38th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION
EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 066
CONTENTS
Monday, March 7, 2005

Mr. Ed Komarnicki (Souris—Moose Mountain, CPC): Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Niagara Falls.

Continuing on the comments made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, there is no doubt that there is not a province in Canada that will not agree to the CAIS program deposit requirement for producers being dropped. What is required in fact is additional funding from the federal government to ensure that this silly requirement is gone. It should never have been there. It is an annoyance to the farmers who are looking for it to be dropped, and to be dropped now. The government simply has to make a statement that it is not going to be there. That is all that is required. It is coming up to the end of March and farmers are making plans to seed. They need to know that. They need to have the government actually committing to doing something.

The minister has said that promises were made and promises were kept, but the fact of the matter is that many promises have been broken and what promises were made were meagre promises. When we look at the budget and the big talk about the basic personal exemption going up, it does not really happen until 2007-08. Some people have said that if they could buy a large pizza, they would be very fortunate. That is the tax reduction that is being made by the government. That is the promise.

The promises that the Liberals now make they do not keep. They are now relying on promises that they do not have to carry out, promises that will not take place for two, three or four years, and they will not be in government at that point. All they are trying to do is put some window dressing on this budget. They are trying to spin-doctor it. They are trying to market it, but when we really look at what they are promising, it is very little.

Let us have a look. The corporate surtax does not start until 2007-08. The corporate tax rate does not get reduced until 2008-09 and 2010. The Liberals will not be in government at that time. The excise tax on jewellery, really an archaic tax that should have been gone a long time ago, is going to be reduced 2% per year.

They are meagre promises if they are promises at all, and promises that will not need to be kept by them. The gas tax revenue is also over a five year period, $600 million to start with, a mere pittance compared to what the cities and municipalities need. When we look at health care, it is over 10 years, a specific budget of $805 million over five years, and so on: child care, five years; Kyoto, five years; and the military, same thing. They are really promising very little in the budget.

When we come to the RRSP itself, much has been made that the ceiling amount for contributions will be $19,000 for 2006, $20,000 for 2007, and 2008 and 2009 for the concluding amounts. I can tell the House that it is not much of a benefit to the small business people, small entrepreneurs and ordinary families. The data compiled by Statistics Canada shows that, adjusted for inflation, median family income before taxes remains essentially unchanged at $55,000 and continues at about that mark today.

Most families and most small businessmen, after paying mortgages, tax, food and utilities, have little money left to save for their children's post-secondary education, let alone RRSPs. According to Statistics Canada, the median RRSP contribution in 2003 was $2,600. That is not average. That is the median, which means that half of all contributors made even smaller deposits than that. So much for helping low and modest income Canadians.

The Liberal government also promised, through its housing minister, that it would provide $1.5 billion for housing assistance over the next five years. Again it is five years. It said it would develop a flexible tool box to deal with rent supplements, housing construction, zero down payment purchases, and incentives to convert buildings into rental apartments. The trouble is that the tool box is empty. Not a penny was allocated in this budget to the degree that was promised by the housing minister.

Then we go to agriculture.The finance minister says that the year 2004 was another difficult year for Canadian farmers, faced with challenges and a cool wet harvest in the Prairies. The reality in my constituency is that not only was that a problem, but there were four frosts and two early frosts that destroyed what would otherwise have been a bumper crop, and there is no assistance from the government. Even crop insurance would not help. The minister is just not paying attention to what is happening on the Prairies.

On February 9, it says in the budget, the U.S. confirmed its intention to reopen the border on March 7 to Canadian cattle under 30 months of age. The government, it says, is hopeful that such a reopening will facilitate the strong recovery of the cattle livestock industry.

That was all that the government had for its plan, hoping against hope that the border would open but it did not. Interestingly enough, the judge who granted the interim injunction said, “the USDA failed to provide the specific basis for the conclusion that its actions carried acceptable risk to public health and failed to provide the data on which each of the agency's critical assumptions were based”.

One has to wonder how well Canada's case was substantiated by the USDA and whether the Government of Canada did its homework in its presentation. Also, Canada was notably absent at the injunction hearing when it should have been there making the case for Canadian ranchers and farmers. Where was the government if it were that concerned about them?

Also, we find that much was made of the government's contribution to the farming industry. The fact is that is over many years and after administration and bureaucracy has eaten up most of the cost in a confusing program that no one really wants, the government itself really does not understand, without responses in 90 days or 120 days, and with the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Farmers are getting frustrated. The program is not working and the government is resting on its laurels on that aspect of it alone.

In the budget it says:

Canada’s farmers and farm communities have shown enormous resilience over the past several years in coping with an unprecedented combination of crises arising from weather, animal disease and difficult market conditions abroad

The fact is that resilience is starting to wane because the government is not prepared to stand with the farmers in their time of greatest and strongest need. The government is merely talking and postulating and not doing what has to be done.

In Saskatchewan the farm cash receipts in expenses and income from 2003-05 as compiled by Statistics Canada and forecast by Agriculture and Agri-food Canada shows that crop receipts were down minus 9%. That is the percentage change, the net cash income minus 44%. The realized net income in Saskatchewan is projected to drop $486 million in the negative. That is not making an income and yet the minister has the audacity to suggest that farmers are being resilient and doing well, and that he has put a lot of money into the program and farmers simply need to carry on.

When we look at the the charts we see that the projected income for 2005 is below what it was in 1991. The agriculture minister last week at the Canadian Federation of Agriculture meeting found one farmer after another complaining that the federal government did not appear to understand the pressing needs of producers. We can tell that when we listen to the speech on the budget by the minister's representative.

Ron Bonnett, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, said that one of the things that was completely missing from the budget document was the urgency that is facing the farm community right now There is a crisis and the government does not think it is. Terry Hildebrandt, president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan said that farm income was the overriding issue in agriculture today and that the federal government was failing to take it seriously. Many producers in our province are facing a bleak future if there is no immediate short term assistance.

In the middle of that, the government has chosen to do away with and cancel the farm improvement loan program which is the very program that farms use to borrow against their equity. Under that program, they could borrow 90% of their equity at favourable interest rates. Saskatchewan happened to utilize that program, 70% of the total program across all of Canada. At least 10% to 15% of the loan program was used by my constituents to buy land, equipment and breeding stock. That program was cancelled in the middle of what is going on here in Canada.

A constituent called me and said that he had never called an MP but he said that it was getting awfully quiet in the rural community. Farmers are tired of fighting with the government. They are getting ready to throw in the towel. He took a 900 bushel load of grain and was able to buy nine seeder boots for his seeder and it contains forty-eight.

I spoke with an auctioneer who said that sales in land and machinery were increasing, that the Americans were buying farm equipment and that land across the border was worth $70,000 to $80,000 but that we were doing nothing to help Saskatchewan farmers.

It is amazing when I look at the auction list. There are 166 auction sales in Saskatchewan and 49 of them are in my constituency. I could list the names. The minister could spend all of March and April at these sales if he wished.

[Translation]

Mr. Mario Laframboise (Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, BQ): Madam Speaker, I thought just then that my Conservative colleague was repeating the remarks by the hon. Liberal member who told us that there has been a great reduction in the deficit. The great reduction in the deficit, we know—and my hon. colleague knows it, too—has been achieved at the expense of the provinces.

When the current Prime Minister began his term as finance minister, the federal government was paying 25% of health care costs. He reduced this to 12%. The Romanow report asks him to reinvest in health up to the level of federal investment in the early 1980s.

The elimination of the federal deficit has been achieved at the expense of the provinces, the workers, the unemployed. They have taken $45 billion from the employment insurance fund. Of course, that was at the expense of the neediest. They have abolished the support that had been available for social housing.

And obviously it is the same for the elderly, who were denied retroactive payment of the Guaranteed Income Supplement. That too was at the expense of the neediest.

My question for the Conservative member is quite simple. Is his party prepared to support the Bloc Québécois amendment to the amendment calling for correction of the fiscal imbalance? The provinces must have the resources they need to get back on track. Everyone across Canada recognizes that there is too much money in Ottawa. The elimination of the deficit has been achieved at the expense of the provinces and it is time to give them something back.

Is the hon. member prepared to support the Bloc Québécois amendment to the amendment demanding that the federal government resolve the fiscal imbalance and the employment insurance problem, and implement the 28 recommendations of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, which his party supported? Is the hon. member prepared to support the Bloc's amendment to the amendment?

[English]

Mr. Ed Komarnicki: Madam Speaker, there is no question that the government has amassed huge surpluses and many times at the expense of the provinces and particular sector groups, such as the farmers in Saskatchewan who could use an immediate payment for seeding at $50 or $60 an acre before March. The government has the money to do those kinds of things but it has chosen not to. It could direct those funds. It has done so to other projects that help particular sector groups, including those in Quebec.

As far as the position to be taken on the Bloc motion tonight, the member will have to attend here at the appropriate time and see how the vote goes.

However I can tell the member that there is no question that the government has not only made huge surpluses on the backs of ordinary Canadians, but it has funded pet projects of its own and has ignored various sectors in Canada that are undergoing the greatest crisis in their lifetime.

Farming as we know it on the prairies is about to disappear. There are 169 auction sales and 49 of them in my constituency. The government is doing nothing to help farmers and to bail out good families that had a good farm income. These are families that did well in the past but are now giving up. Farmers need some of those funds now. The federal government should be using those funds and looking after parts of Saskatchewan and other parts of this country that need that assistance now.

Hon. Peter Adams (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, Lib.): Madam Speaker, I heard my colleague mention huge surpluses. Would he give us some indication of what he thinks these are? My sense is that the surpluses of recent years have been 3% or 4% at the very most. I do not think we have reached 5%.

How does the member think the government should be run? Should we try to run on a deficit? Should we aim for a balanced budget or should we aim for these tiny surpluses, a few per cent, so that we can deal with the debt?

As the member knows, the government's largest single payment in this budget, in the last budget and in the budget before, in times of very low interest, was the $35 billion payment on the debt. Where are these huge surpluses that he is talking about?

Mr. Ed Komarnicki: Madam Speaker, the finance minister projected $1.9 billion which turned out to be $9.1 billion by some very creative financing, and they have money hidden--

An hon. member: They were using a Liberal calculator.

Mr. Ed Komarnicki: Yes, they are using a Liberal calculator. They have trust funds sets aside; $3 billion in reserves to meet situations, they say. Where do they get those funds? They get them from overtaxing Canadians and not allowing any broad based tax relief that is meaningful. They are taking in funds through the GST. They are collecting money that ordinary taxpayers are paying and not giving it back to them when they need it in a crisis situation, like the farm communities in Saskatchewan. There were 49 sales every day of the month in March. The finance minister from Saskatchewan should be there visiting so he realizes there is a crisis there and money is not being used as it ought to be used in that particular province, the minister's home province.