2nd-36th, Volume 28a - Private Members' Busines

VOL. XLVI No. 28A - 10 a.m., THURSDAY, MAY 2, 1996

Thursday, May 2, 1996

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA

Thursday, May 2, 1996

The House met at 10 a.m.

PRAYERS

PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

PROPOSED RESOLUTIONS

Res. 4--Rail Line Abandonment

Mr. Jack Penner (Emerson): Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the member for Steinbach (Mr. Driedger), that

WHEREAS the National Transportation Act 1987 eased the rail line abandonment process by requiring the National Transportation Agency to allow the abandonment of uneconomic lines except for lines defined as grain development branch lines; and

WHEREAS the Government of Canada will revoke the existing Order-in-Council or has revoked the existing Order-in-Council protecting all rail lines in western Canada from abandonment; and

WHEREAS the passage of Bill C-101, the Canada Transportation Act, which is currently before parliament, will free the rail lines from regulatory control over rail line abandonment; and

WHEREAS the passage of the Omnibus Finance Bill 1995 eliminated subsidies to rail transportation of grain and increased the competitiveness of trucking relative to rail; and

WHEREAS these actions will cause a diversion of traffic from rail to road, particularly on road networks linking farms and grain delivery points; and

WHEREAS these low volume provincial and municipal roads, connecting bridges will require upgrading to meet appropriate loading and safety standards at a substantial cost; and

WHEREAS such upgrading costs exceed the fiscal capability of road authorities, both provincial and municipal, which are currently hard-pressed to finance existing demand on their roads; and

WHEREAS the rural municipalities have continually pressed the government of Manitoba to assume responsibility for municipal roads affected by abandonment because of the significant costs involved and limited resources of the rural municipalities; and

WHEREAS the Government of Canada collects taxes on road fuel consumption in excess of $5.1 billion annually and has historically spent less than 10 percent on highways and infrastructure; and

WHEREAS the Government of Canada has steadfastly refused to contribute to a national highway system to assist the provinces in maintaining and upgrading a safe and efficient coast-to-coast network; and

WHEREAS the Government of Canada has an obligation to fund a national highway system so that all regions of the country will be able to meet the needs of farmers, other producers and the general public.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba petition the Government of Canada to provide appropriate compensation for road impacts due to the rail line abandonment and rail subsidy elimination.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. I wonder if there is leave to accept the proposed resolution as read by the honourable member for Emerson. It has been somewhat revised, and I will reread it according to the resolution submitted. Agreed? Leave has been granted. [agreed]

It has been moved by the honourable member for Emerson (Mr. Penner), seconded by the honourable Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Driedger), that

WHEREAS the National Transportation Act 1987 eased the rail abandonment process by requiring the National Transportation Agency to allow abandonment of uneconomic lines except for lines defined as grain development branch lines; and

WHEREAS the Government of Canada will revoke or has revoked the existing Order-in-Council protecting all rail lines in western Canada from abandonment December 31, 1995.

I purposely wanted to read that particular sentence because that was the slight revision.

Dispense?

Some Honourable Members: Dispense.

WHEREAS the passage of Bill C-101, the Canada Transportation Act, which is currently before parliament, will free the railways from regulatory control over rail line abandonment; and

WHEREAS the passage of the Omnibus Finance Bill 1995 eliminated subsidies to rail transportation of grain and increased the competitiveness of trucking relative to rail; and

WHEREAS these actions will cause a diversion of traffic from rail to road, particularly on road networks linking farms and grain delivery points; and

WHEREAS these low volume provincial and municipal roads, connecting bridges will require upgrading to meet appropriate loading and safety standards at a substantial cost; and

WHEREAS such upgrading costs exceed the fiscal capability of road authorities, both provincial and municipal, which are currently hard-pressed to finance existing demand on their roads; and

WHEREAS the Government of Canada collects taxes on road fuel consumption in excess of $5.1 billion annually and has historically spent less than 10 percent on highways and infrastructure; and

Motion presented.

Mr. Penner: Madam Speaker, I certainly concur that I should have probably explained the changes there because some of the typing here and the numbers are outdated.

The reason the resolution has come before the House and the reason I present this resolution today, and there is some urgency to this because we are seeing a very dramatic change happening because of federal policy changes in both the aspect of marketing and transportation policy decisions that have been made over the last year, year and a half. I think it is important to reflect at least somewhat on what these changes really mean to Manitobans in the farm community and the business community, the processing industry in much of Manitoba, and it is not only restricted to the rural Manitobans. It affects all Manitobans.

The elimination of the $760-million Crow benefit now simply says that Manitoba farmers, grain producers, will pay $760 million additional freight out of Manitoba into export positions each and every single year. The federal government made that decision. At the same time the federal government said, we will now relegate the legislation that was there previously prohibiting rail line abandonment. We will set it aside and allow the railways to make the decision based on an economical viewpoint as far as the corporations are concerned. There is no consideration given under that terminology of the agreement and the policy change that reflects the reality of the cost of moving grain into export positions. There is no consideration of that.

So, Madam Speaker, I would propose to the House that because of that decision, the town of Gretna in southern Manitoba, will find itself without a railway because the line from Altona to Gretna will be abandoned. I think we have a number of other communities that will find themselves in that kind of a position over the next number of years. It will all be done to reflect the changes and the costs that will be incurred by farmers, but the true impact, Madam Speaker, is going to be relegated to the municipalities.

The federal government, I believe, has the responsibility to ensure that those municipalities are adequately compensated, as they were previously, to transport grain out of western Canada, and especially Manitoba because we will be affected to the greatest degree of any province, and the cost of moving grain out of Manitoba will be higher than any other province in Canada. Therefore, the federal government needs to pay some real attention and devise a compensatory package that will allow the province to sit down with the municipalities and devise a strategy that will put in place a network of highways that adequately will be able to carry the loads on a year-round basis that will be required to move grain out of these communities.

Otherwise, those communities will see themselves in a position where at periods of time of the year, such as we are incurring now, those communities and the farmers in those communities will have no access to market at all based on a policy decision reflecting the transportation system in this country. We have now been relegated to pick up and bear the cost of devising a network of transportation that will allow for that transportation of those commodities to take place.

Otherwise, I say to you that we will see a vast and major change in our agricultural industry in rural Manitoba simply based on the fact they will not be able to move the grain out of the province when they should. Some will argue, well, this will lead to further processing and those kinds of things. Yes, Madam Speaker, it will because the competitive factor will now drive the real cost of the product off the farm, and that is an asset, that is a plus, but the cost impact of where we draw the money from has changed totally.

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Previously there was a contribution by all Canadians to the transportation system up to $760 million. That is gone. Previously we said to the railways, you must provide services to those small communities. That decision has disappeared.

So, Madam Speaker, I ask all members of this House to seriously consider the true economic impact and the massive changes that are going to take place within the next decade in Manitoba, and Manitoba will be affected very, very dramatically, significantly more than other provinces will be, and the elimination of a rail line from a community very often has designated that community totally irrelevant. So the social impact is a responsibility that the federal government must bear because of the policy changes they have made, and that is something that I think has not been properly considered. Therefore, I make the strong argument that because of the social impact, because of the economic impact, and because of the realities of the geographic location of many of the communities, agriculture being the end industry that has driven the economies in those small communities needs to be further reflected, and therefore I beg all of you to support this resolution, to ask the federal government to reconsider its compensatory obligations that we have to our citizens in this province, in the town of Gretna, in many of the other towns that will be affected by this kind of decision.

Will there be savings? There can be, Madam Speaker, simply because the competitive factor will now drive the forces which will bring the trucking industry, in a large part, into play to a much greater degree than we have seen in the past. If those savings can be transferred then into an economical road network, let us do that, but let us recognize the fact that we all jointly have a role to play here, and that the federal government's responsibility and the resources they draw from this province in taxation of the fuels and licensing, and all those kinds of things that they derive revenue from needs to be recognized. The redistribution of those funds needs to be added to the current distribution of funds that we see from Ottawa.

So I ask members to please recognize the predicament that many of our rural communities will face because of this decision, recognize that. Take a look at the hard and harsh realities that these communities will face, and if we can supplement that by additional road networks, maybe some of these economic impacts can be offset by encouraging trucking industries to develop in those communities and thereby build again on the transportation system that we have been used to. It will explicitly need the consideration of our federal government to reflect the realities that they have caused by policy changes that will affect the farm community.

Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River): Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Emerson for bringing forward this resolution because it is a very important resolution and an issue that is causing a lot of concern in rural Manitoba. I think that it is one that the federal government should have thought through before they decided to change the Crow benefit, and those people who supported the federal government in their plans to change the Crow benefit should have thought about what the implications were going to be. Those are implications, just as the member for Emerson is raising, that we raise on this side of the House because we are very concerned about what is happening to our rural communities, and with all of this deregulation, what is going to happen to the farm community.

We just found out that the National Transportation Agency is going to allow railway companies to raise freight rates for grain shipment, and that along with the other costs that farmers are having to pick up because of these changes. Now we see that the railway companies have the ability to charge even more money. We have to wonder what that is going to do. In fact, there is going to be an increase of rate allowed to a maximum of 7.5 percent over last year's rates to destinations such as Thunder Bay, Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Churchill.

Of course, Madam Speaker, you know that in this House, on this side of the House, we have been very concerned about, and raised many times, the future of the Port of Churchill. I want to say that this is going to have a very negative effect on rural communities, and the member for Emerson raised that. I want to just reflect a little about what we have seen, just as railway line abandonment will, we see what has happened in communities where the main highway does not go through. I see this right in my own constituency where if the main highway is going through a community, well, the community will survive a little longer, but if the highway is not going through it and now the railway is taken out of that community, it is going to have a very serious effect.

Our roads are not built to the level to take the amount of trucking and the size of trucks that are being required to travel now. As the trucks move greater distances, they haul larger loads, heavier weights, and you can see a tremendous impact on the roads. You see it right on the No. 1 Highway, but you see it right in our constituency where we have the additional logging traffic in the area, and there is going to be a tremendous burden on the municipalities and on the province to maintain these roads.

The federal government does have a responsibility. They have pulled $760 million out of transportation, but they have taken no consideration as to what the impact is going to be on the communities. I have communities in my constituency that are very concerned. For example, I just had calls this weekend from the people in Fork River and Ethelbert. In both communities there are elevators. In both communities they are very concerned with the legislation that is before the federal government right now that the railway lines to those elevators will be abandoned and what will happen.

The impact will be, for example, in Fork River, where there is a very good elevator. The elevator has been upgraded and will probably end up being an inland terminal, and all of this traffic is going to have to go on the roads. That road, that No. 20 Highway, is just not fit to carry that much traffic. It is not at the level where it would be maintained. We have to call on the federal government. I think that not only should we be calling on the federal government to put money into the roads, I think we have to call on the federal government to reconsider their plans to abandon some of these lines. In some of these communities, abandonment of the line will mean the end of the elevator and a much greater cost to the farmers.

Members across the way and members on this side of the House know that farmers operate on a very narrow margin. If you have to pick up additional transportation costs, there is very little left. Although the price of grain appears to be going up, and it is, finally farmers are getting a good return for their grain, but they are also picking up additional input costs on fuel, on fertilizer on which there is no control, and now they have the extra costs of additional transportation. Aside from that, Madam Speaker, the additional cost that rural people are going to pay is the taxes that they will have to pay to maintain those roads. That is a very serious concern because, as I say, there is a very narrow margin on what they operate on in all rural communities. We have to look at the social impact in these communities.

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We all know that just as with health care, when a person leaves the community to get their health care services somewhere else, the same thing applies with farming. A person, rather than hauling your grain into a small town, for example, Fork River, and you have to haul your grain to Dauphin, at the same time you are going to go there and have other businesses done. There is a whole drain on the social economics of the community.

The federal government should have thought this through when they were changing it. I think that the members of the provincial government should have thought through--no, it was the federal Conservative government that began the dismantling of the Crow benefit, and the members of government did not speak out about it then, and they should have. We should be very concerned about what the federal government is doing with regard to the complete deregulation of the railway service, the move that they are making to allow for rail line abandonment, the moves that they have made to eliminate subsidies on the rail transportation of grain. All of this is going to result in the diversion of traffic onto our roads which are not built to the level.

I think here in Manitoba, as you know, Madam Speaker, where we as farmers are going to pick up the highest proportion of the transportation costs, we have to look at other alternatives, and we have to look at how farmers can get their grain to market at a more reasonable cost.

We have a lot of hope for the Port of Churchill, and farmers across the province, particularly in the Parkland Region and in the eastern part of Saskatchewan, feel that by shipping grain through the Port of Churchill, they will continue to have the opportunity to get a fair return for their product, for although the change to the Crow is going to change how we use grain in this province, Madam Speaker--and the member talked about a move towards processing, and I hope that we will see more processing in this province, but we also have to recognize that there are markets around the world that want our grain in its natural state, in its raw state. They will not buy processed food. We have to have a transportation system that will allow that grain to get to market and get to those foreign markets.

The railway system is the cheapest way of getting that grain there, or it used to be until the federal government made these changes and until the federal government gave the ability for the railways to increase the rates that they are charging for grain shipment. But we have to ensure that there is a good railway system, and I hope that, along with trying to get the federal government to pay money into the roads, this government would also say, but you have to recognize that there are certain lines that are essential and cannot be abandoned, and in some of these areas where the lines are abandoned, communities are going to be destroyed and it is going to put a tremendous burden on farmers in the area.

So, Madam Speaker, I think this is a good resolution. It is one that we would like to see the federal government move on, that we would hope the federal government would take into consideration. I think that each one of us should be contacting, and I hope each of you have, your member of Parliament to make them realize that the decisions that they are making are hurting our rural community and the federal government has to take some responsibility in this. I would also hope that members would recognize that in certain parts of the province it would be far more economical to keep the railway going rather than shift all the traffic over onto the roads.

You know, you have to look at other parts of the world, and I sometimes do not understand where we are going in Canada. In other countries, people are looking for ways to improve their railways so there is a more economical and more environmentally friendly way to transport product in the country.

Here in Canada we have abandoned that idea. We seem to think that if we shift everything over to highway transportation, and quite frankly, I am concerned about safety, as well, when you travel on some of these roads and you see these very large trucks hauling chemicals, hauling fertilizer and grain and fuel, I think that it would be much safer to move those products by rail, and I think that is a big mistake that we have made, that the federal government has made, I should say, in making the changes that they have made to the transportation system and shift over to trucking. It is much more expensive in my opinion. It is not as safe on the highways, and it is also a cost that municipalities and provinces cannot afford to pick up.

So, Madam Speaker, I think this is a good resolution. It could have gone farther. I would have wished that the provincial government would have been more critical of the federal government when they made the move to change the Crow benefit and would have lobbied to ensure that Manitoba had fairer treatment. It was a big mistake to change the Crow as we did. There were suggestions made that if the Crow was going to be changed that there be a phase-out period, but we did not get that from the federal Liberals nor did we get that recommendation from the provincial government here.

So this move is a good move. It is one that we would like to see. We would like to see the federal government take on more of their responsibility rather than just draining money out, that they would take seriously into consideration the impact that their decision of draining all this money out of Canada will have on the people in Manitoba.

So, Madam Speaker, again, I want to reiterate for those people in my constituency who will be affected, we have seen rail line abandonment. We saw the Cowan subline abandoned, although the people requested the government to fix up the whole line, they chose to only fix up the short portion of it, so that Louisiana-Pacific could get their wood out, but they did not choose to fix up the rest of the line which would have helped the elevator at Ethelbert. I would have liked to have seen more support for that plan from this government, but when we put that proposal forward, we did not hear very much support from them.

Also, Madam Speaker, I want to emphasize that again we have to have grain going through the Port of Churchill, but moves to increase the freight rate through those will not be in the best interest of the rural community. We will continue to urge the federal government to recognize the error of their ways in changing the Crow benefit and ensuring that they take on their responsibility, urging them to take on their responsibility to pick up their share of the costs that will be a much bigger burden than municipalities or provincial governments can pick up.

So, with those few comments, I thank you.

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Hon. Albert Driedger (Minister of Natural Resources): It gives me pleasure to support the resolution. It is a pretty substantive resolution with all the WHEREASes, and I will be a little picky and choosy about which area I concentrate on.

I just want to say, Madam Speaker, that in another seven days it will be eight years since I had the privilege of being sworn in as a minister of the Crown for the Province of Manitoba. For the first five and a half years, my responsibility as minister of the Crown here in Manitoba was as the Minister of Highways and Transportation.

An Honourable Member: And a fine minister, too, Albert.

Mr. Driedger: I appreciate that. Thank you. Anyway, in reading the resolution, it made me think back to some of the debates that have taken place even in the last eight years related to the Crow, and, in fact, I can recall back far enough when Pete Adam was here in the House at one time many years ago. He was a member for Ste. Rose at the time and he had these buttons, Save the Crow. That is a few years ago, but I will not necessarily get into the rail line abandonment end of it that much.

I would rather concentrate on what I think should be the responsibility of the federal government and their obligations in supporting the transportation system in this country because during my tenure as Minister of Highways and Transportation the challenges were there continually about rail line abandonment. There was legislation in place that allowed certain things to happen at certain times, and railways were challenged to be financially economical and responsible, and as a result some of the abandonments took place. We would have liked to see things stay the same all the time. That is not the reality of life.

We had asked them to be responsible in many things, and when they made some of those decisions, even in terms of layoffs, and there was ongoing debate in this House as to should it take place or not. But that is a thing that I think corrects itself, and now that we have the Crow being deleted, this Crow subsidy being deleted, it gives another angle into the whole debate as to what happens with grain movement, what happens here in the province of Manitoba, which I think is ideally located in the centre of Canada, but when it comes to moving grain to either the west coast or to Thunder Bay, it has the disadvantage of the freight, especially with the deletion of the Crow.

So adjustments, I think, will take place, and I think there is going to be, in some cases, a negative effect. In some cases, I think there is also going to be some positive things happening. I would like to say that the positive impact probably would be most felt in a place like my constituency, southeast Manitoba, which is very livestock-intensive, where we have the feather industry, we have the dairy industry, we have certainly the hog industry, and I am promoting very strongly the expansion of the hog industry, and I know the feed mills that basically are in my area out there are doing very well.

They haul grain from as far away as Saskatchewan, and all of that, of course, is done by truck because there are very few rail lines within the southeast area, so most of that is done by trucking. That is where I want to talk about the federal government having some responsibility. They made some of these decisions that ultimately are affecting movement, and this is how the farming community is affected, and I think they have an obligation. I want to make reference to the fact that when I was minister of Highways and Transportation, we were that close to a national highway program.

In fact, we have been working on that for a substantive period of time, and it was the Conservative government at that time that we thought was going to make that decision. The case had been laid well with all the provinces across the country, and we were all in agreement that there should be a national highway program. We had worked out the details in terms of identifying in each province what should be part of the national highway system, and Manitoba was the strongest proponent of this system, because the deputy at that time, Boris Hryhorczuk had been working on this even prior to my getting involved as minister. We had a very definitive plan that basically had been developed through the ministers' conferences. The only component that was missing was the feds who continually dragged their feet, and that was a Conservative government, as well.

I am not choosing sides here, but the basis of our argument, to bring forward a national system, was the fact that the feds were putting taxes on the road system and were generating revenue, as it says in the resolution here, over $5 billion worth of revenue that they taxed out of this road system--[interjection] I do not have those details--and gave very, very little of it back. That was the basis of our talking about a national highway system.

The time when we thought they would do the announcement, all of a sudden they changed their position, and deals were being made with the eastern provinces who invariably always ended up with better deals. That is why we thought, if there was a national system with a sharing formula in place in terms of what would happen, that would have been very positive. However, that went by the wayside, and, when they started making some announcements for the eastern part of the country, it was then I made contact with the then-federal minister for Manitoba, Jake Epp.

Being very disturbed at that time because we had the bridge and locks at Lockport that basically they were trying to transfer to us, we came forward with a very strong position and managed at that time to come up with what was called the SHIP program, Strategic Highway Improvement Program, where we then identified, federally and provincially, certain roads that were going to be improved.

That program, I believe, is terminated now. It has been completed. We managed to get certain cost-shared funding on it. I think that is an obligation that the federal government has reneged on. There is nothing further again. I know that the Maritime provinces invariably--and I will say this critically. The federal government invariably has put more money into there than they have in the western part of Canada.

When I was out on one of my ministerial meetings, we had this giant structure, a bridge that is being built between PEI and New Brunswick, a phenomenal project out there, tremendous cost and a lot of federal money into there.

An Honourable Member: A lot of politics involved.

Mr. Driedger: A lot of politics involved is right. My argument is that there is not a consistent approach in terms of cost sharing between the feds and the provinces in terms of these things, and, of course, we all know it is difficult to replace money. They have over $5 billion worth of revenue that they tax off the road system and put very little of it back. I think that is where the weakness of the system comes in.

It certainly is very important for Manitoba because I have to say that the shift that has taken place from rail, the bottom end is going to take place. If it is not economically viable, they will close the rail lines, and that shift started taking place even before then already, from rail to road and the trucking industry. It is a very important part of the economy for Manitoba because we have, what is it, over half of the national trucking companies are headquartered in Winnipeg, and I think it has always been a very important part of our economy.

I could tell you that the port of entry at Emerson, for example, I think, is the fourth largest truck port of entry in Canada. There is a tremendous amount of trucking that goes through there. In fact, when we were out there the other day looking at the flood situation, my colleague the member for Emerson (Mr. Penner) was telling me that between 400 and 700 trucks a day come through that port of entry.

With Highway 75 being closed, we have to divert the traffic around there, but it just goes to show the impact of that industry on Manitoba. So I think that I would want to have all members support the resolution so that we can take and continue putting our case forward to the federal government that they should realize their responsibility in terms of sharing some of the revenue that they have generated through taxes. Canada is very unique. When you look at the size of Canada, transportation is a very, very important part of that. When we presented our case to the feds at that time in terms of a national highway system, Canada was the only progressive country that basically did not have a national system. When you drive in the States, they have a very substantive system in place that was done by the federal government. They have never managed to do that.

I think many people always thought that our federal government participated in the Trans-Canada Highway. They have done bits and pieces, but it has been very, very minute, and just having travelled to Ontario a few months ago, I have to say, though, that we have not done badly as a province here. I want to give accolades to the Province of Manitoba in terms of their road system. You know the money that has been put in there because it was in 1977, '79, 1981, I believe, at that time the member for Pembina, Don Orchard, was the Minister of Highways, and, at that time, the Province of Manitoba had put $100 million into the Capital program.

I have to be a little political here. After that, of course, when the NDP took over, it took a real dive, and we brought it back up again when I took over as Minister of Highways and Transportation. [interjection] Oh, yes. Constantly, I tell the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) check the figures, check the figures.

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But we have at least brought it back up to the $100 million a year that has been expended in Capital on highways, and it has stayed that way. I always felt it should have been more then; I think it should be more now. Comparatively to Saskatchewan, they have a much more extensive road system than we have, and they knocked the heck right out of theirs. That was, of course, under the NDP government, as well. So our system, by and large, has not been a bad system when we consider that the Trans-Canada Highway is almost twinned from border to border. You try driving into Ontario and find out what their road is like, the Trans-Canada. What a piece of junk. I was embarrassed that that should be part of the Trans-Canada.

An Honourable Member: I do not think Mike Harris is going to fix it up.

Mr. Driedger: Well, I have some hope that maybe the Trans-Canada in Ontario is going to be fixed up because I understand the Premier of Ontario comes from Sudbury--[interjection] No, not Sudbury.

An Honourable Member: North Bay or somewhere up in that area.

Mr. Driedger: Yes. So I expect, having come from the northern part of Ontario, that maybe there is going to be some improvement of the roads there. Northern Manitoba has relatively good roads too.

Madam Speaker, I was accused many times of not taking and giving consideration to roads in northern Manitoba. Prior to my being removed from Minister of Highways, I toured the North road for road, all the way down to places like Norway House, Moose Lake, et cetera, because the pressure was coming down from the colleagues the members of the opposition, complaining about the North, and many of the roads were much better than the ones we had in the south.

That is a fact. I mean, I got sort of taken in, boy, starting to feel a little guilty. When you go out and look and find out exactly what has happened--you look at Highway 60, for example, which is the connecting route from The Pas down to Grand Rapids, in that area there, a beautiful piece of road, miles and miles. I have travelled it many times. Sometimes I counted four or five cars between that whole long stretch. I was amazed.

When we look at what happens on Highway 59, Highway 75 or the Trans-Canada, you know, the amount of traffic that is generated and the economy that is driven by that kind of thing--I am not slighting the North, but I do not think that it is justified when the members from the North keep crying about the roads all the time. That applies no matter where you go. Many of the comments that the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) made reference to, you know, the changing of the loads, the roads have not been built for that, the bridges certainly have not been built for the kind of loads that are being hauled now with the big trucks, the big semis, the feed trucks, et cetera.

So there are problems there, and I think the federal government has to participate. Municipalities alone cannot continue to finance that. The provincial government has the same handicap, and if it were not for the fact that there was over $5 billion being collected in Canada off the road system with very little of it put back, it would be a little different argument, but I think there is a moral obligation for the federal government to work with provinces to bring up the transportation system.

Mr. Stan Struthers (Dauphin): I am pleased to rise today to talk on transportation problems and rail line abandonment that affects rural Manitoba so much, including my own riding of Dauphin.

Madam Speaker, in her novel called Where Nests the Water Hen, Gabrielle Roy described the little town of Rorketon as a bustling community. This was several years ago, decades ago. At that time Rorketon was a bustling, busy community, lots of people around, lots of people in the district, lots of activity in a little town. Today I am not so sure that Gabrielle Roy would refer to Rorketon as a bustling community. Many things have changed over the past number of decades in that little community in my riding. I used to live in Rorketon, so I can talk first-hand about the things that people told me went on years ago in that small community.

Do not get me wrong, Madam Speaker, Rorketon today--

An Honourable Member: Sounds like kind of an exciting place to be.

Mr. Struthers: It is a very exciting place to be, as the Minister of Environment (Mr. Cummings) can attest. He has been there before. They have some of the best bonspiels in the province of Manitoba. It is good cattle country, and the people there work very hard to keep their community alive and well.

I would suggest to you, though, that the No. 1 difference between Rorketon today and Rorketon a number of years and decades ago is that they no longer have a rail line connecting their community with Ste. Rose to the south. Now, for people who have not lived a whole lot of time in rural Manitoba, it might be easy to not understand the importance of a rail line to small towns in small communities in rural Manitoba. Many of us, though, who have lived in rural Manitoba understand how vital it is to have a rail line connecting your community to the so-called outside world.

Madam Speaker, years ago, the older folks in Rorketon whom I had the opportunity to talk with told me of all the things that happened in that little community because of the rail line. So much of their activity was centred on the rail that connected them to Ste. Rose. The trains came into Rorketon three times a week, and one of the big social events in Rorketon, at the time, was to meet the train on Friday night and welcome everybody into the community, meet them at the train and then take them throughout the community to the different events that were planned on the Friday nights. [interjection]

Now, the member for Turtle Mountain (Mr. Tweed) laughs and says I would not remember that, and he is right. I am not that old. I am too young to remember actually being there, but being a good representative of the people in Rorketon, I take the time to listen to what they tell me. I take the time to listen to the stories they impart to us, and I think every member of the House has a responsibility to hear the information passed down from one generation to the next. I would hope the member for Turtle Mountain does the same thing in his riding because there are Rorketons all over this province. There are little communities who depend on the rail for their very existence, and I would think that the member for Turtle Mountain has those challenges in his community, and I hope he is listening to understand the importance of a rail line and how negative rail line abandonment is for rural Manitoba.

Let us look at a couple of the facts that present themselves in this whole discussion on rail line abandonment. The member for Emerson (Mr. Penner) very correctly points out that $760 million being sucked out of the rural economy by the federal government will have a very negative impact on the way we live in rural Manitoba. He also correctly points out that this is not just a problem in rural Manitoba, because as goes rural Manitoba, so goes urban Manitoba. Taking $760 million out of our rural economy will have a negative impact on the whole province.

The problem that I see, specifically with the provincial government that we have in power here now, is that at the same time as they are pointing fingers to the federal government and whining about the amount of money that they are taking out of our rural economy, and changes to the Crow rate, and complaining about the offloading that the federal government is doing, they are simply turning and pointing the finger down to the R.M., the municipal level, and transferring that cost to the R.M.s.

The provincial government is not going to be the big sufferer in this whole switch in policy by the federal government. The people that are going to be hit are mainly two groups, No. 1, the farmers because farmers now will be spending more on transportation, getting their products, whatever they may be, to market. The other losers in this are going to be the rural municipalities. We have seen that over the course of the last few months, where this government has simply taken provincial roads and proposes to dump them on the rural municipalities. This is not the first time this provincial government has done that. This government did that two or three years ago. They said, too bad, R.M.s, you have the roads; you are stuck with them.

Now, this offloading that the provincial government is doing is not just caused by the federal government taking $760 million out of our economy. It is not caused just by changes to the Crow benefit. This government is saying that it does not want to raise taxes. It does not want to cut services, so they are going to let somebody else do it. This government is dumping its fiscal problems that it created onto the backs of the rural municipal councils. The rural municipal councils which have various levels of ability to deal with this problem--and the member for Gimli (Mr. Helwer) ought to know this. R.M.s in his own riding have contacted us, saying we cannot afford to do this. We cannot afford to have the provincial government dumping their responsibilities on us by giving us all the provincial roads.

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Now, I do not think that is a very responsible way to deal with the realities that are out there. I think what the provincial government should do is stand up and say, the provincial roads are our responsibility. We realize that the actions taken by the federal government are going to increase usage and the damage done to our provincial highway network. We, as a provincial government, are in the best position to deal with that, and we are not going to shirk our responsibilities and simply dump them on the municipal level.

Now, the resolution that has been put forward makes some very good points about how the federal government, the federal Liberals, are abandoning rural Manitoba, as well.

As a federal candidate in the 1993 election, I can remember going to different auction sales and farm yards, and I was taking with me a petition against the changes to the Crow rate, against them, like the NDP have done for years. Well, how did we do? We did about 2,000 votes better than the person who would not sign that petition, who was the Tory candidate in 1993.

The Tories have gone for years, federally and provincially, saying we have to get more competitive. We cannot rely on subsidies. We have to be like the Americans with their system for agriculture. Now, here we are with the federal government doing exactly what the Tories have wanted them to do for years. Now we get a resolution come to this House, complaining about the very thing that the provincial and federal Tories have been arguing for for years.

Those of us who have been battling against both the Conservatives and the Liberals are a little bit miffed that all of a sudden, out of nowhere, for political reasons, we get a resolution like this brought to the House. Who is going to suffer through all this? All this federal and provincial offloading and all this federal-provincial squabbling, in amongst all this we have forgotten that the people who are going to suffer in this are the farmers, and in particular small farmers who cannot afford to buy humongous trucks to cart their produce out to market.

The other thing that I think we have to consider is this change to the Crow rate in combination with other changes that are contemplated in the agricultural world. In particular, I want people to understand that the lack of support for the Wheat Board by both federal Liberals and Conservatives, and now I am understanding the present provincial government, that lack of support for the Wheat Board, in combination with changes to the Crow rate, is going to have an absolutely devastating effect on small farmers in our province.

The larger farmers, and particularly large farmers close to the American border, they may benefit if they can produce enough to satisfy that American market. I would challenge people in all parties, on both sides of this House, to get out to rural Manitoba where there are some small farms struggling right now, where you are increasing the costs of them getting their produce to market. I want to challenge people in all 57 ridings in our province to get out there and talk to some smaller farmers who are really going to be hit hard by the combination of the loss of the Crow benefit and the potential loss of the Canadian Wheat Board. The two cannot be seen as separate. They are interconnected.

Who else wins? The federal government sees this as a win for them because now they are saving themselves some money. They are abandoning one of the principles that our country was built upon and that was equalization. This is a form of equalization, and again it is the eastern interests who control the Liberal Party and I must say the Conservative Party before them, who are saying now, the eastern interests and the grain companies, you are going to do okay in this, some of the larger farmers are going to do okay in this, but the people who are going to suffer are smaller farmers predominately north in the farm zone in Manitoba, north of the Trans-Canada Highway where they are too far from market to really take advantage of anything that is positive in agriculture these days.

The entire grain policies of the federal government today have been one of helping the corporate farm, the large corporate farm, who does not have the same interests in a community such as the little community of Rorketon, which I started out talking about. Those small communities across rural Manitoba were built by a multitude of small farmers, small farm operations, keeping our schools active and vibrant and full of young children, keeping our curling rinks going, keeping our skating rinks going.

If we accept what is going on right now with the federal government and if we do not stand up against what is happening, we are going to watch our smaller communities dwindling away. Indeed, we have already seen some who have turned into ghost towns. Some of those larger towns now are dwindling and it is because of rural depopulation and it is because of increasing costs to farmers which is at the base of this.

While I support the gist of this resolution and do not want to let the federal government off the hook, I do want the provincial government to think of some of the suggestions that I have made this morning and use that to temper whatever response they have to the federal government policy.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Hon. Jim Ernst (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I wonder if there might be leave to continue debate on this resolution. I know that there are two or three other members who would like to speak, and there may be some willingness to adopt the motion once debate has been concluded.

Madam Speaker: Is there leave of the House to not see the clock at eleven o'clock and to proceed with debate on this resolution?

Ms. Wowchuk: Madam Speaker, just on a point of clarification, I am wondering how long the minister is proposing. Is the minister proposing that we take the next hour for this resolution and not bother with Resolution 5, which, it was my understanding, was also going to be debated today?

Mr. Ernst: Madam Speaker, it was my understanding that there may be one or two more members of the official opposition, one member of the Liberal group here, and maybe one or two on our side. It may well take the next hour to complete all of those, but we would try to bring it to a vote by the end of private members' time today.

Madam Speaker: Is there leave? Agreed? [agreed]

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure that I am given the opportunity to be able to put a few words on the record with respect to the resolution introduced by the member from Emerson (Mr. Penner). I listened very closely to some of the comments that were put on the record, in particular, those from the member from Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) and the member from Steinbach (Mr. Driedger) put on the record.

When the member from Steinbach made reference to the need to have some form of a national highway system and a federal government that would be prepared to commit resources to a program that would see this come to light, it would be very difficult to argue against some sort of a national highway program. It is something which in time, hopefully, we will, in fact, see.

What we would like to do, I guess, is start lobbying today or at least continue the lobby. No doubt, the type of program that is being talked about would cost a considerable amount of dollars. In the last federal election there was a great emphasis put on the infrastructure program, and no doubt there are many municipalities across the country that would like to see yet another infrastructure program.

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Then we have groups, interest groups, and legislators advocating for a national highway program, and there are numerous programs that could be instituted by the federal government, whereas there are limited financial resources in order to allocate out. We look at it in terms of the importance of having a highway system, and the benefits of having a highway system to the province of Manitoba in particular are just overwhelming.

If there are things that we can do to facilitate and encourage the federal government to invest more in highways in the province of Manitoba, we would like to do that. If, in fact, for example, Madam Speaker, there is another infrastructure program, hopefully what we will see is the provincial government argue ultimately for more of those dollars being put into our highways.

The member from Swan River's comments, I thought, were most interesting in the sense that I get from the New Democratic Party's perspective that they would be quite content not to change the system, to again defend the status quo. For example, the member from Swan River said, Madam Speaker, what the world wants is our raw materials, and they are not necessarily prepared to buy the finished product, and the rail line abandonment and the loss of the Crow are going to put Manitoba in a worse position as a result of that.

I do not believe that argument. I do not believe it for a moment. I do not believe that members of Parliament in Ottawa believe that argument. We think ultimately that rural Manitobans and the initiatives that they have been able to muster over the last couple of years, in particular, have clearly demonstrated that Manitoba can produce a world-class product and that we do not just have to rely on raw material in order to have exports going out of the province of Manitoba.

I believe that there is a need for the federal government, in co-operation with the provincial government, to look at ways in which we can actually diversify the rural economy. When the Crow was dismantled, Madam Speaker, there were monies that were allocated. Those monies the province of Manitoba had access to, and if we do this thing properly there could be many more jobs in the province of Manitoba created. The opportunity is there for more farms to become better diversified to be able to compete and so forth, that we do not have to have the mentality of the past, the past being one of the province of Manitoba being a hinterland and shipping out all of our raw resources.

The other point that I picked up is just a very strong negative attitude that the New Democrats apparently have towards the trucking industry. Madam Speaker, there is great potential, again, and Manitoba has the headquarters for a number of trucking firms that are across Canada. There are, in fact, from what I understand, a number of jobs that are there today that are looking to be filled particularly in long hauls. The New Democrats should not be as negative towards the trucking industry as a whole.

There are concerns that we have with trucking through some of the deregulations and the drop in pay that truck drivers have seen over the last while, and maybe there might be something that we could do to further enhance trucking conditions in ensuring that there are some standards, if you like. But I would not necessarily be as negative towards the trucking industry as the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk), and I trust that she is speaking out on behalf the New Democrats in some of the comments that she has made, to have more faith and confidence in the different industries that can and will be able to prosper as a result of some of the federal initiatives.

There are some federal initiatives that ultimately do need to be addressed, as the member for Steinbach (Mr. Driedger) has pointed out, the national highway program, and getting more dollars invested into that is a legitimate concern, Madam Speaker. We trust that not only is the provincial government trying to get the feds to cough up dollars, but the province is also prepared to sit at the table with dollars. It is, in fact, a two-way street, that we do want to see a better developed highway system in the province of Manitoba.

We also want to ensure throughout rail line abandonment that it will be minimized in terms of the negative effects of that, and, most importantly, that we have the rail line that goes to Churchill. Whatever can be done to enhance that particular rail line should be done, because what we are talking about there in many ways is the future, to a certain degree, of the Port of Churchill. Most Manitobans, including I, believe that the future of Churchill can be one of prosperity if our priorities are right.

With those few words, Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak.

Mr. Edward Helwer (Gimli): Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be able to put a few words on the record regarding the member for Emerson's (Mr. Penner) resolution here on rail line abandonment.

I want to go back in history a little bit, Madam Speaker. In the early 1970s, the federal government appointed the Hall Commission to deal with branch line abandonment. At that time, I was on a committee--the Interlake Development Corporation had a committee, and the manager at that time was the late Eric Stefanson Sr., who worked very hard on this branch line abandonment for the Interlake area. Because he had a lot of experience and because the late Eric Stefanson was a former member of Parliament for Selkirk and because he had a lot of experience both federally and provincially and in transportation issues, we had put together a plan for the Interlake area that would serve the Interlake area for the next 25 years up to the year 2000 at that time.

At that time we had four branch lines in the Interlake area, and the one that went through from Grosse Isle to Argyle, Inwood up to Fisher Branch, was abandoned. CN abandoned that line. That left us three lines, and we now have three lines serving the whole Interlake region. The one line running up through Selkirk into Gimli is a CP line. That is a nongrain-reliant line, so that one will continue to operate because of the freight going up to the distillery at Gimli. The portion from Gimli to Riverton was abandoned, and the Riverton elevator was closed, so it is now just a transportation handling facility where they haul it by truck from there to Arborg. But it is so important in the Interlake area, if you look at the history of what happened to the rail lines, the one going up the centre of the Interlake that serves Stonewall, Balmoral, Teulon, Arborg.

These are all very large grain points, but the problem is, the elevator companies have been doing nothing to enhance their own grain handling there. They have made no improvements to the pools. The Patersons have done nothing to improve their own facilities really, so I do not know what is going to happen in the future. It seems the grain companies, they want to build high throughput elevators on the main lines and they want the farmers to truck to those high throughput elevators, and we already have one at, Pool has a big high throughput elevator at Rosser. Agpro, down here on McPhillips, has made an improvement to their elevators. They handle a lot of grain from the whole north of Winnipeg area. So I do not know how long we will be able to sustain these branch lines, as an example, up through Teulon and Arborg and Stonewall, even though Arborg handles a lot of grain there.

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What has brought about the changes is not so much the provincial government, the changes in the Western Grain Transportation Act, of course, by doing away with that. Certainly it is going to change how we do business in western Canada and especially in Manitoba, because it is so very important to us because of the fact that we are so far away from the B.C. port and so far away from Montreal. So it has a real impact on us and the branch line abandonment and the way the Western Grain Transportation Act and all these things have had a real, very large effect on how our farmers are doing business in Manitoba.

One thing it has done, it certainly is going to enhance the hog production, livestock, whether it be cattle, turkeys or chickens. Of course those are controlled by the supply management group, so there is no way farmers can start producing turkeys, which is another of the quota system, such as the supply management in the poultry industry. That has hurt the famers again, because you cannot start farming. You cannot get a quota to produce broiler chickens or turkeys. Supply management has hurt this industry and there is a demand in Manitoba; Manitoba farmers want to expand in these things, but they cannot do it because of the fact of the controls of the supply management system.

The member for Dauphin commented on the fact that we did not improve the roads. Let me tell you, our government, we spend more money on highways in Manitoba than we take in from gas tax. The federal government, on the other hand, takes in more money than we do on the gas tax, and yet they spend nothing, not one dollar on the highway system in Manitoba. Therefore, it really puts a strain on our budget, on our resources, to try to maintain these highways and to build new ones and to build new ones and to improve them, but I can assure you that in the last eight years, since 1988, our government made a lot of improvements to the highway system of Manitoba.

The member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) forgets that the NDP were in government for 16 years prior to that, and what did they do? Absolutely nothing. They did nothing to improve the highway system. They let them deteriorate to the extent whereby we had to spend a lot of money to improve them. They let the provincial road system go. They did nothing to improve them. When we came to power in '88, we inherited this mess that the former government left, so our Minister of Highways at that time did trade some roads with the municipalities and the municipalities did take over some of these low volume PR roads, and it made sense because they have the equipment and they would be able to look after these better than the province.

No, we did not transfer a heavy debt load or a heavy expenditure over to the municipalities. As a matter of fact, in this year alone, our municipalities are going to have a 6 percent increase in revenue because of the tax-sharing system that we have with the rural municipalities in the town and villages. So they are taking advantage of the growth that we have in Manitoba and the extra money that is coming in that is going to the municipalities so that they can spend more money on the roads and improve the street system in Manitoba. So the member for Dauphin is really doing his constituents a disservice by saying that we are not fixing these roads. He should look back a little bit and look at what the NDP left for us and the mess we had to clean up.

The member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) talked about the infrastructure program and really that is an excellent program, and we would like to see that program extended so that we could get some federal dollars, get them to spend one-third of the some of the infrastructure money that we could spend on some of the drainage on the highways and things of that nature in Manitoba. This was an excellent program. It was established a few years ago but it has served Manitoba very well, and we were one of the first governments to take advantage of some of the money that was there and it has worked out very well for us in Manitoba. I would like to see another program such as we had for our rural municipalities and towns and villages to take advantage of some of these things to improve some of the roads and streets in Manitoba.

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

This is another example where the federal government could take some of that gas money, or motive fuel money, that they are collecting in Manitoba from the truckers and from all the other people who use our highway system. They could give us that money back, and we would be glad to cost-share some of the improvements on some of the highways, and whether it be the PR roads or the provincial trunk highways or the towns and the streets. This would give us an opportunity to improve those and certainly would be a great benefit, not only to agriculture and help the rural economy but also help tourism in Manitoba and help everyone involved.

Tourism as you know is a real growing industry in Manitoba and especially in my constituency up Highways 8 and 9 with the beach communities there and the cottage areas, creates a lot of traffic on those roads and those highways. It would be nice if the federal government would come in and share some of those costs, some of those improvements, but unfortunately that may not happen in the near future, I understand. It is too bad, the Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay) talked about how we were very close to a national highways program. This would have been an excellent way for the federal government to cost-share some of the roads and improve some of our transportation system here in Manitoba.

Just some of the things that are changing in Manitoba and as to why we need an improved highway system and not only because of the branch lines that are closing--that is certainly putting an extra load on our highways--but also the expansion in some of the other value-added industries that have been taking place, such as the expansion of the potato industries, the expansion that Simplot has planned for their fertilizer plant in Brandon. All that product has to move by truck to other points in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and North Dakota possibly or wherever they sell their product, so that, again, puts more stress on our highway system, so it is expansions like this.

SaskFer in Saskatchewan is expanding its fertilizer plant there, and, again, some of that product moves into Manitoba, therefore creating more of a load on our highway system and hence the need for more improvements to the system, and all the other, the livestock, the hog production, the increase in the cattle that we have, especially in the Interlake area. In the last number of years, the livestock populations have certainly expanded and grown, and this has been great for agriculture. Hog production, there is another example of a real success story in hogs; the prices are excellent and hog production has continued to expand. This also creates more demand for our feed grains, and that will move by truck to the feed mills that produce the feed for hog production, these hog farms. This, again, creates more and more stress on our highway system, and this is why we need more assistance from the federal government to help offset our costs on some of these provincial trunk highways and also the provincial roads in the province.

Hog production, livestock, the potatoes, the expansion of Simplot, the expansion of the canola processing plant at Ste. Agathe, all these things are just great for Manitoba and create new initiatives, new opportunities for our farmers, and will serve our producers for many, many years to come, but, on the other hand, it does put more traffic on our highway system; therefore, we will need to improve it.

How much time have I got left there, Mr. Deputy Speaker? Two minutes. Okay, great.

Just getting back to the way things have changed and why we need better roads and better highways, and why the branchlines, by their closing, have created more transportation problems. Do not forget that, back in the early '70s there, our trucks were made to haul 74,000 pounds. Today they haul in excess of 140,000 pounds. Therefore, we need increased strength in our bridges, in our roads, and everything.

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So just talking about the extra weights that these trucks haul today, back in the 1970s, as I have said, they were hauling 74,000. Now they haul 140-some thousand pounds. This has created a cost to our transportation system. The bridges that we have to build today to be able to carry these weights have to be improved a lot. The roads, the concrete and the blacktop have to be improved to be able to carry these kinds of weights, so they do not get the dipping that we have had in the past.

Another thing in my area that has created extra stress or extra wear-and-tear on our road system has been the quarry operations just north of Stonewall there that produce quite a number of jobs in the area. There are quite a number of companies there that have limestone crushing plants, and a lot of that limestone is hauled into Winnipeg, used in the building and construction trade. That, again, creates more transportation problems, more stress, and more traffic on our highways, the truck traffic, so we do have to continue to improve our highways in the Interlake.

So, with that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to put a few words on the record.

Mr. Gerard Jennissen (Flin Flon): Mr. Deputy Speaker, although I am sympathetic to the argument that the member for Emerson (Mr. Penner) makes, I do have some concerns about the direction that that resolution seems to be taking.

I do not like railway abandonment any more than any other member in this House does, I am sure, and I was struck by the member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) talking about Rorketon and how that little community was affected, you know, by railway abandonment and how at one time it was a bustling community and it is perhaps not quite the same way today.

I can only think of my own home town in Saskatchewan, Eavesham, that used to have four elevators along the railroad and today there is not a single elevator there at all. I think we have lost something. Perhaps I am being awfully nostalgic and not market oriented enough, I am sure, but I think we have lost something. That silhouette of the elevator against the skyline was one of my first impressions of Canada when I came to this country. It will always be with me, and I really miss that. Those huge concrete piles that make things much more efficient just do not have that same emotional impact.

I was also struck by the fact that the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) said that the New Democrats have a strongly negative attitude towards trucking--

An Honourable Member: Did he say that?

Mr. Jennissen: He actually said that, and I want to put on the record that that is not true, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We are certainly in favour of trucking and a strong trucking industry in Manitoba, and we note with satisfaction that some of the major truckers have their headquarters in Winnipeg.

I am concerned, however, that when we talk about having the feds give us money to fix roads that need to be fixed because rail lines are abandoned that we are into a process that we have not really examined that carefully. As the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) said, we have not always thought about the implications of what the feds do or what we do either for that matter. What I mean by that is, when we deregulate or privatize a national railway system, as the federal government is doing, along with ports and along with some airports, we decry the negative impact of that as it hits our province.

At the same time, we are on the same kind of a bandwagon, at least the government is, saying, well, there is nothing wrong with privatization. Take a look at home care, for example. There are negative effects of that, for sure. So you cannot have it both ways. You know, if privatization is so bad for the feds, how come it is so good provincially for the government? I do not think they are being consistent. I note that irony. They scream a lot at the federal government when their privatization and deregulation affects us negatively, but they seem to turn a blind eye when privatization hurts ordinary workers in the home care field and, of course, the clients, as well. That concerns me.

I would like to talk a little bit about the railroad to Churchill, because that is a line that I think is absolutely critical to this country, to this province for sure. It is essential for the health and the safety of the bayline communities. It is essential for the Akjuit space centre to survive. It is essential for tourism. It is essential for a whole lot of reasons. Again I notice some kind of ambivalence in the federal government when on one hand they say the Port of Churchill is important and the bayline is extremely important. We will put money into it, $27 million possibly. We are willing to ship a million tonnes of grain through Churchill. But nothing ever really seems to materialize in that direction, at least not to the extent promised. So again there is a real difference between what the federal government promises on the one hand and actually delivers in reality.

I do ask the honourable members in this House, however, to support the Gateway North project, because I think it might be the only hope for salvaging the line and not just salvaging, making it grow and also making sure that the Port of Churchill remains a viable port. So the Gateway North project is an extremely, extremely good project.

The members opposite seem to assume that it is inevitable that we must go from rail to road, and certainly that seems to be the trend. I think the Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay) at one time quoted me the fact that whereas railroads at one time carried 80 percent of the goods, now that is down to 20 percent, and big trucks have taken up the slack. But I do not think that we can assume that is inevitable. It is only inevitable if you say that the marketplace runs everything, if that is the arena in which you operate. There need not be inevitability there. We have just allowed it to happen. If that is what we allow to happen, then we better be prepared to pay for the extra costs, the road building cost, the infrastructure cost, the bridge costs and so on.

This does not come cheap, and I will not even mention the fact or talk much about the fact that the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) talked about, the safety factor, because the more I travel roads in the North, which by the way are not nearly as good as the former Minister of Highways says they are--I would, in fact, invite him to travel with me on 391 or the road to Norway House in the early spring and see if we can even get through.

They are not nearly that good nor are they nearly that safe because, as more traffic operates on those roads, particularly logging trucks and ore trucks, the potential for accidents increases. So I do have some concerns globally in the sense that we are using scarce fossil fuels for more trucks, for more on-the-road vehicles rather than what I believed to be a cheaper system which is a railroad system. It is also a system that has united this country and tied this country together, and I would hate to see that system fall into disrepute.

The kind of vision that the members opposite have and that also the federal government seems to share, that the marketplace will sort everything out, I have grave reservations about that. Yes, there are some positives, but there are also a lot of negatives, and the very fact that in this resolution the member for Emerson (Mr. Penner) is asking the federal government to compensate us shows that there are some real negative impacts of rail line abandonment, of being a part and parcel of that vision which leaves it all up to the marketplace, because a lot of us get hurt if we leave it up to the marketplace, as many home care workers are going to start discovering and are discovering right now and are trying to fight right now.

The former minister of Highways talked about the federal government at one point being involved with the SHIP program, that is the Strategic Highway Initiative Program, I believe it is called. Yes, that was a good program, and that is the kind of vision I guess that we once had when we talked about railroads knitting various parts of this country together. That was the purpose, to do nation building, and I do not see that in this private enterprise vision. There is no nation building, there is a lot of buck building, a lot of making a dollar.

At one time we had a vision of connecting the north and the south and the east and the west. Rural communities and remote communities and northern communities had value, the same way as Toronto had value or Vancouver, the highly industrialized with the highly populated areas.

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If you go to the user-pay philosophy, the privatization direction, then remote areas and rural areas are not going to have the same kind of value, and that is very unfortunate. I think we do not want to go down that road too far.

I am going to keep my comments very short to give some of my other colleagues a chance to speak, and before I close I just overheard the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey) say something about roads in this province which I thought was rather interesting. I hope you do not mind me quoting him. He said, you know we need stronger roads, we need better roads in this province; it is good for jobs; it is good for the economy, and besides, it has the added benefit of allowing Liberals to leave the province.

Hon. Darren Praznik (Minister of Northern Affairs): I just would like to take a few minutes to add some comments to this particular resolution, as well. I understand there are some other members on the other side of the House who wish to add some comments to this.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, as a rural MLA who represents a constituency with a fair number of roads that connect to main roads and to an interprovincial road system and ultimately an international road system, and as a member who has seen rail service in his constituency decline significantly over the last number of years--we lost the line to Lac du Bonnet and the grain elevator that went with that. We lost a line that we had that went through--actually the original Canadian Pacific line running east to west, the one that was built by William Cornelius Van Horne that goes through the town of Beausejour, in fact that original main line going through the town of Beausejour was heading to Selkirk, and the roadbed was actually built to Selkirk. Before the rail was laid to the town of Selkirk, the civic leaders of Winnipeg offered the Canadian Pacific Railroad a much better and more lucrative tax arrangement, if I remember correctly, or financial package, and it was far better than the financial arrangements that existed in the town of Selkirk.

One of my colleagues points to the speculation that was taking on at the time, and the result was the main line turned near East Selkirk and went south to Winnipeg and crossed the Red River in Winnipeg. That line--and interestingly that line eventually became a branch line; it was abandoned as a main line--some years ago was abandoned even as a branch line leaving only a spur siding into Beausejour which is a major grain delivery point.

So we have seen over the last number of years in our own area the loss of the ability to move grain and other products by rail and an increased demand on our road system, and, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as you see this develop, the types of vehicles being used in my own constituency now, heavier and heavier trucks on the road--we have a number of operators in my area who have got into exporting product directly into the United States, other places abroad, moving by trucks, heavier and heavier vehicles. It has put a greater and greater strain on our provincial road system and consequently, as well, onto the municipal road system. I do not think they should be forgotten in this equation, because one of the realities of this time of the year in rural Manitoba is that as road restrictions go onto provincial roads, it often means that the transportation gets moved onto the municipal road system, with the consequence that the municipality bears that additional cost of maintaining roads.

I have a couple of roads in my riding, particularly in the Beausejour area, that are used very heavily in the spring, because of provincial road restrictions, to service a seed plant southeast of the town. The net result of course has been a greater cost in road maintenance.

When I meet with municipal people, when I chat with my colleague the Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay) just about the cost, the sheer cost of maintaining a road network, it is really phenomenal. I do not think most Manitobans fully appreciate the cost of dollars, the cost to them as taxpayers, that go in to maintaining a road system. It is horrendous. I know this time of the year, many of us as rural members have been out touring drainage areas, dealing with municipalities. We look at the cost of drainage, which is huge to maintain.

So we have a very great expense in maintaining basic economic infrastructure of drainage and roads in our rural communities, and what is so troubling about this is when we look at the federal government and the positions that they have taken, they have used the transportation system as a source of taxation. There are gas taxes, fuel taxes that they levy regularly every day, that are paid in this province of Manitoba. Virtually not one penny returns, except the odd grant, the odd little program that comes around, not one penny returns to that infrastructure to maintain and support it. Yet they derive significant revenue from it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, this particular resolution, I think, is an expression of that frustration that we have seen, from us as a province and our municipalities, in having to support what in essence is now the national transportation system, ground transportation system, our road system, with limited support from the national government, while they continue to derive the lion's share or take the lion's share of taxes which come from that system.

I do not make that as a partisan comment because that has existed through a number of governments, but if the national government wanted to take a major step towards ensuring a strong road infrastructure to support the economy of this nation and the changes that are taking place in it, I would very strongly argue that is an area that they should relinquish, quite frankly, in their taxation policy, or put the money in.

We as a government spend a very significant portion of our transportation taxes on maintaining that infrastructure through one mechanism or another. That is our responsibility. The national government taxes but contributes very little, and I always get a great kick as a politician out of when I hear our federal Liberal M.P.s and their infrastructure program, talking about all the jobs they have created and all the good they have done. When you look at what they have collected in taxes, as the Minister of Highways and Transportation (Mr. Findlay) has said many, many times, compared to what the put in, it really is very, very small.

In these days when we talk about national unity, in these days when we talk about where the country is going, in these days when we talk about what it takes to have a strong and successful and competitive nation into the next century, maintaining a strong and operational transportation system on the ground in this country--and we know there have been shifts between rail and road. Well, we cannot always deal with those things. Those are going to happen, but maintaining a strong road system throughout our country that provides I do not think an extravagant system but a system that is well maintained and services from point to point is a necessary part of the future economic development of this country.

If a government is deriving taxes from that, then they should be contributing to that particular system, whatever political party is in Ottawa. We have seen again, more specifically to this resolution, the changes in the Transportation Act with respect to rail line abandonment, and the additional pressure that will be put on our road system with a minimal compensation package, quite frankly, to make up the difference is not acceptable. It is not acceptable to us as westerners, who have the largest road infrastructure to maintain with the fewest number of people to maintain it because of the topography and nature of western Canada, a large prairie region with large acreage farms and not the population to support those roads. That is unacceptable.

If I may, Mr. Deputy Speaker, a few final comments about the type of hypocrisy we have seen in the way people are treated on this and other issues. Our current national government has very strongly in its rhetoric always talked about national unity and common national standards and ensuring that Canadians are treated the same from sea to sea and that Canada have one set of laws. We need to be one nation. How many times have we heard that? Over and over again. Yet I remind the member, I remind members of this House on this particular issue, which is a western issue in this particular act, we had very little happening. We had the total removal of the subsidy, very little compensation, and yet dairy producers who are subsidized by the federal government located primarily in eastern and central Canada had a slow, long phase-out of their subsidy. Is that equal treatment? I say not at all. They were treated very differently in the withdrawal of their subsidy than westerners were. We have lived with ours, but we should at least expect that a national government would treat all agricultural producers, if they are getting out of subsidy, in the same way because it is our tax dollars that support that subsidy, as well.

We have seen it on the GST, as well. Our tax dollars, again, are going down, a billion dollars of tax money--proportionately, western Canadians pay a share of that--going to buy off the Atlantic provinces in a deal that ends up with having a multitude of applications of the same national sales tax. I mean, I grew up believing if you lived in Canada, you should be treated the same way in Canada with taxation whether you live in western Canada, in British Columbia, in Ontario, in Newfoundland or the Territories. Yet today we have a national government that has the same national tax applying differently in different parts of the country.

Thirdly, in the same consistency of argument, look at the tobacco tax issue. Another example. This is a government that argues that they want one health care system across the country and yet have a tobacco tax that they collect at a greater amount in certain provinces than they do in others. So where is the consistency? This is exactly part of the same thing, western Canadians being treated significantly different from other Canadians by the national government. That is not the way to build a country and Minister Dion, as he tries to struggle with these issues as a new cabinet minister, should be looking at some of these real-life, everyday issues in building the country and not just constitutional theory.

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So this resolution comes, I think, at a good time from a larger context. I gather from comments of some members of the opposition that I have heard that there is a sense that this represents a view that can be shared by the vast majority of Manitobans, and we have seen a lot of good will in this private members' hour. This is another opportunity, I think, to send a message to the national government about the way fairness should apply right across the board. We will live with tough decisions as westerners as long as all Canadians have to live on the same basis, and that has not been the case.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Clif Evans (Interlake): Mr. Deputy Speaker, I just want to make a few comments with respect to this resolution presented by the honourable member across the way, and, yes, I think on this side of the House we do, and rural members certainly do, support the idea that the federal government has in fact and in deed offloaded much of their responsibilities to us here provincially with rail line abandonment.

A good example, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is right in my own community of Riverton, where some seven years ago the CP Rail totally shut down their line coming from Winnipeg Beach right up to Riverton, and not soon after that, the elevator in the community, of course, shut down.

What that means, too, besides the fact that rail lines and roads and transportation are so important in rural areas, is the fact that it also affects the rural economy. By shutting down rail lines, not maintaining our roads, not having that responsibility, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the rural economy suffers because of it. Since 1989-90, when the rail line was abandoned, it has created an awful hardship on the roads in my constituency, an awful hardship.

Now, of course, the producers, not only the grain producers but the hog-producing productions, turkey-producing productions and fishing have had to travel further with their vehicles, with their trucks, to take their products to another community, have had to increase the loads on the trucks, causing a greater hardship on the provincial roads that we have in place, and I know in other constituencies it is the same way, that it has, indeed, created a tremendous hardship and burden on the roads in our areas.

The resolution says that rural municipalities have continually pressed the government of Manitoba to take responsibility for these roads, and members opposite say, well, it is the federal government's fault. The feds are bad. The feds are not supplying us with the proper resources that are needed to maintain our rural structure and our roads.

Well, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have to comment on the fact that one member indicated that the federal government's offloading is hypocrisy. Well, I say that the hypocrisy also lies with this government in this province. He says offloading from the feds has created this un-unity, and, in fact, this government, just a year ago, had indicated to the municipalities that they wanted to offload the municipal roads and the maintenance of the municipal roads onto the municipalities, onto the local jurisdictions.

We need a strong road system, there is no doubt about it, but there is also the fact that one kettle is calling the other kettle black. One is saying, it is not my fault, it is their fault, but, in fact, this provincial government is saying to our municipalities and our local jurisdiction leaders that it is going to be now your responsibility to undertake the maintenance of these very important roads that are needed for grain transportation, that are needed for transportation of other products, and they are saying to the municipalities, we do not want to take responsibility for that. We want to give the responsibility to the municipalities.

But I do agree that we should be working together to go after the federal government in an agreement and do what is necessary to be able to provide the resources, so that we can work together as municipalities, as a province and as a federal government to be able to put a system together where we can have the monies, if you want to say, or the resources, to have the availability to improve our rural roads.

That is not happening, and, yes, we are providing a tax base and tax money to the feds from this province through our fuel taxes and other taxes. Yes, they are not taking the initiative to be able to provide us with the necessary resource to be able to maintain and improve the roads in our system. The municipalities in this province in rural northern areas are saying no to this government. They are saying no. They are saying, we do not want the rural roads to be a part of our major responsibility; that it is going to cost us thousands upon thousands of dollars.

On one hand, the province is saying, well, we have to go after the feds. The feds are bad. They do not want to give us anything for what they are taking away from us, but, on the other hand, they are also saying, we are just as bad because we are offloading responsibility onto our local jurisdictions and our municipalities.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, I mean, I certainly do agree. As I said earlier, I agree that we should certainly be going after this federal government. We certainly should be making our point that we cannot, in rural Manitoba and in rural areas, survive without proper road maintenance and proper road development. If that is taken away from us, then we are not going to have a system. We are not going to be able to drive anywhere in rural Manitoba. Not only are the roads important for our agricultural industry but also for our tourism industry. Tourism is very important, as important as the agricultural industry is to rural areas in Manitoba.

If it is all taken away, if the infrastructure of highways is depleted and continues to be depleted, then we will not have that either, and what other alternative do we have? There is not another alternative. The only alternative is that we can convince this provincial government to uphold its responsibility to rural Manitobans, uphold its responsibility to provide the proper maintenance and upgrading and development of the roads that are so necessary, not only for our grain transportation, not only for our local transportation, but also our economic development and our tourism. Offloading, offloading, offloading, that is what this government has undertaken, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and then on the other hand is blaming the feds for just about everything that they do to offload their responsibilities.

Rural municipalities do not agree with that, do not want that. They want to be able to have this provincial government take the responsibility that they are so elected to do, and that is provide the proper services, one of them being roads, another being health care and education. This resolution just brings about the fact that, again, even though we have a problem, we are going to have to unload it on somebody, and let us go after the feds and say how bad they are and have us agree with that. We agree. Maybe they are that bad, just as bad as this government, this provincial government, in not accepting their responsibilities to rural Manitobans, to the economic benefit of rural Manitobans and to our agriculture industry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and, certainly, even though we support the resolution, I would think, on the other side, this government should undertake to maintain its responsibility to people in rural Manitoba. Thank you.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Is the House ready for the question? Is it the will of the House to adopt the resolution?

Some Honourable Members: Agreed.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Agreed? Agreed and so ordered.

Is it the will of the House to call it twelve o'clock? [agreed] The hour being twelve o'clock, this House is now recessed until 1:30 p.m.

The House recessed at 12 p.m.

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After Recess

The House resumed at 1:30 p.m.