January 25, 2005

Mr. Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Mr. Speaker, less than one year after we gave Buhler Versatile Inc. a $32 million unsecured interest free loan to build farm tractors in Winnipeg, it now says it is moving the plant to Fargo, North Dakota, and there is nothing in the loan contract to stop it.

Even worse, it is now revealed that the purchase price of the plant was only $28.5 million. We gave them $32 million, 115% of the total value.

John Buhler is breaking his side of the bargain to build tractors in this country. I want to know what the Minister of Industry will do to cancel this loan agreement and to recoup every penny of taxpayer money from this bogus loan?

Hon. Brian Tobin (Minister of Industry, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I would be very happy to table a letter for my hon. NDP colleague from the NDP government of the province of Manitoba, both from the premier of the province and from the minister of industry, asking the national government to approve this transfer without delay, and that we did.

Mr. Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Mr. Speaker, we all went to bat to try to get a buyer for this plant. I wrote letters personally on behalf of it and so did Lloyd Axworthy to get that loan through. We did not know they would write such a sloppy loan that this company could leave the country with our money.

Worse than that, it was revealed yesterday that John Buhler moved all the assets out of the company into a holding company and now has a secured loan against all the assets. Even if the company goes bankrupt or leaves the country, we cannot go after the assets of the company.

Again, what will the minister do? Will he unleash all the legal resources in his department to get—

The Speaker: The hon. the Minister of Industry.

Hon. Brian Tobin (Minister of Industry, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the member is quite right. He and members of the New Democratic Party and members of the government of the province of Manitoba all asked that the matter be handled in exactly the way in which it was handled.

There was no new loan made. What happened was a new buyer took on the obligation of handling an existing loan. That is all that happened. By the way, it was done at the request of the hon. member and his friends in the province of Manitoba.