1983-11-29

GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-170, an Act to authorize investment in and the provision of financial assistance to the Atlantic Fisheries for the purpose of restructuring fishery enterprises, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Hon. Members will note that there are 13 motions on the Notice Paper at report stage of Bill C-170, an Act to authorize investment in and the provision of financial assistance to the Atlantic Fisheries for the purpose of restructuring fishery enterprises.
The Chair is prepared to rule on the procedural acceptability of these motions. However, if need be, the Chair would give an opportunity to Hon. Members who wish to comment at this stage. Perhaps the Chair could be useful to Hon. Members by indicating in a preliminary way the direction in which the ruling will be made.
There are two motions standing in the name of the Hon. Member for South Shore (Mr. Crouse) which the Chair is prepared to accept; all other motions the Chair is prepared to reject. However, the Chair will hear any Hon. Member who wishes to contribute to the procedure at this time.


Mr. Rompkey:: Mr. Speaker, 1 simply want to put the case for the particular amendment which I placed on the Order Paper. It will amend the Bill in order to change the mandate of the Canadian Saltfish Corporation to allow it to become the instrument for the Northern Fisheries Development Corporation.
[DOT]	(1110)
I would simply put to you, Sir, and to the House that this Bill before the House now flows from the Kirby report. Indeed, a recommendation in the Kirby report was the setting up of a Northern Fisheries Development Corporation to administer those plants in the area north of 50 degrees, in northern Newfoundland, on the coast of Labrador and in Quebec.
Kirby examined various options, Mr. Speaker, rejected some and made the recommendation. The Kirby report, which included that recommendation, was approved by the Government of Canada. Indeed, the Government of Canada approved that particular recommendation and, I understand, wants to proceed with that course of action. My point is that this Bill which is before us now gives effect to the recommendations coming out of the Kirby report and, I submit, could very well, and should, give effect to that recommendation of the Kirby task force to create the Northern Fisheries Development Corporation. I submit the relevance of the amendment on those grounds, Mr. Speaker.
1 would further point out that the Northern Fisheries Development Corporation was accepted by both Governments in the restructuring agreement. Both Governments agreed to a Northern Fisheries Development Corporation. Indeed, that was contained in the memorandum of understanding. Therefore, both Governments want to put this into effect.
I would further submit to you, Sir, that if the Governments agree that the Canadian Saltfish Corporation is the vehicle, there will be no other time, I believe, when we can give legislative authority for that in the House of Commons other than now. The reason I submit this amendment now, Mr. Speaker, is that if the Governments want to use the Canadian Saltfish Corporation as a vehicle hereafter, it may be very difficult to permit us to do that in the House of Commons, bearing in mind the legislative timetable after Christmas.
I would further point out to you, Sir, and I would like to put on the record, the concern in the north over this particular vehicle. I have telegrams which I shall not-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order. The Chair hesitates to interrupt the Hon. Member for Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador. I have been listening to the Hon. Member very carefully and so far he has failed to indicate in what way, procedurally, the Chair could accept the Hon. Member's amendments. The Hon. Member may, as is his privilege, in normal circumstances make a case for the acceptability of the amendments. However, he has not so far enlightened the Chair as to whether or not those amendments should be procedurally acceptable. Those are the arguments the Chair would like to hear.
At this moment I would caution the Hon. Member about reading telegrams which I am sure have nothing at all to do with procedure. I will hear the Hon. Member out for a while yet; however, I would seriously invite him to come to the matter of procedure. This is what the Chair is concerned with at this moment.

November 29, 1983
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Mr. Nielsen:: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if, when the Hon. Member rises to speak to his amendments, he would deal with all of them. There are 11 amendments standing in his name. From what 1 have been hearing, he is addressing himself to "an amendment"; he is using the singular. 1 suppose it is a purpose which he is speaking about, but I would like to know where his amendments fit into the purpose so I can comment intelligently at the end of his submissions.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order. The Chair should perhaps have indicated further, during its initial statement, that it proposes to deal with the Hon. Member's amendments in a group. I will rule on the acceptability of Motion No. 12. All other amendments presented by the Hon. Member are consequential to Motion No. 12; therefore there is really no value-if I may be allowed to say so-in the Hon. Member indicating to the Chair how each other motion individually may be acceptable. I ask the Hon. Member to discuss procedure but in a general way as it pertains to Motion No. 12, all other motions being consequential to it.


Bill Rompkey: I appreciate the question of the Official Opposition House Leader, Mr. Speaker. I simply reiterate what you said, that indeed the motions leading up to the last and substantial motion are really technicalities in order to change parts of the Act to make the substantive motion read properly, which is Clause 7.1(1), which would allow the corporation to own or operate plants north of 50, basically St. Anthony and the Labrador coast, and to harvest fish for processing at those facilities; to own and operate vessels for the harvesting of such fish; to market fish processed in the area; and to carry on, for any purpose in respect of any fish processed at a facility, the activities it has the power to carry on under Section 7 or Section 8. Otherwise we change the definition of fish in the Act to mean not only groundfish but indeed shellfish, crustaceans and other forms of marine life.
I appreciate your position, Mr. Speaker, with regard to the technicalities of this amendment, but as a Member of Parliament I want to use this time and this vehicle to lay on the floor of the House the concerns of the people I represent. I say to both Governments that it is not good enough to say, and we must not say, to the people of the north that we will deal with their case at some later point. The people in the south, if I may describe it that way, have been looked after by this Act.
I will not read them into the record, Mr. Speaker, but the town council from St. Anthony- *


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order, please. I have an obligation to cut off the Hon. Member at this time because he is obviously not contributing to the procedural debate in any way, shape or form.


Mr. Crouse:: On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker. I share the concern of the Hon. Member for the problem he faces in his riding. We have been made aware of his request for an extension of the powers of the corporation and I know from personal experience that in this area of Canada it is
practically impossible for private enterprise to function in a viable, profitable manner. We viewed with some concern the establishment of the corporation in its initial stages and the fact that it was given the right to control all of the saltfishing industry in Atlantic Canada-which is in effect what it ended up to be, the control of the saltfishing industry in Newfoundland. But when it was established it had the effect of putting two of the largest and oldest saltfish companies in my Province of Nova Scotia out of business. This was simply because these companies were in the habit of going to Newfoundland to purchase what we call Labrador slob, bring it back and dry it in the large driers owned by A.M. Smith and Company in Halifax and by Zwicker and Company in my home town of Lunenburg.
The amendment proposed by the Hon. Member seemed to extend the powers of this company. 1 wonder if he has given any thought to impressing upon the Government the necessity of bringing in a separate Bill. The Member stated this was the only opportunity he would have to bring forth changes which would empower the Government to purchase not only salt-fish north of 50, but all other species caught and landed in that area. This would imply that there is not going to be any future time at which this measure could be brought forward.
The concern that we have here is that the amendment proposed by the Hon. Member is, in effect, one that should deal with the Saltfish Marketing Corporation, while Bill C-170, presently before the House, deals with the restructuring of the Fishing industry, basically in Atlantic Canada and Quebec. I see here a conflict of interest between these two Bills. While we are not intending to oppose the amendment, if it were acceptable to the Chair, I would like the Member, if he may, Mr. Speaker, through you, to explain to the House why he stated that this would be the only opportunity available to him to seek an amendment of this type.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order. Before hearing another Hon. Member, I should point out to the House that in the Chair's opinion what is going on now is debate on the substance of the Bill. I have not yet heard comments which would help the Chair procedurally.


Erik Nielsen: I have a brief comment which might appeal to Members, Mr. Speaker. I can see by virtue of the last paragraph of the amendment that the Chair would have some concern about it since, by our practices normally, that part of the amendment at any rate would have to be accompanied by a message from His Excellency. I can see that there may well be some serious defects in it. Might I suggest though, in order to provide a vehicle for the Hon. Member to speak to the subject, that the Chair may wish to delay ruling on the amendment until the Member is heard, and perhaps one on this side is heard, with respect to the principle being expressed in it. In other words, I am suggesting that, notwithstanding any rule of relevance, the Member be free to discuss his amendment, to address the concerns that he has, and perhaps after that the Chair might be disposed to rule on it.
November 29, 1983


Miss Campbell (South West Nova):: Mr. Speaker, as Chairman of the Committee, I suggest that what the Hon. Member is asking for is certainly contained within the powers of the Bill before us. I am sure that the problem existing at St. Anthony in particular could be incorporated under the powers that are so wide in this Bill, even to the restructuring in Newfoundland. It could have been brought into the agreement with Newfoundland one way or another unless there was a reason. We did not hear that in Committee at the time. Looking at the Bill and the powers within the Bill, it seems to me that what the Hon. Member is looking for could be incorporated under the powers given to the Minister in the Bill.


Bill Rompkey: Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, I would simply like to thank the House Leader of the Official Opposition for his intervention and the possibility of an opportunity to debate the substance. I would like to say to you, Sir, that during the second reading debate I laid out before the House my arguments as to why this should take place. I recognize the technical difficulties that you have and the technical difficulties that the House has. As a Member of Parliament I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity, bearing in mind that we do not know when another opportunity will come. How many times have we had fisheries Bills before the House of Commons?
The concern is, Mr. Speaker, that there may be fishermen and plant workers who do not have jobs in the spring. I am concerned about that. I am concerned about plants opening in the spring and about fishermen who are working and are productive in the spring. There is concern in these communities now. Since there is insecurity and uncertainty, people are not investing money and not spending. I am sure that the Hon. Member for Yukon understands that because he represents the north and has lived in the north. He knows what I mean.
I simply want to bring to the attention of the House, governments and the public in general the concern north of 50 for bringing stability, security and certainty to the fishery in that area. If this is not the time-and, of course, I accept your ruling on this amendment-it would at least be a vehicle to bring to the attention of those in the position to do something the necessity to act quickly in order to put those plants in their proper order and to get them working by this spring.
I want to thank Members opposite for their support. I also know there is support on this side of the House, including that of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans who I know supports this in principle and wants to do everything he can to help those people. I want to say again, as I said at second reading, that I appreciate the efforts of the Minister in this whole restructuring effort. I accept your ruling on this, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: I wish to thank Hon. Members for their contribution to the procedural matter. I have heard the Hon. Member for Yukon as well. I could perhaps remind him that this period for initial comments,
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before the Chair makes its ruling, should be taken as an opportunity for Members to make the sort of comments that the Hon. Member for Yukon suggests we do at another time. It would hardly be procedurally acceptable for the Chair to allow debate on motions which it feels are very much out of order and then make the ruling after that debate has taken place. In my opinion, that would create an unacceptable precedent in the conduct of the affairs of the House.
Therefore, I am prepared to rule. Motions No. 10 and 11, standing in the name of the Hon. Member for South Shore (Mr. Crouse), are acceptable and should be debated and voted on separately.
Motion No. 12 gives the Chair serious misgivings. All of the other motions in amendment offered by the Hon. Member for Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador (Mr. Rompkey) are consequential to Motion No. 12 and therefore I propose to consider them as a group. Motion No. 12 appears to propose an amendment to the Saltfish Act which is not part of the Bill now before the House. As well, the motion infringes upon the financial initiative of the Crown in that it provides for the expenditure of public funds. In fact, the Hon. Member recognizes this in the last section of Motion No. 12. This section does not alter the fact that the amendment infringes on the financial initiative of the Crown, and there are many rulings which confirm that provisions of this kind are not sufficient to make this kind of amendment acceptable.I refer Hon. Members particularly to a ruling by one of my predecessors in a similar case on May 17, 1972, which can be found on page 307 of the Journals.
May I also refer Hon. Members to Citations 540 and 543 of Beauchesne's Fifth Edition. Citation 540 states in part:
The guiding principle in determining the effect of an amendment upon the financial initiative of the Crown is that the communication, to which the Royal Recommendation is attached, must be treated as laying down once for all (unless withdrawn and replaced) not only the amount of the charge, but also its objects, purposes, conditions and qualifications. In relation to the standard thereby fixed, an amendment infringes the financial initiative of the Crown not only if it increases the amount but also if it extends the objects and purposes, or relaxes the conditions and qualifications expressed in the communication by which the Crown has demanded or recommended a charge.
Citation 543(1) states:
If any motion or bill or proceeding is offered to be moved, whether in the House or in a committee which requires, but fails to receive, the recommendation of the Crown, it is the duty of the Speaker to announce that no question can be proposed upon the motion, or to direct the withdrawal of the bill, or to say that the problem may be rectified by the proposer obtaining a Royal Recommendation.
Finally, the Hon. Member proposes to add an entirely new proposition to the Bill which is foreign to it, as agreed to at the second reading stage. Such an amendment is quite beyond the scope of the Bill. In this regard, I would refer Hon. Members to Citation 437 of Beauchesne's Fifth Edition.
For all these reasons, I must find Motion No. 12 out of order.
As I stated a few moments ago, Hon. Members will realize that Motions Nos. 1 to 9 and Motion No. 13 are consequential

November 29, 1983
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to Motion No. 12 and, as such, are, without that motion, irrelevant to the Bill and hence out of order. Accordingly, the question before the House is Motion No. 10.


Mr. Pinard:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have had consultations and it seems there is unanimous consent to dispose of the Bill today, notwithstanding Standing Order 78(13) which prescribes:
When a Bill has been amended or debate has taken place thereon at the report stage, the same shall be set down for a third reading and passage at the next sitting of the House.
Notwithstanding Standing Order 78(13), I think there is unanimous consent that all questions necessary to dispose of the report stage and third reading stage of Bill C-170 be put today before 5.45 p.m. in order to dispose of this legislation completely.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, there is consent. I am perhaps a little confused by the final words of the Government House Leader. I assume he meant not later than 5.45 p.m., because I think we had a House order last Thursday to the effect that all questions will be put at 5.45 o'clock. In other words, 1 would not want to see the question put before 5.45 p.m.


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, our intent would be the contrary, that the necessary questions to dispose of report stage and third reading be put before 5.45 p.m. so that we can dispose of Bill C-170 before proceedings are interrupted to deal with and vote on supply business. If the Hon. Member wants, we could specify 5.45 p.m. in the order. That is why I said "before 5.45 o'clock", it being understood that we would dispose of Bill C-170 completely before 5.45 o'clock.


Erik Nielsen: I understand, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: The House has heard the proposal put by the Hon. President of the Privy Council (Mr. Pinard). Is there unanimous consent for the proposal?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Agreed and so ordered.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: That Bill C-170 be amended by adding immediately after line 36 at page 4 the following new clause:
"9. The powers and authority authorized by this Act shall be withdrawn on
a date five years from the proclamation date of this Act unless they have been
re-authorized by Parliament prior to that withdrawal date."
He said: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity at report stage to move Motion No. 10 to amend Bill C-170. This amendment is moved in the hope of alleviating the concerns of the representatives of independent companies as well as those put forth by spokesmen of the Governments of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick during hearings at the committee stage with respect to the excessive powers granted to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. De Bane) and the federal Government in this Bill.
If there are any doubts about that statement, I could present literally volumes of documentary evidence as presented to the
marathon sessions of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry hearings which began on Monday morning, November 21, 1983, and which concluded in the wee small hours of Friday morning at approximately 4.30 a.m.
For example, the representatives of the Seafood Processors Association of Prince Edward Island stated, among other things, that the:
-impact and implications of this Bill will be most detrimental-if not, indeed, totally disastrous-to the development or continuance of a viable Atlantic fishery.
A spokesman for the Government of New Brunswick's Fisheries Department asked for the following specific terms, namely:
We would like a guarantee that our fishery will receive a fair share of resource allocation. We would also like to be assured that the restructuring will not interfere with our markets. We are particularly concerned that we are not subjected to a bureaucratic marketing agency that would interpose its bulk between our processors and their customers.
In addition, we would like to participate with the federal Government in a development agreement so that we can continue the innovative, the progressive programs that have assisted the development of our industry, helping it adjust yet again to changing conditions.
The spokesman for the eastern fisheries federation based in Halifax, Nova Scotia presented an excellent brief to the committee. Among other things, he stated: that the Department of Fisheries and the Government in general must be more accountable. Mr. Billard's words:
This Bill leaves absolutely no provision for discussion, debate or review. Bureaucrats will have discretionary powers heretofore unparalleled-
That is his word, "unparalleled".
-in the fishing industry.
He also stated:
If small investors are unable to take risks in the fish processing sector- without fear of government take overs, then there will be no investment. If there are no investments then there will be far fewer fish plants-and that means less fish sold to plants and less competition.
In his view, our fishermen need strong fish processors as much as they need strong fish stocks. 1 am not so sure they need a Government this strong in the fishing industry.
This is the collective voice of the inshore fishermen. For anyone who attended the committee hearings last week, there is no doubt about the almost unanimous voice from the industry and the Provinces expressing the fear that government intervention as authorized by this Bill will not just be a minor aberration in the life of the fishing industry, and that it will not find itself privatized within a few years. Their fear, and it is deeply founded, is that the powers given to this Government will be permanent and, of course, they will be detrimental.
It is for these reasons, Mr. Speaker, that I move this amendment in the hope that it will strengthen the Bill and alleviate the fears of the many spokesmen representing literally thousands of plant workers and fishermen who came before our committee throughout the entire period of last week.


Mr. Brian Tobin (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, I have a few comments
November 29, 1983

in reply to the amendment of the Hon. Member for South Shore. As he knows, we had a number of days of hearings and in particular very long sessions, one that lasted nearly 20 hours. The Hon. Member is correct when he said many witnesses came before the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry and indicated a concern that the injection of public capital into the fishing industry did not give rise to a kind of permanent solution to the fishing industry in eastern Canada; that is to say, we would not be taking the first step today toward long-term nationalization.
As the Hon. Member knows, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. De Bane) had on many occasions publicly as well as on a number of occasions before the committee indicated that that was not our intention. As I said a few days ago, if there are a hundred things the Government could list it wanted to do, injecting capital into the fishing industry would not be one of them. We are there because there really is no alternative.
The Hon. Member will recall that we rejected this amendment in committee because of the idea of saying that on a certain date at a certain time five years hence automatically government authority to be involved in the fishing industry will be dissolved. To suggest that at that particular point in time we would have to sell off our equity would be a very bad business practice, because we would find ourselves advertising to all potential buyers in the marketplace that in approximately three years, on such and such a date, we would be forced by Parliament to sell off the industry and a very good deal by anybody in the market could be had.
I put a question to Mr. Ron Burmer of the Fisheries Council of Canada who appeared before the committee. I said: "From a business point of view, if you were planning on selling an asset, would you predetermine the day and announce it to all potential buyers in the marketplace?" He said: "No". Then I said: "We want to run this on a businesslike basis, so from that point of view would the Government be wise to predetermine a date on which to sell off its assets? Would it not in fact be akin to cherry picking?" Mr. Burner looked at me and said: "Yes, in that circumstance we would all engage in cherry picking"; that is, buying off because we must sell the lucrative pieces that are up for sale, leaving in the hands of the Government those chunks of an industry which do not make money.
1 have a great deal of respect-and i say that sincerely-for the concerns of the Hon. Member that when this industry becomes profitable we privatize it again and get Government out. I also agree wholeheartedly with his concern. However, I disagree that the most appropriate and businesslike way to do it is to predetermine five years down the road a particular day, time and place on which these assets will be disbursed. For that reason we do not support this amendment.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. 1 wonder whether the Hon. Member who just took his seat could address his comments to my amendment. He failed entirely to do that. I just want to point out to the Chair that the
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amendment does not mention forced sale or privatization of the assets of any restructured company within a five-year period. The amendment seeks-1 am sorry the Hon. Member either misread its intent or used this period in order to make a strong pitch of his own-to return to Parliament a measure of control over the restructured companies and over the Government.
I point out that the amendment indicates that the powers and authorities authorized by the Act shall be withdrawn on a date five years from the proclamation date of the Act unless they have been reauthorized by Parliament. That is the wording. There is no mention that they must be sold, which the Hon. Member sought to imply. 1 think his comments with regard to the point he raised are valid and there should not be a cut-off date, as he so properly stated. That would simply be a signal sent ahead to everyone to sit back and wait because on day X the axe will fall and all this will be sold. That is not the purpose of the amendment. If the Government finds after five years that it cannot privatize or offer it back to the private sector in that five-year time frame, the amendment seeks to ask the Government to return to Parliament for reauthorization.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: The Chair is prepared to recognize the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary. However, I cannot agree or disagree with the comments of the Hon. Member for South Shore. I gather he was addressing himself to the rule of relevancy, in the sense that the Parliamentary Secretary did not address the specific purpose of the amendment. Certainly the Chair must enforce the rule of relevancy; it is a difficult rule to enforce. The Chair cannot oblige an Hon. Member to relate to certain specific points which in another Hon. Member's mind are of the utmost importance. However, with the indulgence of the House the Chair will recognize the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary on a point of order, because he has already made his contribution.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I want to acknowledge the fine line of difference which has been drawn by my hon. friend opposite. My comments were made in the vein that the amendment itself arises out of a concern which has been expressed repeatedly that the Government reprivatize the industry.
As to the specific motion, the committee accepted an amendment put by the Hon. Member opposite that the Minister holding the shares of the company be required to report to Parliament once a year on the operations of the new company. It is my contention that that annual report to Parliament meets the concern outlined in the proposed amendment. Again, for that reason we do not support the amendment.


Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, it is my intention to speak very briefly on this subject because when we debated Bill C-170 at second reading 1 spoke at some length on the necessity of imposing a time limitation on the awesome powers of the authorities which are to be granted to the Government pursuant to this Bill. 1 am very pleased the Hon. Member for South Shore (Mr. Crouse) was able to

November 29, 1983
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act formulate such an amendment as this one. 1 hope it will find favour with the Government.
What we are doing with Bill C-170 is very much the same type of thing we did with the Grand Trunk Railway and other railway companies many years ago when we established Canadian National, something into which Parliament was very much forced. It did not really want to do that, but things got to such a sad and sorry state in the railway business that it became a necessity. Such is the case with the East Coast fishery. If I might paraphrase the Hon. Member for Egmont (Mr. Henderson), he said that the so-called solution proposed in Bill C-170 was probably the least bad of many poor options. As was said by the Hon. Member for South Shore, it gives unparalleled power to the Government, awesome and unparalleled power, which we know will be delegated to the bureaucracy because the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. De Bane), who is present today, is unable to keep day to day control over these matters. Therefore his authority over these matters must be delegated to the people on his staff.
At the hearings of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry, every representation indicated distrust of government on the part of people in the fishery business. No one appeared to be more distrustful of government than fishermen themselves, as represented through their unions. Normally we can expect unions to be of a more socialist frame of mind than perhaps the majority of the population, but in this case it appeared that the people who make their livelihood on fishing vessels or in fish plants more than anyone else were distrustful of government and wanted to see a time limit placed on the authorities we were to give to government.
One problem with which we in the House are faced is that whenever we establish a new governmental institution, a new department or branch of government, a Crown corporation or any other entity, the entity always sees its first order of priority as being able to maintain itself. Also, it is very difficult to get rid of such an entity. There is always a problem with dismantling government institutions. If we pass this amendment and it becomes part of the law, there will be an incentive right from its inception for the people concerned with the new institutions, because just a few years down the road the Government will have to set aside its powers and authorities and we will of necessity have to put the fishing business back in private hands where it rightfully belongs.
I disagree with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Tobin) who said that having a set determination date will be a major impediment if assets are to be sold at the end of that period. I do not disagree with him entirely when he says that this will naturally flow from the motion, because surely the idea is to dispose of the assets that will be owned by these new companies and get them into private hands. There might be some difficulty with that, but 1 do not think it is an overriding difficulty. That it will be necessary for people involved in the new fish companies to begin planning a
system of privatization right from the start will, 1 think, work to the benefit of the East Coast fisheries.
If all else fails, Sir, my colleague, the Hon. Member for South Shore, has included in his amendment the concept that the Government can come back to Parliament and ask for an extension of that five-year period. If improvements have not been made and if there is real difficulty disposing of the assets into private hands, that option is always available to the Government. However, it does mean that Parliament will again have to look at the situation and approve any possible extension.


Coline M. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the amendment proposed by the Hon. Member for South Shore (Mr. Crouse), but I would have liked to see it provide for a period of less than five years. The purpose of this Bill is simply to restructure the two super companies. The agreement the Government has reached with the Province of Newfoundland, according to the letter submitted by Dr. Kirby to the Bank of Nova Scotia, provides that at the end of a ten-year period the bank may offer the shares to the Government and the Government will have to purchase at par the Class A preferred shares which are then held by the bank in Holding Company "Y".
Once those two super companies are restructured and once the Quebec Pecheurs Unis is restructured, I do not see that there is a need for the continuation of the Bill. First, the $100 million which has been guaranteed in the Bill must be approved by Parliament in the future. It must be included in the estimates. That could be done under another program or through the Department of Fisheries.
That would happen if the development program designed to aid the small processors we have heard about, which is a part of the agreement to co-operate between Nova Scotia and the federal Government, comes under that part of the Bill? Once that agreement is arranged, only then will we know how that developmental program will help the small independents. I agree with Mr. Crouse when he says that those small independents came before us last week and told us that Newfoundland independents are protected by $12 million worth of guarantees from the Province of Newfoundland. In Quebec, the Pecheurs Unis is being nationalized. The Government will not touch the rest of the independents but has made an offer of assistance to them for upgrading and modernization in the amount, I am told, of 60 per cent.
Under this Bill or in the arrangement made between the Government and the Province of Newfoundland, there has been nothing given to independent processors from Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. That was a concern we heard from independents like Fishpac and from the exporters group who asked us what would happen to them and who would they have to deal with in order to accomplish the $400 million worth of sales that we were told about.
I agree with Mr. Crouse about the duration of the powers of this Bill. I have concern with the fact that written into the agreements will be the enterprise allocations for fish for these
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two super companies. The companies that will now be restructured had for the last two years an enterprise allocation. However, in my view what will hurt the inshore fishery even more is the percentages of those enterprise allocations which will be written into the agreements for the next five-year period. Those percentages, even for five years, will hurt the inshore fishery. The inshore fishery has negotiated with AGAC its total allowable groundfish catch and how that catch will be divided between the two sectors, offshore and inshore. 1 am sorry that the amendment proposed by Mr. Crouse does not curtail the powers-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order, please. The Hon. Member should refer to the other Hon. Member as the Hon. Member for South Shore.


Coline M. Campbell: I am sorry, I mean the Hon. Member for South Shore. You can tell that J am concerned, Mr. Speaker, and would like to support his proposed amendment. However, 1 am even more concerned about the powers of this Bill. We will only see those powers in the restructuring of the super companies and the only protection that is included in the Bill, in my view, is Clause 4(2). I will read that clause into the record because I think that this is the same concern as the concern of the Hon. Member for South Shore. The clause reads as follows:
The Minister shall dispose of such portion of any interest in a fishery enterprise-
That is something we must bear in mind. Does that clause mean that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. De Bane) who is in control of resource allocation will now be able to give to these new super companies a certain percentage of that allocation? We have heard the concerns about the redfish. Understandably, the redfish was of prime concern to the Provinces in the Gulf. However, what about the other ground-fish? We heard the Deputy Minister of Fisheries for Nova Scotia state that he thought the percentages should be written into the agreement. This does not take into account the ups and downs of groundfishing for the inshore fisheries. This does not allow for further negotiations through AGAC. What is the purpose of this proposal?
Today 1 spoke with an inshore fisheries representative who had attended AGAC meetings for years and 1 learned that there will be a meeting tomorrow. Will these percentage allocations be brought up and incorporated because of the powers of this Bill? The Bill will be passed today. Are we passing the Bill today so that tomorrow morning at the groundfish advisory committee meeting percentage allocations under the powers of this Bill can be incorporated without any consideration for the concerns of the inshore fishery?
1 agree, Mr. Speaker, that there are concerns about the duration of the powers of this Bill. The Bill should be used only to restructure those companies. However, there is an inconsistency in the words of the Hon. Member for South Shore because, through the agreement with Newfoundland, we are already tied in for ten years. The bank is allowed ten years to get rid of its shares if it in fact wants to get rid of its shares.
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
There is a contradiction, Mr. Speaker. Under this Bill we are allowing unlimited powers to the Minister of Fisheries without any restrictions other than the one contained in Clause 4(2). 1 recognize the concerns of the Hon. Member for South Shore, but if we are going to pass an amendment, it should provide for a shorter time limit. I will agree with any time limit, but I am afraid that a time limit of five years will totally destroy the inshore fishery through the allocation of the AGAC quotas on a percentage basis to the new super companies in order to make them economically viable.
In my mind, two of the reasons this Bill cannot be supported is the concerns for the power it gives the Minister and the concerns aobut the groundfish allocations. I also have the ultimate concern that in five years' time, with this injection of $138 million into the super companies-that time is too long- we do not know what effect this will have immediately on the independents in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. This is a one-time injection of capital which I shall have more to say about later because I do not believe it will be a one-time injection. The Minister or a future Minister of Fisheries may find that he will have to go back for more money because under the terms of the arrangements it is now known who will take up the excesses and how they will be dealt with by those responsible. Perhaps five years are needed for that, but in my view, if it is a one-time injection of capital there is no need for the Bill after the restructuring. I agree with the Hon. Member for South Shore and support his contention that there should be a time limit set out in the Bill.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. 1 listened with great interest to the comments of the Hon. Member for South West Nova. I am a little bit puzzled that at this late date the Hon. Member has expressed these views. I have tried to recall the hearings over the last five days and it seems to me that these concerns were not expressed then.
In light of the Hon. Member's comments, we on this side would accept a subamendment to my amendment if she wished to place one on the record at this time. We could be willing to accept that, and if she can get her colleagues to agree, then it may be acceptable to the House. I throw that suggestion out to let you know, sir, that there will be agreement on this side if she wishes to amend my amendment to two or three years. We would accept that subamendment.


Coline M. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I feel that there is conflict in this amendment, just from the point of view of having chaired the committee, if we limit the restructuring of these two super companies to one year. I personally feel that the Bill will be around a lot longer, because in Nova Scotia we do not know what the time frame will be. We are told it will be five years. In Newfoundland, we definitely know that the bank, which would not appear before the committee, is tied in to not receiving any of the 5 per cent for ten years. I guess what I am saying is that I agree with and support the suggestion that there should be a limitation, but on the other side of the

November 29, 1983
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act question the negotiations and the Bill itself have already set it beyond five years.
As to the other concerns, I certainly questioned the Minister of Fisheries for Nova Scotia as to the enterprise allocation when he was before the committee on Thursday night, and as well I questioned the independents. The Nova Scotia Deputy Minister said that he would be in favour of a percentage of the enterprise allocation being incorporated in the agreement. I am not sure that tomorrow's meeting in Montreal on AGAC will not do that, even though there is opposition from the weaker sector, the inshore fishery.
As for the independents, I certainly mentioned and questioned them on several occasions and specifically questioned the Nova Scotia Minister of Fisheries, who said that the independents in Nova Scotia-and he referred to the Hon. Member for South Shore-were independent and that no one had come to him. I question that because I know of two cases in South West Nova who feel, regardless of this Bill, that there would be nothing for them in guarantees from either the Province of Nova Scotia, as in Newfoundland with regard to the $12 million, or from the federal Government.


Mr. Fred McCain (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the support for the concept of a sunset clause in this Bill. I have to tell the Hon. Member for South West Nova (Miss Campbell) that this does not in any way interfere with the ten-year arrangement which may have been made with the banks; or at least, if it does interfere in any way, it is not an insoluble situation. If the Government does what it says it would strive to do, namely dispose of the structure to private enterprise, that undertaking should be incorporated in any agreement with private enterprise. The Government or the purchasers would then become responsible for such residual portion of outstanding debt to the bank as might exist.
I do not see any conflict between that and a five-year term for the Bill, with renewal if necessary. My experience in the House has been that if a logical case can be made that something is to the detriment of the Canadian economy in general and the Atlantic fishery in particular, the House would co-operate in the extension of time. So I do not share the Hon. Member's concern about the ten-year clause in the agreement.
I come from a constituency which the local office of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in New Brunswick advises me has 3,000 people who are dependent for full-time or part-time employment on the processing industry in the Bay of Fundy area. Probably half that number depend on the industry for full-time employment and the other half depend on it for part-time employment to supplement their other income.
This is, then, a matter of major concern to me and to my constituents. There is not a single plant that is to be operated under the nationalization structure and I am happy about that. What I am really concerned about when I see the agreements that have been made, which include the transfer of part of the scallop fleet from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland, are the constraints that may be imposed on the inshore fishermen. In this, my concerns are parallel with those of the Hon. Member
for South West Nova. Fishermen and their employees are concerned about their futures should this occur.
The greatest problem is that there was no consultation in the Fisheries Committee and there was no consultation with Government. As a result of consultation within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, a conclusion was reached which was the only solution offered to resolve the very serious social problem of unemployment.
The search for a solution to this social problem does not address the long-run consequences which may be suffered from the nationalization of this industry. This emphasizes the necessity for such an industry to operate under a syndicated directorate, under a creditors' management proposition, or any other proposition which would allow it to enter world markets in a relatively independent and free enterprise structure.
As I have said before in debate on this Bill, I doubt very much if there is any capability in the structures of Canada which can equal the marketing capabilities of the fish processing structures in Atlantic Canada. But we are going to lose those marketing capabilities, or if we do not lose them totally we are going to put them under the direction of people who may not be familiar with the process. We cannot allow this to happen any more than we can sell potatoes to 100 countries over a period of time, meet the quality requirements and make the decisions which have to be made over the telephone. That is the question which I raised in committee. I would like to see this Bill have a sunset date. I see no problem of renewing it in the House of Commons if and when an urgency arises which does demand that extension.
I am concerned that there is an opportunity for the Government to have controlling shares in both intergovernmental arrangements for the operation of the fisheries in the two Maritime Provinces of Canada. I believe that there should be an element of balance between the fishery people themselves, the provincial Government and the Government of Canada in the distribution of voting shares in that company. The Government of Canada will find itself in a very serious conflict of interest-no matter who may be the Minister who heads the corporation-when it has at its disposal the allocation of quotas, the enterprise allocation, which has been a proposition and a partial policy of government, and all the other aspects of regulations and licensing over which it has control, while at the same time managing the sale of fisheries. There are the representations which were made to that committee in all sincerity, asking the Government do not put itself in a position of conflict of interest.
There is within this Bill the capability of loaning $100 million to the fishing industry. However, when the Minister and his staff were asked if this money in fact would be available to independents who found themselves in a difficult financial position, it was not positively addressed by either the Minister or his staff. If at this date the Minister wishes to address that question and say "Yes, in small bites when necessary, there will in fact be prompt consideration given to
November 29, 1983

the application of an independent for a loan as guaranteed under this Act", it would put somewhat of a different light on the position the independents would occupy in the presence of the elephantine-sized structure which is being put in place under public control.
By all means, Mr. Speaker, let us give favourable consideration to this amendment which does nothing to the principle of the Bill. It does nothing to contradict the objectives of the Government, as outlined by the Minister and his staff. What it does do, however, is give an element of confidence to the other people in the fishing industry that perhaps somewhere down the line business may return to normal. 1 think that is important. 1 believe the independents would then feel they could hang on, perhaps for five years, if there were guaranteed loans from the Government to replace their credit destroyed by virtue of the bank attitude toward this structure.
These things have to be resolved. If we were contradicting the Bill by this amendment, I would say to you, Mr. Speaker, that it would deserve to be rejected, and so would the independents who asked for a sunset clause. But we are not. We do not have any opportunity really to interfere in the management of the structure for, let us say, four-plus years if there is a five-year sunset clause as this amendment suggests. It does not hamper the Government and I believe it would indicate to fishermen and to this House that the Government has the same spirit of understanding and co-operation which existed throughout the committee hearings. There was no political confrontation in those committee meetings per se. There was, in fact, the presentation of the facts as the witnesses saw them. They were given open consideration by virtually every member of the committee. Only when one tried to offer amendments which would represent the presentations of the witnesses did we seem to break on party lines.
1 believe the remarks of the Hon. Member for South West Nova are indicative of the spirit in which that Bill was in fact discussed in committee. I wish it could be discussed in this House in the same spirit and with the same objectives in mind, namely, the wellbeing of the fishing industry as a whole. The objectives should not be the wellbeing of the Crown Corporation, but the wellbeing of the private enterprise structure, which has served us so well and which has remained afloat financially in hard times.
We should consider as well those who had exaggerated expectations which were never realized and, therefore, ended up in a position of bankruptcy. Let us consider them all in the generosity of spirit which I believe is intended in this Bill as it addresses the fishing industry. Let us not be divided on strictly partisan terms, but be together for the greater benefit of the fishing industry of Atlantic Canada.


Mr. Howard Crosby (Halifax West):: Mr. Speaker, let me begin by saying that this is the first opportunity I have had to address the House on the matter of Bill C-170, an Act to restructure the Atlantic fishery. I recognize that at this point we are dealing with a very narrow issue, in particular the amendment proposed by my colleague, the Hon. Member for South Shore (Mr. Crouse). At the same time I believe we have
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
to consider that amendment in the context of the total provisions of the Bill and the background against which the Bill was promoted by the Government and introduced in this House by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. De Bane).
Let me say, first of all, with respect to the amendment that I feel it is simply an honest attempt by a Member of Parliament, who has had vast experience in the fisheries as well as in the House of Commons, to provide a safety valve to those who are concerned and suspicious about the implementation of the provisions of this Bill. 1 see no need to view with any degree of suspicion the motives of those who would support this amendment, because their motives are quite obvious. It provides and ensures that at some future point the provisions of this Bill will be reviewed, not at the request of anyone, not at the demand of persons who are injured or adversely affected by the provisions of the Bill, but as of right in the normal course of parliamentary processes.
That is what this sunset provision is all about, Mr. Speaker. It simply allows and ensures that the sun will not set once and for all on the provisions of this Bill, but that the provisions will again, at some future point, be re-examined and reviewed by the Chamber responsible for the enactment of the Bill, the House of Commons. I believe that is an obligation which we ought to impose upon ourselves to satisfy those who are justly concerned about the potential adverse effect of this Bill.
I said, Mr. Speaker, that we must consider this amendment in the context of what has gone on before. I want to review very briefly the background to Bill C-170, an Act to provide for the restructuring of the Atlantic fishery. We were first informed of the actions of the Government with respect to the Atlantic fishery in January of 1982. At that time the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) announced the formation of the Task Force on Atlantic Fisheries and indicated that one, Mr. Michael J. L. Kirby, would act as chairman of the task force. The press release which accompanied that announcement gave a very clear indication of what Mr. Kirby's task was and what he was to do, and underlined the fact that there was an urgency involved in the process. In fact, the release under the hand of the Prime Minister said that the task force was to proceed on an urgent basis to review the Government's policies and regulations which affected the fishery. It was also to consider the social context of the Atlantic fishery, particularly the concern of people in the Maritime Provinces and the Province of Newfoundland over the loss of employment which was being experienced because of disruptions in the fishing industry.
In December of 1982, that same year, we were asking in the House of Commons when we would receive the report of the task force, which was presumably given urgent priority by the Government. My colleague, the Hon. Member for South Shore, as well as myself, asked on occasion when we would receive the report. We were receiving a report by what was termed a "trial balloon". Mr. Kirby and the members of his task force on the Atlantic fisheries kept leaking out the things which they were considering doing. They were going to nationalize the fishing industry. Each time one of these trial balloons went up, the people concerned were faced with the prospect of

November 29, 1983
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
a dramatic and drastic change in the conduct of the fishing industry. They were faced with that possibility for over 12 months.
Finally, in February, 1983, approximately 14 months after the institution of the task force, its report was made public. Since that time the fishing industry in Atlantic Canada has reviewed very carefully the recommendations in the report. Much argument and discussion was generated. But when the Government finally made its decision with respect to the implementation of the report, as represented by Bill C-170, we have something very much different from the original recommendations, something which has caused elements of the Atlantic fishery great concern for their future.
The independent operators in the Atlantic fishery look at the provisions of Bill C-170 and see no assistance for them. On the contrary, there is relatively massive assistance for their major competitors, the large corporations which will be rolled into an even larger corporation in the case of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. So it is not hard to realize that after months of consideration, months of rumours and speculation, they are now faced with a Bill which does not give any real indication of what will transpire in the future.
Therefore we must ask ourselves if the independent operators and others engaged in the Atlantic fishery have a legitimate concern? The answer comes back very quickly that yes, they certainly do. In particular, the independent operators in Nova Scotia have no reason to believe that six months, one, two or three years from now they will be able to operate the businesses they have successfully operated in the past. They have no reason to believe the Government will protect them from events which will be damaging to their fishing operations. All they can do is wait and see what happens, how this Bill is implemented by the Government, and how they are affected.
All they ask us to do, Mr. Speaker, is to assure them of a future review of this legislation, which is the purpose of the amendment proposed by my colleague, the Hon. Member for South Shore. It is difficult for me to understand how anyone in this House of Commons who has the vaguest familiarity with the Atlantic fisheries could deny them that opportunity. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I ask all Members of this House on both sides to show some real concern for the future of those now engaged in the fishing industry and provide in the legislation the right to have their situation reviewed at some future point.
In closing, I simply want again to underline that this is a very legitimate concern of those engaged in the Atlantic fishery. Their future is in jeopardy and they want the assurance that at some future point the whole matter will be reviewed. No one can deny them that right, and the only way to implement that right is through the provision which my colleague from South Shore has proposed be added to Bill C-170.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: The question is on Motion No. 10. All those in favour of the motion please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: In my opinion the nays have it.


Some Hon. Members:: On division.
Motion No. 10 (Mr. Crouse) negatived.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: The question is now on Motion No. 11.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: That Bill C-170, be amended by adding immediately after line 6 at page 5 the following new Clause:
"10.(1) The Auditor General of Canada shall have unlimited access to financial records, accounts, and other documents pertaining to fishery enterprises in which the Government of Canada has more than 49 per cent controlling interest.
(2) The Auditor General shall report only on the expenditure of public funds by enterprises referred to in subsection (1) of this clause, and shall have due regard for the confidentiality of all other information about such enterprises that does not pertain directly to the expenditure of public funds."
He said: Mr. Speaker, the second amendment, No. 11 on the Order Paper, will give the Auditor General access to the accounts of any fishery enterprise in which the federal Government has more than 49 per cent controlling interest. In order to protect the interest of private investors in such enterprises, the Auditor General would report only on the expenditure of public funds by the companies.
Apart from the general argument for accountability, this provision would also act as a deterrent to fishing firms accepting more federal assistance than they strictly need. We have been aware from time to time, from studying various agreements, that sometimes more is asked for than is required. This is true of Government Departments. We learn at the end of sessions that there is a carryover simply because the Department has asked for more money than it actually needed.
This is my concern with regard to this particular piece of legislation. 1 realize that no one actually likes to see the Auditor General coming into their office, but he is the appointed watchdog over the treasury. In our view, once the Government of Canada becomes involved beyond the 50 per cent level in any particular company, there should be some safeguard for the taxpayers of Canada.
There is yet another concern embodied in the so-called secret letter of June 24.
November 29, 1983

Those of us who served on the committee are aware that early in the committee sessions, I believe it was on Tuesday morning, I requested the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to place before the committee the letter of agreement between the Government of Canada and the Bank of Nova Scotia which spelled out, in some considerable detail, the actual commitment which has been made by the federal Government to the Bank of Nova Scotia, a commitment which many independents referred to as a bailout of the bank. There were many independents who said the bank should have taken its own bath. No one forced them to make these loans. They did it with the hope of securing gain from the interest involved.
If you, Sir, make a bad investment, you have to suffer the loss. In this case the Bank of Nova Scotia obviously made what appears to be a bad investment. They overreached. They overreacted to the 200-mile limit and the euphoria that went with it. They thought there would be no end. They thought everything would keep going up and nothing would ever come down. But in this case things did come down. Here we have the Government of Canada coming in and bailing out, not necessarily the companies, but the Bank of Nova Scotia.


Some Hon. Members:: With your support.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: One of the Members on the other side, who 1 will not name because that type of comment is beneath me-


Some Hon. Members:: Come on!


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: It is beneath me.


An Hon. Member:: We don't need that.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: No, we do not need that, that is right. I thank the Member for that. We do not need that kind of comment from the Member from New Brunswick. I will go that far. We do not need your comment. If you want to speak on the Bill, get on your feet and speak when I finish.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Thank you, Mr. Speaker; 1 need your protection from these people.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order, please. The Hon. Member for South Shore was given the floor to contribute to the debate. He should not be interrupted.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to point out, Mr. Speaker, that in 26, soon to be 27 years, I never interrupted an Hon. Member who was on the floor. I simply ask for the same courtesy when I am addressing this House. I invite them to come even close to that record to which I refer.
Coming back to what I was saying about the secret letter, the Minister at that time refused to table it. It would have been very helpful. It was only in the late hours of Thursday evening that we were able to obtain the document to which I have referred. I hold it in my hand. It was provided eventually,
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
as I say, by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. It is part of the cause of the fears of independents, part of the cause of the concerns of those who are still trying to make a living in the fishing industry.
I would point out that there are approximately 700 independents who still run viable fishing industries. They are trying to find a way by which they will be able to compete with this monstrosity that has been put together in Newfoundland and which is pending for my own Province of Nova Scotia. I say pending because no agreement has yet been signed with the Province of Nova Scotia as it relates to restructuring within that Province. We heard some very interesting testimony before the committee about that situation when the Hon. John Leefe, Minister of Fisheries for the Province of Nova Scotia, appeared and gave his views as they applied to the restructuring industry.
I realize my time is limited but one of the concerns is found on page 4 of the letter that was finally provided by the Hon. Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. On that page we read at the very top:
(b) in Holdco Y these shares will carry a 5 per cent cumulative dividend payable at the end of ten years in Class A Preferred Shares.
Listen to this very carefully, Mr. Speaker:
At the end of the ten year period, the Bank may offer, and the Government of Canada will purchase at par, the Class A Preferred Shares then held by the Bank in Holdco Y. At the time of such purchase the Bank will assign to the Government of Canada on a pro rata basis the common shares associated with the purchased Class A Preferred Shares.
It goes on to say:
Subject to negotiations with the other shareholders of Holdco X, it is the intention of the Bank and of the Government of Canada to cause Holdco X to dispose of its assets within five years.
I will not read it all, but just one more short paragraph:
By mutual consent, the Bank and the Government of Canada may cause Holdco X to hold its assets beyond five years. If one party only wishes to cause Holdco X to hold its assets beyond five years, that party shall have the right to purchase the other party's shares in Holdco X for an aggregate amount equal to the amount which the other party would have received had the assets been sold and a distribution made in accordance with clause 8.
There is much more, but this is the very basis of the over-all restructuring agreement. It is all embodied in this letter. This is the point of debate between the Province of Nova Scotia and the federal Government, as I understand it, Sir. It is one of the requirements of the Government of Nova Scotia that no government or combination of governments shall hold more than 49 per cent of the restructured companies. That was initially agreed to by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, as 1 understand it, when consultations were held at Port Hawkes-bury in early September. For some unknown reason, these conditions are now to be withdrawn by the federal Government. They are not being met. One of the conditions put forward by the Government of Nova Scotia is that they must be met. However, it is obvious after we read this letter that the federal Government cannot meet that particular condition because they have stated, and I repeat:
At the end of the ten year period, the Bank may offer, and the Government of Canada will purchase at par,-

November 29, 1983
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
They do not say "may" but "will".
There are a number of other reasons which I will quickly put on the record. There are some measures pertaining to accountability and control that should be considered as priority areas. These would include requiring that all funds used under the Act be voted on under the normal appropriation process. It would require an annual report of the operation of the Act, to be tabled no later than, say, two months after the end of the fiscal year. The appropriate parliamentary committee could then review the operations of the restructured companies. A sunset clause should be provided. There should be measures to ensure that nationalized enterprises do not become mini versions of Canadair. There should be some sort of control mechanism with respect to the "public interest" clause. Does the Government of Canada, for example, really need to be exempt from the Combines Investigation Act?
All of these, Mr. Speaker, are concerns of the independent companies and of the fishermen. I put them on the record so that you will realize the basis upon which our motion is moved. I hope it will be acceptable to the Government of Canada.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to the Hon. Member for South Shore (Mr. Crouse) and to the amendment which he has proposed to Bill C-170. To be clear, let me say that we on this side of the House do not support the amendment as proposed for a number of reasons.
The first reason is that this amendment, as it now stands, is ultra vires in the case of the agreement that has been reached with the Government of Newfoundland. That is, under the agreement with the Government of Newfoundland the company which will be set up is going to be set up under the Corporation Act of the Province of Newfoundland. This agreement would therefore be ultra vires. That presents a serious problem in itself.
In addition to that problem of legality, the amendment coming at this stage of the game, after an agreement has been reached with Newfoundland, could possibly, in the view of Newfoundland, abrogate an agreement that has already been reached.
The third point I would make is that this amendment, being imposed at this stage on what I would call a piece of enabling legislation, could in theory-I am not saying it would, but could-intrude upon negotiations not yet completed with the Government of Nova Scotia.
The fourth point, Mr. Speaker, is that this amendment, if accepted, would set a precedent as far as Crown corporations are concerned. According to the Financial Administration Act, Crown corporations are scheduled and the Auditor General does not have access in this way for all Crown corporations scheduled D and below. In fact, this particular quasi-Crown corporation, since the Government of Canada will hold shares in the company, would be a schedule E company. It is the intent of the Government to come before the House with a comprehensive policy under the Financial Administration Act as far as Crown corporations are concerned, in accordance
with the suggestion that the Auditor General be given power to examine the books of the company in which the Government holds shares.
Another most important point is that the Government of Canada is not going to own the fishing industry of eastern Canada lock, stock and barrel. As I said earlier, like the Governments of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, since the federal Government really has no other choice it is injecting capital into an industry, through equity, which otherwise would collapse. We know what the ramifications of a collapse would be.
As a result of the Government having 49 per cent of the voting shares, this amendment suggests that the other 51 per cent, or perhaps 60 per cent in the case of Nova Scotia, of the shares held by private entrepreneurs would mean that private entrepreneurs would have their shares and financial statements subject to the scrutiny of the Auditor General of Canada. It would be an incredible precedent to have that private capital subject to scrutiny by the Auditor General. There is no precedent anywhere for that kind of intrusion into the affairs of private business.
I asked Mr. Ron Bulmer, the Fisheries Council of Canada representative who speaks for the processors of Canada, what he thought of this amendment. His response was that it would set a very dangerous precedent if the Government were serious in saying that it was putting in money now through equity capital and wishes to reprivatize when the industry is sound again. If part of the process of reprivatizing the industry is to sell it off in pieces, there are very few people who will want to buy into something which will automatically expose their books and business dealings to the Auditor General of Canada.
For all of those reasons, not the least of which is that it is ultra vires, we cannot accept this amendment.


Dave Nickerson: Mr. Speaker, in my view this amendment is absolutely essential. I do not buy any of the arguments advanced by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Tobin).
If we were to establish a precedent that federal Crown corporations be subject to the scrutiny of the Auditor General, then in my view that would be a good precedent. One of the problems that we have in this country is that Crown corporations are not subject to that scrutiny.
Just let us examine what happened with Canadair. It came back year after year for a period of three or four years and presented figures to the parliamentary committee that was studying it. These figures, presumably from audited statements done by the auditor of their choice, showed that that company was sound. In the third or fourth year we find that it needs an injection of $1.5 billion in taxpayer's money after it had assured us that it was operating soundly. This is what occurs when the Auditor General of Canada, who is responsible to the House, does not have the authority to review the books of Crown corporations.
November 29, 1983

Pursuant to Bill C-170 there is $138 million of taxpayer's money to be invested in these fishery enterprises. That is not counting the $100 million of guarantees and it is not counting any further moneys that the Government might secure through additional parliamentary appropriations.
For these reasons I reaffirm my initial statement that this is an essential amendment and that the Auditor General of Canada must be given the authority to protect that $138 million and more of public funds.


Fred Alward McCain: Mr. Speaker, it is not as though our Party has taken a stand against the Bill because we have not done that. We have made a plea for sanity, for a humanitarian application that is so vital to the health of the total industry.
1 listened to the Member for South West Nova (Miss Campbell) who expressed the concerns that were expressed by the witnesses who appeared before the committee. We are trying and will continue to try to get the best deal for the total fishery of Atlantic Canada that can be extracted on their behalf.
Like the Hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Breau), 1 attended virtually every moment of the hearings where witnesses appeared before the fisheries committee. 1 ask the Member for Gloucester, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. De Bane) and the Parliamentary Secretary, how many witnesses out of the many we heard did in fact give unqualified support for this Bill?


Brian Vincent Tobin: Sixty per cent.


Fred Alward McCain: That is a very high estimate. 1 suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that perhaps he should review the recommendations of those witnesses. At best they were qualified and in several instances they gave that qualified support because of the social responsibility they felt on behalf of the unemployed fishermen and unemployed processors. However, there was objection in principle to the modus operandi which was proposed by the Minister in the Bill which we are presently discussing.
I think the Member for Gloucester will remember that the Maritime Fishermen's Union appeared and primarily represented the East Coast of New Brunswick along with other parts of the industry in both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. They particularly stated that there should be adjustments made in the Bill. As well, they were one of the groups who specifically said that they recognized the social necessity of action by the Government of Canada. To that degree they supported it, but to that degree only. They recommended that there be adjustments which will protect those who do not work for the large corporations which are to be nationalized under this legislation.


Brian Vincent Tobin: They want us to go even farther.


Fred Alward McCain: That was not the way 1 interpreted it. However, that may be the favourable interpretation which was given to it by the Parliamentary Secretary.
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
We are attempting once again to explain to the public as best we can how this corporation will be operated. We have suggested that the Auditor General study this in depth because the recommendations of the fisheries committee in the House which has examined the salt-cod operation from Newfoundland and the freshwater situation during my term in this Parliament have been roadblocked, deadended and made futile. The discussions which took place in committee had nothing whatsoever to do with any adjustment in management or reconsideration of policies by those companies.
There will be a report submitted to the Parliament of Canada which will, at the pleasure and leisure which may be enjoyed by the Minister, be submitted to a committee. We may find ourselves locked into the block system with a couple of meetings which will be as futile as the historic meetings on the block system when the Government wishes to stall and not give information.
The only way that the people of Canada will have a hope of knowing what takes place in that corporation and whether the fishing industry is being well served is for the Government to accept the authority of the Auditor General to make comments in his Annual Report with respect to the company. That does give the Standing Committee on Public Accounts an opportunity to examine the performance of the company. 1 think that is absolutely vital to the safeguarding first, of the reputation of the Minister responsible and, second, to the safety of those not directly incorporated under this structure.
It is my understanding, although 1 was compelled to be at another meeting at an earlier date, that the Government has offered amendments to this Bill and that those amendments have been declared by the Chair as not being admissible. These amendments which were introduced were not admissible. 1 submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that it is a rather sorry situation when either the Government or a Member of the Party which is the Government would introduce amendments with the aim of improving the structure and then find that the ruling of the Chair discarded them. I am not reflecting on the ruling, not at all; 1 am reflecting upon the wisdom and understanding and the capability of Government Members to be influential at the decision-making process. It is a sort of sad reflection upon the status which Members on your right, Mr. Speaker, enjoy when they cannot even get the kind of advice that would help them to introduce legitimate amendments.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order, please. I appreciate the Hon. Member's comments in the terms he was making them. Nevertheless, he is talking to a matter or matters not before the House. In terms of the rule of relevancy, that is hardly acceptable. 1 appreciate the Hon. Member is not reflecting on the Chair's earlier ruling. By the same token something which the Chair has decided cannot be put to the House should not be bootlegged into the debate, if I can use that expression, by the back door, as the Hon. Member is doing. 1 feel strongly that he should not be commenting in any way, shape or form upon amendments which are not before the

November 29, 1983
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act House because they were ruled out of order. Though the Chair may be guided by the rule of relevancy, it is inspired by the principle of leniency. I invite the Hon. Member to return to the amendment now before the House.


Fred Alward McCain: Mr. Speaker, I shall not dispute your ruling except to say that I did not discuss the individual amendments.
1 think 1 did discuss things that were pertinent to the Bill inasmuch as there was an effort to amend. There was no question about your ruling at that time, Mr. Speaker. I do think the subject matter is pertinent and important to the discussion of the Bill. However, I shall move away from that.
May 1 say to the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Evans) through you, Mr. Speaker, that when Members opposite sort of get caught in their own trap they become defensive and, on occasion, offensive. He is no exception to occasional offensive interjections and subject matter of which he would know as much as 1 know-


Mr. Evans:: Mr. Speaker, 1 rise on a point of order. It is clear that during report stage discussion should be related specifically to the amendments. Third reading will follow report stage and the Hon. Member can then run off at the mouth all he likes.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order, please. Though I would not put it in those terms, the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Evans) is quite right and 1 was tempted to add that to my earlier comments. 1 invite the Hon. Member for Carleton-Charlotte (Mr. McCain) to continue debate.


Fred Alward McCain: Mr. Speaker, 1 am sorry. 1 apologize for hurting the feelings of the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre. It is really too bad that he is so thin-skinned. However, 1 respect your ruling and, as 1 mentioned earlier, I have not interjected my comments into other speeches in this debate because it is too serious a debate. Perhaps those Members from Ontario do not recognize what may be the consequence to Atlantic Canada. Of course, there is always the possibility from their behaviour in the debate on this Bill and their impatience that they do not give a damn. I think that is closer to the truth than anything else that I can say.
It was stated by the Minister when earlier discussions took place on this subject matter that it would be impossible to have the Auditor General as a scrutineer of the public's affairs in this Crown corporation because there were other parties to it. This is a matter of negotiation. I submit that if the Government of Canada were to negotiate with the same force and take the same adamant position that was taken in the earlier negotiations leading to the Crown corporation which we now have, the Parties would indeed include in the agreement the right of the House of Commons to write into the Bill that the Auditor General be the auditor of the affairs of the company. It is not objected to, in my opinion, because of the agreement; it is objected to because it is not according to the principles of those who made this proposition to the Provinces, nor are they prepared to consider the representation of all the witnesses who presented themselves before the committee. 1 regret very
much the adamant position of the Government on a Bill that needs amending in the best interests of the fisheries and of Atlantic Canada. 1 implore the Government to not throw out every suggestion of every witness who appeared before the committee.


Mr. Jack Shields (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak briefly on Motion No. 11 which requests that the Auditor General be given unlimited access to the financial records. This is a Canadian way of doing things. We have seen in the past other Crown corporations right across the country where financial records are not available, so that this House can be accountable to the taxpayers in individual ridings. Clearly, there is something wrong when the Government of the day resists a motion so vehemently as it resists Motion No. 11 today.
Basically, all this amendment calls for is accountability to this House of Commons. I, for one, feel this is why the House of Commons is looked upon across the nation as being irrelevant. We are not accountable for Crown corporations like Petro-Canada. Another one is now being created in this Bill and we will not be accountable to the Canadian taxpayer because of it. We see this happening time and time again. We cannot get records showing where the money is being spent or how it is being spent. Every other corporation in the land must put their books forward if it is a public corporation. We owe it to the Canadian voter, the Canadian taxpayer, to be accountable in this House. Therefore, I support the motion. I urge all Members to search their consciences and support this motion.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: The question is on Motion No. 11. All those in favour of the motion please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: In my opinion the nays have it.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: On division.
Motion No. 11 (Mr. Crouse) negatived.


Mr. De Bane moved: that the Bill be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: When shall the Bill be read a third time? Pursuant to order made earlier this day, now?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
November 29, 1983


Pierre De Bané: that the Bill be read the third time and do pass.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: It being one o'clock, 1 do now leave the Chair until two o'clock this afternoon.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Mr. John A. MacDougall (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, in response to an Order Paper question from the Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath), information was released on Friday concerning constituency allocations under the Canada Works and LEAD Programs.
The information shows a disturbing pattern, in that funds under the job-creation programs go disproportionately to constituencies held by Liberal Members of Parliament. While the Liberals hold 52 per cent of the constituencies in the House and those constituencies account for 59 per cent of the unemployed, they receive 78 per cent of the money allocated under these programs. In my constituency the allocation per person receiving unemployment insurance is only 60 per cent as much as in the neighbouring riding of Nickel Belt, which is represented by the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mrs. Erola). Where is the equity in this? How can the Government take the position that unemployed people in neighbouring constituencies should have such unequal access to these programs?



INDUSTRY


Mr. Andre Maltais (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, I was at a meeting in Port Cartier last week, on Thursday, November 24, to discuss the possibility of reopening 1TT-Rayonier Quebec. I have here a speech made by the Mayor, Mr. Tony Detroio, on this subject. A copy of the speech was
sent to the Office of the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and to the Office of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Lumley), for assessment. I feel that the Mayor's comments at the meeting were entirely justified, and that it is absolutely essential, not only that the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce should get in touch with the Quebec Department of Energy and Resources in order to find a solution, but also that a task force should be set up in order to ensure the plant is reopened.
Mr. Speaker, the second point I would like to make is that it is also vital that the Quebec Government should provide the federal Government with all information on various negotiations and meetings that have taken place with Finland, China and other countries regarding the possible acquisition of the ITT-Rayonier Quebec plant in Port Cartier. At the present time, the main problem is that the federal Government does not have all the information since stumpage rights and power rates are not a federal matter. We cannot speak on behalf of the Government of Quebec in these two areas which are essential to any discussion about reopening ITT-Rayonier Quebec.
Mr. Speaker, for all of the reasons I have just mentioned, I would ask the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce to accelerate the process for assessing the ITT-Rayonier Quebec file and to ensure that all information is transmitted by Quebec to the federal Government and that Quebec-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order! Unfortunately, the Hon. Member's time has expired.



EMPLOYMENT


Mr. Tom McMillan (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same subject as that raised by the Hon. Member for Timiskaming (Mr. MacDougall). The allocation of federal funds under the Canada Works and LEAD programs clearly reveals the extent to which the federal Government is using these programs to try to save (he political hides of sitting Liberal Members of Parliament rather than to address the real needs of the unemployed.
In my riding of Hillsborough, for example, the allocation under the programs in question amounts to $225 per person receiving unemployment insurance. By contrast, in the neighbouring riding of Cardigan the allocation amounts to $764 per person receiving unemployment insurance, a discrepancy in excess of three to one, at the expense of the unemployed in my riding. I urge the Minister of unemployment to explain to the taxpayers and to the unemployed in my riding how he can justify such a disparity in their opportunity to benefit from

November 29, 1983
these programs compared with their neighbours in the very next riding where conditions are exactly comparable.



THE MEDIA


Hon. Jim Fleming (York West):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring to the attention of the House and Hon. Members on all sides a recent development which again demonstrates in the most shocking manner the cavalier and even dangerous attitude of major Canadian news publishing interests. While this event took place several weeks ago, it received little if any press coverage until today. Yet its implications, and the attitude which it demonstrates, would certainly have been frontpage news were it involving any other enterprise with a similar impact upon Canadian life.
Late in October at a meeting of the Board of Directors of Broadcast News, the subsidiary of Canadian Press, as a result of a conflict between the broadcasting representatives and the publishing representatives, the publishers used their strength to fire all the broadcasting representatives on the Board. The senior manager of Broadcast News was fired by the publishing interests as well. This means that while Canadian television and radio broadcasting interests contribute the largest portion of the funds which run Canadian Press and Broadcast News, the important Broadcast News division, by far the largest domestic news service to Canadian broadcasting interests, has no broadcasting representatives on its Board. They dared to disagree with the publishers. Surely this arrogance and insensitivity by the publishers' representatives is a further warning that, in the news publishing industry in Canada, with all its immense clout, there is shocking insensitivity to the need for broad and diverse input to assure a free press.



CAPITAL PUNISHMENT


Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, we in the New Democratic Party deplore the fact that Donald Marshall was convicted of a crime he did not commit and that he lost 11 years of his life incarcerated in a federal penitentiary. The Hon. Member for Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands (Mr. Manly) rose in the House on November 15 and November 18, urging the Government to compensate Donald Marshall for the legal expenses he incurred trying to prove his innocence, and also to compensate in some way for the unjust treatment he suffered.
In the last few days we have seen Conservative Members joining in our demand for compensation, and we welcome them. However, let us not forget the numerous statements they have made in the House over the past three years on the
necessity for capital punishment. Let us learn from the Marshall incident and recognize the possibility, if not probability, of other similar miscarriages of justice occurring, with horrendous consequences for which no adequate compensation could ever be paid. Let us recognize that the justice system is not infallible and that errors can and will continue to be made.
If we had followed the advice of the Conservative Party and reinstated capital punishment, how would we apologize, let alone compensate, for the errors which would have been made? The victims would have been dead.



EMPLOYMENT


Fred Alward McCain: Mr. Speaker, my statement also relates to the information released on the Canada Works and LEAD programs as a result of the question placed on the Order Paper by the Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath). In the Atlantic Provinces the allocation per person receiving unemployment insurance is $174 in constituencies represented by Progressive Conservative Members of Parliament. In Liberal constituencies the allocation per unemployed person is $385. Some cases are much worse.
In my constituency of Carleton-Charlotte the allocation per unemployed person is less than one-third of what it is next door in the Liberal constituency of Madawaska-Victoria. How can the Minister justify such discrepancies in these adjoining constituencies with comparable economies and comparable employment opportunities?



MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT


Mr. Terry Sargeant (Selkirk-Interlake):: Mr. Speaker, many of us in the House, and all Canadians concerned with the peace movement, were disappointed to read in today's newspaper of the decision of the Hon. Member for Edmonton South (Mr. Roche) not to seek re-election. This Member has been a leader, both in Canada and in international fora, in the causes of global peace and international development. I have had the distinct pleasure of working with him a number of times over the last year and a half, since joining with him and others to release the minority report on security and disarmament.
It is especially of concern that there is no place in the Tory caucus for a thoughtful disarmament campaigner such as the Hon. Member, that his decision to resign is based upon the feeling that he cannot pursue his causes within the Conservative caucus and that, according to The Globe and Mail of today, he has been "unhappy with the rightward drift of his
November 29, 1983

Party's foreign policy position". One shudders to think of the Neanderthal direction Tory foreign policy is bound to take without the reasoned, progressive voice of the Hon. Member for Edmonton South being present to balance those in that caucus who would have the Tories become the "Republican Party North".



EMPLOYMENT


[Stage Direction]
Minister to respond positively, without delay, to a request that is entirely justified and that, for once, would give the Government an opportunity to save existing jobs instead of imagining them through all kinds of programs, which are often aimed at providing only temporary employment. I feel this industry not only deserves the respect of our elected representatives but also their support for the people who work there, and there are still several thousands of them. I also urge the Government to ensure that this industry, which has a great deal going for it-
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order! The Hon. Member's time has expired.


Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to bring to the attention of the House the strange Liberal Party notion of justice and fair play for the unemployed. Official departmental figures for the 1983-84 Canada Works and Local Employment Assistance and Development Programs reveal that the constituency allocations for these job-creation programs are more related considerations than to the needs of the unemployed. Not only do Liberal constituencies receive 78 per cent of the funds allocated but, on a per-person basis, unemployed people who live in Liberal ridings receive over twice as much as those who live in other ridings.
[DOT] (MIO)
Why does the Government consider the 350,000 unemployed persons who live in Progressive Conservative ridings to be so much less worthy of government support than the unemployed who live in Liberal ridings? Are the unemployed, wherever they live, being treated fairly and justly? That is the question the House should ask, Mr. Speaker. Unfortunately, and sadly, the answer is no.
* *
*
[Translation}



FOOTWEAR INDUSTRY


Hon. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, in my comments today 1 would like to make the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Lumley) a little more aware of what is going on in the Canadian footwear industry.
As the House is aware, the industry has been very actively lobbying the vast majority of Members of this House-not just one side but both sides of the House. The industry is of course seeking speedy action to extend overall quotas in the footwear industry for the next five years. Considering the industry's present efforts to modernize and to improve productivity; considering the fact that the two-year arrangement approved by the Government is clearly inadequate to guarantee security and stability in the industry; and also considering the thousands of workers that are still in the industry, I would urge the
* *
*



VIA RAIL


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, would someone construct a covered stadium yet fail to provide any spectator seating? Would someone build a school and forget to instal student desks? Of course not, yet something of this nature is precisely what VIA Rail has done in Sicamous, British Columbia.
Sicamous depends upon VIA Rail for much of its tourist business, as well as for general transportation purposes. However, whenVIA recently constructed a new passenger station in Sicamous it failed to provide any passenger access. An appropriate right-of-way to the station was never obtained, so the station is cut off from public access. As well, the station which is located in the British Columbia snowbelt is open to the harsh winter conditions of the area. It is unheated, unlighted, and has no washroom or toilet facilities. It has no telephones, and there is no way of determining if the arrival of a train is imminent. The station also lacks a parking lot. To call it a station or passenger depot is to use the term very loosely.
The people of Sicamous, British Columbia, hear and read of the Government's commitment to improving western rail transportation, yet are forced to accept a most appalling situation when it comes to VIA Rail service. The people of Sicamous need and support VIA Rail, so I would urge the Minister of Transport (Mr. Axworthy) to intervene in this fiasco and provide the people of Sicamous, British Columbia, with the passenger service they need and deserve.
* *
*



EMPLOYMENT


Mr. J. M. Forrestall (Dartmouth-Halifax East):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment very briefly on the logic, sense, and reality of the Government's approach to job creation in the country. At some point before this Session ends I would like to hear someone from the other side try to tell me
29292

November 29, 1983
Oral Questions
why it is that, with respect to surplus labour, Cardigan constituency gets $764 a job, the constituency of Egmont gets $794 a job, the constituency of Dartmouth-Halifax East gets $27 a job, the constituency of Hillsborough gets $225 a job and the constituency of Malpeque gets $254 a job. Is it because the Government is paying attention to its backbenchers by trying to buy jobs in their constituencies at the expense of the unemployed and those who are in desperate trouble? Is that the only answer they can give us? If so, they should quit, resign, or call an election.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. He will know that on Friday one of the Order Paper questions of the Hon. Member for St. John's East which was answered puts in the public domain some of the required information on constituency allocation of Canada Works and LEAD funds. An analysis of this information reveals that, while Conservative Members represent 31 per cent of the unemployed, their ridings are allocated only 16 per cent of the funds under these programs. At the same time Liberal Members represent 59 per cent of the unemployed but their ridings receive 78 per cent of the funds. Could the Minister of Employment and Immigration tell the House how the Liberal Party of Canada justifies treating the unemployed people in such a manner?


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member has just revealed the basis upon which the opposition Party would make allocations if it were to be in power, that is to say, it would make those allocations on the basis of the party labels of the Members of Parliament. However, that is not the basis upon which we have allocated these funds.
The allocation of these funds, as has been explained to the Hon. Member many times, is on the basis of the labour surplus rates across the country in the various constituencies. If it is true that more money is flowing to constituencies which happen to be represented by Liberal Members, it is because the labour surplus rates in those constituencies are unfortunately higher than in those constituencies held by Conservative Members.
I would point out to the Hon. Member that the allocations to the constituency held by the Leader of the Opposition have increased very significantly. That hardly reflects a partisan
bias on our side. If, for instance, the Hon. Member would care to regard the allocations going to the Province of British Columnbia where, if memory serves me correctly, we do not hold any seats at all, he will find that those allocations have increased considerably. I believe that his insinuation that partisan considerations are at the root of these allocations is clearly false.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Minister would like to read his own data. Not one dime of LEAD funds has gone west of the Ontario border.


FUNDS ALLOCATED TO LIBERAL AND PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE RIDINGS
Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, the unemployed people who live in Liberal ridings are given job-allocation funds at an average rate of $193 per person. People in the same circumstances who are unemployed and have spouses, children, and depression to cope with, who live in Conservative ridings are given $78 on average per person. Is that the Liberal idea of justice and fair play? Are there two kinds of unemployed Canadian citizens, those who live in Liberal ridings and those who live in the other ridings?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member should also look at the figures again. He said that no funds were allocated west of Ontario. If he were to look at the figures for British Columbia he would find that there has already been an increase in funding to that Province of something like $2 million over the $11 million from last year, a very considerable increase even by the Hon. Member's extraordinary arithmetic. I would think it is an increase of something like 20 per cent.
The Hon. Member then referred to the LEAD allocations. He should know, but if he does not know he should go back and find out, that the LEAD allocations are based upon persistent rates of high labour surplus over a four-year period. Most of the areas of the country in which there has been a higher than average labour surplus rate are to be found in the eastern part of the country and not west of Ontario.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, I used to assign to my classes a textbook called "How to Lie With Statistics".


ALLOCATION OF FUNDS UNDER LOCAL EMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, there are 28 ridings in the Province of British Columbia and not one has received a dime of LEAD money. Can the Minister tell us whether he thinks the problems of alcoholism, suicide, depression, and others that go along with unemployment, are any less severe for those unemployed people who live in Conservative ridings than for those who live in Liberal ridings? If those problems are no less severe, why is there not a fair allocation to each unemployed person in the country?
November 29, 1983


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member has been assigning text books on the basis of the quality of his questions, his students have my deepest sympathy. I gave him the answer to this question in my answer to his previous question, and that is that LEAD funds are allocated on the basis of a four-year term of persistent higher than normal labour surplus rates. That is clearly set out in documents which the Hon. Member has had for months, so he has had time to look at them. It is not based on partisan considerations; it is based objectively on the labour surplus rate and it does focus on the eastern part of the country because that is where the highest rates of labour surplus have been.


ALLOCATIONS TO CONSTITUENCIES IN ATLANTIC PROVINCES
Hon. J. Robert Howie (York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. In the Atlantic region, under the Canada Works and Local Employment Assistance and Development job-creation programs, $51.6 million is being allocated to Atlantic Province constituencies in 1983-84. Of this amount 82 per cent is going to the 19 Liberal constituencies and 18 per cent is going to the 13 Progressive Conservative constituencies, despite the fact that the Conservative Members represent 35 per cent of the persons receiving unemployment insurance in the region.
Will the Minister tell the House why those 56,000 unemployment insurance recipients in Progressive Conservative ridings are less worthy of assistance under these programs than the 109,000 unemployment insurance recipients represented by Liberal Members?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, once again we see quite clearly the partisan obsession of Ministers-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Erik Nielsen: Right on!


John (Moody) Roberts: -of Hon. Members opposite, and, 1 would add, of the former Ministers opposite. Not one of them, including the last former Minister who spoke, has had the grace to remember that it was his Government that tried to cancel the whole program when it was in office. They are obsessed with partisan concerns. They would prefer it to go to Conservative constituencies rather than to Liberal constituencies. We want the funds to go where there is the highest level of unemployment, Mr. Speaker.


INQUIRY RESPECTING ALLOCATIONS PER CAPITA
J. Robert Howie: Mr. Speaker, let us try a very simple question. If we break down the allocations on
Oral Questions
a per unemployed person basis, the average unemployed person in a Progressive Conservative constituency get only 45 per cent as much access to these programs as does the average unemployed person in a similar riding in a Liberal region. Without his political rhetoric, can the Minister get serious and explain why this should be so? Why the unfairness?


John (Moody) Roberts: Yes, Mr. Speaker, the questions are very simple, and they are very partisan and very distorted. I have explained already, in answer to five questions, that the basis of the allocation is on the objectively established labour surplus rates. It is for that reason that the constituency of the Leader of the Opposition has received such a significant increase. It has not received a significant increase because he is the Leader of the Opposition, and it has not received a significant increase because he is a Conservative; it has received a significant increase because there is a much higher increase in the labour surplus in his constituency. That same explanation applies fairly to all constituencies across Canada.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Dan Heap (Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. The Minister knows that the Canadian Mental Health Association has warned that many Canadians will suffer grave personal harm if record unemployment continues. He also knows that the Ontario Minister of Social Services has asked for an extra $100 million this winter for 35,000 new welfare applicants. As well as the 35,000 that Ontario expects, how many exhaustees does the Minister predict for 1984? What steps will he recommend to the federal-provincial conference next week, both to provide more jobs and to provide extended unemployment insurance benefits for the jobless?


John (Moody) Roberts: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but I caught a reference to the federal-provincial conference. Perhaps the Hon. Member would clarify what he is referring to, in a supplementary question.
With regard to the part of his question which deals with the level of exhaustees, in our belief it is running at the mid-60,-000 level. We expect that number to decrease over the next six months. 1 simply do not know and 1 cannot make a very precise estimate of what that decrease will be, but we expect significant decreases through to the end of 1983 and well into 1984.


LEVEL OF DEPARTMENTAL STAFFING IN TORONTO AREA
Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, the Employment and Insurance Division in Toronto District has cut out 48 positions this year, as I have already given notice to the

November 29, 1983
Oral Questions
Minister, and the director's memo, which I have in my hand, forecasts more cuts in staff in 1984 and the possible closing of some service points. Will the Minister tell the House how many term and other employees will be laid off in the Toronto district, and in Canada, next year? Which points of service are being considered for closing? Does he justify cutting staff because so many workers will have exhausted their benefits that they will not be making claims?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, the answer to the last part of the question is partly no, and 1 will touch upon that in a moment. It is true that we estimate there will be something like 96 term employees, not permanent employees, who will be laid off in the Metropolitan Toronto area. 1 am looking for the figure for over-all Canada but I do not have that at my fingertips. 1 will send it to the Hon. Member when 1 receive it. I do not expect that there will be any points of service closed as a result of the steps we are taking.
The Hon. Member asked for an explanation of why there is a lay-off amongst those casual employees. The answer is that there has been a marked decline in applicants for unemployment insurance. There is a decline of something like close to 20 per cent in applicants in the Toronto area, and a decline over-all in the country of something like 16 per cent. We do not need the same amount of human resources to process those applications as we have had in the past because of that very significant decline in applications, coming to almost a figure of a 20 per cent cutback.


EMPLOYMENT
Fred Alward McCain: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the Minister will be very happy that he has been a little more generous to Carleton-Charlotte this year than he was last year: otherwise the comparative figures would have been extremely embarrassing. At the moment in Carleton-Charlotte we receive $141 per person receiving unemploye-ment insurance. In the neighbouring Liberal constituency of Madawaska-Victoria they get $461 per person receiving unemployment insurance-over three times as much. Could the Minister explain to the unemployed people of my constituency the fairness of such a discrepancy, even in the face of a little more generous Liberal contribution this year than last?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, we see very clearly the new face that the new Leader of the Opposition will put on the new Conservative Party. Not only does he boast that if there are appointments to be made when he becomes Prime Minister, and none of them will go to anyone who has not been a Conservative for 15 years, but we now see his Members rising one after the other in the House of Commons to underline that their concern is that unemployment insurance benefits go to their ridings on a
partisan basis. I have explained, and, Mr. Speaker, you must be almost tired of hearing me do it, that the allocations made both under Canada Works and under the LEAD programs are based on objective statistics which relate to labour surplus. That is the explanation in response to the Hon. Member's question, as it has been to all the others presented today.


Fred Alward McCain: Mr. Speaker, I have to say to you that the integrity of our Leader is unquestionable, and his fairness in his approach to Canadian problems.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Fred Alward McCain: He has not, nor has any member of this Party, had to wear the mask of deceit in order to face the public and try to lie and distort figures in defence of irrational decisions.


GOVERNMENT'S POSITION
Fred Alward McCain: Mr. Speaker, in view of the facts cited in my first question, is it the position of the Government that unemployed Canadians in my riding require less than unemployed Canadians 20 miles from my home in a Liberal constituency? Is that rational thought? No.


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, I think the integrity of the Hon. Member's Leader is unquestioned as well; that is one of the problems his Leader has.
The answer to the second part of the question is no.


LEVEL OF FUNDING IN TIMISKAMING AND NICKEL BELT RIDINGS
John Alexander Frances MacDougall: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the same Minister. In my riding of Timiskaming the allocation for Canada Works and LEAD programs is $97 per person receiving UIC. In the neighbouring constituency of Nickel Belt, represented by the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, the allocation works out to $168 per person.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame!


John Alexander Frances MacDougall: Can the Minister explain to the unemployed people in my constituency the equity in that?


John (Moody) Roberts: Same question, Mr. Speaker; same answer.


John Alexander Frances MacDougall: I am sure the unemployed people in Timiskaming will enjoy hearing that type of answer.


REQUEST THAT MINISTER ACT TO CREATE JOBS
John Alexander Frances MacDougall: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the same Minister. The fact remains that across the country those people who are
November 29, 1983

fortunate enough to have a Conservative Member of Parliament representing them are in the unfortunate position of having a Liberal Government which is playing politics with the unemployed. Is it the position of the Government that unemployed persons in certain constituencies in Canada should have less access to these programs than others? What is the Minister going to do to create jobs for all ridings equally?


John (Moody) Roberts: I must confess, Mr. Speaker, that 1 had some difficulty hearing the final part of the Hon. Member's question. I would suggest to him, in relation to the first part of his question, that the citizens of the Hon. Member's constituency might be interested in why it is that the Conservative Party has not come forward with one constructive suggestion for creating jobs since this session started again in September.


WESTERN GRAIN TRANSPORTATION ACT
Mr. Bill McKnight (Kindersley-Lloydminster):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. After the passing of Bill C-155 has the Minister given any consideration to providing minimum compensatory rates to the oilseed crushing industry in western Canada, east of Thunder Bay, and the same MCRs for shipments from Ontario to export, to provide markets for both western canola oil and the Ontario oilseed industry? Has the Minister given any consideration to that proposal?


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, indeed we have been looking very carefully at this issue. The Minister of Agriculture and myself met some weeks ago, 1 believe, with the representatives of the crushers in eastern Ontario and western Canada to discuss how we might find a proper solution to the problem because there are, as you know, two very different points of view on that issue. We have taken the material they presented to us. 1 hope to be able to sit down very soon with the Minister of Agriculture and then get back to those two representative groups to see if we can a solution which is workable for both.


NATIONAL REVENUE
Mr. Chris Speyer (Cambridge):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Revenue. The Minister will have at hand a letter which has been signed by every chartered accounting firm in the community of Cambridge. It constitutes a very serious indictment of the attitude and the behaviour of his Department. There are five points in the letter, two of which are as follows: first, Revenue Canada is
Oral Questions
using quotas whereby assessors are expected to assess a certain amount of tax in a given period; second, Revenue Canada has abandoned all sense of fairness and objectivity in order to maximize tax assessments.
In light of the fact that there is a deficit of $30 billion, and in view of the fact that the Government has a cash flow problem, have there been any directives sent by the Minister, or anyone in his Department, with respect to quotas for assessors? Second, since every accountant signed this letter to the Minister, will he take seriously the allegation that there is unfairness and uneven-handedness in his Department?


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, once more, I wish to inform the Members of this House that the main concern of the employees of my Department is to perform their duties while dealing equitably and fairly with all Canadian taxpayers. 1 may add that the work being done by Departmental auditors concerning taxpayers and their compliance with the laws of this country and our income tax laws has nothing to do with the deficit.
Mr. Speaker, we audit tax returns in order to ensure that all Canadian taxpayers are paying their share of the tax burden and that the failure of one individual to comply with this country's income tax legislation does not put a burden on another taxpayer whose compliance is 100 per cent.


Chris Speyer: Mr. Speaker, in all corners of this Chamber people believe that Revenue Canada is out of hand and the Minister is shirking his responsibility in not appreciating that fact.


QUOTA SETTING INQUIRY
Chris Speyer: Mr. Speaker, the central question I asked, the one to which I did not receive an answer, was: has there been any directive sent, either by senior officials of the Minister's Department, or by the Minister, with respect to quotas for assessors in terms of assessing taxpayers' claims?


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, as 1 said before, it is our responsibility to ensure that taxpayers who do not comply with the Income Tax Act are called on and, after an audit, asked to do their duty. We do not use methods that are inequitable or unfair, and in fact, we are guided by the principle that all Canadian taxpayers should be treated equitably.

November 29, 1983
Oral Questions


CRIMINAL CODE
Ms. Lynn McDonald (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Justice, who is no doubt aware that a woman is in prison for seven days, a woman who was the victim of a serious crime of violence, because she was afraid to testify against a motorcycle gang. My question has nothing to do with the prosecution for contempt, because that is under provincial responsibility. However, I would like to know what the Minister is going to do about the sexual assault Section, the previous rape Section, in the Criminal Code. Is the Minister aware that evidence as to the past sexual history of this woman was admitted and that she had no chance to refute it? Would the Minister agree that the past sexual history of a victim ought not to be relevant to the determination of guilt or innocence in a particular case? If so, how does the Minister intend to amend the Criminal Code?


Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, the Criminal Code has already been amended. The substantive case behind the contempt proceedings which have just taken place was a charge of rape and the trial of rape under the old Sections of the Criminal Code which were abolished by this House a year or so ago. The provisions for evidence which were in effect at that time are no longer in effect. However, of course, for cases which began before the Code was changed, procedure under the old law is followed. By Section 246.7 that kind of evidence would no longer be admissible.


CONCERN EXPRESSED BY RAPE CRISIS CENTRES
Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the Minister is aware that Rape Crisis Centres and sexual assault centres are not satisfied that this problem has been dealt with adequately in the new changes in the legislation. Is the Minister aware that Rape Crisis Centres feel that, as a result of the current case, they cannot encourage women who are victims of sexual assault to come forward? We may have a situation in which there have been some improvement in the law, but they do not go far enough. We are going to have victims of crime who are going to be afraid to complain because these reforms have not gone far enough. The evidence can still be admitted by another witness, for example, if not the woman herself. This is a loophole which remains in the law.


Mark R. MacGuigan: Mr. Speaker, there may well be remaining loopholes in the law. If there are, experience will uncover them. As I have said several times in the last year, we have ongoing a study of the effect of the new law. However, Mr. Speaker, it is not possible to draw a conclusion as to the effect of the new law from a prosecution which has taken place under the old law. Therefore 1 would hope my hon. friend will help me in conveying to women's
groups and women's centres across the country that we hope they will join us in giving the new law a fair chance. If it is not working, we shall certainly be open to changes. However, let us make sure that people across the country do not mislead women's groups with respect to the effect of the new law by prosecutions which still occasionally take place under the old law.


NATIONAL REVENUE
Mr. Charles Mayer (Portage-Marquette):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Revenue as well. It has to do with the unfortunate and what many people believe is the tyrannical way in which his Department is behaving. There are specific cases in the farming community and business community where people have been reassessed, forced to pay, they have then appealed and won their case, and yet it takes six to 12 months for their money to be refunded. Is the Minister prepared to see that the audit and collection sections of his Department act with some consistency so they do not place undue hardship on people and tie up their funds for six to 12 months, which in many cases is putting people out of business?
[ Translation]


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, obviously, it is important that a Department like the Department of National Revenue should provide excellent service to the public. I can assure the Hon. Member that when decisions in favour of the taxpayer take time, we do everything we can to help expedite such cases and provide a better service to the taxpayer.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I would not say six to 12 months is expediting the situation. I certainly am prepared to give the Minister some examples.


PLIGHT OF FARMERS
Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, the Graham case refers specifically to Section 31, and I want to ask the Minister if he is prepared to instruct his Department to treat this as a test case, and stop harassing individual farmers? 1 have on my desk cases from coast to coast where farmers are being put out of business. If the Minister is not prepared to do that, he is saying that people are guilty until they prove themselves innocent. I would hope he would be willing to listen to the Minister of Agriculture who sits in front of him, because he has apparently made those representations to the Minister, or is the Minister of Revenue going to be another Minister
November 29, 1983

who does not listen to representations made by the Minister of Agriculture?


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member is confusing two things. First of all, the changes in the Income Tax Act, including, for instance, changes in the tenor of Section 31 which are the responsibility of the Minister of Finance, and I think that in this case, the Minister of Finance has a good understanding of what these representations are about, and if the Minister should decide to make any changes in Section 31 of the Income Tax Act, he will do so at the appropriate time. Second, it is wrong to believe that a decision in one specific case will necessarily lead to a different interpretation in all other cases covered by Section 31 of the Income Tax Act, and I would invite the Hon. Member to compare any cases he may know about that involve infringements of Section 31 of the Income Tax Act, with the case to which he is referring. He will realize that he cannot generalize to that extent.


PRINCIPLE OF SELF ASSESSMENT BY TAXPAYERS- GOVERNMENT POSITION
Hon. Ron Huntington (Capilano):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the same Minister, who by now has to be aware that there is widespread alarm, bitterness and, yes, even fear at the Liberal Government's escalating use of third party demands on banks and others in its attempt to grab taxpayers' funds where taxes are deemed to be owed. Is the Liberal Government abandoning the principle of self assessment? As my colleague said, is the Liberal Government abandoning the principle of "innocent until proven guilty"? Has the citizen lost all protection from arbitrary measures being taken by assessors and collectors?


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, the present Government did not make a single change in the Income Tax Act until such changes were adopted by Parliament. It is unfortunate that the Hon. Member's igno-"rance of the Income Tax Act is leading him to ask such questions and to insinuate publicly certain facts that are totally false. If the Hon. Member refers to Section 224 and following of the Income Tax Act and considers current practice and the time that elapses before we put a garnishee on wages or accounts, he will realize that this practice has not changed from what it was in the past. It is just his own ignorance that is looking for ways to prove itself!


OFFICIAL'S TELEPHONE CALL TO MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Speaker, a year ago the manager of a small branch of a bank was unlikely to ever see or hear of a third party demand. A bank manager who saw
Oral Questions
two in the previous two years has had 18 in his branch alone this year.
On November 24 last, as reported at page 29152 of Hansard, between 1130 and 1140 hours I drew attention to the escalating use of arbitrary power by Revenue Canada officials. At 1235 hours, one hour later, my Ottawa office received a call from a Revenue Canada investigator in Vancouver on a personal tax matter. Can the Minister assure me that this call was only coincidence, that I was not being harassed and my right and duty to speak out on behalf of constituents was not being interfered with?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, I am sure it was just a coincidence.


DIRECTIONS GIVEN TO TAX ASSESSORS
Right Hon. Joe Clark (Yellowhead):: Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question for the same Minister. It allows for a yes or no answer. Are Revenue Canada assessors in Cambridge, Ontario, or anywhere else in Canada, directed to meet a quota of tax assessed?
[ Translation]


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, I can inform the Hon. Member that we are trying to ensure that National Revenue auditors do their work as equitably as possible, and that Canadian taxpayers who fail to pay their taxes are called on and invited to complete their tax returns on a voluntary basis. If they fail to do so voluntarily, we assess them according to the tax they must pay.


QUOTA SYSTEM INQUIRY
Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I am then assuming that the answer is yes, there is a quota system in place. Is that correct?
[ Translation]


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member can draw all the conclusions he likes. What he should do is look at the answers and draw conclusions that are consistent with the premises given in those answers.
[ English]


Charles Joseph Clark: Who is assigning these assessors-


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Chair has conceded a question and supplementary to the Right Hon. Member. A final supplementary-the Right Hon. Member for Yellowhead.

Oral Questions


RESPONSIBILITY FOR INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN TO ASSESSORS
[Stage Direction]
November 29, 1983
Charles Joseph Clark: Will the Minister of National Revenue tell this House who is assigning these quotas to assessors? Is it the Minister, or is it people in the field? Who is assigning those quotas?


Pierre Bussières: 
REQUEST THAT AUDITOR GENERAL REVIEW USE OF PETROLEUM INCENTIVES PROGRAM GRANTS
Mr. Ray Skelly (Comox-Powell River):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, pertaining to what appears to be building up as a very serious concern over the abuse of $8 billion in PIP grants over the last few years. Is the Minister prepared to request the Auditor General to examine these PIP grants to determine whether or not they have been applied to meet the legal objectives of the National Energy Program? Also, is he currently conducting an internal examination of his Department's use of those funds, and, if so, will he be making that investigation public through this House?
Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Energy, Mines and
Resources): Mr. Speaker, I checked into the problem some weeks ago and the information I have so far is that no one has been able to point to any abuse of this system. The expenditures under the PIP program are made according to the law voted by this Parliament. If the Hon. Member has some specific cases of abuse he should let me know, and I will certainly investigate the allegations with pleasure.
As to the Auditor General, I think the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources is the object of a review by the Auditor General. In his report he has not pointed out any abuses in that system.


REQUEST FOR COMMITTEE EXAMINATION OF USE OF GRANTS
Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I would point out just one very small concern of many expressed, that is, that the diversion of $50 million from CHIP, the Conservation Program, into petroleum incentives is one of many, many abuses.
If the Minister is not prepared at least to ask the Auditor General to inquire specifically into the appropriate use of PIP grants, would he be prepared to put before this House a motion of reference to allow the committee on national resources to examine the entire question, to bring it out into the public eye and let the people have a look at what may amount to one of the largest scandals this country has even seen?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, I am always available to appear before the Committee and to answer questions on this subject. However, 1 have not been invited to do so. I think it would be irresponsible of me to assume there are abuses after making my own enquiries and having no reason to believe that was the case. Now, the Hon. Member is making a specific reference, namely that there allegedly was a transfer of funds from one program to another. I am not aware of that. I shall make enquiries, but I think that if there had been a transfer of funds, I should have been informed, and 1 assume there was none, but if there was, I shall inform the Hon. Member as soon as possible.


NATIONAL REVENUE
Mr. Doug Lewis (Simcoe North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of National Revenue. Could the Minister explain to the House how the term, "The needs that exist in a particular region", differs from a quota system?


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, I said before there was no quota system and that if any failure to comply with the Act in a specific area became evident at the auditing stage, areas where such occurrences were most frequent would require more auditing.


QUOTA SYSTEM INQUIRY
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the same Minister. Is the quota system that is in effect in the Minister's Department based upon regional representation of political Parties, or is it ad hoc?


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, I think you yourself will agree that the Hon. Mem-
November 29, 1983

ber's question is not relevant since there are no such quota systems.


FINANCE
Hon. John C. Crosbie (St. John's West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. Has the Minister taken any steps to improve, correct, or change the methods of economic forecasting and fiscal forecasting in his Department which have been found to be inaccurate, or misleading, or inappropriate, by the Auditor General? If so; what steps has he taken? Can he guarantee the House that forecasts in the future have a better chance of being more accurate than those in the past?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, forecasts in the private sector, as in the public sector, and as in a number of international institutions, have proved amazingly inaccurate in the last number of years, including forecasts made by my predecessor, the current Minister for St. John's West. The Hon. Member knows that forecasts have been very difficult to make on a very accurate basis in the last few years. Technical studies are being carried out in all kinds of organizations to see whether steps can be taken to improve forecasts.
My officials certainly did a pretty good job of their forecasts in my last budget. Up to now the forecasts as far as deficits are concerned, for instance, are pretty well on target. I cannot guarantee the Hon. Member that they will remain exact and that there will not be discrepancies between forecasts and realities. Forecasts are only that-projections and speculations about what the situation might be during a specific period of time. As we know, the world changes all the time.


AUDITOR GENERAL'S FINDINGS
John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance is only marginally better than his predecessor, and far worse than his predecessor before his predecessor. 1 put it to the Minister that the Auditor General has found that the forecasting methods of his Department, both with respect to the economic forecasts and fiscal forecasts, the fiscal framework, are inadequate and incorrect in many respects. Is that correct? What steps is the Minister taking to change the forecasting methods? The whole fiscal framework of Government depends upon the methods used and, as the Minister knows, they have had deplorable results in the last few years. What steps has the Minister taken to correct what the Auditor General has apparently found? Let us have some specificity please, Mr. Minister.
Oral Questions


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the most deplorable results occurred in December, 1979. It has been improving ever since.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Communications. About a week ago it was announced that CBC would proceed with a $350 million construction program in Toronto to replace its antiquated facilities. At the same time as CBC is doing that, Mr. Speaker, in Winnipeg CBC Radio is broadcasting on a transmitter which is so antiquated that very frequently there are outages. There is just no program coming on the air for anywhere from 30 seconds to four or five minutes.


Erik Nielsen: Prime time.


David Orlikow: CBC in Winnipeg has the weakest signal of any radio station in Manitoba. Would the Minister urge the CBC to put the replacement of its radio transmitter in Winnipeg on the same priority list as that very expensive change in Toronto?


Hon. Francis Fox (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, we are going to build the Toronto facilities basically by using the money paid by the CBC for leasing space in 22 different buildings in downtown Toronto and going into a consortium with the private sector on a lease-purchase agreement, with virtually no capital funding on the part of the CBC or the federal Government. The CBC and the federal Government are concerned with the situation in Winnipeg. We have asked the CBC to examine the present situation of its capital equipment in Winnipeg with a view to try to improve that capital equipment as soon as possible.


NATIONAL REVENUE
Mr. Scott Fennell (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have a question for the Minister of Revenue, and I believe he is back there somewhere.


An Hon. Member:: Terrorized.


Thomas Scott Fennell: I do not know whether he is terrorized or not, but I will start with my question, Mr. Speaker. The minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce is wrestling with the auto task force report. While this is going on he has indicated that he is encouraging Canadian content. What right does the Minister of Revenue have continually to harass Japanese manufacturers

November 29, 1983
Oral Questions
who established an industry in this country? I am giving him the example of Makita Tool.


Pierre Bussières: missed part of the Hon. Member's question, and I apologize. 1 did get the name of the company to which he referred at the end of his question. The Hon. Member will recall that we examined this particular case very carefully and that on certain points we agreed with the company's stand and made it possible for them to increase their investments. If I remember correctly, there was another problem which we were unfortunately unable to resolve because of the consequences it might have, but I am willing to review the matter at the Hon. Member's request.


CANADIAN CONTENT ENCOURAGEMENT FOR AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
Thomas Scott Fennell: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Revenue made a mistake in the first case and allowed them $200,000 back. He then found a second case which he attacked them on. Now he has found a third case, on a third product coming in from Japan before they started manufacturing in Canada. He is trying to recover the $200,000 which he lost in the one he gave up in the first place. Mr. Speaker, 1 request this Minister to lay off Japanese manufacturers whom we are trying to encourage to come into Canada to increase the Canadian content of automobiles in this country.


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, I cannot tolerate the way the Hon. Member is confusing the issue, I remember looking at this case very carefully. The Hon. Member may choose to think our decisions are arbitrary, but 1 would ask him to look at the facts. People who make investments must do so according to the laws of our country. We are trying to see to it that those laws are making it possible for investments to be made in this country as advantageously as possible.


METRIC CONVERSION
Mr. W. C. Scott (Victoria-Haliburton):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs who has the responsibility for forcing merchants to convert to the metric system. Now that it has been ruled that the imperial system can again be used, will the Minister reimburse those who were forced, at their own expense, to convert?
Hon. Judy Erola (Minister of Consumer and Corporate
Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I do not understand the Hon. Member's
question. There has been no enforcement. In fact in areas where traders have been encouraged to buy scales there has been a government incentive program that has been extremely generous.


GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBILITY
William C. Scott: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the same Minister. In light of the fact that the Government has been advised to pay the court costs in the case of the two gentlemen involved in the metric conversion in Toronto, does the Government not feel some responsibility to reimburse those whom they have forced to spend thousands of dollars for nothing?


Hon. Judy Erola (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that the Hon. Member is aware that this Government has launched an appeal.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order in anticipation of the completion of today's business land the likelihood of prorogation of the House tomorrow. My question is directed to the Government House Leader and Concerns some of the outstanding matters that remain on thd. Order Paper of this session, in the hope that the Government will carry them over and place them on the Order Paper in the upcoming session in the same position that they now enjoy on the Order Paper.
Of course, my first concern has to be with the seven outstanding reports of the Special Committee on Standing Orders and Procedure. We would not like to see those reports die. We would like to see them resume their position on the Order Paper in the same place they are now.
The same would apply to Bill C-12, the Bill with respect to bankruptcies which has been hanging around now for some eight years and has gone through a substantial portion of the parliamentary machinery this session. We would like to see that Bill restored to the Order Paper in the same position in the forthcoming session as it now enjoys.
The same also applies to Bill C-653 with respect to the Government's intentions, as I understand them, to incorporate the sentiments expressed in Bill C-653 in Bill C-12.
The Committee on Pension Reform has been sitting and has done considerable work. It would be a shame to see that die with the death of this session. We would like to see an order of the House which would ensure that all of the evidence taken by that Committee would find a place on the Order Paper in the same position in the next session as it enjoys now.
November 29, 1983

The same sentiments apply to the Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration since that Committee has done a good deal of work which should not die.
Likewise, the Joint Committee on Senate Reform has done a good deal of work and collected a lot of evidence which should carry on in the next session in the same position it is in now so that the work of the Committee is not lost.
The same sentiments apply to the Standing Joint Committee on Regulations and other Statutory Instruments. There are several reports on the Order Paper now awaiting motions to concur. We believe that those motions should also find their way on to the Order Paper immediately upon the commencement of the new session so that that work is not lost.
The work and the several reports of the Public Accounts Committee should not die. As the Government House Leader knows, those reports indeed go back to 1978. Surely they should be restored and hopefully dealt with in whatever time remains in the next full session of the House.
There may be others that I have not mentioned and which the Government wants to see take their place on the Order Paper in the same position as they enjoy now. Likewise, there may be some work of the House now on the Order Paper that the New Democratic Party might wish to see on the Order Paper in the next session. I would suggest, in order that we might come to some agreement before prorogation tomorrow, that perhaps a House Leaders' meeting be held some time today to reach some common ground on these matters. That might appeal to the Government House Leader and the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain.
While the Government House Leader is answering that question, would he also indicate to the House whether we will be having a Question Period tomorrow or what time frame he has in mind with respect to the time of prorogation.
I am just informed by my colleague, the critic of the Minister of State for Finance, that the Finance Committee has recomended that the subject matter of Bill C-233 be carried on into the next session so that that work is not lost.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, at the outset I want to indicate that I am not in a position at the moment to agree on the continuation of Bill C-12 at its present stage. 1 am working feverishly to get some understanding on that. I hope to be able to report on that some time in the late afternoon.
With respect to Bill C-653, I agree entirely with the Opposition House Leader in asking, as I have many times in the past, that the Bill or one reflecting the substance of that Bill should be proceeded with in the next session, because we have been trying to have it addressed for the last six months.
On the question of the other matters, I am quite prepared to see those matters carried over. I would like to suggest, in addition to those items raised by my colleague for Yukon, that the Special Committee on the Disabled and the Handicapped be allowed to continue until such time as a determination is made as to whether or not there will be a subcommittee set up to carry on the work of that Committee. As well, I would
Business of the House
suggest that the Subcommittee on Acid Rain be given status now in order to carry their work forward into the next session of Parliament, because it has already established its winter agenda.
The Committee on Visible Minorities should-


Yvon Pinard: That was settled last week.


Ian Deans: I am informed that that has been settled, but I would appreciate having those others dealt with and 1 will get back to the House Leaders as soon as I can with respect to Bill C-12.


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, we have discussed most of these items in a House Leaders' meeting which we held last week. I will take these items one by one and if there is anything else left to be discussed we will have a House Leaders' meeting at four o'clock this afternoon.

First, with respect to the reports on parliamentary reform, two things must be kept in mind. The first is that it is not true that the reports will die on the Order Paper. The reports are there to stay. They are part of the public domain. They are known. They can be used at any time in the future, including during the next session.
Second thing, no, we do not agree that they should appear on the Order Paper at the stage where they are now because the Opposition wants to use them as a means to filibuster, whereas we consider that parliamentary reform is too important and that, as can be seen on today's Order Paper, there should not be 200 notices of motions to use as dilatory tactics. On the other hand, I have offered-and the offer stands-to my colleagues of the Opposition to reinstate those reports on the Order Paper under Government Business. If that is not necessary, if they agree to that, good! If they do not agree, too bad!
Second, Bill C-12 is a good suggestion. We will wait for the answer of the New Democratic Party, but that can be settled early in the new session and there is no need to move a motion in this session.
Third, if Bill C-153 is not necessary in this session, we will consider it in the new session.
Fourth, the Committee on Pension Reform is a special Committee, and I understand that a report will be tabled in a few minutes.
Fifth, we do not have to be concerned about the report of the Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration in this session because it originates from a standing committee. We can very well consider it at the beginning of the new session.
Sixth, concerning the Joint Committee on Senate Reform, I have been advised that a report will be tabled in a few minutes.
Seventh, about the Committee on Regulations and Other Statutory Instruments, the answer is no.

November 29, 1983
Business of the House
Eighth, with respect to the reports of the Committee on Public Accounts, the answer is no. And in the last two cases, the answer is no because, considering their position on the Order Paper, the Opposition could use them as dilatory tactics to prevent the House from proceeding normally to the Orders of the Day, particularly Government Orders.
Ninth, concerning the Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs as well as Bill C-233, the answer is no, but that can be the subject of discussions early in the new session. Should a meeting of House leaders be necessary, it would take place at 4 o'clock. All my colleagues need do is to let me know.
As to a Question Period tomorrow, maybe there will be one, maybe there will not. As soon as the Senate is ready to give Royal Assent to all the Bills referred to it between now and the end of the day, we will have prorogation. If it is 2.05 p.m., we will go to the Senate at 2.05 p.m.; if it is 3.30 p.m., we will go to the Senate at 3.30 p.m. However, out of respect for the Senate, the other House, it would be presumptuous on our part in the House of Commons to predict the exact time of prorogation. But I think my colleagues of the Opposition are concerned or interested to know whether there is a possibility that we might not have a Question Period tomorrow. Theoretically, the answer is yes. And if the Senate is prepared to have Royal Assent at 2.15 p.m., we will go there at 2.15 p.m. We will then have prorogation.
On the subject of finance, since my colleague has asked me a question-
The Hon. Member raised the question of finance. He knows that we tabled a notice of Ways and Means motion last Friday, the purpose of this not being to deal with the Income Tax Act, which will follow in this next session, but to give fair warning to the Opposition to have a look at the Ways and Means motion. If the Opposition agrees with the Bill we can, with the consent of the Opposition, introduce the Bill today and its Members can look at the legislation and be in a position to debate it early after we commence debate on the Speech from the Throne in December. I am hereby giving the Opposition notice that our intent will be, unless we give another kind of notice, to try to deal with and complete debate on the Income Tax Act as early as possible this year. That is why we gave notice of the Ways and Means motion last Friday. By consent we could table the Bill today. If we do not have that consent, we will seek it at the beginning of the new session. Our purpose is to inform and to give sufficient advance notice to the Opposition in order to prepare. I am sure the Opposition will not complain about that.
Concerning the Subcommittee on the Disabled and the Subcommittee on Acid Rain, I am informed that these matters can be dealt with at the beginning of a new session.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, with respect to the matter of the Bill to implement the Ways and Means resolution now on the Order Paper, the income tax Bill, I thank the Government
House Leader for his courtesy. Since the Ways and Means motion itself sets forth verbatim exactly what the Bill will contain, his courtesy in giving us that Ways and Means motion is ample notice to us and we will expect the Bill itself immediately the new session comes along. With respect to any consent necessary to dispense with Standing Orders, we can meet that problem when it arises.
I really deeply regret the decision of the Government House Leader not to restore on the Order Paper the several motions to concur in the reports of the Standing Joint Committee on Regulations and other Statutory Instruments, just as I deeply regret the Government's decision not to restore on the Order Paper the reports of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. He and I take a different view with respect to the process that applies to the life of these reports on prorogation. Under our practices here those reports and all of the evidence will die with prorogation. The Government House Leader shakes his head in the negative. He says that the reports are in the public domain. Sure, they are in the public domain. They are on the library shelf, but unless the Government decides to bring them back into the House there is nothing that Members of the House can do about them.
That applies with equal force to the decision of the Government not to allow the reports of the Special Committee on Standing Orders and Procedure to resume the same position which they now enjoy on the Order Paper. What the Government is suggesting when it says it is prepared to bring the reports back but only as Government business-only as Government Orders-is that the Opposition will not have any right to exercise the privilege of moving concurrence if that is what they wish to do. The decision will rest entirely with the Government as to whether any of these reports, and there are seven outstanding, will be adopted. That is not the spirit of reform, particularly not when we have seven excellent, outstanding reports produced by a committee with absolute unanimity on the part of all three Parties. Now the Government wants to put those reports under Government Orders, that being the only condition on which the Government will restore them to the Order Paper. That seems to me to destroy the kind of impartial approach which members of that committee took with respect to the question of reform. The reports should be restored and they should be restored as they are now.
All of the motions to concur which are set down were set down, not for the purpose of obstructing, if that is the Government House Leader's idea, but because of an unfavourable ruling of the Chair, which I do not criticize at this time, with respect to the right of a Member of the House who is present to move concurrence in a report standing by way of a motion in the name of another Member who is absent. That is the reason for the duplication and it is the kind of situation we get into when we are confronted with that kind of ruling, which 1 do not criticize. All of those 74 pages of Members' names would not be on the Order Paper had the ruling been, as 1 thought it should have been at the time, to follow previous practices of the House as they are followed in other instances.
November 29, 1983

1 welcome a House Leaders' meeting this afternoon to discuss these matters in the hope that we can get the Government House Leader to reconsider these matters, particularly in view of all of the years of work that have gone into all of these reports which will go down the tube with prorogation unless they are restored to the Order Paper immediately upon resumption of a new session.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I would prefer to see a mechanism worked out whereby we could actually deal with the reports themselves. Having been a member of the Special Committee, having served as one of the vice-chairmen for a period of time, I want to say that the work done by the Committee was done in good faith. I think the good faith was exemplified by Members from all sides of the House. I am hopeful, notwithstanding the decision not to restore the matter as a motion in the name of the Committee but rather as a Government motion, that some commitment might be forthcoming to allow the House to deal with and dispose of the recommendations that were made.
We have taken only one tiny step toward improving the Standing Orders of the House of Commons on the way toward parliamentary reform. Parliamentary reform is a much larger question than simply the day to day operations of the House of Commons. I would commend to the Government House Leader the thought that we should today, hopefully, come to an understanding that we will find a way to deal with those reports in the House of Commons at an early moment. We can then begin yet another series of trials on some new measures that I hope-I am optimistic-and will go as far as to say will improve the quality of the House of Commons, the committees of the House of Commons and will improve methods of dealing with matters pertaining to the House of Commons.
While 1 am on my feet and on a matter which is related to House business, although only obscurely, I would like to say on behalf of the Hon. Member for Comox-Powell River that we want to withdraw Motion No. 6, our opposition to vote 55b, which may help to expedite proceedings somewhat later in the day. I just want to inform the House that we will not be calling for a vote on that particular motion later today.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous agreement of the House that the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain, on behalf of the Hon. Member for Comox-Powell River, will have consent to withdraw the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Erik Nielsen: No, Mr. Speaker. I do not know on what the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain is attempting to get consent. I have had to notice of this. He takes me completely by surprise.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member is seeking consent to withdraw a motion of objection to one item in the Estimates, thereby making unnecessary one of the votes scheduled for this evening.
Business of the House


Erik Nielsen: Let us discuss that and seek consent a little later today. I do not even know the subject matter of the notice of objection, but there is no reason we cannot come to an agreement later in the day, if necessary.


Mr. McGrath:: Mr. Speaker, 1 rise on the same point of order with respect to concurrence in the seventh report of the Special Committee on Standing Orders and Procedure. 1 just want to point out to the Government House Leader, in case he is not already aware, that five of the seven outstanding reports flow from the third report under which the House is now operating provisionally and in fact are consequential. For example, the agreement whereby committees would be reduced to ten was undertaken with the understanding that we would be moving to legislative committees, 20 in number, and thus providing an opportunity for more Members to participate in the legislative process at committee stage, especially on important Bills.
Also I point out to the Government House Leader as one who participated in the Special Committee from its commencement until the end that many hours were invested in that Committee by many Members of the House. Millions of dollars of taxpayers' money were used to finance that Committee, the calling of witnesses and trips to Washington and London. Is it the view of the Government now that it will not proceed with at least five of the seven reports which are consequential and flow from the third report under which the House is now operating provisionally?


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, the reports of the parliamentary reform committee do not die. They are in the public domain, they are known, and they may be and will be used in total or in part in the future. That could be in the next session. It is not necessary for them to appear on the Order Paper in the new session. Nevertheless, I have proposed to the Opposition that we allow these reports to be printed on the Order Paper in the new session under Government business, because there is absolutely no way we would allow those reports, on which there are 200 notices of motions, to be put before Government business every day. We went through the sad experience of seeing the Official Opposition using those important reports on parliamentary reform during the Crow debate for the purpose of delay. We will not accept the use of parliamentary reform in the future to delay again.
We want parliamentary reform to take place. We are conducting now a major experiment. We are negotiating some fine tuning of the experiment. My colleagues, the House Leaders, know that very well. We are even using some of the dispositions included in the additional reports for the purpose of fine tuning in the midst of our negotiations. However, there is no way we will allow the Opposition to have the freedom to move concurrence in those reports 200 times before we reach Government business in the new session. It is absolutely unnecessary because the reports will always be useful and will be used in the future. We are suggesting that they be put on the Order Paper under the control of the Government. It is the responsibility of the Government to establish the Order of the Day

November 29, 1983
Business of the House
every day in the House of Commons. I am sure that my colleagues opposite know and understand what I am saying.
To say that we are not interested in those reports is wrong. On the contrary, we think they are most important. We have accepted the ongoing experiment. We want to fine tune this experiment. I see no point in trying to have five, six or seven other reports implemented without previous experimentation, if we saw it necessary to conduct an experiment on the third report before implementing it.
The fact that we are proroguing does not kill any report. There is no need for the reports to appear on any Order Paper. I challenge my hon. colleague to estimate the number of people who read the Order Paper every day. There are no consequences at all. However, to please the Opposition, we would not mind having those motions appear under Government business or under Government Orders in the new session. If they do not want that, fine, but they will not see them in the state they appear now under 200 notices of motions to concur. They are notices of obstruction, and this is totally unacceptable to the Government.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, the Minister does not seem to understand.


Yvon Pinard: Yes, I do.


James Aloysius McGrath: Without the implementation of and concurrence in the recommendations contained in at least three of those reports-I believe it is the fifth, six and seventh-there is no point in continuing with the provisional rules, because they flow from and are consequential to the rules under which we are now operating. For example, dealing with the starting up of committees or dealing with legislative committees, the Minister knows that unless he deals with it there can be no consideration for extending the rules.


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, 1 am sorry, but this is a subjective, personal interpretation by the Hon. Member; it is not the truth. This is not what those additional reports mean. The experiment on the third report is an experiment in itself. The additional reports may be considered in our negotiations to fine tune the experiment, but it is not correct to pretend that we absolutely need to consider the other three reports in order to come to a final conclusion on the experiment we are now making.
May I remind the Hon. Member of what was corroborated by the members of the Special Committee, the Chairman, the Hon. Member for Sarnia-Lambton and others. There was an understanding among the members of the Committee not to move concurrence in any of those additional reports. I do not understand why the Hon. Member is now complaining that we will not allow this to occur in the future, if members of the committee had a gentlemen's agreement not to move concurrence in those reports.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, in the interests of the record- and 1 think it is important-if the Minister examines the last recorded session of the Committee, he will know full well the
understanding was that there would not be a motion for concurrence in the House while the Committee was sitting.


Erik Nielsen: While the Committee was sitting, that is right.


James Aloysius McGrath: That was the clear understanding-and it is a matter of record-even by his own Members, including the Hon. Member for Sarnia-Lambton and the Hon. Member for Gatineau. It is on the record.


Yvon Pinard: The Hon. Member for Sarnia-Lambton is shaking his head.


Mr. Cullen:: Mr. Speaker, like all Hon. Members of the House, I am quite concerned that, as a result of some bitter debate or misunderstanding, all the advances the Committee was able to make and which the Government and the Opposition agreed to change, amend and make better our rules will be lost if we continue this harangue and bitter debate. In memory of the late Walter Baker who did a tremendous job on this particular Committee, I would like to say that the House Leaders should be allowed to go about their work and negotiate what they can to keep the rules the way they are, to improve them and to fine tune them, if they can.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, there is another untruth which is now on the record that cannot be allowed to stand. The Government House Leader talked about subjectivity, yet he is guilty of it himself. For him to say that any one of those motions to concur could be moved 200 times is patently false. Once they are moved, they then shift to Government Orders when the debate expires on them. He knows that he has the power to move that motion at any time he pleases after the mover of the motion completes his address. He knows as well as I do that the reason the names of the Members of the Opposition were put down against every one of those seven motions was because of a ruling of the Chair which, for the first time in my experience, prevents a Member present from moving a motion to concur standing in the name of a Member who is absent. That was the reason for it.


James Aloysius McGrath: Namely, the late Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton.


Erik Nielsen: There was no intention of obstructing, as the Government House Leader has charged. What is more, the truth of this statement is borne out by the fact that no attempt was made to have those motions moved since the time of the ruling of the Chair in that regard.
I should think that the House Leader would adhere to his own adjurations to the rest of us to be objective and non-political and to move with the spirit of the members of that Special Committee on parliamentary reform and allow the House as a whole to be seized of any question of reform. The reform of our rules and practices, Sir, is not normally the unilateral prerogative of the Government. It involves the co-operation of
November 29, 1983

all Hon. Members of the House because all Hon. Member are affected. If there is any one area in which the Government should not abrogate unto itself the sole discretion, it is in the area of parliamentary reform.
Perhaps it might assist the Government House Leader if I were to say to him that we would be quite happy to have those reports restored to the Order Paper without any motions to concur left on the Order Paper at all. Just bring back the reports.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, those are the words of what we call in French "un bon vieux renard". All the Hon. Member need do is to give 500 notices of motions once he has withdrawn the 200 and we will be faced with the same old problem again.
I am not saying that the Hon. Member is being subjective. In this case, he totally misunderstood my answer. In his reply, he described the way in which he can and might delay proceedings. He said it would be easy for the Government to move the adjournment of the debate on any motion to concur in those reports come the new session and then move to Government Orders. That is exactly what Conservative Members would like us to do. Every time we would move to adjourn debate, they would let the bell ring until six o'clock and would waste as many days as there are reports.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Yvon Pinard: They are saying oh, but they have done so in the past, Mr. Speaker. They did it three weeks ago when we were debating the Crow.
The Hon. Member has just given notice that he wants to save some ammunition for dilatory purposes in the future. We will not allow that to happen. I am simply telling him that we will not agree to reinstate those reports in a way which will allow the Opposition to unduly delay the work of the House of Commons. On the other hand, our offer still stands to put those reports under Government Orders even if it is not necessary to use those reports in the future, although we do intend to use those reports in the future.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, if I may make myself clear for the record, parliamentary reform is most important to the Government. We have proven in the past that we have been able to do something in the field of reform. We have done something in that field, we are now doing something, and we will do something in the future. However, we will not allow this very important subject to be used by the Opposition for the purposes of delaying unduly the business of the House and playing political games.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Epp:: Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, I would like to bring to the attention of the President of the Privy Council a Private Member's Bill No. 684 which stands in the name of the late Member for Nepean-Carleton, the Hon.
Business of the House
Walter Baker. The President of the Privy Council will know that my colleague, the Hon. Member for Peterborough, and others have been attempting to have this Bill proceed through the parliamentary process. It is the Bill which would amend the Narcotics Act and specifically allow for the therapeutic use of heroin primarily for terminally ill cancer patients.
I wonder if the President of the Privy Council would take that situation to the House Leaders' meeting today in an attempt to see if we might be able to move at least the subject matter of that Bill forward. I recognize that, as a Member of the House, I could put the same Bill in my name, but I do think it would be fitting if we would be able, with our best intentions, to proceed with that Bill in the name of the late Hon. Member.
1 ask the President of the Privy Council to consider that matter. I know that there is a technical problem involved whereby the Bill began as a justice matter and is actually a health matter. 1 know there is some question as to whether or not it should proceed through that channel, but 1 am sure that people of good will could work those details through. I ask him to consider that this afternoon.


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, 1 am not sure if my hon. colleague is referring to a Private Member's Bill on which debate has already begun.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, debate did begin on June 1 of this year and was not concluded. There were a number of Hon. Members from all sides of the House who strongly endorsed the position of the late Hon. Member.


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, I will look into that matter. I will inquire about it and will hopefully be in a position to make up my mind today if I get all of the facts. If I do not, I do not know if that matter can be dealt with at the beginning of the new session, but I will see what can be done.


Mr. Lefebvre:: Mr. Speaker, as one who chaired the Special Committee to which reference has been made throughout the last half hour's debate, I point out once again how important it is that we did come to an understanding while the committee was holding its proceedings. The only way we can attempt parliamentary reform is to have an understanding and a consensus among all Members. This we were able to do within the committee. We knew that once the matter got into the political arena of the House of Commons, there was a danger that there would be political arguments from both sides of the House, and Hon. Members have that right.
I am already on record as stating that there was such an understanding in the Committee and, furthermore, members of the Committee had understood that they were not to be the watchdogs of their own reports and that it would be up to the House Leaders of the Parties to come to a consensus and bring those reports forward to Parliament for final discussion. I maintain that there was such an understanding and I agree completely with the words of the Hon. Member for Sarnia-Lambton. I hope that we can come to discuss the issue in a non-partisan fashion like the example set at Committee and

November 29, 1983
Committee Reports
that we will see parliamentary reform. It will not happen, however, the way things have proceeded this afternoon.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon. Paul J. Cosgrove (York-Scarborough):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of tabling, in both official languages, the First Report of the Special Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons on Reform of the Senate of Canada.


FINANCE, TRADE AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS-PRESENTATION OF TWENTY-FIFTH AND TWENTY-SIXTH REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth reports of the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Will the last two Hon. Members who presented reports please indicate whether they intend to move concurrence later this day?


Yvon Pinard: No, Mr. Speaker, it is not necessary to move concurrence today. The reports have been made and the evidence is tabled. It is there to be used in a motion at the beginning of the new session. At that time, we will be able to refer to these reports which are being tabled today and to the evidence which they contain. It is not necessary to concur in those reports today. We will not move concurrence but will be in a position, come the new session, to be able to refer to the evidence contained within the reports tabled today.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, that is true. However, it again depends entirely upon the discretion of the Government. It can only be done if the Government brings forward a motion. We on this side of the House are prepared to give concurrence to these reports that are being presented today without debate so that we can be assured that they will be on the Order Paper in the next session without having to rely on the discretion of the Government.
The Government could well decide not to bring any motion forward and we would never see these reports again. We are now prepared to concur in them today without debate if the Government wishes to proceed in that fashion so it may give all Hon. Members the assurance that we will see those reports again.


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague has complained because we are acting as a Government. We are acting as a Government and we do govern. We will see what will happen come the new session. 1 have already told him it was my inclination to agree to that. I do not see why we would not agree to move the proper motion. I take good note of the consent now offered by my colleague to get those motions passed without debate, but we will not move concurrence today. Come the new session we will govern again.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, it is about time they started to govern. We are prepared to give consent today on the basis of what we see today. We are not prepared to give blanket consent now for what we may or may not see in a new session.


PENSION REFORM-PRESENTATION OF SECOND REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE
Mr. Doug Frith (Sudbury):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present to the House the second report of the Special Committee on Pension Reform.


CANADA MUSEUMS CONSTRUCTION CORPORATION
Mr. Jack Burghardt (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 46(2) I have the honour to table in both official languages copies of the first annual report of the Canada Museums Construction Corporation.


PETITIONS
Mr. David Berger (Laurier):: Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege and duty to present a petition to the House this afternoon. This petition, signed by 147 concerned Canadians, calls upon the Government of Canada to protest to the Government of the U.S.S.R. the savage sentence imposed on Dr. Joseph Begun on November 6, 1982. Dr. Begun, a resident of Moscow, was arrested and charged under Article 70 of the criminal code of the U.S.S.R. with disseminating material defamatory to the state. The charges were issued because of Dr. Begun's teaching of the Hebrew language and his desire to live in Israel. The sentencing of Dr. Begun is a flagrant violation of the Helsinki Act and the civilized norms of justice. As in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.
November 29, 1983


Mr. Lee Clark (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have the honour to present to the House today a petition signed by many Manitobans, the majority of whom are from my constituency of Brandon-Souris. They petition the House and are of the opinion that thousands of men and women are in prison throughout the world because of their political and religious beliefs. Others are held because of their colour or ethnic origin. These people are prisoners of conscience as none has used or advocated violence.
Therefore, the undersigned petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to call for universal amnesty for all prisoners of conscience, and as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.



GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS CONTROL ACT


Howard Edward Crosby: for leave to introduce Bill C-700, an Act to provide for the control of conflicts of interest in Government affairs.


Some Hon. Members:: Explain.


Howard Edward Crosby: Mr. Speaker, may I briefly explain the provisions of the Bill which has just been introduced. The question of what personal activity constitutes a conflict of interest for Members of the Government and officers of the Crown is obscure at best. The purpose of this Bill is to establish clear rules to determine what activity will be considered a conflict of interest for Ministers and Government officers. The Bill also directs the Deputy Registrar General to report conflict of interest cases to the Federal Court of Canada so that the court can take appropriate action to protect the public interest.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Motions.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, these are the motions the Government House Leader was speaking about. May I suggest, as 1 have been doing ever since the ruling of the Chair, that you simply call upon Members in whose name the motions stand and ask, if they wish to discuss it today, that they rise. I might add that if I had any intention of scuppering prorogation or of obstructing, I could move one of those motions now.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Are there any Hon. Members who have motions standing in their name who wish to be recognized at this point? There are none. We will proceed to Questions on the Order Paper.
Order Paper Questions


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
John Leslie Evans: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 4,970, 4,977, 4,978, 4,985, 5,019, 5,264 and 5,306.


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	What is the composition of the Board of Directors of the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority and what is the address and occupation of each individual?
2.	What is the compensation and what are all the benefits paid to the chairperson, directors, president and vice-presidents of the Authority?


Lloyd Axworthy: The St.
Lawrence Seaway Authority advises as follows:
1.	The affairs of the Authority are administered by a President and two members. These are their only occupations.
W. A. O'Neil, President, Place de Ville Tower "A", 320 Queen St., Ottawa, KIR 5A3.
W. F. Blair, member, Place de Ville Tower "A", 320 Queen St., Ottawa, KIR 5A3.
The position of vice-president is vacant.
2.	The President is in the GIC-8 category ($69,530-581,830) and the only member presently in office is in the GIC-5 category ($53,950-563,490). The President and the member's travel and incidental expenses that are related to their official duties are paid by the Authority.


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	What is the composition of the Board of Directors of the Grand Trunk Corporation and what is the address and occupation of each individual?
2.	What is the compensation and what are all the benefits paid to the chairperson, directors, president and vice-presidents of the Corporation?


Lloyd Axworthy: The management of Canadian National Railways is advised by the Grand Trunk Corporation as follows:
1. Mr. J. H. Burdakin, President, Grand Trunk Corporation, 131 West Lafayette, Detroit, Mich. 48226.
Mr. R. S. Gillette, Chairman of the Board, National Life Insurance Co., National Life Drive, Montpelier, Vermont 05602.
Mr. James S. Hinds, Q.C., Hinds, Sinclair & Holub, Barristers & Solicitors, 18 Alder Street, S., Sudbury, Ontario, P3C 4J2.
Mr. R. E. Lawless, President and Chief Operating Officer, CN Rail, P.O. Box 8100, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3N4.

November 29, 1983
Order Paper Questions
Dr. J. M. LeClair, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian National Railway Company, P.O. Box 8100, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3N4.
Mr. Yvon H. Masse, Sr. Corporate Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer, Canadian National Railway Company, P.O. Box 8100, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3N4.
Mr. V. G. Istock, Executive Vice-President, National Bank of Detroit, 611 Woodward Detroit, Michigan 48232
Mr. F. Ray Keyser, Jr., Chairman, Keyser, Crowley, Banse, Abell & Facey, Inc. 29 South Main Street, P.O. Box 975, Rutland, Vermont 05701.
Mr. F. D. Rosebrugh, President, Dover Corp. (Canada) Limited, Industrial Division, 31 Progress Court, Unit 10, Scarborough, Ontario MIG 3V5.
Mr. P. M. Turner, Group Vice-President, International Sealed Power Corporation, 100 Terrace Plaza, Muskegon, Michigan 49443.
2. The compensation and benefits paid to the senior executives of GTC are regarded as proprietary information because of the competition in the industry to recruit top management personnel.


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	What is the composition of the Board of Directors of the Canadian National Railway Company and what is the address and occupation of each individual?
2.	What is the compensation and what are all the benefits paid to the chairperson, directors, president and vice-presidents of the CNR?


Lloyd Axworthy: The Management of Canadian National Railways advises as follows:
1. Hon. John Henry Horner, P.C. Chairman of the Board Canadian National Railway Company P.O. Box 8100 Montreal, P.Q.-H3C 3N4
Dr. Jean Maurice LeClair President and Chief Executive Officer Canadian National Railway Company P.O. Box 8100 Montreal, P.Q.-H3C 3N4
Mr. Giuseppe Di Battista Canadian Italian Trust 6995 boul. St. Laurent Montreal, Quebec H2S 3E1
Mr. James Sharp Hinds, Q.C. Hinds, Sinclair & Holub Barristers & Solicitors 18 Alder Street S. Sudbury, Ontario P3C 4J2
Mr. Benoit Joncas President Les Constructions Maritime du Golfe Inc. 99 boul. Dion Matane (Quebec) G4W 3L8
Mr. Gary David Mandel Chartered Accountant 500 Bower Blvd. Winnipeg, Manitoba R3P 0L8
Mr. David George Alexander McLean Senior Partner McLean, Hungerford & Simon Barristers & Solicitors 555 Burrard Street Vancouver, B.C. V7X 1J8
Mr. Ewart Arthur Pratt President Steers Limited Austin Street-P.O. Box 12064 St. John's Nfld. A1B 3T5
Mr. Fred Donald Rosebrugh President, Industrial Division Dover Corporation (Canada) Limited 31 Progress Court, Unit no. 10 Scarborough, Ontario MIG 3V5
Mr. John Tulloch Sears Department of Business Administration St. Francix-Xavier University Antigonish, Nova Scotia B2G ICO
Mr. George T. Urquhart Chairman of the Board Enheat Inc. Sackville, New Brunswick E0A 3C0 2. The compensation and benefits paid to the senior executives of CN are regarded as proprietary information because of the competition in the industry to recruit top management personnel.


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	What is the composition of the Board of Directors of Air Canada and what is the address and occupation of each individual?
2.	What is the compensation and what are all the benefits paid to the chairperson, directors, president and vice-presidents of the Air Canada ?


Lloyd Axworthy: The Management of Air Canada advises as follows:
1.	See list below.
2.	Compensation and benefits paid to the senior executives of Air Canada are regarded as proprietary information because of the competition in the industry to recruit top management personnel.
Rene Amyot, Q.C. (Lawyer) Chairman of the Board 1, Place Ville Marie Montreal, Quebec H3B 3P7
Claude I. Taylor (Businessman) President & Chief Executive Officer 1, Place Ville Marie Montreal, Quebec H3B 3P7
I. H. Asper, Q.C. (Lawyer) Chairman & Chief Executive Officer CanWest Capital Corporation 1900-Lakeview Square Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3C 3H8
Jacques Bock, B.Sc. (Businessman) President Bock et Tet-reau Inc. 601 Cote de Liesse, Coin de Stinson Montreal, Quebec H4N 2N1
Harry G. Colwell (Lawyer) Partner Gilbert, McGloan, Gillis Harbour Building 133 Prince William Street, Box 7174, Postal Station "A" Saint John, N.B. E2L 4S6
Michael G. DeGroote (Businessman) President & Chief Executive Officer Laidlaw Transportation Limited (est. 1961) 110 King Street West Suite 490 Hamilton, Ontario L8P 4S6
Geno F. Francolini, F.C.A. (Businessman) Vice Chairman of the Board Chief Executive Officer Livingston International Inc. Tillsonburg Town Center Suite 100, Tillsonburg, Ont. N4G 5A7
Lawrence C. Jolivet (Businessman) President, Oakwood Holdings Ltd., & Christopher Lawrence Ltd. 8th Floor, 595 Howe St. Vancouver, B.C. V6C 2T5
Arthur J. LeBlanc (Lawyer) Partner LeBlanc, MacDonald & Pickup Barristers & Solicitors 301 Pitt Street P.O. Box 700 Port Hawkesbury, N.S. B0E 2V0
i
November 29, 1983

Pierre Levasseur (Management Consultant) President Groupe Levasseur 910 LaGauchetiere St. East Montreal, Quebec H2L 2N4
Mr. Robert S. Lucenti (Lawyer) Senior Partner Lucenti & Rivard 108 Main Street East North Bay, Ont. PI B 1A8
Prof. Lorna R. Marsden (Professor, Graduate Studies) 563 Spadina Avenue Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1
Department of Sociology University of Toronto
J. W. McLoughlan (Businessman) President McLoughlan Supplies Limited 22 Blackmarsh Road P.O. Box 877 St. John's, Nfld. A1C 5L7
W. T. Molloy (Lawyer) Senior Partner MacDermid & Company 905-201-21st Street E. Saskatoon, Sask. S7K 0B8
Branny Schepanovich (Lawyer) Barrister & Solicitor McCuaig Desrochers 1824 Royal Trust Tower Edmonton Centre Edmonton, Alberta T5J 2Z2


Mr. Clark (Yellowhead): 1.	(a) Which agency or agencies or person or persons, and working in what city or cities, conceived and designed the logo and corporate signature of Petro-Canada (b) what amount and on what date was each agency paid for these and any related services?
2.	What means were employed by Petro-Canada to protect its logo and corporate signature from use by others either within, or external to, Canada?
3.	Is Petro-Canada represented by any subsidiaries, agents or offices in other countries and, if so, in which other countries and by what other subsidiaries, agents or offices?


Mr. Dave Dingwall (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Petro-Canada reports as follows:
1.	(a) Three companies assisted Petro-Canada in the development of the logo and corporate signature of Petro-Canada. The principal contractor was Baker Lovick Communications of Calgary. Creative Research Group Limited of Toronto and Lippincott Margulies Ltd. of Hamilton, Bermuda (an affiliate of the New York firm of the same name) acted as subcontractors.
(b) From December, 1979 to July, 1980, a total amount of $433,961 was paid to Baker Lovick Communications of Calgary who paid the subcontractors.
2.	The Petro-Canada logo is protected in Canada by copyright which belongs to Petro-Canada. In addition, Petro-Canada has obtained trade mark registrations under the Trade Marks Act in Canada both for the design portion of its logo and for the words "Petro-Canada". Petro-Canada has also been granted a notice published under Section 9 of the Trade Marks Act for the words "Petro-Canada", to provide a further form of statutory protection for its signature.
Outside Canada, the Petro-Canada logo and signature are protected by copyright in all countries of the world which belong the Berne Copright Convention. Petro-Canada has also acquired through use certain trade mark rights in those countries in which it has used its marks.
3. Yes.
Order Paper Questions
Country
Subsidiary
Spain
Norway
United Kingdom U.S.A.
Petro-Canada Espanola S.A. Petro-Canada Norway A/S Petro-Canada (U.K.) Limited Asher American, Inc.
Pacific Pipelines, Inc.
In addition, Petro-Canada Inc., the principal operating subsidiary for the Petro-Canada group, has registered offices in the People's Republic of China and in Italy.
Petro-Canada International Assistance Corporation, a subsidiary of Petro-Canada, in accordance with its mandate, carries on activities in a number of countries but has neither subsidiaries, offices, nor agents abroad.


Mr. Young: Is the Department of Supply and Services investigating the possibility of adopting a policy similar to the U.S. General Services Administration with regard to accessible telephones for the hearing impaired?


Hon. Charles Lapointe (Minister of Supply and Services):: The Department of Supply and Services does not have any specific contracting policy concerning accessible telephones for the hearing impaired. Supply and Services responds to customer department requests for equipment supplied to the handicapped through the same procurement process as used for other goods and services. For more information on the initiatives taken by the Canadian Government, please refer to the news release of November 7, 1983, issued by the Department of Communications.


Mr. Lambert: 1.	Has the Government decided to proceed with the contruction of "Canada Place" in Edmonton, Alberta, as the new location for centralized federal government offices and, if so, what is the precise location of the site?
2.	What was the cost of acquiring the said site including the value of any land or buildings owned by the Government which may have been swapped for Province of Alberta land or buildings and for City of Edmonton land and/or buildings?
3.	Are the buildings to be erected on a lease and buy back basis by private developers or contractors, or are they to be built for and by the Government or will they be on a straight lease from private developers?
4.	Have the consulting engineers and architects been named and, if so, who are they?
5.	What is the projected date of commencement of work on site?
6.	What is the estimated complete cost in 1983 dollars?
7.	What is the anticipated date of completion with projected date of occupation?


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (Minister of Public Works):: 1. The
Government has decided to proceed with the construction of "Canada Place" in Edmonton, Alberta. The 1.5 hectares Canada Place site fronts on Jasper Avenue and is bounded by

November 29, 1983
Order Paper Questions
the Nova, Sunlife and Cidadel Theatre developments to the west, 102 Avenue to the north and 97th Street to the east.
2.	The Canada Place site was acquired by way of a land exchange involving the Government of Canada, the Province of Alberta and the City of Edmonton.
On March 31, 1983 a tripartite agreement was executed whereby Public Works Canada agreed to convey the former Prince of Wales and Ortona Armouries valued at $8,800,000 and $1,500,000 respectively, the former Strathcona Post Office valued at $400,000 and a vacant industrial zoned property at 170 Street and 118 Avenue valued at $2,500,000 to the City of Edmonton along with the proceeds ($20,500,000) received from the sale of the Federal Building to the Province of Alberta in exchange for the Canada Place site. The total value of the site was $33,700,000.
3.	On March 17, 1983, Treasury Board gave approval in principle to proceed with the Canada Place project by means of a lease-purchase arrangement with a private developer. In doing so, the Government will be leasing the site to a developer on a long-term basis, and the developer will contract to design, construct and finance a building to be leased back to the Government. The improvements will revert back to the Crown upon the termination of the ground lease.
4.	The developer for the "Canada Place" project has not yet been named. The developer will be responsible for assembling a project team which will include consulting engineers and architects.
5.	The preparation of working drawings and the project construction phase is expected to take approximately 30 months, it is anticipated that this phase may commence as early as October, 1984.
6.	The estimated cost of constructing the facility (excluding land costs) is $89,500,000 (October, 1983 constant dollars).
7.	It is anticipated that the Canada Place project will be completed and occupied by mid-1987. The timing will ultimately depend on when a developer is chosen and contracted to undertake the project.
[ Translation]


John Leslie Evans: Mr. Speaker, I ask the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The questions enumerated by the Parliamentary Secretary has been answered. Shall the remaining questions stand?


J. Michael Forrestall: Mr. Speaker, I want to rise in the dying days of this session to lament and regret deeply the Government's attitude with respect to starred questions. I will simply ask the Parliamentary Secretary again if he has any intention of answering my question and if so, could he give me an indication of when that might be.


John Leslie Evans: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we intend to answer that question. In fact, half of the answer is now in our hands and
we are attempting to get the other half. At the present moment the half that is in our hands measures almost one half inch thick. It is going to have to be made an Order for Return, Mr. Speaker; it simply cannot be read in this Chamber as a starred question is supposed to be, because it would take literally hours to read. The Hon. Member has obviously misused the starred question provision.


J. Michael Forrestall: Mr. Speaker, the misinterpretation placed upon this by the Parliamentary Secretary is somewhat regrettable. The question could have been answered in two different ways, one verbal. The processes of the House are such that all he had to do was to rise in his place and indicate that an Order for Return should be granted. He had three months to do that. The information is in the computer so all he had to do was pull it out. It should not take ten minutes to get the answer.


John Leslie Evans: Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the point. The only purpose of a starred question is to have an oral answer given in the House. If the Hon. Member knew it was going to take computer output to answer a question, then why was it put on as a starred question in the first place?


Mr. Blenkarn:: Mr. Speaker, this is the third time in six or eight weeks that I have risen to inquire about question No. 1,641 which I asked on November 20, 1981, over three years ago. In each case the Parliamentary Secretary has said that the answer is coming, it will be available forthwith, or that he will attempt to do what he can, but obviously nothing has been done. The question is very simple: it asks whether the directors of the CNR get free passes on Air Canada. A yes or no answer would have been satisfactory. The answer really is that they probably do but they do not want to disclose it. They cannot tell why and they refuse to admit that this is an abuse-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member has the answer to his question. The Chair wonders why he had it on the Order Paper. Would the Parliamentary Secretary care to comment?


John Leslie Evans: Mr. Speaker, again I will indicate that I will try to get an answer for the Hon. Member. If we look at the Standing Orders and at Beauchesne's with regard to Questions on the Order Paper it will be seen that question should not be put on the Order Paper where the answer is available in a public form elsewhere. I suggest that the answers to the questions that Hon. Members are putting on the Order Paper are available elsewhere. Members should not be taking up space on the Order Paper or the time of Parliament to ask questions when they can obtain the answers elsewhere.


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: Mr. Speaker, I do not think the last statement of the Parliamentary Secretary should go unchallenged. The Parliamentary Secretary is only a lackey whose job it is to get the answers to questions that Members of Parliament are entitled to ask. He has no right to make the decision on whether or not the answer is available from another source. If he would do his job rather than passing judgment on whether Members of Parliament are properly
November 29, 1983

fulfilling their function, he would be a lot better off and would do a much better job for his Party.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. De Bane that Bill C-170, an Act to authorize investment in and the provision of financial assistance to the Atlantic Fisheries for the purpose of restructuring fishery enterprises, be read the third time and do pass.
Pierre De Bané: Mr. Speaker, when I introduced this Bill for second reading, 1 ventured the opinion that it was one of the most important in the history of the Canadian fisheries. Since then, I believe it has acquired another distinction. I know of no other Bill affecting the fisheries which has moved through the House so rapidly and with such thorough scrutiny by all interested parties.
A great deal has happened in a very short time. As Hon. Members know, this Bill received second reading on November 18. Since then it has been the subject of intensive hearings before the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry. The Committee, in a truly marathon effort, Mr. Speaker, held meetings which went far into the night, right through the week. In the case of the sessions, last Thursday we did not finish our work until 4.30 in the morning. Even yesterday at 11 p.m., 1 was appearing before the Senate Committee which was studying the same Bill. They were very well attended hearings. A cross-section of the industry was present. Inshore and offshore fishermen were both represented. So were the representatives of the similar independent processing companies of the region.
If I may say so, Mr. Speaker, I wished at times that the parliamentary television audience across Canada could have seen these hearings. It would have been a powerful advertisement for the benefits of an open parliamentary system. I can think of no interest which was not represented, no important concern or apprehension which was not expressed, no potential pitfall which was not explored. And all this was done in one week.
The industry, for its part, needs to look Government in the eye and make up its mind about its commitment and its intentions. You cannot legislate this kind of confidence, nor can you build it from a distance. You can, however, develop it through direct dialogue. I will not pretend that we have
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
dispelled every single doubt in committee. However, we have made an impressive start toward improved confidence. One unfounded concern, which had become visible both in this House and outside it, was that the Government was coming into the Atlantic fishery industry to stay on a permanent basis. That concern emerged even after specific formal commitments were made, for instance, in the Newfoundland agreement and in public statements. I believe we have successfully dealt with these concerns. The Bill now contains a clause by which the federal Government commits itself to divestiture if the circumstances are right and as soon as the industry is profitable. On the other hand, and I think rightly so, I could not give an ironclad guarantee because it would be most imprudent to give such a commitment without being able to assess the particular circumstances of the moment. The intention is there, however. It is clear. It is included in the agreement we have reached, both with the Government of Newfoundland and the agreement in principle with the Government of Nova Scotia.
We have also added a clause to the Bill which sets up a systematic process of keeping Canadian taxpayers, who are now temporary shareholders of the industry, informed about the state of their investment. The Bill now calls for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to report to this House on an annual basis. Those reports, incidentally, will cover progress toward divestiture, if the Minister has some relevant information to give in that regard. However, again, while the intention is clear, I believe it would have been most imprudent to have accepted amendments which would have committed the Government, without regard to the circumstances, to follow only one course of action. On the other hand, if circumstances are right, the companies are profitable and suitable buyers are interested to invest, then, of course, the Government would be anxious to get out.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, we have been careful in these measures to avoid what one might call "institutional role conflict". We did not feel that the Department of Government which is responsible for managing the fisheries and for setting the ground rules, should even be a temporary shareholder in the industry. We were able to clarify this in committee by stipulating that the Government's share will not be held in the name of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. The moment he buys shares he will have to transfer them to another Minister, for instance, the Minister responsible for the Canada Development Investment Corporation.
More generally, Mr. Speaker, these hearings have helped to clarify the broad purpose of these measures. I believe it is now more generally understood, for instance, that this Bill is not simply a mechanism to ratify agreements between the federal Government and the Governments of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. I believe that the committee and the fishing industry also understand that it is not an appropriation Bill, that it does not deal in programs. If specific programs need to be set up in the future, that will be done subject to the normal budgetary and other procedures of Parliament.

November 29, 1983
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act [Translation]
Mr. Speaker, I would like to express my thanks to all Committee Members from all Parties in this House who, in addition to their co-operation, were also generous with their knowledge of the fishing industry and suggested various amendments that were accepted by the Government. The Committee's sittings were most instructive, but I hasten to add that the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Breau), in addition to taking part in the sittings of the Parliamentary Committee, also sent, early this week, a long brief detailing various items of major importance to the Atlantic fisheries, and more particularly to New Brunswick. I want to take this opportunity to inform my hon. colleague that 1 read his brief with great interest, and that I intend to meet him as soon as possible to have a thorough discussion of the various points he raised, and I hope that at that time we shall be able to find positive solutions for the very basic concerns he raised and which arise from the need to provide stability for the fisheries and a fair apportioning of the jobs and profits to be generated by this industry in the various Atlantic regions, and especially in New Brunswick. I therefore wish to thank the Hon. Member for his brief.

I would also like to express our appreciation to the many witnesses who came at short notice, and in some cases, at no small inconvenience, to Ottawa for these hearings, and for giving their time and energy so freely when they were here. I am also, of course, very happy that the Ministers of Fisheries of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, or their representatives, came before our committee.
[ Translation]
If I have one regret, it is that among all the Ministers of Fisheries, the only one who did not come personally or send a representative was the Quebec Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Fortunately, the board of directors of Pecheurs-Unis and representatives of employees and unions appeared before the Committee to express their support for this legislation. I think this goes to show that the Canadian Government, not the Government of Quebec, has understood the aspirations of the parties concerned in Quebec's fishing industry. The Quebec Government acknowledged publicly that the ideological issues were more important than the welfare of the fishermen.
The time has now come to act on this Bill. The industry has been through traumatic times. Fishermen, processors, suppliers, everyone connected with this strategically important Atlantic industry has been in a state of uncertainty and confusion about the future. That in itself is an unhealthy state of affairs. It is important to replace uncertainty with a clear sense of purpose and direction. We must do so quickly. Time is
precious and delay is costly. For instance, interest charges of about $1 million a week are accumulating on existing loans which will be rolled into equity once these measures are in place. In some regions, the next fishing season is barely a month away. I urge the House to carry through on the momentum we have achieved and to approve this Bill unanimously.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak on Bill C-170 at third reading. The theme of my speech is "onward through the fog", because Bill C-170 has blanketed Atlantic Canada in a thick fog of confusion, fear and contradictory Liberal promises.
This Government claims to have finally realized that the fishery must be economically viable and privately owned. Yet it intends to achieve these ends by literally nationalizing some 65 per cent of the productive capacity of the industry. Through negotiations with only two Atlantic provincial Governments, this Government intends to force through a program that will have serious impact on the five Provinces around the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This Government has literally guaranteed the jobs of some plant workers and left others to compete against them without any protection whatsoever. While promising that the industry will be denationalized as soon as possible and that the competitive balance of the marketplace will not be upset, this Government is incapable of providing any detail as to how these specific aims are to be achieved. No wonder many independent operators are taking the attitude that the federal Government should buy their businesses now while they are viable, before they are driven into ruin by trying to compete against nationalized, subsidized enterprises.
Of all the foggy Liberal notions, Mr. Speaker, one of the foggiest was that somehow the people of Atlantic Canada would not notice what was being done to them if this Bill was rushed through Parliament. Last week, as we crammed some 33 hours of committee meetings into four days, it was quite apparent to practically everyone that Atlantic Canadians knew only too well what was being planned, and for the most part they wanted no part of it. Among 17 witnesses who appeared before the committee, 12 were solidly opposed to the Liberal assault on the fishing industry. Today in the House we still feel, at least on the Opposition side, that a gun is being held to our heads to pass this Bill and allow the federal Government to get these restructured companies established before 1984.
The Opposition has been criticized for delaying this Bill six days at second reading. Quite frankly, Sir, we strongly resent such criticism. It is none other than the Liberals who delayed this Bill 14 days at first reading and delayed its introduction for a full month after signing a restructuring agreement with Newfoundland and Labrador. Look at the delays this Government took in the restructuring as a whole and you will find that the Government took six months to negotiate the Newfoundland agreement alone. The Nova Scotia agreement, if there ever is to be one, will take even longer because this Liberal Government has unfortunately backed down from verbal assurances it made in September. Meanwhile the proposed restructring in Quebec is being fought at every turn of
November 29, 1983

the wheel by that Province's Government. In short, it is the Liberal Government's own abysmal record in negotiation and consultation that is to blame for the restructuring delays and for much of the crisis in the Atlantic fishery.
During the committee hearings last week one of the most oft repeated criticisms for fishermen, processors and provincial Governments was that they had not been consulted about restructuring althouth they will be profoundly affected by its outcome. This is the real tragedy of the restructuring this Bill will authorize. The Liberal Government has failed to demonstrate respect for the different needs of the fishing industry in different parts of Atlantic Canada. There is no reason to think, no reason whatsoever, that Bill C-170 will in any way change this position. Indeed, this federal Government seems to think that what is good for Newfoundland is good for Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Quebec. This of course reminds me of that old cliche about the lady with ten kids who, when one of them got sick, gave cod liver oil to the whole lot. That is in effect what is happening here. One of our Provinces is economically ill and, instead of recognizing the need of that particular Province, this Bill encompasses the whole of Atlantic Canada as well as Quebec. This Government seems determined to prop up one sector of the industry and kick out the blocks from under the others.
No one could blame the people of Newfoundland and Labrador for seizing the opportunity provided by this restructuring agreement with the federal Government. That Province has been shamefully ignored by federal programs ever since Confederation. DREE expenditures, for example in Newfoundland, have been cut in half in the past three years when, by rights, they should have been increased. Despite its strategic location in the North Atlantic, which I might add was well recognized during World War II, Newfoundland is the only Canadian Province without a permanent Canadian Forces base, and it has the lowest per capita national defence expenditure. For years the Province has been trying to negotiate an agreement on its petroleum resources. Of course, Newfoundland would jump at the chance of seeing increased federal spending on its fishery and an opportunity for a little more control over the management of the industry. Whether these opportunities will be realized remains to be seen, Mr. Speaker, as the detailed negotiations have not yet begun.
The way restructuring has been presented so far makes it acceptable only to Newfoundland. In the maritime Provinces the consensus appears to be that this federal Government should not have controlling interest of any fishery enterprise and that the large Nickerson-National sea corporation should be split up into five corporations rather than being further consolidated.
Tomorrow this Bill will be passed and the ball will once again be in the Liberal court to pursue the course of restructuring. I wonder how this Government will placate the many fishermen and processors it has already antagonized. How will it improve the fishery and create a spirit of co-operation when four out of five Provinces in the region are opposed to the federal manoeuvres? This Government is led by a man who
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
declares that co-operative federalism is dead. In the months ahead, we in the Official Opposition will be watching the implementation of restructuring with great concern. We will not hesitate to criticize the federal Government for unnecessary delays in the process.
While this Bill was in committee our Party was successful in bringing in two major additions to the Bill. One will ensure that Parliament gets an annual report on the administration of this Act. The other provides at least a whisper of acknowledgement that federal equity in fisheries enterprises will be returned to the private sector when the enterprises become economically viable.
Our Party actually introduced 11 amendments to this bill in committee. Six were accepted. At the report stage I again moved two of those, which were voted down by the government side. The fact that these two amendments were defeated as of today clearly establishes the tone in which restructuring will be carried out. It confirms the fears that have already been expressed throughout the Atlantic region that accountability and consultation will be minimized while federal control of the fishery will be maximized for an undetermined period.
Beyond these amendments there is another important change that should be made to the way in which this Bill is enacted. Representatives from the processing industry have given this issue the highest priority for changes to Bill C-170. It requires no amendment, merely the proper exercise of powers under Clause 7 of the Bill. This will allow the Governor in Council to appoint another Minister, other than the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, to administer this Act. It sounds like a small change but it would go a long way to allay the fears of the fishing industry. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. De Bane), controlling a majority of shares of some 60 or 70 per cent of Atlantic processing capacity, could be in a conflict of interest position with regard to his duties for resource management and licensing. Imagine the CBC, for example, being responsible for all broadcasting licences, or Petro-Canada for all drilling permits, and you have comparable situations. 1 therefore call upon the present Government to confer the administration of this Act upon some other Minister. After all, the powers of the Bill are purely economic in nature and they should be exercised according to economic and social criteria established by a Department such as the Department of Economic Development or the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion.
The Minister, in his comments today, alluded to this particular section in a way. He said it was the intention of the Government that the shares would not be held by him but would be held by the Minister responsible for the Canada Development Investment Corporation. I question whether this will satisfy the fears of the independents who appeared before our committee because of the track record of the Minister to whom he indicates this authority will be transferred.
At this point I would like to read into the record the reasons why the Minister mentioned in Bill C-170 should be some

November 29, 1983
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
Minister other than the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and other than the Minister responsible for the Canada Development Investment Corporation, as they have been outlined to me by Mr. Ron Bulmer, the spokesman for the Fisheries Council of Canada, which represents not only the processors but also some inshore and offshore fishermen as well. Mr. Bulmer makes the following point:
1.	The Department of Fisheries and Oceans now regulates allocations, plant licences, in-plant inspection, and is planning to police grading. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans should not have the pressure toward or the appearance of bias by being responsible for restructuring, and ongoing funding of restructured companies.
2.	Key elements of Bill C-170 are financial in nature and are needed for the development of Atlantic Canada. Therefore, the Bill should reside in an economic department where financial analytical and business skills reside.
3.	The U.S.A. market would perceive such a management function and stated reprivatization as positive signs, thus minimizing the risk of countervail.
I would interject here and say that the risk of countervail, in light of the programs in motion in the United States, is a very real concern at this time among the 700 independents still surviving in the fishing industry in Atlantic Canada and Quebec. He continues:
4.	Processors will continue to feel that only those who toe the party line and perhaps accept other government initiatives such as in the marketing area will ever qualify for any of the funds outlined in Bill C-170 while this Bill resides under the powers of the Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans.
Mr. Speaker, our amendments and our speeches have indicated that we share these concerns. We believe that two elements in this Bill that need to be further pursued are moving the powers of the Bill to an economic Ministry and gaining some form of mechanism for establishing the review process. We need a guarantee that the taxpayers' dollars are being well managed and that Parliament and the industry can determine exactly how many of these dollars are involved. Further, there is an obvious need for a direct balance of power between ongoing practices in the fishery and the restructuring process.
Since the conclusion of the committee meetings to which I referred last week, my office as well as the offices of other Members of the Official Opposition have been contacted repeatedly by witnesses who appeared in Ottawa. After thanking us for the efforts we made on their behalf, these witnesses have again expressed their concern that a mechanism for improved consultation with the fishing industry and with provincial Government must be established. Our Party moved an amendment to this effect in committee, but unfortunately it was voted down by the Liberal majority.


Brian Vincent Tobin: And the NDP.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister says, "And the NDP". He is quite correct and I thank him for that addition. The point at issue here is that while we were trying to amend and improve the Bill, some of the Liberal Members, who indicated in one way or another that they do not like this Bill either, did not take the opportunity to stand up and be counted. They voted with the Government and killed this very worth-while amendment. I regret that action. We moved this amendment and it was voted down.
I am now going to urge the Government to establish a restructuring review council.


Mr. Breau:: Which one did I vote down?


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: The Hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Breau) asks which one he voted down. 1 will remind him that he voted this down in committee. I am going to urge that the Government establish a restructuring review council that will consist of representatives from all relevant sectors of the industry as well as provincial Governments. The work of this review council would be to focus its attention on the extent to which restructuring is achieving its stated purpose. That is our major concern at this stage. They should present an annual report to Parliament containing their recommendations. That is what we would like to see. It may well be, after consideration, that the stone which the builders rejected in committee could well become the cornerstone of the restructuring process for the information of Parliament.
These views have been echoed and re-echoed through the brief as presented in committee. They are in the brief that was presented to the committee by the Department of Fisheries of the Province of New Brunswick. I am just going to place this on the record. It reads:
Generally, the New Brunswick fishing industry has weathered the economic recession of the past few years in relatively good shape. Our independent processors, both large and small, and our fishermen, independent owner-operators of their own vessels, have been able to survive economic hardship through their own good efforts, and the support offered to them by the New Brunswick Department of Fisheries and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. A loans program for vessel acquisition and improvement, training programs, technical advice, innovative fisheries and the exploitation of new species-all have assisted the New Brunswick fishery to adapt and survive.
The reports that came from the New Brunswick representatives indicated at least a healthy fishery if not an extremely profitable one. It was gratifying for me to listen to their presentation because it indicated that private enterprise and the force it engenders is still in a healthy state in your own native Province, Mr. Speaker.
The Eastern Fisheries Federation made a number of outstanding points in the presentation that it made before the committee. I wish time permitted me to earmark all of them, but I will refer briefly to one or two. They stated that there was a lack of consultation. They went on to say:
Independent fishermen land well over 50 per cent of the fish in the Maritimes but were never included in the discussions on industry restructuring. Similarly, we were not consulted when this Bill was proposed. How can we rest assured that the federal Government will ever consult with us on the operation of the fishing industry, or the massive companies now to be controlled by the Government.
They went on to say:
Not only was there no consultation with us, but there was none with the smaller companies on whom we depend. They now are seeing the banks reduce their lines of credit by 33 per cent to the small buyers. What will the Government do to restore banking confidence in the 700 independents which are vital to us?
The Minister of Fisheries for Prince Edward Island expressed equal concerns. In his brief to the committee he said:
November 29, 1983

This brings us to the point of how we should approach the resolution of this difficult situation. We do not adhere to the view that, because some of the private sector is currently experiencing financial difficulty, state ownership is required to bring about resolution to this event. Indeed we may be jumping from the frying pan to the fire. It would be equally wrong to conclude that the small scale private sector companies alone could deliver our future prosperity. Rather we would have been more anxious about determining what are the manageable units within the large concerns and insure that by providing support and loan security, private investment would have been found to acquire those manageable units and run them as viable concerns. Yes, there would have been a period of disruption while the reordering took place but had we undertook this activity when the problem was recognized at least two years ago, I submit the industry would be stabilized at this time and markets supported.
To date, my own Province of Nova Scotia has refused to sign an agreement with the federal Government. There were proposals made at Port Hawkesbury in September but we were informed in committee that they are now in limbo as a result of backtracking by the federal Minister.
Some of the points still to be resolved were laid before the committee in an excellent presentation by the new provincial Minister of Fisheries, Mr. John Leefe. I will not read all of them but simply four to which he referred. He stated that no agreement was yet signed and listed some of the points that are in disagreement between the federal and provincial Governments, for example, a commitment to transfer equity back to private enterprise within five years. Another point is maintenance of existing northern cod quotas together with incremental increases every year. No one level of government will have a majority of control of the new company, and finally, the Nova Scotia-Canada multi-million dollar fisheries development plan is to be renegotiated. These and other problems still remain to be resolved.
A spokesman for the Independent Sea Producers also raised in the committee some very important points. In the interest of time I will only mention one or two. The independents contend that restructuring represents an effective but somewhat subtle nationalization of the Atlantic fishery. The independents have no confidence that the new super companies will be run on a commercial basis and expect that they will need continuous subsidies. Consequently, the independents will have to deal with very unfair competition. For the independents, restructuring will have particularly negative implications in the following areas: fish prices, wages, marketing, resource allocation, policy development and implementation and financing. The underlying concern here is that the new super company will not be permitted to function in a commercially responsible fashion. I could go on, but this shows the fear of the people who are still trying to operate in the industry.
There is even some concern that this Bill is entirely unnecessary since its requirements are, in my view, covered by an Act called the Fisheries Development Act. Two clauses of this Act in particular appear to give the Minister all the power that he needs to help the industry through this period of depression within the industry. I would like to present two of the clauses of that particular Bill to show what I mean. According to the Fisheries Development Act, Section 3(1), the Minister:
-may undertake projects (a) for the more efficient exploitation of fishery resources and for the exploration for and development of new fishery resources and new fisheries;
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
(b)	for the introduction and demonstration to fishermen of new types of fishing vessels and fishing equipment and of new fishing techniques; and
(c)	for the development of new fishery products and for the improvement of the handling, processing and distribution of fishery products.
Section 3(3) states:
The Minister may, with the approval of the Governor in Council, enter into an agreement with any province providing for the payment to the province of contributions in respect of the cost of any project that is undertaken by the government of the province or any agency thereof and that the Minister is authorized to undertake under subsection (1).
Section 5 states:
The Minister may make payments to such persons or classes of persons, in such amount and on such terms and conditions as may be prescribed by the Governor in Council,
(a) for the construction and equipment of
(i)	commercial cold storages, or
(ii)	commercial bait freezing facilities equipped with mechanical refrigeration,
that will be suitable for the preservation of fishery products.
I could go on but it seems to me that the officials of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans should have taken time, upon examination of this over-all problem, to see what vehicle could have been used in order to assist the people in Newfoundland and some in my Province of Nova Scotia who are in dire straits as a result of the cyclical downturn. I say "cyclical" as one who spent some time in the industry. I know that the biblical quotation of "seven fat years and seven lean years" seemingly applies to the fishing industry. We do have our ups and downs, as I am sure you are well aware, Mr. Speaker, coming from New Brunswick. Instead of using this vehicle to which I just referred as a modus operandi in order to resolve these difficulties, these officials have jumped in with a whole new piece of legislation which is, in effect, balkanizing and dividing all the Provinces of Atlantic Canada as well as Quebec.
In conclusion, I simply wish to say that if this is the best that the federal Government can come up with after two years of procrastination and exhaustive study by the Kirby task force, we on this side have decided to let it get on with it because time is running out for the people in Atlantic Canada whose financial resources in some areas are completely depleted. That is the sad side of this entire mess which we face today. This is why we agree to third reading today.
I believe it is significant that with the exception of the Hon. Member for Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador (Mr. Romp-key) whose amendment dealt with the Saltfish Marketing Corporation and therefore ruled out of order by you, Mr. Speaker, the Progressive Conservative Party and its Members are the only ones who moved amendments in the House in the hope of strengthening this Bill and in the hope of making it more acceptable to the independents still functioning in the industry. Unfortunately, when these amendments were moved some Liberal Members who obviously do not like the Bill negated these very amendments which would have strengthened it. This is called window dressing in the trade. They are called paper tigers because without that type of support we are stymied and handtied. As I said earlier, we are here with a gun

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Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
held to our heads by the majority which runs the country in the name of the Liberal Government.
I hope that no one on the Government side would construe our statements on this Bill as an over-all agreement to this socialistic legislation. As I said a moment ago, our position is taken as a result of the dire straits faced by some Atlantic Province Canadians due to the over-all mismanagement of our economy and specifically the over-all mismanagement of our fishing industry by the Government. There appears to be no other alternative for them at the present time. This is really a Bill which provides short-term gain for long-term pain. But hopefully it will get our fishermen in some areas through this winter of discontent and hardship. That is basically what they are facing at the present time. As the fishermen say-and Lord knows 1 have heard them say it many times, when faced with a broker-let's pray we have better luck next time. In my opinion it would be very unfair to rob them of that hope which in many areas is all they have left.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Questions, comments? Debate.


Mr. Ted Miller (Nanaimo-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak on third reading of Bill C-170. 1 want to reiterate the importance which the New Democratic Party has felt for Bill C-170 and why we have co-operated in seeing that this Bill went to committee and that it receives third reading in the House of Commons. There is no doubt in the minds of anybody in Atlantic Canada, and hopefully nobody in the House of Commons, about the urgency this Bill requires. Basically it is because we have an industry in Atlantic Canada which employs an important component of the work force there. It is an industry that meets the employment requirements for thousands and thousands of people and hundreds of communities.
When we decided we would support this Bill going through the House reasonably rapidly we did so with some reservations, because we did not have all the facts that we would liked to have had in dealing with a major expenditure of money and a restructuring of the entire Atlantic fishery we were cautious. The urgency with which the Bill must be dealt, and the late date on which it has been introduced in the House has still not convinced us that we have had an ample opportunity to look at all the implications of the Bill. We do realize that fishermen, particularly in Newfoundland, and in those major companies in Nova Scotia, are dependent upon settling some collective bargaining negotiations. The new companies will have to settle some marketing strategies to sell the product which the fishermen will be catching in a few months' time. Under those terms we agreed to look at the Bill.
In the meantime quite a bit of information came to light. In the committee we looked at the Newfoundland agreement. We have heard something about the Nova Scotia agreement and some of the reservations which the Nova Scotia Government has had. We have looked at the bail out of a major bank, the
Bank of Nova Scotia. We have seen some amendments to the Bill that we in the New Democratic Party do not like.
It has been interesting to see the Progressive Conservative Party attempt to wrap itself around the Bill and divorce itself from the Bill. Not only did the Hon. Member for South Shore (Mr. Crouse) do this but his colleagues in provincial Government of Nova Scotia who on the one hand do not want this Bill because they claim it is a nationalization of the industry, a socialist plot to take over the industry, and who on the other hand, are hoping the federal Government will use its majority to see this Bill goes through. If the Bill is not passed, then a major part of the Nova Scotia fishing industry will not be functioning and there will be major unemployment in that already high unemployment area. It is interesting to see how the Progressive Conservatives on the one hand can support the Bill and on the other hand give us all kinds of reasons why they should not, and why they are so anxious to get this Bill through. It is interesting to note that these two new companies are going to put some stability in the East Coast fishing industry.
There is one amendment which the Conservatives and the Liberals support. Once we have injected all this money, the $138 million initially, the $100 million in guarantees and the major bail-out of the Bank of Nova Scotia, it is interesting to note that the amendment moved by the Government would find that when those companies become profitable-not only the companies that become profitable but any portion of a company that becomes profitable-they shall be disposed of by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. De Bane) and returned to the private sector. In other words, once the Government and the public of Canada pumps money into these corporations, once they provide a stable funding mechanism to put some equity into these companies and once they become profitable, we will turn them back to private industry. I do not think the fishermen and the shore workers in the communities in Newfoundland in particular really want that to happen. Privatization of the industry should not be in the Bill that it shall happen. Communities such as Grand Bank, Burin, St. Anthony, St. Lawrence, Ramea and a number of others in Newfoundland, over the last year have seen their community completely without adequate work in terms of the fishing industry. People will question the rationale of supporting a community through public expenditure to salvage jobs, to give some security to those communities, only to turn around when the community and the fishing enterprise becomes profitable, starts to contribute and starts to bring up the wages and incomes of fishermen and shore workers and return it to the private sector. I do not think, nor does the New Democratic Party think, that those communities will want to go back to private sector hands with the uncertainty that generates.
What the Bill will do if the Government follows the letter of the law-and let us not forget there is a possibility sometime in the far future when we might get a Progressive Conservative Government-is that I am sure the Government would not hesitate at any stage to turn those money-earning enterprises back to the private sector. What they would do is to maintain
November 29, 1983

those enterprises which the corporate sector would not want to purchase. The taxpayer would end up supporting those enterprises that are not profitable. Nevertheless they would probably serve a very important social function in communities in Atlantic Canada. That is one of the reasons this Party has serious reservations about the Bill. We had an amendment that was unnecessary. It was an amendment to satisfy the free enterprise spirit of the Liberal Government and the Progressive Conservative Opposition in spite of the failure of free enterprise in those major corporations which has led to this mammoth bail-out of the banks and the fishing industry.
We cannot see the rationale of putting an amendment in a Bill which gives the opportunity in the future if it were feasible, to see some privatization. To put in a Bill the words that the Minister shall dispose of such assets of fishery enterprises or portions of that enterprise really begs the whole concept of public ownership and the support of the fishing industry in Atlantic Canada.
The Bill itself is not all that long. Our Party in committee attempted to remove from Clause 3 in the Bill the aspect of private ownership. That was simply in order to give some confidence that the fishing industry could continue to be supported if necessary. We in this Party are hopeful that the economy of the fishing industry will turn around as those markets improve and that as our fishery techniques and marketing skills improve, we will find a viable and profitable fishing industry for the communities of fishermen and the owners of these enterprises.
The other information we received in committee, which again puts a different light on this whole Bill, is the aspect of the refinancing itself. We have all suspected that the fishing industry was in serious financial straits, but this was confirmed when the task force was given a letter of agreement between the Bank of Nova Scotia and the Kirby Task Force on Atlantic Fisheries. We found that the total debt in the industry owing to the Bank of Nova Scotia as of December 31, 1982 was $276.9 million. Of course there were many reasons for the size of the debt owing to that bank, however it pointed out the inability of major fishing enterprises and the banks to manage the fishery adequately. Also it pointed out their inability to predict adequately the ability of the processors or the amount of available stock for the processing plants. As well, it indicated the inability of provincial Governments to control the number of processors and the inability of the Bank of Nova Scotia to conduct an adequate assessment of loans to the corporate sector. However, once again the bank is the one enterprise which will be immune from major losses.
In order to recoup some of that $276.9 million, the Government will have the bank convert $143.8 million of debt into equity. Also, to reduce the debt owing to the bank, the Government will give the company $25 million. Also the bank will receive in holding company X, which is the Nova Scotia company, $70 million in preferred shares. It will also receive
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
class A and B preferred shares in both the Newfoundland and the Nova Scotia companies.
What will occur over the next five years is that the Bank of Nova Scotia will be able to claim those shares. The Government of Canada will pay a 5 per cent dividend on the shares regardless of the viability of the fishing industry. Also it will be paid $14 million per year for five years to reclaim the preferred shares. In other words, it will receive its $70 million back and a 5 per cent dividend in the first five years and will be able to sell off the class A shares. It will receive a great deal of the money owing in that way. Also, $107 million will be left in the industry as loans outstanding. Now that the companies will be supported by federal and provincial funds, as well as provincial agreements, it is almost like guaranteeing a $107 million loan to the companies.
Perhaps this was necessary. We are not denying that. We knew there was a crisis in the industry and that it would take strong medicine to resolve it. However, it would appear that those who get into the most economic difficulty, those with the highest debt, always have Governments to come along and bail them out.
We have some severe reservations about the mechanism by which Parliament and the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry have been used in dealing with this Bill. For many months in committee we asked for some information on the restructuring. We asked what was happening in the negotiations among the federal Government, provincial Governments, banks and major companies. We were always told that it was confidential. We appreciate that some of these negotiations are very sensitive. Certainly in committee we saw how the Province of Nova Scotia did not agree with the federal Government. I am sure it does not agree with the sharing of stock between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Why that should be part of the discussion of this Bill rather than part of the normal negotiations between federal and provincial fisheries officials in terms of establishing quotas, I fail to understand. However, it was a major concern of the Province of Nova Scotia. It is not a red herring; it is the redfish stock in the gulf. In the ongoing negotiations between the federal and provincial Governments, particularly the Government of Nova Scotia, that Province does not want to look as though it wants to enter into this agreement. It wants to scream and kick so that it indicates to the public that it is the free enterpriser in Atlantic Canada and that it wants the federal Government to stay out of it. The federal Government cannot stay out of it and still have a viable industry in Nova Scotia.
There is no private capital available, and again Canadian taxpayers come to the aid of major companies which have gone bankrupt, partly through their own fault and partly through the economic conditions of a world recession. Nevertheless, we do not see the kind of co-operation required to maintain a viable fishery in Atlantic Canada. It is ironic that the super companies, because of greater marketing skills and better management skills, along with the co-operation of the community, fishermen and plant workers who now have a real stake in the companies that have been formed in Nova Scotia, New-

November 29, 1983
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
foundland and Quebec, now have the ability to market products not only in the United States but to expand those markets. They now have the benefit of a provision being incorporated in a Bill of which, if public ownership or a public enterprise becomes successful, we will have to dispose.
This could mean that in super company A or "No FishCan", which is the Nova Scotia aspect, or in "New Fish Can", which is the Newfoundland aspect of this restructuring-


Coline M. Campbell: That is very good.


Edward Allan Miller: I have been holding those names for some time.
I have heard "FishCan", but that does not sound as good as "New FishCan" and "No FishCan"; I think they are rather catchy.


Herb Breau: They are better than X, Y and Z.


Edward Allan Miller: They are better than the terminology in the Kirby task force memorandum. However, public ownership has a role to play in the fishing industry as well as in Canada as a whole. We cannot accept that once the operations of the super companies become profitable, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. De Bane) can dispose of it to private ownership. That amendment moved by the Government and supported by the Conservatives could mean that if an individual trawler shows a profit over a year or two, the trawler could be sold. I do not think that was the intention of the Government; at least 1 hope it was not. We have the possibility now of a company which could really meet the needs of communities in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.
The possibilities of the super companies in terms of involving more people in the management structure are very important. The possibilities of the super companies, in co-operation with the federal and provincial Governments in establishing marketing courses through marine colleges or marine colleges and developing new technologies or new techniques in processing and establishing new product lines, will be beneficial. We in the NDP share the concerns expressed by independent fishermen and processors before the committee in terms of their profitability and ability to survive in an industry which may be dominated by one, two or three major companies. We do not see the necessity of super companies eroding the viability of independent processors and fishermen. The cooperation between the new companies and the independents in terms of supporting new market research and trade missions through Europe and some of the developing countries in which there may be a possibility of selling fish products is very important.
We are somewhat amused that this debate seems to have evolved only around the ownership and the privatization some time in the future of a publicly owned corporation. Projections from Price Waterhouse for the corporation indicate that over the next five years it will make something like a $50 million profit. I think that is very optimistic. For an industry that is currently losing millions of dollars a year, it is optimistic to
think that we will see profits of $50 million over the next five years simply through restructuring. We would certainly like to see that come to pass, but we have a long struggle ahead of us to bring the Atlantic fishery industry back to profitability, to see that fishermen can enjoy collective bargaining and have increased prices for the product delivered to the dock and to the plant and to see that the shore workers have some involvement in the management and production of that fishery.
In this instance, Mr. Speaker, we cannot continue to support a Bill which is radically different from the Bill for which we indicated support in the past. We think that it is a necessary Bill, but we are not prepared to support a Bill that sees the privatization of a company which has not been able to prove itself to Atlantic Canadians.


Herb Breau: Mr. Speaker, when I spoke in the House on second reading of Bill C-170, I said there was a problem with the Government's general orientation with respect to fisheries. Although the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry held a number of sittings to examine the Bill, there was nothing in the proceedings of this Committee that could convince me the approach taken by the Government at the beginning of the so-called Atlantic fisheries crisis, that is, when the Kirby Commission was set up in January 1982 or perhaps December 1981 ... Up to now, the result has been, in terms of restructuring, an agreement on restructuring with the Province of Newfoundland, an agreement in principle with the Province of Nova Scotia and finally, Bill C-170 which is not restructuring anything.
Bill C-170, and this is very important, does not restructure anything as such. What it does is allow the Government to acquire in Section 4 of the Bill, on page 3, and I quote:
-the Minister may, on behalf of Her Majesty,
(a) acquire, hold or dispose of or otherwise deal with shares, debentures or
other securities of, or any security interest in, any fishery enterprise;
Although the Government is given other powers, in the main Bill C-170 authorizes the Government to purchase equity in companies but does not provide the basis for concluding a restructuring agreement.
I must say that while we were examining the Bill, I at least managed to get one positive item in this legislation, in Section 6, where it says, and I quote:
6. (1) To carry out the purpose of this Act, the Minister-
-the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. De Bane)-
-may, with the approval of the Governor in Council on the recommendation of the Minister of Finance, on such terms and conditions as the Minister specifies, guarantee the repayment of any portion of the principal and interest owing on any loan made to a fishery enterprise.
The second paragraph of this section provides, and I quote:
(2) The aggregate amount of guarantees given under this section that are outstanding at any one time shall not exceed one hundred million dollars.
November 29, 1983

Mr. Speaker, this means that aside from the restructuring agreement with Newfoundland, and with Nova Scotia, if it materializes, aside from the $138 million appropriated under Section 8 for acquiring shares in restructuring projects, the federal Government may set up a program to guarantee loans of $100 million for fishery enterprises. 1 think that is a positive point and, in fact, the only truly positive aspect, as far as I can see, of Bill C-170.
One of the things that examining the Bill in Committee has done is to provide a forum for various fisheries interests to express their views, not only on this legislation and the restructuring plan, but also on the fisheries policy in general, especially in terms of fish stocks management as it is pursued at the present time, and this was brought up in connection with a paragraph of the agreement in principle concluded with the Province of Nova Scotia which referred to quotas for ocean perch in the Gulf. When people realized that the Government of Nova Scotia, in a bilateral agreement with the federal Government, insisted on privileged access or preferential treatment with respect to fish stock management and ocean perch quotas, they immediately saw two potential problems. There were two concerns.
First of all, there was a link between the government or governments that were owners of large companies, and fish stock management. In other words, the federal Government's role as objective arbitrator in awarding quotas was compromised. That was one concern. The second concern was that a dangerous precedent had been set, in that for the first time, without going through the usual consultation body, which in the case of groundfish happens to be the Atlantic Groundfish Advisory Committee (AGAC), a decision had been made on awarding quotas to a province or a party with interests in the fishing industry. I know that there was considerable unfavourable reaction to this, especially in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, and 1 have the impression that was the case in the other Atlantic provinces as well.
In any event, examining this Bill in committee gave people an opportunity to express their views on various items. For instance, a number of intervenors from New Brunswick appeared before the Committee to submit briefs, and I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate them and thank them for having done so. I am referring to the Government of New Brunswick, a coalition of various fisheries interests in New Brunswick, the New Brunswick Fish Packers' Association and the Prince Edward Island Association, the Association professionnelle des pecheurs du nord-est du Nouveau-Brunswick, the Maritime Provinces Fishermen's Union. 1 don't think I left anyone out. These people expressed a number of concerns relating to federal policy as well as to the legislation itself. In fact, I also want to congratulate them because they were positive. They did not come here to fight against something, they did not come to speak out against restructuring and against the legislation. They came to tell the Government: These are our concerns and we would like some reasurrance.
In his speech earlier today the Minister referred to a brief 1 sent him. Since at four o'clock in the morning I did not think a
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act long speech would be welcome, I told the Minister I would be sending him a brief that would summarize the concerns of the people from New Brunswick who came to testify before the Committee. It was a matter of summarizing and interpreting in my own way what their concerns were and what the Government could do to deal with those concerns, to give them the assurance that what is good for Newfoundland and may be good for Nova Scotia is perhaps not so bad for the rest of the Maritime Provinces or for the fisheries industry in New Brunswick, for that matter.
I will sum up as briefly as possible the five points I raised in the memo I sent to the Minister. The first has to do with groundfish quotas in zone 4 RST or both zones, those which most closely follow the outline of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In my opinion, the Federal Government and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. De Bane) ought to make a statement very soon to tell the people that groundfish stocks in the Gulf will be reserved for the fleet of boats measuring 100 feet or less based in the Gulf. Besides boats from New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Quebec, that fleet includes as well boats from Newfoundland, the western coast of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and especially the Cape Breton area, because they too fish in the Gulf.
Because I come from New Brunswick and others are from Quebec or Prince Edward Island, some people tell ui that we do not want any Nova Scotia and Newfoundland boats in the Gulf. That is not true, Mr. Speaker. I have no objection to boats from other provinces plying the Gulf, because the Gulf of St, Lawrence belongs to all Canadians. There has been talk about a dispute among fishing fleets. When talking about a fishing fleet, two things come to mind: the length and power of the boats. What people are saying is that, if boats belonging to fleets are powerful or long enough to go fishing offshore- meaning those boats which are big enough to store the fish caught over a period of one or sometimes two weeks-those boats can go offshore, but that most of the groundfish stocks in the Gulf, the 4 RST zone, should be reserved for boats measuring 100 feet or less based in the Gulf. There are 100-footers or smaller boats operating in the Gulf, and they come from the five eastern provinces, not only from New Brunswick, not only from Prince Edward Island, and not only from Quebec.
The philosophy expressed at the 1980 Memramcook symposium on Gulf groundfish must be maintained. I think that, in the distribution and management of quotas, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans must ensure that the policy of the Federal Government will continue to reflect that philosophy.
My second concern has to do with the agreement with Newfoundland, where reference is made to what is called secondary processing at the Burin plant and perhaps elsewhere. We want the assurance that Federal Government assistance-technical, monetary or whatever-efforts and resources will not be directed exclusively towards the new Newfoundland company when time comes to consider means

November 29, 1983
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of going in for secondary processing. Indeed, we have the means to do that in New Brunswick as well, and like the others we should be entitled to the same assistance for private sector plants and businesses in New Brunswick and elsewhere, for people who are not restructured into super-companies. We should be given the same opportunity to go in for secondary processing.
The third point is that groundfish fishing permits were lost in New Brunswick during the 70s when groundfish stocks were radicaly depleted. At that time, 19 groundfish fishing permits were lost in New Brunswick. In addition, four large trawlers financed by the Province of New Brunswick used to fish in the Gulf northeast of New Brunswick, but they have now been leased to Nova Scotia companies. Two are financed by a company called Pearce Fisheries and the other one by National Sea Products. Now that groundfish stocks are plentiful in the Gulf, I think that those four boats should be sent back in the Gulf because they are financed by the New Brunswick taxpayers. The Minister has the authority to do that. There was a moral agreement under which those boats would continue to supply northeastern New Brunswick plants, but they discontinued that practice after a few months. And now we have to share quotas, for cod for instance, offshore within the 200-mile limit. Two New Brunswick boats are now operating there, so they will have to go along with the proposed offshore groundfish quotas. The Department says that it is going to return to past practice and keep fishing records in mind. I think it has been its intention for the past five or six years. What happens is that the record will show the catches of these four New Brunswick boats that fish off Nova Scotia as Nova Scotia landings. I believe that the landings of these four boats should be recorded as New Brunswick landings and that, based on these figures, New Brunswick should be allocated larger quotas for off-shore groundfish landings. I would like to talk about two boats, namely the Caraquet belonging to a Cara-quet company, and the Pandalus belonging to the Lanieque Island Fishermen's Cooperative.
Now, for my fourth point. The federal Government should quickly develop a marketing financing and assistance program for New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island plants, because there are no restructuring agreements with these two provinces. We cannot expect the Government of New Brunswick, not to mention that of Prince Edward Island since it has not signed a restructuring agreement either, we cannot expect the governments of these provinces, which did not receive any injection of funds as opposed to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, for example towards a reduction of the debts on fishing vessels, to be able on their own to finance independent processors, for instance. The federal Government must therefore implement a program for these two provinces.
Fourth point! One irritant in New Brunswick is that the current policy for herring and mackerel fishing leaves a lot to be desired, for both the inshore and the offshore fisheries. In the case of the inshore fishery, there are no markets or guarantees for the fisherman when he brings in his catch. The result is that he does not get the price he deserves for his fish.
Inshore fishermen therefore cannot be expected to cooperate in terms of a balanced policy for herring and mackerel fishing.
As for the offshore fishery, the policy announced by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans last August to reduce the seiner fleet is very ineffective and unfair because the fishermen are told to reduce their fleet, and to do so, they have to buy a lottery ticket. This means that the owner of a fishing vessel who has had good years in the herring fishery and who is now financially sound can purchase the quotas of a younger fisherman or someone who has just gotten into the industry and who is in a more precarious financial situation saddled with a heavy debt on his boat. He can purchase the quota of this fisherman, who will then be left with his boat, but without quota or a licence.
Mr. Speaker, it is very unfair to have a policy that simply says that the big guy will be able to buy out the smaller one. The Government should review its policy without delay because it is another irritant for New Brunswick fishermen, and they cannot be blamed for having lost confidence in the current policy of the Government.
Last point! We must make sure that the restructuring in Quebec will not result in an expansion of the Quebec plants. I do not object to the Government helping the Quebec plants, or to Quebec companies modernizing their plants, but if this restructuring program or another assistance program for Quebec were to increase the capacity of Quebec plants, it would create a very unfair competition for the fishing industry of Northeastern New Brunswick. Historically, some of the companies now having problems in Quebec paid more for fish than New Brunswick companies. As a result, these Quebec companies had financial problems, and now, the Government is bailing them out. This must not happen again, Mr. Speaker. We have to ensure against any unfair competition based on prices and also avoid any unfair competition as a result of Government development assistance to Quebec processing plants.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that the total approach to the problem of restructuring the industry taken by the Government is highly unusual, in my view. I just do not understand how anyone in Government could even think of this kind of agreement with the Bank of Nova Scotia. I am surprised to see that the Opposition is supporting this kind of approach. The hypocrisy of the Official Opposition on this Bill is very obvious. They should not think that people are not seeing through their position. If Hon. Members opposite want to support this Bill, that is fine. That is their right. But they should not keep saying this is nationalization of the industry, or socialization of the industry and, on the other hand, cooperate with the Government to get the Bill through the House in one day. I want the record to show, Mr. Speaker, that the Official Opposition supports this Bill, because its position is very visible. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney) said, a few days after this Bill was tabled, that he was going to support this Bill. The Minister of Fisheries from Newfound-
November 29, 1983

land came up here and said privately to anyone who wanted to hear it that he had received the assurance of the Official Opposition that it would not oppose this Bill.
That Party cannot have it both ways, Mr. Speaker. If it supports this Bill, fine. If it does not support this Bill, then it knows what it should have done. They cannot keep saying that the Bill is bad and that it is nationalization of the industry, because they did support it. If they had not supported it, we would have had a better examination of this Bill.


Mr. Baker:: Mr. Speaker, 1 have listened to the Hon. Member for Gloucester in committee. 1 listened to his speech here today on this Bill. I would like to ask him one question. How does the Hon. Member rationalize saying, on the one hand, that it is all right for New Brunswick boats to fish off the Newfoundland coast, but, on the other hand, saying, oh, no, there cannot be Nova Scotia boats and there cannot be Newfoundland boats going down into the Gulf? The Hon. Member has said many times he does not put provincial flags on ships. However, would he not agree that actually what he is doing with the Gulf question is putting provincial flags on fish? Is it not true that the list he just read out, which was given to the Minister, is really a form of blackmail on the part of the Hon. Member?


Herb Breau: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member calls the list blackmail. It is no such thing, i put to the Minister in committee, and also in a memo, the list of concerns, as I interpreted them, of the New Brunswick fishing industry. If it has to be called "blackmail", which 1 say it is not, then so be it. My job here is to represent my constituency, to put forward the views of my constituents, and to defend New Brunswick's fishing interests as they were expressed before the committee.
With regard to the question of putting provincial flags on ships, the Hon. Member presumably did not hear my speech. If he did, he did not understand it. What I said is that we are talking here about conflict between fleets of fishing vessels. When one talks about a fleet, one is really talking about two things, the length of the boat and, therefore, its capacity to hold fish and, second, the horsepower of the boat. That is what we are talking about. I never took the position that Nova Scotia or Newfoundland boats cannot fish in the Gulf. In fact, they do. What we are talking about is to reserve in the Gulf the majority of the groundfish for vessels of 100 feet or less, with less power, who are based in the Gulf-vessels from Newfoundland, from Nova Scotia, from Prince Edward Island, from New Brunswick and from Quebec. There is that kind of vessel, Mr. Speaker, which can only fish in the Gulf. It does not have the power to go outside the Gulf. And these vessels are based in the five Provinces.
There are boats based in New Brunswick of 100 feet or more, with more power, which can go offshore, and we are taking the same position, that those vessels should not be entitled to fish in the Gulf. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, we are not talking about putting provincial flags on fish or on ships. What
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
we are saying is that in the Gulf we should reserve the groundfish stocks for those boats which cannot go outside the Gulf to fish. I think that is fair and reasonable.


Dave Nickerson: Mr. Speaker, I hate to break into this altercation between the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate and the Hon. Member for Gloucester. 1 perceive that there are very deep divisions among Members of the Liberal Party on this issue, as indeed there are on many other issues. My question to the Hon. Member for Gloucester is this: he has spoken at some length of the concerns of his constituents on this issue-I applaud him for doing so, that is his job-why does he think he has been completely disregarded on this issue by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Government, which, presumably, he supports?


Herb Breau: Mr. Speaker, I cannot answer that question. I do not believe that my concerns have been totally disregarded by the Government. The Hon. Member, if he is aware of this issue, will know that on the question of restructuring, the agreement in principle with Nova Scotia seemed to link the question of management of Gulf stocks with the restructuring of a super company in Nova Scotia. I would not say that the concerns of the New Brunswick industry and the concerns which 1 expressed on its behalf, have been disregarded by the Government, because the fact is that that particular paragraph of the agreement with Nova Scotia has not been accepted by the Government as yet. The Minister said in his speech on third reading earlier today that he would organize a meeting with his departmental officials very early next week to discuss all the points which were brought forward by the New Brunswick fishing industry which I summarized in my memo to him. I do not believe that the Minister will disregard that.
The reason we are in this position is that there has been pressure in Newfoundland, expressed by the Government of Newfoundland, and the federal Government to try to solve the problems of the industry in Newfoundland. The same thing has happened in Nova Scotia. There have been discussions by both Governments. My position, and the position of the people from New Brunswick who came here, was not to oppose that. What is good for Newfoundland and Nova Scotia is fine. However, we want to make sure we are going to be protected, without having a restructuring agreement, because our fishing industry does not happen to be bankrupt. Because we are not bankrupt, we do not want to lose what we have.


Fred Alward McCain: Mr. Speaker, there are those who suggest that some Hon. Members of this House are unclear in their position. May I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that there are those of us who tried to improve this Bill but we could get no support from those who have now claimed they have taken a position against the Bill, and who now challenge us, in turn, to take a position against the Bill. I submit to you, Sir, that they have personal constituency issues which are putting them in a position which is important. It is an Atlantic issue. For the first time, it has been indicated that some Hon. Members to your right, Mr. Speaker, are in fact aware that at last there are Atantic issues which supercede their loyalties to

November 29, 1983
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
the Liberal Party. I think that is very significant. I say to the Hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Breau) that 1 wish we had had your votes in favour of some of those amendments. No matter how this Act might be administered, we would at least have had access to information which might have contributed to an opportunity for this House and the fishing industry-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order. The Hon. Member for South West Nova invokes a question of privilege.


Coline M. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member who was speaking is referring to the Chairman of the Committee. The Chairman of the Comittee said here in the House that it would be unbiased. At no time was the Chair asked to break any votes in that Committee.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: That is perhaps a point of explanation, but it is hardly a question of privilege in the true sense of the word.


Fred Alward McCain: Mr. Speaker, may 1 draw to the attention of the House that in the spirit in which the Fisheries Committee has functioned, the Chairman has pretty much reserved the right to participate in that Committee as if she were not chairman but, rather, as a normal member, and she has had-


John Leslie Evans: There are clear rules on how chairmen vote.


Fred Alward McCain: Just a minute. You were not there. Let us get Ottawa Centre out of the fishing business where it does not belong.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order, the Hon. Member should address his remarks to the motion as well as to the Chair, please.


Fred Alward McCain: My regrets, Mr. Speaker. My respect for the Chair is inalienable, Sir.
We have a question raised through the interjection by the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate (Mr. Baker) as he referred to the Hon. Member for Gloucester. We have sought the answer repeatedly. What becomes of the surplus redfish in the Gulf? Nova Scotia says it has it, that is part of the deal. Newfoundland has implied it has part of that surplus as part of the deal.


An Hon. Member:: There is no surplus.


Fred Alward McCain: Well, the biologist says there are another
50,000	tons we ought to be catching. 1 do not know whether you call that surplus. The TAC is not utilized, put it that way.
New Brunswick has had no assurance because there has been no negotiation. We do not know what is going on between Quebec and the Minister. We know there is some reorganization, apparently scheduled to be in place in Quebec, but we do not know how many redfish they have. Prince Edward Island has no conception of whether or not it will in turn have any redfish. No one will answer because everything is so secret in
these negotiations. Here we are with the full knowledge of the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate, the Hon. Member for South West Nova and the Hon. Member for Gloucester, voting for a pig in a poke because we feel there is a social responsibility which has motivated us to give this Bill quick consideration. This goes against our principles, because we are conscious of the consequences.
This is the only proposition the Government placed before the industry in spite of advice which 1 would like to read into the record. I am quoting from the Kirby report as follows:
Improving the climate of co-operation and confidence in the industry will require strong leadership from processors' and fishermen's organizations, as well as changes in attitude among all participants in the fishery, including government. This recommendation will probably be the one that is most difficult to implement.
That is the one on which Mr. Kirby has capitulated under pressure, I suppose, from Government. The primary mandate of the Kirby task force was to recommend:
How to achieve and maintain a viable Atlantic fishing industry with due consideration for the overall economic and social development of the Atlantic Provinces.
Again I wish to quote from the presentation to the Committee by the New Brunswick Department of Commerce and Development. It said:
Recommendation number 45 of the Task Force, "do not establish a new general program of financial assistance for either fishermen or processors", appears to conflict with the preamble to this Bill.
The potential damage to the Atlantic fishery, the profitable and independent part of the industry, is incalcuable unless the Bill in its present form is amended.
The presentation continues:
Certain trends are readily discernible. Comparing the years 1976 (the year before the 200 mile limit was proclaimed) and 1980 (the latest year for which data is available), the number of staff-hours worked in New Brunswick increased by 35 per cent over the period, compared to 41 per cent for Canada. The total wage bill in the same period grew by 107 per cent in New Brunswick and 102 per cent for the Canadian fish processing industry.
In other words, New Brunswick was outpacing the rest of Canada. It continues:
This growth in employment in New Brunswick is impressive when one considers that New Brunswick has not benefited from the declaration of the 200 mile limit as have other Atlantic Provinces.
On page 4 of this report it says:
Plants that are owned by larger integrated firms cannot respond as quickly and must often cope with corporate bureaucracies which inhibit such agility. Statistics Canada reports that New Brunswick has more owners working in production than any other province in Canada.
If we look at the value added in New Brunswick versus the rest of Canada it shows that the value added as a ratio of market landed is 4.5 for New Brunswick, 1.9 for Nova Scotia,
2.0	for Prince Edward Island, 1.9 for Quebec and 2.5 for Newfoundland. In other words, the little independent is accomplishing a 4.5 increment in value. That is separate and apart from what is to become the nationalized structure. They have functioned very well. I quote again:
The New Brunswick industry has been successful because a diverse product mix and more finished production by independent "hands on" management and ownership.
November 29, 1983

It is highly diversified and has grown rapidly in recent years.
It employs 12,000 persons at peak periods of the year.
It is made up of numerous small processors employing few people and several large plants employing a large number of people.
Despite being limited to Gulf and Bay fishing grounds, the value of production and value added has matched or outstripped the Canadian average since 1976 despite being limited in Bay Fundy and inshore.
These are limitations imposed in a rather harsh fashion by the regulation of the Department of Fisheries which has depleted the fishery in the Bay in the Province of New Brunswick to a very measurable degree. 1 know because 1 represent those people. They fear what may happen.
Vertical integration and borrowing, accompanied by distant management of the integrated companies, has contributed to the lack of productivity of the companies we are about to save. Whether you be on Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick or in other parts of other Provinces where independent people are doing the work, they are viable, they have been profitable and they are not begging. The report continues:
The independent fish processing companies were faced with the same problems of interest rates, seasonal production, weak markets, and for the exception of being supplied by independent fishermen who own their vessels, were able to not only survive but improve their profitability.
We are bailing out the incompetent and threatening the survival of the competent individual entrepreneur. 1 quote again:
What is exasperating is that the restructured companies represent an even further vertical integration under government ownership. Under Bill C-170 the Government which controls fish allocations, inspects all processing plants and subsequently is the federal Department charged with fisheries development now expands its mandate into fishing and processing. Verbal pledges to the contrary are not adequate assurances. The industry requires ironclad guarantees.
We are not against restructuring as a means of saving employment. Do not restructure in a manner which will affect the viability of independent industry. Our industry has always said that the Kirby Task Force represented a study of the cod fishery problem in Newfoundland.
I submit to you that that is an accurate assessment of the Kirby report. It did not address the whole industry. I say to you, and 1 do not think Mr. Kirby would object to my saying this, that he conceded that the terms of his reference at one point in time were not adequate. He did not have time enough to do the job. As he left one of our committees, I had a little discussion with him. The Minister does not shake his head on that subject matter.
1 would like to quote once more from this submission by the Province of New Brunswick. I am going to quote from page
10:
Michael Kirby in an address to the Fisheries Council of Canada's Annual Meeting, St. John's, Newfoundland, May 2, 1983 stated:
"The disagreement over marketing organization boils down to whether or not there is a need to build in a 'pro active' buy-and-sell function for government. 1 have argued previously that the Fisheries Prices Support Board already has all the powers the federal government needs to buy and sell and engage in state-to-state deals. Hence, a new marketing role for the government is not needed."
Mr. Speaker, that is a quote from remarks of Dr. Kirby who is part of the team which represented the Government's case
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
before the Committee. Here we have a contradiction of the report, and now a contradiction of his speech on May 2, 1983 in Newfoundland to the Fisheries Council.
There is so much more, Mr. Speaker, that could be said, but I do understand that, by agreement, this House has imposed certain time constraints upon this debate. I would like to close. If 1 am imposing upon those time constraints, I hope you will advise me. In closing I would like to say that the New Brunswick processing industry is highly competitive and relatively flexible to changing conditions. This industry has stayed in relatively good shape through innovation, not intervention. I share the concern of the Province of New Brunswick which has a mix which has strengthened its position, as compared with those in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and the other integrated branches of those companies. How can the New Brunswick industry compete against the federal Government which will obviously have vested interests in Newfoundland and Nova Scotian companies? Is the federal Government able to guarantee that the New Brunswick fishing industry will receive a fair share of the resource allocation, and that restructuring will not interfere with their markets? Is the Government of Canada prepared to use the lending authority of this Act to guarantee the loans which may be required? The Bank of Nova Scotia and other banks have said, "You little guys are not going to be competitive with the Government monster. We, therefore, have cut your credit rating by one-third." What is the Minister going to do? We have addressed this subject many times. He has not committed himself to use the lending authority of this Bill. He has not committed himself to use the Small Business Development Bond, or a similar bond for fishing. These people are crying, and they need to be addressed now by commitment, not by evasion, not by saying the negotiations are secret, and not by ignoring them. The little fisherman and the little processor need succour from the Government at this moment in time to remove from them the fear that their life's accumulation of wealth will in fact have been lost as a result of a lack of credit and the conflict of interest which will exist within the Government itself.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, we are socially-minded. I guess we now have to depend upon the wisdom of Government which, in administration of its private business affairs, has certainly been more than wanting. It is with great regret that I say to this Government and to all those in the fishing industry that we have been absolutely unable to make an impression of any kind, in spite of the fact that of the 17 witnesses whom we heard, the Province of Newfoundland gave unequivalent support to the deal as it is. The Newfoundland labour union people, as they left the table, gave some indication that there was a bit of hesitation, but basically they unequivocally supported it. Of the other 15 who appeared, four or five gave rather strong support, but every one of those four or five demanded that in the best interests of the total fishing industry amendments were necessary. They were ignored. The balance of those representations did recognize the social qualifications of this Bill but said, "In the name of the best interests of the fishing industry, amend, modify, adjust." The Province of
29324

November 29, 1983
Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act
Prince Edward Island opposed. The Province of New Brunswick opposed. The Province of Nova Scotia has not yet signed. The Province of Quebec is in limbo. We do not know where it is at.
That is where we leave the fishing industry with this Bill, as a social measure whose inestimable consequence may very well be negative rather than positive without judicious management and without consideration for both the private fishermen and the little processor.


Hon. W. Bennett Campbell (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, 1 realize that time is quickly running out on the third reading stage of Bill C-170. 1 would be remiss if 1 did not take advantage of the opportunity to make a few very brief comments with respect to the Bill presently under consideration.
I will begin, Mr. Speaker, by asking Members of the House and myself why we are considering such a Bill today. I think the answer is very clear to all of us. The answer is that it became necessary because of the dire straits being faced by the fishing industry of Atlantic Canada that Governments, and I use that in the plural sense deliberately, become involved in providing some form of assistance to enable the survival of our fish processing and fishing industry in Atlantic Canada. I am sure all Members are aware of the significant impact which the fishing industry has in Atlantic Canada. It provides some
90,000	jobs for Canadians living in Atlantic Canada. It is with reluctance that Governments are involved in private sector enterprises. 1 ask Members of the House what the alternatives are if our fishing industry is to prevail and to succeed.
My Province of Prince Edward Island and specifically my own riding, is made up of independent processors who have provided employment opportunities and a solid backbone to the economy of many of the communities around my riding and around our Province. They have expressed concern and anxiety as to the implications of Bill C-170. Obviously something has to be done. A response had to be made to the potential collapse of the fishing industry in Atlantic Canada. That response came in the form of arrangements and agreements between Provinces and the Government of Canada where in Provincial Governments and federal Governments, along with the private sector, would restructure companies to enable them to continue their operations and to bring their operations back on to a profit making basis.
I would like to add my words of accommodation to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. He has worked very diligently over long hours over many days to communicate, discuss and carry out consultations with various sectors of the industry, going all the way back to the Kirby task force and following through with direct interventions and direct meetings between the federal Minister and his provincial counterparts in Atlantic Canada. We also want to compliment him for his effort in addressing a number of issues which have surfaced since the beginning of the Kirby task force examination of the Atlantic fisheries.
From my own Province's point of view, we are talking about the second largest contributor to the economy of the Province of Prince Edward Island. Mr. Speaker, I simply want to say that I followed the discussions, beginning with the work of the Kirby task force, having served as a member of the ministerial subcommittee on the Atlantic fisheries. I met with the independent processors in my own riding and in Prince Edward Island. I was successful in being able to secure an opportunity for them to make their presentation before the Fisheries Committee.
1 can only express the wish and the desire, which I am sure is shared by all Members, that this restructuring will enable a return to health for the fish processing sector and for the private entrepreneur within Atlantic Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order, please. It being 5.40 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings, pursuant to the provisions of the order made earlier today, and to put fortwith every question necessary to dispose of the third reading stage of the Bill now before the House.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: On division.
Motion agreed to and Bill read the third time and passed.


BUSINESS OF SUPPLY
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Huntington:
That this House agrees without reservation with the prediction of the Prime Minister made on August 13, 1969, in a nationally televised press conference when he said, "We'd soon be on the road to financial disaster if nothing were done to bring spending under control" and calls upon the government to initiate policies which would avoid the Prime Minister's prediction.
And the amendment of Mr. Blenkarn:
That the motion be amended by deleting the period at the end thereof and by adding the following words:
"including, but not limited to, the adoption forthwith of the Seventh Report of
the Special Committee on Standing Orders and Procedure".
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: It being 5.45 p.m., pursuant to order made Thursday, November 24, 1983, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred division on the amendment of Mr. Blenkarn to the motion of Mr. Huntington under our supply proceedings.
Call in the Members.
November 29, 1983

The Eiouse divided on the motion (Mr. Blenkarn) which was negatived on the following division:
(Division No. 469)
++YEAS
Messrs.
Althouse	Gilchrist	MillerAndre	Greenaway	Mitchell (Mrs.)Anguish	Gurbin	MitgesBeatty	Gustafson	MulroneyBenjamin	Hailiday	MurphyBlackburn	Hamilton	MurtaBlaikie	(Qu'Appellc-Moose	NeilBlenkarn	Mountain)	NickersonBosley	Hawkes	NielsenBradley	Heap	NowlanCardiff	Hnatyshyn	NystromClark	Hovdebo	Oberle(Brandon-Souris)	Howie	OgleClarke	Huntington	Orlikow(Vancouver Quadra)	Jarvis	PaproskiCoates	Jelinek	ParkerCook	Keeper	RiisCooper	Kempling	RobinsonCorbett	Kilgour	(Burnaby)Cossitt (Mrs.)	Knowles	SargeantCrombie	Korchinski	SchellenbergerCrosbie	Kristiansen	Scott(St. John's West)	Kushner	(Hamilton-Wentworth)Crosby	Lambert	Scott(Halifax West)	La Salle	(Victoria-Haliburton)Crouse	Lawrence	ShieldsDantzer	Lewis	SiddonDarling	Lewycky	SkellyDeans	MacDougall	Speyerde Jong	Malone	StevensDick	Manly	StewartDomm	Mayer	TaylorEllis	Mazankowski	ThackerElzinga	McCain	ThomsonEpp	McDermid	TowersFennell	McDonald (Ms.)	VankoughnetForrestall	(Broadview-Greenwood)	WaddellFraser	McGrath	WenmanFretz	McKenzie	WilsonFriesen	McKinnon	WiseFulton	McKnight	WrightGamble	McLean	Young-118.Gass	McMillan	NAYS	Messrs.	Allmand	Chenier	DuboisAppolloni (Mrs.)	Chretien	DuclosAxworthy	Collenette	DupontBachand	Comtois	DuprasBaker	Corbin	Erola (Mrs.)Beauchamp-Niquet	Corriveau	Ethier(Mrs.)	Cosgrove	EvansBegin (Miss)	Cote (Mrs.)	FergusonBerger	Cousineau	FisherBlais	Cullen	FlemingBlaker	Cyr	FlisBloomfield	Daudlin	FosterBockstacl	Dawson	FoxBossy	De Bane	FrithBreau	de Corneille	GarantBujold	Demers	GauthierBurghardt	Deniger	GendronBussieres	Desmarais	GimaielCaccia	Dingwall	GingrasCampbell (Miss)	Dion	Gourd(South West Nova)	Dionne	(Argenteuil-Papineau)Campbell	(Chicoutimi)	Gourde(LaSalle)	Dionne	(Levis)Campbell	(Northumberland-	Gray(Cardigan)	Miramichi)	Guilbault
Supply
Messrs.
Harquail	LeBlanc	PepinHenderson	Leduc	PetersonHerbert	Lefebvre	PinardHervieux-Payette	Loiselle	Portelance(Mrs.) '	Lumlcy	Prud'hommeHopkins	MacBain	ReganHudecki	MacEachen	ReidIrwin	MacGuigan	(Kcnora-RainyIsabelle	Mackasey	RobertsJohnston	MacLaren	RompkeyJoyal	MacLellan	RooneyKaplan	Malepart	RossiKelly	Maltais	RoyKillens (Mrs.)	Marceau	SavardLachance	Masse	SchroderLajoie	Masters	SimmonsLalonde	McCauley	SmithLamontagne	McRae	TardifLanders	Munro	TessierLang	(Hamilton East)	TobinLaniel	Nicholson (Miss)	TousignantLapierre	Olivier	TurnerLapointe	Ostiguy	Veillettc(Charlevoix)	Parent	WatsonLapointe	Pelletier	Weatherhead(Beauce)	Penner	Whelan Yanakis-140.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: 1 declare the amendment lost.
The next question is on the main motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour will please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion, the nays have it.
And more than five Members having risen:


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Call in the Members. Shall we dispense with the ringing of the bells?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: 1 declare the motion lost.


CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES (B)
Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, there are some 15 opposed items to the Supplementary Estimates (B). We have had consultations and agreed amongst ourselves to dispose of those 15 opposed items by having three recorded divisions as follows: The vote on item 1 will dispose of Item No. 12. The second recorded division, a vote on item No, 2 will dispose of items Nos. 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,13 and 15. The third recorded division, a vote on item No. 5, will dispose of items Nos. 6 and 14. In so far as the unopposed items are concerned, you will realize later that they will go through on division.
Dionne
(Northumbcrland-
Miramichi)
Dubois Duclos Dupont Dupras Erola (Mrs.)
Ethicr
Evans
Ferguson
Fisher
Fleming
Flis
Foster
Fox
Frith
Garant
Gauthier
Gendron
Gimaiel
Gingras
Gourd
(Argenteuil-Papineau)
Gourde
(L6vis)
Gray
Guilbault
Harquail
Henderson
Herbert
Hervieux-Payette
(Mrs.)
Hopkins
Hudecki
Irwin
Isabelle
Johnston
Joyal
Kaplan
Kelly
Killens (Mrs.)
Lachance
Lajoie
Lalonde
Lamontagne
Landers
Lang
Laniel
Lapierre
Lapointe
(Charlevoix)
Lapointe
(Beauce)
LeBlanc
Leduc
Lefebvre
Loiselle
Lumley
MacBain
MacEachen
MacGuigan
Mackasey
MacLaren
MacLellan
Malepart
Maltais
Marceau
Masse
Masters
McCauley
McRae
Munro
(Hamilton East) Nicholson (Miss)
Olivier
Ostiguy
Parent
Pelletier
Penner
Pepin
Peterson
Pinard
Portelance
Prud'homme
Regan
Reid
(Kenora-Rainy River) Roberts


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is that agreed?


Erik Nielsen: That is substantially correct, Mr. Speaker. The votes on all motions will be recorded as though a recorded division had taken place. Earlier this afternoon the Member for Hamilton Mountain asked for consent to delete Motion No. 4. We provide that consent now.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, 1 appreciate receiving the consent. It is not necessary. We are prepared to take the votes as they were indicated by the President of the Privy Council. I agree with the comments of the House Leader for the Conservative Party.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Agreed and so ordered. The next question is on Motion No. I. This vote will also apply to Motion No. 12.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE 6B, DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER AND CORPORATE AFFAIRS
Hon. Herb Gray (President of the Treasury Board) moved:: That Vote 6b, in the amount of $8,109,406 under the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs-Payment to Canada Post Corporation, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, be concurred in.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?
November 29, 1983


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour of the motion please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion, the yeas have it.
And more than five Members having risen:


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE 70B, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote 70b, in the amount of $344,350,000 under the Department of Public Works-Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, be concurred in.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour of the motion please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.

November 29, 1983
Supply


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion, the yeas have it.
And more than five Members having risen:


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion agreed to.
The next question is on Motion No. 2. This vote also applies to Motions Nos. 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 and 1 5.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE IB, MINISTRY OF STATE FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote lb, in the amount of $3,486,000 under the Ministry of State for Economic Development-Program expenditures, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, be concurred in.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion, the yeas have it.
And more than five Members having risen:


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Shall we dispense with the ringing of the bells?
November 29, 1983


Erik Nielsen: As soon as the deputy Opposition Whip returns from the lobby we can dispense with the ringing of the bells, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: We shall dispense with the ringing of the bells.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE 25B, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, MINES AND RESOURCES
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote 25b, in the amount of $484,000,000 under the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources-Energy Program-Petroleum Incentives Program, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, be concurred in.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE 26B, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, MINES AND RESOURCES
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote 26b, in the amount of $1 under the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources-Energy Program-Payment to Canertech Inc., in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, be concurred in.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE 76B, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, MINES AND RESOURCES
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote 76b, in the amount of $16,000,000 under the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources-Petro-Canada, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, be concurred in.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE L41B, DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY, TRADE AND COMMERCE
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote L41b, in the amount of $5,000,000 under the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce-Loans pursuant to the Industrial and Regional Development Act, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, be concurred in.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE 65B, DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY, TRADE AND COMMERCE
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote 65b, in the amount of $3,087,000 under the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce-Federal Business Development Bank, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, be concurred in.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE IB, DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL REVENUE-CUSTOMS AND EXCISE
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote lb, in the amount of $1,679,000 under the Department of National Revenue-Customs and Excise, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, be concurred in.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE IB, DEPARTMENT OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote lb, in the amount of $9,700,000 under the Department of the Privy Council-Program expenditures, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, be concurred in.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE 20B, DEPARTMENT OF REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote 20b, in the amount of $61,000,516 under the Department of Regional Economic Expansion-Cape Breton Development Corporation, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, be concurred in.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE IB, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote lb, in the amount of $1 under the Department of Transport- Departmental Administration Program, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, be concurred in.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The next question is on Motion No. 5. This vote also applies to Motions Nos. 6 and 14.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE L31B, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, MINES AND RESOURCES
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote L3!b, in the amount of $6,000,000 under the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources-Energy Program-Loans to New Brunswick Electric Power Commission, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, be concurred in.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion, the yeas have it.
And more than five Members having risen:


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Shall we dispense with the ringing of the bells?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE 55B, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, MINES AND RESOURCES
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote 55b, in the amount of $700,000 under the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources-Atomic Energy of Canada Limited-Capital expendi-
November 29, 1983

tures, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, be concurred in.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE 1B, DEPARTMENT OF THE SOLICITOR GENERAL
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote lb, in the amount of $4,073,864 under the Department of the Solicitor General-Administration Program, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, be concurred in.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES
[Stage Direction]
(B)
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion carried on division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Gray thereupon moved that Bill C-173, an Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 1984, be read the first time and be printed.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Erik Nielsen: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to. Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
Mr. Gray thereupon moved that Bill C-173, an Act granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending the 31st March, 1984, be read the second time and referred to the Committee of the Whole.
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Corbin in the chair.
The Assistant Deputy Chairman:: Shall Clause 2 carry ?


Some Hon. Members:: On dividion.
Clause 2 agreed to.


Roderick Blaker: Shall Clause 3 carry?


Erik Nielsen: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Roderick Blaker: Shall Clause 4 carry?


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Roderick Blaker: Shall Clause 5 carry?


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, laid upon the Table, Thursday, November 3, 1983, except those items disposed of earlier this day, be concurred in.


Roderick Blaker: Shall Clause 6 carry?


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: On division.
Motion agreed to on division.


Roderick Blaker: Shall the Schedule carry ?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out that notwithstanding our support for Motion No. 5, there is a serious deficiency in that vote. The vote pertains to non-budgetary item L31b on page six of the Schedule under the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. It reads:
November 29, 1983

Loans to New Brunswick Electric Power Commission in connection with the operation of a nuclear generating station at Point Lepreau, New Brunswick.
An agreement reached between New Brunswick and the federal Government provides a series of standby loans to New Brunswick Power in the event that the Point Lepreau nuclear reactor fails to provide an adequate amount of electricity. The agreement provides that New Brunswick Power can receive up to $6 million per year maximum in the event that Point Lepreau's power production is less than 75 per cent of capacity.
When the Supplementary Estimate was drawn up, the Department assumed that the maximum amount for the year would be called upon. In fact, while the reactor missed its October start-up date, and only started producing at full power in March, the reactor has behaved very well since. Thus New Brunswick Power is only able to call upon a total of $3.8 million.
New Brunswick Power has indicated in writing to the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources that it has no intention of seeking any funds for the current year. It is also worth noting that when called, New Brunswick Power knew nothing of this Supplementary Estimate.
Since the fund has been called upon to the extent 1 just indicated, we had no choice but to support concurrence in the estimate itself. But it is evidence of a sloppiness in the preparation of the estimate, particularly in the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources where they would be calling for substantial moneys over and above those actually needed.
We are therefore supporting the Schedule, but now that these remarks are on the record the Department will likely take note and rectify things in the future.


Roderick Blaker: The President of the Privy Council, on the same point of order.


Yvon Pinard: There is absolutely no point of order. At this stage, the Chair is supposed to put all questions, without debate or amendment, and I think this is abusing the rules of the House. I hope the Member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) will refrain from doing so again.


Roderick Blaker: The point raised by the President of the Privy Council is well taken. I refer Hon. Members to Standing Order 62(10) where the Chairman has no choice but to put all questions forthwith and successively without debate or amendment. I take it that the Hon. Member for Yukon was rising on a point of order. He has made his point and we will proceed.


Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Chairman, to accept the point of order raised by the Hon. Member for Yukon to place on the record justification for an absolute irrational act in supporting the
Supply
nuclear program is unacceptable. The Member was not up on a point of order.


Roderick Blaker: Order. We are now getting into debate.
Shall the Schedule carry?


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Schedule agreed to.
Roderick Blaker: Shall Clause 1 carry?


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Roderick Blaker: Shall the preamble carry?


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Preamble agreed to.
Roderick Blaker: Shall the title carry?


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Roderick Blaker: Shall I report the Bill?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Bill reported.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: that the Bill be concurred in.


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: that the Bill be read the third time and do pass.


Some Hon. Members:: On division.
Motion agreed to and Bill read the third time and passed.


Mr. Prud'homme:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme), on a point of order.


Marcel Prud'homme: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. [English]
I seek unanimous consent. We have undertaken all consultations necessary and it should be possible to get consent for presenting to the House a motion to be accepted without debate by all Parties.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent to reverting to motions?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.

November 29, 1983
External Affairs and National Defence



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Marcel Prud'homme: The motion reads:
That the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence be empowered to examine all aspects of Canada's participation in international peacekeeping, present and anticipated, and report to the House not later than May 15, 1984.


Erik Nielsen: We have no problem with that motion, Mr. Speaker. I understand that the purpose for moving it now is so that the machinery can be put in place in anticipation of the work of the Standing Committee to carry out this reference. The Hon. Member for the Government will undoubtedly be
putting a similar reference when we come back after prorogation, at which time we will have to consider its form and see how we deal with it at that time.


Mr. Young:: Mr. Speaker, that meets with our agreement also. It is in line with the discussion which I understand took place between the three House Leaders.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Agreed?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
It being 7.06 p.m. this House now stands adjourned until tomorrow afternoon at two o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).
At 7.06 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.﻿29341
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, November 30, 1983