MATTER OF URGENT PUBLIC IMPORTANCE

Breaking of the Single-Desk System of Selling Hogs

Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River): I move, seconded by the member for Interlake (Mr. Clif Evans), that under Rule 27.(1) the ordinary business of the House be set aside to discuss a matter of public importance, namely, the breaking of the single-desk system of selling hogs in Manitoba that has been made without a vote of the producers and is strongly opposed to by the vast majority of hog producers in this province who believe it is threatening their livelihood.

Motion presented.

Madam Speaker: Before recognizing the honourable member for Swan River, I believe I should remind all members that under 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. As stated in Beauchesne Citation 390, urgency in this context means the urgency of immediate debate, not of the subject matter of the motion.

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Members should focus exclusively on whether or not there is urgency of debate and whether or not the ordinary opportunities for debate will enable the House to consider the matter early enough to ensure that the public interest will not suffer.

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. This is a very important matter, and I am having difficulty hearing. I would ask that all those members having private meetings do so either in the loge or outside the Chamber.

Ms. Wowchuk: Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak on this urgent issue of news which has just been brought to our attention, namely, that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) has directed Manitoba Pork that they must move towards a dual marketing system.

There has been no public debate, and there has been no agreement from producers themselves on this. Producers are being ignored by this provincial government. They are ignoring the views that producers have put forward.

With the throne speech, the budget speech and Estimates being passed previously, there is no apparent opportunity available to discuss this matter. The grievance procedure does not apply at this time nor can we use discussion--there is no related piece of legislation that we can discuss this on.

The urgency of this matter is due to the fact that the provincial government will be, through the minister's decision, forcing the dismantling of a successful single-desk selling system very soon without the opportunity for more than over 2,000 hog producers in the industry to speak out.

This matter is very urgent that we ensure that we do not have a dual marketing system imposed because if we do, the single-desk system which we have of selling hogs, namely the hog marketing board, will be dismantled, and this is just the beginning of dismantling of many of the systems of orderly marketing that we have in this country.

This decision runs against the history of farming in this province, and this government is misusing its executive power to exclude the views and interests of those who are most affected by this move.

By refusing to acknowledge the opinion of those affected the government is leaving us with no choice than to bring forward this motion.

Madam Speaker, I urge you to accept this motion and allow us to debate this very important matter on the future of hog producers in Manitoba, the future of the hog marketing board and the future of all other boards that farmers have built to have orderly marketing and supply management in this province. I urge you to allow us to debate this matter this afternoon. Thank you.

Hon. Jim Ernst (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I would agree with the member for Swan River that the opportunities for debating an issue such as this over the next few days as the House winds down are not available. That much I would concede.

I think we could easily say that beyond a discussion between the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) and Manitoba Pork, no action has been taken, and the pretext of the motion may well be out of order in that respect.

So I think I can make the case that for the sake of urgency, as far as that is concerned, within our rules, that in fact there is no urgency with respect to what she has suggested.

Madam Speaker, it is an extremely important issue. The issue of expansion of agricultural processing in the province of Manitoba is important. It is critical to have those 8,000, 9000, 10,000 new jobs. That is important. Another half a billion dollars of investment on farms in terms of new hog barns, of new processing plants, of the construction jobs that are associated with all of those, all of that is important. So, as a result, if there is a will of the House, the government is prepared to debate this issue here and now.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. I thank all honourable members for their advice as to whether the motion proposed by the honourable member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) should be debated today.

I did receive the notice required under our subrule 27.(1). According to our Rule 27 and Beauchesne Citations 389 and 390, the two conditions required for a matter of urgent importance to proceed 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 see no other opportunity for the honourable member to raise this matter in the near future. Despite the procedural shortcomings I have identified, I note that there is a general willingness to debate this issue; therefore, the question before the House is, shall the debate proceed?

Some Honourable Members: Agreed.

Madam Speaker: Agreed and so ordered.

Order, please. I would remind all honourable members that those wishing to speak to this matter of urgent public importance, the time limit is 10 minutes.

House Business

Mr. Ernst: Madam Speaker, before we enter the debate, on a point of House business if I may, I would like to inform the House that the Committee on Municipal Affairs will meet this evening at 7 p.m. to finish consideration of Bill 18, which was not completed this morning.

Committee Changes

Madam Speaker: Is it allowable to let the honourable member for Point Douglas make committee changes before debate commences?

An Honourable Member: Agreed.

Mr. George Hickes (Point Douglas): I move, seconded by the member for Broadway (Mr. Santos), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Municipal Affairs be amended as follows: Wellington (Ms. Barrett) for Interlake (Mr. Clif Evans) for Tuesday, October 31, 1995 for 7 p.m.; and

I move (seconded by the member for Broadway), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Municipal Affairs for 10 a.m., October 31, 1995, be amended as follows: Interlake (Mr. Clif Evans) for Burrows (Mr. Martindale). This change had been moved by leave during the committee meeting this morning and is now being moved in the House to be properly reflected in the official records.

I move (seconded by the member for Broadway), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Law Amendments for Tuesday, October 31, 1995, at 10 a.m. be amended as follows: the member for Transcona (Mr. Reid) for the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk). This change was made by leave in the committee and is now being moved in the House to be recorded in the official records of the House.

Motions agreed to.

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Ms. Wowchuk: Madam Speaker, I want to thank all members of the House who recognize that this is indeed a very important issue and the changing of the powers of marketing boards is going to have an effect on hog producers right across the province.

Madam Speaker, when the government commissioned a report on hog marketing, the recommendation was made to replace the single-desk selling system with a dual marketing system. When that report was brought forward, farmers and processors indicated very clearly that they did not want to see a move away from single-desk selling because single-desk selling was good for the producers. It was also good for the processors, because they had a guaranteed supply.

I believe it was at the hog producers annual meeting where Schneider indicated to the hog marketing board that they were happy to continue to buy from Manitoba Pork because of the guaranteed supply. This move is a negative move for producers and I am surprised that the Minister of Agriculture would say that he would listen to the producers of Manitoba and then make a decision to move towards dual marketing.

Now we hear the government members saying that there is a plan to double the hog production by the year 2000, and if there is a need, if there is a market, certainly we will double it, but you have to develop the markets. But the government has to also recognize that over the past 15 years the number of hogs produced in this province has doubled without dismantling of the marketing board. The hog producers saw that there was a demand and they produced the hogs and they will continue to do that.

But, Madam Speaker, I am very concerned about what will happen to the family farm operations and those small operators if we move away from the protection and supports that they have under single-desk selling. We want to see the family farm operations there. We know that in the United States and in other areas where there are not the supports of single-desk selling, the number of family farm operations have been virtually destroyed. We see that having happened. We see it not only in hog production, we see it in chicken production, poultry operations, that the family operations have been decimated.

Madam Speaker, farmers many years ago recognized that as individuals they did not have strength, but by working together, they could give themselves the power that would have them get a fair return for what they produced and Manitoba Pork has worked very well on behalf of the producers, bringing them, ensuring them, a fair return. Through Manitoba Pork, we have been able to have a steady supply to the processors when they needed it. Moving to a dual marketing system is going to destroy that support that we have of small operators.

They will not have the strength that they now see from Manitoba Pork and will put at risk the stability of the supply. Processors have said that there will be a risk without having the single-desk selling. The government should not use the excuse that they want to see the industry grow because everybody wants to see the industry grow in this province if there is a market, but really this government is against orderly marketing.

We heard comments earlier in the week about how some members of the government side felt about the Wheat Board. They feel that we should have dual marketing on the Wheat Board, and those who so choose to sell on their own should be able to do it. That is not what producers have said. Grain producers have said they voted very strong when we had the Wheat Board Advisory Committee vote that they want to see the Wheat Board maintained.

Hog producers and processors have said, when they heard this report called for by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) to examine the pork industry, they want to see the single-desk selling maintained. It is the key to the pork industry in this province, and this government should recognize that the industry can grow and will grow if there is a market. But you do not destroy the very tool that is there to help the producers.

I wonder whom the minister is listening to. Is he listening to the producers? No. Is he listening to the processors? No. In fact, he is listening to the huge vertical integration feed processors who want control from the point of producing the feed, to feeding the hogs, to the plant where they are processed. That is whom the minister is listening to, and that does absolutely nothing for the producers.

This morning I had the opportunity to call several producers when I found out what the minister was proposing. They were very disappointed that this minister, having been to their annual meeting last year, where he was told very clearly by the producers there that they did not want to see the hog marketing board dismantled--they did not want to move to a dual marketing system. They recognize that by moving to the dual marketing system, the hog marketing system is going to be destroyed.

The minister says he is not going to destroy it, but really it is a slow death of the marketing board. It will not survive. Those producers who are small producers, who have the benefit of the marketing board right now, are going to lose that benefit.

So I have to wonder where this government is when, during the election, the Premier (Mr. Filmon) himself said, no, we will not abandon the family farm. We will be there to support the family farm. Now this government is taking away one of the tools that is very important to family farmers and the hog producers in this province. I have to wonder what is next.

If they are now prepared to take away the powers of the hog marketing board, is it going to be next, the chicken marketing board? Is it going to be the Manitoba Milk Producers? Who next is this government going to attack in order to cave in to big business and the demands of big business who want control of the farming industry?

We see very clearly that in the United States this is exactly what is happening. Small operations, family operations, are being gobbled up by large corporations. Is that really what this government wants in this province? Surely we can have the growth of the pork industry and an increase in jobs without destroying the very system that has been put in place for producers and has helped producers tremendously and has been part of the growth of the pork industry over the past 15 years. Surely we do not have to destroy that.

Granted, we do want jobs, but we do not want to sacrifice the family farm operations in place of having the pork industry grow. That is exactly what is going to happen if this government proceeds.

So I urge the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) to recognize that this is not what producers want, which they said very clearly to him. They want and need the supports that the Manitoba pork marketing board has put in place for them, and it must be maintained.

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So I urge the minister to recognize that what he is proposing here is not a good move, it is not in the best interests of the producers. We can have growth of industry, we should be working to have value-added jobs, and we hope that we have the value-added jobs in the pork industry.

One of the places where we are going to have the value-added jobs is with Schneider. Schneider said that they can work very well with Manitoba Pork. They prefer to have a single-desk selling system rather than an ad hoc system that is being proposed by this government.

It is wrong what this government is proposing. A move away from single-desk selling will destroy the family farm, will reduce the number of farmers that we have in Manitoba, and I urge this government and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) to reconsider what he is proposing here, listen to the producers, listen to the processors, and keep in place the single-desk selling system that Manitoba Pork, which has been very vital to the growth of the hog industry in this province and we hope will continue to be a vital part of it as we see the industry grow and perhaps double by the year 2000.

Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): I am delighted, as an urban member, to get up and speak on this emergency resolution put forward by my colleague from Swan River. I look forward to the words of the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) on this very important piece of business that the House has agreed to deal with today.

Madam Speaker, the Minister of Education says that when I called myself an urban member, I was categorizing myself. I guess in a way that is true, because I represent an urban constituency and I live in the urban centres of Manitoba. However, that does not mean that I am not aware of the importance of the issue that is being raised by the member today, nor does it mean that I do not know anything about it.

I would suggest that I am not nearly as familiar with the details of this situation as rural members are, as northern members are who have lived much more intimately with this problem and this challenge than I have. But I do believe it is important for all members to put their thoughts on the record and particularly to show the importance of this issue for all Manitobans. It is not an issue that can be categorized, nor is it an issue that should be dealt with or spoken about only by people who live outside the Perimeter Highway.

I would like to comment, particularly on a couple of issues that have been raised not only--[interjection] I would appreciate the Minister of Education's listening to my comments or if she is not going to listen to them, take her comments elsewhere, please.

I would like to say that I come, as most honourable members know, originally from the United States. The last state that I lived in was the state of California, which, among other of its well-known attributes, is a major agricultural state, as we all know. It was also, in the '60s and '70s, when I was in California, undergoing the same process that we in Manitoba are possibly beginning to undergo or actually probably are beginning to undergo now. That is the elimination of the family farm, the vertical integration of agriculture, the total taking over of the agricultural industry by multinationals, transnationals and major agribusiness.

Madam Speaker, that is not to say that multinationals and large businesses do not have a role to play in agriculture, but I think the problem that we face, especially in a province like Manitoba, with its population distribution and the concerns we have about the changing population distribution, I think we have to pay specific and very close attention to all of the things, every single element that will keep the family farm alive and healthy and will hopefully reverse the trend of depopulation of rural Manitoba.

Now, this is a concern for all of us in the province of Manitoba. The last thing any of us need is one population centre with--currently we have one population centre with maybe 70 percent of the population living within 45 minutes of this Chamber here and the rest of the population dispersed throughout the province in several smaller urban centres and then rural and northern communities.

It is important for the province of Manitoba that we maintain a balance between the urban centres and within that urban centre characterization that we maintain a balance, if at all possible, between Winnipeg and the other urban centres, such as Portage, Brandon, Dauphin, Swan River, Gimli, the communities in the Interlake and the farming communities in southeastern Manitoba. It is essential that we keep those communities vibrant and alive.

We all know that those communities are dying. Many of those communities are dying because they are losing their jobs, they are losing their livelihoods. Most importantly, I would suggest, Madam Speaker, they are losing the family farm, the backbone of the agricultural, the small urban centres and the rural communities in Manitoba.

We cannot stop that process entirely. I do not believe we can stop it entirely, but we should do everything in our power to try and slow it down, to try and make those communities viable. I am not just talking about the two or three communities that might take advantage of major agricorporation production if we leave the single-desk selling and go to a dual marketing system.

Madam Speaker, as the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) has said, the single-desk selling system that has been in Manitoba for 30 or 35 years has worked. It has worked in every area that it has been tried, most particularly in the hog marketing, it has worked. As the member said, the minister has said, we want to double hog production by the year 2000 because it is a growth industry. There is a market; we have to meet that demand. No question about that, we are not disagreeing with that.

As the member for Swan River also said, we have been able to meet that demand, which has doubled in the last 15 years. We have been able to meet that demand with a single-desk selling system. Not only have we been able to meet the demand, but we have also, through that system, been able to protect as best we can the small family farm.

Now, why is it important to protect the small family farm? It is important to protect the small family farm because those are the people, those are the families that give vitality to the small rural communities. They are the ones, by their numbers, that have enough families--[interjection] In order to have a vital and a vibrant community--and I am going to answer the Minister of Natural Resources's (Mr. Driedger) questions in a moment. In order for you to have a vibrant community, you need people. In order for you to have people in the rural areas, you need to have farms--

An Honourable Member: Income.

Ms. Barrett: You need to have income, as the Minister of Environment (Mr. Cummings) says, but do you have a million dollars of income in two hugely mechanized agribusinesses, two huge hog farms? Do you have that, that maybe supports two families, or do you have a hundred families each generating $10,000 worth of business? The numbers are wrong, but the principle is that if you have a single-desk marketing system, you allow for the small family farm. If you go to dual marketing, you are going to lose that.

(Mr. Marcel Laurendeau, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair)

Some Honourable Members: No.

Ms. Barrett: Listen. They say, no. I know what happened. I know it has happened in California. I know it has happened in Minnesota. I know it has happened in North Carolina. North Carolina is now taking over the hog production from the state of Iowa, and anybody who, like me, is originally from the state of Iowa cannot believe that ever, ever could happen. The reason that is happening is because North Carolina has not had good basic safeguards put in place. It is open for business without any care about what happens to the communities that are facing the people, and that is what this will do.

This will continue the devastation of the family farm. It will continue the devastation of rural Manitoba and the depopulation of rural Manitoba. I am ashamed, Mr. Deputy Speaker, of the members opposite, many of whom represent rural Manitoba, for not understanding that, or perhaps they do understand it and, as the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) stated, they are in the back pockets of agribusiness and they do not care about the family farm and rural Manitoba. Thank you.

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Hon. Harry Enns (Minister of Agriculture): Mr. Deputy Speaker, you know, there was a time in my earlier years, when I was in this Chamber, that the New Democrats actually had new ideas, when the New Democrats actually represented themselves as the avant-garde, as the new thinkers of the problems of today. But, as we listen to them today, we realize how reactionary they have become, how they think in yesterday's terms--[interjection] Yesteryear's terms as I am corrected--and really how little progress they have made in the evolution and the revolution that is going on around.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, I hear the member for Swan River. I hear the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett). If the hog producers of Manitoba want to continue using the single-selling desk of the board, they can and they will. The difference is, I do not have those inbred socialist tendencies in me that needs to make everything work by force of government regulation. Surely, if this is all what it is touted up to be by the honourable member opposite, then most producers, particularly the smaller- to medium-size producers, will continue to use the services of Manitoba Pork. I believe that completely. [interjection]

Why would there not be? Why would there not be if it is to their advantage? The only possible reason why they would not want to use it is if it is not to their advantage.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, just a little bit of history, because there are new members in the House. It was the Conservative administration of Duff Roblin that first took a serious look at hog marketing under the chairmanship of the then-member for Morris, the Honourable Harry Shewman, who led a legislative committee. They toured the province and they asked the farmers, particularly the hog producers, for all the information they required to make recommendations as to how they could improve and how they could provide some additional economic clout to what were at that time some 5,000 to 6,000 if not 7,000 hog producers.

The government of the day, my predecessor, the Honourable George Hutton, acted on that report. It called for the introduction of a voluntary hog marketing commission appointed by the government, and he introduced it without a reference to a vote, without a reference to a referendum by the producers. He thought it was, he believed it was the appropriate thing to do and he did it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, I really do not have all that much confidence in referendums. I am prepared to accept the responsibility that the people have given to me from time to time and act as I believe, in my good conscience, is in fact the responsibility that Executive Council has bestowed on me.

That operated for some seven years, until 1972, and another minister, another government, the Honourable Sam Uskiw, remember him? He is now otherwise engaged, I am told, but the honourable Sam Uskiw, at the time that he was in this Chamber, was a fine socialist. He believed in government running everything and he introduced a measure, not into this Chamber, just took it into the cabinet room, just a regulation and made the voluntary hog marketings of Manitoba into a compulsory monopoly single-selling desk.

Remember, at that time 70 percent of the producers had chosen not to use the voluntary commissions--70 percent--but that did not deter the Honourable Sam Uskiw, New Democratic Party government, from making that decision. He did that because, despite the fact that the Honourable Sam and I have had occasional differences in this House, he happens to have the same belief in ministerial responsibility that I do. He called the shot, and he played the tune, as I will on this issue. That is what I am elected for, and he did it without a reference to a producer vote, without a reference to a referendum. He did it because, in his judgment at that time, it was the appropriate thing to do.

It is now 1995 and our hog industry has changed. Allow me to make it abundantly clear, and I will repeat this over and over again, I believe the Manitoba hog industry has been extremely well served by all its players, including very much Manitoba Pork.

That is not to say that there have not been difficulties, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There were times when Manitoba Pork, representing the producers, was at odds with the processors or when we had shortages and Manitoba Pork would arbitrarily tell Burns or Schneider or Forgan Meats or Springhill Monday--they asked for 1,200 hogs--sorry, you only get 800. Now, that meant the shop foreman on the floor of Burns would have to lay off 15 or 20 people, and these people are well-paid people--you would know. They are Bernie Christophe's people. Remember Bernie? We passed the Bernie bill in here. These are not poorly paid people. Those were some of the problems associated with having a third agency totally in control of the supply.

Nonetheless, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am suggesting that, by and large, worked well because the honourable member is quite right. It was my friend, the still young and aggressive Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey), that a decade ago called for the doubling of hog production when he was Minister of Agriculture in '77-78, and they did it. A great deal of the credit goes to Manitoba Pork. A great deal of credit goes to the progressive producers in the province of Manitoba.

But, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is now approaching 1995, and we are into a different situation. Let us understand it is not just a question if the market is there. The markets have to be sought for. Where? Internationally. All of the hogs that we are talking about producing are not for consumption in Manitoba. Most of them are not for consumption in Canada. Most of them are for consumption and trade in the international world. So we had to compete.

Whether we like what is happening in California or in Nebraska or Iowa, whether we like what is happening in Taiwan, in Korea, in Denmark or Holland, we have to be able to compete on that international market, and we can because we have. We have proven over and over again the highest quality of pork produced in this world. We have the most progressive producers in this world, but we have to streamline and open up the opportunities for the continued expansion to take place.

So, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I decry the feeling that this automatically excludes the opportunities of Manitoba Pork from continuing to operate to the benefit of those producers that it serves best, and they are the medium-size producers to the smaller producers, and perhaps some of the larger producers as well. That is a matter of choice, but I like the concept of choice. It bothers me when I am reminded, looking at my socialist friends, of this elderly person standing on the curb on a busy street and two well-meaning people grab her by her elbows and hustle her across the street. She did not want to cross the street, but they forced her to. If people do not want to use the marketing facility, then why should government force them to do so?

Mr. Deputy Speaker, hog marketing and hog production in this province have a tremendous future if we can accomplish three particular things. We must address the environmental issues associated with them; it is absolutely essential in terms of assuring for all of us and our future generations that we can do it in a sustainable manner and that we can do it in a manner that does not damage our valuable resources, particularly our ground water resources. We must do it in a way that is acceptable to our neighbours. That means you do not put hog barns just anywhere. We have to give consideration to the problem that there are still certain problems associated with hog production.

Thirdly, we have to spend some of the dollars, and this actually will provide a check-off levy off of all hogs including those 100,000 that are now leaving the province and some of which we are not getting a levy from, to provide the continued money for research to see whether we cannot overcome some of the particular problems associated with hog manure. Some of those experimentations are taking place at different centres, research areas, in the world, including our own University of Manitoba that advised me the addition of Jerusalem artichoke flower into the feed of hogs can reduce by 65 to 70 percent the obnoxious odour of hog manure. These efforts can be supported by an active board that I envisage will continue to do this.

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Mr. Deputy Speaker, we have those opportunities before us, as already has been said in Question Period, the opportunity of creating upwards, this report talks of upwards to 8,000 or 9,000 jobs over the next decade in this industry alone. It is a considered judgment of this government, of this minister, that to accomplish it we have to equate greater flexibility in the marketplace, and that is all that I am recommending. Thank you.

Mr. Leonard Evans (Brandon East): Mr. Deputy Speaker, I always enjoy listening to my friend the Minister of Agriculture. He is a very eloquent speaker, has a sense of history, has a sense of history to remind us of things that have occurred years ago, back in the Roblin years, before I got to this House and so on. You know, I want to remind the honourable minister that he is guilty, or he and his government are guilty, of some inconsistency because he is saying, and he just said to us a few minutes ago that he does not necessarily believe in referenda. That is not a way for a government to make policy. He was elected along with the colleagues in his government to govern, to make decisions and to do the right thing, and that is an admirable position.

I want to remind this minister that Bill 2 is filled with the reverse philosophy. Bill 2, the essence of Bill 2 is you cannot raise taxes without a referendum.

Mr. Enns: I will vote against it.

Mr. Leonard Evans: You are not supporting Bill 2?

Mr. Enns: I also told you I did not like it.

Mr. Leonard Evans: Oh, you do not like it. That is another characteristic of my friend the honourable Minister of Agriculture. He is frank, forthright and honest, and I appreciate his remark that he does not agree with Bill 2. You better leave now while you are ahead. He does not agree with Bill 2.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, the fact is that the producers--and the minister knows this--themselves and the hog marketing board people themselves have said that if there is to be any change, there is to be any major change such as being proposed here by this dual board system, by this dual marketing system, that the producers should be consulted. They are asking for this, and we do have a tradition of consulting with farmers from time to time. It was the chairman of the board, Ken Foster, who said in Arborg not that long ago that in his view dual marketing would create chaos.

The minister made a plea for change. Yes, change; yes, let us meet the challenges of the 21st Century. Let us go forward. Let us recognize the forces of international competition. Let us recognize the economic challenges posed by the United States and other countries in the world, but let us not go into chaos. Let us change, but let us not go into a chaotic situation. These were the very words used by Mr. Foster when he recommended and suggested to the media and to the meeting that such a proposal of the minister would be chaotic, would create chaos.

I am just quoting from a statement that quotes the Manitoba Pork Chairman Ken Foster. This is back in November 1994, the Argus weekly newspaper. He says, I am quoting: We recognize that the world around us is changing, but we do not believe that going to a dual marketing system is the way to solve the problems that we face.

He cited an example in Quebec where apparently they do not have the single-desk approach, and he said: A fellow from there told me that they had a chaotic system, they had people trying to acquire hogs all over the province and trucks were passing each other on the road, hauling hogs this way and that way. That does not lend itself to efficiency, in my mind, unquote.

If anything, Mr. Deputy Speaker, this is what a board system does, this is what a marketing board system does, that is, it provides for stability. The farmers have a better control, a better say over, some say, the prices and recognizing market forces at play as well. This is well established in many aspects of our agriculture industry.

The best example, of course, is the Canadian Wheat Board. Not long ago the farmers in this province indicated their support for the Canadian Wheat Board because they saw that board as providing that stability that they needed in order to survive, and I suggested likewise in the pork industry, a very important industry. But the farmers by and large, the pork producers by and large like the system.

As I understand it, there are about 2,300 hog producers in Manitoba, approximately 2,300, and the fact is--[interjection] Well, the fact is, there are 23 hog producers in this province and I do not know whether the minister--[interjection]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. Could I remind all honourable members that they will each have their turn to put their words on the record. At this time the honourable member for Brandon East is attempting into the debate, and I would appreciate it if we would all listen up.

Mr. Leonard Evans: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

The fact is that marketing boards have played a key role in Canadian agriculture. As a matter of fact, they played a key role and do play a key role in European agriculture. If anything, they have ensured and provided for a massive expansion of agriculture in Europe, particularly in western Europe. They continue to play a very significant role.

I cannot tell you what is happening next year or the year after, but, as far as I realize, they continue to play a very significant role. [interjection] Well, we are not talking about subsidization in this; we are simply talking about allowing the hog producers in Manitoba some right to control what is happening in their industry.

You people who talk so sanctimonious about having referendum for tax increases now are wanting to deny the 2,300 hog producers of Manitoba the right to have some say of what happens to the future of their industry because there is absolutely no question that if you have a dual system, you are going to have chaos.

These are the words of the chairman of the board. This is Mr. Ken Foster. Well, I do not know the individual. At least, I do not believe I know the individual. I may have run across him, but I am simply quoting what he has stated publicly. So what we have then is a system that provides stability of income for farmers and in that respect does enhance to protect the family farm.

Who is it that wants a dual system? Who is it that has gone to the commission that was studying this, to Dr. Clay Gilson and others, and said they wanted the system changed? As I understand it from my reading on it, it was a small number of large feed companies. [interjection] Well, this is what has been reported. It was, as a matter of fact, about three that were mentioned, not the small ones, the big ones.

So what we are going to have is a system similar to what has evolved in the United States, as my colleague from Wellington has indicated, a system where you have vertical integration, where the farmers no longer are independent entrepreneurs; they virtually become employees of the large corporations.

I note there is a letter to the editor commenting on this, written by one of the hog producers, and he said it very well about what has happened in the United States, from his study of the American industry. He says the vertical integration in the U.S. has totally decimated the family-owned farm layer, the pullet, the chicken, the turkey operations. Today, they are literally nonexistent across the border. It is estimated by experts that to date the Americans are already at the halfway point in eliminating family-owned hog productions simply due to the fact that huge multinationals like Tyson Foods and National Hogs have set their goal on 50 percent of American production by one company alone at a time when there is already gross overproduction of hogs in the United States.

Consequently, hog prices are at an all-time low. Where is the sanity or even common sense in just building barns as an investment or because you have unlimited funds when you know there is already overproduction and you know that for every barn you build you replace a family farm operation? Some role models to follow.

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So, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I see that I am running out of time, because the little light is flashing, but this person, Mr. Dan Kleinsasser[phonetic], who is a Manitoba hog producer in district No. 8, has written an excellent letter which I would recommend to members opposite. Thank you very much.

Hon. Glen Findlay (Minister of Highways and Transportation): Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to have an opportunity today to stand up and talk on this issue, because it really represents the difference between this side of the House and the other side of the House. There is no question about it. It is a long-standing difference, there is no question. For the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk), she is certainly getting to realize it and she has certainly been co-opted by that form of thinking. There is no doubt about it.

I want to present to the House some of the reality of change that is going on in society, in agriculture in particular, what has happened in this province in the last number of years, several decades, and we just focus on the hog industry. The hog industry in this province at one time just served consumption within the province, then it started to expand and it sold across Canada and then over the last couple of decades it is selling into the U.S. Now we are at a point where we are selling 70 to 80 percent of our product outside of the province.

The member opposite talked about the Wheat Board and talked about the role it has played. It has also played an evolutionary role in the process of expanding production and sourcing export markets. But times are changing. We have to be more aggressive in selling out there. We also have to be sure that the product we raise here is processed here.

Now, if there is any failing of the Wheat Board and the WGTA, it was policies to export raw product and it is still a process to export raw products so, essentially, we export the jobs of processing.

The hog industry has had a lot of processing associated with it in the province. There are four processors here, and I think they like the restricted opportunity of other people to buy in the province knowing that the hogs are all forced through the board for their ultimate purchase. There is no question in my mind that farmers today want choice and flexibility in how they market, and I think that if they do have that they will sell to more buyers outside the province and maybe to processors inside the province.

We believe that there is opportunity for more processors to come and establish here. That means more jobs for Manitobans. I ask the question if the existing processors support that, and maybe the members opposite should ask themselves if the existing processors want the status quo so that there is no competition for more processors coming to the province to process hogs to create jobs in the province of Manitoba.

The farm community has evolved. Twenty years ago we did not have any information to help us market. We did not have fax machines and telephones and instant communication with the world. We have that today. Mr. Deputy Speaker, we as farmers, and I am now speaking maybe as a farmer, can sell our peas, our cattle, our feed wheat, our feed barley, our beans in a dual market, in a multimarket. There is no chaos with a number of buyers, no chaos. I can phone up 15 people to buy my canola, and I choose the best price for the best service. I ask the member for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans), if I can do it in canola and peas and feed wheat, why can I not do it with the pork? Why not? Why can I not? Why can that same farmer not do it with his hogs?

Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) is only asking for more flexibility for farmers to choose. The board will continue to operate, and if it supplies a good service, 95 percent of the producers will use it. It will now be on notice, perform, or you will lose your customer, and I do not know what business does not operate that way today. What business does not have to perform for its customer? I do not hear anybody saying anything--[interjection]

There is no such thing as oversupply. The world is short of food. Japan will take every pork we can produce. Oversupply, that is the most ridiculous comment I have heard. So, Mr. Deputy Speaker, there will be no chaos. Farmers have the mental and the technical capability to choose. Anybody who wants their business will have to perform, and I am one who advocates that the family farm is strongest if they can have the best net income. It is those with the poor net income that are struggling, so to get the best net income they have to have the choice of being able to maximize the value of their product.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Some honourable members have already had the opportunity to debate. Others will have the opportunity to debate. At this time the Minister of Highways has the floor, and I would appreciate if I could hear him from here. Let us keep the decorum down.

The honourable Minister of Highways, to continue.

Mr. Findlay: Mr. Deputy Speaker, choice and flexibility protect the family farm. There is no doubt. Ninety-eight percent of the farms in Manitoba are family farms. It has always really been that way. I do not see any way it will change, but they need the choice and flexibility, and whomever they do business with must perform to get their business.

I have heard comments about vertical integration. That has got nothing to do with this question--nothing. The hog board has fought vertical integration, and this is not going to bring vertical integration. The person who is producing the hogs will own the hogs. He will decide where to sell them, and the person who is buying them has to compete for them. Maybe the existence of the hog board is a . . . of vertical integration. This allows division between production and processing, pure and simple. There is no connection. The horror stories trying to be created, that somehow everything is going to go to hell in a handbasket and there is going to be chaos and the Americans are going to take over is absolutely not true--not true.

We would like to bring more processors to this province. If the processor is going to come and invest $50 million in a hog plant, and he wants to sell to a market in Japan that wants a certain quality of hog at a certain weight, the best way to achieve his ability to satisfy his customer is to contract with a producer for five years, three years, 16 years, that that quality of hog, that breed will be produced and delivered to the plant at an agreed-upon price, and everybody wins in that.

Contracting is going on. Manitoba Pork, in the evolution of the way they have operated their business, is allowing contracting to go on, but there needs to be more flexibility in that process.

When I am a producer, I have comfort in dealing with my banker if I can have long-term contracts, and he has comfort in doing business with me. When the hog producers are investing $2 million in a plant, as they are today, there has to be some comfort between the banker and in farmers' ability to market, and this flexibility will allow that.

I will almost guarantee to the members of this House, if the hog board is responsive to the industry in an ongoing way, it will market a very high percentage of the hogs for a long time to come. If acts we are going to be putting in front of them, a greater challenge to be flexible, to respond to the market farmer--there is no question today that on this side of the House we support choice, flexibility and competition. That gives everybody the best opportunity to survive in the marketplace, the best opportunity for the family farm to survive.

You can hold your opposite views, but please deal with only the truth; do not try to throw other ideas into the mix that are not necessarily true. You may challenge us and say the same thing, but while I am on my feet at this point and I have an opportunity to express to you, deal with the facts that exist, only flexibility. The hog board will continue to operate. They have done well. I guarantee you they will continue to do well, but who in this society today can hide behind a monopoly. You must allow choice and flexibility. If you perform well, you will get the customers, as the hog board will. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

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Mr. Stan Struthers (Dauphin): Let us cut to the chase on this, and let us just forget about all those Tory cliches that are based on no scientific research. Let us throw out all those Tory cliches that are forming the basis of this decision to circumvent the hog marketing board and go to something called dual marketing.

It is absolutely ridiculous that somebody from across the way would refer to this as progress. If progress in Tory minds is forcing small hog farmers off their land, then you have a warped sense of what progress is.

The other cliche that comes from across the way from the minister and other speakers is the term "flexibility." If you are so flexible, allow farmers to vote on this before you go ahead with it.

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for Dauphin, at this time, has the floor. When the honourable member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe) wants to be recognized for debate, he can stand up when the honourable member is finished.

The honourable member for Dauphin, to continue.

Mr. Struthers: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have also heard the cliche thrown across that times are changing. Does this government believe that they have no hand in helping the times change?

I am not in favour of you sitting back and allowing for negative things to happen on the farms while our farmers suffer. Throughout rural Manitoba, I have had farmers come to me and ask me if this government understands the concept of single-desk selling. They assume that this government does not understand it, but do you know what? I think this government does understand single-desk selling. I think what is driving this move towards dumping the hog marketing board is the Tory ideology that says that we are going to stand up for the very few in society and not stand for the broad mass of farmers who are struggling out there today.

This is not just a question of putting income into the hands of people in Manitoba. This is much more basic than that to the way we make decisions in agriculture in this province. The government is asking us to make a decision on who decides on decisions in agriculture. What this government is doing by dumping the hog marketing board, opting for dual marketing, is saying that they believe large corporations should be making these decisions. I could not agree more with the Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay) when he says their concept is different than ours. We do not think large corporations should be given that kind of power. We trust farmers to make those decisions, unlike the Tory government across the way.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, single desk selling has served our farmers well in not only the area of hogs but wheat and poultry and other areas. What this government has to understand is that if they move away from single-desk selling, then they create a position where our farmers compete against each other for a place in the market. That is going to drive prices down. If this government does not understand that, I would suggest they take a very basic course in economics and understand the concept of supply and demand.

If you have a lot of corporations and a lot of small farmers and the marketing board competing against each other to sell across the line to the States or wherever you are going to sell, that means a lot of sellers selling to a few buyers. The price can only go down, and when the price goes down on hogs for small farmers, they sell out. They get out of the business. Who moves in? Large corporations who have the money to buy them up and who have money to expand. Now this is obvious. This government knows this, and this government is deciding to side with large corporations over top of our small farmers.

The other thing that this government has no idea on is how it is going to control the size of these hog farms that are going to be proliferating in rural Manitoba. How many small farmers are going to be displaced when hog barns of large proportion start springing up across rural Manitoba? When you come up with some kind of figures of how many jobs you are going to create, are you taking into consideration the number of jobs that you displace in order to get those jobs? I ask you that, and I ask you to calculate that honestly into your figures before you start bandying them around in the House or in public discussion. Give us the honest figures.

My experience so far with this government is that when it promises X number of jobs you do not get anywhere near that amount of jobs. Let us consider the jobs themselves. What you are doing with this is that you are turning farmers into employees of corporations. Now, is that your idea of progress? Is that your vision for rural Manitoba? I would hope that it is not.

The one thing I want you to absolutely be clear of as you move towards dual marketing, as you move away from single-desk selling, is what is contained in the North American Free Trade Agreement, because once we dump the hog marketing board or the Canadian Wheat Board or other boards, do we have the option then to go back to these boards? No, we do not. I was told by the Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay) to be accurate, and I am asking the government now to do the same.

Under NAFTA, you do not have the ability to go back to these boards once the Americans close that border to you. You are leaving a whole bunch of farmers stranded when they decide south of the border to jiggle the price of hogs or wheat. When the farmers come to you and ask you to reinstate the hog marketing board or the Canadian Wheat Board, you cannot do it because you have signed a NAFTA agreement prohibiting you from doing that. Consider that before we dump the hog marketing board and the Canadian Wheat Board because that is what you are doing with dual marketing.

I also wanted to bring up a very local problem in Dauphin where the folks at Sifton, Manitoba, got into a great big discussion over the construction of a hog barn in the R.M. of Dauphin. Now, whether you are in favour of these hog barns or not, you have to admit that discussion that took place in Sifton, if any of you know anything about it, was absolutely divisive, was absolutely hot-tempered, and was absolutely by the seat of the pants of the R.M. of Dauphin because they had nothing to fall back on. They had no process whether it be on the economic side or the environmental side, and this government has done nothing to help out the R.M. of Dauphin in making its decision or any other R.M. across this province.

So what we are doing is that we are setting up a lot more rural municipalities to come up with very divisive, very hot discussions about hog barns, and this government is not doing a thing to help them in deciding whether they are environmentally sound or whether they are economically sound. That is a responsibility that this government has to take.

Now, what about letting the farmers vote? I challenge the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) and anybody else across the way to come to Dauphin and to ask the people who farm in my area to vote on this matter. They will set you straight. They will tell you that they need the marketing board because they are a lot further away from the market than any of the people that are served in the southern part of Manitoba.

What I suggest to you is, let the farmers vote. They know better than anybody in this Legislature what they need, and what they need to survive is family farms. Let them vote. Come out and have some public hearings on this. I dare you. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

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Hon. Leonard Derkach (Minister of Rural Development): I am pleased to rise this afternoon to engage in this debate because I do believe that this is a very important issue for not only rural Manitoba but for all of Manitoba because not only will the benefits of doubling of the hog industry accrue to the members outside of the city--indeed, all the citizens in the urban centres of our provinces are going to benefit by this kind of expansion.

Something that seems to be missed completely by the opposition is the fact that we have an option here. We are talking about choices, and we are talking about flexibility, something that escapes the opposition beyond. It is unfortunate because I go back to the years when we had a very healthy beef-packing industry in this province. I ask members in this House, where is our beef-packing industry today? Mr. Deputy Speaker, I remember who was in government at the time, and I also remember who was the Minister of Agriculture at that time.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, because of the lack of action that was undertaken by the then-administration of the NDPs, we lost the beef-packing industry in this province, and it is going to be a long time before it comes back to this province. Now, all we have to do is drive down to St. Boniface and see all those buildings that are empty, but we used to have 6,000 jobs in the city of Winnipeg and they were high-paying jobs, but because of the policies of the NDP administration they drove this industry out of this province and to this day we have not been able to get it. If we followed the old thinking of the NDP today, that is what our hog industry would be destined for.

But, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we are not going to follow that thinking. We are not going to follow that old style that is not working anywhere in this country. We are going to allow some choices and some flexibility.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. If the honourable Minister of Labour (Mr. Toews) and the member for Transcona (Mr. Reid) wish to have a discussion, maybe they could do so in the loge. At this time the honourable Minister of Rural Development has the floor.

Mr. Derkach: Thank you very much, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I would like to continue because we are at a very critical time in the economy of this province. We can either go ahead, or, if we follow the thinking of the members opposite, we will start to regress, and that is not the option that we on this side of the House see as an alternative for the people in this province.

Over the last six months we have seen some very interesting developments in this province, and some of those developments are worth mentioning here today. When you take a look at the expansion at McCain, the expansion at McCain did not come about by accident. It came about because we have a climate in this province that welcomes business. This is a business-minded government, one that is open for business, one that welcomes industry into this province, and industry is beginning to recognize that.

So we have an expansion of $75 million at the McCain plant, but what does that mean to the citizens of this province? It means that farmers outside the Portage area and in all parts of this province are going to be able to reap the benefits of the expansion of this industry. Some 17,000 acres of potatoes are going to be required in order to fill the demands of this one plant.

I go on. Let us look at Nestle-Simplot in Carberry and look at the expansion there, $20-million worth of expansion, and, once again, jobs--jobs because those plants do not run by themselves. You need people to operate those plants.

What kinds of jobs are going to be created in rural Manitoba as a result of this on the farm, in the tranportation industry, in the construction industry? [interjection]

The critic for Industry, Trade and Tourism says zero. That just shows you the kind of thinking that is present on the opposite side.

I heard the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) talk about the family farm. Well, I represent people who in fact are engaged in family farming, and I am one of those. They tell me that options are good for them, whether it is in the hog industry or whether it is in any other industry.

I go back to the canola industry in our province. We have two crushing plants, a third one being built in this province in the canola industry. I ask, do we have a single-selling desk for canola? No, we do not, and the industry is growing. We are adding value to products that are produced right here in the province. That is what is going to happen to our hog industry. We are going to add value to those hogs that are produced right here in Manitoba, and we are going to create jobs for Manitobans, both in rural parts of this province and in the urban settings. That is what is important about this initiative.

I ask members opposite to consider what would happen if we lost the hog industry in this province. How many jobs are at stake? Do they know? Do they care? Unfortunately, I do not believe they do care.

We can go on. I remember the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) and others across the way criticizing the PMU industry in this province. As a matter of fact, the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) has done a great deal of harm to the industry in this province, and yet her members are proud of the stance that she has taken. A typical approach by the members opposite. Yet what is the value of that industry to all of us in this province? It is millions of dollars, something that adds about $100 million into the economy of Manitoba annually.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, here is a group that sits in this Legislature and says, no, we are wrong in the direction that we are going. I beg to differ because indeed producers out there are expanding their operations because of the fact that they have opportunities to market their products in alternative ways. We have the developing of a value-added industry in our province, something that is so important right here in the prairies, because our transportation costs for grain are the highest in all of this country. Therefore, if we are going to cope with that kind of issue, and if we are going to allow our family farms to survive, we are going to have to ensure that we add value to the products that we produce here in the province so that we can create jobs here in Manitoba, so that our youth are not exported out of this province and out of our rural communities, that, indeed, they will have jobs in our rural communities. That is what this is all about.

Unfortunately, the New Democrats do not understand that. Mr. Deputy Speaker, we saw what was happening on the landscape. We saw what was happening on the rural landscape when the New Democrats were in power in Manitoba. The rural landscape was diminishing. Our youth were leaving. Our communities were diminishing in size. Today we have a vibrant rural economy. Our communities are looking positively at what the opportunities are, and they are saying, yes, we can survive. Not only can we survive, but we can grow.

We can look at the landscape today, and I see hog barns on the landscape in rural Manitoba, which is great. I see McCain expanding their operation. I see Canadian Agra at Ste. Agathe building a new canola crushing plant. I see Borderland Ventures over on the west side of the province talking about a gluten extraction plant. I see--yes, and in the member for Swan River's (Ms. Wowchuk) own riding, there is the one that she keeps harping about, Louisiana-Pacific, providing hundreds of jobs, and the member for Swan River is always against it and negative towards it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, this kind of thinking is not going to help our province grow. This kind of attitude is not going to help our province grow, and rural Manitobans and, I think, Manitobans throughout understand that. That is why the members opposite are relegated to opposition, because they do not have any ideas. They do not have any creativity about where this province should go. In terms of this approach, I think this provides the opportunity for Manitobans, whether they are rural or urban, to have jobs created right here in this province, to add value to the products that we can produce, and, yes, indeed, it will allow for the expansion of the hog industry in this province.

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Mr. Clif Evans (Interlake): Mr. Deputy Speaker, my ears hurt; from all the yelling and listening, it has affected my voice, and in listening to the rhetoric from across the way. I think I am one member amongst the rest of the members here on this side who has no problem with job creation, who has no problem with advancement, none whatsoever, but I have a problem listening to this Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) continue with his King Harry syndrome. This minister who says he listens to people--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Point of Order

Mr. Enns: Mr. Deputy Speaker, on a point of order, I wonder if you could confirm for me, a yes or no, whether or not that phrase that the honourable member put on the record is parliamentary.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member has brought forward a MUPI and it happens to be a very serious situation that we are dealing with here today, and I believe this debate should be taken care of with a little bit better decorum. I would ask the honourable member though to retract the statement he made. All honourable members are to be referred to as honourable members.

Point of Order

Mr. Steve Ashton (Opposition House Leader): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to be of some assistance, I believe that the member said that the Minister of Agriculture is suffering from the King Harry syndrome. I would submit he did not use any unparliamentary language. Not only that, he did not refer to the Minister of Agriculture as King Harry directly, so he not only did not use unparliamentary language, he also did not make any reference to the minister that is not in keeping with the debate in this House. We often--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member does not have a point of order. I have already ruled that the honourable member did refer to the minister in a fashion which was not parliamentary. I would ask the honourable member to retract it. If the honourable member wishes to challenge the Chair, it is his chance.

Point of Order

Mr. Enns: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I want to assure you I genuinely simply want that reference to me confirmed as being parliamentary.

Mr. Ashton: Just before I challenge your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am wondering if, given the statement by the minister, there might be considered leave to consider this phrase on this occasion to have been acceptable to all members of the House. That might perhaps avoid us having to challenge the Chair.

Hon. Darren Praznik (Deputy Government House Leader): Mr. Deputy Speaker, I appreciate the desire of the Chair to ensure that members of this House practise the proper decorum and we appreciate the Deputy Speaker's efforts to ensure that that happens, but from this point of view, I do not think members on this side--the member for Lakeside has indicated, I think in a humorous way, that he was rising on the issue of a ruling on the parliamentary propriety of the reference by the member for Interlake (Mr. Clif Evans) to the royal nature of the member for Lakeside. It was done in jest and good humour; I think he has acknowledged that.

Members on this side of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, do not feel that that particular reference was unparliamentary, and if it is the will of this House, without having to go to any formal decision, we do appreciate the concern of the Deputy Speaker, but we do not find that term offensive in any way.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I would like to remind the honourable members that you have put the Chair in a difficult position, but if it is the will of the House at this time that the honourable member not withdraw--is that the will of the House?

Some Honourable Members: Agreed.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Agreed.

* * *

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member, to continue.

Mr. Clif Evans: Mr. Deputy Speaker, this minister is saying that he is not wanting to do away with single marketing. He wants to maintain single marketing, but he wants to give producers a choice. The government side wants to give producers a choice. I do not know if we would have a problem with that on this side of the House, if headlines in the papers said that most hog farmers favour dual marketing. But what do the papers say? Most hog farmers favour Manitoba Pork monopoly. Protect pork monopolies, farmers urge.

Whom is this minister listening to? Is he listening to the large corporations? Is he listening to the Pur-a-Tones? Is he listening to corporations? Who? Go to the small producer, offering them to join sides in vertical integration. That is occurring; it has occurred. So where are we saying that it is choice? The Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay), the previous Minister of Agriculture, says two words that I picked up on his speech, "choice" and "flexibility." Choice and flexibility to the hog producers--the hog producers of this province, the majority do not want that choice offered to them.

An Honourable Member: They do not, eh?

Mr. Clif Evans: No, they do not. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey) says, oh, they do not. Well, they do not because if they did, in newspaper articles, letters to the editor, meetings with different members of this Legislative Assembly, they would say so. But they are saying no. They are saying that the system is working. They are saying that everything is okay with the way it is going now. Why try and destroy something that is working, has been working for many years? Now, we understand that expansion of hogs in this province is an economic development for this province and for producers. We understand that. I understand that. However, what I do not understand is how this minister and this government can provide another avenue that does not and is not supported by the hog producers and the family farms of this province.

An Honourable Member: It is.

Mr. Clif Evans: The member opposite says that it is. Well, then, let us talk about--okay, if so, let us vote on it. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) says, no, I do not believe in referendums. The Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay) says, I want choice and flexibility. I think there is choice and flexibility now.

If the Manitoba Pork--if they were not doing a job, if they did not have the capabilities of doing the job for the hog producers in this province, to be able to market the hogs, then I would say, yes, the farmers and the producers should come and say, we have to change something, but if it is has been working for all these years.

The other word that the minister used was "compete," be able to compete. [interjection] Well, I suggest then, and what the farmers and producers are saying is, then let us enhance that competition through the marketing board, a single-desk marketing board, not dual, not be able to provide different avenues. You are going to get to the point of competition where your prices are not going to be able to satisfy the needs. You are talking about large operations that do not want to work in hand with the small producers and the small family farms. They do not.

The Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey) says they can still use the marketing board, but how long would that last? How long will that last? Eventually, the small producer is going to be squeezed out.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, I know that there are opportunities out there. There are opportunities out there, but who is this minister listening to? Is he listening to the producer? No. I would ask this minister to listen to the producers, to listen to the small farmers, save the single-desk marketing, keep it in line, enhance it, work with us.

Mr. Frank Pitura (Morris): Mr. Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to add a few remarks to this debate. I know that the honourable Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) indicated earlier that he would put some historical facts on the record for those of us that are rookies in the Legislature. Although I am a rookie to the Legislature, I have been around quite a while in this country already, judging by the colour of my hair, but I would just like to spend a bit of time--you know, we talked earlier about the choices that producers have.

Earlier on and years back, which the honourable minister referred to, with just a stroke of a pen, Manitoba hog producers had a marketing board that they had to sell their hogs through. They had no choices. They did not have a choice then; they had to get into the board.

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I also bring a second point up, one that has not been mentioned here today, that when the dairy industry, also at a stroke of a pen when the members opposite were in government, many, many dairy producers who had a high value in their milk quota saw it wiped out overnight by the stroke of a Minister of Agriculture's pen saying, you can no longer market your milk this way, you have to go through the Manitoba Milk Marketing Board. That cost farmers thousands and thousands and even millions of dollars in this province when that happened overnight.

But I would like to say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that in all the years that I have had the experience of working with Manitoba Pork, the Manitoba hog marketing board has done an excellent job for this industry in Manitoba. They have done a great job for Manitoba producers. They have done a great job of getting the educational material out to farmers, getting education to farmers about hog production, what the new technology is, and they have done a great job of looking after the industry.

But we have come to that point where changes are taking place and we have changes taking place in our global economy and we have to adjust to that. The reason that we are taking this change today is that we have to adjust.

The members opposite said that we have not been listening to producers. We have been listening to producers. We have gone on the consensus of what they have said to us but, more importantly, we are not dismantling Manitoba Pork, as the opposition would have you believe. We are not dismantling it; we are only giving the opportunity for producers to have choices as to whether they market through Manitoba Pork or market directly.

(Mr. Mike Radcliffe, Acting Speaker, in the Chair)

That is not to say that Manitoba Pork cannot, in the future, still market 80 percent--they can still continue to serve 80 percent of Manitoba's hog producers. They can do this if the producers want it. They have that choice if they do a good job of marketing for Manitoba hog producers.

The honourable member mentioned single-desk selling. Well, Mr. Acting Speaker, do we have single-desk selling today in Manitoba pork? I say, we do not, because of two things.

One, they have allowed producers to market hogs outside the province even today, and they have not even bothered collecting that levy. They would like to but they have not. So we have had hogs moving out of this province on a weekly basis into Ontario outside the hog marketing board.

The second point is that the Manitoba hog marketing board has brought into place forward pricing, which allows producers to take their production, forward price it at some delivery month down the road, but when they deliver those hogs, Mr. Acting Speaker, when they market those hogs, the price could be higher or lower on that day. Is that dual marketing? The question is there. Is that not dual marketing?

Manitoba Pork has the opportunity to market a significant amount of Manitoba hogs. Instead of having the complete monopoly for that, if they do a good job of marketing hogs on behalf of producers, they will get a great share of those hogs going through the Manitoba hog marketing board. That is only if producers want it.

When we in government took this decision, we did not take it very lightly. We had this report that was brought to us back in 1994. It has been studied very carefully and all of the recommendations taken very seriously, so this decision was not taken very lightly at all.

We are committed to what is in the best interests of Manitoba farmers. This decision that we have made, we believe, is in the best interests of Manitoba farmers. We are in an era right now where the Crow is gone, where the transportation subsidy is gone.

I have some neighbours that are trying to adjust to this post-WGTA era. They are in the process of getting together building a large hog facility, a $2-million hog facility. They have had to put a million dollars of their own money in there and leverage another million to build this facility.

Taking a look at just the transportation costs alone on the barley that they would market through this facility over a course of a year, all the farmer members within that hog operation--and this is not vertical integration. All the producers in that hog operation together will save $140,000 on freight alone by marketing their barley through that hog barn rather than through the normal, traditional Wheat Board methods. So we have to address that kind of an adjustment.

Just in summary, we are committed to sustainable development. We are committed to facilitate this hog industry to obtain capital financing and for the expansion of the industry. We want to foster the education and training of the ever-increasing workforce that is going to be needed in this industry. Some 6,000 to 8,000 jobs are going to be required for this industry when it is fully expanded.

Last but not least, we are committed to having those marketing options and choices for producers. Thank you very much, Mr. Acting Speaker.

Mr. Gregory Dewar (Selkirk): Mr. Acting Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak today on this very important issue raised by the member for Swan River.

I want to commend, first of all, the member for Swan River for bringing this forward. She is one of the--besides all members on this side of the House, she is a member that stands up in this House and stands up for the family farm, stands up for what is right in terms of agriculture here in this province. I want to commend her for raising this issue this afternoon.

As has been mentioned by members on this side of the House, this is an issue that is not desired by the producers. This is an issue that would, over the long run, destroy what is very important to Manitobans and that is the family farm. I, myself, come from a farming background, and I have witnessed these changes in my own community and my own family.

You have seen the depopulation of rural Manitoba. We have seen the increase of urban settings and rural Manitoba lose its population base over the last number of decades. I do not think that is in the best interest of the province as a whole. We are seeing the decrease of the number of family farms throughout this province and the increase in the number of corporate farms.

It is interesting that the same government who is bringing forward Bill 2 which calls for the use of referendums does not believe in a referendum in this case. That is incredibly ironic and has been raised by members on this side of the House, the hypocrisy of the members opposite when it comes to this particular issue. It is clear to us that the minister is only listening to the large corporate producers.

In fact, it is his plan, it is his long-range plan to strip the hog marketing board of single-desk selling status. Under the dual marketing system, producers in this province will not be allowed to sell their products directly to processors. This would put producers in direct competition with one another and as has been mentioned by, I believe, the member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers), this will drive down prices.

In fact, the majority of Manitoba independent hog producers do not support this recommendation, as their returns would diminish because they would be put into direct competition with large corporate producers. We have seen this in the United States. The evidence is quite clear. There are corporate ownerships. They own the feed mills, they own the farms, they own the processing, they own the trucking aspect of those operations. This has decimated the family farm in the United States.

Farmers who once were producers now find themselves employees of the large corporations. It has been mentioned by this government that they would like to see over the next five years a doubling in the hog production here in Manitoba, and the member for Morris (Mr. Pitura) raised the issue of sustainability. It is easy enough to look at the issue now throughout this province, and you can address that issue and the government's lack of a plan when it comes to a sustainable development in our agricultural industry.

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A story from the Interlake Spectator of Monday, October 9, the headline: Manure spill probed. The story goes on to say: The Interlake swine breeders, a subsidiary of Niverville-based Pur-A-Tone feeds--and that has been mentioned by members on this side of the House; that is one of these large, corporate farms--applied an estimated 1.9 million gallons of liquid hog slurry to 56.8 acres of land near its 1,000-sow, farrow-to-finish piggery about five miles north of Chatfield. That is twice the application rate recommended in the province's benchmark farm practices guidelines for hog producers.

So here we have a good corporate citizen, as the government members opposite would like to think, dumping twice the recommended discharge of pig slurry in an enclosed area in the Interlake. I want to question, and we have got other examples, where the whole issue of the broadcast application of pig slurry is questioned, especially in certain soil conditions where this would not be in the benefit of residents of that area.

The members opposite do not take this into consideration even when you can examine or go through the State of the Environment report published by the members opposite.

(Mr. Marcel Laurendeau, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair)

They raised many concerns about the unchecked expansion of this industry here in this province. Of course the members opposite will say, well, you know, you are against jobs. The reality is that it is our role here as the opposition to raise certain questions regarding this expansion especially in terms of our environment and its ability to sustain these expansions.

You are seeing negative effects on the issue of soil quality and water quality. This is an issue of deep concern to myself and to many members in this House. You are seeing the loss of wildlife habitat. Another issue of course which would be a deep concern for all I am sure is the excess production of the greenhouse gases that would come from such an expansion.

These are some of the issues that have been raised by members on this side of the House. We want the government to be aware that we are following this issue closely and will be, as this industry and as this issue goes forward, we are going to be very diligent in our scrutiny of their operations and the government's position on this issue.

In fact, there was a meeting held in November of last year in Grosse Isle. At that meeting the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) said that he will be listening some more before any final decisions are made. Well, the minister did not listen to any of the producers there. He only listened to apparently three large companies: Landmark Feeds, Pur-A-Tone Limited; Elite Swine Incorporated. That is what this minister does. He only simply listens to the large producers, ignores the small producers.

We are seeing the effects of his government's policies reflected in the situation here in the province of Manitoba with the death of the family farm, with the depopulation of rural Manitoba.

The government states that all of a sudden now they are opposed to this referendum. They feel it is a bad idea to go to the producers and ask them their opinion on this issue, because they know that the vast majority of producers do not agree with the government's position on this issue.

In fact, during the past election campaign, the Premier (Mr. Filmon) was in Dauphin where he was making a number of his campaign promises, which, of course, they had no intention to honour, but at that time he said, we will not abandon our farms in our agriculture-based communities. Well, they are doing it with this move by this Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns). The member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) said he was there, so he can report the facts.

This move to a dual marketing system, we feel, is a broken promise from the Premier. It is the same Premier that said during the election that he is going to preserve our health care system. There will be no cuts to the health care system, and now we are seeing, in the city of Winnipeg, emergency wards closed in community hospitals. So we do not put a great deal of weight into the comments from the members opposite when it comes to many, many issues. This is simply another example of that, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

As we mentioned, the government is only interested in supporting or listening to their large corporate friends. They are not interested at all in the family farm. We have seen the government--unfortunately, what we have seen over the last number of years is the death of the family farm, and it is only because we are here--[interjection] As the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) said, farmers have left the land in record numbers since this government has come to power, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That is the absolute truth. We have seen the depopulation of rural Manitoba, and this is simply another strike, another nail in the coffin of rural Manitoba. That is why we are standing up here today to speak in favour of this resolution. We urge all members to stand up and do what is right.

Mr. Mike Radcliffe (River Heights): Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is with great pleasure this afternoon that I rise to submit a few humble remarks to this topic. I have had the opportunity to sit through a number of speeches this afternoon, which, quite honestly, leave me totally puzzled. I have heard an incredible amount of codswallop this afternoon on this topic, codswallop. Let me tell you that, although I come from an urban constituency, I have had the honour and the pleasure over the last several years, have had the opportunity, over the last several years, to react with and represent and advocate on behalf of an integral part of the agricultural community of this province, namely, the Hutterian Brethren of Manitoba.

Let me tell you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the Hutterian Brethren in this province represent 37 percent of the hog producers of Manitoba. Let me tell you, one of the fundamental reasons why the Hutterian Brethren have achieved this high level of hog production and it is because they have been forced out, they have been refused to be allowed to enter the other commodity-producing entities and production units in this province, and by that I mean specifically the Milk Producers' Marketing Board, the chicken, the pullets and the layers. There has been a selective little oligarchy that often acquires control of these organizations. [interjection]

That is right. What we are talking about with this bold, innovative step of our Minister of Agriculture, we are talking about freedom, liberty, freedom of choice and balancing against that we are talking about oppression, mandatory regulation, top-down economics. I can tell you from first-hand observation because I have walked more than 60 hog barns in this province, hog barns on our Hutterite colonies, and let me tell you today the modern hog barn in Manitoba looks more like an operating room than it does the traditional old-fashioned hog barn. Would you realize that modern producers of hogs, they have to shower going into the hog barn, they have to change their uniforms.

An Honourable Member: They have to shower coming out.

Mr. Radcliffe: And they shower coming out. This shows you the high technology which the hog industry has achieved today.

We are not talking about elimination of Manitoba Pork. Not at all, and Manitoba Pork has performed a vital function in our province. They have led in education, they have led in marketing, they have led in environmental research, but, Mr. Deputy Speaker, nothing in the affairs of man and farmers and hog producers stand still.

(Madam Speaker in the Chair)

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We have the opportunity to look forward to expand our horizons. We have the opportunity situated crucially where we are in Manitoba to market hogs to Japan, to the Orient. We are poised right on the edge of the threshold of a vast and wonderful future, and, Madam Speaker, that can be accomplished if our hog farmers can increase production, if they can have the choice to market.

The honourable members on the other side were saying, oh, the roof is falling in. They were running around like Chicken Little thinking that disaster was about to strike. But, Madam Speaker, when they were talking about choice and voting, you know what is going to happen? The hog producers in our province are going to do the ultimate choice. They will have the opportunity to vote with their feet and their trucks and their hogs, and they will choose whether they want to market through the alternative or through the Manitoba port. That is the ultimate freedom.

Hon. James Downey (Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism): And we are freedom fighters.

Mr. Radcliffe: Madam Speaker, yes. The honourable member for Arthur (Mr. Downey) has said that we are freedom fighters, and this is in fact a serious issue. This is an issue of whether this market will grow and expand. I have sat during hearings of rural municipality councils when they have been debating whether the issues of waste management have been properly presented, whether the issues of odour and hog effluent and noise have properly been discussed. If this industry grows and if the money is poured into this industry, which we are poised to do and which we can do from a second selling desk, then these issues will all be accomplished.

An Honourable Member: Hogwash.

Mr. Radcliffe: Hogwash, says the member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale). I would challenge the member for Crescentwood that he has never been in a hog barn. He has never seen hogwash. [interjection]

Madam Speaker: Order, please.

Point of Order

Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. The speaker that referred to hogwash, which I think was a very appropriate term, was the member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) who has been in many hog barns. Thank you.

Madam Speaker: The honourable member for Crescentwood does not have a point of order.

* * *

Mr. Radcliffe: Madam Speaker, I think one of the crucial elements in the expansion of this industry, which has been already alluded to today, is the capital investment which must be put into a new hog barn, and in this modern industry which we are dealing with, the hog barns that I have seen have been on the cutting edge of technology, and they are $2-million to $3-million worth of investment. We are talking about an enclosed environment. The honourable members from the opposite have been talking about the family farm. The day of one or two pigs wallowing around in the back mudhole are gone; those are only fictions that exist in their mind. We are talking about technology; we are talking about major investment.

If our hog producers can effect contracts where they know that they can market their product, where they know that their product is going to reach Japan, it is going to reach China, it is going to reach the new frontier, we will be the agriculturists of tomorrow on this continent, and they will because of the enlightened policies of our Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns).

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for this opportunity to submit these few humble comments.

Hon. Jim Ernst (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs): I would like to put a few words on the record with respect to this important debate. I would like to approach it from a slightly different perspective than perhaps has been approached by members so far this afternoon, and that is the perspective of an urban member.

What we are talking about here, Madam Speaker, is an industry, and it is an industry composed of producers, processors and consumers. The producers are located, obviously, in rural Manitoba, but the processors tend to gravitate to urban centres. We had, as mentioned earlier, a number of major processors of meat in this province, an industry that, quite frankly, has faded significantly over the last 15 or 20 years, but it has an opportunity to come back. When that industry comes back, that means jobs for people in Winnipeg; it means jobs for people in other urban centres in this province. Those are the jobs that we desperately need.

Madam Speaker, if we were to go out, and we have gone out and courted companies to produce, you know, a hundred jobs here, 50 jobs there, and collective governments throughout the last 20 or 25 years have used taxpayers' money in order to try and recruit those kinds of companies to come here to create those jobs, particularly for urban workers.

Here we have an industry that is prepared to create not just 50 or 100 jobs. We have seen one already, the fact that Schneider is prepared to put in a $40-million investment to create 500 jobs here in Manitoba. That is only the beginning because, if we are going to double the size of our industry, we are going to need double the number of production barns in the province of Manitoba, and they all have to be built. They all have to be built with construction materials that are handled in one way or another through urban centres, through the transportation system, the trucking system, throughout the entire economy of Manitoba. That is just the construction.

Now, the member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) might be upset. He might be upset because our balance of payments might be a little off if we have to import some of the equipment that is needed in these facilities, Madam Speaker. But I am quite prepared to live with the member for Crescentwood getting upset, because what I see from that is jobs for Manitobans, jobs now and jobs in the future. That is what is important to an urban member. That is what is important to me and my constituents. As a matter of fact, I have Bruno Zimmer as one of my constituents, who is the union leader of the meatpacking industry. You would think he would be out there touting this matter, because that is important for his constituency as well.

Not only is the construction important, not only are the jobs important, but that will extend throughout our province. It is not just a question of providing the construction of those facilities. There will be long-term jobs associated with that. If we are going to export the majority of the product then that export has to be moved in some way.

We talk about WINNPORT at the airport, the fact that we have an opportunity to create an export market for chilled pork. That export opportunity for chilled pork is not going to go in the back of a truck to Japan. It is going to go on an airplane. That WINNPORT centre that can be created at the airport in Winnipeg can be a glorious opportunity to provide that export on a regular basis. What we can get is imports from the Far East and send back our agricultural products.

We give a lot of lip service around here to the creation of jobs, to the creation of an industry. But let me tell you, there is not one member in this House whose tongue would not hang down to their navel for an industry that would come to this province to create 8,000 or 9,000 or 10,000 jobs. There is not one member who would not do that.

Here we have it handed to us without necessary contribution by the government, an existing industry with existing producers who know what they are doing, who have a genetically fantastic product as far as world markets are concerned. They have an opportunity here to double that industry, perhaps triple that industry. They know what to do. They have got the expertise. They have got the breeding stock. They have got the markets. What we need is the secondary processing.

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We talk, you know, every election campaign everybody goes out to rural Manitoba and says, you know, we need to have more secondary processing. We need agricultural processing of our products here. We should not ship our raw materials out of the province. We should not ship--better still, we should not send--our agricultural products out for processing, and that happens so often.

We take our durum wheat, and we ship it to Italy. They make it into pasta and ship it back here so we can eat it. We have, I understand, through the Department of Agriculture and the efforts of the member for Emerson (Mr.Penner), an opportunity to start a processing plant for pasta as well. We need to do those kinds of things.

We continually go out there and promise them during the election campaign; it is collectively. But here is an opportunity to deliver, an opportunity to deliver that kind of processing industry to this province and the creation of those 8,000, and 9,000 and 10,000 jobs that are necessary without necessary contributions from the provincial coffers and from the taxpayer. That is something to be applauded; that is not something to be cried about.

Madam Speaker, that is not something that the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) or any other member from across the way should be getting excited about. The fact of the matter is, we need to have that industry, we need that secondary processing, and we need those jobs in Manitoba. We should be out there doing our darndest to make sure it happens.

Madam Speaker: The honourable member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale). [applause]

Mr. Sale: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the members' applause opposite.

I think the very first thing that you have to ask whenever a little stroke of the pen is exercised at midnight in the dark without anybody's say-so or permission is, who benefits, the old legal question, but members opposite know is the first question to ask when something is done in secret. Who benefits? The answer is Schneider benefits. That is the first thing that we want to be very clear about, that this decision was clearly linked to bringing this province this very, very valuable plant and its very valuable jobs, but there is no question that this decision was one of the requirements of bringing these jobs here.

I think the government should be forthright and honest with its producers, with all the farmers in Manitoba who are going to suffer from this, and tell them that this was the price that they paid for bringing Schneidner here.

Madam Speaker, the vision of this government is a vision of factory farms. That is the vision under which they seem to be proceeding. They seem to like Pur-A-Tone; they like the notion of franchising, of syndicating the production of hogs; they do not seem to care whether the producers of these hogs abide by environmental regulations or use-best practices.

The people of Holland have found out what happens when you pour incredible numbers of nitrates into the soil, so they have developed some very effective injection techniques, some very effective management techniques. Is Pur-A-Tone using any of those? Absolutely not, they are not interested because they might cost them a little bit extra even if it helped to preserve our environment.

Madam Speaker, I find it passing strange that members opposite lined up at The Forks on Sunday with Manitobans, and they were very concerned about keeping the country together. They talked about the generosity, the concern for the small person, for the ordinary Canadian. They were glad the ordinary Canadians spoke up in Montreal and spoke up at The Forks. The ordinary Canadian is the small farmer that is going to be displaced by the end of this orderly marketing process that has served Manitoba so well.

Throughout the referendum debate, those who were concerned about agricultural issues warned Quebec that if it separated it would lose its protected dairy industry, the dairy industry that provides a tremendous number of Quebec producers with very good jobs, that occupies a great amount of the Eastern Townships. For those of us who have travelled down there, we know the size of the dairy herds. That would have been lost, Madam Speaker, because the ability to run a marketing board to protect that industry would have been lost had they become a separate nation and had to face the NAFTA barriers.

We have noticed that in this debate this afternoon when we point out to members opposite that once this board is gone--and the member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe) knows this; he knows a little bit about NAFTA. Once this board is gone, it cannot be rebuilt. It is gone for good, so the experiment they are launching us on is a one-way experiment. Once the board is gone, the possibility of orderly marketing in the hog industry is gone.

Madam Speaker, the whole business of marketing anything is the response to the fundamental reality of the way capitalist markets work. Now that is not to say that markets are not useful--of course, they are useful--but unregulated markets go through boom-and-bust cycles. Everyone knows that who has studied elementary economics or has lived in this country for any period of time. We go through booms and busts, and when individual producers in the midst of a boom want to have access to the top of the market, they are in favour of breaking marketing boards.

The barley producers of this province would like that right now. Barley prices are good. Wheat prices are good. They would like to be able to go after the top price today, but when wheat prices begin to go down again, when barley prices begin to go down again, when hog prices, as they will, begin to go down again, they will all be wondering where that orderly marketing board is. They will say, government, please help us, and government will say, goodness gracious, we tied our hands behind our backs; we cannot help you because we gave that up. We gave it up one afternoon in order to satisfy Schneider so that they would bring their plant to Manitoba.

Now I am glad the plant is coming, but is that what the government had to do? They had to give up the long-term protection for Manitoba producers; they had to give up and open us to the NAFTA process, which says, once you have stopped protecting any marketing, you cannot start it up again. So we are on a one-way road, Madam Speaker, and the one-way road leads, unfortunately, to the end of small producers who cannot seek out those niche markets, who cannot, when the market turns down, survive. They do not have the deep pockets of the factory farms with their syndicated ownerships, the factory farms of which the member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe) spoke so eloquently, the many barns through which he had walked. [interjection] Family farms, right. Exactly.

The members opposite seem to think that they can by fiat suspend the laws of supply and demand. They seem to think that it is possible to simply say, there will be all sorts of creative, orderly marketing out there. The laws of supply and demand no longer exist in Manitoba. We will not have booms and busts. We will just have an orderly, expanding market with many people out there marketing. When in human history has that ever happened in the markets that we know?

There has never been a stable market for a commodity. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) knows that and he knows that the only stability factor that we have today is the protection that marketing boards have offered us. We are not in a position to risk our future on your stroke of a pen in order to bring in one factor. If you really believe these are in the best interests of Manitobans, Mr. Minister, then let the producers vote on whether it is or not.

We will be glad to see the result, just as we were glad to see the result last night when Canada decided to vote, albeit by a slim margin, for Canada and allowed the dairy industry of Quebec to survive with all the many good jobs, the many family farms, the many small producers which produce high-quality product and meet real needs while they can stay in business and maintain those small Quebec villages and towns which, if you have been there, are vibrant and wonderful places to visit.

That is not what is happening in our communities as we massify the farms and move away from any real protection for small producers. [interjection] The member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe) says that socialists have not been on many farms. The member for River Heights grew up in River Heights, lives in River Heights, lives in my constituency in fact and I suspect that he might even have voted for me, Madam Speaker.

I did grow up in a farming community. I grew up in a farming community, in the little town of Goderich, a wonderful mixed farming community that still has vibrant farms in it and family farms.

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The concern that we have here is that when you take away orderly marketing, you invite big producers into a situation where they can compete to take away market from small producers because they have deeper pockets. The protection of the marketing board is protection for small communities, small farmers, orderly marketing and quality products. The members opposite have talked about how our hog markets have boomed, and they have. They have boomed very well, so why fix it? It ain't broke. Why not leave it in place? Let us find out whether it is possible to have a big plant like Schneider to grow our industry in an orderly way, in a sustainable way, and to allow the smaller producers to stay in business through the very reasonable and very democratic mechanism of an orderly marketing system. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Mr. Jack Penner (Emerson): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for the recognition. I just want to put a few comments on record. I listened very closely to some of the things that have been said by our urban farmers in this Legislature today, and I find it very interesting how knowledgeable they are about the hog industry and about the farm industry in general. It tells me something, that they have been reading the newspapers and they have probably been reading some of the magazines, the farm papers that are around. I think that is honourable because it demonstrates an interest in probably one of the--not only probably, but the largest industry in this province.

The hog industry is one of the segments in that agricultural industry that drives the production of commodities in this province. I have been listening very intently about what has been said about the small producer and the ability of the small producer to survive in the current agricultural mosaic in this province. Small is relevant, and I think when we look back when our forefathers came to this country during the 1870s and 1880s, small was somebody that would raise three or four cows and would raise probably five or six pigs and a few chickens and maybe a goat or a sheep or two and that was then called--maybe had a quarter section of land, maybe only 80 acres, and that was called small. We did not even refer to it as small, Madam Speaker; we called it a farm. It was a Manitoba farm.

When the Mennonites came over from Russia, instituted or brought with them what was called der Schwein Schlact. In other words, a pig killing bee. We would slaughter our own hogs on our own farm. We would salt the hams, and we would smoke the bacon and make sausage and put away enough meat to keep us all winter and our families all winter. Do you know what? There are still a number of farmers out there that still do this today, practise exactly the same thing, and we are one of them. I would invite all members of this Legislature to come down about two weeks from now to our farm and participate because what they will see is a group of families get together and we will probably butcher, for our own need, about seven or eight hogs. We will make all the hams, and we will make all the sausage, and we will make all the bacon and head cheese and all those kinds of things, and you can participate in that.

Madam Speaker, the reason I am referring to this is that nothing has changed in that respect on some of the farms in southern Manitoba. It is interesting, though, that some of those farms have become not 80-acre farms, not 200-acre farms, but they, in fact, now between the families, amongst the families, farm maybe thousands of acres. Why have they done that?

They were good business people. They saw opportunities and they expanded and they took advantage of the marketplace. The interesting thing is that only a few years ago when we dropped oats out of the auspices of the Canadian Wheat Board, there were members in this House that screamed till they were blue in the face that we would kill the Wheat Board because we removed oats from the board: it will decimate the Wheat Board.

Well, we did the same thing with feed barleys and feed grains a few years prior to that. We actually developed a two-tiered market system in this province on feed grains, barley. So you can make the choice. We on our farm every year make the choice whether we want to market to the Wheat Board our barley or our feed wheat or whether we want to market to a hog producer or a cattle producer or some other elevator company that will export, as they normally do, and it has not killed the board. It has not even threatened the board. As a matter of fact, it has given farmers an option that they did not have before.

Madam Speaker, I say to all members, not only our urban cowboys, but I say to all members of this House that, if we remain and retain the processes that we have been used to and brought with us from the old country and we just retain that within that narrow view, we will not move beyond the little pig-killing bees that we had.

But that did not stop the Schneiders of the world or the Oliphants of the world or the Burns or the Canada Packers to move beyond that farm gate and maybe that little hog-killing bee that they started their company with. Sausage is something that Pioneer Meats in my constituency makes very well. As a matter of fact, they export huge amounts of their sausage to much of North America. Why did they do this? Because they started this process on their farm; they have a recipe that is a family recipe that they use to sell all across North America, and yes, they are even looking at Japan right now. There are other small companies that have done this.

If we had retained a purely regulated process under the hog board and not allowed the expansion and the diversification, these little industries would not have started. So I think there is a tremendous opportunity here, Madam Speaker. There is a tremendous opportunity to recognize the fact that the federal government has made major changes in how we are going to transport our grain. They have imposed major costs on us as producers. Now let us take advantage of that.

I remember yesterday, I have read the speech that the member opposite to me made yesterday about what my comments had been and how I reflected on the changes of the Crow. Well, some of the changes that are coming now are largely in reaction to what the federal government initiative was to abolish the Crow. Because the huge additional costs of freight can be somewhat subjugated by the establishment of industries within this province, and that is true diversification. Now there have to be some allowances within that process to adapt and adopt new practices.

I gave our Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) a very significant amount of credit for being willing to stick out his neck because there will be criticism of making this kind of decision from some people, but largely maybe from those people that are not willing to change from the hog-killing mentality on their own farm to something beyond that.

It is interesting to note that five of my neighbours got together. Five neighbours got together, and they were hog producers. Do you know that they invested $1.5 million and built a new barn? It is one of these barns that my honourable members opposite object to. It was five small farmers said, why should we build five barns when we can build one large one and operate it together? These brothers operate at Plum Coulee. There is another family at Plum Coulee that built a slightly larger barn, invested $2 million. Similarly, there is a large barn at Vita that has been established and a large barn at Arnaud operated by the Janzen's, by the way, and there are three large barns there, will market probably 20,000 hogs off a one-family farm operation. Do not tell me these are not family farms. These are family farms in the truest sense.

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So what are we saying by denying the right of those farmers to make a choice as to how they want to market their product on their farms? This is a free country. Madam Speaker, I think we demonstrated last night truly that we want to retain it as a free society and I say to you that this option that has been given to those farmers should be honoured. I ask you to support that change and support our minister.

Mr. Daryl Reid (Transcona): Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to speak on this matter of urgent public importance that was brought forward by my colleague the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk).

I will be honest with members of the House, Madam Speaker. I have not had a great deal of experience with the hog industry, although I have had the opportunity in my lifetime to visit some of the operations within this province, not a lot, but some. My experience with the producers of this province deals mostly with grain and cattle production. That is my own personal life experience.

I saw some time back, and I believe it was under the Trudeau government administration in this country, when the federal government advised producers of this country to move away from cattle production, away from dual operations where there was cattle and grain production taking place at the same time. I know that personal friends who were producers at that time and had the dual operations moved away from cattle production that was helping to sustain them and their families and that the federal government had advised them at that time and they had followed the advice of the federal government.

And what were the consequences of those decisions, Madam Speaker, on the advice from the federal government? Well, these people went out of business. They lost their farms.

This is unfortunate. It was unfortunate advice that was given by the federal government and it cost the producers not only their cattle operation but cost them their farming, their grain production as well.

I listened to the questions that were asked by my colleague the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) in the House here today during Question Period when she very clearly asked the Minister responsible for Agriculture of this province about the decision to move to the dual marketing process in the province. I believe the minister responded and said that no decision had been made yet. At least that is what his colleagues on his bench have said here today.

Yet, at 3:35 here today in this House, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) from his seat said, and I will try and paraphrase what he said, he said that he was not asking for the input of members on this side of the House and he was not asking for input from producers of the province. In fact, he has already signed the Order-in-Council to move to the dual marketing system.

Now, Madam Speaker, I do not understand how the Minister of Agriculture can say in Question Period in the House that he has not made a decision on this issue yet and then from his seat say, during the debate of this matter of urgent public importance, that he has already made the decision through Order-in-Council.

So where is the balance here, Mr. Minister? I am asking you, which is the correct statement? I think the minister or perhaps some members of his own cabinet should be indicating to the producers of this province, the hog producers, and in fairness and in honesty to the members on this side of the House, which is the correct statement.

Has he made the decision through the Order-in-Council, which he said he signed--he said that statement at 3:35 here today--or has he not made the decision? I think the minister needs to come clean with the producers of this province and with the opposition in the House here today.

Madam Speaker, I look at the debate that has been taking place in the House during this seven-week sitting that we are having here and this is I believe going to be the last week, and the government brought forward Bills 15 and 27. We had the opportunity to debate those bills, and we had the opportunity to listen to presenters at committee hearings. I know the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) had certain references made to his performance as a minister by presenters to that committee and I will not comment on it here today, but I think it was--

An Honourable Member: He was redbait.

Mr. Reid: Yes, perhaps he was redbait, but I think it was perhaps a reflection on the minister's attitude towards producers of this province and that he was not giving them the opportunity to have choice. Now that was more or less along the context or the lines of what we were saying in this House in the debate on Bills 15 and 27. The government says they want to give under this dual marketing system, they say they wanted to give producers of the province the opportunity to have choice, and then they come forward with Bills 15 and 27 and say we are not going to give you choice. We are not going to put it out to a vote to give you the opportunity to have that choice.

So the question that is in my mind is why the double standard? Why do you have a double standard? You have a standard that will allow under Bills 15 and 27 the producers of the province not to have a choice in the organization that the government is saying that they now have to belong to and contribute to, and then they are saying that under the dual marketing system they are going to give producers the choice. So why do you have a double standard? I do not understand the logic of the government members opposite by taking this track on the dual marketing system.

I listened to the debate, Madam Speaker, that took place in this House on Bill 2 and the members opposite say that it is very clear they want to give the public, the taxpayers of this province, an opportunity to have a vote on any changes that take place in taxation in this province--[interjection] certain kinds of taxation. That is correct. I stand corrected. Now the government is saying that they are prepared to do this through Bill 2 legislation to have a vote of the public for any of those changes, but they are not prepared to put out this change in the marketing, the single-desk selling, to the producers of this province to give them the opportunity to vote on whether or not this is in their best interests.

So, again, I do not understand the logic of the government in taking a contradictory step or statement by having a contradiction in terms here. On one way, they are going to have the voters of the province the opportunity to vote on a change and then when it comes to the producers of the province, who are also voters of this province, you cannot have a choice. I do not understand the logic of the government. How can you have it both ways? How was that fair to the producers of this province not to give them that choice?

Now the member for Emerson (Mr. Penner)--

An Honourable Member: It is easy. The minister said it is easy for government.

Mr. Reid: Yes, I guess it is. Buy government feed, you can do anything you want. If you do not want to be responsible to the producers, the people that I thought were supportive of the government, and they keep telling us are their constituency base, the government, I think, is not representing those interests.

Now, I listened to the member for Emerson (Mr. Penner) here when he made his comments, and his comments on Bills 15 and 27, and it is my understanding the organization to which he was a founding member, the KAP organization, is opposed to the change, to the dual marketing process for hogs in this process. Now how does the member for Emerson balance those two? His own organization, of which he was a founding member, said that they think that this is a wrong step.

If you take a look at the comments, and this is not myself saying this, this is one of the hog producers in the province of Manitoba here saying, and I quote from an article that was in a newspaper: The family farm will be destroyed if the marketing board is given up, said Randy Rutherford, a Grosse Isle hog farmer at a meeting yesterday sponsored by Manitoba Pork.

So this is a producer saying, one of, I am sure, 2,220 or 2,300 producers in this province who are of similar viewpoints--

An Honourable Member: What are his credentials?

Mr. Reid: Okay, then let me ask this question to the Minister of Agriculture. What experience does Dr. Clay Gilson, Dave Donaghy, and Gerry Moore have on family farms? What are their personal experiences on the family farm operations of this province? Do they have that experience? Do any of these people have any affiliations with any of the organizations that are going to benefit by these changes? That is a question I need to put out there to members opposite to allow them to have some input here.

Madam Speaker, I have to ask a question also because members opposite seem to be pretty prepared for this debate that has taken place here today, and although they have much experience, how is it they came about to be informed or available to this information so that they could prepare for this? It is a question that is in my mind, how this has taken place today.

Madam Speaker, it is interesting that the members seem to be very well prepared for this debate here today. I wonder that the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh), who has spoken from her seat so often about members on this side of the House not being prepared to speak here today, whether or not she is going to take the opportunity to speak here.

Point of Order

Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): Madam Speaker, on a point of order. I have risen to my feet three times to be recognized and each time I have done so, the members opposite have been recognized before me, so let him not say that I am not willing to speak on this.

If they wanted me to speak, they could have sat down and given me my turn instead of taking the floor. Thank you.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. The Minister of Education does not have a point of order.

* * *

Madam Speaker: The honourable member for Transcona, to quickly complete his debate. You have one minute remaining.

Mr. Reid: I ask the minister, in fairness to the hog producers of this province, give them the opportunity to have some say in the process. If the hog producers wish to move to a dual marketing system, they will tell the government and they will tell members of the opposition, in fact, all 57 members of this Legislature, that that is what they want.

I think in fairness to the producers, the 2,200 or 2,300 of them in this province, that would be a step that the government would want to take to allow them to have some input into the process. Then, if the producers say that is the direction they want, I think in fairness the government would be advised to go ahead with that type of action, but until that takes place, I think the government is headed in the wrong direction and that the minister is on the wrong track. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

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Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for La Verendrye has been recognized to speak on the MUPI.

Mr. Ben Sveinson (La Verendrye): Madam Speaker, there has been a lot said on this subject here today. It has been very interesting listening to many of the people who live inside the city limits. They have shown, indeed, that they do have some knowledge of the farming that goes on outside the city, and I compliment them on that.

I would like to add a little bit of a twist to this discussion. I guess it takes me back to the job that I was doing prior to becoming an MLA. I was a federal meat inspector for a number of years prior to becoming an MLA. We have heard talk on the small family farms and the small barns and so on that used to litter or be across our landscape in rural areas. I would like to point out to all the members here of the different things that we as federal meat inspectors saw during those years. We go back beyond seven years ago and many years before that.

What we saw coming from many of these farms, and it was for many different reasons, is that we had animals that in fact were outside much of the time. We are talking about hogs now, for example, that rooted in the ground, et cetera. I mean we could go on to that extensively, but the fact is that we had many hogs that were brought in for slaughter that in fact had many different types of diseases, abscesses and so on. The fact is that compared to today and in today's kinds of barns that we have, they are so very disease-free that the amount of inspection--[interjection] I will get to the single-desk selling in short order. I just wanted to show everybody that, in fact, these so-called big barns are not the monsters that they think they are. These have produced and are producing animals that are very, very close to disease-free, and as such, have reduced a lot of the amount of inspection that is necessary on these animals, not just in the field but also in the plant. [interjection] I have told members opposite that I will get to the single-desk selling shortly.

Madam Speaker, there is a bit of a myth out there, and it was brought on many years ago, that if you throw the suggestion out there and if you just throw a word out there, if you say hogs, people would say stink. It is a suggestion. It is word suggestion. You understand what I am saying. Odour, smell, stink, it amounts to the same thing. What I am trying to get to here is that along with those barns, those very large barns, those monsters that we hear about across the way, is a lot of research and development that is going on and has been going on for a long time.

Madam Speaker, there are many different types of feeds that have been tried where, in fact, the type of sewage that is produced and the amount of smell that is given off from it--just to see if we can find the right type of feed to put to these animals--

Madam Speaker: Order, please.

Point of Order

Ms. Barrett: I am wondering if you would call the member to order. We are dealing with a very important issue here called the question of orderly marketing and the role of the government in that regard, and I am not sure what the issue of hog barns and smells associated with hog barns has to do with the issue.

Madam Speaker: On the point of order, even though I have rural roots, on this very broad topic, and I have listened to a lot of debate, I am not even absolutely convinced what is terribly relevant and what is not, but I would caution the honourable member for La Verendrye that he should keep his remarks relevant to the MUPI.

* * *

Mr. Sveinson: I thank you, Madam Speaker, for your ruling.

What I am getting at here is the very large barns that in fact there is somewhat of a fear of. Do not be afraid of it. The production of hogs and many, many hogs is what we need here to create jobs.

I would just like to throw out to you, it was not too many years back that the state of Iowa and the production of hogs that they had there was boosted so drastically that, Madam Speaker, right now the state of Iowa produces more hogs than all of Canada put together. [interjection] Yes, yes. So she has been reading a little bit.

Madam Speaker, what we have been looking at here is also a bit of a crossroads for our agricultural industry in Manitoba. It was, indeed, spurred a bit or pushed on a little bit by the cutting of the WGTA just a short time ago. We do have to go more towards diversification and value-added in our farming industry and, as such, the hog production in Manitoba is vital. We do produce, and I can go back to when I was a federal meat inspector, we did produce then the best pork in the world. But today we are producing better pork than we did then.

The amount of research and development that has gone into the hogs and hog production in Manitoba is astronomical. I am not talking about just the barns. I am talking about the research, the breeds of hogs. Today it is said, and it is very true, that they can produce a hog that is leaner and more cholesterol free than chicken--interesting--and most people, if you go back 10 years or maybe 15 years ago, they would have said, there is no way that that will ever happen.

Ladies and gentlemen, the asking of the dual market system from Manitoba Pork, and I say asking, because it has been a consultation process, there has been a report put out. There have been many, many meetings all over the province. Nobody but nobody can say that there has not been consultation. I think it is time to make a move. In order that we can boost that production to the point we want to see it at and create the many thousands of jobs in the process, I think we have to move to that end. It does not, Madam Speaker, kill Manitoba Pork. It is simply asking Manitoba Pork to expand the good service that they have given to Manitobans, to expand it so that we can in fact encourage the production of hogs in Manitoba. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, it is actually a pleasure for me to stand up and represent my colleagues to talk on a very important issue in the Manitoba Legislature. Actually, this is the second day in a row in which I have had the opportunity to talk about the agricultural community.

It is always interesting to hear the types of dialogue whenever we enter into debates on agriculture. I listened very attentively to what different members were talking about with respect to this particular industry, and, ultimately, Madam Speaker, I was really pleasantly surprised by and appreciated the words that the government House leader said in his remarks when he made reference to the fact that many of us who go out to rural Manitoba will quite often talk about the need to diversify the family-farm-type thing to ensure not only that we are producing a particular commodity, whether it is wheat, whether it is hogs, and then exporting it beyond our borders, but that we do what we can to facilitate the processing of that commodity.

That is why we were very supportive of the Schneider corporation, as I believe all members were supportive of that particular company coming into the province of Manitoba, because we saw in that jobs that were going to be created both directly and, of course, indirectly. We see in terms of the benefits of the diversification, if you like, of our rural communities, which is very important to all members and, I know, is very important, at the very least, to the Liberal Party.

Currently, we produce in excess, from what I understand, of over two million hogs, and the potential for growth is actually quite pleasing. You know, the markets, from what I understand or what I have been led to believe, we could virtually double the production that is currently in place. That means a lot of jobs for the province of Manitoba. We have to be very cognizant of the way in which we try to accommodate that growth. There are a number of concerns that we must have, things such as what is going to be happening with the pig waste, which has been an issue. I can recall back in '88 when there were questions that were posed of the Minister of Environment, I believe, back then. We need to look at what technology is there in which we can minimize the negative impacts, if you will, on such growth.

There are other things, and that brings us right to the matter of urgent public importance, such as what the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) has illustrated, the concern with the single-desk system. Madam Speaker, again, from what I understand--and it is very difficult. I do not want to come across as being knowledgeable about every issue, but I do try to get myself better acquainted through different contacts and so forth. From what I understand, to a certain degree, we do currently have different producers, not necessarily having to go through the Manitoba Pork board, whether it is on an individual basis where you have an individual approaching a farm or where you might have a producer that will export some produce that I understand, again, that there are some cases where in fact it is done without the board's consent.

The concern that we have within the Liberal caucus, of course, is that any decision a government makes--and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) talked about the authority that a minister has and should have. In the parliamentary tradition, I guess I would have to concur, at least in most part, with what the minister had talked about. But, of course, what is very important when a minister makes a decision that is going to have a long-lasting impact on so many Manitobans, in the livelihood of so many farms, we like to believe that the minister has done his homework, that in fact the industry as a whole--in particular, the producers--have been, in fact, canvassed and that the minister is doing what is believed to be also in the best interest of the local, smaller farmer or the smaller producer. In essence, I think that is where most of the concern is going to come from: the small farmer.

The approach that Keystone--and I understand Keystone's recommendation was to have some sort of a vote which I think is really a responsible approach from Keystone in the sense that they are an umbrella group. They want to make sure that the government is, in fact, representing what the producers do want to see happen in this whole area of marketing their product. So, Madam Speaker, I would like to believe that the Minister of Agriculture has been doing his homework. I am concerned because I hear from opposition members and with a couple of calls that we have made through our research department--limited research department that we do have--every time I get to emphasize limited on our research, I have to do that plug in hopes that some day we will have more resources so that we could be able to do a bit more research which would increase the quality of my speeches, no doubt.

But, Madam Speaker, having said that nonpaid political ad, I would, in essence, like to believe that the government has done its homework, that in fact the government has canvassed the different producers. This is something in which we will, in fact, proceed during the break to find out just how much the Minister of Agriculture has done his homework, because we are going to choose to believe and give maybe the minister the benefit of the doubt, to a certain degree, that he has done just that.

The NDP opposition has made reference to the producers as a vast majority of them do not support that, and, Madam Speaker, I will be very disappointed if, in fact, there is some accuracy that is within the comments in particular from the member for Transcona (Mr. Reid), where it would appear that the research was done through actually a couple of newspaper articles, and, hopefully, it was expanded upon by that, because as I have indicated, I do acknowledge that to a certain degree there is the selling of hogs that are not going through a single-desk system currently.

Madam Speaker, our concern is, in fact, the small producer, the farmer. We do want to ensure that that group, if you like, their interests are being taken care of, and so to a certain degree, I would have looked forward to more response from the government and getting that assurance from the government that they have solicited the opinions and concerns of the small producer, and in hopes of getting, again, a firm commitment that the Manitoba Pork board will continue to be there in the future, because as accurately as the opposition NDP has pointed out, if we lose the board, it is not like we can bring the board back, and I think that is, in fact, a very legitimate concern, and government must do what it can to ensure that particular concern is going to be addressed.

Madam Speaker, having said those few words, I do appreciate the opportunity to say a few words on behalf of my colleagues. Thank you.

Bill 8--The Off-Road Vehicles Amendment Act

Hon. Jim Ernst (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, there has been a small problem associated with one of the bills that was dealt with in committee earlier today, Bill 8. So, with leave of the House, I would move, seconded by the Minister of Environment (Mr. Cummings), that Clause 12 of Bill 8, The Off-Road Vehicles Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les véhicules à caractère non routier), considered by the Standing Committee on Law Amendments be deemed to have been passed by that committee.

Madam Speaker: Is there leave?

Some Honourable Members: Leave.

Madam Speaker: Leave has been granted.

It has been moved by the honourable government House leader, seconded by the honourable Minister of Environment (Mr. Cummings), that Clause 12 of Bill 8, The Off-Road Vehicles Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les véhicules à caractère non routier, considered by the Standing Committee on Law Amendments be deemed to have been passed by that committee. Agreed?

Some Honourable Members: Agreed.

Madam Speaker: Agreed and so ordered.

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Committee Changes

Mr. Edward Helwer (Gimli): I have some committee changes, Madam Speaker.

I move, seconded by the member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Municipal Affairs be amended as follows: the member for Pembina (Mr. Dyck) for the member for Roblin-Russell (Mr. Derkach); the member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe) for the member for St. Norbert (Mr. Laurendeau).

Motion agreed to.

* * *

Mrs. McIntosh: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to put a few remarks on the record regarding this particular motion. I realize it is one that everybody wants to speak to, and certainly members on our side of the House are most anxious to put their remarks on the record to indicate to the public the importance of this particular initiative and why it is necessary for a strong and viable future in Manitoba.

I note the vast numbers of people sitting on the opposition benches who, because this was such an emergency, felt they had to stay to hear the debate, and there is a little sarcasm in that because I am certainly not being shouted down at this particular point.

Point of Order

Mr. Reid: I ask for your direction, Madam Speaker, as to the appropriateness of the comments of the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) referencing that there are certain government benches or opposition benches that may or may not have members present in the House. I ask you to indicate to members of the House whether it is appropriate for the Minister of Education to comment on that.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. On the point of order, I would remind the honourable Minister of Education that indeed no reference should be made to the presence or absence of members in the Chamber at any time.

* * *

Mrs. McIntosh: Madam Speaker, I withdraw any comments about the attendance on the other side of the House.

I would indicate, though, that the members opposite are the members of the same party that, through their policies and their ways of governing and the methods by which they operated people, drove Swift's and Canada Packers out of Manitoba and then had the gall to complain about the loss of thousands of jobs. They now have an opportunity to help regain some of those jobs they drove out of the province, and they are complaining because I think maybe the initiative comes from us and oftentimes I feel that the only reason they complain about initiatives is that they come from us.

I was intrigued by comments made by other members of the House when they spoke, and I know there are other members on our side waiting anxiously to speak. I was intrigued by comments made about the spin-off benefits of increased hog production. We do know, Madam Speaker, that given choices the hog producers will make choices. They will walk with their feet--as the member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe) said--and their trucks and their hogs, and exercise that choice. If the members opposite are so convinced, as they say they are, that all farmers in Manitoba are going to want to stay with yesterday's ways, they have nothing to worry about. [interjection]

Madam Speaker, could you ask the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) to go back to her own seat and be quiet. She is saying no, she refuses to be quiet. This is the member who will not tolerate any heckling from this side of the House but gives it out. She cannot take it but she wants to give it out. It is a double standard I am so tired of in this House.

Madam Speaker, I indicate that if the members opposite truly believe that the farmers in Manitoba and the hog producers in Manitoba want to stay with yesterday's way, then they have nothing to fear with us making a choice available because the farmers will stay with yesterday's way. If they are so convinced that the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) is correct, they will prove it by exercising the options available to them and choosing the choice the member says that she thinks they want.

I am anxious to see how many farmers, how many hog producers exercise the choice that the member for Swan River would have be their only choice, and I suspect that as producers exercise their choices we will see the spin-offs come not only in increased hog production but in increased agri-industry, in increased processing jobs, that those jobs driven out of here by the big companies that they do not like will return. [interjection]

The member for Swan River, I would ask the same courtesy that she demands of us. I would ask that same courtesy that they demand of us.

The member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) got very upset when he was in the House here earlier and said that Schneider will benefit. [interjection] Well, I do not know what is wrong with that, but that is apparently very, very bad.

Could I ask when Schneider benefits who else benefits? How about the people who work for Schneider? How about the people who used to work for Canada Packers, who used to work for Swift? How about this? He is so convinced Schneider will benefit, why does he think Schneider will benefit? Because he thinks producers will make a choice to choose a new and better way for them.

I see spin-offs in multimodal benefits at the airport, something that was promoted very strongly by me when I was Minister of Urban Affairs and precisely we talked about the exporting of pork to Japan and the Orient, precisely we talked about those very kinds of exports. These are the same kind of people who are so frightened of change, so frightened of change that they ran around screaming that the Free Trade Agreement was going to be gloom and doom for us. They now have seen the great benefits that have come in exports to this province because of that agreement.

They are running around again saying, do not give people choice, do not allow them to exercise options that will allow growth to occur, that will allow an increase in processing, in agri-industries, in all the spin-off industries such as construction, transportation, airports, the multimodel unit of the airport which is being developed precisely for this kind of growth and development in Manitoba.

Madam Speaker, I come back to indicating that the Manitoba hog marketing board has done a good job educating, training and doing research. But today is today, yesterday was yesterday, and tomorrow the world will not be the same as it is today. The member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) expresses great astonishment at that very simple, plain elementary fact that most people could understand that tomorrow will not be like yesterday, and we have to prepare for tomorrow.

The members opposite would continue to have us make horsewhips and horse buggies or candles, because making the electric light bulb will put all the candlemakers out of business. The members opposite stand for no change, no growth, no new vision, no opportunity for hog producers, no opportunity for agri-related industries and development in a wide variety of related areas.

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I know there are other members who are wanting to speak. I have promised that I would not take long so they could have that opportunity, but I indicate to the members opposite, their vision is narrow. I encourage them to open their eyes a little wider and see the world around them evolving and maybe move with it instead of living constantly in the past.

Mr. Ashton: I, first of all, want to indicate that I found it a rather interesting debate. I find it particularly interesting to follow from the comments of the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh), because for Tories to talk about living in the past, I think, is something they probably are experts on.

But let us talk about the past experience of this industry under the current structure that is in place in Manitoba, the hog marketing board. Has it stagnated under the current structure? Has it increased marginally? The Deputy Premier says yes. It has doubled in the past 15 years, despite all the pictures that the Minister of Education wanted to paint about that. I find it interesting too, that the time she was referring to, in terms of loss of some of the processing in this province, was directly related to Peter Pocklington who received massive loans from the Alberta government. Peter Pocklington who ran for the Conservative leadership federally. Peter Pocklington who still has not repaid those loans.

If the Minister of Education is suggesting that Manitoba should have followed the same policies she is dead wrong, because we tried that experience under another Conservative government in the 1960s, it is called CFI. We lost $40 million to $50 million on that. So let the minister, who seems to be rather interested in looking at the historical circumstances, deal with this.

I find it interesting because we had the member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe) get up earlier, and I will not get into his references, his characterization of those farmers with a couple of hogs wallowing around in the mud. I think he totally misrepresents, and I do not think he does it deliberately, a lot of smaller producers who most definitely do not have one or two hogs. You know, the scale of production we are talking about I think is not fairly represented by that. But do you remember when that member got up and he talked about freedom, freedom, freedom--

An Honourable Member: Absolutely.

Mr. Ashton: You know, absolutely, he says, and he reminds me of the Monty Python skit where the person goes into court and says freedom, freedom, freedom, and the comment, and I cannot recreate it in its entirety tonight because it is not parliamentary, but basically it was only a parking ticket.

I mean, let us get serious, Madam Speaker. What this government is doing is denying one basic principle that should be shared by the member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe) and every other member in this House. What is that principle? It is democracy. It is choice.

I ask the question, why is this government now deciding, why is this minister--I respect this minister, he is a veteran of this House--why is this minister after his extensive experience as part of a democratic process--

An Honourable Member: The king.

Mr. Ashton: I am not going to call him the king; I do not think that is fair.

There were some comments, and I found it interesting in committee where he was called a Communist and, quite frankly, anybody who knows the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns), to hear those kinds of comments directed toward the Minister of Agriculture, I am sure he would find that an offensive comment, and I am not repeating that.

Does it not strike the minister that something is going on out there when someone, when anyone in this province would go to a committee hearing and accuse the minister of basically, and I will not put it in those terms, but of denying democracy?

We have got bills that are being introduced that are denying democracy, the basic principles of democracy in terms of farm organizations. You know what I find interesting is, here it is the same process in terms of a major change, in terms of hog marketing, where this government on the one hand where it has in the last number of years brought in a fairly favourable situation to bring in the funding for farm organizations, and we are seeing that again today, what is the government doing now in this issue? Is it listening to those organizations? What is KAP's position?

They are opposed to the government's changes. What is the position that has been expressed by many producers in this province? They are opposed to it. Well, the member opposite, the Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach), echoes some of the comments I heard earlier from the member for Arthur-Virden (Mr. Downey) who, we mentioned a producer and the minister talked about, what are his credentials?

Now, I do not know what that meant. I do not know if that person had to have X number of hogs to be able to speak out on the issue. Maybe they had to have a Tory membership card, I do not know. But, you know, I think what is going on here is symptomatic of an inbred, a deep problem that this government is developing.

This government has represented certain areas of rural Manitoba for a long time. Indeed they have and they applaud. But, you know, Madam Speaker, it is the height of arrogance for this government to now on issue after issue after issue say that it knows best--it knows best. There are words that could be used to describe that. You know, well, the member for Roblin-Russell (Mr. Derkach) says the people of rural Manitoba think that the government knows best. You know, he would not be sitting here today if he campaigned like that in the election in Roblin-Russell, and he will not be sitting here in the next election if he campaigns that way. He knows that we are all here on a temporary basis; as Sterling Lyon used to say, we are here because we listen to our constituents and we raise their concerns in the Legislature.

I ask the question to the member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe) who talked about freedom, to the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) who talked about various different things yesterday, today and tomorrow. I ask this question: Why are they afraid to put this to a vote of the producers? If they believe that they have the people on their side and there is a long tradition of referendums in terms of agricultural issues, as the minister will well know, does it not strike you as rather strange, Madam Speaker, that the government on this issue will not put it to a vote in terms of a referendum?

What this government is saying, what the Minister of Agriculture is saying, is very clear. They think they know best. They are doing it on the two farm bills that are before us in this session, and I just remind, particularly the Minister of Agriculture and other of the veteran members in this House, because I remember some of the criticism of previous NDP governments by then-Conservative members of the opposition--I ask you to put yourself into the situation where, if an NDP government had done the kind of things that this Minister of Agriculture is doing, believe you me, Madam Speaker, it would not be people in committee talking about communist action in the House; it would be members of that party. So what has happened to this party that purports to speak for rural Manitoba? Does it really know best? Is that what they are really saying to the people of rural Manitoba? Is that what they are really saying to hog producers?

Do not ever underestimate the sense of the people, and you know, Madam Speaker, the people are always right, so why do you not ask the people, in this case, the producers, what they think? The Deputy Premier (Mr. Downey) says these people do not have the credentials. If the Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach) says, who are they? He knows full well the amount of concern that is out there in terms of this, including KAP, which represents farmers according to many people, according to this government. If they are afraid of this--

Madam Speaker: Order, please.

Point of Order

Mr. Downey: On a point of order, I would appreciate it if the member for Thompson would not put on the record things that I did not say, and I would ask him to recognize that I did not say that people did not have the credentials. I asked what the credentials were. I did not challenge the credentials; I asked about the question. So I would ask him to not put misrepresentative statements on the record.

Madam Speaker: The honourable Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, on the point of order, does not have a point of order. It is a dispute over the facts. The honourable member for Thompson, who has a little more than two minutes remaining.

* * *

Mr. Ashton: Madam Speaker, I am sorry. I apologize to the Deputy Premier if I quoted his remarks on the record. He said, what are their credentials? He just confirmed it again, and I asked the question why that should even be raised by any member of the House, why we should have comments about people with one or two hogs wallowing around. I mean the bottom line is here, this is a very serious concern particularly to smaller producers. I do not think it is too much to ask to follow up on the suggestion that has been made by many hog producers. We could dispute who and how many and what their credentials are. I think anyone who is a hog producer in this province should be listened to. I think that is only fair, but, when agricultural organizations like KAP, which we hear when we had bills dealing with funding of KAP, when we have our meetings with KAP and when we have other issues, it is amazing how the government quotes what KAP's position is on every other issue except this bill.

I was amazed that one of the members opposite, who was a founder of KAP, got up basically and followed the same line, that the government knows best, they know better than the producers, they know better than KAP.

I just say this today as a warning because I think, Madam Speaker, it is clear--

Madam Speaker: Order, please.

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Point of Order

Mr. Penner: The honourable member refers to references made by the former president of the Keystone Agricultural Producers, which was Earl Geddes, and I certainly have not heard Mr. Geddes make those kinds of comments. If he is referring to a former president of the organization that now sits in this House, it is purely speculative of him to make those kinds of comments. I would ask you to withdraw those comments and refer to reality.

Madam Speaker: The honourable member for Emerson does not have a point of order. It is clearly a dispute over the facts.

* * *

Madam Speaker: The honourable member for Thompson, who has 25 seconds remaining.

Mr. Ashton: I just want to complete by saying to the government that they do not know better than the people. No government can state as boldly as this government has that they know better when there is clear evidence of concern out there from many hog producers.

I say to the government, the right thing to do is to put this out to the hog producers and listen to them, let the people decide on this, let the hog producers decide on this. The bottom line is, the government may think it represents rural Manitoba, but they do not represent rural Manitobans on this issue. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister of Environment): As much as the opposition has tried this afternoon to portray this as a government-knows-best initiative, I think we should be very conscious of what is being put on the record here. Simply, this is not an attack on the existing marketing system, it is in fact a responsibility and a reflection of the reality of the world markets that we are dealing with today.

In sitting here this afternoon listening to the members put their cases forward, I rummaged in my desk, and I see from the September 7 edition of a farm paper that Japan's pork imports jumped 38 percent in one month. The headlines, however, on the front of that same paper talk about the fact, no extra Crow compensation, some farmers not getting Crow forms.

Now, hopefully the members in the opposition will link those two headlines. Manitoba is sitting in the middle of the continent. We cannot continue to export jobs in our grain cars as we have been doing for the last virtually lifetime of many of our present agricultural producers.

The hog board has a strong record of being able to provide a service to the producers of this province. They have provided a marketing function which has been a leader, in many respects. At many times during its history it has been a leader. In fact, even today it has been making changes in its operations which I am sure four or five years ago they would not have contemplated. They worked on market development and have been providing leadership and industry standards, as they will undoubtedly continue to do.

Manitoba has some of the best hogs in North America. It is because of the leadership that comes from the people within the industry. But as a government we would be absolutely derelict if we did not put together the facts as we see them and the world market situation as it is beginning to unfold. Manitoba farmers deserve an opportunity and that is all this is, is providing an opportunity for those producers who want to in some instances spread the risk.

We are talking about operations in some cases that are of a modest size, as the opposition constantly refers to. I am one of those or have been at least one of those modest-sized hog operators. But there are others out there who are prepared jointly with their neighbours or with other farm entrepreneurs or sometimes with urban-generated dollars to risk large capital to produce livestock, and they will be looking to hedge those markets.

Not only do they want to hedge the market they are going into, they will want to spread the risk on their production. As we see everyday, when we look around in this province, there are tremendous opportunities that are available for growth and are mutually beneficial to both the urban and the agricultural sectors of this province.

The agricultural community has seized on a number of opportunities and crop production, but there is no opportunity that exceeds the opportunity available to us in the hog industry today. My colleagues and I would be absolutely derelict if we did not give the opportunity to this industry to expand and to meet the challenge of the markets as I referenced the growth that is available around the world.

People's eating habits are changing. Our market opportunities are there, but those market opportunities are not going to fall into our lap. We are not going to be able to sit here and wait for the buyers to come to this province. We have a product. We have the ability to produce a product. We have the ability to produce a product that will compete anywhere in the world markets, but we have to be able to unhinge and unleash the energy that is available in terms of investment and competent processing of the product.

Madam Speaker, as I look at the industry and I look at the world market, we have to take a severe inward look at our capacity to process within this province. Some members, including the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh), referenced the fact that we have lost the killing capacity out of this province a number of years ago. The fact is that we have significant overcapacity today. We also have investors who want to increase that capacity, at the same time we have agricultural producers who want to increase their capacity.

What a great opportunity is staring us in the face, Madam Speaker, and all that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) has said today is that he wants to unleash those forces to the benefit of this province. The opportunity is there, and if we are prepared to provide the impetus through public policy that will allow those who are incapable of meeting this market, we are talking potentially, as we examine the opportunity for increased opportunity in the pork industry in this province, up to 9,000 additional jobs. That is a mega-industry by anybody's judgment, and the fact is that this is one of the opportunities that we have to look to as we see the former grain-based industry gradually being taken away from us by the cost of moving product out of this province into the consuming areas without some kind of value-added processing. We simply have been exporting jobs.

So there is a cost associated with this. The cost is not just the one that we will pay in this Legislature in the part of a debate or in the public debate or in whether or not there are producers out there who may benefit or not benefit from any type of change in marketing opportunity. Cost may well be in lost opportunity if we are not bold enough to ask the question, if we are not bold enough to put the opportunity that is available in front of the producers and in front of the labourers in this province.

I think I heard a number--well, I know I heard a number of the members across the way using the Wheat Board analogy about choice, about how the producers voted. The fact is that any review or analysis of how we are going to get value-added industry operating in this province means that we have to be able to unite in one flow-through operation, the productivity of our agricultural soils and farmers along with the productivity of the labour force that we have, to increase the capacity to tap into these markets. We have the hub of transportation, both in rail, truck and air, sitting right here at our fingertips, and surely we are not so dumb as to ignore that opportunity that is being presented to us.

I will only close on one comment, because I know I have a couple of colleagues who wish to be involved and be on the record on this, and that is that a number of members referenced the family farm. The previous members discussed, what is today's family farm? There is a range from the small farm in acres to the large farm, but there are also some of the largest farms in this province that probably sit on 10 acres. The large intensive operations do not need massive acreage, but they need massive investment. They need massive input of labour. They need massive opportunity to deal with the product that they are producing. At the same time they are producing markets for the grain producers who are gradually changing their mode of operation as a result of the reality that we are in.

So no longer is an acreage a judgment of the value or the contribution of a farm. Neither is the volume of production the sole basis. We know that there are a lot of farms in this province, far too many, who have had to look at their income, and, in fact, earn more income off farm than they do on farm, but there is a significant percentage of our production that is high tech, that is looking for value-added opportunity, that is attracting investment and is producing a decent return on that investment. At the same time we have a well-trained and anxious workforce that wants to be able to deal with that material. This is an opportunity. This need not be a debate for argument between large farmers and small farmers. The only debate is, how do we seize the opportunity, Madam Speaker?

Mr. Peter Dyck (Pembina): Madam Speaker, I have been listening intently this afternoon to comments on the whole area of dual marketing for the hog industry. It is interesting to note that there are so many authorities in this industry. I would like to give you a little bit of my orientation in it, and, in fact, I have been involved in this area of production for many years. I have come to the system of where, in fact, there was no regulation, where we went to the hog producers marketing board, and now we are looking at creating another opportunity for those involved in agriculture to be able to market their animals.

* (1750)

Madam Speaker, I firmly believe that we need to allow our producers of pork to have that option, to have the opportunity to market their product where they see fit. Correspondingly to that, I would also urge the members opposite to consider the fact that those who do not want to market there and choose the other option to choose the better markets, that they do not have to. They have that option. They are not forced to do that. If no one in this province, if there is not another producer in this province who does not want to do it and wants to market all of their products through the system the way it is currently, they are at liberty to do that.

But, Madam Speaker, I firmly believe that we need to create and we need to give those options to the producers. This creates opportunities within our province, and it has been mentioned that many jobs will be created through the accessing of new packers coming into the province. There are people being employed in the agricultural sector. Back home on the farm the hog production is increasing. These are very specialized people who are involved in the production of pork, so this is a vital product and a vital industry for us as a province.

Madam Speaker, if we are going to continue to just look straight ahead but not look to other opportunities, I do not believe that our hog industry in the province can flourish the way it really should. The new hog barn that is out there, and again, I come from an orientation where I was in the production of pork for 25 years. I have seen producers come and go, and those who are not innovative are the ones who go. The markets today are requiring that we produce an animal that is growthy, that is disease free, an animal that is going to be able to come to the market, that is going to be appealing to the eye and, of course, to the palate. So this is something that is very important.

That, Madam Speaker, is the type of an animal that we today are producing, and I believe that given this opportunity to allow those who produce pork to market it where they see fit is just allowing that industry to expand in ways that we have not seen. So I am very pleased that our Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) is in fact giving this option to the producers that allows them to go and market at the best price and also allows them to market where they want.

Further to this, Madam Speaker, I have come through this system and it, again, was something which I did not like to see. But the fact of movement of hogs, I believe that this gives those people the opportunity to market directly. They do not have to bring their hogs to a central point where they are moved about, and I believe that this is an advantage to the producers as well.

Madam Speaker, this afternoon I also heard the questions that were given regarding the whole area of family farms. What is a family farm? Are these family farms in fact going to become extinct? I do not believe that at all. In fact, I see a real resurgence of the family farms, especially within the area that I am involved. I see the young people coming back to the farms, getting involved in agriculture. They are excited about it. They are excited about the approach that we are taking in the agricultural industry that is allowing the young and the new entrepreneurs to come in, to be able to exercise some of the gifts that they have. They have come through the schools of hard knocks in the sense of coming up in the farm, of growing up on the farm, going to university and now are able to be involved within agriculture. So I see a real interest developing there.

Again, Madam Speaker, this will not happen if we are closed-minded and do not look at other areas of production and other marketing areas and skills that we can develop and help them develop in this province. Further to that, I would like to just make the comparison of the marketing of canola, of oats, of corn, of sunflowers, of beans, and I could go on and on, these are all products that are grown within our constituency. The opportunities for marketing are limitless. There are opportunities all over, and I see the same thing happening in the pork industry where there are going to be other people involved in the marketing end of it who are going to assist the producers to get the very best market for their product.

Madam Speaker, I also maintain that this marketing strategy is one that creates competition, where there are the facilities out there, the buyers who are wanting, in fact, to buy the product. They are out selling, and they create a market opportunity for the producers out there where they can go and in fact select the best price.

So, Madam Speaker, I know there is another speaker who would like to make a few comments, and with that I would just like to close my remarks and say that, yes, we must have democracy. That is what we have here. We are allowing the producer to market his product where he sees fit. Thank you.

Mr. Downey: I just want to make a couple of comments, and I appreciate the debate that has taken place today. I think it has been healthy and useful to the industry and also to the province of Manitoba.

I could repeat history; I am not going to. I will just start off by saying what a wonderful thing we have to do here today is to talk and debate about all the opportunities in Manitoba agriculture. I am extremely proud to be here today to be joined by my colleagues and members opposite to debate the opportunity where 9,000 jobs will come to Manitoba with the expansion of an industry.

Agriculture has changed, and I compliment the hog board because, following the report done by my colleague the Minister of Agriculture, the hog board has made some progressive changes. They should be recognized for that. They have started to forward-sell hogs and do some contractual arrangements with some of the producers to provide services, and they should be acknowledged for that. The need for change was recognized by the board. So they have not been intransigent, they have not been bucking, they have not been fighting the Ministry of Agriculture to my knowledge. In fact, I think they have been working co-operatively. I see it continuing to be a co-operative relationship if we take the right attitude. It is not a matter of lose, it is a matter of modernization and winning.

The question that has been raised, and I want to deal with it, Madam Speaker, in the short time that I have is, why can we not expand the way we want to expand or see the industry expand and not do it through a single-selling desk? There is one reason. Producers today, whether they are small or large, when they go to the banker, when they go to the feed company, whoever they go to for financing, need security and stability. They need large amounts of money.

Can you tell me what banker would lend an amount of money to any producer today unless they said: I know that I am going to get this kind of a return on this number of units over a period of time that it takes to pay my hog barn back or the processor that is going to spend $40 million is going to say, unless I know I can get the hogs in my backdoor to sell to the Japanese in Japan or Asia, that I know exactly the product that I am buying and I am selling. I need a contractual arrangement.

Why has the family farm survived with the PMU industry that has contractual arrangements? Why has the family farm under potatoes survived? Why has the sugar beet industry survived under contractual arrangements? Why did the Canadian Wheat Board introduce contractual arrangements to Manitoba? It is because it is stability and will add stability, and the assurance the family farm will last for a long time. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. This concludes the debate on the MUPI. The hour being 6 p.m., this House is adjourned and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow (Wednesday).