Manitoba Hansard — 1 April 1975 (Sitting 32, 30th Legislature, 2nd Session)

30-2-32

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

Legislative Assembly of Manitoba DEBATES and PROCEEDINGS Speaker The Honourable Peter Fox Vol. XXll No. 32 8:00 p.m., Tuesday, April lst, 1975. Second Session, 30th Legislature. Printed by R. S. Evans - Queen's Printer for Province of Manitoba

Electoral Division Name Political Address Postal Affiliation Code ARTHUR J. Douglas Watt P.C. Reston, Man. ROM 1XO ASSINIBOIA Steve Patrick Lib. 10 Red Roblin Pl., Winnipeg R3J 3L8 BIRTLE-RUSSELL Harry E. Graham P.C. Binscarth, Man. ROJ OOO BRANDON EAST Hon. Leonard S. Evans NOP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 BRANDON WEST Edward McGill P.C. 2228 Princess Ave., Brandon R7B OH9 BURROWS Hon. Ben Hanuschak NOP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 CHARLESWOOD Arthur Moug P.C. 29Willow Ridge Rd., Winnipeg R3R 1L5 CHURCHILL Les Osland NOP 66 Radisson Blvd., Churchill ROB OEO CRESCENTWOOD Vacant DAUPHIN Hon.

Peter Burtniak NOP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 ELMWOOD Hon. Russell J. Doern NOP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 EMERSON Steve Derewianchuk NOP Vita, Manitoba ROA 2KO FLIN FLON Thomas Barrow NOP Cranberry Portage, Man. ROB OHO FORT GARRY L.R. (Bud) Sherman P.C. 86 Niagara St., Winnipeg R3N OT9 FORT ROUGE Lloyd Axworthy Lib. 132 Osborne St. S., Winnipeg R3L 1Y5 GIMLI John C. Gottfried NOP 44 - 3rd Ave., Gimli, Man. ROC 1BO GLADSTONE James R. Ferguson P.C. Gladstone, Man. ROJ OTO INKSTER Hon. Sidney Green, 0.C. NOP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C ova KILDONAN Hon.

Peter Fox NOP legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 LAC DU BONNET Hon. Sam Uskiw NOP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C ova LAKESIDE Harry J. Enns P.C. Woodlands, Man. ROC 3HO LA VERENDRYE Bob Banman P.C. Steinbach, Man. ROA 2AO LOGAN William Jenkins NOP 1294 Erin St., Winnipeg R3E 2S6 MINNEDOSA David Blake P.C. Minnedosa, Man. ROJ 1EO MORRIS Warner H. Jorgenson P.C. Morris, Man. ROG 1KO OSBORNE Hon. Ian Turnbull NOP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 PEMBINA George Henderson P.C. Manitou, Man. ROG 1GO POINT DOUGLAS Donald Malinowski NOP 23 Coralberry Ave., Winnipeg R2V 2P2 PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE Gordon E.

Johnston Lib. 26-120 - 6th St., S.E., Portage la Prairie, Man. R1N 1E8 RADISSON Harry Shafransky NOP 4 Maplehurst Rd. , Winnipeg R2J 1W8 RHINELAND Arnold Brown P.C. Winkler, Man. ROG 2XO RIEL Donald W. Craik P.C. 3 River Lane, Winnipeg R2M 3Y8 RIVER HEIGHTS Sidney Spivak, Q.C. P.C. Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C ova ROBLIN J. Wally McKenzie P.C. Inglis, Man. ROJ OXO ROCK LAKE Henry J. Einarson P.C. Glenboro, Man. ROK OXO ROSSMERE Hon. Ed. Schreyer NOP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 RUPERTSLAND Hon. Harvey Bostrom NOP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C ova ST. BONIFACE Hon. L.L.

Desjardins NOP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 ST.GEORGE Hon. Bill Uruski NOP 10th fir., 330 Portage Ave., Wpg. R3C OC4 ST. JAMES George Minaker P.C. 318 Ronald St., Winnipeg R3J 3.18 ST. JOHNS Saul Cherniack, Q.C. NOP 333 St. Johns Ave., Winnipeg R2W 1H2 ST. MATTHEWS Wally Johannson NOP 418 Home St., Winnipeg R3G 1X4 ST. VITAL D.J. Walding NOP 26 Hemlock Place, Winnipeg R2H 1L7 STE. ROSE A.R. (Pete) Adam NOP Ste. Rose du Lac, Man. ROL 1SO SELKIRK Hon. Howard Pawley NOP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 SEVEN OAKS Hon. Saul A.

Miller NOP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C ova SOUR IS KILLARNEY Earl McKellar P.C. Nesbitt, Man. ROK 1PO SPRINGFIELD Hon. Rene E. Toupin NOP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 STURGEON CREEK J. Frank Johnston P.C. 310 Overdale St., Winnipeg R3J 2G3 SWAN RIVER James H. Bilton P.C. Swan River, Man. ROL 1ZO THE PAS Hon. Ron McBryde NOP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 THOMPSON Ken Dillen NOP 84 Pintail Cres., Thompson RaN 1A6 TRANSCONA Hon. Russell Paulley NOP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 VIRDEN Morris McGregor P.C. Kenton, Man. ROM OZO WELLINGTON Philip M.

Petursson NOP 681 Banning St., Winnipeg R3G 2G3 WINNIPEG CENTRE Hon. J.R. (Bud) Boyce NOP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C ova WOLSELEY Vacant

THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 8:00 o•clock, Tuesday, April 1, 1975 SUPPLY - AGRICULTURE MR. CHAIRMAN: Resolution 10, The Honourable Member for Birtle-Russell, 859 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman . I would like to ask the Minister at this time a few questions about the MACC operation in the Birtle Indian School, And first of all I would like to know if a contract or a lease has been signed with the Birtle Co-op Farm in that operation. MR, CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Agriculture, MR. USKIW: I would presume so, although I don• t know specifically, Mr. Chairman .

I know that there is a co-operative operating there but I don•t know the legal arrangements of the moment. I•ve no idea, MR. GRAHAM: Would the Minister indicate what type of program they intend to carry on in the operation of that farm, is it a training program or is it an actual farming operation that they intend to operate . MR, USKIW: Mr. Chairman, I don•t presume to want to know the kinds of programs individual farmers or groups of farmers engage in .

The question of eligibility for a lease is the only important part as far as the Corporation is concerned, and once that is established the mode of operation is something that is of a private nature. MR. GRAHAM: Is it not true that they are embarking on several training programs there, or attempting to embark on several training programs in that field? MR. USKIW: Mr, Chairman, I would have no way of knowing that. A MEMBER: Well, why? MR. USKIW: We don•t run the farms . We only lease land, Mr. Chairman. MR. CHAIRMAN: One member at a time. The Honourable Member for Birtle-Russell. MR.

GRAHAM: Mr, Chairman, if the Minister doesn•t know where can we go to get the information? A MEMBER: rtrs about time we knew something. MR . CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Agricult ure . MR. USKIW: .. ,honourable friend from Birtle-Russell to grow up, Because no one in this House knows how the Member for Lakeside runs a farm that he leases from the Crown either . A MEMBER: That's right . Hear. Hear, MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Birtle-Russell, MR. GRAHAM: Mr .

Chairman, I would like to ask the Minister how much money it has cost the Province of Manitoba to date in the present operation in the Birtle Co-op Farm. MR. USKIW: Mr. Chairman, I would expect that whatever the price of the farm was, that would be the sum total of our costs and whatever legal costs related thereto . Apart from that it would be the normal operations of the MACC. MR. GRAHAM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the Minister who is paying the salary for Mr. Schwartz. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for f'embina. MR. HENDERSON: Mr.

Chairman, I wish the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs was in here, because when you get four or five people gathered together and they call themselves a co-operative, is this not really misusing the word, because a co-operative is supposed to have open membership to all, Really when you have five people forming an organ ization to run a business, it's really another form of corporation, and you•re hiding behind the word co-operative. --(Interjection)-- Well, we•ll take these co-op farms that you•re forming, where there are so many individuals in it.

And I remember, I was quite active in the co-opera tive, I remember they were talking about the definition, and one of it was, one member, one vote and open membership to all and this sort of thing . And in the type of farms that you•re setting up with five people running them, you•re really setting up a type of a corporation, A MEMBER: Right. MR. HENDERSON: And you•re always knocking corporations otherwise. But in this case you•re setting up a corporation. Not only are you setting up a corporation but you•re setting a corporation up with government money that owns the land, and government money that owns this.

So I wonder really why you•re calling it co-operativ e. It must be that you feel you can shelter yourself behind that word,

860 April 1, 1975 SUPPLY - AGRICULTURE MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Agriculture. MR. USKIW: Well, Mr. Chairman, I don•t have to shelter myself behind any word because the applications to lease land are open to anyone or any group, whether they call themselves a co-operative or a corporation or whatever they choose to call themselves is really none of my concern. MR. CHAffiMAN: The Honourable Member for Birtle-Russell. MR. GRAHAM: Thank you. I would again like to ask the Minister, is the salary of Mr. Schwartz being paid by the Farm Union or is he being paid by the Province of Manitoba? MR. USKIW: Mr.

Chairman, I have no knowledge of any salary being paid to any Mr. Schwartz. MR. CHAIRMAN: Order please. If the honourable members wish to carry on a caucus meeting, I would suggest they go to the caucus room or somewhere else, not in the Chamber. The Honourable Minister of Tourism and Recreation. MR. TOUPIN: Mr. Chairman, on a point of clarification for the honourable member, a co-operative is not open to everyone. The honourable member knows, being a member of a co-operative himself, that different sectors in a co-operative movement have common bonds.

And if you•re talking of the co-operative for farmers, the bond is being a farmer, and if you•re a member of a credit union, the common bond is that you either want to deposit or borrow from the credit union. So they•re not necessarily open to everyone. MR. CHAffiMAN: The Honourable Member for Pembina. MR. HENDERSON: When you start a co-operative, whether itts credit union or not, membership is open to all, and the same in the co-op store, it•s open to all. You do business with everybody and it's their choice whether they become a member or not.

And what you•re setting up in these here co-op farms, you are setting it up with individuals with about five in the organization, which really should be called a corporation in the first place. Because when you have a corporation what do you have but a number of individuals getting together and setting it up and you have a corporation. And you•re hiding behind the word "co-operative" to make it more acceptable to the people. MR. USKIW: Mr. Chairman, I cantt understand what the Member for Pembina is trying to suggest because there is no position on the part of government as to who operates the farm.

It•s irrelevant as far as we•re concerned whether the entity is a co-operative or a corporation or an individual or a group of people that have entered into some kind of a contract. Itrs not the province that•s setting up these organizations, these are self made groups. MR. CHAffiMAN: Order please. I thought I suggested this afternoon we wait till the member is recognized. The Honourable Member for Pembina. MR. HENDERSON: Thank you. Well my remark is this. That a membership in co-op eratives are open to all and they can participate in both, they have a right to become a member and to participate in both.

Whey you get five people hiding behind the name of a co-operative, really they•re acting as a corporation, and this iB really just to further the government•s cause behind that word. MR. CHAffiMAN: The Honourable Minister of Mines and Natural Resources. MR. GREEN: I just wanted to ask the honourable member a question. In my constituency there is Willow Park Housing Development. Let us say that there are 300 units and 300 people occupy those units. Who is the co-op then open to after the 300 people occupy those units?

And does he say that this is not a co-operative, because they believe that they are a co-operative. I may be wrong about the number of units but they have a certain number of units, they may build more in which case they can take more members but is it open to all after the units are occupied? MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Rock Lake. MR. EINARSON: Well, Mr. Chairman, I•d like to pursue this matter further to the questions posed by my colleague from Birtle-Russell and also from Pembina.

I asked a question this afternoon, if the Minister could indicate to me what is the qualification of an individual who wants to lease land from the Crown or from the government. Now, I would like to refer to the Land Lease Program that the Minister dealt out to us this afternoon, and go back to where, as it states, "requirements to be met to qualify for leasing MACC land," and the following persons can lease from MACC: 1. Individuals and their spouses, and it indicates, "whose farming experience and

April 1, 1975 861 SUPPLY -A GRICULTURE (MR . EINARSON cont•d) .. .. financial resources indicate to the corporation that he or she will be in the position to run a successful farming operation." Mr. Chairman, that tells me absolutely nothing. I was trying to get information from the Minister as to what the qualifications were. Really, it's very ambiguous in the way this thing is word ed. I shall go further in the requirements as stated here . And it goes, 112 .

Partnerships where the partners individually, and their spouses, meet requirements under (1) above," which is as I just read out. 11(2) Co-operatives where the members and their spouses meet the requirements stated above" in (1) again. So we go back to No. 1, Mr. Chairman, and I asked, you know, if there were any farmers or anybody that leased land who had absolutely no farming experience at all, and I really didn•t get an answer from the Minister .

I think that that question and the answers would relate to some of the things that my colleagues are bringing up, and as to what constitutes a co-operative in this case, what is the policy in regards to if there were four couples who wanted to engage in farming by leasing land from the Crown. I think that this is something that my colleagues are entitled to know and the Minister is not giving us any answers. INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS MR. CHAIRMAN: Order please. I wonder if I could draw the attention of the honourable members to the Speaker•s gallery, where we have 40 members of the National Secretaries Association .

This group are the guests of the Honourable Member for Kildonan, Mr. Speaker of this Assembly. On behalf of all the honourable members, I bid you welcome here this evening. The Honourable Minister of Agriculture. SUPPLY - AGRICULTURE MR. USKIW: Well, Mr. Speaker, if the Honourable Member for Rock Lake is trying to suggest that there has to be a very stringent position on the point of eligibility for the Land Lease Program, then he is certainly on a different wave length than I am, because I don•t believe in very narrow guidelines at all.

I think the guidelines have to be broad and general in nature so that a reasonable amount of discretion can be used on any application and one should not be too restrictive in that kind of a program. One•s objective should be to facilitate a desire, if there seems to be a reasonable chance that that venture would be successful. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Birtle-Russell . MR. GRAHAM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr .

Chairman, I think at this time it's only proper that we should maybe review very shortly some of the aims and the ambitions that the Minister has for agriculture in Manitoba, and I think that we have to give the Minister some marks for trying to improve agriculture, to improve the farming habits in Manitoba, and to provide generally a better quality of life for those engaged in the farming industry.

And I view that with very mixed feelings when I see what is happening, because I want to tell you, sir, about a particular farm in my area, a farm that had a reputation that was known throughout the entire length and breadth of Manitoba, it was held up as a model for many people to visit over a period of many years, and that was the Birtle Indian farm. It was a residential school and it was a complete mixed farm. It was dairy; they had swine, they had poultry, and there were approximately 60 to 80 Indian students in residence there who operated that farm.

They had a quality of agriculture there that was known across Canada . They won prizes for their dairy herd at the Royal Winter Fair in Brandon; they won prizes at the Royal Summer Fair in Toronto; and their herd was known across the length and breadth of this land. Their farming operatioa was a model to behold.

Then, sir, because of a decision of the Federal Government, this farm ceased to be, and now we find that the province, through the Manitoba Agricultural Credit Corporation, has purchased the farm, and we have our new generation of farmers, through the assistance of the Manitoba Agricultural Credit Corporation, are going to show us how agriculture should be run. And this is admirab le. They have established a co-operative there. Some may call it a co-operative, some may call it a kibbutz. I don•t know what particular nomenclature you want to put on it - it really isn•t that important.

But what we do have is a sort of a funnel that has developed there, where every imaginable grant program has had money poured down the drain. We•ve had rural STEP, we•ve had Company of Young Canadians. You name it. Every grant

862 April 1, 1975 SUPPLY -A GRICULTURE (MR. GRAHAM cont•d) •.•. program imaginable has been poured into that area in an effort to show us a model of what farming should be like. And I don•t blame the Minister. He got the best man he could possibly get to run it. He got the former provincial Director of the Farmers Union from the Province of Manitoba, and they are now operating a farm there. Well sir ... --(Interjection)-- Very good. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Agriculture. MR.

USKIW: •.. because he is alleging that people that are involved in the operations at Birtle are on the payroll of the province, and I don•t think I should let him carry on in that respect, because my understanding is that that is not correct. MR. GRAHAM: Well, Mr. Chairman, I don•t know whether , •• I guess Company of Young Canadians is a federal funding, but they are certainly using various grants. I know last fall they had several students in there from British Honduras, I believe. They were in there for eight or ten weeks. But the interesting thing of it all, Mr.

Chairman, is that we don•t see a beehive of activity there. I believe they have a few dairy cows and I think they are milking the cows. They did put up some hay last fall. I think they finally got the summerfallow worked and hopefully they can get some crop in this year, but it's not actually a shining example of how farming should be carried out, and I would hope that if the Minister hasn•t put some money into it so far, or some expertise into it, I hope that very soon he would, because I think it is necessary and essential that they have that guidance to make the farm a viable operation.

I know last summer under the rural STEP program there was a crew of students worked there the entire summer; albeit that they could work no more than a week on any other farm, they worked there for the entire two months on that particular occasion, so perhaps they have one rule for kibbutzes and one rule for individual farmers. I don•t know. I•m sorry. I•m sorry. I apologize to the Minister for .•. I am not too familiar with that particular word and the plural of it. But anyway, Mr. Chairman, I think I should bring it to the Minister•s attention at this time because I think they do need assistance.

What they have at the present time leaves much to be desired and I hope that he could do something to show the people in that area that the province is really genuinely sincere in their efforts in this field. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Corrections. MR. BOYCE: Well, Mr. Chairman, not that the Minister of Agriculture needs my assistance, but just so that the record•s straight in this matter, the Member for Birtle-Russell is mixing three issues together.

One is the withdrawal of the Federal Government from the Indian Resident School Program, the Co-op Farm, and the co-operation· between the Mayor of the Town of Birtle and some of the people that I•m involved with. A few years ago the Federal Government decided to phase out Indian resident schools, and what the Member for Birtle-Russell says about the farm having been operated as a model, it indeed was, but nevertheless the Federal Government decided to phase it out. They walked away from it, closing it down, and the main component of the farm was the residence itself which I believe held some 100 residents.

The building, I•m informed by engineers, is sound but nevertheless when the Federal Government walked away from it they didn•t shut it down, sort of thing; that it has an internal drain system, that the pipes froze and the water flooded the building and everything else. So I was asked whether we could possibly use this residence facility, this hundred - I stand to be corrected on the capacity of it; I wasn•t prepared to answer the details on this subject because I didn•t know it was going to come up - whether we could use this in the provincial programs of various types, and I went down and took a look at it.

It needed cleaning up so, in co-operation with the Mayor of the town, we worked out a program where students would be employed to put the building back in reasonable condition. The tiles had floated off the floor and everything else. So the STEP program relative to the main facility had absolutely nothing to do with the farm part of it.

The other problem, as I understand it, and this I will desist because the farm part of it comes under the purview of the Minister of Agriculture, but there were six residences on this particular property relative to the housing of the staff which had been associated with the farm in the past. So the problem was how best to utilize it. I had heard the discussions of setting up a co-op and that•s where I left the involvement relative to the farm. We•re still trying to see if we can, in co-operation with the people in the constituency of Birtle-Russell, make some use of that particular residence facility.

April 1, 1975 863 SUPPLY - AGRICULTURE MR. GRAHAM: I want to thank the Minister of Corrections for showing some interest in this particular area because the people of that area , the Mayor of the town, the Reeve of the municipality , for several years had been pleading with government to use this facility to its maximum utilization. So far, all their pleas have fallen on deaf ears until the Minister of Corrections has indicated that they could get a little rural STEP assistance to clean up one of the roo ms, I think. So that the farm

part is going to be used, I understa nd, through the Manitoba Agricultural Credit Corporatio n, but all the pleas of the town and the proposals put forward to date so far have fallen on deaf ears with the government. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Agriculture. MR. USKIW: Mr. Chairman , I would think it would now be appropriate for the Member for Birtle-Russell to apologize to the House for trying to mislead it on the use of those facilities. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Pembina. MR. HENDERSON: Well , Mr.

Chairm an , I don•t intend to have much more to say on this, but the work "co-operative" is still pretty dear to me throughout my life, and I do feel that they are hiding behind the word co-operative when they really should be called a corporation in the first place.

I myself was involved in one of these farms at one time and it could have been called a co-op but we chose to be honest enought to call it a corporation, and I would advise the Minister of Agriculture , or the Minister of Co-ops , to be pretty careful in his loaning to these sort of organization s, because in our particular case there were many people who had been reasonably successful in their own business , but when they set it up as a corporation or a co-op and they hired managers, we set off first with a lot of lovely new buildings and we started off with a bunch of turkeys.

It wasn•t long till something happened to them and they were dying by the hundreds. We had men running to the university and back trying to find out the cause, and pouring stuff into the medicine. There were so many dying that we had to go to the front-end loader and we buried them in the ditch because there were that many. Later on we thought we•d go into pigs, and the pigs got bulldozed - people that raise hogs will know what that is - and they got rats in the building that were consuming the feed. They got lice in the hogs. The first thing , we were losing money on the hogs. So we went out of hogs.

We went into cattle - yes, I don•t like to say it, but management is the key in everything, but in corporations and co-operatives you often do get this. So we went into cattle, we decided to buy a bunch of them. But when you haven•t got somebody who it's affecting their own pocket, who•s trying to work on a shorter day, when you order a bunch of steer calves and you find out that you got blind calves and that you got bull calves and you got heifer calves and there•s no body to look after it, you•ll find out that you•ll lose money again, and thatrs what happened to us.

So we thought we•d go into chickens. (laughter) So we went into chickens by the thousands, and we were all reasonably successful people and we thought we knew what we were doing. We never had a time that we made money in chickens. Either the market was poor, or they got pneumonia, they came at the wrong time of the year , at the cold time of the year , and they died off. One time everyting looked real good and we figured, well, this time we•re going to clean up.

One of the fans - you know, they have these fans expelling the air - got caught and started ticking in the middle of the night and the chickens stampeded and in the morning we had them dead . • • I hate to say it, you know, but I was never so darn glad to get out of anything in my life, because I was concerned about it and you couldn•t do nothing. I talked to the in surance agent why we had such a high rate of insurance , you know. I wasn•t paying that kind of a rate on the farm.

He said the reason is that these sort of things have a record of being bad ri sk, and the reason they have bad risk is because the people that get in them aren•t successful and they often figure a fire is the best way to get rid of them.

So when you people are considering pouring money into co-operatives or corporation s, whichever you say - and there•s just a thin line in the difference of the definition , whether you might put "limited" on the end or something like that - you need to watch yourselves, because I•ve seen some pretty successful people do it and it didn•t work out, and I•d warn you people that if you•re loaning money to people who aren •t experienced and who are thinking they•re going to set up a farm and handle livestock, and you•re going in to help them with either STEP

864 April 1, 1975 SUPPLY - AGRICULTURE (MR. HENDERSON cont1d) .•. ,or diversification or anything else, you'll find out probably that you'll be pouring money in there endlessly and getting very little back, MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Mines and Natural Resources. MR. GREEN: Mr. Chairman, I donrt intend to spend a great deal of time in this debate, but I do feel that there is something should be said with reference to what is a co-operative.

It is my understanding - and I give to this to the honourable member for what it is worth - that every co-operative is a corporation; that the co-ops, the co-operative corporations, are pro vided for in the Companies Act, That is how one becomes a co-operative. Corporation means a co-operative corporation to which this Act applies, and every co-operative that Irm aware of is a corporation. I assumed that it is possible to form a co-op by a limited number of persons, but in order to use the word "co-op" I believe that you have to be incorporated under the Companies Act. A MEMBER: ... isnrt necessary. MR.

GREEN: Then I'll read this to the honourable member: "The application for Letters Patent shall be signed by not fewer than seven persons, and in the case of a marketing association, the persons shall be producers of the commodity proposed to be marketed, and the application shall st"B.te the proposed name of the corporation, which shall contain the word "co-operativ e," or the abbreviation "co-op", as part thereof, and where it has share capital, the word 11Limited11 or the abbreviation 11Ltd." at the end thereof." And this is the only law that I am aware of which provides for the incorporation of co-operatives.

Now, if the honour able member is aware of another one, then he should refer to it. The honourable member says that all co-operatives are open to everybody. A producers' co-op, I presume, would take any members that wish to belong to it because the producer brings his product to the co-op, who then sells it, and there is no limit on the number of members. The more members they get the better. That1s like the Manitoba Pool Elevators. A consumers' co-op; the more members, the better.

There is such a thing as a co-operative farm, and a co-operative farm is a number of farmers who choose to operate as a co-operative, and that canrt have an unlimited membership, almost by definition, There is a co-operative housing development, which cannot have an unlimited number of members. Itrs a group of ... Pardon irie? Well, you know, the Hutterites do not operate a co-operative farm. They operate a communal farm. A communal farm. It is not a co-operative. It is ... Well, all right. If the honourable member wishes to call the Hutterite colony a co-operative, he may desire to do so.

I say that the Hutterite colony is a communal institution, not a co-operative institution, and I believe that there is a difference. But nevertheless, nevertheless, the lionourabie member· will not say that the Hutterite colony is open to anybody who wishes to join, who then becomes a shareholder in the Hutterite colony. A MEMBER: Yes, it is. MR. GREEN: Well, if the honourable member says that the Hutterite colony will take in any person who wishes to join, and make him a member, then that is a particular type of communal institution which I will not claim knowledge of.

But the Honourable Member for Pembina says that a group of farmers, ten farmers, who choose to organize on a co-operative basis, is not a co-operative, and that a corporation is not a co-operative. All I can do is disagree with him. I think that it is possible, as in the Willow Park Housing Development, for a group of people to be engaged in a co-operative housing institution and not have available memberships for people who wish to join. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Tourism and Recreation. HON. RENE TOUPIN (Minister of Tourism, Recreation and Cultural Affairs)(Springfield): Well, Mr.

Chairman, I canrt leave it on the record. The Honourable Member for Birtle Russell made a statement and I wish herd correct me if I misundertood him, but he indicated in his remarks that the government was setting up co-operatives. Now the honourable member, being a co-operator himself, knows that the government canrt do that. The government can1t start co-operatives. It's impossible. If we as a government decided to become a member of a co-operative, whether it be a consumer co-operative, a credit union, which is a sector of the co-operative movement, werd be one member of that co-operative, with one vote.

Whether we had $5,00 or 500 million dollars, we•d have one vote. And that is a co-operative. Under the Credit Unions Act, if you look at the possibility of setting up a co-operative, a credit union, which is a saving and credit society, it takes at least ten members to form a credit union. If

April 1, 1975 865 SU PPLY - AGRICULTURE (MR. TOUPIN cont•d) ..•. you want to set a consumer co-operative, or a farmers co-oper ative, you need at least seven members, and that•s not under the Credit Unions Act but under the Companies Act. And the Hutterites - and I know of twelve colonies - none of them are co-operatives. None of them are incorporated under the Companies Act as co-operatives. They could become co-operatives, but they•re not.

Now I•ve been in the co-operative movement and I•ve worked for the co-operative move ment for ten years, and we haven•t lost one penny in loans that we made to individual members. Now you may say that•s not a very good record, but the government is not responsible for that. If there•s ever losses in co-operatives, itrs the members; it's the directors and the members of that co-operative, and there is a great distinction. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Birtle-Russell. MR. GRAHAM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In reply to the Minister of Tourism, I may say this, that while the government may not have been directly involved in the formation of the co-operative, they did, through the Agricultural Credit Corporation, purchase the farm and then make the farm land available to that co-operative farm. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Rock Lake. I wonder if we could ...

I realize that this has some bearing, but we•re seeming to drift off on to co-operatives and credit unions, and I think that we have a department that covers that, so unless it's very pertinent to the item under discussion I think that we should . • • We seem now to be drifting off into the philosophy of credit unions and co-operatives and that is not what we•re discussing at this time; we•re talking about the Manitoba Agricultural Credit Corporation. The Honourable Member for Rock Lake. MR. EINARSON: Yes. Well, Mr.

Chairman, l know I want to say, on behalf of myself and my colleagues on this side of the House, a concern as to where we•re going in the field of agriculture insofar as the farm policies are concerned, and we•re dealing in this case with the Manitoba Agricultural Credit Corporation and the policies hereto insofar as who can purchase land in this province.

I think that, in debating this subject, the Minister has afforded himself the powers to now get into the business of buying farm lands, and he, by so doing, giving himself that power, he can lease it to one individual, or, say, two people want to go together to lease the land that he has purchased, and also now he has got into the area in which it states in this lease program where, say, two, three, four, or maybe half a dozen couples can get together and form a co-operative and lease, I don•t know whether it would be one particular farm that he owns, two farms that he owns, or three. It could be a combination.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Agriculture. MR. USKlW: I don•t think the member would want to put on the record an erroneous statement. I think I should advise him that the Conservative Party gave this Minister those powers under which we function, so I didn•t give it to myself. You gave it to me. MR. EINARSON: Yes, Mr. Chairman, the Minister is quite capable of trying to twist things and give a different

interpretation. I•m fully aware, Mr. Chairman, that the powers were there, but the difference is that when we were in government we didn•t use those powers. (laughter) He can go out in this length and breadth of the Province of Manitoba and talk to farmers in t.llis province and ask them how they felt about the way the Manitoba Agricultural Credit Corporation was operating when the Conservative Party was in power, and I can bet you any time • • . and I•m prepared to go with the Minister anywhere he likes and debate that on any public platform and we•ll find out who comes out on top. A MEMBER: Hear, hear, Henry.

MR. EINARSON: And I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, that•s the difference. And I•m not quarrelling with the fact that the powers are there. The fact is the way this government is using them as opposed to the way we used them when we. were in power. Now that•s one thing that•s settled and the Minister of Agriculture doesn•t have to dwell on that sort of thing. We're concerned - and I•m going to finalize this thing - we•re concerned as to, as I said before, where we•re going in this whole field.

And I venture to say that, you know, given enough time and it doesn•t have to be too many years - that if this government and this Minister has his way - and I wish the First Minister were in his seat - that this whole province of Manitoba, and not too distant, would be one Hutterite colony. And thatrs about what we would be facing. And I say, Mr. Chairman, that it's not being too exaggerative when I say that either, sir.

866 April 1, 1975 SUPPLY -A GRICULTURE (MR. EINARSON cont•

d) And so the comments made; the comments made by my colleague from Pembina, which he alluded to, I think now poses the question I want to ask once and finally to the Minister of Agriculture, which he refused to answer: can he tell us the farming experience and the fi ancial resources, if any, are necessary for a person to get involved in leasing the land that he owns? And secondly, who in his department or who under the MACC makes that decision as to what his resource should be financially, and his experience? MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Agriculture. MR. USKIW: Well, Mr.

Chairman, you know, we have to recall that the MACC is not a new organization and does not have to learn ways and means of evaluating a client•s capabilities, or a prospective client1s capabilities, That•s an old game dating back to 1959 when my friends opposite set up the corporation, So that is not a new venture that we have entered into, and the staff is well equipped to try to bring about that kind of determination and to give recom mendations on the qualifications of the applicant and whether or not they would recommend that the application be approved or not approved. That is not new.

It applies the same if you want to pursue an application for a mortgage. The same criteria has to be used and the individual has to be assessed in very much the same way. So the rules of that game are pretty standard, Mr. Chairman. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Riel. MR. CRAIK: Well, Mr. Chairman, I wasn•t here in 1959 when the MACC was created, but I was here later on when the MACC was dealt with, and Ws my understanding that the MACC when it was created was primarily developed as a lending agency to assist people to buy farm lands.

And in the late 19601s, with the growth of the Federal Government in this particular area, it was found out that the MACC could play its role not as well in that area as the Federal Government could with their control over their interest rates, and it was f or a very good reason that the role of the MACC at that time was somewhat watered down. So, for the Minister to stand here and say at this time, "You created it, you accept the conse - quences," of course is just about as intellectually dishonest as he could possibly get. Because what has happened, what has happened, Mr.

Chairman, is that this present government, with the MACC, has now turned around to be an agency which could buy land, turn them into Crown land, and re-rent them out. A MEMBER: Always could. MR. CRAIK: Well, Mr.

Chairman, the MACC has been changed from a vehicle which was a lending vehicle for young farmers and other farmers to use as a means to build their own estate in a farm, to that of a vehicle which has been taken almost completely out of that field and now directed towards the government buying that land and using it for rental purposes to change the basic nature of farming, which is that of the land owner to that of the land tenant, Which is a very fundamental difference, Mr. Speaker.

You can call it the same thing, you can call it the MACC, but it is by no comparison the same vehicle as it was when it was set up, and the same thing is true of the MDC. The MDC, although it had Part B to its clause under the old MDF, where it could take equity in a company, was not exercised by the former government although that power was there. It was set up primarily as a lending agency, which it followed , Mr. Speaker, and that has been taken by this government and turned 180 degrees into an equity agency rather than a lending agency. So, Mr.

Chairman, let•s not let the issue get confused; that both vehicles in both cases have been turned about completely and used f or a completely different case. And the only thing that•s common in the MACC case is that the name has been kept, and in the MDF case it has been changed to MDC. It served the philosophical purposes of your government do do so, which is completely diff erent from the f ormer government, Mr. Chairman. I raise the point Mr. Chairman, because the Minister of Agriculture stood and suggested to the Member for Rock Lake: "You created it; Ws all your baby, you know.

You look after it, You accept the responsibility." Which is not a unique sort of a declaration on the part of this government. Every time they get into a position where they want to cast off a liability, they say, "You did it, You created it, You take the liabilities. You take the responsibilities." And that•s the case of the MACC and many of the other agencies that are now under the control of this govern ment.

April 1, 1975 867 SUPPLY -A GRICULTURE (MR. CRAIK cont'

d) But let1s talk about something, Mr. Chairman, that is slightly different. It's maybe not a major issue but it's an intriguing one. And that is, when this government, Mr. Chairman uses a document such as the Old Testament of the Bible to justify its actions, I say it's not a critical move, Mr. Chairman, because in all seriousness I take the Bible as being a very serious document, but on the other hand, in the hands of some other individuals it could be used to poke fun at society in today's day and age. And 11m not sure just how the present government is using it. We find that, to justify the ownership of land by the government, they quote from the Old Testament, Leviticus,

Chapter 25, verse 23; they conveniently avoid all the other verses of Leviticus and when they quote 23 they say, 11T he land shall not be sold forever, f or the land is mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. " Well, Mr. Chairman, this is the first outright admission that we have had from the government that they are God - that they are God, Mr. Chairman. This is the first outright admission that we have had from the fellows opposite that they are now God. A MEMBER: That's right. MR. CRAIK: Yes. That "they are mine," Mr. Chairman. But perhaps we should look at the other passages in Leviticus.

I think it wasn't without premeditation that this was brought forth so that they could now appeal to the greater sensibilities of some of those people that live on the farm lands of Manitoba, who perhaps in many instances, traditionally and still today, have a greater awareness of what might be in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament, when they could say to them, 11 The land is not yours. It belongs to God, and I am God. 11 Because that's effectively what youire saying. That's effectively what you1re saying. But why didn't they quote the other verses of Leviticus when they quoted that?

Because basically what Leviticus says, if you read the rest of it .. . and ltm aroused not because I have any great knowledge of the Bible, but I'm always curious when somebody quotes that source to give validity and credibility and sanctity to their motives, which is essentially, I am sure, what this government was attempting to do in quoting a biblical source to justify its land con sumption and land accumulation policy. Well letis look at it.

Letts read the verses that follow immediately on the heels of the one that they quoted, and it says: "If thy brother be waxen poor and have sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold. 11 Then he shall redeem that which his brother sold, Well, do you want me to read further?

Mr, Chairman, Leviticus, which is quoted by my smiling friends opposite, makes a stronger case for land ownership and the passage of land from one responsible person to another in terms of ownership than it does anything else, and as a matter of fact Leviticus says, if I read it correctly, Mr. Chairman, that on the day of Jubilee, that shall occur in the Hebrew language once every 50 years, that if there is a real problem in that land passing back to the original owner, that he shall receive it at no cost back to the original owner.

And these people stand there - and this is why you have to watch them at every turn - they turn around and say, 11 You created MACC, you created MD F," not ever saying that the purposes to which it is being put are 180 degrees out of phase with 'Nhich it was originally designed for, saying, 11 You created it." They have gone so far as to quote Leviticus to take the lands of the people that are the owners-operators of that land - owner-operators, proprietors of that land, not the big corporation, the people that own the land and worked it - to go out and offer them prices where they can get their cash out of it, and the government will own it, and they can turn around and give it to tenant farmers.

Tenant-farmers, Mr. Speaker, which have to meet the qualifications of this paper distributed by the government to the members ·of the Legislature. No tenant-farmer must make over $6,000 a year, Mr. Chairman. No tenant-farmer should come to us unless he makes $6, OOO, unless he makes less than $6, OOO a year. Now does that say, Mr. Chairman, that he has to be a qualified farmer, a qualified person that has demonstrated his ability to cultivate the land and grow the crops on it that are required to solve the food problems of the world? It doesn1t say anything about that.

It says simply that he must meet an economic standard, a screen or a sieve that must say to him that, above all else, you must not make more than $6, OOO a year before you come to us to be a tenant farmer. That's fine if it's a few farms, but if W s 400 farms in one year out of the 20, OOO farms in Manitoba, and it's going to be another 400 farms next year, and ultimately we reach the position indicated by the Minister of Agriculture in the hearings where it's going to represent

868 April 1, 1975 SUPPLY -A GRICULTURE (MR. CRAIK cont•d) .••• perhaps 20 percent of all the farms in Manitoba, does that mean that you have 20 percent of the farms in Manitoba whose main qualification must be that they have an earning capacity of less than $6, OOO a year? Also a set of conditions where they are discouraged from ever buying that farm?

Under the terms and conditions of your lease, even a farmer who is in desperate financial circumstances and sells it to you, unless he•s made his move in the first five years, under conditions over those five years that could become in creasingly difficult for him to buy that farm back? Under a set of conditions which a person coming to you must meet your economic screen rather than anything else? Under an advertise ment that doesn•t encourage land ownership, that encouraged land-tenancy?

Do you really expect us to believe that you aren•t deliberately, as a policy of your government, setting out to encourage tenancy-farming rather than land-ownership? Mr. Chairman, there•s no way that you•re going to persuade members of the Opposition who are close to this. There•s no way that you are going to persuade the farm community who watches this very closely. I think you probably will put the issue across as far as a lot of the urban community is concerned. I don•t think they probably really understand, but maybe on the other hand they do.

Maybe they do understand what is involved in the government ownership of land, I think even those people that live in the city know that tenant people don•t look after property in most cases as good as people that own that property. I think W s a fact of life in the rural community that tenant farmers, by and large, don•t look after their property and produce to the same extent as those people that own their own land. So, Mr.

Chairman, as far as we•re concerned in the stand that is being taken by the Opposition, the members of the Conservative Party on this issue of land-ownership, we think our stand is pretty well qualified. We think, even if we look at Leviticus, we think that if you quote the final, if you quote the verses 24 to 28 of Leviticus rather than just No. 23, that you•ll probably find that even in that day and age, pre-2, OOO years ago in the Old Testament, that there was an acknowledgement that the right of land-ownership was a pretty important right. The right of land ownership, A MEMBER: .. ,f or everybody.

For everybody. MR. CRAIK: No, Just to you and God, Just to you and God. Because you•re not going to convince anybody but what you think you•re God.

And in the day of the all-powerful state controlling 42 percent of the cash flow of, you know, you and the Federal Government controlling 42 percent of the cash flow of this country, if you think that you•re not pretty close to controlling this country and that you have to go one step further to controlling t;Jie land as well, you know ... and this was written in a day and age when there might have been good reason, there might have been good reason when there was no powerful state to justify a position of making land commonly available, But this is a different age.

You as government and the Federal Government control almost half of the gross national product, the cash flow, You control it in your own hands, you 17 Cabinet Ministers and the 30-odd in Ottawa, You fellows added up together, you control it all. Ws not that poor little guy, it's not that corporate farmer, that guy that•s sitting on that farm because he was there at the right time or his parents were there at the right time, it's not because of him that we have, you know, a problem, if one exists, Mr.

Chairman, and my reading of the situation is that we don•t have a production problem in Canada as far as agri culture is concerned. We haven•t had a production problem. Our problems, by and large, have been the problems of world distribution. It hasn•t been a problem of the production of the farms. I•ve never heard that raised as a really major problem. But somehow this govern ment feels that it cannot be satisfied, along with the Federal Government, of controlling not only 40-odd percent of the dollar flow of this country, it must also get ahold of that land - and for what purpose?

To better tell those people how to produce, even though there hasn•t been a production problem. --(Interjection)-- Well, the Minister says now there is a production problem, Let him stand up, let him stand up and advise this House exactly what the production problem is in Manitoba, Tell us what the production problem is. I•ve heard a lot from him about what the marketing problem is and I•ve heard a lot of disagreement, but I really haven•t heard an articulate argument presented about what the production problem is, Mr.

Chairman, it's not good enough for the Minister of Agriculture or his deputy or the other members of the government to stand up and quote the Bible, which is out of context, and justify to us the takeover of the lands of Manitoba.

April 1, 1975 869 SUPPLY -A GRICULTURE MR. CHAffiMAN: The Honourable Minister of Mines and Natural Resources. MR. GREEN: Mr. Chairman, let the responsibility fall where it belongs. Two years running there was a debate, commenced by the Member for Portage la Prairie, relative to foreign ownership in land. Two years running I entered that debate. Two years running I referred to the difference between land as a commodity and produced goods as a commodity. Two years running, I, not the Minister of Agriculture, not the government as a block, referred to Leviticus, and I did not refer to it in a joking manner.

I do not make fun of the Old Testa ment. I have the highest respect for both the Old and the New Testament and I would not use either of those works lightly, and for somebody to suggest that that is what is being done is a gratuitous insult.. The only one who has used it lightly is the Member for Riel, who makes a joke of it - yes, right in this House. That is correct. You read what is said and you will see who has used it lightly. Mr. Speaker, there are different

interpretations of the Bible, there can be numerous

interpretations of it, and I gave it as my

interpretation, which I continue to believe, that when Leviticus said, 11You shall not sell the land in perpetuity because the land is mine, 11 that what the Bible was saying was that the Almighty who created the earth did not create any part of it for one person to the exclusion of any others. -- (Interjection)-- Now if you say that, if you say that and if you say that that is right, then you do not believe in private ownership in land, because private ownership in land is the ownership in land by one person, the possession, ownership and control of that land to the exclusion of all other people.

And that is what Leviticus was talking about and that is why he said that on the day of the Jubilee that whoever held the land, the trumpets would blow and it would go back to the community. That is what is said. -- (Interjection)-- Well, Mr. Speaker, the honourable member is entitled to his interpre tation and I'm entitled to my

interpretation. A MEMBER: Have you read it? MR. GREEN: Yes, I have read it. I have read it before the honourable member read it, and I believe that I am entitled to place the

interpretation that I placed on it and I did not do it lightly; I did not do it as a joke. I did it, Mr. Speaker, because it is a truism. It is a truism that is recognized by every people who occupies the earth today. The honourable member thinks that he believes in private ownership in land, and what I said in those two debates was that even amongst the most doctrinaire, ideological, free enterprise, private ownership societies, that the best that they give is what is the equivalent to a Torrens title. And a Torrens title is private ownership in land until the state takes it back.

Thatrs as much as anybody ever gets under any legislation, under the Manitoba legislation, under the United States legislation, under any legislation that I know of - and I don•t know of all legislations so maybe there are places where it is not true. But the best that somebody gets is an indefinite lease, and if the state, which represents the total community, says that W s going to take that land back, it takes it back and it pays compensation, and that is the proof that what is said in Leviticus is so obvious, Mr.

Chairman, is so obviously true, and when the honourable member says that the Minister of Agriculture therefore compares himself to God, that is making fun of the Bible. Because to say, to say that I as a human being, and the Minister of Agriculture as a human being, recognized the fact that none of us can ever claim ownership in land to the exclusion of all other people, that we are therefore God, is an absolute distortion of anything that has been said by anybody. All that is being said, Mr.

Speaker, is that the air, the water, the land, is God•s bounty, that it is available to all of the citizens of the world, and if any, Mr. Chairman, if any person tries to disobey that rule, the forces that work in society would bring back Leviticus. Because if somebody said, if somebody, Mr. Chairman, said that I was going to buy Manitoba - and that is what you believe in, by the way; you are the ones that believe that a private person can own Manitoba. I don•t believe it. I don•t believe it. Well, what is private ownership? I do not believe a private person can own Manitoba. MR.

CHAffiMAN: I wonder if the Honourable Member f or Swan River, who was a former Speaker of this House, would desist from making speeches from the seat of his trousers. If he wishes to make a speech . . . Order! MR. GREEN: They don•t like it, they don•t like it when their words are thrown back on them and when they know that they are wrong, and that•s when they start the interjections. You.know, we have to listen to this suggestion that we were making fun of Leviticus, that we were misquoting the Bible, that we were making light of it, and I suggest that the Honourable

870 April 1, 1975 SUPPLY - AGRICULTURE (MR. GREEN cont'd) •••• Member f or Riel either doesn't understand it or, in desperation to find some argument to sustain his position, is trying to make fun of the Bible .

The Honour able Member for Riel, you know, he says that we have swung 180 degrees on some of the uses; that when the MACC was set up, it was set up to give loans to young farmers; that that was the purpose of the MACC , That, Mr , Chairman, was private enterprise, private ownership, rugged individualism, that the state would collect taxes from me, give it to some young farmer who would then own the land, beat his chest, and say, "Look at me. I am one of the independent rural people in our community who don't want any state intervention." -- (lnterjection)- Pardon me? MR . CRAIK: That I dontt believe , MR.

GREEN: Mr , Chairman, that is what the honourable member said, because we are now talking about loans after the banks refuse, after the financial institut ions refuse.

After all refu sals, there is somebody who is going to come to the state and be made a private owner of land, With the people•s money, he is becoming a private owner, He also, Mr , Speaker, says that when the MDC set up, it was set up as a lending institution and that there has been 180 degrees, Does the honourable member expect that when a party that has come in on a different program and has gone to the public and asked for their mandate, and has defeated the government in office, that they are only doing the right thing if they do what those who were thrown out did?

Certainly there has been a change, and not soon enough, There had to be a change, Mr. Chairman , Of what value is it to the free enterprise system that we give $28 million in social assistance, in welfare payments, to Mr, Simplot, so that he can own a plant in Cornwallis and beat his chest, and say 11 1 am a rugged indi vidualist on the money supplied to me by the people of Manitoba"?

Of what value is it to the free enterprise system, which we switched to 180 degrees yes, the people of Manitoba gather together $92 million, give it to Alex Kasser and Dr , Reiser, who will then say, 11Look, we are examples, we are examples of!• -- (lnterjection)-- Mr. Speaker, yes, I will accept the fact that there has been a change. Mr . Speaker, I will -- (Interjection)--Well, you know, you talk about the philosophy of change, and I accept the fact that there has been a change, There can be losses both ways, And I accept the fact that there has been a change. There can be losses both ways.

And I accept the fact that everything that we have done is not going to work out and has not worked out. But I say, go to any businessman. Take it out of this House, Go to any financial institut ion, and ask: does it make better sense . . . Go to the Member for Morris if you need a better authority.

Go to the Member from Morris and say, 11 Does it make sense to put up all the money and somebody else is the owner, or if you put up all the money and there is going to be a loss, that you should be the owner?" Now I say that there isn't a single businessman who will tell you that it makes good business sense to do what the previous administration was doing, and therefore, Mr.

Speaker, when the honourable member said that there has been a 180 degree change, well I say that I would have to go back to my constituents and beg forgiveness if, when we came into government, we did not make the change, What was the purpose? A MEMBER: Go to the farmer. MR. GREEN: Mr.

Speaker, we'll go to the farmers too, and, you know, the honourable member says that there is no problem with farmers, there is no problem in production, and there is no problem in dealing with these questions , You know, Itve spoken to farmers too, right through this province, and the fact is that the farm population was reducing from - I•ll use the Honourable Member for Morris• figure - 30, 000 commercial farms, and the Target for Economic Development said that it should be 20, OOO commercial farms by 1980, a reduction of 10, OOO commercial farms.

When I went to Brandon I asked one of the spokesmen who appeared before committee whether it would be all right if it went down to 10, OOO com mercial farms, and he said it will go down, that that•s okay too. The fewer the better. You know he said that he would have a problem -- (Interjection)--Well, he would have a problem, When it went from two to one, when it went from two farmers to one farmer, he would start to worry, but up until then everything appeared to be okay. Now, Mr. Speaker, the fact is - (Interjection)-- No, I didn•t convince him and he didn•t convince me either . He didn•t convince me. No, no.

Well, you know, the Honourable Member f or Swan River is an elected repre sentative of the community and I respect him as such, and he is entitled to speak as a representative, but he cannot tell me that there aren•t farmers in his community in considerable

April 1, 1975 871 SUPPLY - AGRICULTURE (MR. GREEN cont•d) • • numbers - in considerable numbers - who agree with what the government is doing. MR. BILTON: , of your stripe, MR. GREEN: Well, Mr, Chairman, you know, the expression was, my 11 stripe .11 My stripe, Does the Member for Swan River represent the farmers of my stripe in Swan River? I believe he represents all of the people, MR. BILTON: In need, yes, MR. GREEN: In need, Well, the fact is the honourable member has sort of declared himself.

You know, the Premier of the Province has been chastised for having made a remark - I think it was in Swan River- Roblin area, something to the effect that we are no longer going to bend over backwards to deal 'Nith constituencies where there are malicious MLAs to help the •. , we•re not going to bend over backwards, In other words , up until then they were doing even more f or the Conservative representatives than they were for the members of the New Democratic Party, and he sai.d that he will no longer bend over backwards, and that became a cause celebre that he made that remark, Now we know that the Member for Swan River, sitting in his seat, can easily say that those farmers 11 of your stripe" , you know, are of no consequence to him.

Now I am telling you that the , • , MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Swan River on a point of order, MR. BILTON: I don•t accept that statement by the Honourable Minister, That is his opinion and not mine, and don•t be formulating words as to what my thoughts are, Only I know those thoughts, and don•t do it, MR . GREEN: The honourable member is correct when he says that that is my opinion, The honourable member is also correct when he says that he is the only one who knows his thoughts, because I•ve never heard him say anything which indicates that he has any position on anything.

That is right, But I am suggesting to you that there are many farmers in the Province of Manitoba in his constituency, and in one case, you know, it was 90, 110 votes or so, but I still say he is the elected representative, and as the elected representative I look to him as being the repre sentative f or Swan River, And I say that he will pursue a position , but he will not tell me that there are no farmers in the Province of Manitoba in Swan River constituency who do not think that one of the ways that land should be available is through a land lease program where they do not have to have a big capital investment in the farm hoping f or a capital gain that they can leave off to their children or so that they could die rich; that there are some farmers who don•t agree with that. -- (Interjection)--Well, Mr, Speaker, I will tell you . , • the honour able member says that there is no production problem, There is , and historically has been where there is an unrestricted situation, a tendency to bigger and bigger farms, and when there are bigger and bigger farms, they are generally operated by tenants, and tenant farming is more likely to come to the Province of Manitoba through private ownership of land than it is through public ownership of land, and it's not right.

Well I will remind you what Mort Nemy said when he came to the committee, and nobody seemed to worry about it, He said, 11 My clients, they•re from Germany, they•re wonderful people , and I see no reason why they shouldn•t be, He said, 11 They have bought huge plots of land and they are letting these people who they bought the land from stay on the land and work for them. But, he said , 11 my clients, they•re very important people, and they just don•t let anybody stay on the land.11 First thing they told them to do is burn all their furniture.

The next thing I suppose they told them to do is look under their fingernails, A MEMBER: You•re getting silly now, YIR. GREEN: I•m getting silly, am I? You were not there, I tell you, Mr, Chairman, that that man indicated that his client was going to see to it that these people dressed nicely, that these people had their homes nicely, that these people keep clean, that these people wear the right form of clothing and that•s the kind of paternalism that you people will accept from a private ownership landlord, and you say that the public is not a proper landlord. A MEMBER: You•re sick. MR .

GREEN: I•m sick, Mr, Chairman, as the honourable members says, I was there and I did get sick when I heard that, I did get sick, Because that•s the kind of private owner ship, tenant farming, that your suggested philosophy will lead to -- (Interjection)--Well, Mr, Chairman, .you say that it is a laugh, I tell you, Mr, Chairman, that in 1870, all'the

872 April 1, 1975 SUPPLY - AGRICULTURE (MR. GREEN cont'd) • • • • land in Ireland was privately owned. But it was occupied by tenants and the tenants were ••• to the landlords . And it wasn't the government that was the landlords. It was private owners who were the landlords, --(Interjection)-- Pardon me? A MEMBER: What percentage owns it now? MR. GREEN: Well, Mr . Chairman, I am not aware of the present percentage, All I am telling you is that the • . • MR.

CHAIRMAN: Order please, I wonder if the honourable members would just cool it a bit, Itts difficult f or the Chair to hear whatis going on, I hear about ten debates going on all at one time, Now there's one member on the floor, one member at a time, that's all, When your present member who le speaking is finished, ltll recognize someone else and he'll have another thirty minutes to go, but in the meantime, one member, one voice at one time, The Honourable Minister of Mines and Natural Resources, MR. GREEN: Mr.

Speaker, here I want to make the member f or Souris-Killarney sick, sick about the private owner, the private owner landlord who was at committee, and I will read you what you said, " No, 1 - They're not German interests ," so I'm sorry, I was incorrect. 111 know the situation very well. One of the first things they did was, I say, burn down most of the buildings because they were such a disaster . I saw it myself, I saw them before they were burned and after, In all due respect, these men who they bought the land from, of course, have a great deal of cash which they never had before.

They hired back any of them who wanted to, under certain conditions. Amazingly enough, one was that they must go and re furnish the homes with the money they got, because they felt that nobody who would live under those conditions and with the price of clothing and household effects that they had, could not do a good job for them, They would have to have pride in their work." Now I hope the honourable member for ••• I hope --(Intei;jection)-- Well, this is Canada, This is land, I'm glad that you are upset as you said I was.

Because this is land that was bought in Canada, from Manitoba farmers who they then told to burn their buildings down; they then told them that the cash that they got for the purchase of their land had to be used to refurnish their house and buy nice clothing, and wash under their fingernails, Now I'm glad that you find that sickening because that's what he said. And thatis the private owner that you are talking about, Now Mr.

Speaker, all we are saying, all we are saying, and we say it as a truism, is that there is or should be available, a program whereby a prospective farmer would be able to lease land from the public in the Province of Manitoba, And what is the danger of that? There's only one danger that could result from that, and that is that private interest would not be ablt to buy up all tlie land in huge farms in the Province of Manitoba and have the present rural population as tenants to them.

That1s the only thing that the program instituted by the Minister of Agriculture can stop, Because nobody has to sell their land to the public; nobody has to buy land from the public; it is completely optional, completely optional, Do you know any person in Manitoba who has been forced to sell his land to the Minister of Agriculture under this program? Not a single person, Do you know any person in the Province of Manitoba who has been --(Interjection)-- Well, Mr. Chairman, forget legislation, there are other forms of compulsion to legislation.

You know, here is a form of compulsion that the cash that you get has to be used to buy new clothing and to wash under your fingernails. That1s a private owner's compulsion. And I suggest to you that there is not a single person in Manitoba who has been required to sell his land under this program, There is not a single person in this province who has been required to lease land under this program. That all that the program does is make available an option that wasn't there befo re , And you know what the definition of that is, that1s freedom, F-R-E-E-D-0-M.

Freedom now, now, not later, not waiting for a Conservative Government who will come into power and remove that freedom, but freedom now, that1s what the Minister of Agriculture is providing with this program,

April 1, 1975 873 SUPPLY - AGRICULTURE MR . CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Birtle-Russell . MR . GRAHAM: Thank you, Mr . Chairman . Mr . Chairman, I listened with great interest to the words of the Minister of Mines and Natural Re sources who has a habit of telling us some of the truth some of the time, who has given us instanc es where he has quoted and quoted out of context . Mr . Chairman, he has also made particular reference to the freedom that exists in this province under this program . Mr .

Chairman , he does not tell us about some of the freedom that is being denied under other land purchase programs operating under his department, the alternate land-use program where farms are being taken from farmers, where the government is going to the farmer first without the farmer going to government. And let him stand up here and tell us more about that alternate lan d-use program and the way the government is buying farm land in this province . MR . CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Riel . MR . CRAIK: Mr. Chairman , it's very plea sing to know at last who the Minister of Agriculture is in this province .

And I' m sure that the members of this sid� of the House have one request, and it falls very much similar to the advocation made by the mover of the Throne Speech in this House , or the seconder of the Throne Speech in this House , the Member for St . Ma tthews, when he said , "trust the people ." And might I say to the Minister of Mines and Resources, can he not trust the farmers ? Did he not hear enough of them when he was at those hearings ?

Is he trying to tell us that his own report that tells this House that seven percent of the operations in this province of farms are owned by non-re sidents, and that of those seven percent that a large number of those are non-re sidents because they don't live on the land but they live in the town next to it or they live in Brandon or they live in Winnipeg ? Is that, Mr . Chairman, what he's trying to base a case on ? To exclude these foreign owners, this fellow that appeared before the committee and tells them to burn their furniture. MR . CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Mines and Natural Resources . MR .

GREEN: Mr . Chairman, on a point of privil ege. I have never argued against foreign ownership of lands per se in the Province of Manitoba . MR . CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Riel . MR . CRAIK: Mr . Chairman, it's very fortunate that that declar ation has been made because you wouldn 't have known it to listen to the Minister of Mines and Natural Resources in his remarks . I got the impres sion that the people who were being advocated by some individual in our province to burn their furniture was somehow advocating to a group which was less desirable in the Province of Manitoba . MR .

CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Mines and Natural Resources . MR . GREEN: Mr . Chairman , the remarks that I made applied to any private owner who would do the same thing . I have made it clear at every hearing, which the honourable member is not aware of, and in this House on every occa sion that I have spoken on this, that I have no objection to foreign ownership per se of land in the Province of Manitoba. MR . CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Riel. MR . CRAIK: Mr . Chairman , the Minister could have said it in far le ss words than he has during his speech .

He has now told us he is not opposed to any type of ownership of lands in Manitoba . But I simply make the case , on what grounds does the province feel justified in going to the people of Manitoba, not just the farmers, but saying, we think that we should own 20 percent of the land of Manitoba and lease it back to you . Well Mr.

Chairman, if you used the numbers espoused by the Minister , the supposed Minister of Agriculture, not the real spiritual leader of the NDP Party and the effective leader of the Agricultural Department which is the Minister of Mines and Natural Resources as he applies to that department and a few others, Mr . Chairman , if we take his word on the total objective of the MACC in terms of accumulation of lands in the Province of Manitoba, it amounts to somewhere around 20 percent of the farms in Manitoba. Is it a production problem ? No, I don't think it is .

It has been said here, there has been a problem with regards to marketing that has been debated and argued and producer boards and marketing boards and all the other kinds of boards, but it seems to me that the problem in part results from the fact that we have a very produc tive sector in agricult ure. That hasn't been our problem . But all of a sudden, he says we're going to take the MACC which was created by the Member for Rock Lake and we have to do something with it so we're going to now purchase 20 percent of the farm lands of Manitoba and we're going to solve their proble ms . And he has not yet, Mr .

Chairman , he has not yet, as

874 April 1, 1975 SUPPLY - AGRICULTURE (MR. CRAIK cont 'd) •.••• I can determine from the members of this House, defined what the problem is . Is there a problem ? What is the prob lem ? I see. The members on this side of the House are blind , Mr . Chairman . Well, Mr . Chairman, he can further define that .

But let us simply say that for the uninitiated in this , and those who happen to read some of the procedures that go on with regards to the land accumulation committee, to mount a case and it 's a great revelation to find it put forward in such straightforward terms that the govern ment is not opposed to foreign ownership of land in Manitoba .

But at the same time brought out tha r white paper on this thing based on the fact that they were now going to save Manitobans from this locust upon the land, this accumulation of land by foreign individuals and foreign com panies and foreign interests which somehow seems to boil down statistics to something less than seven percent and probably closer to one or two percent . They're now going to save Manitoba from this locust by buying up twenty percent of the land of Manitoba themselves . Mr .

Chairman, there has to somehow be a much more rational argument brought forward by the government than the fire and the fuming of a man who finally finds his spiritual leadership very severely eroded because there is no fact, no basis for it . It has to go back with the Agricultural Minister and his staff to quoting Biblical sources to somehow justify this ownership . Let me close off, let me close off by one more little verse that comes out of this to ask the Minister of Mines and Resources how he drew his conclusions from Leviticus. Let me ask you, with intelligence, the members opposite say . It says , 28 of

Chapter 25: "But if ye be not able to restore it to him , then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him and have bought it until the year of Jubilee. And in the Jubilee it shall go out and he shall return unto his possessions ." Who is that ? The governm ent ? That 's not the government . That wasn't written for you, the government , that was written for the fellow that has the ownership and responsibility of his land .

And you 're trying to turn it around and even take the Old Testament out of context to justify your own needs, wants, aims and desires under the guise of an MACC that was created by a former government . That's the kind of group you are . MR . CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Agricultu re . MR . USKIW: Mr . Chairman, I don't profess to have any expertise in the particular scripture that my honoura ble friend referred to.

And I should like to point out that the Honourable Member for Riel certainly cannot be quoting me and I don •t know the source that he is quoting when he alludes to the fact that someone in government is relying on the scripture to justify a land policy , even though it may well be justified pursuant to that scriptur e. But it is certainly not my remarks that he is quoting, because I have never alluded to that scripture since I have a very vague knowledge of it in the first place, Mr. Chairman .

I think what the Member for Riel is probably alluding to is the speech that my Deputy Minister gave to the Chamber of Commerce meeting two or three weeks ago at which I attended, Mr . Chairman . But in the opening remarks and the Member for Rock Lake was there, the Deputy Minister qualified himself by stating that these re marks are his own and do not repre sent the thinking of the department or the government , but his own obser vations on that partic u lar question . And the Member for Rock Lake should know that and he should be honest enough to tell the Member for Riel.

The Member for Riel should know that he cannot be led by the people behind him because they are so used to misinforming the people of Manitoba that they can't even inform their own caucus . They can't even inform their own caucus members who did not attend at that Chamber of Commerce dinner . That is where this emanates from . That is the only recollec tion I have of a reference to the scripture relating to the land policy . But I would like my honourab le friend to know that when he suggests that the whole corporation 's activities have been turned around 180 degrees, that he is quite right .

That is not a secret and was never intended to be a secret . But I think that the member has to listen to the debate, Mr . Chairman, in that the Member for Rock Lake stood up here this evening and indicated, indicated that I had given unto myself these powers of land purchasing and land ownership in the right of the Crown . And I simply wanted to correct the Member for Rock Lake when I rose and said no, those powers were contained in the legislation that they passed , Mr. Chairman , and whi.ch we inherited . We didn't have to bring a measure to this House to give us those powers.

Now the members of the Opposition must be honest with the people of Manitoba . They must be honest . They should not try to tell the people of Manitoba that this is some new legis lation that is being imposed on them against their will. They should admit to the people of

April 1, 1975 875 SUPPLY - AGRICUL TURE (MR . USKIW cont'd) ..... Manitoba that these powers were in the Act, that they put them in the Act, and whatever their reasons were for doing it I couldn 't tell you, Mr . Chairman . I have no way of knowing whether they had any ultimate use of that particular provision . I can tell you, though, that the Ministry in Ontario is much bolder than we are in this pr�vince in that connection, where it has passed a Land Corporation Act which has very broad powers, wide-sweeping powers to accumulate land in the public domain and to designate its use and the people who may use it.

And the land -lease program in Ontario, Mr . Chairman , the lan d-lease program in Ontario goes back to about 10 year s ago, where there are incentive options to pur chase , Mr . Chairman . In fact there's a penalty if you don't purchase in the first five yea rs, and most of the farmers are not buying . Most of them have cho sen not to purchase within that limitation . Why, Mr . Chairman ? Because they can't afford to purchase . Because the only rea son they are the re is because the program is availa ble to them; and if it wasn't for the pro gram, they would not be engaged in agricultural production .

So it is true that we have turned the MACC around as an agency that would respond to that group of people in society that have been denied these basic rights and basic freedom s for all of the years in the history of this province - for all of the years in the history of this province - that members opposite would never recognize as a right and an individual freedom of choice .

You know, I want to remind members opposite that in the last election their slogan was "Freedom of choice and opportunity now ." And I want to ask them what freedom of choice they had in their lending program, in their MACC program, wherein they had to deny the facility of credit to many thousands or many hundreds, or whatever it was, young people who just didn't have the equity to get involved in agricultur e based on the criteria that the corporation used for about 10 or 11 years under their leaders hip. ' How do you rationalize the words "Freedom of choice and opportunity now , " your slog an in the last elect ion campaign, when you are so damn dogmatic, Mr .

Cha irman , that you can only recognize one way towards land control and land use, and that is to supply it to the guy with the fattest wallet ? And that is not the position of this government . The size of one 's wallet has no bearing on one 's freedom, Mr . Chairman . The size of one 's wallet should have no bearing on one's freedom, and if my friends opposite want to talk about freedom of choice and opportunity and li berty, they had better do some soul-search ing, Mr .

Chairman , because there are many tens of thousands of people in this province that are denied those basic free doms because of the lack of a dollar bill. Because of the lack of a dollar bill . And because of somebody else 's imposition. I want to ask my honourable friends how many people in this province were denied the freedoms becau se , Mr . Chairman, we didn't have and still don' t have means of controlling the economy and the interests of the community as a whole .

I want to ask my friends opposite how many people in this country lost their freedoms, or a measure of freedom , when the sugar industry decided to push the price of sugar up to 65 cents a pound. I want you to tell me how many people lo st the freedom of purchasing power every time an exorbitant profit was taken by one corporation or another. Those are not freedoms that I would want to cherish, Mr . Chairman. A MEMBER: What about your Fascist friends in Chile ? MR . USKIW: Freedoms - Mr . Chairman , the members opposite don't know the meaning of the word freedom. They don't know the meaning of the word.

Freedom under their bene volenc e, Mr . Chairman , perhaps , as they would define it. --(Interjection)-- l'm asking for it. I am telling you , Mr. Member from Minnedosa , that countries in the world that define free dom in the way that you define it have lost their freedom . Have lost their freedom . Many countries had to regain it through revolution , and that is the direction my friends opposite would take this land, the land that belongs to all of the people of Ca nada and the land that should never be corralled and cornered by a handful of individuals . You know, Mr .

Chairman, I don't have to go far afield to demonstrate the selfishness that prevails in our society . I don't have to ·go far afield to demonstrate the selfishness of our society . I will refer to the Member for Pembina, who is in the land -lease business, and he 's sitting right there, and he said to me, "You know, Mr. Mini ster , your program is interfering with my clien ts . They think you 're offering a better deal than I am ." That 's what he said to me at one time. Now maybe it does interfere with his business, I don't know . I don't know whether it does .

All I know is that he is in the land -lease business and he thinks that the people of Manitoba should not be in the la nd-lease business .

876 April 1, 1975 SUPPLY - AGRICULTURE (MR. USKIW cont'

d) Mr . Chairman , when governments as sume some responsibility to society, they have to ass ume responsibility and leadership that relates to all of the people, not just the people with a lot of money, who , by the way, can extend privileges far beyong the average individual by the simple fact that they have the means to do it. Freedom in our society is meas ured by the numbers of dollars in one's wallet , and that is the prostitution of the word "freedom" that we have learned to live under for too long .

And members opposite ar e'n ot going to prevail on this group on this side of the House to compromise the mea ning of the word freedom , because we think that that particular meaning has to apply to every citizen of this province. And whenever governments introduce mea sures which have universal application, that is one of the greatest ways of enhancing the freedom of people, the freedom of society .

And I refer to the freedom from the wants and desires with respect to hospital privileges in this province, to medical care privileges in this province which, under Conservative administration , would not be here, Mr . Chairman . . . MR . BILTON: Who brought it in? MR . USKIW: The friendly member for Swan River, you know, he boasts about the fact , "Who brought it in?" And I remember sitting where they are sitting , Mr . Chairman, in 1966 , '67, '68, and their Premier making a lot of noises about this bad thing that Ottawa is imposing on the provinces . A MEMBER: He was going to sue them . MR .

USKIW: He was going to sue Otta wa , yes . He said, "Give us the money . Let us spend it on what we think is essential . We don 't want your Medical Care Program ." That 's what the Premier of this province at that time was saying, and was prepared to deny freedom to thousands of people who could not afford Hospital Insurance or Medical Care Insurance through the private sector ; was prepared to deny those basic freedoms. You know, I want to relate a little incident. During the 1973 election campaign, I had been ca mpaigning in Pilot Mound - unsuccessfully, I have to admit, Mr .

Chairman - I had campaig ned all day in Pilot Mound, and that particular evening I had to attend a function in Lac du Bonnet and so I flew over from Pilot Mound to Lac du Bonnet A MEMBER: You flew, eh ? MR . USKIW: Yes I did . Yes. A MEMBER: In a ... aircraft. MR. USKIW: No , in a private aircraft. A MEMBER: How many Conservatives were flying during that ca mpaign ? MR . USKIW: Mr . Chairman , I did not fly at governm ent expense . That is the way may be members opposite would function but I don't function that way . Mr .

Chairman, I flew over to Lac du Bonnet for that evening to attend a function in that particular community, and I hap pened to meet three Americans , three Americans at the airfield in Lac du Bonnet, who were grounded because of a fog in Northern Manitoba where they had intended to go on a fishing trip. And of course I was carrying my briefcase and they were very inquisitive and wanted to know what I was doing and who I wa s, and we got into a very friendly discussion. And they said to me, "By the way , 11 they said, "you have state medicine in this country." That 's the way they referred to Medica re.

"How does it really work, or is it any good ?" MR . BILTON: You told them , Sam . MR . USKIW: I sure did . I sure did. I said, "Well, it's the greatest thing that this country ever did . It 's the greatest thing that this country ever did." They said', "Well , how do you finance it ?" "W ell," I said , "we have a premium system , and of course the Federal Government is involved in sharing the costs . The provinces, they raise money through pre miums; some don't have premiums ." And I said, "By the way, we just abolished our pre miums." So he said, "Well what does that mean ?

If I am a citizen of Ma nitoba and I want to enter into a ho spital and get hospital privileges and medical privileges , what do I have to pay ?" "O h, " I said, "you don't have to pay anything at the time ." A MEMBER: Raise the taxes . MR . USKIW: I said, "That is all taken out of the Consolidated Fund of the province under the new provisions." And do you know what he said to me ? He said, "Oh God , that 's Communism." Yeah . That 's real Communism, Mr . Chairman . So I said, "Well tell me. What would you have to do ?" "Well, he said , "we have an insurance program that we buy

April 1, 1975 877 SUPPLY - AGRICU LTURE (MR . USKIW cont'd) ..... from private insurance companies and it costs about seven or eight hundred dollars per family for a portion of the coverage . We have deductions, you know. But, you know, notwithstanding that," he said, "my granddaughter had a broken arm and it did cost us $1, 200 out-of-pocket to fix that broken arm ." It did cost him $1, 200 .

He said, "As a matter of fact, I would have to admit that if there was a serious ill ness in our family, it would not only be a tragedy to the individual that is ill and to the relative s, but it would be a financial disa ster . It would be a financial disa ster . But, " he said, "you know, your program, that's Communism." Now I don't know what it is , Mr . Chairman . All I know is that it's good.

I do n't know what it is, but whatever it is, I can ass ure my friends opposite that a modern society should never deny these basic rights to its citizens, and any society that doesn't recognize that has to go under , Mr . Chairman . It has to go under . And the people in South America who espouse the type of freedom that my friends opposite are espousing here this evening , the people of South America, in order to get back the land that truly belongs to the people, will only get it back throug h bloods hed, Mr .

Chairman , because fewer and fewer and fewer people have gained control of land in South America over the centuries, and the only way the people of those coun tries will ever get it back is through bloodshed . MR . McKEN ZIE: That 's what we're worried about. MR . USKIW: Through bloods hed , And it is your type of definition of freedom that brings about that kind of cli max, Mr . Chairman .

That is your definition of freedom and the rights of ownership that bring about that kind of confrontation which ends up having to destroy a society in order to rebuild a new one, and that is not a mi stake that I am prepared to make in this country . Therefore, Mr . Chairman , we have to have options . We don't need to, we don't have to be dogmatic. We have a federal program that looks after those people that can afford to borrow money to buy land . We have a federal authority that has $400 million a year to advance to people who want to own land . They are partially subsidized , in fact.

We don't need a pro vincial agency to duplicate those services . But we do need an agency to provide an option to those people who either have a preference not to lock their money into land , who don't want to live poor all of their lives and to die rich, but who would rather want to build a new home, pro vide modern comfort for their famil ies, rather than tying up their capital in land resources . That is an option that should be available to anyone who wants to exercise that option, and that option has to be ava ilable for that individual that is turned down by FCC for lack of equity.

Someone has to look after the people that don't quite fit into the mold of the Farm Cre dit Co rporation run by the Government of Ca na da . And so , if you take the two programs together, you have the freedoms, Mr . Chairman: the freedom to own through one agency , the freedom to lease through another genncy. And, quite frankly , I don't know what all the fuss is all about, because all we have done in the exer cise is broaden the range and the opportunities and the freedoms for people in Manitoba .

And the hang -up is the dogmatic position of my friends opposite who are trying to protect the vested interests, Mr . Chairman . I know that the financial community would like to have a revolvin g system of financing land-owner ship every generation . I know that the financial community pre fers that system . There's no question about that . The banker s, the trust companies, the finance companies, all of those people that are interested in a revolving way of handling land transfers through the mortgage system have a ve sted interest . I am not surprised by that.

If I had moneys tied up in those corporations I would probably feel that it would be better , my profits would be greater , if the public just didn't provide other opportunities for people, that they all had to come to me . You know, that would be great. I happen to attend a number of meetings at the Winnipeg Chamber of Co mmerce and I have a little bit of light talk with the banker s of this community and, you know , after they stand up and tell us what great free enterprisers they are, Mr . Chairman, the odd one will quietly admit that they are not quite .

Like one gentleman approached me and said , "Look, we could extend our credit to agriculture far beyond what we are now doing if the province would guaran tee the loans ." That is the kind of freedom of enterprise my friends opposite are trying to repre sent in the debate here .

You know, we had the land hearings throughout the province, and we have people that aspire to own land and who clai m to be the rugged people who want to do their own thing their own way, without government intervention, tell us in their briefs - and we can stack them up a mile high - they want the government to pick up a huge subsidy so they

878 April 1, 1975 SUPPL Y - AGRICULTURE (MR . USKIW cont'd) ..... can own the land . And then they said: "But, you know, we've got to remove the estate taxe s, too , and the capital gains tax are an obstacle ." After the govern ment pays them a subsidy to get private ownership, they would then like to have the right to waive other tax measures which would impinge on them some time when they want to pass the land on to their next of kin, or where they want to pass it on by way of succession and so on . They would want all of these additional tax benefits after the people paid for the land and gave it to them .

And, do you know, we added up the cost of one such proposal, a proposal from the young farmers of Morden, who the Member for Pembina represents . And, by the way , if the New Democrats win Mo rden, we will win the other 56 seats first . They are very Cons ervative in Morden , no question. But, you know, Mr . Chair man , the young farmers of Mo rden said, "Please, Mr . Government, give us a subsidy of $106,000 so that I can own a half a

section of land ." A $106, OOO subsidy. The taxpayers of Manitoba would then get rid of the estate taxe s, the capital gains taxes , the gift tax es . Tho se are all obstacles to private ownership, That 's the kind of briefs we got in Morden , Mr . Chairman . You know, it's easy to be private entre preneurs with somebody el se's money . It 's easy to be private entrepreneurs with somebody else's money . But, Mr . Chairman, if we want to test the system , you will find that the system without public guarantees will collapse tomorrow .

The whole system that they pretend to protect would collapse tomorrow without the guarantees of the province and the guarantees bf the state and the guarantees of the international community . The whole system would collapse tomorrow . And, you know, it's a sad situation, Mr. Chairman. We have a situation where all of these phoney arg uments have not held up in some parts of the world .

We have a situation where the western world , by and large , by and large the United States , has intervened militarily because of the way in which things have developed in some countries in the world where they had to come to the rescue with money, if money didn't help, with bullets, with tanks . They didn't use the atomic bomb yet, at least not since the Second World War . MR . SHERMAN : Has it helped any since they got out? MR . USKIW: My honourable friend says, "Has it helped any since they got out ?" I say they should have never been in.

They wa sted 70 or 80 thousand American lives and perhaps a quarter of a million that have been maimed for life, Mr. Chairman , and I don't know for what . To protect the corruption that existed there for centuries and continues to exist but is now fleeing the land to the freedom of North America, to the freedom of the U .S.A . All of these positions are the j:Jositions that my friends opposite are trying to protect - the privileged few. Not freedom for everybody , Mr. Chairman , but the protection for the privileged few. And so, Mr .

Chairm an, I have no apolog ies, I have no apologies to the people of Manitoba for giving them more freedom. And, you know, Mr . Chairman , the other day we had a very good illustration, a good illustration of the inconsistencies of my friends opposite , when the Member for Souris- Killarney tried to suggest that we should deny freedom to the people who want to produce milk. For a Cons ervative Party , he was advocating that we have to take away some freedoms in order to protect, to protect a small group of people . He wasn't interested in looking after the total comm unity.

He wasn't interested in looking after 2, 400 dairy pro ducers, or 1, 800 rather , he was interested in protecting a few hundred . That 's really what he was interested in doing, and therein lies the contradiction of their pos ition. You know, we get this over and over and over again at every session. My friends oppasite speak from many angles , and when you put it all together you don't know what they're saying. When you put it all together you don't know what they're saying .

My friends opposite have not yet come out of the woods on the question of where the government's Policy should be with respect to assist ance to our cattle industry .

They've been trying to throw a few darts but they've not come out of the woods yet and , you know, I don't know whether it's because they have a hang-up , but when I spoke to my counterpart in the Province of Alberta , the Conse rvative province of this country, about what they were going to do to re spond to their cattlemen , and their Minister said to me, "Well, you know, we have to be car eful not to compromise our principles and therefore we 're not going beyond the credit program," I' m wondering where the principles of my honourable friends opposite are on these questions, because they are very quick to prod and to criticize without offering a suggestion.

I haven 't heard one, Mr. Chairm an, I haven't heard one suggestion coming from that side. In fact I have seen attempt s, Mr . Chairman , I have seen attempts on the part of members opposite to try to put the attention and the heat on

April 1, 1975 879 SUP PLY - AGR ICU LTURE (MR . USKIW cont 'd) ..... the government of this province in an area where this is legisla tive jurisdiction to deal with the proble ms , and where the Member for Morris was party to a Federal Government who put the legislation on the books, but they would stand here and try to mislead the people of the province that the responsibility is in Winnipeg, the responsibility isn't in Ottawa . And I don't know why they posture that way because it is ridiculous .

They really have to insult the people of Manitoba when they do that, because to behave in that way would imply that one thinks that the community as a whole is naive and absol utely stupid to believe the kind of things that they are trying to suggest . MR . CRAIK: You seem to think the farmers are . MR . USKIW: The Member for Riel says that I seem to think the farmers are . Well look, I don 't pretend, I don't pretend for one moment to respond to the selfish desires of any group wherein the community interest has a much more relevant position that government must adhere to .

There is no particular group that government should sacrifice all for . What govern - ment must do is to relate to the total community, to legislate in a way that benefits all of the people , not just some of the people . MR . DEP UTY CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Morris . MR . JORGENSON: Mr . Chairman, I don't intend to follow the torturous path that the Minister of Agricultur e has taken us through in the last half hour . I don't intend , for exa�ple , to deal with American fishermen, which I find, Mr . Chairman , somewhat unrelated to the sub ject before us right now .

I don't intend to deal with hospital insurance which, in my view, is somewhat removed from the subject of the Manitoba Agricultural Cre dit Corporation, or his experiences as a pilot . I don't intend to deal with the election campaign, with Chile or Vietnam, with milk - and I thought that there was an understanding earlier that once we got off that item on the estimates that we would not deal with the milk program again; the Minister returned to it - nor do I intend to deal with the cattle industry on this particular as pect of the Minister's estimates . But we 'll come to that later .

And just as soon as we get to that particular item, then the Minister will hear from us , I can ass ure him of that . MR . S HERMAN: That leaves Leviticus . MR . JORGENSON: Nor, Mr . Chairman , do I intend to deal with Leviticus . I think that subject has been pretty well covered , and if one were to liste n car efu:lly to the Minister of Mines and Resources, one came to the conclusion that the day of Jubilee had arrived , beca use the government now is going to reclaim , in the name of God, everything that it originally had in the first place - all the land s in this country.

But we do have a subject before us, sir, that I think deserves some kind of attention, and I confess to the House Leader that I had very serious hopes of getting off that particular item this evening and moving on so that we could do a car eful consideration of the Minister 's estimates, but since we seem to be stuck on this particular item I feel that perhaps I should say a few words myself . What is the issue ?

My honourable friends opposite are labouring under the impression - and it's a false impres sion; it's a monster that's created in their own minds - that some time, somehow, there is going to be either an influx of foreigners into this country who will buy up all this land , or that there are going to be a great number of weal thy people in this province who are going to buy up all this land , and therefore, in the final anal ysis, there will be land ownership only in the hands of a very few people. That , Mr . Chairman , in my opinion, is a great deal of nonsense . That will never occur .

It will never occur for a number of reaso ns . First of all, anybody that's ever had any experience in agricult ure, and I think that experience is being felt now by people other than in agl-iculture, that you can carry this busi ness of single ownership and increased size only to a certain point and then it begins to break down of its own acc ord. That has happened so often that I' m surprised that my honourable friends opposite never seem to be able to learn that lesso n.

I have known farmers in this country who operate very succes sfully at a certain level with the management that is availa ble to that particular farm, the minute that they're ill -advised enough .•. and sometimes that bad advice came from the so-ca lled experts, the people who were attempting to advise those far mers that by increasi ng the size of their operation and thereby getting themselves further into debt, that somehow or other they would be making more money .

But there is one thing that they have failed to take into consideration and I think it's a very important one , and that is the management capabilities of the individual himself. There are some people - and that's another thing that my honourable friends opposite never seem to be able to understand , that although

880 April 1, 1975 SUPPL Y - AGRICULTURE (MR. JORG ENSON cont'd) ..... we are all born equal we do not have equal capabilities - there are some people who are capable of managing large sums of money without those large sums of debt becoming a burden on their ability to manage . Others can only manage a certain amount of debt and if they're encouraged or ill-advised enough to go beyond that particular cap ability which they and they alone poss ess , then there 's a great danger that the whole thing will break down . And that has happened so many times .

Notwithstanding the fact that that particu lar farmer may work 18, 20 hours a day, his lack of management capability, his unsureness of being able to manage debt, creates a problem for that person that he's unable to overcome, and the inevitable result is a breakdown of that particular enterprise . There is one other point in this connection that I would like to make, and that is that farms in this country today , unlike 20, 30 , 40 years ago, are not labour-intensive any more . Farms to a large extent are capital -intensive .

You know, it wasn't too many years ago that the firemen on the trains, when the conversion came over from steam to diesel, fought a batt le, and it was rear guard action that they fought for a long time, to try and maintain their position as firemen on those locomotives. And I recall that because a good many of us on the farm thought how foolish it was , that it was so unnecessary to have that extra person . The same applies in agriculture today .

Whereas several years ago , with the type and size of machines that were available to the average farmer, it was necessary to hire several people in order to operate a farm . That is not the case today . One man with the line of machinery that is avail able to a farmer today, knowing what he can do and managing his farm properly, can operate upwards of two sections of land very easily. So what is the point of suggesting that there should be more farmers if one man can do what two farmers or two people or four people, or even ten people did not too many years ago ?

I don't argue for a removal of farmers, but I do argue for commo n sense; that if it is pos sible for one farmer to produce more food at lower cost today than it was ten years ago, is that not the course we should be following? Is that not the proper approach to be taken to ensure that the supplies of food that are going to be necessary to feed a hungry world are available to us ? I would think so . I don't think we should get hung up on this question. I don't think that we should be arguing that we are doing the people of this country or the world or anybody a favour by retaining X number of people on the farms.

I think a good case can be made for diversifying the processing and the preparing of that food for the world out in the rural areas rather than concentrating it all into one area . I think that 's a case that can be made only in the light of proper economics, because it is going to cost mo re for transportation , it is going to cost more for operation, in a remote area than it would in an area where there is acces sibility to trans portation . Then, of course, that ar gument will fall a little bit flat.

But insofar as it is pos sible, I would like to see service centres developed throughout this entire province to ensure that those who remain on the farm are properly serviced, and I think that can and I think that should be done . The Minister now just a few moments ago mentioned Crocus as an example of his kind of diversification. And of course , you know, the Minister always likes to believe that whatever he does, whatever he thinks of, is the proper course to follow, and I don't fault him for that .

I don't fault him for that because the Minister , you know, has a particular ideology and he honestly believes in the concentration of authority in the hand s of a few people. I am more concerned about the concentration of authority than I am about the concentration of land in a few hands, because I know that the concentration of land in a few hand s is not going to remain in a few hand s very long. We've had a continuous cycle of that kipd of a thing. At one time, my gosh, all the land in the Northwest Territories was owned by one man, Prince Rupert. All of it .

And gradually people were moved into this country and there was private ownership. I recall an area just west of Morris, Lowe Farm , and the name was taken after an American who came up here and bought all that area , and his name was Mr . Lo we . He went broke . He went broke because he could not manage all that land and he had to sell it, and he sold it at quite a loss. ' That 's one instance. There's another one near Arn ot. There was another one east of Ste . Elizabeth where I come from.

There were several Americans who had bought land in there at what they thought were speculative prices, and their intention of course was to farm it for a while and then resell it. They sold it, but they did not sell it at a profit; they sold it at a loss. And so this cycle will happen again . Land will concentrate. It will then be sold out again . And for the Minister to make a big issue of it and to suggest that

April 1, 1975 881 SUPPLY - AGRICU LTURE (MR. JO RGENSON cont'd) ••.•• it's going to continue to be concentrated in a few hands, is just nothing short of abs olute nonsense, because it will not happen . Not in this country, not in his lifetime or mine. And he should, you know, he should attempt ... If he cannot be honest with the members of this Hbuse and if he cannot be honest with the farmers of this country, he should at least try to be honest with himself. And I' m sure that he knows in his mind that what he is attempting to suggest will not happ en.

Now then, mention was made of assi stance being provided to farmers . The Minister, you know, with what humour he does posses s, attempted to make light of the situation by suggesting that farmers try to pretend that they're great free enterprisers and then yet come to the government for ass istance. Well I ask the Minister, why do they come to the govern ment for assi stance ? What are the circumstances that compel them to do such a thing ? Very simple. So many of the problems that are being faced by farmers today are not of their crea tion.

They're created by the very bodies that he thinks should ass ume greater and greater power, our governments. The cr eation of inflation is not something that is done by individuals, it's done by governments. One of the very policies that he suggested that was such a wonderful thing to these three American fishermen1the hospital insurance program , is an inflationary meth od, an inflation producing policy.

Because it's inevitable that when you remove money from the people who create the wealth and then you process it through the machinery of government, the very act of processing it through government creates not wealth , it 's a drain on the economy. It is only when you have people constantly creating wealth that you 're going to be able to keep your econo my in the proper keel. And spending money for unproductive purposes is not creating wealth at all, and he says what a terrible thing it was prior to hospital insurance coming into this country . Well Mr .

Cha irman, prior to the government taking over responsibility for hospital insurance, I was insured . I' ve been insured under hospital insurance programs since the 30's, and never at any time were members of our family worried about having to face large hospital bills or doctor bills . And I' ll tell you that kind of insurance was provided by a group of people that perhaps today are the most conse rvative minded people in this country, the Mennonites, and it was the Concordia Ho spital that provided it. That 's been in existence for a good number of years . We paid $24 . 00 a year for that kind of insurance.

Com pletely protected. And following that --(Interjection) -- $24 . 00 a year ? For an entire . • . Well that was strictly volun tary . It was not --(Interjection)- -The Minister says, isn't that inflation? That was completely voluntary. I did not have to belong to it. We did. We chose to . And when a person chooses to do something of his own accord without being coerced or forced into it, that certainly is not inflationary , nor is it anything else but the sort of thing that is beneficial to the individual who belongs to it . -- (Interjection) --W ell, listen to the Minister.

I have never heard such an asinine person in all my life, making so many stupid statements as the Minister of Agriculture . He sits there - well the Minister is indebted to his memory when he is sitting in his seat but he's indebted to his imagination when he stands up and talks . And I have never heard anyone who could make so many ridiculous statements in so short a time as the Minister of Agricul ture . He talks about people being dogmatic ; this man is so dogmatic in his opinion, in his views, that he cannot see anything but his own narrow ideology and that is government control all the way down the line.

That 's the only thing that concerns him . MR . SHERMAN: You should have quit while you're ahead , Sam . MR . JORG ENSON : And following that , following the Concordia Hospital insurance pro- . gram , we had the opportunity of belonging to Blue Cross, and my recollection is that about 90 percent of the people of this province belonged to that program . -- (Interjection) --Well all right, well maybe the Member for Radisso n will correct me . Well, the Member for Radisson will correct me. I said 90 percent . What is the percentage then ?

I am told 85 percent. -- (Interjections) --Well, I tell you, he says over 50 percent couldn't afford it . If they couldn't afford that , then they can't afford what you have today . Because the cost of hosp itals, divided by the number of people in this province1 is far mor e than Blue Cross was at that time, and I don't have the figures before me, but the feature of universality although it is embraced by my honourable friends opposite creates more problems that they're intended to solve, and it has created problems. in this province, or in this country. It has created problems throughout the world .

And we're facing one of those biggest problems today : The problem of inflation.

882 April 1, 1975 SUPPLY - AGRICU LTURE (MR . JORG ENSON cont'

d) All of the things that the Minister is attempting to say he's doing for the farmers of this province in assist ing to purchase land 1are created by the very programs that he is initiating , created by the very programs that he endorses . And one cannot help but wonder how wonder ful things would be if governments themselves would not create tliose problems and, you know, this can be a perpetual motion machine .

We have seen it happen, where one branch of govern ment will create a problem for another department, and then the minister of that department is going to come along and say, well I' ve got to solve that for him , without thinking that if the other minister hadn 't been there to create the problem in the first place, there would have been nothing to solve . And so it goes on . Where will it end?

The Minister himself, he starts a program , and if it doesn't work, as it invariably won't if it's universal or compulsory, then he will say, the rea son why it isn't working is because there isn' t a great enough control . We got to have more control on it. The example we have with eggs . Then they will form another group and they will ass ume greater control, and it still won't work.

Finally he'll get it all down to one desk, as they're attempting to do with eggs , and I' ll predict to the Minister right now, it won't work; it won't work if there is one man running the whole thing because human nature will prevent it from working, people being what they are . What is the next step ? Well the next step is totalitarian government. Is that what the Minister is looking for? Is that his answer to all the problems? Because that , Mr . Chairman , is the direction in which we're heading. Now I want the Minister to be able to tell us how far he's prepared to go . The ultimate ?

He talks about a revolution, and that 's exactly what'll happen . There will be one. There will be one. It won't be the kind that he 's thinking about but there will be one . I' m sure of that . Now then, the Minister mentioned and he used as an example the price of sugar and held that up as a shining example, or a terrible example of a fraud on the public he ... it. Well, I' ll take another one . And I want him to tell me then if that 's a fraud on the public . I know that the Minister has no enemies to hi's left, none whatsoever . Anything to his left is o.k. with him . But let's take the case of binder twine .

Binder twine is produced in three areas, an area in South America, Mexico and North Africa. Recently the price of binder twine has gone up quite a bit . The Minister knows the reason why it has . And if he doesn't, he should know. In the first place, there's a drought in North Africa, and that entire crop is wiped out. So the remainder of the two areas will have to produce all the hemp that is necessary to produce binder twine.- -(Interjection)-- Well , I' m going to explain something to the Minister. That 's all I' m attempting to do . The entire industry in Mexico is controlled by the Mexican govern ment .

That 's government control . It's not the wild-eyed buccaneers that the Minister keeps talking about . It's controlled by the people, the people of Mexico, and they've decided that there's going to be a much higher price for hemp - and I' m not criticizing them for that , there's a shorta ge, there's a greater demand, and they're responding to that very deman d. Are these people wild-eyed buccaneers too ? Are they perpetrating a fraud on the farmers of this pro vince by increasing the price of binder twine ? I think not. They're responding to an econo mic demand .

And although my honourable friends opposite keep denying the existence of the ero nomic forces that really make this country go , the laws of supply and demand , they keep denying that they exist, and yet every time that they are confronted with a problem , they are confronted with that problem because they created it themselves because they tried to avoid and circum vent a very basic law of human nature . They may be able to change a lot of things in this country, but mention was made that the MACC policy has turned 180 degrees - and

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Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	30-2-32
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	30th 2nd hansardpdf 32.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
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