment of $1 to get
a return in direct revenues to government and taxation of $2, we thought that
was a reasonable business proposition.
New Democrats may not believe that. New Democrats, of course, believe in
investing $1 to get 10 cents back, Mr. Speaker, but that is not the way we do
business.
* (1345)
Mr. Storie: Mr. Speaker, of course, Manitoba taxpayers
were not surprised that we did not learn that the liability was some $43
million to the taxpayers of Manitoba.
The Premier's comments about the economic benefits are likely as bogus
as his claim that the people knew that.
Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is the Leader of the
Opposition (Mr. Doer), my Leader, indicated at the time that signing a blank
cheque to the Winnipeg Jets was wrong.
On top of that, he said that we had got no commitment to keep the Jets.
Mr. Speaker, my question is to the First Minister. Given that Mr. Bettman has now said today
that unless we build a new arena, there will be no major league hockey
franchise in the city of Winnipeg, given that we have now incurred the losses,
no guarantee of the Jets staying and we are being blackmailed into an arena,
will the First Minister acknowledge this, that he got us into a boondoggle that
is going to cost us all millions of dollars?
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Speaker, over the period of the agreement
in which there was a potential risk of $43 million, $90 million comes back to
the three levels of government‑‑not economic benefit to the
community, direct revenues to three levels of government, a return that is
twice as much as what is put at risk in this agreement. That is the basis on which a decision was
made.
Mr. Storie: Mr. Speaker, will the Premier answer a
further question?
We have now not received a report from the Burns
committee. Can the First Minister
indicate what it will cost the province, not only in terms of the losses but
any commitment that will be made in terms of an arena? If the First Minister's objective of keeping
the Jets here is fulfilled, what is the additional cost to the taxpayers of Manitoba?
Mr. Filmon: No commitment has been made to an arena, and
we will collectively make that decision as to whether or not we can afford an
arena in Manitoba for the benefit of all entertainment, sports and anything
else that may use it, including the Winnipeg Jets, Mr. Speaker. If New Democrats are opposed to it, they can
say so, and they can be part of the debate.
The Winnipeg Jets
Projected Losses
Mr. Paul Edwards (Leader
of the Second Opposition): My question is for
the Premier.
In response to the first question from the member for Flin
Flon (Mr. Storie), I thought I heard the Premier say that Mr. Shenkarow had, in
fact, put forward another set of estimates at the time these negotiations were
ongoing.
Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could ask the Premier to
clarify. I believe he said that Mr.
Shenkarow put forward worse estimates or different estimates than we saw
yesterday after the deal has been in place for over three years.
Can the First Minister indicate what the projections put forward
by the majority owners were at the time that these negotiations were being
undertaken in November of '91?
Hon. Gary Filmon
(Premier): Mr. Speaker, the estimates that we used were
the best available estimates. There were
other speculative estimates that were even higher that were put forward
publicly, and the member knows full well.
I invite him to just get press clippings from 1991 to find them.
Mr. Edwards: Mr. Speaker, the First Minister says that
they were speculative and that they were projections, and that is what he said
yesterday. Clearly, we are all very
interested to see those because those were the things that were relied upon
when this government entered the deal.
We see the government's estimates of 43.5 over that period of time which
has come forward yesterday after three years of the deal being in place.
What were the estimates put in writing to the province and
the city at the time this deal was entered into by the majority owners of the
Winnipeg Jets? What was their estimate? Was it more or less than what the
government's were?
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Speaker, these are the estimates that
were based on the best information we could get from all available sources,
including the majority owners.
Mr. Edwards: My final question for the Premier: The Premier has consistently indicated that
the rationale at the time was that double the amount of money being put at risk
was going to be direct benefit to the government. I think I have that correct. That is what he said yesterday and has said
again today.
Mr. Mauro, in his report, found that 97 percent of the
people who attend Jets games and are responsible for the revenue of the
Winnipeg Jets Hockey Club are Manitobans.
That is money that is here in the pockets of Manitobans being spent to
support the Winnipeg Jets.
Will the First Minister (Mr. Filmon) give us an indication
as to what has to be factored out therefore of that $90 million, once you take
account of all that money being spent somewhere else in this economy?
* (1350)
Hon. Eric Stefanson
(Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, this
just reconfirms what was being said yesterday in terms of the Leader of the
Second Opposition requiring some economics courses.
Again, this is entertainment money that is being spent by
individual Manitobans. It could be spent
on a whole range of other entertainment activities, could be spent on going
down to activities in the United States, could be spent on holiday activities,
a whole range of options that would be available to individuals who want to
spend that money, money being spent outside of Manitoba.
Here is an opportunity to keep that money here in our
province, to maintain an economic engine here in our province that will
generate $90 million of direct taxation for three levels of government.
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable Leader of the second
opposition party, you put your question, sir.
The minister is attempting to answer it.
Mr. Stefanson: Mr. Speaker, as I have indicated, here is an
opportunity for Manitobans to spend their entertainment dollar, their personal
dollar here in our province, a choice that they make to support an entity. It is done willingly. It is done because they want to participate
in that particular activity.
As a result of that, it generates $90 million over six
years of direct taxation to the three levels of government, more than twice the
projections of the worst‑case scenario losses during that time
factor. That is not taking into
consideration the hundreds of jobs created as a result of the investment, the
36 percent investment in a $50‑million asset and the kinds of annual
economic benefits that it brings to our province.
Judicial System
Accountability
Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St.
Johns): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the First
Minister (Mr. Filmon).
Manitobans have had some increasing concern about how the
misconduct of provincial court judges is dealt with under this government, so
the Minister of Justice (Mrs. Vodrey) promised Manitobans that the law would be
changed to make judges more accountable to the public, and, in fact, the throne
speech stated that judicial accountability is as essential as legislative
accountability.
My question to the First Minister is, can he explain then,
why, by a bill now introduced to this House, there is to be greater
accountability when the government had just proposed increasing the power of
judges on the Judicial Council while reducing the number of members of the
general public?
Point of Order
Hon. Jim Ernst
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, there
is a bill presently before the House having had first reading, and I suspect
that the member's question is out of order.
There is ample time for debate of the bill when it is before the House
for consideration.
Mr. Speaker: On the point of order raised by the
honourable government House leader, sir, I refer you to Beauchesne's
409(12): "Questions should not
anticipate a debate scheduled for the day, but should be reserved for the
debate."
At this time, sir, I do not know if we are calling Bill 15
or Bill 16 under Orders of the Day.
Mr. Ernst: Mr. Speaker, Bill 16, The Provincial Court
Amendment Act, has been, in fact, tabled in the House, read a first time and is
now distributed, from whence the member drew his question.
So it is my understanding, and, of course, subject to your
ruling, Sir, that once the bill is properly before the House, which it has been
as a result of first reading having taken place and the bill having been
distributed, that questions with respect to that bill are inappropriate, out of
order, and debate should range when the bill is called for that purpose.
Mr. Speaker: On the point of order raised by the
honourable government House leader, sir, at this time, I am not being informed
that Bill 16 is proceeding during Orders of the Day, therefore Beauchesne's
409(12): "Questions should not
anticipate a debate scheduled for the day, but should be reserved for the
debate."
I am of the opinion that we are not debating Bill 16 today,
therefore the honourable member's question is in order.
* * *
Hon. Gary Filmon
(Premier): Mr. Speaker, I will take that question as
notice on behalf of the Minister of Justice.
* (1355)
Mr. Mackintosh: A supplementary question, and the First
Minister can answer it now or later, or not at all if the Minister of Justice
(Mrs. Vodrey) answers it.
Given increasing concerns by Manitobans about the
independence of the provincial court from the cabinet, particularly in light of
statements by the First Minister that‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for St. Johns, with your question.
Mr. Mackintosh: My question is, is it government policy now
that cabinet power to name investigators and members of the Judicial Council is
proper? My question specifically is,
does the First Minister think our judges should be accountable to the cabinet,
rather than to the public of Manitoba?
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member's question seeks an
opinion, therefore is out of order.
The honourable member for St. Johns, kindly rephrase your
question, sir.
Mr. Mackintosh: What is the policy of this government with
regard to the accountability of judges to the public rather than to cabinet?
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Speaker, the policy of our government
with respect to this matter is contained in Bill 16.
Mr. Mackintosh: My final supplementary, Mr. Speaker, is to
the First Minister.
Why does Bill 16 not deal with appointments to the bench to
ensure that the public has greater access, that there is more openness in the
process, rather than perpetuating the cabinet's power?
Hon. James McCrae
(Acting Minister of Justice and Attorney General): The honourable member's colleagues will
recall we brought in amendments to The Provincial Court Act in a previous
session which dealt with the issue of appointments of members of the judiciary.
We have a committee system in Manitoba under which
appointments are made, and that was brought in by the present government. Previous to that, in all of those NDP years,
judges were chosen at the whim of the cabinet.
Francophone Schools Governance
Flexibility
Mr. John Plohman
(Dauphin): Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the
Minister of Education.
Last year, the government and the previous Education
minister responded to the Supreme Court decision on Francophone education in
the form of Bill 34, which was passed in this Legislature. One year later, there seem to be major
problems which have developed in its implementation.
This morning, I met with Francophone parents from Notre Dame
de Lourdes who represent parents of 110 students who have pleaded with this
minister, to no avail, to find a way to accommodate their children's needs in a
50‑50 program in Notre Dame, but not part of the Francophone division.
I want to ask the Minister of Education whether he can tell
the Legislature and the Parents for a Fair Education from Notre Dame whether
the Francophone Schools Governance act, Bill 34, drafted by his predecessor, is
sufficiently flexible to deal with the plight of these 110 students whose
parents do not wish to be part of the Francophone division.
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Minister of Education and Training): This
most sensitive issue has been captured with respect to Bill 34. Bill 34, as presented, allowed very little
discretion on the Legislature, and I fully indicate, Mr. Speaker, this was a
bill that was brought before the House, which, as I recall, received full
support by the House. It provided very
little discretion for the ministry's office with respect to matters dealing
with governance in single‑program schools.
Constitutional advice indicated that if the government of
the day was to have any significant discretion beyond the powers of the
community to vote through the registration process, indeed the whole issue may once
again be challenged and most certainly would be lost within the Supreme Court.
Mr. Speaker, that is the basis of the history of Bill 34,
and indeed, the government always hoped that common sense would prevail and
that there would be a meeting of two minds on this issue. That has not happened to this point in time.
* (1400)
Mr. Plohman: Mr. Speaker, none of us should be afraid of
common sense in this Legislature. We are
talking about simple common sense and fairness.
I want to ask the minister, is he now saying to this
Legislature that Bill 34 was so seriously flawed that there is no regulation
that this minister can bring in now to ensure that the needs of those parents
and those students‑‑110‑‑are met in their own
community, and they do not have to be bussed to other communities because of
this legislation this minister brought in?
Is he saying it is so seriously flawed he cannot bring in a regulation
to deal with that?
Mr. Manness: No, Mr. Speaker, I am not saying the bill‑‑which
the members opposite supported, by the way‑‑is seriously
flawed. What I am saying is that the
regulations that flow therefrom dealt most specifically with putting into place
the new governance board which put into place the whole election process. There has not been a bill that has been
brought forward to this Legislature which called so little upon regulation and
therefore had more of the details spelled within it than Bill 34.
That is why, Mr. Speaker, when this Legislature, amongst
all parties, agreed to accept it, it agreed to accept basically all of the
detail that was encompassed within that particular bill. So it was not that it was flawed. It was in keeping with the constitutional
advice that we received from many lawyers who dictated that, once the votes
took place, it had great consequence in all communities.
Mr. Plohman: Mr. Speaker, in light of the fact that the
bill provides for the making of regulations by the cabinet, by the Lieutenant‑Governor‑in‑Council,
I want to ask the minister, since the parents have waited since last fall for
this minister to provide some kind of answer, some solution, for fairness for
their children in Notre Dame de Lourdes, and they are now facing the middle of
June still not knowing what is going to happen to their children‑‑kids
are going to have to be bussed out of their own community‑‑will
this minister now ensure that he takes action to provide a solution that will
meet all of the needs, a common‑sense solution in Notre Dame, a sharing
of the facilities and services? What are
we talking about? What is so difficult
here?
Mr. Manness: Mr. Speaker, why did the member not express
that view in debate on Bill 34? Why did
he not indicate at that time that a school can only be governed by one
authority? The member opposite for
Dauphin, indeed every member in this House who has been watching this very
sensitive issue over the course of the last three months, knows how hard the
government has tried to find a reasonable answer between the providing division
and indeed the new division.
We have used every power, every persuasive power within our
ability to try and find a common‑sense solution, but the legislation‑‑
An Honourable Member: Change your regulations.
Mr. Manness: No, no.
It has nothing to do with the regs, because the regs take their power
from the legislation, and the legislation is very, very, very specific. It says, Mr. Speaker, that within a single‑program
school, those Section 23 parents who have a right to vote will determine who
governs that activity of that school.
I know some may want to call into question the process of
how the vote went, but nevertheless, once the votes were cast, Bill 34 laid
before everybody the procedure with respect to what happened after that. It is most unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, as you
know full well, that common sense, up to this point, has not prevailed.
Economic Growth
Status Report
Mr. Brian Pallister
(Portage la Prairie): Mr. Speaker, just yesterday, I was pleased to
learn that Salomon Brothers, respected investment dealer, one of the most
respected investment dealers in the United States, released a report which had
high praise for the Manitoba government.
This flies in the face of the doom and gloom we often hear from members
opposite.
Just this morning, a respected radio announcer in Winnipeg,
Peter Warren, said, and I quote: If this
means that the Filmon economic policies are following into line and New York is
listening, then Gary Doer and Paul Edwards had better stop playing cock of the
walk and start listening.
My question for the Minister of Finance is, in the face of
this constant doom and gloom from members opposite, what are the negative
implications for Manitobans of this cock‑of‑the‑walk attitude
by pessimistic members opposite?
Hon. Eric Stefanson
(Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, I think
this is a very important question, because it was just a couple of weeks ago
when the Leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Edwards) stood up with glee when the
Canadian Bond Rating Service adjusted Manitoba's rating. I said at the time‑‑and it is an
important issue‑‑the true test is the confidence that the people
have who sell your bonding, sell your paper, and the people who buy your paper
have in the province.
The reaction of Salomon Brothers is complete verification
of everything we have said. They speak
very highly of Manitoba. They say we are
one of two provinces in all of Canada deserving of a credit rating
upgrade. The further proof of what
Salomon Brothers is saying is one week ago, Wood Gundy released their summary
of the borrowing spreads of provinces, and Manitoba has the third‑best
borrowing rate in all of Canada, behind only Alberta and British Columbia.
Port of Churchill
Government Commitment
Mr. Eric Robinson
(Rupertsland): Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the
Minister of Transportation.
We have raised many questions during the session concerning
the Port of Churchill and a lack of commitment for our grain shipments this
year. Since the Minister of Agriculture
has said that the death of Churchill was imminent, can the minister tell the
House what action he has taken, aside from the letter that has been tabled in
the House to the federal transportation minister, and what plans are in place with
respect to dealing with the cuts announced by the federal minister?
Hon. Glen Findlay
(Minister of Highways and Transportation):
Mr. Speaker, we have been very surprised at the lack of support that the
federal Liberal government has instituted since they came into power, after
they had announced in the red book that they were going to export a million
tonnes of grain through the Port of Churchill.
That is a level of commitment that we support, and we want to see it
happen.
The Liberal government has been exceedingly quiet on this
in recent months, shown no effort to meet their commitment to export the
million tonnes. We are very concerned
about the Port of Churchill, because there is no consistent federal support for
that port at this time.
Mr. Robinson: Mr. Speaker, earlier this year, the same
federal minister, the federal Minister of Transport told me in a letter that it
was not practical to guarantee grain volumes at the Port of Churchill, given the
fluctuating grain market and despite the election promise that has been
mentioned by the Transport minister of a million tonnes of grain.
My supplementary question is, what other products will be
shipped out of the Port of Churchill this year through the efforts of this
government?
Mr. Findlay: Well, Mr. Speaker, the Port of Churchill is a
federal commitment, a federal responsibility.
The rail is owned by CN, which is a federal Crown corporation. We are awaiting what commitments the federal
government is going to make about continuing that port and using the rail line;
in fact, upgrading the rail line so further economic activities can happen in
and around the Port of Churchill.
Arctic Bridge Agreement
Status Report
Mr. Eric Robinson
(Rupertsland): Mr. Speaker, my final question is to the same
minister.
What happened to the announcements made last year by this
government that the Arctic Bridge would produce 500,000 tonnes of grain being
shipped out of the Port of Churchill?
Hon. Glen Findlay (Minister
of Highways and Transportation): Mr.
Speaker, a study has been done‑‑it is ongoing‑‑involving
three departments of this government to determine where the opportunities exist
in terms of a two‑way trade between Russia and the Port of Churchill; in fact,
anywhere from the Port of Churchill.
That analysis is ongoing. We hope
there is good news from that.
Mr. Speaker, as I have said in answers to previous
questions, the tourism potential up there is significantly good, and certainly
the AKJUIT project is a very significant project that is up and running, which
we as a government support very, very strongly.
Health Care System
Reduced Workweek
Ms. Avis Gray
(Crescentwood): Mr. Speaker, we saw a welcome flexibility from
the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) when he agreed to be more flexible on Bill
22 in terms of allowing personal care homes and hospitals to reduce their
budgets through other than Bill 22, and hospitals such as Ste. Rose, as an
example, are very pleased they are able to provide patient care and still
reduce the 2 percent in their budgets without jeopardizing patient care.
My question is for the Minister of Finance. Does he support the rationale and logic used
by the Minister of Health? Is he prepared
to look at Bill 22 and expand the option such that essential services in the
Department of Health such as home care and also child protection services are
not subject to Bill 22?
Hon. Eric Stefanson
(Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, I think
in response to a similar question not long ago, the Premier (Mr. Filmon)
indicated that in certain situations, we are prepared to be flexible with Bill
22 where there is a requirement to meet the public need.
Ms. Gray: Mr. Speaker, with a supplementary to the Minister
of Finance: Does he not consider
programs such as home care to the elderly and child protection services to
children as being those kinds of programs?
Mr. Stefanson: Mr. Speaker, if the member for Crescentwood
has specific examples of the kind of application that she is referring to, I
would welcome receiving them.
We work with all of our departments in government in terms
of the application of Bill 22 and provide them with the opportunity to come
forward to address any areas of concern, any areas where it is not working, any
areas where adjustment needs to be made to meet the public need and the
requirements of the public. We are
prepared to continue to do that.
So if she has some very specific suggestions, specific
examples of problem areas, we would be more than pleased to look at them, Mr.
Speaker.
Ms. Gray: Mr. Speaker, I have a final supplementary to
the Minister of Finance.
Is the Minister of Finance saying then that no one within
any of the departments has come forward and expressed concerns about the
application of Bill 22 as it relates to essential services? If he is asking for examples, is he then
suggesting that no one in the civil service has come forward and expressed
concerns?
Mr. Stefanson: No, I did not for a minute suggest that no
one did. The member for Crescentwood
indicated that there were some particular department areas that she was
somewhat concerned with, and if she has some specific examples in those areas‑‑there
have been some examples, but I have to outline for this House very clearly
that, by and large, there are not many examples.
Bill 22 is working very well. It is addressing the needs of all of the
departments. It did last year save us‑‑and
we have the final numbers‑‑the government and the taxpayers of Manitoba
$22 million and at the same time preserved 500 jobs for Manitobans.
So Bill 22 has served the public, it served the government,
and it served employees very well in terms of meeting all of our needs.
* (1410)
Health Care Facilities
Budgets
Mr. Dave Chomiak
(Kildonan): Mr. Speaker, I have in front of me a letter
from the president of the Victoria Hospital to staff outlining the regrettable
situation of the government budget cuts.
Last week, we tabled a letter in the Legislature from the president of
the Health Sciences Centre talking about the deplorable situation that has
resulted from the government's budget cuts.
My question to the minister is quite simple. Will the minister now at least provide this
House and the public of Manitoba with details of the budget cuts, the $100‑million
budget cuts to the hospitals in Winnipeg?
Will he at least provide those details of those individual cuts to us so
we can discuss this issue with our constituents?
Hon. James McCrae
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, the fiscal reality we have in
this country may be seen by the honourable member to be regrettable, may be
seen by others to be regrettable, but it also presents us with an opportunity
to address some long‑standing health system deficiencies which have been
allowed to build up over the years, as has also been told to us by hospital
administrators, that over the years we have allowed many, many practices to
develop in our hospitals and elsewhere, and we have an opportunity today to
address those things.
I suggest that if we were to follow the honourable member's
advice and not address the waste in the health system and the efficiencies that
can be found, we would be doing the citizens of Manitoba a great
disservice. That is why I reject all of
the suggestions of honourable members in the New Democratic Party to hack and
slash and burn our way through health care renewal.
Mr. Chomiak: Mr. Speaker, it took three years and the
Provincial Auditor to get the figures on the potential losses for the Jets, and
this minister is refusing now to give us details about what the government has
cut in the hospital budgets in the city of Winnipeg.
Why is the minister refusing to provide this information to
the public of Manitoba?
Mr. McCrae: I do not think there has ever been a time,
Mr. Speaker, when this government or any government in Manitoba has been more
open in discussing health care issues with Manitobans and with consumers and
with health care providers, not only discussing and talking down to them as the
honourable member would like us to do, but listening to what they have to say
and acting upon their advice.
Mr. Chomiak: Mr. Speaker, my final supplementary to the
minister is, why is the minister afraid to provide budgetary information about
the hundred‑million‑dollar cuts to urban hospitals? Is he afraid that the public of Manitoba will
not accept those cuts and the deteriorating patient care?
Mr. McCrae: Mr. Speaker, the only thing besides waiting
for your ruling from yesterday that really frightens me is where we would be if
we followed the advice of the honourable member opposite and his colleagues and
those of his colleagues in other provinces who have hacked and slashed their
way through in the name of health care renewal, the approach like the one used
by the member for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans) and his colleagues at
Brandon General Hospital in 1987, of hacking their way through Brandon General
Hospital and calling that reform.
Point of Order
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of
the Opposition): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I think the
present Minister of Health should stop insulting the previous Minister of
Health Larry Desjardins, who I thought was a tremendous Minister of Health for
the Province of Manitoba.
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member does not have a point
of order.
* * *
Mr. McCrae: Maybe the honourable member will ask me some
questions about Larry Desjardins, because Larry Desjardins has been extremely
helpful to us in a number of ways since he left the New Democratic Party
benches.
Environmental Legislation
Enforcement
Ms. Marianne Cerilli
(Radisson): Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Environment, in
Estimates, told us that last year, there was $43,000 collected by the
government for environmental regulation violations, but the minister went on to
say that this is not a good indication.
The total amount of fines is not a good indication of government
enforcement or compliance with regulations.
I would ask the minister to explain what indicators the
government does use to evaluate its environment regulation enforcement program.
Hon. Glen Cummings
(Minister of Environment): Mr. Speaker, to
begin with, I do not start off by attacking members of the Department of
Environment, as that member did at a public meeting about the capabilities of
enforcement by the department.
This department, comparably across this country, is doing a
very good job of enforcement, and I am quite proud of their record.
Fines Levied
Ms. Marianne Cerilli
(Radisson): Mr. Speaker, can the minister tell the House
and explain, even though the total fines allowable under The Environment Act
are in some cases up to a million dollars, why is the total amount of fines
only $43,000, and how are the total fines determined when there is a violation
under The Environment Act?
Hon. Glen Cummings
(Minister of Environment): Mr. Speaker, in many
cases, that is a judgment of the court.
I can only point to a more recent example that is probably as obvious as
any, the penalty under the stubble‑burning regulation is up to a maximum
of about $1,325, I believe, which is very, very substantial.
The range of fines that were, in fact, concluded under that
section last fall ranged from $1 to $1,325.
That is a decision that the court in its wisdom will make. I think the member perhaps is challenging the
court on the decisions they are making.
Mr. Speaker: Time for Oral Questions has expired.
MATTER OF URGENT PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Port of Churchill
Mr. Eric Robinson (Rupertsland): Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent
public importance.
I move, seconded by the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton),
that under Rule 27.(1) the ordinary business of the House be set aside to
discuss a matter of urgent public importance, namely, changes to the structure
of the Western Grain Transportation Act that threaten the future of the Port of
Churchill and the Hudson Bay bayline along with the farmers in the catchment
area for the Port of Churchill.
Mr. Speaker: Before recognizing the honourable member for
Rupertsland, I believe that I should remind all members that under our Rule
27.(2) the mover of a motion on a matter of urgent public importance and one
member of each of the other parties in the House is allowed not more than five
minutes to explain the urgency of debating the matter immediately.
Mr. Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I bring this matter forward
today due to an announcement made by the federal Minister of Transport that he
is eliminating the Western Grain Transportation subsidy next year‑‑a
possibility that is very strong‑‑a subsidy which has existed for
decades and has been essential for the flow of grain to the Port of Churchill
and for indeed the majority of farmers in this province.
If this decision is allowed to go ahead and if indeed it
becomes a reality, it could ruin the future of the Port of Churchill and the
Hudson Bay bayline. This is just not
another broken election promise, Mr. Speaker, but one of the most important policy
changes to occur in agriculture and transportation in decades. Manitobans deserve a debate on such an
important matter, and it is critical that they get an opportunity.
The Port of Churchill, Canada's only Arctic seaport, has
many important elements to it for the shipment of grain and other
products. Also, the spaceport project,
which the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Findlay) talked on earlier in
Question Period, depends on the bayline and the port. Churchill has the potential to grow directly
in the next few years pumping millions of dollars into the Manitoba economy
should the spaceport project continue to go ahead.
I fear, like many others in this Chamber, that the
elimination of the grain transportation subsidy will not just hurt the shipment
of grain from the Churchill catchment area, but it will also hurt our largest
industries, agriculture and transportation, in Manitoba and western Canada.
Mr. Speaker, aside from that, the human element, such basic
necessities as groceries and supplies to the bayline communities must be considered;
doctor and dental visits to communities on the bayline that our people rely on,
people who live on the bayline rely on as a basic human right, those we believe
are being put into question.
I would like to thank you and members of this House for this
opportunity to allow me to put this matter to the floor of this Chamber this
afternoon. Thank you.
* (1420)
Hon. Jim Ernst
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, there
is no question, I think, in anyone's mind in this Chamber that this is an issue
of extreme public importance to the grain producers in Manitoba, indeed, to all
people in Manitoba.
You have heard our ministers here on this side of the House
speak of the very great concern they have for the crippling effect that this
action by the federal government will have on grain producers here in our
province. Eighty percent of the grain
produced in this province is exported under the WGTA. That provides hundreds of thousands of
dollars into the pockets of prairie producers in Manitoba, and thousands of
jobs in the transportation industry related to that.
Mr. Speaker, the issue is certainly of great importance to
the people of Manitoba, but I am not sure that under Section 27 of our rules
that you would be able to find that the matter would be in order. I suspect that the matter is out of order
under our rules because of other opportunities, but because it is so important
and because we on this side feel it is so important, I would ask the member for
Churchill to amend his motion to set aside the ordinary business of today in
order to debate this important matter, and we will give unanimous consent.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux
(Second Opposition House Leader): Mr.
Speaker, it is, in fact, abundantly clear through listening in Question Period
that there is genuine lack of knowledge inside this Chamber in terms of what is
going on with respect to the farmers, and this, in principle, is the reason why
the Liberal caucus is going to support this in‑an‑emergency debate,
because we would like to hear exactly where it is that the government and the
New Democratic Party are coming from.
I think it is important, it is in fact in the public's best
interest, and I would quote right from the letter which the minister himself
tabled, and this is the reason why it is in the public's best interest: "The Producer Payment Panel appointed by
the Federal Government has been evaluating the options of paying the subsidy
directly to farmers rather than to the railroads. This would promote further diversification in
agriculture and more market responsive adjustment in the entire agriculture and
agri‑business industry."
Mr. Speaker, the minister said yesterday, from what I
understand: Federal Transportation
Minister Doug Young said yesterday that Ottawa would end the practice of
providing the railways with a subsidy to transport prairie grain to port. Instead, Young said, Ottawa should be paying
the money directly to producers.
I believe that even the government two days ago was in
favour of trying to see more money going into pockets of the farmers as opposed
to the railroads. It is only two days
ago that the New Democrats were yelling and yapping from their seats to stop
financing the big corporations. The
railways are also corporations.
What is important and what needs to be talked about here is
the need to ensure that the farmers of the province of Manitoba are the
benefactors of any subsidy, and that is, in fact, what the Liberal provincial
caucus will ensure, that the dialogue and the debate is going to be in the best
interests of the farmers of the province of Manitoba, not what is in the best
interests of the New Democrats, who are so low in the polls‑‑it
will only be by a few percentage points from the Conservatives‑‑as
to why that is likely the reason why they brought this particular issue
up. In the sense of trying to broaden
the knowledge of the official opposition party and to hopefully get the
government behaving in a more responsible manner, we are more than happy to
enter into that dialogue this afternoon.
Mr. Speaker: I would like to thank all honourable members
for their advice as to whether the motion proposed by the honourable member for
Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson) should be debated today. I did receive the notice required under our
subrule 27.(1).
According to Rule 27 and Beauchesne's Citations 389 and
390, there are two conditions which must be met in order for a matter of urgent
public importance to be proceeded with.
They are: (a) the subject matter
must be so pressing that the ordinary opportunities for debate will not allow
it to be brought on early enough; and (b) it must be shown that the public
interest will suffer if the matter is not given immediate attention.
I acknowledge that the subject of the honourable member's
motion is an extremely important one which affects all Manitobans, but I am not
convinced that the public interest will suffer if it is not debated today. There are, in my opinion, other opportunities
for the honourable member for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson) to debate this
issue: the Estimates of the Department
of Highways and Transportation, which will be under consideration. In addition, I note that the honourable
member for Rupertsland could also raise this matter under Grievance as he has
not used the opportunity for debate in this session.
Beauchesne's Citation 387 indicates also that a matter of
urgent public importance must be within the administrative responsibility of
the provincial government. In this case,
the responsibility rests with the federal government. I am therefore ruling that the matter is out
of order as a matter of urgent public importance.
Despite the procedural shortcomings I have drawn to the
attention of the House, I note that there is a willingness to debate this
matter today. Therefore, the question
before the House is, shall the debate proceed?
Some Honourable Members: Agreed.
Mr. Speaker: It is agreed.
Mr. Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the members of
this House for allowing this debate to carry on. We, on this side of the House, view the
matter before us as very important.
I would like to begin my few comments this afternoon by
reading a letter and putting on record a letter I received on the 6th of
January based on inquiries I made to the federal Minister of Transport.
In his letter he says:
"At the outset, I should explain that decisions concerning the
ports through which grain is exported are made by the Canadian Wheat Board on
the basis of marketing considerations as the Board pursues its objective of maximizing
returns to producers. It is government
policy not to interfere in these decisions.
"It is not practical to guarantee grain volumes at the
Port of Churchill given the fluctuating grain market. The port's traditional customers have not
been buying grain in recent years.
Efforts to diversify the cargo base from grain, particularly with
Russia, have not been successful to date.
I should note that other ports are experiencing similar hardships. Annual grain traffic at the end of September
1993 was down a total of 4.7 million tonnes as compared to September 1992 at
the ports of Quebec City, Vancouver and Prince Rupert.
* (1430)
"The Port of Churchill is reviewing all expense
components under its control to ensure that costs are directly related to the
level of activity at the port. Efforts
to control costs will ultimately improve the port's competitiveness.
"As the government has a responsibility to look
seriously at the long‑term outlook of the port, Transport Canada
continues to gather information which will be taken into consideration when the
decisions about the future of the port are made." This is signed by the federal Minister of
Transport, the Honourable Douglas Young.
I would like to table that letter now for members of the
House.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to also quote from the Manitoba
Liberals' agenda from 1993 in which the Liberal agenda said that the Port of
Churchill has been one of the victims of nine years of do‑nothing Tory
economic policy. Where world‑weary
Tories see a lost cause, Manitoba Liberals see an opportunity. The Liberal policy on Churchill is anchored
in a very straightforward set of facts.
Prairie grain producers have the opportunity to export their product
through a port situated closer to their farms, closer to major export markets
and which is simply less costly than the St. Lawrence Seaway or the West
Coast. Churchill makes economic sense
for prairie farmers and also for Manitoba.
Still with the Manitoba Liberal agenda, Mr. Speaker, they
go on to say that Churchill is approximately 1,270 kilometres from Prince
Albert, but Montreal is more than 3,500 kilometres away via Thunder Bay and
also the seaway. It is more than 800
kilometres closer to Churchill than to Montreal.
The fact is that the Port of Churchill can save prairie
farmers on transport costs compared to Thunder Bay and the St. Lawrence Seaway.
The Liberal agenda also went on to say that using Churchill
is also a sound environmental policy. Shorter
distances mean less consumption of fossil fuels, and a thriving port and
maintenance of the rail line could pave the way for economic diversification of
Churchill. Port facilities and a rail
link make it a leading world contender as a spaceport satellite launching
centre, and new opportunities in northern tourism also depend heavily on the
continuation of the rail line.
Then they conclude by saying: Therefore, Manitoba Liberals will press a new
government for the export of a million tonnes of grain through the Port of
Churchill each year.
Mr. Speaker, those promises were made by the Manitoba
Liberals in last year's federal campaign.
Again, I would like to reiterate in this House that this
matter is brought forward today due to the announcement by this Minister of
Transport that he quite possibly will be eliminating the Western Grain
Transportation subsidy next year. This
subsidy has been around for decades and has been essential for the flow of
grain to the Port of Churchill; indeed, the majority of farmers in this
province will be affected by it.
I would like to also put on the record that the port has
lost money almost every year since 1988 with tonnage as low as just 50,000
tonnes. The previous federal government
did a secret study on the future of the port which has never been released,
according to my understanding, anyway.
Also, during the last federal election, the Manitoba people‑‑I
would like to reiterate that a million tonnes of grain would be going through
the port.
As of today, Port Manager Allan Johnson has had no word
from the Canadian Wheat Board and just 15 tradespeople are working at the
elevator today. He is also concerned
about the upcoming layoffs at the CNR and on the bayline.
Doug Young, the Minister of Transport, of course, said
yesterday that the Western Grain Transportation subsidy, which has been paying
out some $600 million each year, must be eliminated because of GATT. Also, the same minister previously endorsed
the CN‑CP merger, the layoff of section crews on the bayline, and wrote
to myself saying, again, as I said earlier:
"It is not practical to guarantee grain volumes at the Port of
Churchill . . . ."
Mr. Speaker, I believe that we are not only talking about
the Port of Churchill but also indeed western Canada, Manitoba, and the people
that live on a bayline will be drastically affected if this occurs.
Mr. Speaker, I am indeed honoured to speak on this issue on
behalf of the people of Churchill, and I would think on behalf of the people of
Manitoba and western Canada.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of
the Opposition): I am pleased to join‑‑I did not
want the debate to adjourn after one speaker because I know a lot of members on
our side want to speak to this issue, and I know a lot of other members in the
Chamber want to speak. I, first of all,
believe that all of us sincerely want the Port of Churchill to survive and to
be stronger, and I believe and I think we saw witnessed today an all‑party
consensus to proceed with this debate.
I understand the Liberal House leader said that there was
more information to be put on the record.
Any information we can get, any security that we can get in this House
that the Port of Churchill will be saved, that it will be enhanced, that it
will be maintained, that it will be part of the vision of Manitoba, would make
us very happy.
Mr. Speaker, the Golden Boy on top of this Chamber faces
north, and Premier after Premier and governments after governments have always
believed that the vision of this province, the future of this province believes
in a strong northern vision for the province of Manitoba.
Are we not lucky in the province of Manitoba to have a port
that has access to the sea right in the middle of this beautiful country of
Canada and right in Manitoba in terms of northern Manitoba?
Mr. Speaker, history is full of countries that have gone to
war for a port like Churchill, and this, of course, is part of our democratic birthright
to have the Port of Churchill in our province and at our disposal. So I am pleased today that we have an
opportunity to debate this issue and that all parties agree because it is very
important that the federal government understand very simply that we cannot
have a situation where the subsidy to the railways is diminished and reduced
and even reduced to the extent promised by the federal Minister of Transport
yesterday in the House of Commons committee and that the alternative is to ship
our grain by truck.
(Mrs. Louise Dacquay,
Deputy Speaker, in the Chair)
There is no road to the Port of Churchill. The alternative of having grain
transportation only by truck, I would suggest, would mean, as the Minister of
Agriculture (Mr. Enns) has said, the imminent death of the Port of Churchill,
unfortunately for the shipment of grain through that magnificent facility that
we have on our northern shores.
I was first informed about the Port of Churchill and was
educated about the Port of Churchill by an old friend of mine, who is a person
named Eddie Johanson, and he is a resident of The Pas that has been involved in
the Port of Churchill efforts since after the war.
I can still remember the speeches from Ed Johanson. Vive le nord, he used to say and talk about
the vision of northern Manitoba. He
would inform us of the great exploits of the fur trading industry through our
beautiful rivers, and he would talk about the tremendous vision that we have to
have for the Port of Churchill and the kind of investment we have to make to
make that vision hold true for our province.
We were critical of the previous federal government in
1992. We did not support the original
Mazankowski decision to reduce by 10 percent in the '92 budget the
transportation subsidies to western Canadian producers. We further did not support that when that was
entrenched in the budget, the last Mulroney budget of 1993. We were critical. We were critical to members opposite. We asked them questions about railway
jobs. We asked them questions about
shipment of grain through the ports in the United States rather than the Port
of Churchill. We asked questions about
what this would mean for producers, and we were very concerned about this issue
in 1993.
* (1440)
Again in 1994, when the federal government announced a
further reduction, a virtual Xerox copy of the Mazankowski decisions, in the
first Liberal budget, we were extremely disappointed. We have not changed our position on this issue. We believe the existing transportation
policies in Canada make sense for a country like Canada, which is a very
distant country. We need a sovereign
transportation policy in Canada. We need
a regulated transportation policy in Canada.
We have a distant country. We
have a country that does not have the population base of European countries and
the United States. We do not have the
federal Treasury necessarily of the United States, and we need a sovereign
transportation policy which we believe goes along with a sovereign food policy
in western Canada. That is what we
believe in. So, when we raised the
question in '92 and we raised the question in '94, we believe we are being
absolutely consistent on what we believe.
The practical implications of this policy change, Madam
Deputy Speaker, are very serious for Manitoba.
The government has already pointed out the potential loss of 50 cents a
bushel with a reduction of the $650 million.
Farmers in western Canada cannot afford another reduction in the costs
that they get for their products. They
are already getting hammered on the one side for input costs and on the other
side for price for their products. We
cannot see another massive reduction in income for western Canadian farmers.
Manitoba also has a situation where many people working
directly and indirectly in the railway industry exist right along many of our
rail lines, right along the community of Winnipeg with the two major
railways. We have a very high number of
people who are working in railway jobs.
We have people all along the bayline working in railway jobs. So this does not only hit the producer; it
also hits people working in the rail line industry.
The government's own study indicated that if we proceed
with the reduction in this subsidy, we will see greater transportation of grain
from the United States. We would see a
greater loss of grain transportation with the railways, and we would see a $50‑million
cost in terms of highways in Manitoba with the increased trucking that was
predicted by the report.
Finally, Madam Deputy Speaker, this will be a great, great
erosion of the role of Churchill in the Manitoba economy with the loss of grain
through the support program in transportation.
We were not told in December of 1994 that the GATT deal
would mean the end of the programs for transportation in western Canada. It was only shortly after that that the
federal government started to hint that meetings that actually were held, I
believe, in January of this year that the federal government was starting to
interpret the GATT agreement to mean that transportation programs had to be
cut.
I cannot imagine, Madam Deputy Speaker, a weaker position
to go to the Americans on the actual action that they are bringing forward on
Wheat Board and transportation policies than a federal minister of the Crown
saying that these things are contrary to GATT.
I mean, how do you possibly argue in front of the U.S. tribunals that
our grain industry is sovereign and not GATTable and not NAFTA‑able
because in fact it stands on its own two feet and it is just a made‑in‑Canada
solution for our transportation challenges and for the challenges of producing
food for the world from our great western provinces?
Madam Deputy Speaker, to hear a federal Minister of Transport
yesterday say that this is now going to be GATTable and that we therefore must
reduce this by $650 million by the year 1995 is absolutely unconscionable. I believe the federal Minister of Transport
should resign. He should be fired from
cabinet, because he has no right weakening the Canadian position on grain, and
he has no right to continue his assault on the Port of Churchill.
At a previous committee meeting of Parliament this
transportation minister said he is not responsible for moving grain through the
Port of Churchill. He accepts no
responsibility for the promise made by the Manitoba Liberals in good conscience
in the last federal election to ship a million tonnes of grain through the Port
of Churchill. He says he has no
responsibility to do this. He will just
let the grain go where it will, and our sources in the transportation industry
say that this government wants to ship more and more grain through the seaway,
not through the Port of Churchill.
They are more concerned about the culture in Quebec right
now than they are concerned about jobs here in the Port of Churchill and
Manitoba. I hope that is wrong, Madam
Deputy Speaker, because it is certainly not very good for our province.
We have met with the people of Churchill. We have met with people all along the
bayline, and for every argument that CN can put in place against the Port of
Churchill and against the bayline, we know there are 10 to 100 arguments in
favour of that line.
It has the capacity to carry greater weights. It has the capacity to carry the bigger
hopper cars. It has the capacity to
handle more ships in two‑way transportation. It has the capacity to be the type of port
that our forefathers and foremothers envisioned when they courageously set up
the Hudson Bay Route Association and the Friends of Churchill years ago.
We just celebrated the 50th anniversary last summer of the
Port of Churchill, and it is an absolute disgrace that there is not one ship
committed today for the Port of Churchill in this the 51st year of that
magnificent port.
Madam Deputy Speaker, we believe in maintaining a sovereign
transportation policy in western Canada for our producers. We want jobs in the railway, and we want the
future of the Port of Churchill. I urge
everybody to join in on this great resolution here today. Thank you.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Prior to recognizing the honourable Minister
of Agriculture (Mr. Enns), I would just like to remind all honourable members
that, according to Rule 27.(4), each member who wishes to take part in the
discussion in a matter of urgent public policy is limited to 10 minutes debate.
Hon. Harry Enns
(Minister of Agriculture): Madam Deputy
Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to engage in this debate. I think there is something very important
that is being said in this Chamber when Her Majesty's official opposition and
the government indeed find themselves in a nonpartisan way accepting the
responsibility of the seriousness of this situation and in fact debating on the
same side on this particular issue.
Let me make it very clear that there are, of course, two
issues that the resolution before us presents the Chamber with, that is, the
specific issue of the maintenance of the Port of Churchill, and I appreciate
the mover of the resolution for this emergency debate has a special interest,
as we all have, in the maintenance of the Port of Churchill.
Quite frankly, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer)
spoke eloquently in that regard about the future vision, the importance that we
should not lose sight of with respect to that site, recognizing the immediate‑‑and
even in the immediate past, you know, economic difficulties and the cost that
taxpayers of Canada, taxpayers of Manitoba have had to pay in the maintenance
of that port. It is not the first time
that we have been called upon to carry for a while the concept and idea, a
project even though it is not necessarily returning dollars to the federal or
provincial treasuries.
In the case of Manitoba, we have taken very strong
positions. My predecessors in
transportation, present and past, and the government as a whole‑‑we
understand that there are, for instance, in these few areas alone,
opportunities for that northern port.
Tourism certainly should not be overlooked. When we look at what is happening in northern
tourism, and the equal type of tourists that are being attracted in greater
numbers to the North, to Yellowknife and places like that. That is certainly an opportunity for us that
we are only beginning to scratch the surface on.
We think that together with the federal government in
establishing a national park‑‑as it was my privilege to take the
first step in that direction by setting aside a very substantial area for the
formation of a national park‑‑could add to that tourism thrust that
we should all be endeavouring, that could well generate hundreds and thousands
of people coming to that part of Manitoba.
* (1450)
We are of course keeping our fingers crossed I think
collectively, and we wish the local organization in the Churchill area every
success in the possible reinvigorating of the rocket site that we have at
Churchill. Members are aware that
significant work is being undertaken both by the private and the public sector
in that event, which I am pleased to be part of a government that is supporting
it, and that could spell‑‑again, these are ifs and maybes, but,
Madam Deputy Speaker, we have to live in hope.
We have to have faith in the future of our province, because if we do
not have it, who else will?
I think this calls for a demonstration of faith, continued
hope, that at least there are moves afoot that make this continuous support on
our part for the Port of Churchill not just wishful dreaming or hope or faith,
but there are in fact some physical things that are happening right now that
are moving towards that direction. The
efforts to reinstigate life in the rocket site is one of them.
I want to indicate that while it was not my privilege, but
I know that the trade minister‑‑I believe the former Minister of
Finance, my Premier, in a visit to the Soviet Union, to the Ukraine, came back
with some serious discussions and hopes that there may well be long‑term
future trade opportunities developing between those countries, and certainly,
as the member for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson) asked, what other
alternatives? That is a very critical
question to ask about the Port of Churchill.
We need something other than just grain, in the long term,
to move through that port, particularly a backhaul that could well involve the
countries of Russia and the Ukraine, which are, by the way, Madam Deputy
Speaker, not unfamiliar with northern waters.
They live and know what conditions are in their northern ports of
Murmansk and others, to name some. So
coming to the northern Port of Churchill is not unfamiliar to them, and they in
fact have been, over the past, our most steady customers that have used that
facility. So that is reason enough for
us not to allow just a unilateral action that is being contemplated by the
federal government to take place.
This is not to be confused, for instance, with the action
that took place, I believe, by another Liberal government when it shut down the
railway on the province of Newfoundland.
But that was only done after lengthy negotiations and, quite frankly, a
fairly substantial arrangement whereby I believe some $400 million was provided
by the federal government to provide other alternative routes of transportation
and highways in lieu of the monies that the federal government was providing in
a railway service on the island, on Newfoundland, that was not economic.
That is the kind of arrangement that maybe we should be
looking for, and in fact are looking to, if we are going to see the substantive
changes that we know are happening to the Western Grain Transportation policy
program.
My colleague the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Findlay)
is absolutely right when he says we have, on many occasions, acknowledged the
concern that has been expressed by some of our chief trading partners, notably
the Americans, about the Crow or about the WGTA, but never in our discussions
have we talked about not providing some ongoing and continuing support to
western agriculture. That is what is so
disconcerting, Madam Deputy Speaker, that we have this obvious lack of liaison
between two senior federal ministers, the Minister of Transport and the
Minister of Agriculture, that is taking place in Ottawa right now.
We are preparing to host the national agricultural meeting
here in Winnipeg in a very short while, the first week of July. I know that the federal colleague Mr. Goodale
will be, among many other things, discussing the wide range of agricultural
support programs to agriculture at these meetings, including possible changes
or shifts with the dollars that Ottawa has for so many years‑‑since
Confederation just about, or very close to it, about 90 years‑‑acknowledged
that this form of support for the western agricultural base of this great
country of ours was appropriate, was justifiable, in lieu of some of the
decisions that were made that, quite frankly, aided and abetted the industrial
buildup of the central provinces, notably Ontario and Quebec.
This was our share of the Confederation pie, if you like. So, for that to be fundamentally changed
without consultation, is really quite uncalled for and quite unacceptable.
Madam Deputy Speaker, with those comments I want to assure
honourable members that I will certainly be in concert with all of my colleagues,
but as Minister of Agriculture will be keenly interested in the developments,
particularly as we have the opportunity in a few short weeks to lay this matter
directly before my fellow Ministers of Agriculture as we gather in the annual
national agricultural ministers' meeting here in July and will have in our
presence the federal minister, Mr. Goodale, as well, to try to put this issue
into perspective.
In the meantime, I think it is a most valuable usage of our
time in this Chamber to spend a bit of time so that there can be no doubt left,
not just to the ministers involved, Minister Young and Mr. Goodale, but to the
12 Liberal members of Parliament who represent Manitoba in Ottawa. I want, whether it is the member representing
the Brandon area or the Dauphin area or urban members here, St. James and so
forth, and our ministers representing the province, to have a very clear
understanding of the importance of this issue.
There will be change. We accept
that.
Mr. Goodale has assured our major trading partner, the
United States, that, for instance, we are prepared to unilaterally, in fact,
change the Crow benefit with respect to any grain that possibly could move into
their markets. We have talked openly
about the change. Mr. Goodale has said
and put on public record that‑‑and I do not blame him for this‑‑while
he has accepted the former Minister of Agriculture's, Mr. Charlie Mayer's move
and position on appointing a producer's panel to study the nature of change
that should take place, he has acknowledged‑‑and as I say, I do not
fault him, he is not necessarily bound by that advice‑‑but he will
certainly listen to it and take the time to listen to it. What is important right now is that we have
to take the time to listen to this important debate.
Mrs. Sharon Carstairs
(River Heights): Madam Deputy Speaker, I am delighted to join
with the other two parties in this debate this afternoon, because it is a
critical debate, not only to the province of Manitoba but, I would suggest, to
all western provinces and certainly to all grain producers in western Canada.
It is interesting. I
woke up this morning in Calgary and, as a result, I have read a number of
newspapers today. It started with the
Calgary Herald. I got on the plane and I
read the Globe. I then got the Financial
Post, and then I headed into Winnipeg and picked up the Free Press. What there is clearly in all of the
newspapers is confusion, serious confusion about what it is that the federal
government said yesterday. Of what they
said, there are some things that seem to be apparent. There may be some disagreement, but I am
doing my best to read what I have been presented with today.
My first disagreement seems to be that there has not been, apparently,
any discussion at the federal cabinet table about this particular matter. I think we have to believe the Minister of
Agriculture, Ralph Goodale, who says this has not yet been brought to cabinet
for a decision‑making process.
Mr. Enns: I hope you are right.
Mrs. Carstairs: Well, the Minister of Agriculture for our
province says, he hopes I am right.
Well, I think we all hope I am right, quite frankly, because obviously
there needs to be much more input into this discussion than the federal
Minister of Transport presently has in his understanding of the importance of
the Port of Churchill to the province of Manitoba and the importance of the
grain transportation subsidy.
The Minister of Agriculture for the province has gone on
record today, as he has in the past and as his predecessor has in the past, in
recognizing that there is going to have to be some change. Change is inevitable. We have entered into a new global market
strategy, and change must occur. But
what must not occur, and I think all three parties have to be in agreement in
this, if nothing else, is that monies presently being used for agriculture in
whichever ways they are being given must continue to be given to agriculture in
this country. In this, I think I have no
disagreement.
* (1500)
I have heard in this House a number of claims about the
100,000 or 100 million‑‑what is it?‑‑one million tonnes
of grain through the Port of Churchill.
I have heard it referred to as a promise. I have heard it referred to as part of the
red book, but in fact it is not in the red book. But it is very clearly in a statement of the
then‑members of Parliament, Liberal members of Parliament, from the
province of Manitoba. I want to put that
statement in the record because I can assure the members of this Chamber that
those same M.P.s, all of whom were elected and joined by a number of
colleagues, will be held accountable for this statement, not only by members of
this government or members of the official opposition, but members of the Liberal
caucus.
This is what they had to say. The Port of Churchill has been one of the
victims of nine years of do‑nothing Tory economic policy. Where world‑weary Tories see a lost
cause, Manitoba Liberals see an opportunity.
Liberal policy on Churchill is anchored in a very straightforward set of
facts. Prairie grain producers have the
opportunity to export their product through a port situated closer to their
farms, closer to major export markets and which is simply less costly than the
St. Lawrence Seaway or the West Coast.
Churchill makes economic sense for prairie farmers and for
Manitoba. For example, Churchill is
approximately 1,270 kilometres from Prince Albert, but Montreal is more than
3,500 kilometres away via Thunder Bay and the seaway.
Murmansk, Russia is an important destination for Canadian
grain exports. It is more than 800
kilometres closer to Churchill than to Montreal. The simple fact is that the Port of Churchill
can save prairie farmers on transport costs compared to Thunder Bay and the St.
Lawrence. Using Churchill is also sound
environmental policy. Shorter distances
mean less consumption of fossil fuels.
A thriving port and maintenance of the rail line could pave
the way for economic diversification in Churchill. Port facilities and a rail link make it a
leading world contender as a spaceport satellite launching centre. New opportunities in northern tourism also
depend heavily on the continuation of the rail link.
Yet, the rail link and all of its spin‑off benefits
depend on grain exports through the Port of Churchill. The port requires 600,000 tonnes per year to
break even. However, in last years it
has seen less than 300,000 tonnes. The
port could easily handle one million tonnes per year without expensive upgrading
of either the rail link or the port facility itself.
Exciting opportunities are within reach for Churchill. For example, talks are underway on barter
arrangements with Russia which would see Canadian grain exports paid for with
phosphate rock. Churchill could be the
linchpin in substantial two‑way trade flows between the Prairies and the
new democracies of Europe.
Therefore, Manitoba Liberals will press a new government
for the export of a million tonnes of grain through the Port of Churchill each
year. That is a policy, Madam Deputy
Speaker, with which I am in full agreement and which I can support and which I
think all members of this House can support.
This is the policy that this government must be held accountable to.
Now, what exactly happened yesterday? Well, I think we had a minister at the
federal level, Transport Minister Doug Young, who said a number of things. He said he would end the practice of
providing the railways with a subsidy to transport prairie grain to port, but
he also said Ottawa would pay the money directly to producers who could then
use the funds to pay for the transportation of their choice.
If, indeed, those statements mean that all of those funds
are going to be remaining within the agricultural community, then I have some
concerns as to the transfer, but I am concerned about the dollars going into an
alternative program. That is my big
concern right now.
An Honourable Member: He did not say any of that.
Mrs. Carstairs: Young said Ottawa would pay the money directly
to producers who could then use the funds to pay for the transportation of
their choice. He did not indicate that
the money would be used for an alternative purpose, and that is the critical
issue, I think.
I think it is also clear, however, that he did catch the
Agriculture minister at the federal level by some surprise, who felt there was
not any such discussion. He said, for
example, and Ralph Goodale said, a decision on the method of paying subsidies under
the Western Grain Transportation Act is still 12 to 15 months away. He said he is still waiting for a report from
the Tory‑appointed panel reviewing possible changes to the way the
subsidy is paid. That panel has been
asked to analyze what effects the recently signed General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade will have.
I think what we must do in this debate today is to make it
very clear to the federal government that Manitobans, as represented by all
three parties in this Chamber, want a guarantee that the monies will stay
within the agricultural community. We
want a guarantee that further discussions will take place with the governments
of all of the prairie provinces with respect to any changes prior to those
changes being made. I think if this
debate today can lead to those two positive conclusions, then this debate will
have been a very positive contribution to this legislative session.
I think all of us in this Chamber should put our views on
the record today insomuch as it is possible.
I know there are some members who have other commitments and who cannot
be in here this afternoon to make those presentations‑‑but as many
of us as possible of all three parties, so the federal government can hear one
voice from the Province of Manitoba, a clear voice on this issue from the
Province of Manitoba. Thank you, Madam
Deputy Speaker.
Hon. Glen Findlay
(Minister of Highways and Transportation):
Madam Deputy Speaker, it is indeed unfortunate that we have this
situation in front of us today.
As Minister of Agriculture for a number of years, there is
no question that a lot of discussion took place on WGTA and how that should be
paid in the future.
Madam Deputy Speaker, the previous federal government
formed a producer payment panel to analyze what is the right way to pay that
money out in western Canada. That money
has been paid in western Canada since 1897.
Members opposite, particularly those from urban communities, must
understand that we consider it a birthright in western Canada. Federal monies and effort for decades were
devoted to supporting the manufacturing, processing industries in central
Canada. The jobs were there, the
population is there and western Canada harvested natural resources. There was support to our ability to export
those raw resources, particularly agricultural products, to help us get those
commodities to salt water, whether it was Churchill or Thunder Bay or whether
it was Vancouver. That has been a
birthright of ours for a long, long time.
There were certainly arguments that maybe the farm
community was not responding in terms of diversifying to where the rural
markets are and to where there were strong world prices versus weak world
prices. That is why the discussion about
whether the payment of that monies would be better done in some other fashion
than direct to railroads, but that has been a birthright of western Canadian
farmers, agriculture and certainly for rural Manitoba.
Along the way, Europe got started in its export subsidies
and certainly started to distort the world grain trade. The United States got into it big time in the
mid‑1980s with the Export Enhancement Program. Madam Deputy Speaker, that is the worst trade‑distorting
subsidy that ever existed in the history of the world.
To see the current United States administration with their
Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Espy, talking about the terrible trade‑distorting
subsidies of the Canadian grain industry, flies in the fact of reality, where
they are the creators of the greatest trade‑distorting subsidy in the
world, the EPP program. To have him down
in Mexico and Brazil talking about the terrible Canadians and what they are
doing, well, he is doing the worst thing possible and saying that we are
somehow the architects of our own problem.
* (1510)
I am really disappointed that the federal government has
not been more proactive in defending what is the basis of western Canada, our
capacity to produce and export the best quality grain to the world,
particularly wheat.
Madam Deputy Speaker, the discussion, the producer payment
panel and the processor in is still ongoing.
The first report has been put in to the federal Minister of Agriculture
and a subsequent report is to follow.
Mr. Young was very clear in his statement in The Globe and
Mail. I know the member for River Heights
(Mrs. Carstairs) has commented there is confusion in the paper. Absolutely I agree with her. There is confusion in the paper. I mean, The Globe and Mail‑‑if
anybody should get it right, it should be The Globe and Mail. Let me read what they said.
The transportation department will stop paying grain
freight subsidies next summer because they will no longer be allowed under the
Uruguay round trade agreement. Mr. Young
told reporters yesterday that government paid‑‑sorry. I will jump to the next paragraph which is a
quote: Under the new trading
arrangements there is no room left for traditional types of subsidies.
Madam Deputy Speaker, that is absolutely wrong. The GATT process has talked about reducing
trade‑distorting subsidies by some 36 percent over six years, and the
last two federal budgets have reduced the WGTA subsidies by some 15
percent. So we are well along the path
of meeting those trade requirements, and we can continue to meet those over the
next number of years. That is clearly
the GATT rule.
Madam Deputy Speaker, for the federal minister to say, we
must get it read immediately is not the truth at all. That is why certainly I am not at all happy
with what is going on. If there is
confusion out there, it has been created by Mr. Young and Mr. Goodale not being
in sync. If they have not discussed it
at cabinet, I am astounded that one would go out and talk like this. That is unacceptable. I think every member in this House
understands the sensitivity of this issue, the significant sensitivity.
Mr. John Plohman
(Dauphin): They must be using some rookies.
Mr. Findlay: Well, you can get up‑‑the member
for Dauphin‑‑and say that.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to add further evidence to the
House of what Mr. Goodale said in The Globe and Mail is undoubtedly what he
thinks. Whether it is government policy
or not, that is for them to decide and eventually clarify because then they
must. But Mr. Young made his speech last
Friday in Thunder Bay to kick off National Transportation Week, which is this
week. This is dated June 3. This is right straight from the federal
government.
He goes on to identify a lot of subsidies that go on in the
transportation industry. He is talking
about $1.6 billion of subsidies in the transportation industry, and he lists
six of them. The very first one he
identifies is $590 million spent on the Western Grain Transportation Act. Later on, he goes on to talk about, well, we
have to give the taxpayer a break. We
have to have a reality check and realize that this cannot go on forever.
So there is no question, although he did not say it exactly
in this speech, that his thinking is there are too many subsidies. We cannot do it anymore. For Treasury reasons, we have to reduce
these. He talks about commercializing
the whole Transport department, the federal Transport department, which has a
lot of implications, not only in the grain industry, but air traffic control
and so many other aspects of Transport Canada.
So, clearly, he is on a mission to save money. Some of the things he talks about, we would
probably not disagree with, but the principle that he talked about yesterday in
terms of eliminating next year the WGTA subsidy puts our farmers in significant
difficulty. If the farmers were told instantly
they have to pick up another 50 cents a bushel where wheat may only be worth $2
a bushel and the cost of producing it may be $3.50 to $4 a bushel, you can see
economically‑‑how are they going to survive?
The federal government has also been talking through the
election‑‑and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) is more in
touch with this now‑‑but about how they are going to change the
GRIP program, how they are going to extract themselves from it at a time when
the grain community cannot afford them to extract overnight‑‑WGTA,
extract themselves from it overnight. We
cannot survive in this environment, uncertainty being created.
I can imagine the discussions going on in the banking
community today if this is what is going to happen. There are a lot of loans out there involving
the grain industry, grain farmers, machinery dealers and, boy, this is not the
kind of news that the banking industry wants to hear. They want to hear the government standing behind
the grain industry as we evolve through this difficult trade situation. We have been involved, particularly with the
United States, so we are put in a great situation of uncertainty.
Some members may say, well, we overreact, but this is not
an issue we can leave sitting idly by while we wait for the federal government
to decide whether one cabinet minister is right or the other cabinet minister
is right or decide whether they have talked about it in cabinet or they have
not talked about it in cabinet. This is
not the sort of thing we need to have floating around, this kind of
uncertainty.
What has really happened here is the federal government
saying in western Canada you have to be able to pay your costs in the grain
industry. You have to survive on the
world market. In other words, our grain
farmers in western Canada, particularly our wheat producers, have to be able to
compete with the U.S. Treasury. That is
impossible. You cannot do it.
Now one could say, well, we do not have enough taxpayer will
or capability to fight the U.S. Treasury in all of Canada. That might be true, but I can assure you if
that is true, there is an awful lot of the economic base of western Canada that
is going to be hurt if the grain industry, particularly the wheat industry, is
sabotaged by the U.S. Treasury.
Madam Deputy Speaker, what Mr. Young and Mr. Goodale have
been doing in the last few months in terms of dealing with our counterparts in
the United States has not been standing up strong enough for us. It has not been supporting the long tradition
of good trade relations we have had around the world. When Mr. Espy goes down to Mexico and Brazil
and makes those statements he did about western Canadian agriculture, well, he
is creating trade subsidies of the world's greatest magnitude right back in his
back yard.
I did not like what he said down there, and I sure did not
appreciate the lack of response from the federal government in sort of
straightening the record out, because we do not look good, Madam Deputy
Speaker, with those kinds of comments from the United States going on. Now we have a federal Liberal government
right now who is supporting what the U.S. is saying about western Canada,
saying we are not going to be in the business any longer.
If you take away these kind of supports from western
Canadian agriculture, we are going to be in a very difficult position to stay
in the grain trade business. That is
exactly what the U.S. wants is to drive us out of the grain industry. I do not like us living with that agenda, but
it seems that the federal government is prepared to follow that agenda. Following on what the member for River
Heights (Mrs. Carstairs) said, if there is confusion out there at the federal
level, please clear it up instantly, instantly because there is great concern
in western Canada right now about what direction they are going and what it
means to us in the grain industry at this point in time. Thank you.
Mr. Daryl Reid
(Transcona): Madam Deputy Speaker, it is my pleasure to
rise to speak on this matter today. It
is a very important matter for the province of Manitoba because our history is
one based on transportation, and, of course, we want to maintain and in some
way hopefully enhance that. If you look
at the comments that have been made by the federal Minister of Agriculture and
the federal Minister of Transport, there is indeed some confusion that is
taking place on the part of the federal government on how they are dealing with
the matter.
I can only go back to some of the comments that have been
made by the Minister of Transport just this year, in fact, on March 10, 1994,
when the federal Minister of Transport said that he was looking to redirect the
subsidies that are payable to the transportation network of the country. Now we are seeing that the federal Minister
of Transport is saying that he wants to kill $1.6 billion worth of
transportation subsidies to the various transportation sectors in our country. So here is a minister, a federal Minister of
Transport, from March 10, 1994 to June 7, 1994, flip‑flopping on his
position on what he is going to do with the transportation subsidies of our
country. Of course, that is going to
have a devastating impact upon us in the province of Manitoba if we are going
to lose the subsidies that we have in place to preserve, to protect the
programs that we have for transportation of our grain products and other
products by way of manufacture.
I look at the recent statement that the federal Minister of
Transport has said wherein‑‑and I will use his figures, Madam
Deputy Speaker. He says that 18 to 45
percent of the price of primary products in Canada are transportation costs and
that 5 to 17 percent of manufactured goods are transportation costs. Well, I am not an accountant, and I do not
know and I do not understand the logic of this federal Minister of Transport
when he says that if we take away the subsidies that we utilize to transport
these products to either export market or to our customers in North America,
how are we going to keep the costs, the transportation costs down for these
products? It would seem reasonable to me
to expect that these figures, these percentages would increase, to move our
product either to export position or to our customers in North America. So I do not understand the logic of the
federal Minister of Transport when he is saying that we need to eliminate the
subsidies, and at the same time he is saying that our transportation costs are
of the figures that I have already indicated.
* (1520)
The transportation minister also indicates that‑‑and
there seems to be a glaring discrepancy in the comments that he has made, in
comments recently to the people of Thunder Bay, when he was addressing his
audience there. He says that we have
some difficult and tough choices to make, and then he talks about the subsidies
and the cost to the Canadian taxpayers.
At the same time he goes on to talk about how good we are in this
country, how efficient our system is, and that we have a world‑class
network of transportation. So even in
his own comments that he has made as a minister, he contradicts himself.
The minister also goes on in this presentation. He talks about the mismanagement of the
railways and the overcapacity of the railways.
Now, the last time I talked to the people who operate the trains in this
province, Madam Deputy Speaker, we cannot get enough rolling stock equipment in
this province to move the products or the items that we produce, whether it be
grain or whether it be manufactured goods.
All our rolling stock equipment is tied up in moving. So I do not understand how this federal
Minister of Transport can say that we have overcapacity. That is definitely not the case. I think he had better start talking to the
people who are doing these jobs and get a better understanding of what is
happening in the transportation market.
We had at the same time this same federal Minister of
Transport, who is now telling us we have to kill the subsidies, as in the past,
and at the same time, when he was talking in the House of Commons just this
March, he says, railways are romanticism and nostalgia of the past. Now, here is a Minister of Transport that is
supposed to be building the transportation network of our country, not trying
to tear it down, which he is obviously doing by the statements he has made.
I listened to the comments that have been made by the
Minister of Highways and Transportation (Mr. Findlay) when he made reference to
the fact in Question Period today that we are moving towards meeting the
requirements of the GATT agreement, and that we have already cut some 15
percent. In 1991, we were paying the
railways of this country $721 million in transportation subsidies. This year, I believe it is, we are paying
some $590 million in transportation subsidies.
Now just imagine for a moment, Madam Deputy Speaker, what
is going to happen to the producers of this province and, indeed, all the
prairie provinces if we eliminate the $590 million? I take a look at the studies that have been
done in past years to look at the options for producers to truck the grain
products down to the Mississippi. What
will that mean to the Highways and Transportation Department of this province
by the increased wear and tear on our highways?
In addition to that, what will it mean to the railways that would
normally transport those products? What
does it mean to the thousands upon thousands of railway jobs that depend on the
transportation of these products?
This federal minister does not seem to comprehend the realities
and the necessity of the transportation network of this country, and I listened
to the comments of my colleagues here today where they called upon the federal
Minister of Transport to resign. I think
that is indeed a very good suggestion; this minister should resign.
When we had the VIA hearings in this province, Madam Deputy
Speaker, and I am talking now about the bayline, because it is essential to the
province of Manitoba and central to the Port of Churchill. I listened to the presenters from AKJUIT, the
rocket range people when they were making their presentation. They told us that if that bayline is not
there, that rocket range facility will not operate ever, period. It will be down the tubes, as the Minister of
Agriculture (Mr. Enns) says.
So we need the Port of Churchill to operate, to export our
products, and we need to have that line in place to move the grain products
there, and at the same time it will give us the opportunity to have the
reactivation of the rocket range to create new high‑tech opportunities
for us in the province of Manitoba, and new job opportunities as well.
Also, at the same time, I believe we had some 37,000 of
resupply to the Northwest Territories, our neighbours to the north, part of our
own country, Madam Deputy Speaker. If we
lose the bayline, we lose the resupply for our people in the north. There are no other opportunities for them to
bring product in year‑round. We
need that rail line.
At the same time, VIA Rail, when they announced just after
the federal election in the fall of '93, VIA announced they were going to cut
21 jobs in the province of Manitoba.
Lloyd Axworthy stood up and said:
No, he is going to put it on hold; he is cancelling the layoffs. But, at the same time, when he said he
cancelled the layoffs, we lost 11 jobs.
The public does not know that, but we lost 11 jobs out of that because
some of those 21 job layoffs had already taken place, so we did lose jobs.
Then the federal minister appointed a two‑person task
force to hold hearings in the province of Manitoba. What did they come back with? Well, they said, on the one hand, we think
that there is a high amount of subsidy going to the passenger rail service for
remote services in this province, and, on the other hand, we think that we
should maintain remote essential services in our province. Well, you cannot have it both ways, Madam
Deputy Speaker. You have to have a position
staked out on what you actually believe we need for the province of Manitoba.
In addition to that, for the 21 jobs that had been
announced for the loss of VIA Rail, when I was touring in the northern part of
the province this past winter, when I was up there meeting with the people of
the northern communities, we lost another 30 maintenance jobs on the CN line in
the North, on the bayline maintenance jobs, while we were up north. So do not let the Liberal Party tell us that
they are not cutting further jobs in the North and they are not cutting the
services to maintain those lines. This
cut of another $1.6 billion is further going to erode and cut the railway jobs
in this province.
I listened to the comments of the Liberal House leader when
he was talking at the beginning of this section. He called the Western Grain Transportation
payments to the railways of this country subsidies or supports or welfare to
the big corporations of this country. I
do not think this Liberal member of the Legislature understands the
significance of those payments to the railways and, in fact, how it enhances
the transportation opportunities for the producers of this province. If he would take the time to study what those
payments mean, I am sure he would have a better comprehension of what it means
to the province of Manitoba. These are
not payments or welfare payments to the big corporations. This is a means to provide equitable and fair
transportation for the grain products of our province, Madam Deputy Speaker,
and I wish the Liberals would understand that.
The Minister of Highways and Transportation (Mr. Findlay)
says that this is a birthright starting back from the Crow benefit from
1897. I believe that it is a birthright
for our province of Manitoba, and I call upon the federal Minister of Transportation
to understand what these support payments mean to the province of Manitoba and
the people of Manitoba.
In my own community, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have some
1,700 railway people, over 1,700 railway people, that depend upon these
payments going to the railway so that we will be able to provide the
transportation services at reasonable cost to the producers but at the same
time create railway jobs and employment opportunities for the people of my
community and the province of Manitoba.
So with those few words I call on the federal Minister of
Transport to reconsider his position to eliminate the transportation subsidies
in our country and to look seriously at the decisions that he has to make and
to make sure that we are not going to see any negative consequences as a result
of the decisions of the federal Liberal government. Thank you.
Mr. Neil Gaudry (St.
Boniface): Madam Deputy Speaker, no, I am not going to
defend anybody.
It gives me great pleasure to rise to speak on this MUPI
this afternoon, and it was a pleasure to see people co‑operating and to
debate an important issue in Manitoba.
It is for the interest of Manitobans, and I think we all have
interest. The Minister of Agriculture
(Mr. Enns), the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Findlay), I think both spoke
very eloquently in regard to the farmers of Manitoba and the interest that we
have, rather than enduring all this crap that goes on all the time here during
Question Period.
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Gaudry: I apologize if I used the wrong word. Just like Question Period today, we had
people in the gallery here and the discussions that go on and the name calling
and all these things, I will be very honest, Madam Deputy Speaker, I detest
that with a passion when I see kids sitting in the gallery and what goes on
here during Question Period.
An Honourable Member: Now tell us about transportation.
Mr. Gaudry: Yes, it is very important to Manitoba, and I
think about all these things that were said by everybody who got up today in regard
to jobs and what it means for Manitobans, how important it is for Churchill to
remain a port and a place of shipment for grain for the farmers. As several have mentioned that if the grain
shipment would cease in Churchill, I think it would destroy Churchill, and the
railroad for the northerners is very important.
It has been mentioned time and time again, and it is not only this year,
it is last year, the year before. Every
time the question of grain shipment to Churchill comes up, these comments come
up.
* (1530)
However, like the member for River Heights (Mrs. Carstairs)
mentioned it very clearly today, you read the papers, and there sure seems to
be some confusion in what is being said and what is being reported in the
different papers. It is not the first
time that there has been confusion in what is being said by different members
or different ministers. It has taken
just a change of word sometimes in what they report that might have a different
meaning.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I think all of us are very concerned
with what has come out in the paper today.
As the minister of transportation was indicating, for example, the
banking industry is certainly looking at what is happening in Manitoba today. We talked about the rating of the government,
the bond rating. This could have an
effect on the bond rating of Manitoba, and who would be to blame? It would be the Liberal government. If it was a Tory government, it would be the
Tory government.
We talk about the government that is in power this time
because we could go back and discuss what the Tories did for nine years. There would be lots to discuss that was not
in favour of Manitoba because we have lived through the nine years of the
Tories. During the last six years of
Tory government in Manitoba, they did not get along with the Tories in the
federal government. Hopefully, they will
have a better relationship with the federal government this time.
Maybe something should be done. We talk about the three parties today
discussing the MUPI in favour of Manitoba.
What would be wrong with the three parties to meet the Minister of
Transport or the Minister of Agriculture and the critics from both sides, as we
did for the Shilo, for example, when we all went to Ottawa? It would probably show that Manitoba is in
favour of supporting Manitoba as such. [interjection] Well, it was proven in
the Shilo situation. We all went to
Ottawa, and we won our case. I think at
this time, this is what we should do. I
think it is very pleasant to work co‑operatively, and I think I have
mentioned it during my‑‑[interjection] Sure, I would go and fight
the Liberals. Sure, why not?
An Honourable Member: You will fight against those Liberals?
Mr. Gaudry: Sure, but I indicated during Estimates, Madam
Deputy Speaker, that it is very important to work co‑operatively. For example, I went to Komarno for the hog
farmers. I think that, when we come
right down to it, it is important that we support these job creations, but
going to Komarno, it seems that there was lack of information. It was only one side of the fare, I felt,
when I went there. There should have
been government involved giving the other side of the story, the other side of
the coin. so that people understood exactly what went on and give them information,
communication with these people, and I think we talk about confusion.
I think it is probably lack of communication within the
federal government, and it is very important that we all get together. My suggestion at this time is that we all support
what has gone on today, and I think our‑‑
An Honourable Member: What are you going to tell them when we all
get together? What is your position?
Mr. Gaudry: My position is that I think we want to help
the farmers and to keep what the Manitobans want. We communicate with the Manitobans.
An Honourable Member: We want to stand up for the farmers; that is
what we want to do.
Mr. Gaudry: Yes, stand up for the farmers. My recommendation is what we talked with the
farmers. We feel that we have worked
together. We have talked, the three of
us, together before going. We have a
position that we can present a position that the government of Manitoba wants
and that it is unanimous.
An Honourable Member: Come on, Neil. Do not let them harass you.
Mr. Gaudry: No, that is okay. I am not bothered by this kind of
nonsense. I have seen enough of it in
the last six and a half years, and I will not tolerate that it will bother
me. What I want to do is co‑operate
and work for the Manitobans, and I will continue doing that. I will support the Manitobans in whatever the
Manitobans want through the government and through the opposition. We will work for that. Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Edward Helwer
(Gimli): It is a real pleasure this afternoon to rise
on this very important subject and put a few remarks on the record.
I think this is one of the most important issues facing
Manitoba and western Canadian farmers at the time.
An Honourable Member: And Gimli.
Mr. Helwer: Well, do not forget about Gimli. I have a lot of farmers in my
constituency. I want to protect and work
for the farmers in my constituency. Where
are the Liberals? What did the former
Prime Minister Trudeau tell the farmers of western Canada years ago? He told them to go sell their own wheat. He did not stand up for the farmers of
western Canada.
Where is our federal government today? Where is Doug Young? Where is Mr. Goodale? He is going to cut $590 million from the
farmers just like that.
Remember what happened to the Liberals after Mr. Trudeau
told the farmers to sell their own wheat.
They did not elect a Liberal member in western Canada for 25 years. They probably will not elect another member
for another 25 years. The Liberals have
a record. They have never ever stood up
for the farmers of western Canada. They
have never been able to sell their grain.
It took the Conservatives. In
Manitoba, we have made some major changes to improve the safety net programs,
such as the Crop Insurance program, the GRIP program.
The former federal government has brought in some
programs: the NISA program, the GRIP
program, and helped with some of the changes we have made in the Crop
Insurance. They have also made some very
important changes to the Grain Transportation Act. They have made the railways more accountable
so that they could improve the system to handle the farmers products, even
though we had major setbacks, such as the Vancouver labour dispute. That has been a problem facing western
farmers for years.
We have had to put up with the labour disputes, the
problems the railways have had, all kinds of things, and now we have to fight
the federal government again. They have
said they are not going to help us. They
are going to take this money away from the western farmers. We cannot accept that, Madam Deputy
Speaker. We have to stand up together
and work together and fight together against this kind of action to protect our
farmers.
There are many people in western Canada, in Manitoba, rural
Manitoba especially, who have a big investment in the grain‑trade
business, a big investment in the grain‑handling systems, a big
investment in the agribusiness. Many
farmers have a big investment to produce the products that other countries want
to buy from us, which is our hard red spring wheat which is some of the best
quality wheat in the world and makes some of the best bread in the world.
An Honourable Member: Pasta.
Mr. Helwer: Well, pasta too. We have a durum that makes pasta. That is right.
We want to protect our markets. To do that, we must have a transportation
system that can handle our grain. We
must have a system that we can sell our grain to. We have a port in Manitoba which is
Churchill, which could handle more grain and help the trade situation also and
create more jobs in Manitoba.
When we talk about pay the producer, personally, myself, I
feel that is a good option. I think that
we should pay the producer. It would make
the railways more accountable and make them probably more competitive. They have made some improvements in the past,
such as just in recent years they have incentives whereby they can load 50 cars
at a time or 100 cars at a time, and that will give the grain companies some
discount on the rail freight.
So there have been improvements made and there continues to
be. I think if given the opportunity and
given a free market opportunity, we will make some improvements to the grain‑handling
system, and the railways will have to improve, or we will find other options in
order to sell and ship our grain.
I remember years ago I was part of a committee in the
Interlake whereby we were trying to protect the railways under the rail line
abandonment that the railways were trying to do at that time. At that time, a lot of these rail lines were
committed to stay till the year 2000.
Well, in some cases, there have been improvements made to
the system and to the elevators on these lines, and these lines have been
approved to 100‑pound steel, whereby they can handle the large producer
cars, 100‑ton producer cars, and this is an improvement to the
system. This has made the transportation
system much more competitive and improved the whole system.
But I cannot believe that the federal Minister of Transport
Doug Young would go and make this kind of a statement without consulting
anybody, without consulting his colleague, even, the Minister of Agriculture.
An Honourable Member: He did not consult anybody?
Mr. Helwer: No, he did not consult.
An Honourable Member: I am sure he consulted with Reggie.
Mr. Helwer: I doubt it.
* (1540)
That brings up a good question, a good point, Madam Deputy
Speaker. Where are our 12 Liberal MPs
from Manitoba? Why are they not standing
up for the farmers of Canada, of Manitoba?
Where are they? Where is Reg
Alcock? Where is John Harvard? Where is Jon Gerrard? Where are these guys?
An Honourable Member: Right.
Where is Lloyd Axworthy? Where
are the Liberal Party? Where is Paul?
Mr. Helwer: Madam Deputy Speaker, I am glad someone
brought that up. I think that is a very
good point. When are they going to start
standing up for us in Manitoba here.
When are they going to start standing up for the farmers who do produce
good high‑quality wheat here in Manitoba?
An Honourable Member: Do you not think Axworthy is worthy of axing,
too?
Mr. Helwer: Oh, I will not get to that. Other members can have an opportunity to speak
a little later and get to that, but I certainly want to say that we want to
protect this industry we have in Manitoba.
We have a good industry.
We have a good quality product.
Our farmers produce a good quality product. Our farmers are efficient. We want to help them continue to stay in
business so we can provide the employment that is required here in Manitoba,
that this province can grow and expand the export market and expand also some
of the value‑added production that we can possibly get out of the grain
system.
I think that is where I support the pay‑the‑producer
method of payment because I think this will give some companies in Manitoba an
opportunity to expand and make use of or go to the value‑added
production, maybe to get a pasta plant here in Manitoba so we can produce our
own pasta and use some of our own wheat, and come up with other innovative
ideas, such as the Can‑Oat Milling plant in Portage which is a good
example of how we can get into value‑added production. Here they are making rolled oats and cereals
that are exported throughout the world.
There are many things that we can do to make value‑added
a factor and employ more people in Manitoba to use our products and make this
province more competitive in the business.
With that, I appreciate the opportunity to put these few
remarks on the record. Thank you, Madam
Deputy Speaker.
Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan
River): Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise today to put my
comments on the record on this very important issue. I am pleased that all parties could agree to
discuss this issue, which is an announcement that is going to have a
devastating effect, as the member for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson) has indicated,
on the Port of Churchill, but more so on rural Manitoba and on the farming
community of Manitoba.
It is a great disappointment to hear that this federal
government is in such a state of confusion that they cannot get their message
together between the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of
Transportation. As a result, what we
have is an announcement that the transportation subsidy is going to be
eliminated, and this will just put farmers out of business. Farmers will not be able to afford the cost
of transporting their grain to market with these increased costs.
I think we have to look back a bit at the transportation
policy of this country and why the subsidy was put in place. Many years ago people recognized in
government that as an exporting country of grain there was disparity between
different regions of the country, and if we were going to export grain we had
to put in supports there to bring some equality to the farming community
because some of the farmers are just too far from port. Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, the ports have
not moved any closer to the farmers. We
still have to ship that grain a long way.
Although I am disappointed that the federal government has
made this announcement, I think that this whole process started many years
ago. It started with the Conservative
federal government, and the Conservative federal government was supported by
these Conservatives here in moving towards changing the method of payment. This government has supported it. In fact, when the transportation report just
came out recently we saw that report is going to have a much more negative
impact on Manitoba than on other provinces, but we did not see this government
stand up with the Manitoba farmers and say that this is not good to change the
method of payment. They are standing up
with the farmers today, and I think that is good. I think finally people are recognizing the
importance of the grain industry in Manitoba and they are saying today that
they will stand up with the farmers and try to save the transportation subsidy,
that it is an important part of our economy.
Even in regard to the Port of Churchill, which this debate
is about along with the farming community, the members across the way say that
they support the Port of Churchill, but I have to remind you, Madam Deputy
Speaker, that when the transportation document was put out‑‑and
that was put out by a federal Conservative government and endorsed by this
provincial Conservative government‑‑they did not even take into
consideration the Port of Churchill. The
Port of Churchill is not a high priority with this government.
I am disappointed to learn that the Liberals, who indicated
in their pre‑election period in their election promise that they were
supportive of the Port of Churchill, that they would move towards moving a lot
of grain through the Port of Churchill, have broken that promise. There is, in fact, a move towards getting
rid, to really basically killing the Port of Churchill, because the port cannot
survive without the railway and the railway without the transportation
assistance. If we change and if these
subsidies are cut, we are going to see much more rail line abandonment, and we
are going to lose some very important industries. The tourism industry in the North is growing,
and we have real opportunities there. We
have a responsibility to provide services to northern communities, and with the
abandonment and change in subsidies we are going to see that opportunity lost.
My colleagues talked about the opportunities that we have
at the rocket range. Again, here is a
group of people who have worked very hard to rebuild an industry, to rebuild
their community, and what we are going to have is a lost industry and a lost
development in the North if this rail line cannot be maintained. The federal government has an obligation to
maintain those services to northern people, and I am disappointed that the
announcements that we are hearing from the federal government is that this will
be changed. I am disappointed that this
announcement by the federal Minister of Transport is made before a committee has
been struck to decide how the grain transportation subsidy should be
distributed. Why is this government not
showing respect for those people who are on that committee and trying to come
up with some ideas on how they can save the transportation industry in
Canada? Why will they not recognize the
work of these people who are on that committee, and instead, announce that they
are going to abandon the transportation subsidy at a much quicker rate than the
Conservative government planned to do?
Indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker, this is an abandonment of the
farming community and of the North. We
have to look at what rail‑‑we know and the studies have shown that
were done, and even the results of the transportation talks indicate, that if
the method of payment were changed to pay the producer, we would see rail lines
abandoned. With the elimination of this
payment at a much higher rate, we will see the rail line abandonment accelerate
much more quickly.
Now what is going to happen to our small communities? The small communities that are looking very
much at a way to diversify their economy, to have some value‑added jobs,
we need those railways to help those communities to transport their product to
market.
(Mr. Speaker in the
Chair)
We are also concerned that, with rail line abandonment,
farm values are going down. Farmers are
in a big enough crunch right now. They
cannot afford to have their farmland go down, particularly those farmers, and
there are many of them in Canada, who are at an age where they are thinking
about retirement. This is their
retirement package. This change is going
to have a devastating effect on the retirement package that these farmers have
put together for themselves, basically their land. It is going to go down in value.
* (1550)
So I think that there is real confusion in the federal
government. They have taken a very weak
stand as far as it goes for standing up for farmers. They promised to take a strong position at
GATT, and they were weak there. They
promised to take a strong stand at the NAFTA, Free Trade Agreement, and they
caved in to those and are not standing up for farmers as they had indicated
they would. There is weakness in‑‑[interjection]
That is right. They said that they would
not sign the agreement, and as soon as they were elected, they signed it.
So you can see that this is a government that changes its
mind very quickly. They will say one
thing to get elected and then completely abandon what they have said. They have abandoned their commitment to the
Port of Churchill. We hear nothing about
shipping more grain through that port, and we know that by shipping grain
through the Port of Churchill there is an opportunity to reduce the transportation
costs.
They have not fulfilled their commitments that they made in
GATT. They have let farmers down
there. They have let farmers down, as I
have said, on the NAFTA. They were going
to negotiate further on that. This
government appears to be more interested in moving to a north‑south trade
pattern. Yesterday Mr. Goodale announced
that he is going to be eliminating subsidies in the United States. He is eliminating those subsidies, but he is
not negotiating toughly with them, asking them to eliminate their export‑enhancement
program.
We have a weak minister here, a Minister of Agriculture,
who is caving in to the demands of the American government and is not standing
by Canadian producers. This is a great
disappointment and one that I am very surprised that the federal government would
make. [interjection] Yes, I thought that there were a few Manitoba members of
the Liberal government who would stand up for Manitoba. I think if we check back to some of the
comments that were made in the last session when some of those members were around,
they may have or when they were in opposition, speaking out against the
Conservative government when the Conservative government was moving to reduce
the Crow benefit. I think that you would probably find that some of those
Liberals, John Harvard, for example, were speaking out to save the Crow
benefit.
But we have a Minister of Transportation who has made some
interesting comments. He is saying that
we are not moving fast enough to change the method of payment. Somebody has to bite the bullet. Well, the federal Minister of Agriculture is
certainly biting the bullet and destroying the structure‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member's time has expired.
Hon. Leonard Derkach
(Minister of Rural Development): Mr.
Speaker, I too would like to made a few comments with respect to this
particular faux pas, if you like, or this particular action that has been
undertaken by the federal Liberal government.
I think this is not only a shock to us, but it should be a shock to all
Manitobans, and indeed the Liberal Party of Manitoba should be on the phone and
certainly petitioning and ensuring that indeed their position is known on this
matter. Today I am hoping that the
Leader of the third party (Mr. Edwards) will speak on this particular issue
because this is not only important to members of this House, but it is
important to all Manitobans.
Mr. Speaker, we just heard from the member for Swan River
(Ms. Wowchuk) who indeed comes from an agricultural area and understands the
impact that this kind of a move would have on farmers who depend on moving
their grain by rail to the ports. I come
from an area where we have had some rail abandonment and certainly that has not
been easy to deal with.
When you talk about rural Manitoba, Mr. Speaker, let us not
forget that this government has, over the last six years, been attempting to
revitalize the rural communities so that indeed young people can find rural
Manitoba an attractive place to live and raise their families. But it is actions of this nature that are
going to destroy that. Not only that,
they are going to destroy a lifestyle and a livelihood in our rural province
that will not come back, because if you take $20 a tonne out of grain that
today is barely worth the cost of production, you know that farmers cannot
exist on the farm.
Mr. Speaker, let us not fool ourselves. The impact on rural Manitoba is not just on
rural Manitoba. Indeed that impact will
be felt right here in the city of Winnipeg.
I am hoping that although the Liberal Party does not have a lot of rural
members, at least the urban members who come from Winnipeg in the Liberal
caucus are going to take this as a serious matter and will indeed support
Manitobans and rural Manitoba farmers.
You know, Mr. Speaker, I was told once that if you were to
stand on one of the buildings on Portage Avenue at night and have all of the
buildings lit up on Portage and Main, and then you started turning out the
lights of the buildings that had anything to do with agriculture, you would see
a big black hole at Portage and Main.
Mr. Speaker, this just shows you the impact that
agriculture has, not only on rural Manitoba, but indeed on this city as
well. For years, the subsidy that has
been paid to farmers has been paid for a purpose. It was not just to fatten the pockets of
farmers; indeed there was a reason for it, and the reason is very clear. The reason is that we are a long distance
from the ports; the reason is that you cannot move grain to the ports, charge
the full rate and expect the farmer to make a profit on growing grain with the
grain prices where they are.
Indeed, our country, our farmers, have had to put up with
subsidies that are paid in other countries for grain, and we have had to fight
that. You cannot expect the farmer to
fight the treasuries of countries like the United States and Europe. It is just not possible. It is for that reason we have asked the
federal government to support the grain industry through a transportation
subsidy that is paid on an equitable basis to farmers, depending on the
distance that they are from the port.
The system has worked, and when we went through the GATT negotiations,
it was very clear that not all of the subsidy should be removed because it was
not all GATTable, that indeed there was a reason for supplying that kind of a
subsidy to the farmers of rural Manitoba.
Mr. Speaker, I wonder where Minister Young is coming from
when he makes this statement. We heard
the Liberals say that they were going to be conducting themselves according to
the red book and that nobody should fear losing a job. Well, I want to ask the Liberal today, where
is the red book, where is the commitment to jobs, where is the commitment to
keep Manitoba farmers working and on the land?
Is this a sample of that commitment?
Indeed, I want to hear today from the Leader of the
provincial Liberal Party (Mr. Edwards) in Manitoba, because I want to hear from
him what he has to say to rural Manitoba farmers and the position he takes with
this kind of an initiative that was reported in the Free Press today. Maybe it is too easy for him to stay out of
the Chamber, or I should not say that. I
retract that, but perhaps‑‑yes, I do retract that‑‑he
should take very seriously this matter and speak on this matter and do more
than that. I think it is incumbent upon
the Liberal Party of this province to write to Minister Young expressing their
dismay at this kind of statement and this kind of an approach, especially in
light of the commitment that was made to farmers in terms of the amount of
grain that was going to be shipped out of the Port of Churchill.
We all know that during the election campaign there was a
commitment made to ship something like a million tonnes out of the Port of
Churchill. Where is that commitment
today? Are we going to see a million
tonnes of grain shipped out of the Port of Churchill? From the actions that we see to date the
reverse is happening. As a matter of
fact, I think there is an abandonment of the Churchill port and also the rail
line that leads to Churchill.
Mr. Speaker, I live in the western part of the province
that is just south of the line that leads to Churchill. I know that if we wanted to affect some
efficiencies in transportation of grain it could be done internally with the
railways, and we could probably ship a lot more grain much more efficiently
than we are today.
I want to use a little example of what happens right next
to my farm. I look to the west and I see
a railway that is just to the west of me about a mile. It is strange‑‑it is just a little
spur line‑‑the train does not come up there during the week. It comes up through that railway on
Sundays. It comes up on Easter Sunday
and then we see it come up on Christmas Day and days like that. I think maybe there is a little bit of a
problem in having a rail line only serviced during those kinds of days. So I think there are efficiencies within the
system that can be achieved. I will stand
up anywhere and say that, because I do believe that very strongly. The railway system is very important to
us. Certainly the subsidization of grain
transportation to the ports is important to all of us who live in rural and
urban Manitoba.
* (1600)
Mr. Speaker, this is not a party issue. This is an issue that is important to
farmers. It is an issue that we have to
make our positions known very clearly.
We have to send the message to the Liberal government in Ottawa saying
that this is not acceptable. Our
Minister of Transportation (Mr. Findlay) and Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns)
today did that, and I am hopeful that the opposition parties will follow suit
and do a similar kind of thing.
Mr. Speaker, we have heard from the rural critic for the
Liberal Party, but indeed I am anxious to hear from more of their members to
see exactly where they stand on this issue.
Especially, I want to hear from the Leader of the Liberal Party (Mr.
Edwards) as to where he stands on this issue.
Mr. Speaker, rural Manitoba is an important place in this
province. It is important to have
Manitobans living throughout the rural part of this province raising their
families there, working in livelihoods which will sustain their families and
indeed where the young people in our province can find an attractive place to
live. If we continue this kind of
approach, if we follow up this kind of an approach I can dare say that rural
Manitobans are not going to find very much comfort in living in rural
Manitoba. Indeed, greater disparity will
happen between rural and urban people in terms of income, and there will not be
any young rural Manitobans who want to live in rural Manitoba as long as they
cannot make a decent living for their families in that part of the world.
It goes counter to everything the Prime Minister was
talking about during the election campaign, because he talked about people
living in small communities. He talked
about people living in rural Canada and he said very clearly that these people
should have hope in that Liberal government because it was going to give them
the opportunity to raise their families and have jobs that they can count on
and they could sleep easy, he said. He
said, they could sleep easy because they would have jobs to go to. Mr. Speaker, this goes counter to that.
The agriculture industry in Canada is an important
one. It is a big industry and if you
wanted to measure the impact of that industry, all you have to do is cut it off
for a month and you would find the impact would be devastating on the economy
of this country. Therefore, when we
stand up and speak to this particular motion, we certainly want to indicate
clearly that our support is for rural Manitoba, for the farmers and for all
Manitobans and Canadians.
Ms. Avis Gray
(Crescentwood): Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today
to debate this matter of urgent public importance.
I note the particular motion that was put forth talks
about, namely, changes to the structure of the Western Grain Transportation
Act. It goes on to talk about the Port
of Churchill and other issues. When one reads
this particular motion, one is almost led to believe that decisions have been
made, and listening to the debate that has gone on in the House from the
official opposition and from the government, it would appear that they somehow
feel that decisions have been made.
I am a little surprised at the government. I am not necessarily surprised at the
official opposition, because they do not usually get their facts right, but
usually the government of the day has an understanding of what goes on in
government and also has an understanding of how decisions are made and
processes that occur within cabinet. I
am quite surprised that the government of the day feels that decisions have
been made in regard to the Western Grain Transportation Act, because, of course,
Mr. Speaker, it is very, very clear to us in the House, as the Liberal Party to
our federal colleagues out in rural Manitoba, federal members of Parliament,
that in fact decisions have not been made.
I find it quite interesting that when issues for debate
arise, whether it be this issue or whether it be the social security safety
net, there are a couple of things that usually happen across our country. One, we automatically get groups on the left
who have decided they are not going to support anything that a federal
government does because that federal government is not of their political
stripe and they have already condemned any kind of debate or change from the
status quo that goes on. The only change
in the status quo that our friends on the left support is to try to get
official status in the House of Commons.
It is unfortunate that our friends on the left do not spend more time
debating the substantive issues of the day as opposed to worrying about getting
official status in the House of Commons.
I think it is important, Mr. Speaker, that politicians,
members of labour unions, farmers, members of agricultural organizations not be
afraid of debating the issues. This is
what we are talking about. We are
talking about the debate of the Western Grain Transportation Act. We are talking about the future of
agriculture in western Canada and the future of agriculture for the economic
impact of everyone here in Canada.
I agree with the Minister of Rural Development (Mr.
Derkach) about the importance of agriculture and how, if we did not have
agriculture in this province and in this country, what a devastation there
would be. There is no question that our
federal Minister of Agriculture, the Honourable Mr. Goodale, is very much in
tune to the needs of the farmers across this country and no decision has been
made in regard to this particular transportation act.
I was pleased when I read the comments of the provincial
Minister of Highways and Transportation (Mr. Findlay) and the provincial
Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) when they talk about the importance of
subsidies going directly to farmers, as opposed to railroads. They obviously recognize that there is a
value to establishing systems whereby monies can go directly to the producers,
as opposed to going through middle systems or middle men. We support the ministers on this.
I know that my federal counterparts, the Ministers of
Agriculture and Transport and my federal members of Parliament in rural and in
urban Manitoba, support changes to a system that will allow farmers more
control over decision making, will allow farmers the opportunity perhaps for
more diversification in terms of the type of agriculture that they now have on
their farms, will allow farmers more control over their own destiny. These are some of the changes that we need to
see, Mr. Speaker.
It is going to be very important that in fact we hear from
the federal panel which was a Tory‑appointed panel, but nonetheless there
are individuals on that panel who will be reporting to the federal
government. The Minister of Agriculture
federally has made it very clear that he wants to hear from that particular
panel. We know that there is a report in
regard to the GTA. The government of the
day in Ottawa will be looking at that particular report.
The other thing the federal Minister of Agriculture has
made very clear and I am sure the provincial Minister of Agriculture and the
provincial Minister of Highways would support, is that there has to be
extensive consultation with all of the stakeholders. That is going to be very crucial, Mr.
Speaker, and not just the farmers and the agricultural organizations, but of
course the railroads as well. That consultation
is going to be extremely important as we look at the impact of the GATT
agreement, as we look at the impact of NAFTA.
We know that there is an effect on the GATT agreement. We know that some of our policies here in
Canada may be considered countervails in regard to even the NAFTA
agreement. We know that we are going to
have to look at changes in what we do here in Canada as a country. It is going to be so very important that
those changes reflect what is best for the farmers in this province and in
other provinces of Canada and also reflect what is best for everyone here in
this country.
So there is no question that we want to put more decision
making into the hands of the farmers. We
want to give them more control. We want
to ensure that their future and therefore the future of this country, is going
to be the best possible that it can be and that requires moving away from the
status quo. The debate around the
Western Grain Transportation Act, the debate around Crow benefit, those have
been issues ongoing for the last 15 and 20 years. I think it is very important that the
government of the day in Ottawa is prepared to discuss some of these key issues
and not shy away from them.
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Yes, it was all well and good for the former Conservative
government federally to put into place a panel, but they knew that panel would
never have to report. They knew that the
election would be called and that they would not be government and they would
not have to deal with these issues. [interjection]
The Minister of Highways and Transportation (Mr. Findlay)
asks me how I am going to deal with it.
I am quite confident that the federal Minister of Agriculture and his
cabinet are fully aware of all the implications of the changes in regard to
GATT, in regard to potential changes to the transportation act, and I am fully
confident the federal government and their colleagues will make the best
decision, and that best decision will be for the farmers and the province of
Manitoba and for the farmers across this country.
Mr. Speaker, I am hearing comments from the government benches
saying this government will make the best decisions for central Canada. I do not support that argument and, in fact,
neither did the people of Manitoba, which is why in the last federal election,
we elected so many rural members, so many rural Liberal members.
These individuals are working very hard to secure‑‑individuals
such as Marlene Cowling, who probably knows more about agriculture than many of
the members on the front bench of this particular government. Those individuals will definitely take the
message of farmers to Ottawa. I have no
doubt about that.
The other comment we hear from the benches of government is
all these comments about the red book. I
was particularly surprised by the Minister of Highways and Transportation
because I always consider him an individual who does not manipulate the
truth. I wish I could say that about all
of the other members in the House, but I can certainly say that the Minister of
Highways and Transportation does not tend to manipulate the truth. He did talk about the Port of Churchill and
the promise in the red book about the Port of Churchill.
He knows very well that, in fact, that was not in the red
book, but what he does know, and I am not afraid to put this on the record, was
that the federal M.P.s here in Manitoba sent out a press release and talked
about the importance of the Port of Churchill and their ability and what they
were going to do to ensure that the Port of Churchill would remain viable.
The Port of Churchill is another issue. It is a very difficult issue. What can we do to ensure that the Port of
Churchill does become a viable port?
There is no easy answer to that particular question. If there was an easy answer, then somebody
would have come up with it by now and would have implemented it.
There is not an easy answer to the question of the Port of
Churchill. We need to look at that
port. Is it going to be viable in terms
of a port for grain transportation? Is
it something that can be developed in terms of tourism? Right now the method of getting grain to
Churchill is via rail. What is going to
happen in the future?
These are questions that have not been answered, Mr.
Speaker, and it will remain to be seen what issues will come up in regard to
the Port of Churchill and what solutions can be looked at.
Getting back to the issue of this, I wanted to finish, Mr.
Speaker, by saying the decisions have not been made, and I have every faith in
the federal government in terms of their ability to‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member's time has expired.
Mr. Jack Penner
(Emerson): Mr. Speaker, it certainly gives me a great
deal of pleasure to rise today to enter into the debate on a most important
issue to the agricultural community in this province and specifically members
and the agricultural community in some of our northern communities in this
province, and how that might impact on our only water port in this province and
whether we can in fact retain that port and improve transportation for not only
the agricultural community in Manitoba but also the agricultural community in
Saskatchewan and part of Alberta.
It is painfully obvious that the federal Liberal government
in Ottawa is slipping back into its old policy regime that was prevalent under
the Pierre Elliott Trudeau administration.
The transportation policies that are emanating out of this government
are clearly a reference back to the old ways that the Liberal Party in Ottawa
used to govern. Most of us remember all
too vividly Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the then‑Leader of the Liberal Party
and the Prime Minister of Canada telling western Canadian farmers, no, I will
not sell your wheat for you; you can sell your own wheat. Secondly, none of us will soon forget him
travelling by train across western Canada and pointing his fingers at the farm
community in western Canada. That is
basically where Transport Minister Young, in my view, is today.
I find it absolutely utterly astounding that part of the
Liberal caucus in this province will in fact support the proposal that has been
put out by Mr. Young and indicating clearly their support to pay the
producer. Very few parties, political
parties in western Canada or eastern Canada have taken that kind of a position
on the transportation initiative at any time.
It is interesting to note that under the previous Conservative
administration under Brian Mulroney, which has been criticized rather severely
by the Liberal Party in this province as of late, and the agricultural policies
supported and enunciated by that government are probably some of the best and
most economically supported times that farmers in western Canada have ever
seen.
I refer, Mr. Speaker, to the debate that went on during the
period of 1986, '87 and '88 in Ottawa, during that period of time when western
Canadian farmers were at wits' end in how to maintain their operations. Farmers and farm organizations made
representation to the then Progressive Conservative government in Ottawa and
indicated clearly that they needed some federal government support, and they
needed it immediately.
So the Mulroney government, the Progressive Conservative
government of Canada of the day, did not only meet the needs of the western
Canadian farm community immediately by injecting in 1987 some $2 billion into
the western Canadian economy through the special grains program, and they did
it immediately, something that a previous Liberal administration in Ottawa had
never done.
In 1988 and '89, they raised the contribution to agriculture
to almost $4 billion, a precedent‑setting amount. Yet I hear nothing but criticism from Liberal
members in this House of that kind of administration. Had it not been for that kind of policy and
that kind of financial injection into the farm community in western Canada at
that time, the farm community, as we know it today, would not exist. I am convinced of that.
Now, continually throughout that debate, the farm community
and through the farm organizations made representation to Ottawa to try and
convince Ottawa that there should be an enhancement and support of the grain
transportation system in the retention of the branchlines to ensure that our
smaller communities and agricultural communities would be maintained, such as
the Swan River area and other areas, that we retain the Churchill line, that we
enhance movement of grain through the Port of Churchill. That, of course, was supported by government
policy in most of the western provinces.
* (1620)
Yet I am astounded today that the Liberal Party in this
province will support the decimation of our transportation system through the
kind of policy enunciation that we have seen made by the transportation
minister. I agree that Mr. Goodale, the
Agriculture minister, has continually led the debate to try to bring the farm
community into a position where there can be some agreement, and he has
continually said that he will wait for the report of the committee that was
established by that previous Mulroney administration to deal with the matter of
grain transportation and how to pay whomever to ensure that we will have a
proper transportation system in this country.
Yet, when I listen to my Liberal friends in this House, it becomes
apparent that they are in support of that kind of confused statement that has
come out of Transport Minister Young and/or Agriculture Minister Goodale.
Now, does that not lead us back to the old debate under
Pierre Elliott Trudeau when there were major discussions going on amongst the
farm community? No, the farm community
was not involved. The farm community was
not invited to be involved, but amongst the decision makers, the cabinet
ministers and the Liberal Party were discussing ways and means of how to get
rid of the Crow benefit and how to move ourselves into a system of
transportation that would see the decimation and the dissolution of the
branchlines. It would cost Canada, not
only the export position of Thunder Bay, in my view, or Vancouver, it would
cause the transportation system to change from an east‑west kind of a
transportation system that we are used to and that we support economically,
that has driven Manitoba's economy for decades‑‑we would support
that‑‑yet it is clearly intended to drive the transportation into a
north‑south mode. There is no question
in my mind about that.
The Liberal government in Ottawa is not only going to drive
that process, but is, in fact, forcing it through these kinds of discussions
and debates. Some will make the case, as
Mr. Young has inferred that he might support, that grain farmers in western
Canada can survive without a rail subsidy.
That might well be the case, that some of the grain industry can survive
under that kind of scenario. Those
living in areas that are conducive to broad‑based diversification. and maybe
some of southern Manitoba is in that kind of position. However, let me make the case that there are
communities in this province that simply depend on grain production as the
basis of their existence. It is very
difficult for them to make the change or diversify into other crops simply
because of not only weather conditions, soil conditions and many other
agronomic type of issues that enter into that kind of a process. We are standing here, saying that we are willing
to pass judgment on those communities and those individuals who are dependent
on grain production in this province.
Secondly, we have continually, as our government, the
Conservative government of this province, supported not only the retention of
the bayline, as some of the members opposite have stated, but we have also
asked continually for the expansion of that transportation system, Mr.
Speaker. I say to you, that is where we
want to be and that is what we want to see supported by the federal government,
and the retention and the debate ended on a note of agreement among all the
farm organizations in this province.
Mr. Steve Ashton
(Thompson): Mr. Speaker, I remember a number of years ago
when then‑Conservative cabinet minister John Crosbie said, and I
quote: If I told you what I was going to
do after the election, you would never vote for me.
I am reminded, as I listen to the Liberal members today,
that Mr. Crosbie started his political career as a Liberal, because in many
ways we are seeing in this debate that the federal Liberals have been doing the
same thing.
I want to start, Mr. Speaker, with the statement here. By the way, for the member for Crescentwood
(Ms. Gray), the commitment to one million tonnes of grain through the Port of
Churchill did not come from a press release and a group of Manitoba Liberals
getting together and issuing that press release. The document it was enclosed in‑‑and
by the way, it was not the red book. I
realize the minister may have misunderstood that.
I want to read what it is entitled: The Manitoba Liberal Agenda, A Statement of
Policies and Principles for a Stronger Manitoba. I do not know what the Liberals mean by an
agenda. I do not know what they mean by
policies, and, Mr. Speaker, I must admit I never know what the Liberals mean
about principles.
The bottom line is they committed to one million tonnes of
grain through the Port of Churchill in the election that took place only a few
months ago. That is what they said they
were going to do. You can read through
the document talking about all the exciting things, the exciting opportunities
with Churchill, and that the Manitoba Liberals want to see export of a million
tonnes of grain through the Port of Churchill each year.
Mr. Speaker, why are we so worried today when we hear the
statements made by Doug Young? I did
more than just look at the media reports about what the Minister of Transport
said. I also read the speech that the
minister gave called, New Directions for Transportation, A Reality Check. I want to say, this kind of talk that is in
this document was nowhere to be found in the election.
I want to read some of the statements that are in this
document, because I am more concerned after reading this than any of the media
reports I have seen, because it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the
nature of this country, not just of transportation issues but the nature of
this country. I want to read the
sections that talk about not having the political will to bite the bullet, much
less pull the trigger.
This is the Minister of Transport talking about pulling the
trigger. I want to read what the
minister defines is the problem in transportation: We are burdened by too much of what we do not
need. We are weakened by too little
willingness to adapt to change in customer demand.
Well, let us deal with that, Mr. Speaker, because
immediately following that I will tell you what he defines as being the
problem. Much of our system is
overbuilt, he says‑‑94 percent of all air passengers and cargo are
handled at only 26 airports out of 650 in the country; 84 percent of all rail
traffic goes through 30 percent of our rail lines; 80 percent of our marine
traffic goes through 30 out of 300 public ports.
Mr. Speaker, 90 percent of our population is within a
hundred kilometres of the United States border.
We have a concentrated population of 10 million in Ontario and six
million in Quebec. If you follow the
logic that is in this document, what are you going to do, shut down those
underused airports, shut down those underused ports? What you would do is you would destroy the
country that was built at its inception by transportation, by a rail line that
went all the way across western Canada.
I say to you, Mr. Speaker, if it was not for that rail line
and the Crow benefit, the exchange that took place, which, as the Minister of
Transportation said, was part of the birthright of western Canada, we today
would not be part of Canada. We would
have been absorbed in the United States a long time ago. It is part of the very basis of Canada just
as much as the Constitution is. But what
scares me about this minister is I have dealt with this minister. I have written on numerous northern issues,
and I will tell you the word to describe this minister. It is "arrogant."
When I wrote on the CN cuts to maintenance that took place
right after the election, I also wrote to Paul Tellier, the head of CN. You know what the Minister of Transport wrote
back? He said, I read Mr. Tellier's
letter; I agree with it, and I have nothing further to add. He did not even deal with any of the concerns‑‑the
most arrogant letter I have seen from a minister ever.
An Honourable Member: Was he a Liberal?
Mr. Ashton: A Liberal, Mr. Speaker, most definitely.
I am reminded of what Pierre Trudeau used to do all the
time in terms of western Canada, and I appreciate that some of the Liberals
trust the current government. But I say
to you that if western Canada and northern Canadians and those of us who are
concerned about the bayline are to have any trust in this government after
reading the statements being made by this minister on transportation, on VIA
Rail, I have correspondence I will be glad to table in this House, on the CN
cuts to maintenance, on the air traffic control tower in Thompson. On each and every one of these transportation
issues, this minister has taken an arrogant and high‑handed approach.
* (1630)
I say, Mr. Speaker, and I want to say this publicly, that I
expect that the members of the federal caucus, all of the M.P.s in this
province, I would hope they will speak out immediately on this issue. I include my own member of Parliament, Elijah
Harper. I say to Elijah as someone I
have known, just say no to the kind of federal policies that are very
dangerously being proposed by this minister.
So, as I stand here and I say to the Liberal members, I
appreciate those who have gone a little bit further, certainly than some, in
expressing their concern. We can talk
about the politics of this issue. There
is another bottom line here. If we do
not act soon, the very future of the Port of Churchill is going to be at
stake. We have sacrificed much for that
port. On every kilometre of rail line
there are often dozens, Mr. Speaker, of graves of the workers who died to put
that rail line to the Port of Churchill.
It was very much the issue of western Canadian farmers in the 1880s and
1890s. It is our history. It is our birthright. It is our future.
If we are so stupid as to stand idly by when a government
that has a Minister of Transport who does not understand this country, we make
the same kind of mistake we make if we deal with other threats to national
unity from separatists in Quebec, because this country will only survive when
every single region is treated fairly. Transportation
issues are as important to western Canada as the Constitution has been to, say,
Quebec and other regions of the country, and I will not stand idly by on behalf
of my constituents and let any federal government take away our birthright as
western Canadians.
Mr. Bob Rose (Turtle
Mountain): Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the
opportunity to take part in the debate this afternoon. I appreciated the comments of the member for
St. Boniface (Mr. Gaudry) that perhaps this will be a more productive afternoon
than we sometimes put in, in this Chamber.
I want to begin by commenting on the House leader from the
second opposition party who indicated earlier on that there was a need for this
debate because it would lead to understanding among the members. I look forward to that, and I hope that all
the members of the third opposition party who do not have any members from
rural Manitoba have been listening very carefully to them this afternoon so
that it will increase their understanding of the importance of the announcement
that has been made at the federal level.
I want to pick up on some of the history lessons that we
have had this afternoon from the member for Gimli (Mr. Helwer) and the member
for Emerson (Mr. Penner). It is not so much
the announcement itself that we are concerned about today but because we are
fitting it in to the past history of what the Liberal Party has done in this
country. We look back to the days of the
Liberal government and what happened in western Canada and the drop of
popularity of Liberals, in fact, the destruction of the Liberal Party in
Manitoba. Why did that happen? It was not because of Doug Campbell. It was not because of a series of leaders
that were elected later on to lead the provincial Liberals. It happened because the people of western
Canada realized that the Liberals simply did not have an understanding of what
the western part of their country was all about.
It was indicated time and time again during the
administration of the Liberal government, and that is why we are so concerned
today because all of a sudden with a federal Liberal government who, we all
hoped, would provide a new kind of government for Canada, different from what
they had in the past, less than a year from the time they have been elected, we
have the Minister of Transport saying that the grain transportation subsidy, or
the money that is the right of western Canada under the birthright, as the
Minister of Highways and Transportation (Mr. Findlay) has said, will be reduced
to nothing.
I do not think they fully understand the impact of that
kind of a statement. That is why I am
pleased that we have had the opportunity to have this educational session this
afternoon, and I am not going to spend a lot of time repeating the impact that
it is going to have in not only rural Manitoba or rural western Canada but in
the urban centres as well.
I want to comment on the comments of the member for River
Heights (Mrs. Carstairs) because, as I referred to earlier on, there was the
death of the Liberal Party, provincially and federally in Manitoba, and I know
she is quite aware of that because she often comments‑‑I think the
comment was even in her book‑‑about travelling out to Turtle
Mountain, and they would have their annual meeting in the back seat of
somebody's car. They worked very hard in
Turtle Mountain, and they worked very hard until finally the federal Liberal
government was soundly defeated and replaced by a Progressive Conservative
government and a progressive government.
Gradually, the prayers of the Turtle Mountain Liberals turned around,
and so they could have an annual meeting in a hall, where they brought out the
new Leader of the Liberal Party. I was
very pleased that evening to go and listen to the Leader of the new Liberal
provincial party in Manitoba.
Their star started to rise again because they were no
longer shackled with the federal Liberal Party that does not understand western
Canada. So here we are, less than a year
after they have been elected, with great evidence that they still do not
understand western Canada.
What do we have, Mr. Speaker? What do we have this afternoon in this search
for knowledge that the House leader of the second opposition party suggested we
would have this afternoon? What do we
have from the provincial Liberal Party?
Well, we have again the member for River Heights (Mrs.
Carstairs) standing up and saying, do not worry, folks. We support Churchill. I will read to you a document from our position
before the election. Here it is.
Now, I could not help but wonder, Mr. Speaker, at the time
if there was a document of the candidates, the current and federal Liberal
M.P.s, concerning the location of the environmental centre. Did they at the time before the election
suggest to us that it would in the end be a political decision and be put in
Montreal? Did they at the time say, as
the Leader of the provincial Liberals said in a debate in this House, well,
that was a regrettable decision?
Can we expect that if in fact this suggestion that has been
put forth by the Honourable Doug Young‑‑can we expect the Leader of
the provincial Liberals to stand in this House and say, well, that was a
regrettable decision? I wonder.
Where were the Manitoba Liberal M.P.s when the environmental
centre went to Montreal? Did they stand
up for Manitoba? Where are they now?
The honourable member for Crescentwood (Ms. Gray) stands up
in this debate and says, do not worry.
Decisions have not been made. We
do not need to worry because decisions have not been made, and we have a fine
federal M.P. in Marlene Cowling, who understands more about agriculture than
many of the people on the front bench of this government.
Well, I do not disagree that Marlene Cowling understands a
great deal about agriculture in Manitoba, but I have not heard one peep out of
her on this issue. Where is she? Where is her position on this? Why is she not standing up for rural
Manitoba?
Where is Mr. McKinnon?
Where is Mr. McKinnon from Brandon‑Souris? The last time I saw Mr. McKinnon was last
Saturday, and he did not even mention anything about grain transportation. He never suggested to me, he did not
say: Bob, what do you think about
this? We were sitting around the caucus
room the other day in Ottawa, and the Honourable Doug Young said, by golly, I
think we should just wipe out this $500 million or $600 million that we
subsidize the transportation or provide for the transportation of grain from
western Canada. He did not mention
that. We talked about a lot of things,
but he did not mention that.
Then, Mr. Speaker, we have the member for St. Boniface (Mr.
Gaudry), and I have a great deal of admiration for the member for St.
Boniface. I think he has a great deal of
sincerity. I was interested to hear his position
representing the provincial Liberals. I
was interested to hear his position on this issue and on agricultural
issues. He said that we will stand up
for the farmers, period.
Now, what does that mean?
Well, I am not sure what that means.
It reminds me of the old story about the politician who came down firmly
on both sides of the fence. He is going
to stand up for the farmers, but how?
Does he agree with the statement that was made? Does he want to be like the member for
Crescentwood and say, do not worry, decisions have not been made yet? Is he going to be like the member for River
Heights (Mrs. Carstairs) that says, well, we can go back to the statement
before the election and indicate that our federal MPs support the Port of
Churchill, and we are going to move a million tonnes through it?
Mr. Speaker, I appreciated many of the contributions that
have been made to the debate this afternoon, and I wanted to comment, too, on
the member for Transcona (Mr. Reid), who pointed out that the Liberals cannot
have it both ways. That seems to be what
we see all too often in these debates.
We seem to see a party that is unwilling and perhaps unable, I am not
sure. In agricultural issues, perhaps
they are akin to their federal counterparts and do not have an understanding of
western Canada.
* (1640)
I do not think that is right, but they do not seem to have
the ability to put a position on the table.
They do not seem to have the ability to let us in this House and let the
people of Manitoba know where they stand on important issues like the Grain
Transportation Act.
At least with the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk), and
I believe I am reading her correctly in saying that she indicates that the
transportation should be left paid to the railways. I do not agree with that position. I think it should be directed towards the
farmers, but at least we have positions.
At least we can exchange views, and at least people can judge on that
debate which would be the better answer.
So far we have no positions from the Liberal Party. The only positions we have are from the
federal Liberals who again, after years and years of evidence, are indicating
that they do not even understand what it is all about.
I quote from the letter that our ministers, the Minister of
Agriculture (Mr. Enns) and the Minister of Highways and Transportation (Mr.
Findlay), immediately sent to the federal Minister of Transport: "The option of eliminating the WGTA has
never been discussed or considered in Western Canada."
Here we have a federal minister eliminating it. Thank you.
Mr. Plohman: Mr. Speaker, I want to join in this very
important debate on the future of Churchill.
I think it appropriate that we, as members of the Legislature, have an
opportunity once again to discuss this important issue for Manitoba.
I am not going to engage in a lot of federal Liberal
bashing at this particular point. I
think we have heard a number of members do that. It sounds very political, and actually I
think would make everyone quite cynical to listen to, especially coming from
the Tories across the way, when all of a sudden, they are great advocates of
Churchill and they were so quiet when there was a federal Conservative
government in Ottawa.
I do not think that anyone would attach much credibility to
what they are saying today because it is a complete change of heart, and it
bothers me to see that. Simply the
change with the political winds here, when it is opportune they are speaking up
in favour of something. It has gone on
too long. Now, I do not want to appear
holier than thou. I have engaged in my
share of debates that have been of a political nature in this House, but I want
to point out that both the Liberals and the Conservatives are embarking on a
direction with regard to Churchill that is harmful because of their policies
that are related, not because of what the federal minister said.
We know that they are all over the map, the federal
Liberals, on where they stand on Churchill.
There are eastern Liberals who are probably not aware of the importance
of Churchill to western Canada and to Manitoba, just like there are eastern
Tories over the years or Tories from Quebec or whatever who do not understand
this issue. I mean, we had Lloyd
Axworthy who apparently seemed to be a strong supporter. He put in all kinds of money in these
transportation agreements along with the provincial NDP government in 1984 to
ensure that in fact there was a future for Churchill, and the federal Liberals
put that money in. So on the one hand
Lloyd Axworthy would have seemed to be supportive of Churchill. John Harvard would certainly have made those
kinds of statements prior to the election.
Marlene Cowling has been noticeably silent. I am sure she supports Churchill.
On the other side, we see Conservatives who have been
against Churchill, from Quebec the federal ministers and from other parts of
Canada. Even our own Charlie Mayer who
should have been the strongest advocate of Churchill was embarking on policies
that were extremely harmful and that in fact laid the future of Churchill in
jeopardy from the word go. That is, as
long as they were intent on getting rid of the Crow subsidy, as long as they
were intent on changing the method of payment, they were working against Churchill's
long‑term interest. There is no
doubt about that, and the present Conservatives have to acknowledge that, and
the present Liberals in this House. The
pay the producer dooms Churchill.
(Mr. Marcel Laurendeau,
Acting Speaker, in the Chair)
The reason it does, and even the Conservatives when they
embarked on their meetings about changing the transportation subsidy, had in
their public meetings, and I was at the one in Dauphin, they had presented
alternatives once the method of payment was changed, and they gave scenarios
that involved the United States, ports through the Mississippi, they gave
alternatives involving the St. Lawrence, but they did not even mention
Churchill as one of the options in their scenario. I think that they understood that immediately
that you do away with the pay the railways you will find that Churchill has no
future because the railways are offering incentive rates at port points in
southern Manitoba that will draw the business to other points than Churchill,
because, Mr. Acting Speaker, there is an unreliability in rolling stock because
of the railway's opposition to Churchill.
The CN has made no secret that they have been against
Churchill for years. Doug Campbell has
been speaking out as the senior vice‑president for CN, and now as his
other role in the Grain Commission he has continued to be against Churchill,
made no bones about it, continuously spoke against it almost like a radical
movement against it. It was just unbelievable. He has continued to do that. So the railways do not want Churchill to
go. When I say they do not want it to
go, they do not want it to be retained.
They would like to get rid of Churchill, and so they are not going to
provide reliable service unless they are dictated to, it is decreed by the
government that Churchill is going to remain a long‑term part of the
grain handling system in Canada.
Lloyd Axworthy should be coming out and saying that right
now. Cut this nonsense out
completely. He should make an
unequivocal statement about the future of Churchill right now, and that is it,
no ifs, ands or buts, that it is going to remain a long‑term part of our
grain handling system in this country, period.
That is it.
The Conservatives also provincially should be making those
statements. The Minister of Agriculture
(Mr. Enns), the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Findlay) should be making those
statements. When we were in government,
we ensured there was provincial money to ensure the long‑term viability
of Churchill. Millions of dollars went
into that, Mr. Acting Speaker, because we believed in it. Between those two levels of government, with
the support of Saskatchewan who have indicated a willingness, Churchill's
future could be guaranteed, but this government provincially is more interested
in political posturing, going after the Liberals federally, than they are about
really doing something about it.
I find it extremely unfortunate that here we have these two
going at each other, and if the member for River Heights (Mrs. Carstairs) would
have listened from the beginning, I said I have made my share of political
speeches in here, but I find it unfortunate today to see this kind of ganging
up, and instead of dealing with the issue and that is their policy, both the
Liberal and Conservative policies of pay the producer. If you are going to do that, you are dooming
Churchill, and I want them to consider changing it.
An Honourable Member: That is not true.
Mr. Plohman: Yes, it is automatically true because as soon
as you have incentive rates being offered and trucking options being offered,
the Churchill line is gone. We know
that, Mr. Acting Speaker, and let them not try to hide from that. Why do they not acknowledge that their
policies are one and the same, and they are anti‑Churchill.
Point of Order
Mr. Penner: Mr. Acting Speaker, on a point of order. I think the honourable member for Dauphin
(Mr. Plohman) should ensure that he in fact keeps his comments accurate when he
puts them on record because some of the things that he has been referring to as
being Conservative Party policy are simply not correct. I think he should indicate that clearly to
this House and remove them from the record.
Mr. Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Order, please. The honourable member did not have a point of
order. It is clearly a dispute over the
facts.
* * *
Mr. Plohman: Mr. Acting Speaker, the member should be
ashamed of himself for interrupting.
Through this debate, I have listened to many members who have stood up
and given their piece on this and without interruption, and this member stands
up and interrupts my speech on this.
This is my opportunity to give my views on this. I find it reprehensible that he would try to
destroy my arguments because they are hitting home. These members know, the Liberals know and the
Conservatives know that by recommending, by advocating a change of the method
of payment, they are in fact working against Churchill. I said this because there is ample evidence that
Churchill will have no opportunity for increased shipping unless there is a
policy statement by the federal Liberals and by the provincial Conservatives
that Churchill will remain and always will be part of the long‑term grain
handling system in Canada. It has to be
done, and a new agreement pursuant to the ones that were negotiated in 1984 has
to be put in place. That is the only way
to ensure it. That is the way to take
the politics out of it.
* (1650)
The members, the 12 M.P.s for Manitoba have to start right now
by saying that they reject what has been stated publicly by their
ministers. The provincial ministers
should be standing up, this Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) and Minister of
Transportation (Mr. Findlay), saying under no uncertain terms will they allow
the demise of Churchill, and they will be doing everything in their power to
negotiate agreements to ensure the long‑term viability of Churchill. That has never been done by this
government. They have rejected
that. They have other partners. They have CN and they have the Saskatchewan
government. They could have a four‑way
partnership.
Let me say that the reason, as I said earlier, Churchill is
doomed under a producer‑pay scenario is because of the incentive rates
that are going to be offered in southern Manitoba, the vast abondonment of
railways in this province that will result from that. We know that is going to happen and yet these
parties stand up and say, oh, yes, we are in favour of Churchill, yet they
advocate policies that doom Churchill. I
say, they should rethink that policy once and for all, because there is no way
that this birthright that the Minister of Agriculture talked about is going to
be retained.
He thought it was okay if Charlie Mayer got rid of 10
percent of the birthright and maybe 15 percent of it. That is okay, but by God, it is a birthright
and we must retain it. Well, if they
really believe it, ensure that they retain it with pay to the railways and
ensure service is not only maintained but enhanced. Performance guarantees, that is what we all
have to work for. Then Churchill shall
be viable and will be in place for the years to come.
Thank you, Mr. Acting Speaker.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): The honourable member's time has expired.
Hon. Albert Driedger
(Minister of Natural Resources): I am
pleased to be involved in this debate.
I had the privilege of being the Minister of Highways and
Transportation for five and a half years and, contrary to what the member for
Dauphin was trying to put on the record here, this government has always been a
very strong supporter of Churchill. All
the things that we could do within our power as a provincial government we did
to try and keep Churchill alive and expanding.
Mr. Acting Speaker, at the time when I was the minister, we
had set up a joint committee between all parties, you know, where we tried
because we said, this is not a provincial political thing, we could all agree
that Churchill should stay, but subsequent to‑‑and we should all
work together.
Invariably, in this building, though, everything gets to be
political after a while and, I mean, we are entitled to differences of opinion,
as the member for Dauphin just put his views in terms of paying the producers
versus the Crow. That debate has evolved
and developed over a long period of time, and the fact that the statement he
made, that paying the producer is going to do away with Churchill, I think
completely different from that.
I personally do not have a big axe to grind with paying the
producer, but the one position that I always put forward to my colleague the
Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns), at that time, is that if we move into those
discussions, the one element that should always be involved is some
consideration for the impact once we move into that area of paying the producer
that we should deal with the impact it will have on our road system, both
municipally and provincially.
Regardless, if you are going to go with paying the
producer, ultimately then there has to be some consideration, because a lot of
that grain is going to start moving, as it has even now, by way of trucks, and
it has a damaging effect on municipal roads and provincial roads. But I have no argument myself specifically
whether it is pay the producers or pay the railway. In fact, I think that by paying the producer,
because we have always stressed the point that it was cheaper shipping through
Churchill, and if we are going to pay the producer he will be shipping where it
is the cheapest thing to do where we would not have all the other players that
basically were making the decision as to where the grain should go, whether it
should go eastern seaboard or down to Vancouver, B.C., or whether it should go
through Churchill.
If the producers themselves are going to be having the
money, they will be looking at the cheapest way to move their grain, so I think
it is definitely an advantage to do that.
So I think that part, the statements that the member for Dauphin made,
saying that if the federal government under their policy direction wanted to
pay the producer, I do not think that has anything to do with whether Churchill
stays alive or not.
I think the question that is the burning question is
basically whether the federal Liberal government should do away with the
subsidy, whether it is paid to the producer or to the railway, and that is the
burning question here and the one that creates concern. I will tell you something, if anybody ever
made a political gaffe, it must have been the federal Liberals not being co‑ordinated
between the two ministers, one saying, well, we had not really discussed that,
and the other one saying we will do away with it.
These are the kinds of statements that ultimately hurt
politically and will hurt the now still pretty well‑respected federal
Liberal government. This is one of the
many gaffes that they are going to continue to make, and I find it interesting
that my colleagues on my immediate right here are caught in a bit of a dilemma
as to should they speak in support of their federal Liberals now that they have
made a big gaffe politically, or where do they stand on this thing now? I can relate to that honestly. When the Conservatives were in power federally,
there were many, many times that our provincial views were different than
theirs, and I want to caution the provincial Liberals, do not get hooked in too
tightly with your federal counterparts.
An Honourable Member: Is that talking from experience, Albert?
Mr. Driedger: Yes, it is.
I give good advice here right now.
Because if you start going arm in arm with them, that popularity is
going to go but one way and that is going to go into a nosedive, and they will
go down with it. The euphoria is going
to fade away and this is one of the first big gaffes that they have seen. The other, of course, is the fact that they
have changed their position on the GST.
It is easy enough to make statements beforehand in terms of what we will
do. Once you are elected you have to
perform and produce, and Mr. Acting Speaker, that is a challenge that our
government has faced now for over six years, fighting as best we could.
I remember the tremendous frustrations in terms of trying
to see whether we could get some action going through Churchill, expanded
action, but then, it is easy enough to say government forced them to do
that. You have to understand the
components that are involved with that, with something like the Wheat Board who
basically makes the major decision, and its right. CN basically has never been a strong
proponent of Churchill. They would just
as soon give the line back to the province or do something else with it other
than operate it. That has been no secret
either. Then you have the lobby from the
eastern seaboard, the St. Lawrence seaway people, which is a very strong lobby
that play their game.
There are so many components in there, it is not that
easy. If it had been that easy, then we
as a Legislature here in Manitoba could have made a decision and said, we are
going to ship as much grain through Churchill to make it economically
viable. We would have all agreed. There would have been no argument, but it is
not us that has been making the decision.
We have been doing‑‑all we could do is lobby.
The member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) when he was Minister of
Highways and Transportation, and he was then the champion for Churchill, as we
have all taken our turns at doing it, accomplished nothing more than anybody
else has since that time. The only thing
that he did was make more noise in the House, but in terms of action, there was
never that much more action. He could
not perform any better than anybody else, not his party, just facing the same
difficulties that we had. So let him not
stand there and rant and rave about the accomplishments that they could and
what everybody should do.
The serious question, I come back again, is the fact that
the federal government would even consider doing away with this subsidy. The debate, I repeat again, as to whether it
should be paid to the producer or whether the Crow rate should be retained,
that debate is evolving and ultimately it will happen. There will be a change coming. There is no way that you can hang on to the
Crow rate under the circumstances the way they are evolving.
I will tell you something, the railways themselves are
challenged. I am not a supporter of the
railways per se, but they are challenged with operating more efficiently. The American lines that we have to the south
of us are operating much more efficiently, and unless they start meeting the
challenges because they are Crown corporations, how long are we going to keep
paying them and subsidizing them? They
have to start biting the bullet and learning how to be efficient as well.
I want to say to all of us here, I think the debate‑‑it
is very seldom that we all agree to have an emergency debate, but this issue is
one that I think should be brought home very strongly to the federal
government, telling them, do not move in that direction. You are killing the western grain farmer if
you do that.
On paying the producer, I want to go back to that
again. I think there are some merits
that this province could gain out of it, certainly from my area and the
southeast area who are very livestock intensive and going to be benefactors of
paying the producers, and that will be expanded. My people out there would just as soon see
the government pay the producer because there is tremendous hog expansion that
we are promoting. It is taking place
right now as we speak in that area, and we utilize a lot of the feed grains
that are available. There will be more
and more of that happening if we move to the area of paying the producer.
* (1700)
So that is not the argument that I think that we are
debating here, whether we should pay the producer, retain the Crow or whether
that would save Churchill or not save Churchill. I think the debate that is here today is that
there be retention of the subsidy that has been paid to the farmers for the
transportation of grain. This should be
a matter that the federal government should look at very seriously to allow us
to be competitive in a very competitive world market these days.
So, Mr. Acting Speaker, I think the member for Dauphin (Mr.
Plohman) is trying to cloud the issue by bringing in issues, but he has always
been a bit foggy, and we have differences of opinions in this House. In this particular case, and that is not the
first time and surely not the last time that I will have a difference of
opinion from the member for Dauphin, but I think that if we want to make this
debate effective that we should be synchronized in saying, federal government,
you have to, you have an obligation to retain paying a subsidy to the grain
producers in the western part of Canada.
Mr. Jerry Storie (Flin
Flon): Mr. Acting Speaker, I want to begin by saying
that I think history and the facts would prove the member for Steinbach (Mr.
Driedger) to be wrong when he says that the previous government and
particularly my colleague for Dauphin, who acknowledged, did support the Port
of Churchill.
The fact of the matter is that the previous government
committed more provincial funds than any government in the history of this
province to the community of Churchill.
We not only supported the port but the community of Churchill. We did along with, as was mentioned before,
the federal government have an agreement that was almost exclusively designed
to support the Port of Churchill, the use of the rail line into Churchill and
to support the community of Churchill; some $93 million in a joint federal‑provincial
agreement. We built the land‑based
hydro line. We improved the rolling
stock. We helped to dredge the harbour,
and, of course, the then‑Minister of Highways and Transportation was
extremely successful in negotiating reduced insurance rates for ships heading
into the Port of Churchill as well as extending the season which could have
been, obviously, very useful to the Port of Churchill.
I want to talk about I guess my concern over the knee‑jerk
support of the federal Liberal position by my Liberal colleagues. Mr. Acting Speaker, we all recall the days
when Lloyd Axworthy had a national dream for a social safety net that did not
include cuts to unemployment insurance, a national dream for a transportation
system that worked, a national dream that included the importance of the Port
of Churchill.
We are seeing that disappear. We are seeing that disappear right in front
of our eyes, and we are seeing that what we get from a Liberal government federally
is what we got from a Tory government federally. Absolutely, no different.
I want to talk about something else that is
disturbing. The member for Steinbach
(Mr. Driedger) talked about the inconsistencies that have become obvious
between the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Agriculture federally.
Well, Mr. Acting Speaker, the fact of the matter is that
even the Minister of Transportation in his own remarks is incredibly
inconsistent. He is one confused
Minister of Transport. I want to begin
by saying that in this document, and I am referring to a speech that the
Minister of Transport gave on June 3 in Thunder Bay, Ontario, this minister at
one point says: We need a broad national
vision, one that emphasizes safety and efficiency of the transportation
industry.
About three or four pages later, the same minister in the
same speech says: The national dream of
iron horses, steel rails and steam is dead.
He has no vision when it comes to rail transportation.
[interjection] That is what he says. He
says, the national dream of iron horses, steel rails and steam is dead.
Well, I will give him one out of three. Mr. Acting Speaker, iron horses are still
with us, and they are more efficient than ever and, of course, steel rails are
still the most efficient form of transportation that we know. Certainly in a country our size when we are
transporting‑‑[interjection] Well, unfortunately, there are very
few highways that run east‑west‑‑I mean, riverways that run
east‑west.
Mr. Acting Speaker, the point of the matter is that this
minister simply does not have any vision when it comes to the question of
transportation.
I want to say that because when this minister talks about
paying the producer and when members opposite talk about paying the producer,
they are inevitably suggesting that the vision that we had of a rail
transportation system that linked our communities across this country, that
served the northern part of our country and the northern part of our province,
is dead.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I want to also indicate that the
argument that the Minister of Transport and to some extent the Conservative
previous Minister of Transport used in his argument, that somehow there was
some inevitability to abandoning the rail transportation system, is
nonsense. It is time that we got our
collective heads out of the sand when it comes to the obligations that we have
under NAFTA and the GATT agreement.
Here is the irony of this situation. Because of the way in which we have
subsidized the transportation of goods in this country, it is immediately
recognizable by other countries, by international trade negotiators, that we
are applying a subsidy to the transportation of goods. The Crow rate, the Western Grain
Transportation Act is the most obvious example of a subsidy, a subsidy which
now the federal Liberals and the Conservatives are saying we must abandon
because of our commitments under GATT and under NAFTA.
Mr. Acting Speaker, what we have continually downplayed or
ignored is the fact that every country in the world subsidizes its
transportation network. The Americans
subsidize their transportation network in a completely different way. The Americans subsidize the waterway, the
Mississippi waterway, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a
year. It is not recognized immediately
as a transportation subsidy to the benefit of agricultural producers.
The same is true of the federal highway system. In the United States, they have created a
federal highway system. State and
municipal governments contribute very little, and they pay hundreds of millions
of dollars to support that infrastructure, that transportation infrastructure
that is not immediately recognizable as a subsidy.
Mr. Acting Speaker, we have to quit buying into the argument
that somehow we have to strangle ourselves, that we have to commit hari‑kari
by eliminating the Western Grain Transportation subsidy, by cutting off routes
that are unprofitable because they may be viewed as a subsidy. Simply because it does not meet the U.S.
criteria of national infrastructure, it is viewed as a subsidy.
Mr. Acting Speaker, rather than slit our own throats when
it comes to transportation, or more particularly slit the throats of my colleague's
constituents in Churchill by abandoning the Churchill route, and that is what
the federal government is doing if it starts talking about "pay the
producer" as the only solution, then it is time we got back to the
position of having a dream, of having a commitment to connecting our
communities and providing transportation opportunities.
Even though they may be subsidized indirectly, we still
have to have that dream, because if we do not have that dream, then what we are
doing is abandoning our regions. I will
tell you, Mr. Acting Speaker, if you want to know who is going to be hurt most
quickly and most directly by this new change in direction at the federal level,
it is going to be Atlantic Canada and northern Canada. The minister in his remarks on June 3
highlighted the fact that millions of dollars‑‑and he highlights
it, $590 million is being identified as a subsidy to producers in Canada.
Well, I can tell you that the federal U.S. government
spends dozens of times that amount of money in supporting water transportation,
road transportation and rail transportation in the United States that is not
identified as direct subsidy to producers or manufacturers, and Canadians are
gutless, they say nothing about it. They
do not call the Americans on it.
Instead, what do we do? We have
this meek little response: well, GATT
says we cannot subsidize in this way.
Well, if we are not going to subsidize in this way, then let us find a
more creative way to make sure that the infrastructure is owned by Canadians,
is not identifiable as an immediate subsidy or direct subsidy to manufactures
and producers and all the rest of it.
* (1710)
Let us not abandon communities. Let us not abandon farmers simply because the
Americans and the GATT negotiators who do not live in Churchill, and do not
live on the bayline, and do not live in Swan River, and do not live in areas
where the pay‑the‑producer system is not going to work to their
advantage. We do, and we need
representatives including on the front bench on that side and hopefully the
Liberal Party who are going to stand up and say that, no, we have the same kind
of infrastructure needs as any other country in the world. Rather than simply abandon the producers and abandon
the communities, let us find a more constructive way of doing it.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I said when the government started
talking about its infrastructure renewal program that we should not be re‑siding
municipal garages, we should not be building 1,600 feet of sidewalk, we should
be doing what we need to do to develop our infrastructure, our real
infrastructure. Instead of 250 projects
across the province of $30,000, we should be committing to the development of
that infrastructure. The federal
government, if it has any brains or any dream or any vision, is going to take
the $590 million that we are spending on the Western Grain Transportation Act,
if they are so inclined to abandon that historical agreement, and if it is
going to abandon rail passenger service to the tune of $330 million or $100
million to ports, then it had better make sure that somehow that money finds
its way into the infrastructure that we all agree, or should agree, that we
need.
It is time that the Liberal Transport minister got his head
out of the sand and recognized that the national dream that Liberals and
Conservatives and Canadians fought for for 130 years‑‑
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Order, please. The honourable member's time has expired.
Mr. Gary Kowalski (The
Maples): Mr. Acting Speaker, I am pleased to have this
opportunity to speak to this motion.
Although I was born and raised in the city, I have always known the
importance of agriculture not only in the rural areas of this province but to
the entire province. My father and his
parents were grain farmers in Charleswood, and my mother and her parents were
grain farmers in Hadashville, Manitoba.
These media reports have caused confusion. The confusion will be clear in the coming
days. I have confidence in the federal
Liberal government that has done so much in a short period of time after nine
years of Tory rule.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I do not think it is necessary to
repeat what my colleagues in caucus have said today, but the member for River
Heights (Mrs. Carstairs) has said, and I can confirm my support to the points
she made, that there is need for more discussion, that there is a need for
change. The status quo may be
comfortable but is not possible in a changing world, that the red book promise
of a million tonnes at Churchill is not in the red book, but is a commitment
from Manitoba M.P.s to advocate for this.
Our provincial caucus will join with others to hold them accountable to
this commitment.
We have heard calls from the opposition to get on the phone
to our colleagues in Ottawa. No
problem. Who better to work with the
federal Liberals in Ottawa than the Liberal MLAs here in Manitoba, because we
do not try to make political gain from every mistake they make.
An Honourable Member: We have already been on the phone.
Mr. Kowalski: We have been on the phone already, and we
will continue to work with the federal Liberals in Ottawa for the benefit of
all Manitobans.
Much has been tried to be made of the fact that our Leader has
not had an opportunity to speak to this, yet more than 50 percent of our caucus
has spoken to this motion, and I hope 50 percent of the caucuses from the other
parties speak to the motion. [interjection] No, we are not like the federal
Conservative caucus. We are talking
about the Liberal caucus here in Manitoba.
Just as the First Minister (Mr. Filmon) had his Agriculture
minister and his Minister of Highways and Transportation (Mr. Findlay), we had
our critic of Agriculture and Rural Development and our critic for Highways and
Transportation speak. I do not think we
should try to make some kind of gain. We
are a team and we work together. You can
take from our consensus here today, our position.
The spectre of Trudeau raised by the member for Emerson
(Mr. Penner), well, Trudeau did not have 12 members from the province of
Manitoba to advocate for what was best for western Canada. So you can expect to see better for western
Canada in this government. The old
folklore tale of Trudeau saying, why should I sell your wheat‑‑what
people forget is that was a rhetorical question followed up by many reasons
given by Trudeau why he should sell the wheat of western Canada. That is folklore that people like to
propagate. The member for River Heights,
being a former history teacher would be glad to give a lesson to people who do
not understand the true facts.
I have never heard the word "Liberal" mentioned
so often as it was today and I thank the other parties for keeping on saying
the word "Liberal." It gives
me confidence on the importance of our presence here in the House. Thank you very much for repeating the word
"Liberal" over and over again.
I am sure Hansard will wear out those keys on their typewriters.
Our Liberal caucus will continue to support Manitoba
farmers, but we are not willing to fix yesterday's problems with ad hoc
programs. We need to focus on the future
to find alternative markets and to find new value‑added products. Our caucus will continue to support Manitoba
farmers. Thank you.
Mr. George Hickes (Point
Douglas): Mr. Acting Speaker, I am pleased to be able
to put a few things on the record here, because in 1929 the railway to
Churchill was built, and it was a vision for the North.
Mr. Acting Speaker, if the elimination of the grain subsidy
takes place, that vision will be lost.
When I just heard the member for The Maples (Mr. Kowalski) making a few
comments about their federal cousins in Ottawa and saying that we are in the
best position to make gainful gains, I just wonder where they were when they
raised the tobacco tax, when they extended unemployment insurance and made it
harder for individuals. So I cannot see
how it would be positive if we even have more Liberals elected, because when
the federal Liberals make a negative move, they are very, very silent and very
quiet.
Mr. Acting Speaker, the announcement by the federal
Minister of Transport eliminating the Western Grain Transportation is really
going to hurt northern Manitoba. I say
that, because I am going to be speaking from experience. When I was growing up in the community of
Churchill, I used to see a lot of ships come in and a lot of grain cars coming
up. When those ships came to Churchill,
they always brought goods. We used to
have cars come over from England and on top of that, we used to get whiskey and
Scotch whiskey from Scotland, and we used to get farm equipment from other
countries.
When they came, they came with goods, and then they took
back the grain and barley and the other products we had there. So there is a possibility of having two‑way
trade out of Churchill. It does not have
to be only grain and barley going out.
What it takes is the willingness of the provincial government and
willingness of the federal government to make sure that this happens.
Mr. Acting Speaker, the big impact that this will have‑‑and
I think it has to be addressed‑‑is when you look at the communities
along the bayline. You have communities
there that the individuals have lived in for years and years and years, and it
is their home. The only way that the
individuals living in Thicket Portage, Ilford, Pikwitonei, the only
transportation mode they have is railway.
There is no scheduled airlines, no scheduled flights going in and out of
the communities. There is no roads going
into those communities. So the only way
that they can get their groceries, their mail, go and see their doctor, their
dentist, is by rail line.
When we look at the possibility of elimination of the grain
subsidy, all we have to do is look at the whole VIA Rail services, because VIA
Rail services, they get $330 million from a subsidy program. If the subsidy program was not there, and it
was only the rail lines that made a profit for VIA Rail that would be in
business, the only one that we would see would be the central Canada network
that goes from Quebec to Windsor, because that is the only VIA line that is
making any profit at all. So without
subsidies, what happens to the money‑losing rail lines like the ones
going up North to Lynn Lake, to Churchill and other communities, Sherridon,
those lines would be abandoned. That is
the whole scary part.
I hear members talk about, well, give the subsidy to the
farmers. That sounds fine. If you have roads going into the communities
to ship your grain out, that is fine.
What if a farmer lived 10 miles away from a grain elevator, another one
lived 220 miles or 300 miles away from a grain elevator, Mr. Acting Speaker,
how will we ensure that the farmer who has to travel a great distance gets the
proper subsidy for his grain? That also
has to be explained. What you will see
is a lot of the grain being transported by truck, so for sure that would
guarantee the elimination of the rail line going through The Bay communities
and to the Port of Churchill, when that happens.
* (1720)
All you have to do is look at Churchill. As a kid growing up, I remember I used to
live on what they called "the flats."
It is across the tracks, and that is where a lot of the poorer families
lived, and we lived in very small shacks, that is exactly what they were. Under the Schreyer administration, they had
the wisdom to try and build MHRC‑housing that would be available for all.
So the houses we lived in in those times, those substandard
houses now you will see are almost empty and abandoned because people are
living in a lot more comfortable houses where there is sewer and water, and we
have a beautiful big centre in the community of Churchill that houses the
hospital, the curling rink, the hockey arena, a library, the town
administration office. That was the
vision that a government had in those days, and that is the vision that I am
afraid the federal Liberal government is losing, because you have to maintain a
vision in order to make lifestyles and living and job opportunities for all
citizens, not only if you live in the south.
There are many people that live in the North that need
assistance from the governments because the freight is so costly and the cost
of living is much higher. Also, if you
look at the whole process, what is going on in the Northwest Territories right
now, Mr. Acting Speaker? You have what
you call Nunavut which is a new territory that is being developed, and what
community is the closest to that territory?
It is the community of Churchill.
There is such a great potential for this government and the federal
government to get into negotiations with the new territory of Nunavut that will
be established. [interjection]
Well, I am glad to hear that because it has so much
promise, because a lot of the goods right now are still going through, but
there is real serious talk right now in the Northwest Territories of shipping
everything through Montreal to Rankin Inlet and then sending it to other
communities from there, so I am glad to hear that the government is on top of
it, and I wish them success in it because we have to make sure that we in
Manitoba will benefit from the opportunities that this new territory will
create for us.
When you look at the number of goods, because you cannot
fly everything because the people want to purchase three‑wheel Hondas,
boats, motors, skidoos and four‑wheel trucks‑‑
An Honourable Member: You could fly them in with a Herc.
Mr. Hickes: Well, you can fly them in with a Herc, but it
is very costly, so we have NTCL which is operating out of Churchill right
now. What they do is they ship all the
goods up by rail car and then they unload them in Churchill. Then, in the summer season, even houses they
have shipped up there, they have prefabbed them, and they put them on barges
and they use a tugboat and ship them up North.
So that is a great economic opportunity for Manitobans that we could
really utilize if we keep that rail line open.
Without the grain subsidy, that rail line will be one of the first lines
that will be abandoned, and that is only part of the impact.
You look at the whole area of tourism. I remember many, many days that we used to
have trainloads of tourists that used to come to Churchill or get off the
train, spend a day and they would tour around town and they would buy souvenirs
and lots of things. You spend a lot of
money. So, if they close that rail line,
that is another industry that is going to be very negatively impacted.
I cannot emphasize enough the possibility and the potential
that we have for Churchill under the spaceport program. Even in the construction phase alone, you are
looking at about 400 jobs. I was
speaking to some of my friends and their children up at Churchill. They are already planning and looking at,
dreaming of getting employment opportunities in high‑tech employment
jobs. They are talking about staying in
school, continuing their education, going on to university because they see
hope. That is the kind of dreams and
visions that we have to make sure that the people in the North will always have
the opportunities for.
That grain port is so key to the community and so key to
the North. If we lose the Port of
Churchill, we lose the railway transportation, and we lose everything that
people have dreamed about for northern Manitoba because you know that there is
not a road that goes beyond Gillam.
There is a road that goes up to Gillam, and that is where it stops. So, when you look at fulfilling people's
dreams, you have to make sure that we try and help people to fulfill those
dreams and do whatever it is possible for people to achieve their goals.
I am really, really pleased when I hear young children in
Churchill talking about staying in school, getting their education because they
say, we will have the opportunity of good, high‑tech jobs at the
spaceport, which, to me, is very encouraging because a lot of times kids drop
out of school when they see no hope. So,
when I see that, it brings me great joy, and it also makes me feel positive of
the community and the North. That is
what we have to ensure as governments, provincial, federal, opposition, all
parties‑‑to ensure that we continue that dream for the North that
has always been there.
Thank you, Mr. Acting Speaker.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux
(Inkster): Mr. Acting Speaker, this is a very serious
issue, and this is the primary reason why we felt, as I had stated earlier,
that it was important that we allow today's business be put to the side so that
we can get a better understanding in terms of where the three political parties
are on this particular issue. I am sure
that, in fact, it will be somewhat useful for Members of Parliament of all
political persuasions in Ottawa to be able to find out in terms of where people
in the province of Manitoba are coming.
I want to comment specifically on a couple of things. First is to acknowledge the fact that I
believe, as the Liberal Party believes, that there is a need to look at the
Crow, and I believe that the Conservative Party in the past has also
acknowledged that there is that need. I
found out today that the New Democrats have felt that that is not, in fact, a
need.
I made reference to a letter earlier today in speaking to
the MUPI and the reasons why. The letter
was in fact the letter that the minister sent out. It was signed by a number of different
ministers and was tabled by the minister this afternoon. I made reference to the one paragraph. I do believe, Mr. Acting Speaker, that there
is a need to repeat it. It says: "The Producer Payment Panel appointed by
the Federal Government has been evaluating the options of paying the subsidy
directly to farmers rather than to the railroads. This would promote further diversification in
agriculture and more market responsive adjustment in the entire agricultural
and agribusiness industry."
I believe that there is a significant number of farmers
that are out there that are looking and hoping that they would see a government
take some sort of a direction and recognize the need to get more of those
dollars in the producers' hands. I
believe that farmers, given the opportunity, will be better equipped if they
had the additional resources, better equipped to be able to provide more and
create more jobs in rural Manitoba, and this is in fact what the Minister of
Agriculture (Mr. Enns) has been talking about.
This is in fact what the Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay) himself had
made reference to.
I do take some exception to what the Minister of Highways
has said when he talked in terms of abolishing the full Crow rate in favour of
putting it into the producers.
An Honourable Member: A typical Liberal.
* (1730)
Mr. Lamoureux: The member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) says, a
typical Liberal. Well, Mr. Acting
Speaker, I believe that if you take a look at what has actually been said and
what has been done, it will clearly demonstrate that this is not a cabinet
decision at this stage, that Mr. Goodale has made comments to the opposite.
Unfortunately, ministers‑‑and I would suggest
maybe that this particular Minister of Highways did make a mistake in terms of
some of the things that he said. He is
not the only minister that has maybe misspoken himself, and I do not know the
context in which it was said. I recall
when the former Minister of Highways of this administration talked about tolls
on highways and how quickly he was quiet on that particular issue.
Members from across the floor have said, where are the
Members of Parliament? Well, Mr. Acting
Speaker, I have confidence that the Members of Parliament that represent the
province of Manitoba will do likewise what the provincial Liberal caucus will
do, and that is to express the needs and the requirements and what is in the
best interests of the province of Manitoba first and foremost.
If when a decision is made, and the Minister of Agriculture
anticipates that a decision will likely be made in the next 12 to 15 months, if
at that point in time we look at the decision and the decision is not in fact
in the best interests of Manitoba, and the farmers in particular and the town
of Churchill, well, then, Mr. Acting Speaker, I am sure that you will see the
reaction that will not necessarily be in favour of what the federal government
is doing.
Mr. Acting Speaker, the federal members of Parliament, I am
sure, and I posed the question across the floor to the Minister of Agriculture,
did he phone his member of Parliament?
His response was, no, he did not phone his member of Parliament but
indicated that it was a good idea. Yes,
I believe it is a good idea that all members of the Chamber possibly get in
contact with their members of Parliament.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I would argue that they will
listen. Whether or not they will have
the ability to win the day, we do not know.
We will not know until the decision itself has been made.
The New Democrats and the Conservatives, in the words that
they have said on the record today, would give you the impression that the
decision has been made. The reason why
they want to make that impression is that they are hoping to try to make this
an antigovernment, federal government‑‑it is called fed‑bashing,
and that is why we had members talk about, remember Trudeau years. One member made reference to the environmental
office‑‑no comparison, compared to the CF‑18, absolutely no
comparison whatsoever.
They tried to associate, Mr. Acting Speaker, that this,
whether the government, and they do not acknowledge‑‑one, I
believe, did acknowledge that the Minister of Agriculture has been working with
representatives from the industry, grain companies, the railroads, the Canadian
Wheat Board, Canadian Grain Commission, Grain Transportation Agency, unions and
management and farmers. The federal
government has been working and dealing with this very same issue, and no
decision has been made.
Yes, maybe one minister has made some comments in citing a
personal opinion but, Mr. Acting Speaker, I can assure you that the information
that I have been provided, and I believe that information is accurate, that a
decision has not been made. I believe
that the members of Parliament will in fact have a good, thorough discussion,
and what is in the best interests of Manitoba and Canada will be served.
Until that decision is made, Mr. Acting Speaker, I will
have more faith in the current administration than the previous
administration. I would argue that the
current Liberal government has done more in the last six, nine months than the
previous government has done in nine years, more positive things in terms of
living up to commitments.
The Minister of Agriculture talks about the red book and
the commitment of what the Liberal Party said prior to the election. Well, Mr. Acting Speaker, it was not in the red
book, the one million tonnes of grain.
There was a commitment that was made from the federal Liberal candidates
in the province of Manitoba to attempt to get that commitment approved.
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Lamoureux: They say, oh.
Let me read exactly what was said.
It was: therefore, Manitoba
Liberals will press a new government for an export of one million tonnes of
grain through the Port of Churchill each year.
And, Mr. Acting Speaker, I believe it was printed in bold.
So I trust that some member is going to stand up today and
speak somewhat in a way in which will be more productive, more of a positive
contribution to that decision that ultimately will be made. I have done my own fedbashing in the past,
but I believe that there tends to be, at least from the debate that I have
heard here, more of a political agenda than a real agenda of trying‑‑[interjection]
I guess they are saying, the Leader of the New Democratic Party, that I too
have done my share of fedbashing myself.
(Mr. Speaker in the
Chair)
Point of Order
Mr. Doer: On a point of order, I believe it should be
very clear that the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) has said he has done his
share of fedbashing. There is a
difference between standing up for Manitoba and fedbashing for political
purposes.
We do not want to impugn motives at all, Mr. Speaker. Maybe the member for Inkster used to
fedbash. We just believe it is very
important, our relationship with the federal government. No matter who is in office it is a very
crucial point for all Manitobans.
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable Leader does not have a point
of order. The honourable member for
Inkster has 18 seconds remaining.
* * *
Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, very interesting. It is not fedbashing when the New Democratic
Party stands up. I think that they made
it into a fine art during the '70s when we saw the amount of fedbashing that
went on, and when the minister‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member's time has expired.
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Energy and Mines): Mr.
Speaker, this debate has been a very necessary one in this House because the
issues before us, namely Churchill and the resolution of the payment of the
Crow benefit, are two very important issues to this province.
The debate had to take place because I do not think there
is any confusion as to where the New Democrats stand in either of those
issues. They have supported the Port of
Churchill as we have as a party. There is
a difference, admittedly, between where the New Democrats approached the
payment of the Crow benefit from where I think the majority of our party
believes it should be, and that is fair.
The New Democrats favour paying the railroads, and we favour paying
producers, because we think in the long run that will improve the agricultural
economy of Manitoba. The importance of
this debate was to have the position clearly enunciated of the Liberal Party of
Manitoba on both of these issues.
Mr. Speaker, I have to say to you that I listened intently
to several Liberals speak, and, regrettably, Sir, we have not heard from the
Liberal Leader (Mr. Edwards) in Manitoba.
The Liberal Leader, as is usual, has made himself exceptionally unable
to be here to speak and deliver policy.
He may have duties that carried him and disallowed him from being here,
and I respect that. But, surely,
Manitobans, as we approach maybe an election within a year, ought to know more
about the Liberal Party and the Liberal Leader and where the Liberal Party
stands, other than the fact they support everything that the federal Liberal
government does. Me‑tooism is not
good enough in developing policy for the people of Manitoba.
* (1740)
Now, Mr. Speaker, we had the former Leader of the Liberal
Party and the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux), who should have been the
Leader of the Liberal Party, develop the most clearly enunciated positions of
all of the Liberals I heard. The member
for River Heights (Mrs. Carstairs) admitted that there was confusion at the
federal level. I know that is probably a
gross understatement on this issue, because you have one minister saying, the
Minister of Transport saying, this Crow benefit should be eliminated in an
effort to sustain deficit control. Then
you have the other federal minister, Mr. Goodale, the Minister of Agriculture,
saying, well, no we really have not decided yet.
Why this debate was important‑‑even though we
do not know where provincial Liberals stand on this issue, we do not know where
the Liberals stand on this issue provincially‑‑we would have
enjoyed hearing advice on how they are recommending this policy be dealt with,
that advice going to their federal counterparts. The closest we got to that advice was from
the member for Inkster. I give him
credit for that, because he has been forthright most of the time. He did indicate that there ought to be a
payment to the producers of the Crow benefit.
I have to assume, Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Liberal Leader's
comments on this issue, that the person who should have been the Leader of the
Liberal Party provincially, the member for Inkster, has put the Liberal Party's
position on the record that Crow benefit (a) should not be eliminated in Paul
Martin's desire to lower the deficit and that it should be paid to the
producers.
Well, I have to concur with my honourable friend the member
for Inkster and if that were what the provincial Liberals communicate to their
federal counterparts, that would be good advice. We have to assume that that may be the advice
that is forthcoming.
Now, what I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, is the benefit
of this debate is, my honourable friends in the Liberal Party are
scrambling. They are scrambling to say,
well, you know, there was this confusion between ministers. They really did not mean what they said
because, Sir, they say, and one of the Liberals has just reinforced that, that
no decision has been made, that this whole confusion was just maybe trial balloons,
maybe no communication at the federal level.
Maybe they do not have any idea of what they are going to do, but if
there is one thing debate has potentially accomplished today, that would be, I
hope, Sir, that we back the federal government, Mr. Chretien and Mr. Axworthy
and the eight or nine other Liberal MPs in Manitoba away from the enunciated
position of the Transport minister, Mr. Young, that this Crow benefit should be
taken away from western Canadian farmers.
If that is the benefit of this debate, it would not be the
first time that this Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) has intervened
positively on behalf of Manitoba farmers and western Canadian farmers. You might recall, one month ago,
approximately, when the federal Minister of Agriculture, one Mr. Goodale, was
about to cave in to the American lobby against our wheat imports and make a
deal which would have compromised every single wheat producer in western Canada
for the benefit of, again, our eastern Ontario and Quebec friends, because the
Liberal Party nationally always compromises the West for the benefit of Toronto
and Montreal‑‑never fail.
Well, the active intervention of our Minister of Agriculture a month ago
backed the federal Liberal government away and Mr. Goodale away on that issue.
Now, if we could just silence Mr. Young, who says we have
to get rid of this Crow benefit because it is against trade agreements and is
actionable, which is an absolute misunderstanding of the issue, if we can back
him away, if nothing else happens than the member for St. James (Mr. Edwards)
uses part of his $55,000 taxpayer‑supported, Liberal‑donated
expense account to buy a roll of tape to shut the mouth of the federal Minister
of Transport, we would all benefit.
Mr. Speaker, even though we have not heard the position of
the Liberal Leader of this Liberal Party of Manitoba (Mr. Edwards) on this
issue, I take comfort that the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) has
enunciated where they stand and that they in fact will be communicating with
their federal confreres that the Crow benefit ought to remain and be paid to
producers, as a committee is currently under study, and secondly, that they
will back the federal government away from what I believe are plans to
eliminate the CN Rail to Churchill. That
is important to the province of Manitoba from grain transportation, from import
from the Baltic States and other areas of the former Soviet Union and important
if we are going to turn Churchill into a world‑class spaceport, because
that rail is needed for transshipment of rockets to northern Manitoba.
If this debate does anything but get the Liberal government
in Ottawa to be honest and to treat Churchill appropriately and deal with
integrity with the Crow benefit, then this debate has indeed been
worthwhile. I congratulate the member
for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson) for bringing this matter of urgent public
importance before the House for debate.
But, Mr. Speaker, I have some significant reservations in
terms of where the Liberal Party of Manitoba really does stand, because in the
absence of a clearly enunciated statement by their Leader, none of these folks
really, really count as much as the Leader in terms of enunciating policy.
[interjection] My honourable friend, the newly elected Liberal, is saying,
well, our Leader did not speak.
How many cabinet ministers have you heard enunciate the
position that I have put forward today?
You have heard numerous of them, and in these issues cabinet ministers
do tend to develop and speak policy on behalf of the Province of Manitoba. But regrettably and unfortunately, with
members of opposition parties, unless the Leader enunciates the policy, which
the New Democrats have done, you can say, oops, it was not in our red book; we
really did not mean it; we really were not serious. Manitobans on these two very key and crucial
and important issues do not know where the provincial Liberals stand, and that
is an issue that cannot go unrecognized and unchallenged and unanswered.
If Manitobans believe that they are going to get consistent
positions on policy from this Liberal Party under the leadership of the
disappearing member for St. James (Mr. Edwards), who has not put his position
on the record in this House on anything in this session, that is not good
enough. That will not allow Manitobans
to make the judgment as to the worth and value of provincial Liberals to be
elected to this Legislature in the next provincial election.
Mr. Speaker, regrettably, once again it is the job of members
on this side of the House to inform rural Manitobans that there is no position
of the Liberal Party on the Crow benefit, provincially. They have no ideas, no sense of where they
will go on this issue because their Leader, regrettably, has again not used any
of his $55,000 expense allowance to buy a policy on grain transportation
subsidization for the Port of Churchill.
I do not know what he uses that expense allowance for, that
the taxpayers of Manitoba have subsidized through the income tax relief of
donators to the Liberal Party provincially.
But whatever he is using that $55,000 for, I urge the members of the
Liberal Party to use it to at least buy some policies, buy some principles so
Manitobans will know where Liberals stand.
Ms. Marianne Cerilli
(Radisson): I am pleased to speak today as the caboose on
this debate, and I welcome the chance to‑‑
An Honourable Member: Ah, an endangered species.
Ms. Cerilli: The caboose is an endangered species under
Liberal and Conservative governments across this country.
Mr. Speaker, this is a classic debate we have here
today. We see that the Liberals in
government are no different from the Tories.
We have lists of what the Liberals said they would do in government
during the election. They claimed that
they would take a different path than the Conservative government. They said that the railway jobs that were
being hemorrhaged from the country from VIA Rail and CN would stop, that the
bleeding would stop. Then we see an
action like we have today totally in conflict and contradictory to that
commitment during the election.
* (1750)
They made commitments that there would be support for the
Port of Churchill, and they would be shipping one million tonnes of grain from
the port. We can see that is not going
to happen as they eliminate the subsidy for that northern line. They spoke of renewing our infrastructure
program, improving the transportation system and reducing input costs to make
farming more viable, and we could see that again all of those things are not
happening.
On issue after issue after issue we see the Liberals
implementing Conservative policy at the federal level, whether it is NAFTA,
whether it is the cruise missiles, whether it is the cuts to the UI. On issue after issue we see that the
Conservative policies are being implemented by the Liberal government, and they
are betraying this country. They are
betraying the people of this country.
They are betraying the people of Manitoba.
I want to stand here today, Mr. Speaker, and tell you I am
really glad that Bill Blaikie was elected to continue to represent the
communities of East Kildonan and Transcona and the whole province and speak out
on behalf of Manitoba to tell this Liberal government that the Port of
Churchill and the CN yards in Transcona are not up for grabs.
Mr. Speaker, this government obviously has no vision. They do not see the importance of the railway
to this country. They do not see that
going into the next century the railway in this country is one of the most
important industries, because we have to start looking at the environmental
realities in this country, and there is no better way to transport dangerous
goods, there is no better way to transport commodities like grain than with the
railways.
If we go back to the 1980s, and I remember when I was in
university and the debate and the fight that we had on the Crow rate. Who was the minister then, the Minister of
transportation? None other‑‑[interjection]
Lloyd Axworthy was the minister that implemented the first changes on the Crow
rate to start taking away those subsidies that were going to the railways to
transport grain across this country.
He still has the same agenda, even though he talks one way
during the election campaigns. There
were big promises made to the Transcona Shops during the last federal election,
big promises about lots of work there in the Transcona yards.
I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, with the line going up to
Churchill and the closing of that port, the people that work in those yards in
Transcona are going to be affected.
Mr. Speaker, the other thing that is part of this betrayal
and part of this narrow vision that the Liberals have is related to NAFTA. We heard the member for Flin Flon (Mr.
Storie) talk about this. On the one
hand, before the election, the Liberals claimed they were going to renegotiate
NAFTA. No sooner were they elected than
they quickly, before the GATT negotiations were completed, went ahead and
implemented NAFTA, and now they are taking away the infrastructure that is
going to allow us to maintain our grain industry in this country, and they are
giving up the ghost.
Mr. Speaker, back in the '80s there was an inquiry by
Emmett Hall, from the judiciary, and he said that the Crow rate was not bargainable. He said that once the Crow rate was on the
bargaining table and began to be tampered with that it would all be lost. We can see that that is what has happened and
it is the Liberals who did it initially and it is the Liberals who are
finishing it off in government.
I do not want, though, to let this Conservative government
think that there is no responsibility there because, if you also look back and
you look at the Lyon government at that time which, by the way, the Premier
(Mr. Filmon) was a part of and supported the policies, the Lyon government also
supported the same policy.
Let the Conservatives look back and see they are also
inconsistent and we cannot, as the member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) has said,
separate these two issues. We cannot
separate these two issues, and we have to look at the Conservative position of
putting the subsidy to the farmers in the same kettle, if you will, with the
elimination of the subsidy. The effect
is going to be much the same. The effect
is going to be much the same, particularly on the railways and all those
communities in the North and in rural Manitoba that rely on those railway
services.
There was a report by the national transportation industry
that said that this was going to cost farmers $500 million and we are going to
see that that is what is going to happen.
Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude by saying that I have heard
members opposite talk about how since 1897 this kind of program has been a
birthright to the farmers in Manitoba. I
do not think the government across the way has done everything they could to
stand up for the railway in Manitoba and for this program that is going to
integrate and link the railway and the farming sector of this province. They are allowing the economy to be unravelled. They are allowing this interrelationship to
be undone, and they are not seeing the value in keeping a strong rail system in
Manitoba and in this country to ensure that we are going to have the Port of
Churchill and all those other communities that rely on this program.
It is the railway jobs, Mr. Speaker, but it is far more
than that. It is allowing this country
to have some access to rural and northern areas so that we can have development
outside of the large urban centres. It
is a very big issue, Mr. Speaker. We
talk over and over again about the displacement of people, the young people who
leave the rural areas, and then we have governments take actions like this
which are totally in conflict with any kind of vision of developing rural areas
and are totally promoting the draining of young people and of jobs and of
people out of the rural and northern areas.
So I just do not understand the thinking of Conservative
and Liberal governments across this country.
I remember when I was about 10 years old, and our family took the train
to Churchill for a summer holiday. I
remember going up there and walking from the rail line into the Northwest
Territories and realizing and looking on the map at how far north we were. We did that trip back in the '70s before it
was a fashionable or popular thing to do as summer tourism, and we took that
trip into an area of northern Manitoba that I had never been to before. I want to go back there, and I think that
many people in this province want to take the train and go to Churchill. There is a lot of potential for development
in the North, and we cannot lose this grain subsidy. We cannot lose the rail line to Churchill. We have to make sure that the Liberal
government and the Conservative governments are held accountable. Thank you very much.
Mr. Marcel Laurendeau
(St. Norbert): Mr. Speaker, I know the time is short so I
will make it very brief. I would like to
thank the honourable member for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson) for bringing forward
this debate. I have really thought it
was a very interesting debate.
Mr. Speaker, I must say that I would not call it federal
Liberal‑bashing, as the honourable member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) has
said. I know when our federal cousins
were in power, our Premier stood strong when our federal Conservative cousins
were in power and stood strong against them when they took initiatives that
were against the Province of Manitoba. I
have not heard the honourable member for St. James (Mr. Edwards) today stand up
and take a stand for Manitoba, and I think that was wrong. Instead, he is out in St. Norbert tonight,
working to try and get some other Liberal elected. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hour being 6 p.m., this now concludes the
matter of urgent public importance.
The hour being 6 p.m., this House is now adjourned and
stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow (Friday).