1984-01-17

STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S.O. 21


Mr. Gerry St. Germain (Mission-Port Moody):: Mr. Speaker, the most serious problem in our country, unemployment, is at catastrophic levels. Sadly, the Government's mismanagement of the economy seems to be equalled only by its mishandling of its job-creation programs. The Government's job-creation programs feature no accountability and no forethought. They are sloppily thrown together in a haphazard manner to give the appearance that something is being done. For example, Environment 2000, a program to hire students to plant tree seedlings, not only lacks application forms, but there are not enough seedlings to operate the program properly and there will not be enough available for three years.
Another example of mismanagement is the Canada Works Program. New funding allocations arise sporadically, yet no notification is given to potential applicants. Consequently, a small exclusive club are the beneficiaries. The Canada Works Program seems to exist without a plan or any co-ordination.
Our obligations to the unemployed are not met by throwing money into poorly thought out, poorly administered programs, and boasting of how much money has been spent on job creation, while unemployed Canadians are forced to limp back to UIC. It is our duty and obligation to the unemployed to provide well thought out, workable, and equitable approaches to solving unemployment, rather than buying temporary jobs and sloppily trying to redistribute our declining wealth.


TRANSPORT
Mr. Marcel Dionne (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues in extending my congratulations to you.
I want to mention in the House a VIA Rail incident which occurred in my riding during the festive season. Hundreds of people were stranded at the station because someone had failed to provide enough passenger cars to accommodate all travelers. In addition, some people were forced to share a baggage car with animals for hours on end and cover close to 300 miles to get to the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region.
We are in 1984, Mr. Speaker, and it is unacceptable that people be treated that way. A few months ago, I advocated much more modern solutions to make it more pleasant for the residents of my region to travel from Chicoutimi and Lac-Saint-Jean to Montreal in much less time. I would urge VIA Rail officials to look into this problem with a view to providing the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region with transportation facilities worthy of the 80s, and showing concern for people who live far from urban centres. I have asked VIA Rail officials to take immediate action and, as spokesman for that region, I am prepared-


Mr. Speaker:: I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member, but his time has expired.


CANADIAN ARMED FORCES
Mr. Robert Wenman (Fraser Valley West):: Mr. Speaker, recently I received a letter from a constituent who served in the Canadian Armed Forces for 30 years. He eloquently speeks of one of the most vital components of the nation's defence. He says:
We can talk all we want about the new ships or aircraft and the latest in tanks, but they are only as effective as the men who man them. Without good, dedicated troops they are but machines. I therefore suggest to you that though matters of equipment, politics and budgets are of the utmost importance, the greatest asset that Canada has in national defence are the men who serve. The men of the Armed Forces have suffered badly under various pressures for the last decade, and we must bring them once again to the forefront of society, to give them back that "elan" that is needed to be truly effective. The guys in the forces are good, they know they are good, they know their job, so let's see that they get the pat on the back that they richly deserve.
I heartily agree with the sentiments expressed by this constituent. Too often as an Opposition we criticize, and today I want to bring this matter forward to the attention of the House so that we give the deserved credit to the quality of men and women we have in our Armed Forces.

January 17, 1984


SOCIAL SECURITY
Mr. George Baker (Gander-Twillingate):: Mr. Speaker, Departments of the Government which send out social security and other cheques on a regular basis to Canadians should make special arrangements to adjust to the realities of mail delivery in Provinces like Newfoundland, to make sure people get their cheques on time. For example, hundreds of families waited in vain for their December veterans allowance cheques in Newfoundland. They did not come until January because the Post Office decided not to hire extra staff this past Christmas. Worse than that are persistent late arrivals. Since December, unemployment insurance cheques have arrived a week late in areas like Fogo Island, New World Island, Whales Gulch, and many other isolated communities on the north-east coast of Newfoundland.
The problem can be corrected, Mr. Speaker, if the UIC would allow persons in these communities experiencing this trouble to mail their forms one or two days earlier than normal. Thousands of low-income families, supported only by unemployment insurance, could then have some regularity in receiving their only source of income. Surely the federal Government can make this one small allowance on behalf of the poor people of the country.


RAILWAYS
Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to draw the attention of the House to one of the many problems flowing from the Government's change in the Crowsnest Pass freight rate. When the Crow bill passed, we heard much from the Minister of Transport about the bright future of western farmers. Instead of getting the better grain transportation service they were promised, branch lines are again being abandoned.
In the Prince Albert constituency the Carlton Line, serving Laird, Waldheim and other communities, is to be abandoned despite a recommendation for retention and upgrading made by the Canadian Transport Commission in 1980. The CTC gave the Carlton line the highest commendation for future potential. The communities along the line supported retention. There has already been substantial investment in upgrading.
The Minister said in his statement that changing grain delivery patterns have brought about declining volumes of grain shipped. I checked this statement last week and found that, in both Waldheim and Laird, about 50 per cent of the grain had to be trucked elsewhere simply because there were not enough cars supplied. No wonder there is declining volume of grain. The line is being strangled as a deliberate policy, rather than being upgraded as recommended.
Residents along the Carlton line want the Minister to look at his figures again. They think he will agree with them that the line should be retained and upgraded. He will also restore the credibility of the Canadian Transport Commission which made that recommendation originally.


VIA RAIL
Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: With great fanfare the Government announced the restoration of the Moncton to Edmundston line, and with considerably less hurrah recently that it would only run a few days a week, and not until next Fall. This is a start, but it still falls short of the full reinstatement New Brunswickers need. Many communities will be still left without adequate passenger transportation services.
Transportation Minister Lloyd Axworthy promised Canadians a full review of all passenger rail abandonments. If this review is undertaken the Minister will see that the Atlantic Limited, a vital, popular, and convenient service, should never have been cancelled. Two years after cancellation Maritimers are still asking that the line to be reinstated. Plans to reroute New Brunswickers, improve service, and install LRC's has been a farce from the day they were conceived by Ottawa's own Jean-Luc Pepin. The repercussions of the cancellation have been more widespread than the mere havoc that has reigned since that fateful November day. The critical tourism link has been broken, affecting local economies. National unity has been weakened by the remoteness forced by the abandonment, and economic possibilities are diminished by poor mobility.
If the Minister's promise for a review is not merely a means of muffling critics, I urge him to undertake this commitment immediately. But more than that, if the Government's words about strengthening nationalism, tourism, and economic development are genuine, then the Minister of Transport (Mr. Axworthy) will convince his jet-setting colleagues that the Atlantic Limited must be restored immediately, if not for the realities connected with reinstatement, then for the political points that could be scored.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mr. Andre Maltais (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, last Sunday, Canadians watching "Les beaux dimanches" on television had a chance to see an excellent program on the
January 17, 1984

Mingan Islands which have been made part of our Canadian heritage as a national park.
Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank Radio-Canada for giving all Canadians a chance to see this documentary, and I must say that the people of Havre-St-Pierre, Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan, and Mingan, Natashquan and Aguanish were very pleased that Radio-Canada showed this program.
For the benefit of all Canadians, Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that although the Rockies are fantastic, there are many beautiful spots and wonders of nature to be seen on the North Shore, and I think this program has helped to inform and educate people about this exceptional heritage we have in Quebec and especially on the North Shore. I hope Radio-Canada will continue to help Canadians discover the natural beauties of their country.


FARM CREDIT CORPORATION
Mr. Lee Clark (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, hundreds of Canadian farmers have been dragged down as the Government cuts a path of bungled programs and inept agricultural policies. Last year 488 Canadian farmers declared bankruptcy, compared to 410 in 1982. In my home Province of Manitoba the number of farm bankruptcies doubled last year.
Yet, many farm bankruptcies could be prevented by sound government policies. For example, about 900 farm loans held by the Farm Credit Corporation will incur interest charges later this year of up to 16.75 per cent. That is because the benefits are about to expire on a government program which reduced interest charges on FCC loans two years ago. The irony is that while the FCC is about to charge 16 per cent or more on these old loans, it is offering new loans at 13 per cent. It is hard to believe that the FCC is in business to help farmers.
About 130 of these FCC loans are held by Manitoba farmers. A few of them have told me that the re-introduction of higher interest rates will drive them into bankruptcy. Of course, credit in itself will not solve all the problems of Canadian agriculture. There is no question, however, that these higher interest FCC loans will contribute to even more farm bankruptcies this year than there were last year. By stubbornly refusing to keep down the interest on these FCC loans, the Liberal Government has proven once again that it is not fit to govern. Canadian farmers cannot wait for the opportunity to throw it out of office.
Oral Questions MULTICULTURALISM


CALL FOR CHANGES IN GOVERNMENT POLICY
Mr. Laverne Lewycky (Dauphin-Swan River):: Mr. Speaker, Canada has often been described as a mosaic with multicultural policies, in contrast to the American melting pot. In spite of its so-called melting pot, the United States has instituted in a couple of universities, one being Washington State University, a Department of Comparative American Cultures. Under the leadership of President Glenn Terrell, Washington State has become a regional resource for Asian-American studies. Why do we have less in Canada?
The Government has promised a new Multiculturalism Act this year. I would urge the Government to implement political multiculturalism rather than symbolic multiculturalism under this new Act, and to introduce some structural changes to Canadian policy which will make multiculturalism in Canada an active policy. I urge the Government to establish regional research and resource centres in comparative Canadian cultures. The University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg have already made representations to have such a regional research and resource centre implemented. The Government should act immediately on this joint proposal and set up such a regional multicultural centre in Winnipeg.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Twelve days ago Canadians learned that unemployment in Canada had remained stable at 11.1 per cent over the past three months, whereas in the United States unemployment had actually fallen steadily and is now down to 8.2 per cent. The Minister knows that hardest hit amongst the unemployed in Canada are young people. There are still 543,000 young people unemployed in Canada, and the rate of employment for young people has actually fallen over the past five months. Will the Minister explain to the House how his programs have failed to address this critical problem?


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that our programs have failed to address this critical problem. As the hon. gentleman well knows, there has been an increase in employment. One of the difficulties that we have in conceptual terms is that, as the economy recovers, as it has been recovering, and as jobs are created, as something like 400,000 have been over the last year, more people are enticed back into the labour force. Therefore, the unemployment figures themselves do not give a
January 17, 1984

Oral Questions
realistic understanding of the very great improvement that has taken place in the Canadian economy generally, and specifically in relation to the employment of young people over the past year and, indeed, over the last months.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, I find that difficult to understand, as I am sure does the rest of the House.


REQUEST THAT CAREER ACCESS PROGRAM BE EXPANDED
James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that there are still 1.3 million people unemployed. Last year unemployment went up from 11 per cent to 11.9 per cent. Those are the cold hard facts. Will the Minister at least tell the House that he is prepared to expand the only program that seems to have any effect at all in providing jobs for young people, that being the Career Access Program? Can he tell the House how many jobs have been created by that program?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, I am a little surprised because, as the Hon. Member would have known if he had paid much attention to the Speech from the Throne in December, and the comments which subsequently surrounded it, the Government has already made the decision in effect to double the funding of the Career Access Program in the next fiscal year.


FUNDING OF JOB-CREATION PROGRAMS
James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, I am talking about this fiscal year. The next fiscal year does not begin until April. In the Budget of June, 1982, there was a program called the Immediate Employment Stimulation Program, with a fund of $150 million. That reappeared in the April Budget as the Special Employment Initiatives Program, with another $150 million fund. On November 29 the Minister could not give us the criteria for this Program or how it is administered. We now know that this is a ministerial porkbar-rel. Will the Minister, who is an honourable man, stop this porkbarreling and put that $300 million into the Career Access Program so it can provide more jobs for our young people?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, that program is not a porkbarrel program. When I met with the parliamentary committee the Hon. Member raised this matter and I told him that I would furnish him with the guidelines for the expenditure of those funds. I will be happy to do that. In fact I have already drafted a letter to him outlining what those are. The fact of the matter is that that program is a way of cutting through bureaucratic red tape. It is a fast track program to bring funds to bear for groups who need it in order to create employment in the Canadian economy, which is exactly what the Hon. Member says that he wants to see happen. He should be supporting that program, not attacking it.


EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN NATIONALS IN UNIVERSITIES
Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue with the same Minister on the issue of well qualified manpower. The Minister will know that Canadian universities are currently turning out three people with doctorates, for every university position available. In his capacity as Minister responsible for immigration, he will also know that well over one-quarter of those faculty positions go to foreign citizens. Can the Minister tell us why we have this oversupply of Canadians? We are still giving jobs to foreign citizens. What does the Government intend to do about it, if anything? We need jobs for well qualified Canadians.


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman is alluding to a problem which I think is indeed a very important one. It is a problem which most recently has been described in the Symons Page Report, which I have had a chance to look at but not read in entire detail.
I think it is true that having very large numbers of foreign teachers and professors in the Canadian university system is a disadvantage to the country. However, that problem is, to a considerable extent, a legacy of the past.
The hon. gentleman referred to the figure of 25 per cent, I believe, of professors and lecturers who are of foreign citizenship. However, if he looks at the recruitment over the past year, for instance, he will find that the figure of foreign entry is something closer to 10 per cent than 25 per cent. In other words, the problem which he is correctly describing, and which exists today, is one which has been created by the past to a considerable extent. We have brought forward immigration criteria in an attempt to respond to this problem, and are insisting that positions be well advertised in Canada before they are offered abroad.
Perhaps the most succinct answer I can make to his question is that I believe there is indeed a serious social problem here. We have taken some steps to respond to it. I want to examine the Symons Page Report in detail to see if there are more useful ideas which we can derive from its recommendations.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: I have read the report. There are four specific ideas in that report to which I would like a reaction, because I agree with the Minister that it is a serious problem.


SYMONS PAGE REPORT RECOMMENDATIONS
Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, the authors of the Symons Page Report are recommending a consultative committee to advise the Minister, an academic committee. They are recommending a review body, and that the universities establish university-wide appointments review committees, which the Minister could require be done. They are also recommending the establishment once again of a Canadian Centre for Educational Statistics. Could the Minister assure
January 17, 1984

the House that at least those four ideas in that report will be implemented some time in the next two or three months?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, I suspect that the recommendation with respect to the Canadian Centre for Educational Statistics may be beyond the area of my jurisdiction.
In relation to the other suggestions, I would say that they seem to me very worthy of sympathetic consideration, and I take it that they have the endorsement of the hon. gentleman and his Party.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Doug Anguish (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of the Environment. Yesterday I asked a question in the House concerning the spill of radioactive water at the Key Lake mine site in northern Saskatchewan. Since that time we have become aware that there is yet another spill of some 800 litres of radioactive sewage which has some 90 times the acceptable standard for radioactivity. I believe the Department must have known that this was a recurring problem because of the 15 or 16 spills at Key Lake since the beginning of that mining operation less than a year ago.
In answer to my question yesterday 1 was told that there are some four inquiries being conducted to look into this problem. Does the federal Government not have contingency plans to handle such emergency situations and, if so, instead of having these four inquiries will the Minister table in the House the contingency plans that the federal Government must have for clean up and disposal of this radioactive waste?


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Minister of the Environment: Mr. Speaker, these four initiatives that 1 referred to yesterday were taken independently by the four parties concerned. We are endeavouring now to study the sources and reasons for these mishaps. We have two officials from Environment Canada on site. We are very concerned about the fact that this spill did take place, and until we learn the causes and the roots of the problem we cannot develop the necessary precautionary measures that will eventually lead to the preventions that are required so as to ensure that this will not happen again.


Douglas Keith Anguish: My goodness, I find that atrocious. The fact is that there is radioactive waste out in the environment of northern Saskatchewan. Do we have to examine the problem of how it got there?


CLEAN-UP MEASURES
Douglas Keith Anguish: Mr. Speaker, the fact is that the radioactive material is there. The Minister has had communication with the provincial Govern-
Oral Questions
ment. These spills have occurred on different occasions. Have they passed on this information to him as Minister of the Environment? What must be done to clean up the radioactive waste that is lying there in northern Saskatchewan?


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Minister of the Environment: Mr. Speaker, I concur with the word "atrocious" if the Hon. Member is referring to the construction of a plant carried out under the NDP provincial regime of the Party to which he belongs.
With respect to what will happen now, we have investigators on the site. We want to get to the root of the problem and, once we know the sources of the problem, we can also develop preventive measures in the future.


Douglas Keith Anguish: It is federal regulations that have to be complied with, and there have been violations of those regulations. The radioactive waste is there, sitting in northern Saskatchewan.


REQUEST THAT ROYAL COMMISSION INVESTIGATE NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
Douglas Keith Anguish: Due to
all of the problems which have occurred within the nuclear fuel cycle, such as the problems in reactors in Ontario and the spills in Saskatchewan at the present time, will the Minister call for a royal commission to look into the problems in the entire nuclear fuel cycle?


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Minister of the Environment: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member knows very well that initiatives of this kind are under the jurisdiction of and can be initiated by AECB auspices. He knows very well that this is a local event that is very distressing, that has its causes in local management, and perhaps in local construction techniques, on land which is under the jurisdiction of the provincial Government of Saskatchewan. He is trying to confuse the issue for political reasons, and I reject his allegations.


G425) NATIONAL REVENUE TAX QUOTA SYSTEM INQUIRY
Hon. Perrin Beatty (Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, I have a straightforward question for the Minister of National Revenue. I would appreciate a direct answer. Since he became Minister of National Revenue, which district tax offices have had a quota system in place at any time? Which municipalities?


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I made it clear in my answer to the Hon. Member that the policy not to set quotas that would oblige
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January 17, 1984
Oral Questions
auditors to recover certain amounts of money was a policy I wanted to be perfectly clear to, and understood by, all the Department's district offices. That is why, when the Hon. Member raised his questions, I asked to have this policy position confirmed and repeated and explained again to the district offices and to ensure that the managers responsible at the district level see to it that the policy is properly implemented. This has been done, and 1 am sure that this policy is being followed by the Department and implemented by district officers.


GRIEVANCES FILED BY PUBLIC SERVICE UNIONS
Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, you will note that the Minister carefully avoided answering the question again. This cover-up has to stop.
Will the Minister now answer that question, and will he answer the question which I put to him on December 21, when I asked at that time how many grievances had been filed by public service unions with regard to quotas, and in which municipalities those grievances had been filed? The Minister responded, "I will seek information and gladly report to the Hon. Member and the House." Will the Minister tell the House how many grievances have been filed and in which municipalities, as a result of these quotas being imposed on tax auditors?


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member asked me this question before. I would remind him that there are over 18,000 employees with the Department of National Revenue across Canada, from a sub-office in Rimouski to a district office as large as the one in Toronto.
The Hon. Member will understand that the division of management in a department of this size requires that responsibilities should be shared.
The Hon. Member asked me earlier whether I was listening to the question. I see he is now making comments to his neighbour while I am giving him my answer. I think that in line with the concerns of his Leader, which go beyond having the right haircut and trying to speak in a baritone, to include a concern for being civil, he should at least have the common decency to pay attention when he is getting an answer to his question.
I was saying that in a department of that size, management authority should be shared and that each employee should have responsibilities according to the level of responsibility of his job in the department, and I am happy to say that today, there was a meeting of senior departmental officials with union representatives of departmental employees at Revenu Taxation; I am told that the preliminary results of these discussions have been very productive and there will be opportunities for employee representatives and management to explain any concerns that may exist with respect to certain quotas, and we intend to make it quite clear that we are not putting the burden on auditors who are represented by the Union of the Revenue Taxation Employees to recover a specific amount of money, but that we are following professional standards. I am convinced that results of this meeting will show Canadians that the Hon. Member and his colleagues are engaged in a witch hunt, the same as their Leader.


SEIZURE OF KINGSTON TAXPAYER'S BANK ACCOUNT
Hon. Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I want some explanations from the Minister of National Revenue of Canada concerning the case of a Mrs. Moorby of Kingston, who paid $5,000 in income tax in 1982, but the Department turned around and credited that payment to her husband's account. Then, after harassing her for a whole year, the Department discovered the mistake but-


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Chair has concern about raising a very specific issue and an account. It can be raised in general terms, but asking with regard to a specific tax problem is a concern to the Chair.


Mr. Nielsen:: There is nothing wrong with that.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the Member could put the question in general terms.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I have given the Minister a copy of this documentation. He should have it.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Why, when the Department discovered its mistake did it seize her personal bank account, and why is this kind of bungling allowed to go on? Second, why does the Department not have the simple decency to offer Mrs. Moorby an apology for its mistakes, not hers?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, I received a letter from the Hon. Member relating to that particular incident at 2.10 p.m. I think all Members will understand that I did not have time to inquire into the matter, and give an explanation of the situation. However, I would invite the Hon. Member to ask her colleague, who usually asks questions and who referred to a document prepared by the Department and made it public yesterday. He sent it over to me to read and a section of that document is entitled "Program Completion-Goals and Objectives". He will notice that in our district offices the objective is to provide timely service to taxpayers-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
January 17, 1984


Pierre Bussières: -who request corrective adjustments to their returns. The over-all departmental objective is to take care of particular situations. This is one of the main objectives in the Department. I think the Member should be confident that, if there was inequity in that particular case, we will take steps to correct the situation.


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair would ask the questioner to pose the question in general terms. If there is a specific case-


Erik Nielsen: That is not correct. There will be a point of order about it.


Mr. Speaker:: With all due respect to the Hon. Member, the rules of the House provide for questions to go on the Order Paper when specific information is demanded.


Mr. Andre:: Yes, six years later.


Mr. Speaker:: If the Hon. Member would place her supplementary question in general terms, I invite her to do so.


REQUEST THAT DEPARTMENT APOLOGIZE TO TAXPAYER
Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I listened to what the Minister had to say about equity. I can assure him that seizing someone's personal bank account is not my definition of equity.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Flora Isabel MacDonald: I would like the Minister, in a general sense, to tell me how many blunders against one single taxpayer does Revenue Canada have to commit before it has the grace and the dignity to offer that person an apology? When will an apology take place?


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, I cannot accept such general remarks from the Hon. Member since she is referring to a specific case. One thing to keep in mind when an account is seized, in most cases, in all cases except perhaps in isolated cases, which is normal when millions of tax returns are processed, is that the taxpayer was negligent and failed to respond to a series of notices which the Department of National Revenue generally sends over a period of 90 days. He did not even bother to phone the district office and say: I am going through difficult times and, although you are quite properly authorized to take action under the law, I would like to sit down with you to see whether we might make some sort of arrangement.
When we do seize something, it is as a result of the taxpayer's failure to acknowledge our pressing invitations to give us his side of the story and provide us with the documents which would enable us to settle his case.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: It was the Department's mistake.
Oral Questions


Mr. McDermid:: Now I know how out of touch you are, Bussieres. You don't know what's going on. You haven't a clue.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Gilbert Parent (Welland):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. In light of U.S. President Reagan's speech yesterday in advance of the Stockholm Conference on Security and Disarmament, when he appealed for renewed "co-operation and progress for peace", does the Prime Minister see this speech as representing a change in policy for the Americans?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I, of course, cannot comment on whether it is a change in policy of the American Government. There does seem to be a different tone coming out from Washington, and we are very happy to hear it. Certainly we welcome the commitment President Reagan made in his speech on Monday, a commitment to genuine dialogue between East and West, and to his determination to approach the Stockholm Conference in a conciliatory spirit. This is welcome news, and we really hope the Soviet Union will respond in kind.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


FISHERIES
Mr. Ted Miller (Nanaimo-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. On December 30 it was announced by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that it had appointed Kenneth C. Stein of Ottawa to a newly created position of Associate Deputy Minister in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The announcement of Mr. Stein's appointment raised great expectations of a major buy-back in the fishing industry in British Columbia. Considering the difficulty, and the long expectation that something would be done to assist the industry, could the Minister indicate whether the appointment of Mr. Stein was for the purpose of implementing a buy-back program, as suggested by the ministerial advisory committee and Mr. Cruikshank, or is it another way of stalling that announced buy-back program for another additional three months?


Hon. Pierre De Bane (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, no, the appointment of an Associate Deputy Minister in the Department is not a confirmation nor a denial of any program. The appointment of this new Associate Deputy Minister is the recognition of the added responsibilities of the Department. He is the third senior official to be

January 17, 1984
Oral Questions
appointed to the Department because of the added responsibility of that Department.


REQUEST FOR FUNDS TO AID BRITISH COLUMBIA INDUSTRY
Edward Allan Miller: Mr. Speaker, the Minister is well aware that the quota for the commercial fishery has been substantially reduced this year to some 35,000 metric tonnes. This has serious implications, not only for fishermen but for the adequacy of the Salmonid Enhancement Program.
Would the Minister and his Government make the same kind of commitment to the British Columbia fishing industry as was made to the Atlantic fishing industry in restructuring and upgrading that industry, so that fishermen and the general public in British Columbia can be assured that funds will go into a buy-back to reduce pressure in the industry, and into the Salmonid Enhancement Program, as was committed in 1977 by the same Government?


Pierre De Bané: Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the Pacific fishery faces some serious problems. However, I do not see the relevance of the Hon. Member's reference to the Atlantic fishery. As he knows, the Government of Canada has not approved any buy-back program for the Atlantic coast. One would have to consider the implications of the policy advocated by the Hon. Member. Should we use taxpayers' money to buy surplus assets in the fishery sector, the textile sector, or any other sector? I have put those ideas to the advisory council on the Pacific coast, and at this moment we are searching for the most realistic solution. However, I cannot give more information at this time.


NATIONAL REVENUE
Mr. Arnold Malone (Crowfoot):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Revenue. 1 would like him to bear in mind his words concerning professional standards and objective service to the clients of the tax department. How can he uphold our traditional standards of fairness and objectivity when, at year end 1983, there was a wild increase in third party demands by Revenue Canada on small businesses and individual citizens which froze their accounts, caused cheques to be bounced, ruined credit ratings, and weakened banker-client relations? How can he justify that upsurge? Why is it that "Big Brother" Government is closing its jaws on individual Canadians, with tremendous increases in third party demands?


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, I think I gave part of the answer to the question of
the Hon. Member when I answered another question yesterday. I gave figures which indicate an increase in tax accounts receivable in recent months. A comparison of those accounts receivable for 1981-82 and 1982-83 shows that there has been a significant increase.
In other words, if the amounts owing increase, if the accounts receivable increase, it is because taxpayers have been even more delinquent in paying their taxes within the time limit prescribed under the act. The Hon. Member will note that Parliament has agreed to add to the Income Tax Act a provision under which the Minister can take legal action to collect any amount still due 30 days after a notice of assessment has been mailed. We wait much longer than that 30-day period.
However, the Hon. Member will agree with me that the House has given to the Minister of National Revenue and his officials the responsibility to make sure that, when tax accounts receivable increase significantly and even dramatically, a more effective tax collection strategy is followed so that delinquents-those who choose not to pay their taxes, unlike millions of others who have no choice and must pay them every week, every two weeks or every month-who enjoy more leeway under our system are forced to pay their taxes.


Arnold John Malone: The Minister has just told us that, if we harass without ethics, we will get more revenues for the Government.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


RESCINDING OF THIRD PARTY DEMANDS
Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, in several local bank branches with which I have checked, where third party demands were imposed, within 48 hours, in at least two cases, all but one of the third party demands had been rescinded? How can he justify simply putting third party demands out, and rescinding them afterwards? Why was there no signed authority in those third party demands? They were just simply rubber-stamped, with no signature. Is anybody responsible? Why did people, for only $350, have third party demands made on their accounts? Can the Minister justify that in the name of getting more money for the Government of Canada?


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, the way the Hon. Member states certain facts- which have yet to be proven-shows that he is unaware of departmental practices and that, perhaps on the basis of an isolated case, he has failed to inquire about the practices of the Department before raising a question and making insinuations in the House. I pointed out to him that, before taking legal action and making third party demands, for instance, we follow a lengthy procedure and establish close contact between the taxpayer and the Tax Data Centre and the district office.
January 17, 1984

We take such action when the taxpayer has been blatantly negligent, and the procedure is generally authorized by the supervisor of the collection division of the Department.
To put it another way, we do not take action without due consideration and still only after the taxpayer has been grossly negligent with respect to his responsibility to pay taxes due to the Government. We do not want that additional burden of unpaid taxes to be borne by millions of other taxpayers who pay theirs regularly every week or every month without any complaint.


DEPARTMENT'S TREATMENT OF SENIOR CITIZENS
Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister of National Revenue. The House will be aware that senior citizens who live on Old Age Security and their savings, are required to pay their income tax quarterly. The Minister will know that until recently those who had only a marginal amount of tax to pay were not assessed interest or penalties if they did not pay quarterly. Recently people who pay less than even $1,000 income tax have been assessed penalties and interest if they have not made quarterly returns. When will the Minister cease this undue harassment of senior citizens for nickels and dimes on quarterly returns?


Pierre Bussières: In
my opinion, Mr. Speaker, that is the most striking example of the bad faith of the Opposition when they ask questions concerning Revenue Canada practices. We are not concerned about collecting every nickel and dime owing here and there. Our policy is to remind people who contravene the Income Tax Act, and particularly those who do so openly, that they have a responsibility to pay their income tax.
However, I should like to point out to the Hon. Member that our systems are programmed in such a way that we can determine the quarterly payments to be made by certain groups of citizens. This applies or may apply to some senior citizens who draw an income over a given period of time, and we are simply reminding them that they have responsibilities and must respect the Income Tax Act. There is nothing mean about it, we simply remind them of the legal provisions in this regard.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: The Minister should know that they send out notices and then garnishee the accounts; that is what is done. The Minister ought to know as well that senior citizens often had their income tax deducted at source when they were working, and now they are being asked to pre-estimate their income and many of them do not know how to do it.
Oral Questions PRE-ESTIMATION OF INCOMES


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, what compassion will the Minister display in showing senior citizens how to pre-estimate their incomes? When will he stop treating them as crooks, thieves, and no-goods? When will he have a little compassion, a little decency, and a little common sense? When will he treat the Department of National Revenue as a social problem and look after tax collection as it used to be looked after?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
[ Translation]


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, that is resorting to the most disgusting form of demagoguery. Indeed, I will repeat the last words I have just said: the most disgusting form of demagoguery. The Hon. Member should say: Mr. Minister of National Revenue, this House, this Parliament has passed a law. In that legislation, you are given the responsibility of reminding people who do not pay taxes every week or every month on some of their income that they must do so through quarterly payments. I, the Member for Mississauga, ask that you bypass Parliament and say to Revenue Canada officials: Never mind the law, never mind Parliament, do not ask those delinquent taxpayers to abide by the law.
This can put certain taxpayers in a bind, and I have already said that I had brought that particular situation to the attention of the Minister of Finance. It will be up to him to decide, in light of the facts, whether it would be advisable to grant particular status to a certain category of taxpayers with respect to that provision of the act.


INDUSTRY
Hon. Bud Cullen (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion. The petrochemical task force established under Mr. Bolger of Shell Canada was expected to report by the end of the year, or sometime shortly thereafter. Does the Minister have the report? If not, has he received a date or any indication of when it might be received?


Hon. Ed Lumley (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, the co-chairmen of the task force have indicated that they will be a little later than they had originally anticipated. Also, some provinces have requested that the draft report be discussed with them. I have authorized the task force to discuss the draft report with the provinces. They expect to have it prepared some time in the next month.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill.

January 17, 1984
Oral Questions


Mr. Blaikie:: Mr. Speaker, I stood up all during Question Period in order to ask a question of the Minister of National Health and Welfare, and now she has disappeared.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Simcoe North.


PORTS CANADA CORPORATION
Mr. Doug Lewis (Simcoe North):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Transport. The Minister will know that the Auditor General has been the auditor of the Ports Canada Corporation since 1936. Will the Minister tell the House why a chartered accountant from Winnipeg has been recommended for the 1983 audit rather than continuing with the Auditor General?


Mr. McKenzie:: Because he is a friend of Lloyd.


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct the Hon. Member. The Ports Canada Corporation has only been in operation for the past year or so. The transfer to a new form of Crown corporation is one that I would have assumed the Hon. Member would have understood and recognized. Therefore, we had to make a choice regarding new auditors. I also would have expected the Hon. Member, who is a member of the Conservative Party, to be more sympathetic to the basic principle of making sure that all professional work is diversified to firms right across Canada.


GOVERNMENT POLICY ON APPOINTMENT OF AUDITORS
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, the Minister will know that an auditor must not only be independent, he must be seen to be independent. The head office of the Ports Canada Corporation is in Ottawa. I would again ask the Minister whether this is the way the Government intends to treat audit appointments? Does it intend to take audit appointments for the taxpayers' Crown corporations away from the Auditor General? Is that the new policy of the Government?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that nothing could be more independent from Ottawa than somebody in Winnipeg. The fact is that the firm in question certainly enjoyed the confidence of the previous Conservative Government. When it came to power, it assigned much of the auditing to that firm. If they enjoyed the confidence of the Conservative Party then, they should enjoy the same confidence now.


CANADA HEALTH ACT
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. After meetings with many of the provincial health ministers, the Minister has indicated that she is open to making some changes to the Canada Health Act, changes which they have called on her to make. Will she be similarly open-minded about some of the concerns that have been expressed by myself and by groups concerned about medicare, that the penalties provided for in the Canada Health Act may not be effective as they stand? Will she be open to suggestions that the penalties be made tougher, in combination with the provision of positive incentives for provinces that want to act quickly to eliminate extra billing and user fees? Will she show the same kind of open-mindedness on that issue?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I apologize. There was an urgent phone call from my Deputy Minister. I was absent from the Chamber for half a minute. I failed to see the logic in the Hon. Member's speech yesterday. I listened to his speech. He wants me to reward those provinces which rapidly get rid of breaches of the Act. What do I do with regard to those provinces which did not breach the Act? Has he thought of that? Second, I would be interested to see what amendments the Hon. Member would propose when we reach the appropriate stage of the Bill.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The Chair has some concern about questions relating to a Bill before the House or answers relating to it. If the Hon. Member has a supplementary, I caution him in that regard.


EXTRA BILLING BY DOCTORS
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, my question has to do with the time frame for getting rid of extra billing. Will the Minister consider shortening the three-year period so that we can get rid of extra billing-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I believe the Hon. Member should put this question in connection with the debate when the legislation is before the House.


FISHERIES
Hon. John A. Fraser (Vancouver South):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Fisheries. It is supplementary to the question asked by the Hon. Member for Nanaimo-Alberni. The Minister responded that he could not see the relevance of it. In view of the fact that we have had the Pearse Report on the West Coast, the Cruikshank Report, and
January 17, 1984

a year of discussion with the Minister's advisory committee, why was it necessary for Senator Austin to pull the rug out from under the Minister's feet and to appoint his own person to do a further study of what should be done on the West Coast, after all these years of study after study?


Pierre De Bané: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member has distorted the facts, as usual. The appointment of a new Associate Deputy Minister to the Department has been done at my request. He is a very welcome addition to the senior echelon of the Department. Actually, if I looked at the past year, all of them are in new positions. The Hon. Member should realize that the question of the Pacific fishery has a very high priority within my Department. As I said to the advisory council, any solution will have to be one that involves the participants in the sector and does not count on the taxpayers to resolve the problem.
Petitions
Newfoundland, and I imagine right across Canada, discriminate against those people who have no income at all, and make it virtually impossible for a young person to get employment. Would the Minister consider intervening to lift these stupid restrictive hiring practices which were introduced in consultation with the provincial Governments for the NEED Program and, unfortunately, continued on with for the Canada Works Program?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John (Moody) Roberts: I would like to thank the Hon. Member, Mr. Speaker, for his helpful and interesting question. I am delighted to see that his pertinent commentary has received such support from the opposition Members. I am not entirely sure that the Hon. Member has not exaggerated to some degree the extent and depth of the problem-


ADVISORY COMMITTEE'S RECOMMENDATIONS ON FLEET RATIONALIZATION
John Allen Fraser: With respect, Mr. Speaker, I have not distorted the facts. It is well known on the West Coast that Senator Austin lost all patience with the criticism that was appearing against the Department in the press, and moved in Cabinet. The consequence is Mr. Stein. How long will Mr. Stein take to examine what has already been thoroughly examined? Also, what happened to the recommendations of the Minister's advisory committee with respect to fleet rationalization and buy-back?


Pierre De Bané: Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that when the Opposition does not have an issue, it tries to fabricate one. The official to whom the Hon. Member is referring, reports to the Deputy Minister, who reports to me, and I report to the full Cabinet. Therefore, 1 do not understand all the fuss that the Hon. Member is making.
As for the question of the reduction of the fleet on the Pacific coast, I repeat what I have said already, months ago, that if, in order to allow the participants in the fishery to finance a reduction of the fishing effort, they need a legal mechanism, a royalty system, whereby those who will remain in the fishery will finance those who will get out, I will study with great sympathy any request in that direction. However, they should be very cautious about asking the taxpayers to pay for a reduction of the fleet.


EMPLOYMENT
George Baker: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. The hiring regulations for federal works programs in


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John (Moody) Roberts: -but I do know that in his own particular area there have been some great difficulties caused by the impact of these restrictions, however necessary and useful they may be across the country. I will examine his concern with great care and see whether there is some method of responding to the substance of his concern, even if it is not possible to do it in exactly the way he has recommended to us.


PETITIONS
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the petitions presented by Hon. Members on Monday, January 16, 1984, meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition on behalf of the Flin Flon Chamber of Commerce. In their petition to the House of Commons the Flin Flon Chamber of Commerce speaks about the high rate of adult illiteracy in Canada at this time and calls upon the federal Government to initiate an advertising campaign through the electronic media to advertise literacy courses and to help upgrade the skills of many Canadians who suffer from illiteracy at the present time.

Petitions


Douglas Keith Anguish: Mr. Speaker, I have a number of petitions I would like to present this afternoon, each of which supports the debate and passage of the Private Member's Bill standing in my name which comes up for debate in this House later this day. The petitioners, Mr. Speaker, believe that the testing of the Cruise missile in Canada escalates the nuclear arms race and is, therefore, a serious threat to the peace of the world. They stress that multilateral nuclear disarmament must occur in order to secure peace in the world and that Canada, as a traditionally peaceful nation, can and must play a crucial role in achieving multilateral disarmament.
The petitioners call upon Parliament to debate and pass my Private Member's Bill which could therefore allow Canada to act as a serious mediator in world-wide disarmament processes and engage in talks, along with other countries which would wish to participate in such a forum.
The first petition is signed by 150 residents of the Province of Ontario. A majority of the signatures on this petition were gathered by the members of the Parliament Hill peace camp.
The second petition, Mr. Speaker, contains signatures from the City of Thunder Bay, Ontario, and were sent to me by concerned citizens from that area.
The third petition, Mr. Speaker, is signed by residents of the Province of Alberta from such centres as Drayton Valley, Redwater, Lethbridge, Vauxhall and Calgary.
The fourth petition is signed by 156 residents of Canada. The names on this petition represent every area of this country from the Northwest Territories through British Columbia and across to Newfoundland.
The fifth petition, Mr. Speaker, is signed by residents of Sussex, New Brunswick.
The sixth petition was presented to me by the board of directors of the Toronto branch of the World Federalists of Canada. The petition was passed around during a board meeting and is signed by the board members present at that meeting.
The seventh petition, Mr. Speaker, contains 296 signatures, primarily from the Salmon Arm area of British Columbia. They were collected and sent to me by the Shuswap Nuclear Study Action Group.
Also from British Columbia, Mr. Speaker, the eighth petition was collected and sent to me by the Denman Island Peace Group, from Denman Island, British Columbia, who have written to me to say they believe Canada must make a clear statement to the world in regard to the presence of nuclear weapons and, therefore, are in full support of my Private Member's Bill.
The ninth petition comes from the residents of a small community in my own riding. This is from the community of Meota, Saskatchewan.
The tenth petition which I have this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, was collected in Maidstone, Saskatchewan. The petitioners are
all members of the congregation of the Maidstone United Church.
The eleventh petition is also signed by members of a United Church congregation. This time, Mr. Speaker, the petitioners are from St. David's United Church in the City of Calgary, Alberta.
Finally, the twelfth petition is signed by residents from all across Canada. There are names on this petition from Thunder Bay, Ontario; Victoria, British Columbia; Winnipeg, Manitoba; Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Perth, Ontario; Regina, Saskatchewan; Merrickville, Ontario; and Calgary, Alberta. Each name on these petitions was individually collected by many hard-working and dedicated persons who are concerned about the situation of nuclear arms throughout the world.
With these petitions, Mr. Speaker, I have now presented, with your kind indulgence, a total of 4,806 signatures supporting the passage of my Private Member's Bill which will start to be debated at five o'clock this afternoon.



STANDING COMMITTEES


Mr. John Evans (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I believe you will find that there has been consultation with regard to the composition of the Striking Committee and changes thereto. As a result, I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for London-Middlesex (Mr. Bloomfield):
That the names of Messrs. Dick and Cook be substituted for those of Messrs. Nielsen and Kempling on the Striking Committee.


Mr. Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for the Parliamentary Secretary to move this motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
John Leslie Evans: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 83, 92, 115 and 263.
January 17, 1984


Mr. Howie: How many persons engaged in public relations, media relations or publicity are employed by the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs?
Hon. Judy Erola (Minister of Consumer and Corporate
Affairs): Eighty-three (49 officer, 34 support staff) including those employed by the UFFI Centre and Metric Commission Canada.


Mr. Howie: How many persons engaged in public relations, media relations or publicity are employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs?


Hon. W. Bennett Campbell (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Twenty-six.


Mr. Stewart: 1.	Did the Government print any copies of the publication Constitution 1982 and, if so, at what total cost?
2.	How many copies of the publication have been distributed to groups or individuals free of charge, and at what total cost to the taxpayer?


Hon. Serge Joyal (Secretary of State):: 1. The Government of Canada printed 10,000 copies of the publication Constitution 1982. Printing costs amounted to $159,131.26.
2. As of December 8, 1983, the Government of Canada has distributed 1,422 copies of the publication to groups or individuals free of charge, at a total cost of $35,976.60 to the taxpayer.


Mr. Young: Does the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs plan to educate consumers about incompatibility between telephones and hearing aids and, if so, what are such plans?
Hon. Judy Erola (Minister of Consumer and Corporate
Affairs): The Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs is collaborating with the Department of Communications in this matter, which is seeking the assistance of all Canadian telephone companies in publicizing the availability of telephones equipped with flux coils and the advantages for certain subscribers of acquiring telephone sets with this option.
The Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs will also endeavour to seek the co-operation of telephone manufacturers and importers to voluntarily identify by means of a package label those units which are hearing aid compatible.


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


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Roy MacLaren (Minister of State (Finance)) moved: that a Ways and Means motion to amend the Customs Tariff, laid upon the Table Wednesday, December 7, 1983, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Roy MacLaren: that Bill C-7, to amend the Customs Tariff, be read the first time and be printed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.

Roy MacLaren: that a Ways and Means motion respecting the imposition of anti-dumping and countervailing duties, amending the Currency and Exchange Act, the Customs Tariff and the Export and Import Permits Act and repealing the Anti-dumping Act, be concurred in.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Roy MacLaren: that Bill C-8 respecting the imposition of anti-dumping and countervailing duties amending the Currency and Exchange Act, the Customs Tariff and the Export and Import Permits Act and repealing the Anti-dumping Act, be read the first time and be printed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
[Stage Direction]
January 17, 1984
Canada Health Act

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, January 16, 1983, consideration of the motion of Miss Begin that Bill C-3, an Act relating to cash contributions by Canada in respect of insured health services provided under provincial health care insurance plans and amounts payable by Canada in respect of extended health care services and to amend and repeal certain Acts in consequence thereof, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs.
Hon. Gerald Regan (Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have the opportunity to speak in support of this legislation and to say a few words about why I take that position. I believe that in this country our medical and hospitalization programs have not only been a great success, but they have become a hallmark of our Canadian society and to a very large extent have more clearly than other things distinguished us from some other countries that have not had the advantage of programs as well planned as our hospitalization and medicare programs. I think they can be referred to as the great Canadian experiment. In particular they distinguish us as more civilized in our care for our citizens than our American cousins and less socialized than other countries that have taken quite a different approach to the question of medical care.
The main thing about our system is that on the whole it has worked well. It has had its flaws and its shortcomings. Indeed, I am sure we would all agree that there are other aspects of medical well-being and the care of our citizens that we would wish could be included in this partnership between the federal and provincial Governments but which, for financial and other reasons, have not as yet been the subject of the agreements that have existed for so long.
I think we have to be very clear that we are concerned today and in this debate with the program that has existed and with guarding its integrity against changes that may occur.
I did not make many notes for this speech but I did give a considerable amount of thought over some months to this legislation and to the question of what we are involved in with the change that has been proposed to the law.
I have had the experience, of course, of being involved in the administration of medicare and hospitalization from the point of view of the provinces, having been a member of a provincial government faced with the necessity of finding the dollars for the programs. It is quite true that for some provinces, such as Nova Scotia, it is never easy to find the money for the important programs, including hospitalization and medicare, and for the programs in general that are important to the public. Of course, for the past four years I have been involved as a member of the national Government. I think that, as a consequence, I can understand the pressures on both sides when it becomes a question of finding the money and carrying out the agreement in a way that guards the interests of the
people of the country and at the same time provides for prudent use of provincial and federal moneys.
Speaking of the two programs in the retrospect of 15 or 25 years, I believe they have been a great deal for the provinces. The provinces have done very well. Over 50 per cent of the cost has been provided by the national Government yet the provinces have had all the advantages of administration. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, again from the little bit of experience that I have, that there are advantages in that and there are some possibilities for savings for the level of government that carries out the administration.
That is true of all our shared cost federal-provincial programs which are carried out in the way that is best designed to meet the needs of Canadians, since in many instances government that is closer to the local population is in a better position to carry out the administration. It does sometimes provide the temptation to claim all the credit for a program and to blame the feds away in Ottawa for inadequate financing, no matter how much financing is involved.
If one has independent financial people examine the history of these programs over the years, I do not think that any fair charge can be laid that Ottawa has not paid its share. In eight out of the ten provinces the federal Government is paying over 50 per cent, even under the revised formula that has come about following the bloc funding; but over the years the federal contribution has been the largest, and therefore I believe from the point of view of the provinces carrying out the administration it has been a good and fair partnership. Unfortunately, the voice of faction is always difficult to hush and when there are provincial administrations not of the same political philosophy of the federal Government, then from time to time political issues will arise.
I think the federal Government and the provinces have to recognize that the national Government is not a bottomless barrel in relation to the supply of money any more than provincial governments are. We must also recognize that today our national Government, like that of most other countries, has the same problem that the provinces have in finding the necessary dollars at a reasonable level of taxation to provide the important services that the public demands and, indeed, needs.
1 have given that background because I want to come to the question of user fees, which I recognize can be a tempting method of raising additional funding at the provincial level. It has not been used in all the provinces but there has been a growing tendency to move in that direction with all the erosion that will mean for a system which has been tremendously good for our country. Therefore I believe the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) is to be very much complimented for moving on this matter at this point.
I guess it was Sam Slick from Windsor, Nova Scotia, the early American humorist, who said that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I believe that applies in this instance. If we sit back and wait until the practice of user fees
January 17, 1984

becomes extremely widespread, then obviously it will be a malaise which is more difficult to deal with at that time. In addition, there are advantages to the provinces to know exactly what the situation is and what the determination of the Government of Canada is on the matter.
Let us just consider what user fees lead us to. There is a bargain between the federal Government and the provinces to provide money to prepay the hospitalization and medical care of all citizens of Canada. That payment has been made out of the tax dollars the people pay. When you implement user fees you are saying to the people that through their taxes they prepaid the services but we are going to require that they pay again and pay some more. As time passes and user fee amounts escalate if left unchecked, then obviously you come to a time when the money originally provided by the federal and provincial Governments for health care is not really paying for that at all.
It is only the provinces that are concerned with applying user fees, Mr. Speaker, because it is only their share of the cost of medicare which can be diminished as a consequence. Therefore, it is best for them that the temptation does not exist. It is obviously best for the people of the country, having prepaid for the service, that an unfair and additional burden not be placed on them.
I want to say just a word now about extra billing. The vast majority of doctors in this country do not extra-bill. Some doctors who do have done it with great discretion and in circumstances where it may have served a useful social purpose. An example of that is a situation where normal income does not enable a specialist to remain in the smaller centres and they move to a larger centre. We have felt in Nova Scotia that in some instances that has been one of the advantages. The problem is that there have been other doctors who unfortunately have tended more and more to extra-bill and not use the same discretion as to the circumstances in which it would be utilized. I have to say that has been much more prevalent in some other parts of Canada than it has been, for instance, in my province.
I recognize, as other legislators do, I am sure, that it is necessary to apply the rules on a national basis. Therefore, to counter the problem which has existed in some parts of the country, it has been necessary for the Minister to come forward with a method of stopping extra billing in the same way that this legislation will hopefully stop user fees from being applied by the provinces.
There must be some incentive for efficiency, Mr. Speaker. When you have a program shared between the federal and provincial Governments, and the province is putting up less than 50 per cent, as is the case to a considerable degree in a number of our provinces, then you have a situation where a province sometimes does not have the same degree of incentive to watch costs as would be the case if it had to tax for 100 per cent of the dollars it is spending. In that regard it is important that we retain the original bargain: the federal Government puts up its share along with the provinces and there is no other source of revenue at all.
Canada Health Act
I am not going to spend time today on the disputes which occur from time to time about whether the federal Government has maintained its share. It certainly has, Mr. Speaker, and anyone who contends differently is guilty of a distortion. I recognize that figures do not lie, but sometimes it is possible to juggle the figures. Those people who suggest that the Government of Canada has not fully carried its weight on these very important programs are playing into the hands of people who are not stating the matter in an accurate fashion. Obviously some provinces have not fulfilled their responsibility if they seek to put another burden on the backs of people by way of extra billing and user-fees, or if they have not done enough to see that the expenditures are made in an efficient manner.
I want to touch on that very briefly, Mr. Speaker, because I think it is important that we battle against the escalation in the cost of the medical care delivery system by achieving greater efficiency in administration and operation. The people of Canada well know that responsibility is in the hands of those who do the day to day administration, the provinces. I hope that matter will continue to be seriously addressed in this country.
I now want to come to why we have this new legislation. We have had a good bargain for the provinces and the people of Canada in our medicare and hospitalization system, so why is it that the Government of Canada and the Minister of National Health and Welfare come forth with this legislation? It is to guard what we have. It would not have been necessary to bring forth new legislation if nothing had changed, indeed, if the Parties had continued to carry out the bargain in the way it was originally meant to be carried out. Unfortunately there has been a change and no one can argue with that. Everyone can see year by year the escalation in the amount of extra billing and of the tendency toward the application of user fees and the open, public statements by some authorities of their intention to apply those. It is not the Government of Canada and it is not the Minister of Health who has required the situation-


An Hon. Member:: The revenue guarantee.


Gerald Augustine Regan: The Hon. Member says the revenue guarantee. The Hon. Member knows that the Provinces again and again said that the revenue guarantee had nothing to do with this program.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Come, come.


Gerald Augustine Regan: You can wave your hand if you want to, but I give you the words of the Premiers in that regard, and Premiers' words must be given very close attention.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: I give you the words of John Turner.


Mr. Epp:: He does not like John Turner either.


Gerald Augustine Regan: I must not be drawn aside by all these comments from these people who are supposed to be supporting this legislation and who, I hope, are supporting it.

January 17, 1984
Canada Health Act


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: We have trouble with your statements.


Gerald Augustine Regan: It is the provinces which have allowed the conditions to change. That is why we need this legislation which will provide a guard against further erosion of the people's right to have free health care and free hospitalization in the country. I believe that the fact that the Government of Canada is committing over $9 billion a year in this regard is a fine indication of the priority that the program has been given by the people of Canada.
It takes two to tango, Mr. Speaker, and I know that the people of Canada want our federal and provincial Governments to work together. I believe that that is the greatest responsibility that Governments have. Remember, it does take two to tango and both sides must perform in order to carry out a bargain or partnership. That is exactly what is required by this legislation. If the original bargain is not followed it means there is a penalty, and that is the incentive to carry it out.
In conclusion I would like to say that one of the reasons that there has been an increase in the cost-and we recognize that-is that today people working in the health care delivery system are paid a decent wage. They were not in the past. It is a credit to federal and provincial Governments that that wage situation has changed vastly over the past number of years. With this legislation we move forward to protect. The next step for all of the parties involved should be to prepare their briefs for the CMA task force on future needs of the health system and particularly on aging. With this legislation we protect what exists, and we should then look forward to other programs and the needs of our people.


Hon. David Crombie (Rosedale):: Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I think that it is the first time that the Assistant Deputy Speaker, the Member for Vaudreuil (Mr. Herbert), has been in the chair. I would like to compliment him and wish him well in his new responsibilities.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


David Edward Crombie: Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to be able to speak on this Bill today. As most people are aware, I have had a life-long interest in this field and have served, at least for a very brief period of time, as Minister of Health. Therefore, I have some knowledge and clear interest in, not only the legislation, but indeed all of the issues surrounding it. Another reason why it gives me pleasure to speak on this Bill is that I became involved with the Progressive Conservative Party in 1956, the year that that Party declared that it supported a national health care system for this country. Therefore, I feel quite strongly that we in this Party today are continuing a tradition which is second to none in this House and in this country. This tradition began with the work done by the Right Hon. John Diefenbaker in the first and second terms of his office in establishing the Hall Commission which brought in the broad outlines of the principles of medicare and established medicare through the recommendations of Mr. Justice Emmett Hall. I am not forgeting the
contribution of the late John Robarts as Premier of the Province of Ontario.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: He opposed it.


David Edward Crombie: For those who have not read the legislation and the literature, it was the action of John Robarts in 1968 that made it a national program rather than one simply adopted by the federal Government. I mention this, Mr. Speaker, because there are lots of people who would like to have a monopoly over what has been a contribution of all Parties and provinces and of many people. I was looking at a note the other day which indicated that the new Speaker of this House was a civil servant at that time and helped to draw up the legislation that brought in the beginnings of medicare. It is worth emphasizing that because much of what we have today is a contribution made by everyone. We have learned far more about the politics of medicare in the past few years than we have about medicare itself.
Medicare, Mr. Speaker, was the great achievement of the fifties, sixties and seventies, and particularly the sixties and seventies in terms of the forging of legislation. Those outstanding principles of medicare, universality, accessibility, comprehensiveness, portability, and public administration under uniform terms and conditions, became the way in which this country established a principle. That principle was that there ought to be equality of opportunity for every Canadian to have equal access to medical care at prices that were affordable to all. That is a principle for which every Party has stood for at least two generations.
It is wise to remember, however, that medicare in itself is not a health care program. It is a medical care program. It is an insurance program that deals with medical care for people who are sick. That is the purpose of the program. Its organizing principles were equality and accessibility. That is what this Bill deals with. It deals primarily with those principles and with making sure those principles remain in place. During the past four or five years we have dealt little enough with that medicare and health care really mean. We have spent more time on the politics of medicare. We have been at war with the doctors and the provinces. During that period of time we forgot that there are other matters than simply the questions of insurance and the sick. We had to ge beyond that. That is why this Bill speaks more to yesterday than it does to tomorrow. It is a Bill that patches up the past. It does not grasp, in any sense, the future of health care in this country.
While the federal Government fought with the doctors and other health care workers and we put enormous strains on the federal system in the name of health care and medicare, there was an entirely different kind of revolution going on in this country of ordinary people dealing with their own lives. The principles of the old medicare were equality and accessibility. The principles of the new one are not entirely new words to us. They are old words that have a new meaning. If anybody cares to look at the newspapers, listen to the radio, watch television and read the literature, they will hear brand new words emerging in the field of health care that mean something to
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some people. These people have been looking for direction from this Government in terms of being able to institutionalize those ideas. Those words are health promotion, health conservation and health restoration. Those words reflect certain ideas of health care which you will not find in this legislation and you will not find in any health care legislation that has been brought forward by this Government. I would like to look at those five major ideas that have been changing the focus of health care in this country.
The first word is self responsibility. Recently, and increasingly in the future, we will find more and more people who understand that the very quality of their health is their responsibility in the first instance. My generation and the generation before me assumed that somehow our only responsibility to our health was to get up in the morning and work, smoke, drink and then stop off at the hospital like a pit stop, and then go back to it again. Somehow there was no individual responsibility for the quality of one's health.
I find that that idea is changing substantially with the new generation. I find that indeed it is the general consensus of people that self responsibility for the quality of one's health is the first responsibility.
Second, I am seeing a growing awareness, which can be found increasingly in literature, of nutritional awareness. For two generations we have almost forgotten about the content of what we eat. The education we received on it was either minimal or quickly forgotten. We have tended not to pay any significant attention to the nutritional awareness, which is so essential to health. It is not without some chagrin that I note that it is only in this past year that nutrition as a course at the University of Toronto has just become a part of the medical faculty. We have forgotten older rules of the generations before us who understood the significance and importance in the quality of each individual's health of understanding nutrition and what the content of the food and drink one consumed was in terms of one's health.
The third idea that one will find increasingly important is stress management. We hear very little from the Government on its health care legislation or its programs dealing with stress management. In the past number of years an entire field has opened up with respect to it. An example is the work of Dr. Hans Selye. Those people who have been involved in cardiac units and involved in rehabilitation centres, particularly with heart patients, understand that, whereas we used to assume that heart attacks and many other conditions were consequences of some other breakdown, now we know that much of it concerns how we deal with the stress of daily life. We know also that a creative outlet, relaxation and being able to deal with our social and emotional problems have a direct, clear and extensive impact on the quality of our health. Stress management is a third idea of the health care revolution in the 1980s and 1990s.
The fourth idea is physical fitness. I gather that someone despairingly referred to jogging the other day. It is not only
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jogging but physical fitness that is important. Physical fitness is not part of health promotion but health conservation. Physical fitness allows people to be alert physically, which in turn allows them to be even more alert and perhaps spiritually.
Finally, you wil find that the idea of environmental and occupational safety and sensitivity is increasingly important to understanding the importance of health.
Those five ideas are not brand new. They are not spoken of in the House for the first time, but I speak to them in the context which I believe is important. While the war over medicare was going on and we warred with the doctors in the provinces, a whole new generation was coming to the understanding that self responsibility for nutritional awareness, stress management, physical fitness and environmental safety and sensitivity are the real keys not to medicare but to health care. Those five ideas deal with health, not sickness. They deal with prevention, not cure. They deal with liberation, not confinement. They are cheaper, not more expensive. That is the real health care revolution in this country.
That is why I insist that the Bill before us patches up yesterday. While that is important and it should be patched up, that is all it does. It does not grasp tomorrow. There is no sense of imagination which allows the people of this country to sense that the Government knows that this is what has happened to health care in this country.
My hon. friend, the Hon. Member for Provencher (Mr. Epp), said, in effect, that we need to move from the net of medicare to what he called the trampoline of health care. One is not better than the other and both are important, but my concern and that of others has been that there has been no sense that people in this country are not only interested in medicare but are interested in health care. What people in this country really want is a real health care Bill that expands primary care facilities, expands extended care facilities and increases the number of health care workers and health operatives in a variety of ways rather than having simply one entry point into the health care system. They want a Bill which expands community based health care facilities. There are some people who remember the importance of seeing the community and community based facilities as the most significant entry point to both health care and medicare care. I recall listening some years ago to someone who had what he called a dream that one day there would be in the communities of this country a community support centre which would offer health promotion facilities, health conservation facilities and health restoration facilities in the same clinic that offered legal aid, financial counselling, family planning and vision and hearing services.
If we look at the services that this country provides at its municipal, provincial and federal levels, we see that we have taken the population and sliced it according to our bureaucratic needs instead of according to the needs of the whole person. The best example I have seen of this service is in the City of Toronto. It is a four-storey building of local 183 of the labourer's union on Dupont Street. On one level they deal with training, which is a federal, provincial and municipal input.

January 17, 1984
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They have driver training lessons and they also deal with their social programs as best they can with the participation of all levels of government. They even have ministers, priests and rabbis on call.
This dream was mentioned to me for the first time about 15 years ago. We are not anywhere closer to it now than we were then. My daughter is in a health care course at Waterloo. I recall that when I was speaking to her and her friends about a month ago about what they understood about health and medical care, they talked of holistic medicine in words which young people will use. But what they mean is the oldest understanding of medical care and health care. They understand that you have to have physical care, emotional care, social care and environmental and spiritual care. That is the only way to be healthy. Words ought to be the harbingers of action. For the past decade while we have been fooling around with the war over medicare, a new generation has been trying to usher in an understanding of health care. It is one to which we have not paid attention. That is why I have said with the greatest of respect to my colleague, the Minister of National Flealth and Welfare (Miss Begin), that what this Parliament expects from her and what this country expects from her Government is health care legislation that allows us to reach that level of wellness that we know is there and is possible, and end the understanding in this country that all medicare is about is fights between the provinces and fights with the doctors. The day that happens, Mr. Speaker, we will have moved from the old achievement to the new opportunity.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I have a comment and a question for the Hon. Member for Rosedale. I know he seriously believes everything he has just said about the new generation of perception in health care, and I will take the liberty of counting myself among the generation to which he refers. But I would like to refer for just a minute to previous generations. His speech reminded me of a conversation that he and the Minister of Health had just before the Christmas break when they were trying to outdo each other as to which Party could take credit for medicare. I said at that time that both of them qualified for a scholarship with the Soviet academy of sciences for their revisionist attitude toward history.
In spite of what the Hon. Member for Rosedale may believe about medicare, in spite of what individual Progressive Conservatives may believe about medicare, is the Hon. Member prepared to deny that, for instance, in 1962 in Saskatchewan there was an organized campaign by the Conservative in that province, and, with all due respect to those on the other side, by the Liberals in that Province, against the New Democratic Government at that time which was trying to bring in the very program that he now lauds as one of the great social policy achievements of the country? It is a political and historical fact which you can find in every thesis that has ever been written about medicare that the resistance to medicare and insured hospitalization was provided by Progressive Conservatives in this country in particular. To deny that is simply to deny history. If you have a new position now, if you have
evolved to a certain point where you are prepared to accept medicare-and I think probably the Hon. Member for Rosedale always was able to accept it-then at least he should have the decency to acknowledge that our country was not always one big happy family when it came to medicare. There were very real ideological and political divisions. To pretend that there are not and were not is dishonest.


David Edward Crombie: Mr. Speaker, I have three comments in answer to the question of the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill. First, I think the Hon. Member is mistaken. I believe the exchange was between the Minister of National Health and Welfare and the Hon. Member for Provencher rather than myself. Second, if there were any better example needed to make my point that there are still some people stuck in the wars of medicare and unwilling to free themselves from it and get on to what this country really wants, and that is programs for health care, I do not think I could have had a better example. Here is a Member, Mr. Speaker, who thinks the most important question he can ask is whatever happened to an event of which I was not even a part in 1962. Third, perhaps the Hon. Member should read Jim Laxer's book one more time. That is at least a good example of why his Party ought to change its thinking and get on to the 1980s and 1990s.


Mr. Lachance:: Mr. Speaker, I also want to pay tribute to the Hon. Member for Rosedale whose remarks today, as is often the case, transcend the mere description of events. In so doing, he has laid the foundation of what preventive medicine could and should be in the future, compared with the Medicare safety net of today.
I forgive him, just as other Hon. Members on this side probably do, his few partisan comments. In a way, they are to be expected in a debate such as this, but what really matters is that he reaffirmed, though in passing, the essential nature of this legislation which, as he said, remedies a number of deficiencies which have developed in the administration of Medicare in the past 15 or 20 years.
However, I should like him to explain to us how he would ensure the participation of health workers, men and women- when I say women, I think of the nursing staff-in the advent of preventive medicine in which he seems to believe so strongly and which the medical profession seems to delay and resist for reasons which are probably legitimate but should be aired publicly, and which would make possible the involvement of nurses and health workers in a number of medical or paramedical acts, which now are the sole domain of physicians but which could be performed most of the time by the nursing staff.


David Edward Crombie: Mr. Speaker, I might say to the Hon. Member that I read both the brief in 1980 from the Canadian Nurses Association in response to their program of health care
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in 1979 and also the 1982 response to the early drafts of the health care legislation. I am fully aware of the contribution they want to make to health care services. I might say that I find myself supporting, did then, do now and will support, the essentials of their brief. I can recall one definition being made. One asked: what is the difference between a doctor and a nurse? The reponse from the Canadian Nurses Association was that in Canada the cut-off point is at the fiftieth degree parallel. North of the fiftieth degree parallel nurses provide an enormous amount of medical care, and the farther you go south the less of it they provide.
Having said that, and obviously I did not have time to deal with it in my speech, it seems to me the most important thing is to understand that there is that explosion of health care opportunities for all health care workers and health professionals. We are going to see a brand new array of health care professionals and health care workers in the field. Doctors already understand that they are not the first and only point of entry into the system. 1 am hoping that as we move along-we should have started earlier-we will be able to expand the points of entry through community based clinics and so on.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, could I ask the Hon. Member for Rosedale whether he is not also aware that again it has been in those provinces which have had New Democratic Party governments-with the exception of some of the initiatives in Toronto to which he referred and for which maybe he was responsible, and if so, I commend the Hon. Member for it- where the idea of a community clinic has been most advanced, sometimes advanced over the opposition, 1 can say quite factually, of Progressive Conservative Parties in those provinces. Once you have a community clinic you begin to get an integrated, holistic view of medicine, and then you begin to ask questions about how our economy affects the health of people. Once you begin to ask those kinds of questions, you begin to develop a critique of a whole economic system. That is one of the reasons there has been resistence to community clinics. In that respect, I would like to ask the Hon. Member for Rose-dale why it is that he spends so little time on the environmental and occupational aspects of his new concept of health? If he had spent more time on them he would have had to address the problem of how he stacks up those concerns against what is called the investment climate and the profit strategies of corporations that would be affected if we were to have rigid environmental, occupational, health and safety laws. How does the Hon. Member address those difficult questions within the context of the PC ideology?


David Edward Crombie: Mr. Speaker, I have a short response. If the Hon. Member is trying to imply that somehow it is only Conservative and Liberal provinces which have allowed the principles of opting out and extra billing, I suggest he look at the history of both Saskatchewan and Manitoba which had NDP governments. In Saskatchewan, the Hon. Member's own Province, they had Mode 3. He knows it; he just will not talk about it. Mode 3 allowed opting out and extra billing through-
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out the time the NDP was in power. In Manitoba today, which has an NDP government, there is opting out and extra billing. This is what I meant when I referred to the arrogance of a monopoly on morality which the NDP has always tried to hang on people and which does not bear up in truth.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: You guys never did anything about it.


David Edward Crombie: If the Hon. Member will give me a chance to answer, with respect to environmental legislation and occupational health and safety regulations, there is no province in the country ahead of the Province of Ontario, which has had a Progressive Conservative government for 40 years.


Mr. Herb Breau (Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to take part in the debate today on Bill C-3 to establish the Canada Health Act. Also I am very proud to be part of the political Party which forms the Government and has seen fit to propose this piece of legislation. I congratulate the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) for her efforts over the last few years to mount political opinion and to gather political support in the country in order to convince the Government to bring forward this Bill as a Government measure.
It is very interesting to hear Conservative Members rationalizing their position on the Canada Health Act. It used to be said in Canada that there was nothing wrong with the New Democratic Party, except that its members were just Liberals in a hurry. Now we see that the Conservatives are late Liberals. They now see their real positions and are trying to take credit for this legislation. I do not want to make fun of their position because I am proud that the federal Government is involved in the financing of a national program. In an area which comes under provincial jurisdiction, it is always better to have as broad a consensus as possible. I am very happy that the three Parties in the House of Commons agree to the principles of the Canada Health Act.
This should not take any credit away from the fact that basically there are two groups which are interested in these broad political questions-those who are for the ordinary people and those who are for protecting vested interests. I could not let this occasion pass without saying how much pleasure I have had in witnessing the Conservatives seeing the light on how important it is to protect the five basic principles of medicare and to support the new Canada Health Act.
We all know how difficult it was for the new Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney), when he was in Central Nova last summer, to explain to provincial Premiers why they should stop talking against the Minister of National Health and Welfare and that they should accept that to be a good leader for the country he had to support medicare. The way he got out of this predicament is very funny. They are supposed to be an honest Party, they are supposed to be the Conservative Party. They complain all the time about high deficits and about the importance of the integrity of the fiscal position of the federal government and they talk about the dangers of increasing the debt. Yesterday the Hon. Member for Provencher (Mr. Epp)

January 17, 1984
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talked about that, but how did the Tories get out of this one? They said to their friends, the Tory governments that wanted user fees and extra billing, to forget about what they would do in Parliament for a while and that they would be given more money when they came to power. Of course, they think that they will be the government before too long. As a matter of fact, I do not mind their thinking that because it has the effect of their forgetting what are the fundamentals, namely they are still the Opposition and we are still the Government. That is the way they are trying to get out of this one. They tell the electorate that they will support the present Canada Health Act or the measures of the Minister of National Health and Welfare but that once they are in power, they will give the provinces more money. There will be no more consideration of the debt or the deficits; they will give the provinces more money as if they really deserved more money for health care or for post-secondary education.
It was interesting to see these words couched in the following paragraph of the speech of the Hon. Member for Pro-vencher yesterday, as reported on page 452 of Hansard:
-we are saying that when the next election comes, whenever the Prime Minister decides to call it, we will call a federal-provincial conference not to study again but to discuss with the provinces how the health care system is functioning and what funding should be examined, and the agenda will be open. We will be willing to discuss that agenda with the provinces and look at those issues and look at where extra money should be put in areas where they are not covered now by the cost shared arrangement.
Those comments are very interesting, but the record should show-and the Tories should not be allowed to avoid it-that regardless of the merit of their position, they are advocating that federal taxpayers pay more money to the provincial governments without them, I or anyone in the public having any assurance the money will actually go to health care or post-secondary education. They will not be able to maintain that position very long before the public sees that they are on both sides of the fence.
Also I am reminded of their position, which they continue to repeat. They are trying to say that the Minister of National Health and Welfare has been waging a war with the provinces and with doctors, as though, when fundamental questions are raised in the public domain in politics, there were an easy way to make points and to ensure that accessibility and universality of health care could be achieved without any kind of debate.
She was not waging a war against the provinces and doctors. The Minister of National Health and Welfare was ensuring that two things would not happen in the country in the future. First, that we would not enter-and we are just about there- into a second layer of medicare services for some Canadians with one program for the rich and the well-to-do and another for ordinary Canadians. We were just about there, and one day the unions would have bargained for more insurance to cover extra billing as happened in Australia. Once that route is started, there is no end, other than the destruction of medicare as we know it. It may have taken five years or ten years, but it is one thing the Minister of National Health and Welfare stopped. It was not a war with the provinces or with doctors; it was a fight to preserve medicare. She did this as a Liberal, and
it is because we have a Liberal Government that this was made possible, not because the Conservatives saw the light after the fact and supported the Canada Health Act.
Tough Conservatives, those who are really fiscal Conservatives, should be proud of the second thing the Minister has done. She is protecting the sole source funding system in Canada, the pre-paid insurance system which provides at the disbursement end a sole disbursement on behalf of the public. That is what the Minister has done. There are two sides to this. One is the human social side that I mentioned a moment ago and the other is the practical side. The beauty of our system from the point of view of how much Canadians should put into it is that there is public control.
Second, if the Minister had not intervened, there would have been leakages in the system. Once there is one small leak, there is no end to it. We would have awakened one day to see the same situation in Canada as applies in the United States. The amount of money to fund the health system in the United States is not based on any political or public examination. It is determined simply by market forces. A patient in a doctor's office or hospital has to make a transaction similar to a transaction that is made when buying a shirt, renting a car or purchasing an airline ticket. That would have happened in Canada. We would have opened the leakage. We would have had to spend a lot more on health care without any assurance that the health care for Canadians would improve. While in the United States a lot more money is spent on sophisticated equipment and research, the Americans do not have a better health care system than we have in Canada. I am convinced that any objective and competent analysis would show a better health care system exists in Canada.

Mr. Speaker, as the Tories did in yesterday's debate, several government people at the provincial level keep saying that the Canadian Government has reduced its transfer payments to the provinces under the new Fiscal Arrangements Bill enacted by the House of Commons in the spring of 1982.
Well, Mr. Speaker, the Minister for International Trade explained a while ago that amendments to the fiscal arrangements brought about in 1982 in no way reduced the federal grants to the provinces for post-secondary education or health care. I see in the House at least two Members who sat on the Parliamentary Task Force on fiscal arrangements which I had the privilege to chair, namely the Hon. Member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker) and the hon. member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie). Those Members will recall that in each provincial capital we visited, we would quote figures showing that the monies paid out by the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) and by the Department of the Secretary of State as revenue guarantee were included in the amounts we had at that time as being allotted or earmarked for health care and post-secondary education. In each capital, the Minister and the Deputy Minister of Finance
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or whatever officials were there would say: "You have no business including that as being allotted for health care or post-secondary education. Those are automatic payments under equalization arrangements". The provincial governments and the provincial officials all failed to admit, even morally, that those monies, even though at the federal level they were paid by sectorial ministers, the Minister of National Health and Welfare and the Secretary of State, were being paid by the Canadian Government for those programs.
Then, Mr. Speaker, the Tories are constantly boasting about being the great defenders of equalization. The best aspect in my view of the equalization program is that it is an automatic and unconditional program. Transfers are automatic, according to a formula that is predicated on no conditions. It is important to realize that.
The amount of the equalization payment is not based on federal revenues, it is not based on the amount of taxes collected by federal departments, it is not based on decisions made here. The amount transferred is exclusively based on the revenues of provincial governments that are now seven in number. The beautiful thing about the equalization program is that a participating province gets it as part of the contribution of our Canadian society, unconditionally.
Therefore, I can accept the fact that transfer payments are extended unconditionally to the provincial governments, because the program is aimed at equalizing taxation capacities. Many people are making a fundamental error when they think that equalization is a program aimed at equalizing social services. That, hopefully, is the target. But the aim is to equalize taxation power, while the other one is an automatic, unconditional payment to the provinces. I can accept that, but what I cannot accept is that a payment that was made by the Canadian Government to rich provinces as a revenue guarantee be an automatic payment that is not earmarked for specific programs.

I listened very carefully to the skillful choice of words of the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) when he spoke about the revenue guarantee. He was skillful to the point that if I did not know him, I may have thought that he was being overly partisan or even close to being dishonest.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Come on.


Herb Breau: I was very charitable. I said close to being dishonest. I would never think that he is dishonest. He knows, as does the Hon. Member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker), that the task force on fiscal arrangements tried. At least the Liberals and the NDP tried to push the provinces to accept that the moneys from the revenue guarantee be allocated to programs. I wanted that, but the provinces never accepted it. At their conference in Victoria in August, 1981, the tables published by the Premiers specifically mentioned that revenues from the revenue guarantee would be outside the program. They wanted nothing to do with an allocation of
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these moneys to programs. For the Conservatives now to say there has been a reduction in transfers to provinces for health care and post-secondary education is nonsense, dishonest and overly partisan. There is absolutely no case to be made such as the Leader of the Opposition tried to make when he met with the Maritime Premiers in August at the famous cottage in Central Nova. I am not sure whether he has returned to his constituency, but the cottage is still there. He says the problem is not what the Minister of National Health and Welfare is saying it is. The problem is that the federal Government has reduced its contribution to the provinces, and the poorer provinces cannot afford to have a decent health care program. That is what he is saying. It is a lot of baloney.
The Atlantic Provinces never allocated one cent of the revenue guarantee to the programs. Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia did not spend on postsecondary education all of the money they received from the federal Government. In the case of New Brunswick, for two years in a row it received from the federal Treasury 104 per cent one year and 107 per cent the next of the money it spent on post-secondary education, on every community college, technical school and university. How can the Leader of the Opposition, other than through pure ignorance of the facts, say there was any justification for increasing the funding to the Maritime provinces for health care in order to do away with user fees? When the equalization program was changed in 1982, there was a great improvement to the Maritime provinces in equalization receipts. Local taxes for municipal services are now included in the calculation. The result is that the four Atlantic provinces receive a lot more in equalization. The increase they are receiving is way beyond what they lost in the revenue guarantee. Therefore, the fiscal arrangements which were passed by this House in 1982 are a lot fairer to the provinces which receive equalization than the Opposition would lead us to believe. I repeat, Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, that a province like New Brunswick-
... a province like New Brunswick which claims that federal transfer payments have been reduced and uses that as a pretext for introducing hospital user fees is, in my view, being deceitful and in fact trying to destroy Medicare. That is the position of a government which refuses to recognize that the program was introduced to guarantee all Canadians equal access to the best possible medical services.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Comments and questions? The Hon. Member for Rosemont.


Claude-André Lachance: According to tradition, Mr. Speaker, I know I was recognized first for this question period. However, I am willing to rise later on, so that other colleagues-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie).

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William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Hon. Member for Gloucester on a matter in the Bill to which he did not pay a lot of attention. I would like to know his opinion with respect to the penalties. He has spent, as well as other Hon. Members, a lot of time saying why we do not like extra billing and user fees and why something must be done about them. But I would like to ask the Hon. Member whether or not, in his opinion, he thinks the penalties as they now stand in the legislation which is before us will be adequate. Does the Hon. Member think, for instance, that in the Province of Alberta where, I believe, the extra billing amounts to some $14 million, the threat of losing $14 million will be adequate to persuade that Province to do away with extra billing? Or does he not think we might be better off to have a combination of tougher penalties on the one hand and positive incentives on the other hand, which might have more of a chance of really bringing these provinces around? What is the Hon. Member's view of the penalties as they now stand? Is he satisfied with them?


Herb Breau: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member asks me if 1 am satisfied as a person, I would say no, I would rather have tougher penalties. I am frustrated by the fact that some provincial governments in this country are ideologically opposed to the kind of philosophy which is behind the Canada Health Act. Of course, I would like to have some stiffer penalties. However, I am not sure that it is reasonable for me, as a Member of Parliament, to go beyond the value of the money which is raised in user fees and extra billing to provide a penalty. I feel it would be seen to be punitive.
I am constantly frustrated, as a federal parliamentarian, when I am dealing, in the funding of a program which comes under provincial jurisdiction, with the federal-provincial tradition in this country of the federal Parliament being very careful when it uses its spending power not to go beyond a certain line. I really feel that we cannot go beyond the withholding of money, which is a rough equivalent to what is being raised in the Province under conditions which we do not like. The Hon. Member, when he was on the Task Force on Fiscal Arrangements, will recall that the only thing that we said was that some funds should be withheld. It was our judgment at the time that pressure would be sufficient. I really believe that it will be sufficient.
The Province of Alberta, for ideological reasons, may want to make a case of it, but I believe that for most of the other provinces the penalties in existence will be sufficient. One cannot look at this in isolation from the fact that the Minister and the Government have accepted one of the key recommendations of our report with regard to accountability, where a yearly report will be made to Parliament on the activities in the given province. That will bring pressure to bear on the provincial government by, first of all, making it public here, but also making it public in detail in the province, so that the electorate of the province can also pressure its own provincial government. The Hon. Member will recall that a lot of the frustration of groups which came before us was due to the fact that they did not know what the federal Government was
spending in the province. I feel that when you couple that with the accountability provisions then, yes, the penalties will be sufficient.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I have just a brief supplementary question with respect to the three-year period, then, Mr. Speaker. Let us for the moment accept the Government's view that there is some sort of constitutional line which it would cross if it had penalties which were more than a dollar-for-dollar. I take that to be the import.


Herb Breau: it is a political line.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: The Hon. Member says it is a political line. Let us call it that for now, that some line would be crossed if the Government went beyond dollar-for-dollar penalties. Would the Hon. Member then be willing to entertain the notion that perhaps the penalties could be made more effective by changing the three-year period and making it shorter or by saying to the provinces, for example that they will not get the money back if they do not stop extra-billing next year or the following year? These are ways that the Government has open to it which would not cross what I perceive to be the line the Hon. Member does not want to cross.
It would also make it more likely that provinces which did want to act quickly would be acting in concert with other provinces which may not have wanted to act quickly but which would be forced to act quickly if the penalties were changed in the way I just suggested.


Herb Breau: Well, Mr. Speaker, I would like-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Order! The period provided for questions and comments has now expired. Debate.


Claude-André Lachance: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: The Hon. Member for Rosemont on a point of order.


Claude-André Lachance: With the unanimous consent of the House, the Hon. Member could at least reply to the question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Is there unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: The Hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Breau).


Herb Breau: Mr. Speaker, I repeat that 1 would like the penalties to be as stiff and as difficult as possible. With respect to the two questions raised by the Hon. Member with regard to the length of time and as to the reason for withholding the money, first of all, let us deal with the three years. Again, it is a question of fine political judgment as to what is reasonable. I feel that when you consider that some doctors may be in agreement with the provinces over a period of years, it would be very harsh, even if a province wanted to do away with the
January 17, 1984

extra billing, to say, if you were contracted with doctors for say, two years, or for perhaps another 18 months or whatever, that you are going to cut it off right now. I believe three years was chosen because three years is the maximum agreement which exists on a fee basis between a province and the medical profession.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Where?


Herb Breau: I forget where it is. However, I think it is the maximum.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Ontario. Ontario is running the country again.


Herb Breau: With respect to the Hon. Member's second question as to why we should withhold the money, I feel the Hon. Member has to be concerned-I was concerned also and it was difficult to come to a conclusion-about the right of the taxpayer in that province, that in a battle between two sets of what are really political objectives, one a federal statute, the other a provincial plan, the right of the taxpayer of that province must be considered in theory and at some broad level. It seems to me that once that money is appropriated by Parliament for a certain reason, if it is not going to be returned to the province in some way, I feel there is a question of principle there which is important. The impact of the amount of money is not important. We are not talking of large amounts of money considering the amount of money we are spending on health care. It is the principle of what you do with money which was appropriated by Parliament for the benefit of taxpayers in the province. With respect to that issue or principle, I would not want to create a precedent whereby any government through any piece of legislation could later change the appropriation which was provided by Parliament. It is a question of principle, in my view.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Order! It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 45, to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the Hon. Member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake (Mr. Anguish)-Environmental Affairs (a) Leakage of contaminated water at Key Lake uranium mine, Sask. (b) Role of Atomic Energy Control Board.
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GOVERNMENT ORDERS

[Stage Direction]


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Miss Begin that Bill C-3, an Act relating to cash contributions by Canada in respect of insured health services provided under provincial health care insurance plans and amounts payable by Canada in respect of extended health care services and to amend and repeal certain Acts in consequence thereof, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs.
Mr. Bruce Halliday (Oxford):: Mr. Speaker, first of all may I take this opportunity to congratulate you upon assuming the Chair today which I think is your first day in your role as Acting Speaker. I want to wish you well in the months and years ahead.
May I also say how pleased I am to follow two colleagues in my Party, the Hon. Member for Provencher (Mr. Epp), who is our very capable critic on health, and also the Hon. Member for Rosedale (Mr. Crombie), a former Minister of National Health and Welfare.
It is interesting to contrast the presentations made by my two colleagues in terms of substance, depth of understanding, imagination and insight into the future, with the two speeches we heard yesterday and today from Ministers on the government side. They did little more than say what a great health care system we have in Canada-and most of us would agree with that-yet they are tinkering with it. They seem to have forgotten that if something is not broken, you do not fix it. Be that as it may, the health care system is being fixed already without regard to the future and the kind of imaginative programs we need such as were spelled out today by the Hon. Member for Rosedale.
The principles of medicare set out in the new Canada Health Act in the form of program criteria for maximum federal funding are generally acceptable to Canadians. This Party's commitment to these basic principles of medicare dictates our support for the Act in principle. However, there are some very serious questions about the adequacy of the new Act in ensuring that Canadians will receive quality medical care well into the future. There are three major areas of weakness, and today time will probably allow me to discuss only two of them.
The first area concerns the process and the fact that in formulating the increased demands upon the provinces for which the Bill calls, the federal Government has failed to consult and failed to include the views of the provinces in its deliberations. The unilateral imposition of the Act on the provinces only exacerbates the animosity between the two levels of government, a factor which, more than any other, may threaten the future of medicare.
The second shortcoming in the Bill is that it fails to address the overriding problem of medicare in Canada, namely the

January 17, 1984
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dearth of funds in the health care system. The eradication of extra billing and user fees may have its merits, but by neglecting to recognize that these practices are in themselves responses to the underfunding of the system, the Bill does little to ensure the preservation of medicare.
The third inadequacy that I want to discuss might best be termed as the short-sightedness of the Bill. The Canada Health Act does nothing to encourage the reforms in the health care delivery system that are increasingly being recognized as essential to controlling costs while at the same time maintaining high quality health care. By concentrating exclusively on a deceptively narrow aspect of medicare, namely the fiscal flow of money from Ottawa to the provinces, the Government has missed an opportunity to take the progressive stand on medicare that may be necessary.
I should like to deal with the first of my concerns now, namely, the process. The preservation and improvement of medicare is an objective of the utmost priority for all Canadians. We in the Progressive Conservative Party have a keen sense of the need for a strong and permanent program of medicare as well as a respect for the benefits which such a program bestows on Canadians in the form of health and well-being. We are in perfect agreement with the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) when she stated, as she did in response to a question put by the health critic for the NDP in 1982 as reported in Hansard on June 11, 1982, at page 18375, as follows:
I would like to repeat that he must understand if he is sincere in wanting to strengthen medicare once and for all, that confrontation is over. He must understand co-operation and collaboration ... The provinces must work together with the federal Government on medicare and not get into a confrontation situation which, of course, makes better headlines.
I do not doubt the Hon. Minister's sincerity in wanting to strengthen medicare. Yet, somehow in the process of bringing before us the Canada Health Act, she has deviated remarkably from the very admonition of which she so fervently spoke less than two years ago. I ask, what co-operation has the Minister herself exemplified to allow the Ottawa Citizen to report, in its lead editorial on December 16 last year as follows:
The federal Government is using its financial clout to force the provinces to comply with its version of universality. Compulsion rather than co-operation has never been a formula for political peace in Canada.
When we hear people such as Dr. Gerald Sheehy, Minister of Health in Nova Scotia and until recently Chairman of the Conference of the Provincial Health Ministers, testifying that the provinces have been "handcuffed jrom day one" in their attempts to negotiate with the federal Government on the Canada Health Act, do we not have just cause to question the Government's commitment to "co-operation and collaboration"?
On numerous occasions we are reassured by the Minister in the House that the provinces would be the first to receive a draft of the Act and that there would be ample opportunity for discussion before the Bill was tabled. The examples are legion and include passages in Hansard on March 17, 1983, at page 23878; on February 8, 1983, at page 22621; on June 23, 1983, at page 26721; and the proceedings of the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs, issue No. 29, March 29, 1983, at page 26.
The record of the Minister in following through on her promises is now clear. Not a word of true consultation with the provinces was ever to take place. Shortly before the Bill was tabled, the Hon. Tom Wells, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs in Ontario, as reported in the Toronto Star of November 11, wrote to her as follows:
I am dismayed by press reports which suggest you have withdrawn your commitment to consult with me and my provincial colleagues before introducing changes in medicare to the provinces.
The press reports were correct. Even after bringing the new legislation before Parliament, the Minister refused to meet with the provincial Health Ministers, as a group, as they had asked. Instead, she deigned to meet with them individually to discuss the Bill, but even then made it clear that she was unwilling to negotiate in any substantial sense.
Perhaps the Minister will wish to cite her meeting with the provincial Ministers in Halifax last fall. I would remind the House that the early September meeting only highlighted the breakdown in communications between the Minister and the provinces. It was characterized by the Alberta Health Minister, the Hon. David Russell, in a report in the Ottawa Citizen on September 8, as "Alice in Wonderland and a complete waste of time", a sentiment that was shared by the rest of the participants.
Since it is a joint endeavour, the importance of a harmonious relationship between the federal and provincial Governments for the integrity of medicare cannot be overstated. The merits of Bill C-3, notwithstanding, no federal piece of legislation can ensure the future of medicare so long as there is distrust and animosity between the two levels of Government. Furthermore, the manner in which this Government has alienated physicians is perhaps as great a threat to medicare as any which this Bill seeks to diffuse.
I might say that the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) seems to forget that entirely and seems to be on a real kick to devastate the physician population of this country. I think the day will come when he will rue taking that position.
By ignoring the concerns of doctors, the Minister may have temporarily scored some political points, but she certainly has not acted in the long-term interests of Canadians. It remains clear to anyone with a balanced and dispassionate perspective on this debate that the practitioners of health care are a group without whose co-operation and, indeed, without whose enthusiasm, the health care system that Canadians have enjoyed cannot function.
The utter failure of the Government to procure an adequate dialogue with the provinces and with the doctors, has put in jeopardy not only the ultimate success of the Bill, but the future of medicare itself. We in this Party are committed to upholding the principles of medicare as set out in the Bill. It is in this interest that we condemn the Government's cavalier attitude and callous disregard for these vital concerns.
January 17, 1984

The Minister of National Health and Welfare herself gave a dim recognition of her own high-handedness in a statement which accompanied the tabling of the Bill. She expressed "regret that the federal Government had to take this measure in order to stop the growing erosion of medicare", and also her regret that "the report of the Breau parliamentary task force on federal-provincial fiscal arrangements was unable to convince the provinces to ban extra charges". What is truly regrettable, Mr. Speaker, is that the Government has shown itself to be so incapable of negotiation and collaboration that its prescriptions for saving medicare now come in the form of a threat and an imposition which the provinces, understandably, find difficult to swallow. Even more regrettable is that the same Breau parliamentary task force was unable to convince the Government that, while it was felt desirable to discourage direct charges, federal funding under the Established Programs Financing Act of 1977 would have to be maintained. One year after the Breau report, the Government moved unilaterally to amend the Established Programs Financing Act and cut funding to the provinces by eliminating the revenue guarantee which bridged the gap between the over-all increase of health costs and the federal contributions.
That is what is truly regrettable, Mr. Speaker, and it brings me to my second point of major importance, that of underfunding. This is unquestionably a problem of underfunding which underlies the entire debate on medicare and its preservation. In spite of its implications for the future of medicare, the Government has refused to acknowledge the problem. In her preoccupation with extra billing and user fees and in her zeal to rid Canadians of these direct charges for medical and hospital services, the Minister has ignored an equally and perhaps more formidable barrier to high quality and easily accessible health care. She need only take a brief look at some aggregate statistics to enlighten herself on this matter.
Health care costs have been rising at an astounding rate. According to a report released last April by the provincial Ministers of Finance, they grew at an average of 15 per cent a year in the Five years between 1977 and 1982. The federal Government's contributions to health care rose each year by only 11 per cent as compared to 15 per cent. This is above the rate of inflation, granted, but below the annual increase in actual costs. As mentioned, until 1982 a revenue guarantee between Ottawa and the provinces helped to bridge that gap, but it was removed on April 1 of that year, and what was the result? According to figures quoted in the statement by Canada's provincial Ministers of Finance last April, the proportional contribution of the federal Government to health care was 47 per cent in 1977-78, and has gradually dwindled down to somewhat less than 40 per cent in 1982-83. The Minister will insist her Government is paying about 50 per cent of health care costs, but the fact is it is 50 per cent of hospital and medical charges only. Over the years the provinces have assumed responsibility for the provision of additional services for which the federal Government makes no contribution at all. These include mental health care, nursing homes, certain
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chronic care facilities, ambulatory services, dental care, pharmaceutical programs and prosthetics. According to the Kitchener-Waterloo Record of January 3, 1984, Ontario's Health Minister claims that in his province alone the provincial Government supports these extra services to the tune of $1 billion without any contribution from the federal Government whatsoever.
Putting statistics aside, Mr. Speaker, I refer again to the Breau parliamentary task force report which forewarned, at page 128, that the achievement of "publicly funded hospital, medical and extended health care could be jeopardized by reductions in current aggregate levels of federal support because such reductions would be likely to lead to increased reliance on private funding and ultimately higher health care costs and erosion of the program's principles." I would not want to argue with these findings, Mr. Speaker. That is precisely what has happened. In effect, through underfunding, this Government has created the disease, if I may use the analogy, for which the Canada Health Act is intended as a cure. However, one need not be a doctor to recognize the inadequacy of the prescription. This Bill does not address the cause of the disease; it represents an attempt to rid us of its symptoms. Without a concomitant effort to resolve the underlying problem of underfunding, this Bill, well meaning as it may be, fails to go beyond the surface of the problem. In this respect it is akin to covering smallpox with bandages and believing that the lesions have thus been caused to disappear.
Indeed, the extent of the Minister's short-sightedness occasionally attains spectacular heights. She was quoted in The Toronto Star of August 25, 1983, with reference to extra billings, as saying that doctors should have a right to a fair settlement like anyone else in society. She saw a direct connection between lack of proper increases in fees and extra billings. What is astounding, Mr. Speaker, is that here the Minister gives clear recognition of the causal relationship between a lack of sufficient financing and extra billing. Yet instead of drawing from this the logical conclusion that the problem of underfunding must be tackled, she has decided to ignore the cause and attempt to deal soley with the effect. This is contrary to common sense and reason.
It also carries with it the danger of distracting people's attention from the real threat to medicare by focussing merely on its manifestations. Again, Mr. Speaker, what is regrettable is that the Minister has, for whatever reason she finds expedient, chosen to let the problem reach a crisis stage and then pretend to solve it with what can best be described as a superficial cure. It is regrettable because it has forced a harsh and reactionary response to a problem that could have been more easily and effectively dealt with had she been able to grasp the essence of the problem earlier. As it stands, this Bill partially upholds the principle of accessibility but without ensuring that the principle will be upheld permanently. It also does so at the expense of antagonizing the provinces, the doctors and even the taxpayer. I draw the attention of the House to the following comment made in a recent editorial of the Tillsonburg News in my riding:

January 17, 1984
Canada Health Act
It is the federal Government who will be collecting our tax dollars and then saying we cannot have them back. What we have in this proposal is a straight rip-off of the taxpayers in those provinces who will not play Ottawa's game.
Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, the symptoms of underfunding are not restricted to the phenomenon of increased private funding. Time does not permit me the opportunity to detail all of them properly, but they are familiar to a growing number of Canadians who have had the misfortune to experience them firsthand. They include overcrowded hospitals, outdated equipment, staff cutbacks, excessive waiting periods for hospital admissions, closed wards, the exodus of Canadian GPs and specialists to the United States and the persistent shortage of chronic care beds. The CMA estimates that there are currently 150,000 Canadians on waiting lists for hospital beds. That was confirmed in a newspaper clipping brought to our attention by the Hon. Member for Provencher yesterday which said that a bed shortage was cited in the deaths of four patients. This was in Winnipeg, yet the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill is more concerned about extra billing than he is about patients dying in his own city because they cannot get hospital beds. That sense of priority appalls me, Mr. Speaker.
The average waiting period for elective surgery is four months, as reported by the Montreal Gazette on May 1, 1982. My colleagues on the other side of the House representing the London area-and I see the Government Whip here-will be familiar with the situation confronting the hospital administrators and patients in the three London hospitals. There are long waiting lists brought on by a bed occupancy rate far in excess of normally accepted standards. These are symptoms of underfunding which affect the accessibility of Canadians to medical care just as much as direct charges, yet they are totally ignored by this Government. I can do no better to stress the importance of this than to quote the Hon. Larry Desjardins, the NDP Minister of Health from Manitoba. After the tabling of Bill C-3 last month, he was reported by the Winnipeg Free Press on December 14 as saying that his Government supported the principles of the legislation but it is "concerned that the Bill does nothing to rectify the basic financial difficulties which are threatening the future of Canada's national health care system".
This is our view, Mr. Speaker, and it is extremely gratifying to find that the NDP has finally swung to our way of thinking on this issue of underfunding. I must admit I was somewhat astonished when, in the spring of last year, that Party's health and welfare spokesman, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill, for the first time joined us in raising an argument which, as this House is well aware, we had been trying to impress upon this Government for some time. He said in committee on March 29, "I believe something now that I did not two years ago, that there is starting to be a believable underfunding argument. We have to begin to take this underfunding argument seriously, and so does the federal Government, and that means you have to go beyond simply saying that the federal Government is doing enough". Considering how long it took the NDP to realize the existence of the underfunding problem, Mr. Speaker, we hope the Government will soon begin to show some evidence of being more astute than it has been to date.
Otherwise there may be little of medicare as we know it left to save.
The Bill before us puts even greater financial demands on the provinces, and this must be recognized. The elimination of direct charges, insuring of 100 per cent of the population, eradication of premiums and the assurance of portability will translate into higher costs, yet so far there has been no indication from this Government that it intends to balance higher costs with higher levels of funding. We ask that it give the Canadian people an indication of its intention to address this problem without delay. To fail to do so would put unbearable pressure on medicare, the very thing we are seeking to preserve.
Together with the NDP, this Government has suggested that our Party is somewhat less committed to the principles of medicare than it pretends to be. Perhaps this was the result of the Government's chronic confusion of cause and effect. Let there be no longer any confusion. This Bill manifests no more effective a commitment to medicare than does the prescription of aspirin as a cure for pneumonia. We demand a stronger commitment, one which adequately assures the quality of the health care system for Canadians well into the future.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, this Bill is something of an easy escape for the Government. Using the threat of withholding fiscal spending, it forces difficult terms upon the provinces and then takes credit for the work. What should be understood as being most important, however, is that while the Bill identifies the state of medicare which we would all like to see, it falls far short of addressing those factors which would keep it healthy in perpetuity.


Herb Breau: Mr. Speaker, on the issue of underfunding, 1 have two questions for the Hon. Member. First, how can he say that there has been underfunding on the part of the federal Government when in fact the revenue guarantee that was eliminated in 1982 was never allocated to health care? Second, as a general argument of underfunding of the system, is he aware that the view of all competent health economists, whom I have seen and researched and have met in conferences or anywhere at all, is that the present level of funding is adequate for health care? Is the Hon. Member aware that the CMA, when its representatives appeared before the task force on fiscal arrangements in 1981, said that the adequate level of GNP to spend was about 8 per cent and we are now spending about 8.2 per cent of GNP?


Bruce Halliday: Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that if a revenue guarantee is taken away from the provinces, it has to affect their economic position vis-a-vis their total services. One of the services that has to suffer immensely is obviously the health care services, which is one of the biggest sources of spending.
There is no question at all that when you remove that amount of money there will be a hardship imposed and a lack of funding from the federal level. At the same time, we have to recognize that although the federal government has main-
January 17, 1984

tained roughly 50 per cent of the original concept of what it was going to fund, the Government has refused to opt into those very essential health care programs, some of which have been alluded to by my colleagues previously respecting other types of services which the community is demanding, such as community health matters and so on which the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill speaks of and about which I know a fair bit, having served on the Hastings Committee. There is no question that we are going to be short millions of dollars in the health care system. That is why we are seeing this kind of an article here now. It is not because there is lots of money around to fund; it is because none of the provinces has sufficient money to put into the services that Canadians expect to have. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that Canadians are far more concerned about having a bed when they get sick where they can have their life saved than they are about whether they have to pay $5, $10 or the user fee when they go to the hospital emergency room.


Claude-André Lachance: Mr. Speaker, far from underestimating the importance of the matter raised by the Hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Halliday), I should say that I was somewhat surprised by the scathing comments he made this afternoon about the alleged underfinancing of the system. On the contrary, I feel that it is essential that a rational discussion be held on all issues dealing with the alleged problem of undercapitalization on the one hand and underfinancing of health services on the other.
I would like to ask him a question because he is a member of the College of Physicians which sided with the provinces and on several occasions has expressed its dissatisfaction or drawn to public attention the problem of the underfinancing of health services. This college of physicians, this Canadian medical association, has recently set up a task force apparently with the mandate to prove that there is underfinancing. That has remained an unproven and contentions issue, for some health professionals have the very existence of that problem before the committee chaired by my colleague from Gloucester (Mr. Breau). Therefore it remains a disputed and controversial issue. Why has this Canadian medical association decided to direct its investigation on the maximal use of human resources in the system rather than on the very specific problem raised by the member in his speech this afternoon?


Bruce Halliday: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Rose-mont (Mr. Lachance) is a very knowledgeable Member of this House whom I respect. I appreciate there is some debate about the underfunding issue. I am quite convinced, and I think if the Hon. Member for Rosemont would speak to his own colleague, the previous Minister of Finance, he would find that when he introduced the EPF program he was predicting a saving of $5.7 billion over a five-year period, I believe. If he can predict a $5.7 billion saving over five years, it would not be unreasonable to assume, unless we were being grossly over-
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funded previously, that we are now underfunded. The Hon. Member for Rosemont probably missed the point I was making because he is not familiar with the situation. If he could speak to his three colleagues from the London area, the Whip, the Hon. Members for London West (Mr. Burghardt) and London-Middlesex (Mr. Bloomfield), he would find there are desperate problems today and have been for a couple of years in the tertiary hospitals in London. That applies right across this country.
I have had dealings in the last year or so with the Toronto General Hospital, and I am only too aware of the desperate situation in trying to find funds to pay for residents. They cannot even staff their hospitals adequately. They had to turn away a very senior person from the Kitchener area from an intensive care unit at a London hospital because they could not find a bed. He was a very important person from the Kitchener area.
The tertiary hospitals are in desperate trouble. I would respectfully ask the Hon. Member for Rosemont to make inquiries from this colleague, the Hon. Member for Hamilton West, who I believe would confirm that this situation is also occuring in the Hamilton area.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member implied that I was being unfair to the doctors and the medical profession. I have always made it clear with respect to extra billing that I was talking about the minorities of doctors extra-billing. Further, I make no apology for trying to bring into this debate a critique of the role doctors play within our health care system and of some of the ways in which they are responsible for generating the very problems which they lament.
I was at a conference on medicare in Winnipeg on the weekend. A prominent Winnipeg doctor was there. One point he made was that one reason people who need beds cannot get them is that the hospital is filled with people who should not be there but are put there by doctors when they do not have to. That is a problem generated by the doctors themselves and the kind of medicine they have come to practise over the years; not necessarily through their own fault. That is a way of practising medicine which has developed, and all I am suggesting is that if we are going to have a debate on health care in this country, doctors are not above criticism. We need to demystify the medical profession and ask very difficult questions about some of the decisions they make. For people who do a lot of talking about costs, it is doctors who generate a lot of the costs in the system and it is about time that was examined. I do not think the Hon. Member can really disagree with me on that.


Bruce Halliday: Mr. Speaker, I would love to answer that question because my memory of the actual practice of medicine goes back further than even the Hon. Member, and he probably has not done his reading. When the Medical and Diagnostic Services Act was introduced, do you know where the pressure came from to get people into the hospital? It was not from the doctors, it was from the patients. They found, when they needed to have their stomach X-rayed, that they could get it done for nothing if they were admitted to hospital.

Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Act Patients pressured me and all physicians across this country to be admitted to hospital when they did not have to be admitted so they could have it done for nothing.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Before medicare.


Bruce Halliday: That was the beginning of medicare, Mr. Speaker. Yes, it is true there are some physicians, like any other group in society such as teachers or politicians, who will abuse any system, but it is a very small number, and by and large, they are disciplined very adequately by the profession. I can assure the Hon. Member that the pressure for hospitalization does not come from the doctors. Even the hospitals prefer to keep people in over the weekend so they can get their full per diem rate with no lab tests, x-rays or other costs, just meals. They refuse to send people out for this reason. I have a lot of evidence for that. It is amazing, Mr. Speaker, to see the costs in the system which do not relate at all to what doctors do.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-PUBLIC BILLS   NUCLEAR WEAPONS FREE ZONE ACT MEASURE TO ESTABLISH
Douglas Keith Anguish: that Bill C-203, An Act to declare Canada a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to introduce Bill C-203, an Act to declare Canada a nuclear weapons free zone. I introduced this Bill in the House in the first session of this Parliament. Subsequent to the start of the second session I re-introduced the Bill. It is now called C-203. The term "nuclear weapons" usually means nuclear bombs and warheads according to the established definition of a nuclear weapons free zone. The prohibition applies to nuclear explosives only. It is in return for this prohibition that the nuclear weapons states are supposed to extend non-use assurances. However, there are arguments for broadening the scope of zone arrangements so as to prohibit other components of nuclear weapons systems as well. The latter is what I am proposing here, Mr. Speaker. In Bill C-203 I am not only asking that we ban nuclear warheads and nuclear explosives from our territory, but also that we ban the testing of nuclear
weapons or weaponry and the manufacturing and deployment on or over Canadian territory.
It is very timely for Bill C-203 to come up in Parliament today. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has just completed a successful meeting with United Nations Secretary General at which the Secretary General said that he would welcome the Prime Minister of Canada as an effective globe-trotting mediator for world disarmament talks for world peace. Also, the Chinese Premier was in Ottawa today and addressed the House of Commons. China is one of the five countries, along with United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France, that we are attempting to get to the bargaining table. We realize that eventually more countries than this will have to become involved because we are not talking about unilateral disarmament when we talk about a nuclear weapons free zone for Canada. We are really talking about bilateral disarmament at least, and hopefully some kind of multilateral disarmament in the future. We are working toward the freeze and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction from the face of the globe.
Tomorrow, January 18, a meeting will take place in Stockholm, Sweden, where there will be discussions on two items; confidence building and security measures, and disarmament. It is hoped that the meeting will address itself to the concept of nuclear weapons free zones just as many parliaments, legislatures and municipal governments have addressed themselves to this concept.
In terms of the timeliness of this private Members' Bill, last week the press reported that the United States was preparing for World War IV by planning to hide nuclear weapons in some secret location so that they have some defence once World War III is over with. We have to do something to dissuade this mentality of planning for another world war after the nuclear war that is anticipated. We have to establish very soon nuclear weapons free zones in many places throughout the world. Otherwise we will face the inevitable from the nuclear arms build-up and the weapons of mass destruction that we have right now which could wipe out the human race many times over.
I have a concern that motivated me to bring this Bill in. My concern first came about when the Canadian Government approved the testing of the Cruise missile over Canadian territory by the United States Government. The reason it caused me concern is that the Primrose nuclear weapons range which lies within the constituency which I represent is the target site on which they wish to test the Cruise missile. They wish to test it in March of this year, a date which is coming up very soon. The second reason I proposed this Bill, Mr. Speaker, is that I think that many countries throughout the world have to become nuclear weapons free zones so that they can join together and pressure countries that have a nuclear weapons capability to freeze their arms and sit down at meaningful negotiations where trust can be developed by mediating countries such as Canada and others. Such trust is not prevalent at the present time and has not been ever since the first nuclear weapon was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 and another
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dropped a few days later on Nagasaki. Whenever these superpowers talk about disarmament or nuclear arms control it is a continual build up. There has never been a de-escalation or reduction in terms of the numbers of nuclear arms.
Since 1 first introduced this Bill in Parliament, Mr. Speaker,
1 have had almost 5,000 signatures on petitions from people who support this concept within Canada. I have received hundreds of letters that people have written out of concern for such things as the announcement on December 12. On that day it was reported that the hands of the symbolic doomsday clock on the cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist will inch one minute closer to midnight, moving from four to three minutes to midnight, suggesting that the world is nearer to a nuclear war than it has been in many, many years. One of the things I do agree with that the Prime Minister has said recently is that the world is a tinderbox. We are in a very delicate international situation. Whether the doomsday clock says that we are one minute, three minutes or half an hour to the final time, many people today say that it is very, very close and could happen at any time. Many people have seen films such as If You Love This Planet and The Day After. The Day After showed the effects of a nuclear attack on the United States of America. I think it was actually an underestimation of the effects of an all-out nuclear attack on our good neighbour to the south. This has heightened the awareness that people have. It certainly increased their concern for, if not their own safety, the safety of their families and generations that will follow them in years to come.
There have also been, Mr. Speaker, a number of other Bills that have come into different parliaments and in particular this Parliament. My colleague from Selkirk-Interlake (Mr. Sargeant) has introduced a Bill under his own name to declare Canada a nuclear weapons free zone. The Member for Beaches (Mr. Young) has introduced a motion calling upon Canada to become a nuclear weapons free zone. These are not isolated situations. Going beyond the people who sit in this Parliament, we can look at Pope John Paul who, in his New Year's address, warned that a nuclear disaster is on the horizon. He appealed for a change of heart of mankind to create peace on earth rather than adding to the nuclear arsenals that we already have. People such as Pope John Paul and many activists who work toward reduction in nuclear arms and their eventual elimination point out the high cost of nuclear arms throughout the world. This money could be well spent on providing medical facilities, clothing, housing and education for all the people in the world who do not presently have such luxuries and the high standard of living that we in Canada and the rest of the North American continent have.
There has been a resolution in the provincial legislature by an MPP from Ontario, Richard Johnston, that was debated in the Ontario Legislature and called on that province to become a nuclear weapons free zone. There has also been a move within Canada to have many municipal governments take votes or hold referendums on nuclear weapons free zones or to voice opinions on world nuclear disarmament or the testing of
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the Cruise missile. For example, Mayor Harcourt from Vancouver stated in his Christmas message that the Vancouver City Council was symbolically making a gesture because of the feelings of people and their expression through the public ballot in that city that their city is a nuclear weapons free zone. He said that we must remove the threat of nuclear war. We must stop this squandering of wealth on the technology of death and use our resources to make this planet a better place for all of its citizens.
I think that is a fairly wide concern. At the same time many people ask how we can defend ourselves against aggressive forces that still exist in the world. I understand that we still must defend ourselves in this country and other places throughout the world because there are aggressive forces which continue to exist. A Bill such as this does not take away our conventional military weapons which I believe we need. Hopefully we will not need them some day but at the present time they are necessary and they do a very good job for us in Canada.
As a peacekeeper, Canada has a very good reputation and one which I think is hurt if we get into the nuclear arms race and allow the testing of the Cruise missile, the building of components for the nuclear weapons industry or the testing of any weapons of mass destruction or the components used in those weapons.
Since the second World War Canada has played a vital role in co-operating with the United Nations. In its capacity as a peacekeeping agency for the preservation of peace and promotion of international security, Canadians have participated in almost all United Nations peacekeeping operations to date. They have been in Egypt, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Korea, India, Pakistan, New West Guinea, The Congo, Yemen and Nigeria. One can see that our military forces have respect as a peacekeeper. Canadians also have respect as peacekeepers in this world. When our constituents travel to other countries of the world the greatest passport they can carry is a symbol that they are Canadian, such as a lapel pin, a flag or Canadian passport. We have a great amount of international respect compared to other countries in the world. I would suggest that even our Prime Minister has much more international respect than he does in some areas of Canada. I do not say that to his discredit or to the discredit of the House.
In terms of peacekeeping, Canadians even served in Viet Nam when participating in the international Commission for Control and Supervision. This took place especially in 1973 following the U.S. military withdrawal. There were 245 Canadian Armed Forces personnel involved in the supervision of that ceasefire. I believe that says something about the quality and respect for Canadians being involved in one of the greatest conflicts for people of my age group. It was one of the greatest conflicts which occurred in my lifetime.
I will not use up all of the time that was allocated to me. I believe it would be beneficial for Members of the House to honour my request to allow time at the end of this debate on Bill C-203 to allow the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kings-way (Mr. Waddell) to have a motion of referral of this Bill to

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Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Act committee and not continue with second reading debate. I ask this because I think it is the opinion of Members, regardless of whether they agree or disagree with this Bill, that this is an important and pressing issue which has been discussed throughout many countries of the world and which needs discussion in the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence.
I would ask the indulgence of Members of the House to let the Member for Vancouver-Kingsway refer this Bill to the appropriate standing committee at the end of the debate today.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, the Member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake (Mr. Anguish), in introducing this Bill, talked about the horrors of nuclear war and the concern which he and many others share in regard to that possibility. While it certainly is a horrifying possibility, when the Hon. Member moved on from describing the horror of nuclear war to a possible solution or first step toward a solution which would reduce or eliminate that nuclear war, I am afraid that he was not very convincing in his argument. Perhaps, more accurately, he did not really make the argument at all.
I am afraid that one of the steps toward the solution as proposed by this Bill, namely to make Canada a nuclear weapons free zone, would have precisely the opposite effect to that desired by the Hon. Member, by myself, and, I am sure, by every Member of the House. That desired effect would be the reduction of tension in the world, the movement toward an elimination of nuclear weapons and a world which is free from the threat of the holocaust that a nuclear war would undoubtedly bring.
First, I want to make the point which is frequently forgotten that, to the Government's credit and with the approval of everyone in the House, Canada has made the decision that our military forces would not use nuclear weapons. In fact, we still have an inventory of a few nuclear tipped missiles for the CF-104 and CF-101 fighters. But these are being phased out as these old aircraft are replaced by CF-18 fighters. Canada was one of the first nations in the world with the capability of manufacturing nuclear weapons. We did not make use of that capability. We made the decision not to develop independent nuclear forces. We have recently made the decision that our military personnel would rely solely on conventional weapons for our defence and would not equip our forces with nuclear weapons. It is a decision with which I agree and I am sure everyone in the House agrees.
Therefore, what is the purpose of this Bill proposed by the Member that Canada become a nuclear weapons free zone? What is the effect of that? The Bill states that it shall be against the law to develop, test, manufacture, import, transport or store any nuclear weapon, nuclear weapon system, nuclear weapon support system or components thereof within Canada. It goes on to propose that if an individual breaks the law, that individual is subject to a $10,000 fine and a government is subject to a $100,000 fine. If this law were to be passed, it would mean that should the Soviet Union come into Canadian territory with a nuclear submarine-which it does
frequently under the Arctic ice in Canada's North-or if the Americans were to fly over Canadian territory with an aircraft containing nuclear bombs, we would fine them $100,000. I question how one could contemplate enforcing such a law or, knowing that things like that have happened, passing such a law. Passing a law which is unenforceable simply brings contempt at best. There is absolutely no way to enforce it, and I think the Hon. Member understands that.
I would like to examine for a moment the position of Canada in the world. We are, like it or not, in between the two superpowers. We are exactly in between them, with the Soviet Union to the north over the pole and the United States to the south. Does the Hon. Member actually believe-and I am sure he does not-the suggestion in the Bill that, by simply passing a law in Parliament and declaring we will not allow nuclear weapons to come over Canadian territory, somehow it will have an effect upon the superpowers and they will immediately start planning the trajectories of their missiles to go around Canada?


Mr. Friesen:: They will overfly.


Harvie Andre: They cannot overfly, because it says Canadian airspace as well; they have got to go around.


Benno Friesen: Put it on a Cruise and it can dodge Canada.


Harvie Andre: It is absurd. It will provide as much protection as the declarations of neutrality of Belgium and the Netherlands provided them against Hitler in the Second World War.
The fact of the matter is that Canada is where it is and we cannot move it. We do not have the option of saying that we will not be involved in this confrontation between the superpowers. We are. For us to declare neutrality, toward which this is the first step, and to try to enforce that neutrality would require defence spending beyond our comprehension and beyond anyone's ability to pay. For us to have the capability on our own, even knowing about the intrusion of foreign aircraft or foreign ships into Canadian territory, is impractical. It would require billions and billions of dollars for us to acquire the capability of knowing who was in Canadian territory, and many times those billions for us to acquire the capability to intercept anyone who intrudes into Canadian territory.
Declarations of neutrality are of absolutely no use. I remind the Hon. Member of the situation in Sweden. That country declared itself neutral. It does not belong to NATO or to the Warsaw Pact; it is a democratic nation. Its declaration of neutrality has not stopped Soviet submarines from intruding into its coastal waters. That is not speculation. The submarine was beached, it was there. Sweden spends three times as much on defence as we do as a nation. It is a much tinier nation than Canada. It is incapable of even knowing for sure of submarine intrusions, and when they know that submarines have intruded into their territory, they cannot do anything about it. Our problems in terms of defence are of orders of magnitude more

severe, grander or larger than those faced by Sweden, which is incapable of preventing the Soviets from using its territory at will.
We just do not have any choice in terms of neutrality, weapon free zones or any of those things. We are in fact involved in the contest between the Soviet Union and the United States. What we have to do is choose sides. We have chosen sides, we have chosen to stick with democracy. I hope I never see the day when we as a country feel that we cannot trust democracy and have more trust for dictatorship, even though from time to time we might disagree with the President whom their secret ballot selects. The reality is that it is a secret ballot in an open democracy and it is the country with which we are most naturally allied and must continue to be allied.
A nuclear free zone is simply an unenforceable and undesirable statement of Canadian intent. We cannot enforce Canada as a nuclear free area. If we attempted on our own to enforce it, we would find the treatment the Soviet Union is giving Sweden to be totally minor in comparison with the treatment they would give us.
The second thing flowing from this, if we were to adopt such a Bill, is our relationship with our NATO allies. I do not know if the Hon. Member who introduced the Bill is aware that each year in Canada military forces from our NATO allies train in particular in Wainwright, Alberta. In Suffield, the British army trains; in Shilo, Manitoba, the German army trains; and the air forces of all our NATO allies train out of Goose Bay, Labrador. In Shilo, Manitoba, most of the training is tank training, but part of it is training with 155-millimetre howitzers designed to deliver theatre nuclear weapons and shells in the event of a wholesale tank attack from the Warsaw nations against West Germany. They have the capability and are trained in Canada to launch theatre nuclear weapons with these howitzers against a tank attack. That has been the policy of NATO since 1954. It was designed to deter the Soviets from even contemplating such an action. They have 40,000 tanks compared with a quarter of that number of the NATO nations.
Whether or not it was wise, NATO decided in 1954 to deter the Soviets from contemplating an attack on the West by adopting the policy that it would respond with everything including nuclear weapons to an open attack from eastern Europe. There has not been a war in Europe since that policy was adopted. There has been no attack or threat of attack. Incidentally, it allowed western European nations in particular, but also Canada, to get by with what was a modest defence expenditure in comparison with what otherwise would have been the case if it were not for nuclear weapons. In other words, if NATO did not have a policy and the capability of deterring an attack with all forces including nuclear weapons, it would have had to build up its conventional capabilities to do so. The cost of that would have been vastly more than it has been spending. Those moneys would have come out of social programs, industrial development and many expenditures
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which instead of being spent on arms were used to bolster the standard of living and the quality of life of western Europeans.
If a deterrent is going to be a real deterrent, if the other side is going to feel it could genuinely be retaliated against in a fearsome fashion, it has to exercise its deterrent capability. That is what happens in Shilo, Manitoba, every year. They practise with howitzers, using simulated nuclear weapons. In Goose Bay, Labrador, year-round they practise aircraft strikes using various missiles, some of which are simulated nuclear tipped. I do not know what would happen to our agreements if we were to adopt this Bill. Presumably all of this activity would have to stop.
What would that do to our relationship with NATO? I do not know whether it still promotes it, but the NDP had a policy in the past of totally withdrawing from NATO. Withdrawing from NATO requires that we either have to protect ourselves, and the cost of that would be absolutely enormous, or not protect ourselves, in which case we give up our sovereignty and independence. We may give up significant chunks of Canadian territory, not to mention self respect and a lot of other things. The neutrality that flows from what they are initiating is simply not an option available to Canada.
Then there is the question of our NORAD agreement, an agreement with the United States in terms of North American air defence. Every day SAC bombers are in the air. B-52 bombers are in the air as a deterrent to Soviet air intervention into Canada. Some SAC bombers carry nuclear tipped cruise missiles, stand-off rocket missiles nuclear tipped. In any event, they are designed to do so. Under this Bill, SAC bombers would no longer be allowed over Canadian territory. In other words, we would not be able to be a member of NORAD. I would ask Hon. Members to consider the cost of-


Mr. Waddell:: They are obsolete.


Harvie Andre: The Hon. Member says they are obsolete. He is not aware that today bombers do not drop gravity bombs. Bombers carry missiles to near their target and launch them from there. The Hon. Member is thinking in terms of gravity bombs which are 20 or 30 years out of date.
At best a declaration that Canada should be a nuclear weapons free zone is an empty gesture. The geopolitical situation in Canada is such that we cannot enforce such a policy, so why make a stupid, empty gesture? At worst, it is a signal to the rest of the world that we are dropping out of the western alliance, that we are no lomger allied with the western demo-craties, that we are taking a stand totally out of keeping with 110 years of history, totally out of keeping with the fundamental desire of Canadiarfe to protect and nurture democracies wherever they might exist and to ally ourselves with these democracies.
I ask the Members of the New Democratic Party to contemplate the nature of the struggle between East and West. The bottom line is whether individuals will be respected, whether democracies prevail in the world, or whether dictatorships

Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Act prevail. For Canada to drop out and say that we will no longer participate or ally ourselves with the democracies is to take a course of action which is foreign to our nature and character and certainly abhorrent to myself and my colleagues.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs.


Mrs. Suzanne Beauchamp-Niquet (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I should like to refer you to clause 4 of Bill C-203, and I quote:
The Secretary of State for External Affairs shall, at the earliest opportunity following the coming into force of this Act, propose a motion to the general assembly of the United Nations calling for a world referendum on nuclear disarmament.
Mr. Speaker, Canada does not support the concept of a world referendum on disarmament. In our view, this concept does not allow for the fact that the present situation, as far as disarmament and arms control are concerned, is largely a result of a lack of adequate international safeguards and a lack of confidence among states, factors which, if they did exist, would be able to guarantee national security and independence, even with a reduction in arms levels. However, in view of the absence of such arrangements and the prevailing atmosphere of mutual distrust, only long and difficult negotiations among the parties concerned, and not measures such as a world referendum on disarmament, which does not deal with these fundamental problems, could achieve any results in this area. It is true that effective disarmament requires long and careful negotiations aimed at restoring mutual trust and establishing international mecanisms that would be able to guarantee the security of all states. A world referendum would, of course, give public opinion a chance to speak out in favour of disarmament, but it should not be seen as a substitute for negotiating an international and verifiable agreement.
If the purpose of a referendum is primarily to mobilize public opinion in favour of arms control and disarmament, there are certainly better and more economical ways of achieving this objective. For instance, there should be more research in many areas of arms control and disarmament, and it is equally important to increase efforts to inform and educate the public in order to increase public awareness and understanding of the problems facing us in this area.
In this connection, Mr. Speaker, initiatives that fail to explore for instance, the relation between peace, security and disarmament, would have very little educational value, and considering the cost of organizing such referendum, especially at the world level, we should realize that these resources could be used for a better purpose.
I should add that the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence of the House of Commons has
examined the position of "Operation Dismantle", according to which Canada should propose to the United Nations that a world referendum be held. In its report, tabled April 8, 1982, the Committee did not support this proposal.
The Canadian Government feels the public has a role to play in the general pursuit of disarmament and arms control, and that the importance of its role will be directly in proportion to its ability to discuss in an informed and intelligent manner the problems we are facing in this area.
The Government is therefore committed to encourage the Canadian people to take an interest and to take part in education, information and research activities related to disarmament.
Since the first United Nations Special Session On Disarmament held in 1978, this commitment has been publicly reaffirmed on many occasions. First of all, it was reflected by the appointment of an ambassador for disarmament, the establishment of a $150,000 fund to subsidize all public activities in this area, the periodic publication of a bulletin reporting on national and international activities in the area of disarmament and arms control as well as the setting up of an advisory group. Moreover, the increasing support we bring to public participation in these important matters takes various forms: A larger distribution of information material, financial and other support to the activities for the Annual Disarmament Week, the many conferences held throughout the country by departmental officials and the greater priority given to this issue by the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacEachen).
During UNSSOD II, it was announced that supplementary funds of $300,000 would be appropriated during the 1982-83 fiscal year to finance any initiatives in the area of arms control and disarmament. Not only will these funds allow Canada to join in the international exchange of seismological data aimed at supporting the treaty to ban completely nuclear testing and to participate more effectively in the efforts to ban chemical weapons, but they will also be used to considerably increase our research and public information activities.
In the recent throne speech of December 7, the Government announced the creation of a centre financed by public funds whose mission would be to collect, classify and analyse the enormous quantity of data now available on the issues of defence and arms control.
The Government will also increase the amount of funding for disarmament. To this end, $500,000 are already available for the establishment of a program of compliance with regard to agreements arrived at in the area of disarmament and arms control.
Mr. Speaker, all these concrete and positive government proposals should be viewed as a very valid effort to inform the
January 17, 1984

Canadian people about key issues concerning defence and arms control.
My colleague opposite, the Hon. Member for The Batt-lefords-Meadow Lake (Mr. Anguish) mentioned in his speech of March 30, 1983, that the main objective to be met by Bill C-678 then under consideration was to, and 1 quote: " .. . declare Canada a nuclear weapons free zone. That would prevent the testing of the Cruise missile over Canadian territory. The Bill would go on from there to do a number of other things. This Bill would prevent the manufacture, use, importation and export of any nuclear weapons or weaponry on or over Canadian territory."
The Hon. Member for the Battlefords-Meadow Lake also said: " .. . the Bill puts forward the will of this Parliament and country for the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacEachen) to go to the United Nations and present a resolution calling for the United Nations to conduct a world referendum on nuclear disarmament." The information I have just given to the House is an answer to this second proposal, which is contained in Clause 4 of Bill C-203 now under consideration, and for all the above stated reasons, I believe that the position taken by Canada not to support the concept of a world referendum on disarmament is very logical.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I have some comments on the speeches which have been made so far in this debate on the Bill introduced by my colleague, the Hon. Member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake (Mr. Anguish). 1 would like first to make a few comments on the speech which was just given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mrs. Beauchamp-Niquet). I gather she read most of the speech which was written by her Department.
I would like to talk about Canadian foreign policy in a broad way. It seems to me there are two glaring inconsistencies in the policy of the Liberal Government. First, the Government agreed to test the Cruise missile, which was a step toward putting that clock of which my colleaguespoke toward midnight, toward doomsday. Make no mistake about it, a nuclear war will mean the end of the world. That is it for all time. The Canadian Government agreed to test the Cruise missile to increase the arms race, to be part and parcel of the warmongering policy of the President of the United States, who is a good actor but essentially a warmonger who believes in the use of force above the use of diplomacy, and who will ultimately force the two superpowers, if he continues on in the way he is going, into a nuclear confrontation.
People are not stupid. The average person on the street feels in his or her bones that we are moving toward that doomsday. That is why people are afraid. But the Canadian Government agreed to test the Cruise missile. That was a decision of the Cabinet and the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) against, I might add, Mr. Speaker, what appeared to be the feelings of the Canadian public. The Prime Minister then underwent a
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metamorphosis. He changed colours and he travelled the world for peace. That is hypocrisy and a great inconsistency. If he wants to be serious about peace, Bill C-203 would complement the efforts of a peace-seeking policy. Perhaps it is not too late. Perhaps the Government will consider going on the road to peace when it sees the kind of support the Prime Minister is receiving for his policy in the country.
I was in a march in New York with a million people. I was in a march in Vancouver with 40,000 people, actually two marches. I have seen all these polls. I could feel, over the holidays in Vancouver, the kind of thawing of that block of ice which is normally reserved for the Prime Minister and his Party in western Canada because of his peace initiative. Therefore, the second point I would like to make to the Parliamentary Secretary is, do not dismiss the notion of a world referendum on disarmament. It comes, you know, from Canada. It was proposed by a Canadian group. It has had a lot of popularity in the cities and towns of Canada. Persons on city councils who are right wing would say, "Oh, do not put that on the ballot. It is ridiculous." However, council after council did put it on the ballot and supported it. The Hon. Member referred to my city council in Vancouver, and there are other city councils, for example in Ottawa, where there has been support for this. However, the federal Government has just dismissed that out of hand. I say to Government, do not dismiss it. Take the road for peace not the road in the other direction.
I would like to make some comments as well, Mr. Speaker, on the remarks of my old friend, the Hon. Member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre). It is appropriate in 1984 that he gave the kind of speech he did. It is the first speech I have heard from him in 1984. In George Orwell's book, 1984, he talks about "doublespeak", giving words different meanings. It is like Ronald Reagan speaking of "missiles for peace", calling a missile by a name which means peace. That is doublespeak. That is what we heard in the speech from the Hon. Member for Calgary Centre, which was a very dangerous speech, it seems to me, because he was using the argument that we need more arms for peace. That is really inconsistent. The Hon. Member was nit-picking when he said we cannot enforce a law with reference to this Bill; we already have Soviet submarines cruising under the Arctic ice, so, therefore, we should not have one. By that logic we could forget about our 200-mile limit or any notion of territorial sovereignty because we are not stopping the submarines. Why, then, have a 200-mile limit law? It seems to me that it is illogical to argue that. The Hon. Member should let the Bill go to committee where we could meet these arguments.
The Hon. Member said that Canada is where it is and that we cannot move Canada; that is true. It seems to me all the more reason to take the road to peace and take peaceful steps, even though they are small. What did the great Chinese helmsman, Chairman Mao say? He said that in a journey of 1,000 miles you have to take the first step. It could be 1,000

January 17, 1984
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miles to peace, perhaps, and this is a step on the road to peace, albeit a small one.
The Hon. Member for Calgary Centre suggested that this would be the first step toward neutrality. We never advocated neutrality for Canada, Mr. Speaker. This is not a declaration of neutrality. He sounded like Ronald Reagan when he said that we do not have a choice, that we must choose sides and that we have chosen to stick with democracy. It is the East-West bogeyman, Mr. Speaker-it is the Reds and us. It is Ronald Reagan's problem that he sees the world in black and white and in no other colours, nothing in between.
I get scared by things like the speech the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Member for Central Nova, (Mr. Mul-roney), gave in Calgary and the other speeches he has made to the effect that we have to follow the Americans whatever they do-that we have to follow Reagan, saying "ready, aye, ready". It is not the British this time, as it was 50 years ago for the Conservatives, but it is now the American President whom we should follow. The Conservative policy is really "the U.S. right or wrong".
It scares me to hear the defence critic for the Conservatives saying the same thing and telling us to look at the polls and see that that Party may be in government. Imagine what kind of policies it would bring in! We would be giving up our independence, our foreing policy, our foreing independence and we would have a warmongering Canadian Government saying, "ready, aye, ready" to President Reagan. That is frightening, Mr. Speaker. We would be into Central America as President Reagan will be if he is re-elected as president. I would not be surprised if he were to send troops there.


Harvie Andre: When did I say all that?


Ian Gardiner Waddell: They would follow the United States to the end. That is the implication of these policies.
Perhaps I should return to the immediate matter of the Bill, Mr. Speaker. The Hon. Member suggested that we are anti-NATO. It was not NATO that asked Canada to test the Cruise missile. I think it was the United States.
Let us not get into this kind of East-West, black and white, them-us arguments. Let us look at the Bill, which asks for a nuclear free zone. If the Hon. Member is concerned about some small points, let him bring them up in committee. He has said that this is an empty gesture, that it is an East-West struggle, that it is democracy versus dictatorship. That is an old trick, Mr. Speaker. You set up a straw man and then knock him down. In effect, they say that we are for democracy and therefore we must be against this Bill which somehow is for the other side. It is easy to do that in debate, but it is a mistake. As a people facing the dangers of nuclear war, we cannot continue with this line of thinking.
I think people feel that we are on the way to some kind of final Armageddon in this world, in which we will lose everything we have built up over the centuries and that there will be no future for any children. I would not like to think that my
colleagues in the Conservative Party or in the Liberal Party are pursuing the road to war rather than the road to peace.
[ Translation]
A good way of taking a first step on the road to peace would be to refer this bill to the appropriate committee of the House of Commons.

Accordingly, I should like to move that the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "that" and substituting the following:
Bill C-203, an Act to declare Canada a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, be not now read the second time but that the order be discharged, the Bill withdrawn and the subject matter thereof referred to the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: While waiting for the text, could I inquire from the Hon. Member who the seconder of the motion is?


Ian Gardiner Waddell: It is seconded by the Hon. Member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake (Mr. Anguish).


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I regret to inform the Hon. Member that the Hon. Member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake cannot be a proper seconder for the motion since he is the mover of the main motion. Is there a seconder? I can only receive the motion if it is properly seconded.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I would ask that one of the government Members of Conservative Members, if they are really concerned about taking peaceful steps and debating in this committee, offer to act as the formal seconder of the Bill.


Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think it is reprehensible that the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway should refer to us in this way when there are only two members of the New Democratic Party in the House. If they were interested in having this referred, they would have had a few more Members present.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I understand the Conservative position is that it is not prepared to put up a seconder to send this peaceful step to a committee. I wonder if the Liberal Government is prepared to follow the road to peace and put up a seconder for the motion.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Chair finds itself in the position of not being able to put the motion before the House since it is not properly seconded at this time. I must therefore reject the motion.


Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, I think it is an indication of the interest that the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway has been able to cultivate in his caucus, that there were not enough members of his Party present to support his motion. When there is a caucus of 30 or 31 Members and only two are present for the debate, which has apparently consumed-


Ian Gardiner Waddell: How many do you have?
January 17, 1984


Benno Friesen: -a lot of their interest, that speaks to the formidable ennui that exists in that caucus on this subject.
I want to put one or two things on the record, Mr. Speaker. I thought that the Hon. Member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake did a fairly creditable job of defending his position, even though I do not agree with it. Then the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway muddied the issue. The Hon. Member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake at least spoke to the matter of nuclear disarmament as a key issue, in his view, but then the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway implied that the issue is peace and dragged that whole issue into the debate. As important as peace is to all of us and to every Canadian, Mr. Speaker, and no Canadian would disagree that peace is important, the fundamental issue here is freedom.
I have visited only one Iron Curtain country and I want Hon. Members to know that there is peace there. There is peace in East Germany, there is peace in Yugoslavia, there is peace in Bulgaria, but there is no freedom there, and that is the position that is important.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hour provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has expired.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 45 deemed to have been moved.

Douglas Keith Anguish: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak during the Adjournment Debate concerning a matter which I think is not only pressing to myself and my constituents but to a good number of Canadians.
Yesterday I asked a question of the Minister of Environment (Mr. Caccia) concerning the situation at the Key Lake mine site in northern Saskatchewan where there has been some fairly major spills of radioactive water. I am very concerned about the answers I received, thus I have asked for this time to set out a little of the background of the Key Lake mine site and ask some questions which I feel are very pertinent; important enough that the Hon. Member for Regina East (Mr. de Jong) yesterday called for an emergency debate on this topic.
In September of 1979, Mr. Speaker, there was a proposal for a joint venture consortium composed of the Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation, a company called Uranerz and another company called Eldor Resources. The Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation was the largest share-
Adjournment Debate
holder. On December 11, 1979, a five-member board of inquiry was appointed, chaired by Mr. Bob Mitchell, the then Deputy Minister of Labour in Saskatchewan. Following that inquiry and many representations made by concerned individuals, business interests and government agencies, there was in August of 1981 a lease agreement signed between the Key Lake Mining Development Corporation and the Government of Saskatchewan which would enable them to begin construction at the mine site and eventually go into production of yellowcake. The cost of the project was some $500 million. It currently employs about 450 people. It is reported that this mine is the world's largest uranium site.
In December of 1983 the mine was working at about 55 per cent capacity and had been expected to reach full capacity some time in early 1984. To date there has been a total of some 16 spills at that mine site, and I stand to be corrected, nine of which were radioactive spills. They began August 3, 1983, which spill was initially reported as a 40,000 litre spill of processed water. We found out just yesterday that the Saskatchewan Government corrected the record by saying it was not a 40,000 litre spill, it was a 400,000 litre spill. So the Saskatchewan Government monitoring agency was wrong.
There were other spills on December 9, December 23, and December 24, 1983, and on January 1 and January 4, 1984. Then there was a huge spill on January 5, 1984, of 100 million litres of contaminated water. A retaining wall in the holding area broke and this 100 million litres of radioactive water escaped into the environment. They say the material is contained because the weather is cold at this time of year. It is contained temporarily, but what appals me is that there was another spill on January 7. Then on January 15 some 800 litres of radioactive sewage was spilled or leaked from that mining operation. This to me, Mr. Speaker, is a very serious problem.
Was there no contingency plan ever put in place by either the federal Department of the Environment or the Atomic Energy Control Board or by the Saskatchewan Government? Do those Government agencies not have a contingency plan for cleaning up? More particularly, how are they going to dispose of 100 million litres of radioactive contaminated water?
They say there are four different inquiries taking place right now. Mr. Speaker, this is a very serious problem. How are they going to dispose of and clean up the polluted environment around the mine site right now? Mr. Speaker, this cannot wait for long. There is containment of the spill only because of the very frigid winter conditions that exist there right now. If we get some unseasonably warm temperatures, or there is procrastination by both levels of Government between now and spring, there will not be containment of that radioactive spill any longer. It will be out into the environment, the swamps and the river systems. The people at the Saskatchewan Research Council are afraid that the radioactivity will go through the food chain and eventually end up being consumed by humans. Although initial levels may not be particularly dangerous to an

January 17, 1984
Adjournment Debate
individual, the problem is that there is a buildup over the years. In that area and the area that the radioactivity could flow to through the aquifers and the river system, it could get to be a very serious problem in the future. We are sadly lacking in the precautions that have been put in place by this Government and by the Government of Saskatchewan. What is the federal Government willing to do in terms of recommendations for the cleanup of this particular spill and recommendations to assure that this will not happen in the future?


Mr. Denis Ethier (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that the Province of Saskatchewan has jurisdiction under the Federal Fisheries Act which is administered by the Saskatchewan Department of Parks and Renewable Resources. The Atomic Energy Board has prime jurisdiction over all nuclear issues for the federal Government. Environment Canada acts as an advisor to the Atomic Energy Control Board on all environmental matters. This is facilitated under a memorandum of understanding between the Board and Environment Canada.
The spill at the Key Lake uranium mine in Saskatchewan, which occurred early on January 5, 1984, and continued until the morning of January 7, 1984, was the result of human error. Workers left a pump running which caused an overflow of the dike. Once the overflow started the dike rapidly eroded resulting in about 100 million litres of radium contaminated water being lost. Spill response personnel from the Saskatchewan Department of Environment were on the scene shortly after the spill was reported and collected samples as the spill was occurring. Shortly after learning of the spill a specialist
from Environment Canada was sent to the mine to survey the situation.
The concentration of radium 226 in the spill has been determined to be about 11 becquerels per litre. There are no radiation hazards to workers. The immediate environmental impact is small due to dilution effects-probably to drinking water levels-natural ground water inflow and the absence of any commercial or sports fishery.
Due to Environment Canada's concern about this accident two departmental officials are at the mine collecting water, ice and sediment samples to determine the impact of the spill on the environment. This work complements work currently underway by the Saskatchewan Department of Environment and by the company. Long term actions will be taken based on the results of this sampling.
Officials of the Environmental Protection Service have inspected the spill with Atomic Energy Control Board personnel and held discussions with the company and with the Province. The company has received approval from the Atomic Energy Control Board to make repairs to existing structures and to put forward proposals for the clean up of spills that escaped to the environment. One suggested clean up proposal is to pump the contaminated water to the mill, treat it, and then release it to the environment. The Environmental Protection Service will be reviewing these proposals for the Atomic Energy Control Board.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: A motion to adjourn the Flouse is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m.
At 6.14 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.
January 17, 1984


APPENDIX
[Stage Direction]
of

[Stage Direction]
Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China to
Both Houses of Parliament in the
House of Commons Chamber, Ottawa on
Tuesday, January 17, 1984
[ Translation]
His Excellency, the Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China was welcomed by the Right Honourable Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, and thanked by the Honourable Maurice Riel, Speaker of the Senate and the Honourable Lloyd Francis, Speaker of the House of Commons.
Hon. Lloyd Francis (Speaker of the House of Commons):: now invite the Right Honourable the Prime Minister to introduce His Excellency, the Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker of the Senate, Mr. Speaker of the House of Commons, Premier Zhao Ziyang, distinguished guests, honourable members of the Senate and the House of Commons, Canada and this Parliament are greatly honoured today to have in our company a most distinguished guest, the Premier of the People's Republic of China.

Mr. Premier, I welcome you on behalf of the people of Canada. You have come to a land of icy skies and snowy ground and you have come as a friend. This is a unique and momentous occasion. It is unique because it is the first time that a Chinese Premier has come to Canada and the first time that a high official of the People's Republic of China has addressed us. It is momentous because this occasion constitutes a recognition of the very special ties which unite our two nations and underscores the fact that Canada's relations across the Pacific are an increasingly important factor in our foreign and economic policies.
Canada is a very young country by Chinese standards. Two hundred years ago, Ottawa was a clearing in the woods. Two thousand years ago, China was at the height of civilization. Chinese artists and philosophers produced works still regarded as masterpieces today. During the dark and middle ages in Europe, a steady flow of Chinese inventions and processes
enriched our civilization; the compass, gunpowder, silkmaking and printing, for example. During the enlightenment Chinese artistic design took the salons of Europe by storm.
China, as the middle kingdom, has always played a predominant role in the world. During many periods in its history its influence had spread well beyond the boundaries of Asia. Certainly today China has regained its full eminence as a force to be reckoned with in world affairs. Its strong leadership role in the Third World, its advocacy of better North-South and South-South relations, for example, are well known and widely respected. China's strong opposition to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and its support for the Cambodian coalition government are equally important in the Asian balance of power.
We in Canada share many of China's concerns and attitudes on these questions and consider close consultations such as we have this morning with the People's Republic of China as an important part of our foreign policy. We are proud of having established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China in 1970, and are extremely pleased that since then our bilateral relationships have achieved such variety, depth and warmth. Over the years many have contributed to the relationship both in China and in Canada. Today I pay tribute to them. We speak often of Norman Bethune and of Chester Ronning and rightly so. But going back even into the 19th Century there were thousands of others whose work has brought us to where we are today.
When I made an official visit in China in 1973, the current phase of our relations was very much in a formative stage. Nevertheless, a number of understandings were reached, the fruits of which we are seeing today. In areas of family reunification, of cultural and sporting and academic exchanges, substantial and in some cases dramatic progress has been made. To cite just three examples, as of the end of last year, some 22,000 Chinese have been reunited with their relatives in
510

January 17, 1984
Canada. Over 1,300 scholars and students from China have been received by Canadian educational institutions. Scores of prominent Canadian and Chinese artists and sports teams have performed in each other's country.
Like so many Canadians, as a young boy I was utterly taken with the mystery and excitement of Chinese history and geography and steeped myself in your myths and traditions. Later, I began what has been a life-long fascination with your philosophers, artists, strategists and historians. It seemed obvious to me even then that to the extent that the world could not benefit from Chinese experience and vision it would be a poorer place.
It was therefore with particular satisfaction that I found myself in a position to initiate the process which led to the establishment of diplomatic relations between our two countries. I hope that experience helped to speed China on the course which returned your country to the world stage and once again enabled its wise counsel to be heard in the community of nations. Some of the most valued memories of my visit to China in 1973 include the opportunity to meet Chairman Mao Tse-tung, to discuss politics with Chou En-Lai far into the night, and to be accompanied on my travels to the south of China by Chairman Deng Xiaoping whose wise opinion on world affairs I have always respected.

A country of great tradition, China has, as I remarked earlier, been the origin of many scientific discoveries for hundreds of years. Canada still has much to learn from China, but nevertheless, there are areas in which Canada could make a very useful contribution to your modernization program. I am thinking, for instance, of a number of high technology sectors, as well as the development of your resources, especially the oil and gas industry, both on the mainland and offshore.
In the space of nearly fourteen years, Canada's trade with the People's Republic of China has grown until today that country has become our fifth largest market. Chinese exports to Canada have also risen significantly over the years and this trend should continue.

Mr. Premier, if harmony distinguishes our bilateral relationships, the same cannot be said for the international climate within which the future of that relationship must unfold. There is abroad, especially since the beginning of this decade, a growing uneasiness with the direction of international affairs, particularly the state of relations between the superpowers. Our people are concerned about the future and most of all about the prospect of war in a nuclear age.
Mr. Premier, we are faced with a daunting challenge. Either this generation of leaders must reduce the number of nuclear weapons and prevent their spread, or we bequeath to our children a future where the chances of global destruction increase every day. Yet it would be a dangerous fallacy to
expect stability to be achieved only through numerical adjustments and technological containment, however significant.
It is at least equally important to bring about a fundamental change in attitudes and intentions if we are to assure the peace we all so desperately seek. Over the last few months I have sought to draw attention to the gravity of the present situation and to influence the trend of East-West relations. I have been voicing the concerns of a great many Canadians who are deeply troubled by uncertainty over superpower intentions and by fears of growing nuclear arsenals whose destructive potential already defies comprehension.
Premier Zhao, I have sought counsel with many statesmen and world leaders on these matters. You and I have discussed, both here and in Beijing, the role that political leadership must play in reducing international tensions. We live in a multipolar world and China is one of its essential compass points. We in Canada highly value the opinions of China on the urgent questions of international security. Your weight is undeniable in any global reckoning.
China must take its full place in the world community. China, as a permanent member of the Security Council, has responsibilities of leadership in the task of reducing the threat of nuclear war. Indeed, the United Nations Charter confers special rights and veto powers on the permanent members of the Security Council who, not incidentally, constitute the nuclear weapons fraternity. These rights and privileges in maintaining international security also confer special responsibilities. But, of course, the primary responsibility for nuclear disarmament lies with the superpowers. With nuclear arsenals which could threaten life on earth many times over, they have heavy responsibilities not only to each other but to all of us. We cannot wait until the United States and the Soviet Union however, pursuing some internal superpower logic, are ready to reach agreement. We must demonstrate our stake in their deliberations and force their attention to the threat to which they subject the rest of mankind.
All nations and all political leaders have the duty to do what they can to stop the nuclear arms race and to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Thus we can take some satisfaction in the knowledge that, at a time when virtually all arms control negotiations have broken down, the foreign ministers of East and West are now gathering in Stockholm to discuss security and confidence-building measures in Europe. Let us hope that the period of megaphone diplomacy may be coming to an end.
Mr. Premier, the history of your country is measured in millenia. You know that on issues of war and peace there are no permanent solutions. Peace must be continuously constructed, nurtured and maintained through the efforts of honest men seeking happiness, prosperity and, in the nuclear age, the survival of their people. Thus, the quest for peace is never-ending. In this sense, our talks this morning and your presence in this Parliament, Premier Zhao, are important building blocks for peace. For do we not both represent men and women of goodwill?
January 17, 1984



Mr. Speaker, it is with immense pleasure that we welcome today. Mr. Zhao Ziyang, premier of the People's Republic of China.
(Applause)

[Simultaneous interpretation]
His Excellency Zhao Ziyang (Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China):
Mr. Speaker of the Senate,
Mr. Speaker of the House of Commons,
Mr. Prime Minister,
The Honourable Members of Parliament,
1 have come to visit your country at the kind invitation of Prime Minister Trudeau, bringing with me the deep friendship of the one billion Chinese people for the Canadian people. 1 feel greatly honoured to have this opportunity of speaking to this august gathering.
Contacts between the Chinese and Canadian peoples began over two hundred and fifty years ago. At that time, tens of thousands of Chinese came to Canada and joined the Canadian people in developing this country. Many Canadian friends also went to China to live and work there. When the Chinese people were in times of difficulty, Dr. Norman Bethune gave up his life for Chinese people's cause of liberation. In October 1970, the People's Republic of China and Canada formally established diplomatic relations, thus ushering in a new stage in the friendship between our two peoples. Sino-Canadian friendship has since then developed steadily, contacts have increased, and exchanges and co-operation have expanded. Many Members of the Canadian Parliament and friends from all walks of life have worked unremittingly for and made valuable contributions to all this. Reviewing the past and looking into the future, we are fully confident of the bright prospects for the expansion of Sino-Canadian friendly relations and co-operation.
Now I would like to take this opportunity to speak about China's foreign policy and some related questions.
What is the fundamental principle of China's foreign policy? To answer this question briefly, it is independence. We do not attach ourselves to any big power and are not subject to any big power's will. We have determined our foreign policy in line with our judgment on international affairs formed according to the fundamental interests of the Chinese people and those of the world people.
It includes the following points: (1) to develop relations with all countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence: (2) to strengthen solidarity with the other Third World countries and friendship with the people of all countries; and (3) to oppose hegemonism and safeguard world peace.
You all know that in modern history China was badly bullied and oppressed by foreign powers, and the Chinese people waged long and bitter struggles and ultimately won
national independence at tremendous costs. Therefore, we are jealous of our own independence and at the same time highly respect the independence of other countries. Back in the early 1950s China initiated the Five Principles of mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-agression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit and peaceful co-existence, as norms guiding international relations. It is on these principles that we have handled our relations with other countries. We will never contravene these principles; nor do we want to see them violated by other countries in their mutual relations.
It is gratifying that the above-mentioned principles have been adhered to by both China and Canada in their mutual relations. The state of Sino-Canadian relations shows that countries with different social systems should and can live together in amity and co-operation to mutual benefit. We will work with Canada for the sustained development of our friendly relations and co-operation in the interest of the well-being of our peoples and the prosperity of our countries.
China is seeking to develop relations on the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence with all countries, which include the two superpowers-the United States and the Soviet Union. China has all along valued Sino-U.S. relations. The Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence are acknowledged as norms guiding Sino-U.S. relations in the 1979 communique on the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The United States recognizes that there is but one China, that the Government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legal Government of China and that Taiwan is a part of China. It has stated that it has no intention to infringe upon China's sovereignty and interfere in China's internal affairs.
Relations between China and the United States have made fairly big progress since the establishment of Sino-U.S. diplomatic relations. However, there have also been ups and downs, and twists and turns. The main obstacle is the question of Taiwan. During my visit to the United States I held friendly, candid and serious talks with President Reagan and other leaders of the U.S. Government. The American side once again affirmed the above principles. We hope that the two sides will work together, strictly abide by the mutually agreed principles in their action and truly fulfil commitments already made, so that Sino-U.S. relations may take the path of steady development.
We also sincerely wish to see normalization of Sino-Soviet relations. The present state of Sino-Soviet relations is not to the benefit of world peace. We are trying to maintain normal relations with the Soviet Union on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence. This requires the removal of the three obstacles to the normalization of Sino-Soviet relations: First, the Soviet Union must stop supporting Viet Nam in its aggression against Kampuchea; second, it must withdraw its troops from Afghanistan; and third, it must withdraw its forces from the Sino-Soviet border and Mongolia.

January 17, 1984
China and the Soviet Union have already held three rounds of consultations. However, the Soviet side has thus far evaded discussing these three questions which threaten China's security. Although Sino-Soviet relations have somewhat improved in recent years, greater efforts by the two sides are called for if Sino-Soviet relations are to be really normalized.
I also want to say a few words about Sino-British relations. Negotiations are going on between the two sides to resolve the Hong Kong question which is left over from history. Hong Kong was occupied by Britain after the opium war. China has decided to resume exercise of its sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997. We have adopted the following policies which we believe are reasonable: Hong Kong will become a special administrative region of China to be administered by the Hong Kong people themselves; the current social and economic systems and lifestyle will remain unchanged; Hong Kong will maintain its financial independence and its status as a free port and international financial centre; Hong Kong will maintain and develop its economic and cultural relations with foreign countries; the interests of the residents and foreign investors in Hong Kong will be fully protected. Hong Kong's prosperity and stability will not be affected.
All these will be guaranteed by a basic law of Hong Kong to be enacted by the National People's Congress, the supreme organ of power in China, which will take into full account the opinions of people of all walks of life in Hong Kong. I believe the question of Hong Kong can be resolved through negotiations between China and Britain.
China is a developing socialist country. We share similar historical experiences and face the same task of economic development. We firmly support the other Third World countries in their just cause of safeguarding national independence and developing their national economies. We are in favour of increased South-South co-operation, improving North-South relations and establishing the new international economic order through global negotiations. The Chinese Government appreciates the efforts made by the Canadian Government for pushing North-South dialogue forward and improving North-South relations. China will persist in its policy of opening to the outside world, strengthen economic co-operation of equality and mutual benefit with both developing and developed countries, and do its part in promoting world economic prosperity. We hope Sino-Canadian economic co-operation may set an example of co-operation between developing and developed countries.
We believe that only when the principles of peaceful coexistence are universally respected can our planet enjoy genuine and lasting peace. Unfortunately, not every country is willing to observe these principles. Hegemonist acts of strong countries humiliating the weak, rich countries oppressing the poor and big countries bullying the small, keep occurring from time to time. Therefore, we firmly oppose hegemonism. We are against hegemonist actions no matter where and by whom they are committed. China will never seek hegemony. We have declared many times that if China ever pursues hegemonism,
other countries should also take it to task. Without opposing hegemonism, international justice cannot possibly be upheld, nor world peace be maintained.
The present international situation is indeed disturbing. There are so-called "hot-spots" in many areas in the world. The nuclear arms race between the two superpowers is becoming white-hot. The struggle over the deployment of intermediate missiles has aggravated the situation in Europe where two military blocs confront each other. Under these circumstances, the people of various countries strongly demand the stopping of the nuclear arms race and realizing disarmament. This is entirely justified. We appreciate the efforts made by Prime Minister Trudeau to safeguard world peace, relax international tension and promote nuclear disarmament. We support his appeal for the participation of more political leaders in the world in the cause of safeguarding world peace. We would like to continue consultations with Canadian leaders on these issues. We hope that all peace-loving countries and people will go into action and urge the two nuclear powers which possess over 90 per cent of the world's nuclear weapons to stop their nuclear arms race, resume disarmament talks, hold discussion in earnest and take the lead in agreeing on measures of drastically reducing nuclear arms so as to create the condition for joint nuclear disarmament by all the nuclear countries.
The Honourable Members of Parliament, China takes the maintenance of world peace as a major objective in its foreign policy, not only because we need a peaceful international environment in which to modernize our country, but also because we are fully aware that the people of the world cannot afford to undergo the scourge of another world war. World peace and stability are the common desire of the people of all countries. So long as the people all over the world get united in defending peace, a new world war can be prevented.
I wish to take this opportunity to point out that a strong and prosperous China not only is in the interest of the Chinese people, but also contributes to world peace and stability. Now, more and more countries and regions hope to develop trade and economic co-operation with China and are highly interested in China's economic co-operation with China and are highly interested in China's economic policy. China's policy of opening to the outside world is not an expedient measure but a long-term national policy. While adhering to self-reliance, we also pay attention to importing advanced foreign technology and equipment and making use of foreign funds. In the next ten years we will give priority to energy, transportation, communication, and import key equipment and technology for upgrading about 400,000 enterprises. In all these areas, Canada has its strong points and experience. On our part, we also have many products which Canada needs. I am convinced, as time goes on, our areas of co-operation will become still more broader. Let us make further efforts to this end.
The Honourable Members of Parliament, the Chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress, Peng Zhen, has invited the Canadian Parliament to send
January 17, 1984

a delegation to visit China at an appropriate time. I am sure you will be warmly welcomed by the Chinese National People's Congress, the Chinese Government and the Chinese people.
Thank you!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
[ Translation]


Hon. Maurice Riel (Speaker of the Senate):: Mr. Speaker of the House of Commons, Mr. Premier of the People's Republic of China, Mr. Prime Minister of Canada, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour to thank you, Mr. Premier of China, for the words of wisdom and encouragement you have just spoken before our two Houses of Parliament.
The philosophy that emerges from the outline you gave of your country's foreign policy and its peace objectives, your relations with the United State of America, with the Soviet Union, with Great Britain on the matter of Hong Kong, with Third World countries, and the North-South dialogue, seems very similar to what we in Canada believe, and in your comments on the policy and peace initiatives undertaken by our own Prime Minister, you expressed the same principles, and despite the immense distances that separate us, this is an example of the profoundly human solidarity that exists between our two peoples who are united in a common desire for peace.
Peace in our time, Mr. Premier, is not a vain ambition, and we are happy to hear that you share this ideal with our Prime Minister and with all Canadians, and you have come to us over over the oceans, despite our cold Canadian winter, to announce before this Parliament that your people share our ideals. We find this very comforting, and urge you to tell the people of China that we are with them in this search for peace, and that Canadians are supporting the efforts of our Prime Minister, despite inevitable obstacles, to achieve a lasting peace at this point in the world's existence.
Thank you Mr. Premier for your visit and for the gesture you made today with reference to the cordial relations we have with China.

We wish to thank Your Excellency for your visit, for the gesture you have made and for the good words you have said to help the world along the road to peace. Thank you again.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Lloyd Francis (Speaker of the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker of the Senate, Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. Premier of China, Members of the Senate and the House of Commons, it is a great honour for me on behalf of Members of our Houses of Parliament and guests assembled to express our appreciation of the Address we have heard from the Premier of the People's Republic of China. We welcome him to Canada as a representative of the most populous nation on earth and also as a friend.
The establishment of diplomatic ties between our two countries in 1970 was an important step leading to the resumption by China of its prominent role in the international community. Since that time there have been, as has been mentioned, an increasing number of exchanges between Canada and the People's Republic in the fields of arts and culture, science and technology, education, medicine, sports, tourism and, of course in economic areas. Canada's exports of well over $1 billion annually testify to the value of China as a trading partner.
In addition to continued economic co-operation we are encouraged by China's support for efforts to bring lasting international peace and stability.
[ Translation]
Last year, a delegation of Canadian parliamentarians went to China to increase our knowledge of each other's country, to consolidate our friendship and to explore other avenues for co-operation between our two countries. All members of the delegation were absolutely delighted with their visit.

In keeping with the warm relationship which has developed between our two countries, we are honoured to receive our distinguished visitor in our capital.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: The meeting is now adjourned.

Wednesday, January 18, 1984