38th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 072

CONTENTS

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Government Orders

Supply

Opposition Motion--Equalization

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar.

I will begin my speech by letting people know watching via television exactly what the agreement is that we are talking about today. This is a federal program. It is in our charter. I cannot understand why the federal government would not treat all provinces equally when this is part of the agreement into which all provinces have entered. The government is cherry-picking in deciding this province gets this and that province gets that.

I will state what the agreement is. Under part III “Equalization and Regional Disparities Commitment to promote equal opportunities”, section 36(1) states:

Without altering the legislative authority of Parliament or of the provincial legislatures, or the rights of any of them with respect to the exercise of their legislative authority, Parliament and the legislatures, together with the government of Canada and the provincial governments, are committed to

(a) promoting equal opportunities for the well-being of Canadians;

(b) furthering economic development to reduce disparity in opportunities; and

(c) providing essential public services of reasonable quality to all Canadians.

It goes on to say:

Commitment respecting public services...

(2) Parliament and the government of Canada are committed to the principle of making equalization payments to ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.

This is what we are talking about and this is what I will make my remarks on today.

As we read this, equality for all Canadians is the very purpose in the federal government's equalization program. This is provinces rich in resource revenue helping out those struggling to provide their residents with the services to which every Canadian has the right. In theory, the rationale for equalization makes perfect sense. In reality, however, some provinces are being stripped of their resource revenues and, in turn, their ability to provide their population with those adequate services like timely waiting times for surgery and MRIs.

A national program has to be applied equally to all provinces. That is the essence of what I have to say today.

Special deals made by the Prime Minister have left provinces, like Saskatchewan, on the outside looking in and wondering when they too will be treated equally. Saskatchewan has been cheated by the Liberal government when it comes to fairness. This have province, which has seen its agriculture industry devastated by weather and trade issues, does have a bright spot: its natural resources. However, instead of allowing the province of Saskatchewan to support its people using revenues from oil and gas, the federal government instead uses it to provide residents in other neighbouring provinces, like Manitoba, British Columbia, Quebec, with a better quality of life. Saskatchewan is certainly not being treated equally through equalization.

Until very recently, Saskatchewan was not alone in the fight to keep resource revenues. It took a lot of effort by Newfoundland and Labrador, Premier Danny Williams, but our Prime Minister obviously saw a problem with the equalization formula when it came to provinces like Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, and from that we saw the signing of the Atlantic accord. Both Atlantic provinces can now keep their offshore revenues and provide so much more for their residents. Why not a similar agreement for Saskatchewan?

The Liberal MP from the province knows first-hand the struggle for daily survival in Saskatchewan, at least he should. Yet all he can offer as support for his constituents and the residents of the province are a few empty words about what the Government of Canada wants. Oddly enough, what the Government of Canada wants is exactly what Saskatchewan wants, and that is fairness. If we all agree on that, why is the province of Saskatchewan being forced to beg the Liberal government for an agreement like the one just signed by Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia?

The words of the Prime Minister at the Saskatoon airport recently have the people of Saskatchewan outraged. Not only was Saskatchewan not allowed on board in January when the last agreement on equalization was signed with Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, but the big deal made six months ago that Saskatchewan reaped so greatly from was actually, if we look at it, money owed to the province.

Saskatchewan has been ripped off by the federal government when it comes to equalization. Just six months ago the federal Liberal government corrected past inequities and the money Saskatchewan was supposed to be rewarded with six months ago was the province's money all along.

The Liberal government and the Prime Minister have said time and again that they all want to alleviate western alienation. Penning a deal with two eastern provinces while denying a western province the right to its resources and a light deal is hardly a step forward.

What it all comes down to is the definition and difference between a have and have not province as outlined within the equalization program. Because Saskatchewan is rich in oil and gas, 2 of the 33 base components used in calculating equalization determine that Saskatchewan is a have province. This dubious honour has been bestowed despite the hardships facing the agricultural industry in Saskatchewan and the out-migration of people. Because of equalization, revenues from the very resources that are keeping the province afloat are being handed to the federal government which in turn distributes the money among the have not provinces.

We are seeing Saskatchewan, which is in absolute distress, supporting its neighbours. By all real indicators, Saskatchewan is far from a have province. It is not a knock to the people of Saskatchewan but to high ranking political officials like our finance minister who knows firsthand the financial struggle of the province's key industry, that being agriculture. At least he should.

Our beef, sheep and other producers have been ravaged by the BSE crisis and grain farmers have had to endure year after year of weather related crop failures, the most recent being the untimely frost last August. Countless farm families have to sell off their machinery, animals, land and homes because their input costs far outweigh their income. Yet, we are regarded as a have province.

I want to go through some statistics. First, the Fraser Institute indicates just how serious the problem is in Saskatchewan. We have the longest waiting times for surgery in the nation at 24.5 weeks. By comparison, Manitoba has the shortest wait time at 7.8 weeks, yet Saskatchewan has to transfer money to Manitoba.

Saskatchewan has the longest wait times for MRIs at 25 weeks. Manitoba's MRI wait is 11 weeks. But this year Saskatchewan will receive only $71 million in equalization transfer payments while Manitoba will receive 20 times as much at $1.433 billion. Over the past 10 years Manitoba has received approximately $800 million more per annum than Saskatchewan in equalization payments.

There is even more evidence of the problems with equalization. Canada's average per capita income for 2003 was $29,341. In Saskatchewan the per capita income was almost $5,000 below the national average. Saskatchewan pays the high cost of educating its kids who then move to other provinces. Saskatchewan possesses the second highest level of net citizen migration. At the height of the Great Depression, Saskatchewan had a population of 930,000 people. Today its population is barely more than that at 995,000, a 14% increase over 70 years. Saskatchewan's population has declined by 24,000 from 1996 to 2004.

Saskatchewan's net debt is nearly $1 billion or almost $10,000 of debt for every man, woman and child living in the province. Saskatchewan has the fourth highest net debt of the 10 provinces yet the province's oil and gas revenues are going to provinces with much less net debt. As an aside, we need to have those resource revenues available so we can pay off this debt.

Saskatchewan is the only province in Canada to not fully fund its share of farm safety net programs. The province's premier claims he cannot afford it, but does no one see the obvious contradiction? On one hand, the government is telling the people in Saskatchewan that everything is great, it is a have province, and on the other hand, the federal Liberals sit by while the province admits it cannot fund certain programs in the agriculture sector.

We want fairness for the province. I will conclude by saying that by removing non-renewable resources from the equalization formula, provinces like ours would possess an incentive to expand their economies around their natural resource base and become a true have province like its neighbours.

The current equalization formula is grossly unfair. I know it, the Premiers of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland-Labrador know it, the Prime Minister knows it, and every resident in Saskatchewan knows it.

Mr. Tom Lukiwski (Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague to expand a little on what he was saying toward the end of his presentation regarding the inability of the provincial government in Saskatchewan to fully fund certain agriculture support programs like CAIS.

By my understanding, if Saskatchewan were allowed to keep 100% of its non-renewable natural resources, it would mean an estimated $800 million yearly and perhaps even higher than that. That is an enormous amount of money that could be put to the agricultural sector in our province. That is being absolutely ignored by the federal Liberal government.

I would like our member from Yorkton to expand upon that and let me know what an extra $800 million to $1 billion a year could mean if it was dedicated toward our agricultural sector.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Mr. Speaker, the member's question clearly indicates one of the serious problems within the province. We have an agriculture industry that has been absolutely devastated. We have the federal government that puts in place a CAIS program which does nothing to address the serious problems within the province.

The CAIS program is a bureaucratic nightmare. The farmers and agricultural producers who are trying to struggle to get enough money to put in another crop or to get over the border closure and the crisis in the beef industry that the BSE issue has triggered are looking for assistance. Yet, that assistance could be right within the province if the equalization formula was fixed. It should be absolutely obvious that we get the resource revenues that our province deserves.

The agriculture industry cannot survive if we do not get programs that work for agriculture and proper funding for those programs. Within the province the agriculture programs are not being properly funded. The CAIS program that has been put in place by the federal government does not do what it is supposed to do. Not a day goes by when I do not receive many phone calls from frustrated farmers who do not understand why the finance minister and the federal government are trying to kill the agriculture industry in the province.

Many people do not see the connect between fixing the equalization formula and the help that we need for our basic agricultural producers in the province. That is one of the key points I was trying to make in my speech. We want fairness for the province. We want something that is going to work. People at home are sitting in agonizing pain as we speak here. They wonder what is going on in Ottawa, what is going on in Parliament, and why the government cannot see the obvious that Saskatchewan should be treated with fairness.

When we look out at the acres of land and all the potential in that province, there is no reason we should be moving from a have to a have not province, back and forth. We have the ability in the province and the federal government has removed the incentive for us to develop.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak up on behalf of my constituents today. Discrepancies within this equalization program are so obvious. The Prime Minister has not allowed the province to reap its benefits. It is a travesty. I appreciate the opportunity that the Conservative Party today has given me to raise these issues.

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