1984-03-08

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, March 7, consideration of the motion of Mr. MacLaren that Bill C-21, an Act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs.
Hon. Herb Gray (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on Bill C-21, the Borrowing Authority Act, which follows the February 15 Budget introduced by my colleague the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) and which is supportive of the expenditure plan as well as the very important initiatives set out in that Budget.
The recent Budget presents a very clear and positive context for Bill C-21. It is a Budget which builds on the successes of several previous Budgets of the Government and it deals effectively with the problems created in large degree by international factors that have hindered the well-being of the economy.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask Hon. Members to think back to June 1982, when Canada was in the midst of a recession. At the time, double-digit inflation was hitting both industry and consumers, and interest rates were at a record high. Unsatisfactory productivity levels in this country, high salaries and increases in other costs were making it very difficult to maintain our position on international markets because our costs were not competitive. It was a combination of all these factors that caused our economy to decline.

In these circumstances the Government recognized that it had a prime responsibility to bring down inflation and, through this and other measures, to stimulate economic recovery. It took the decisive action required, beginning with the introduction of the six and five program in June, 1982. All sectors of the Canadian economy were encouraged to follow the federal Government's lead to restrain their demands on the economy so that our future economic well-being would be protected.
[DOT] (mo)

Generally speaking, Canadians met the 6 and 5 challenge very well and made the wage and price decisions that were necessary to make the plan a success.

Six and five has been a balanced program. It is a way of showing leadership and is a demonstration to other sectors. Wage rate increases of federal public sector employees have been held to 6 per cent and then 5 per cent for a two-year period. The prices of all goods and services provided by federal Government Departments, agencies, Crown corporations and the wholly-owned susidiaries, as well as prices set by federal regulatory bodies, were limited to increases of 6 per cent and 5 per cent respectively for a two-year period following June 28,
1982.	The Government also initiated an active consultation process with other sectors of the economy. All these steps helped broaden the impact of the six and five program on costs and prices generally in the economy.
When the Government launched the six and five program in June, 1982, the inflation rate was in excess of 11 per cent. By the end of last year it had dropped dramatically to 4.5 per cent. For the whole of 1983 the rate of inflation and what it means in terms of prices was 5.8 per cent, almost half what it had been in 1982 and lower than it had been in over 10 years. With this came a most welcome reduction in interest rates.
In the quarter ending June, 1982 the average compounded annual increase in the base wage rates in major new settlements without COLA clauses in both the Canadian private sector and the federal public sector were close to 12 per cent, but for the most recently recorded quarter the corresponding figure for both those sectors is about 5 per cent. I see by today's newspaper that figures recently released by the Department of Labour suggest a 4.9 per cent average for all of
1983.
The six and five program has made an important contribution to the improvement of Canada's inflation performance. Consequently, it was a major factor in the economic turnaround that resulted in the achievement of about 3 per cent real growth last year and about 400,000 jobs being created. Expanded labour productivity together with improved wage performance have resulted in a very significant improvement in Canada's cost performance. These are very encouraging signs but still we must be vigilant in our efforts not only to maintain our level of improved performance but also to strive by all reasonable means to enhance it further.

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All Canadians have a role to play in controlling and bringing down inflation, by keeping price increases for goods and services at levels that will help to reduce inflation even more. Moderate costs and improved productivity explain why we have been able to increase our share of world markets last year.
We must continue to limit our costs and be more productive. Every country in the industrialized world is endeavouring to become more competitive. Therefore, our continued prosperity depends enormously on our ability to keep pace with the rest of the world. The onus and obligation to keep Canadian costs competitive and improve productivity rests with each of us. This is true primarily in the private sector but also in the public sector. This means not only that we all have a responsibility for containing inflation and for not allowing the successes achieved in curbing inflation to be frittered away, but also that the public and private sectors must be unremitting in their efforts to improve productivity.
A more productive Canada, both in its public and private sectors, in the key to our economic vitality during the rest of the 20th century and on into the 21st century. For the public sector there are additional factors demanding continuing attention to the improvement of productivity in our own operations. The public sector is inevitably looked to for the demonstration it can provide and does provide in the effective and efficient management of human and Financial resources.
The Canadian public as well, quite rightly, insist on quality service and on achieving top value for their tax dollars. Canadians want their Government to offer at least as many services as they have become used to, but they want them performed at the least practical cost. The federal Government is providing more services today than ever before with a Public Service work force which is at about the same level as it was in the mid-1970s. The overall Public Service personnel strength has steadily decreased from 2.6 per cent of the labour force in 1976 to 2.1 per cent today.
[ Translation]
Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago I announced a four-point plan containing new measures aimed at improving productivity in the Public Service.
First, we are establishing pilot projects to improve operational effectiveness in departments and a number of Crown corporations with heavy operational responsibilities.
Second, we are reviewing central management policies and methods to determine how they can be made more effective without affecting standards of integrity and responsible management for the administration of public funds.
Third, we are reviewing our methods for applying federal legislation regulations, in order to cut administrative red tape, while continuing to protect public interest.
Fourth, we are considering various ways of changing the job environment in Government offices in order to improve productivity.

We expect that these initiatives will enhance the productivity, that is, the efficiency and effectiveness, of our government operations. These initiatives will be taken in conjunction with already existing measures like the IMPAC Program, a program which is aimed at improving management practices across the federal Government. It is already achieving savings estimated to be in the order of $122 million each year. This is the case even though it has been in place only in some Departments so far.
With the new Budget with which Bill C-21 is linked, the federal Government has renewed its commitment to provide economic leadership. In this context, the ongoing necessity to contain inflation is part of our over-all effort to foster sustained economic growth and job creation. We have, therefore, decided to continue the policy of limiting price increases for goods and services provided by federal Departments and agencies, Crown corporations and federally regulated industries for a further 12 months. For this purpose, we have set a new price guideline of 4 per cent. The administrative mechanisms of the six and five program for monitoring price increases will remain in place. As was the case with the six and five program, price increases above the new guideline will be permitted only with Cabinet approval and only when they are clearly warranted.
The new 4 per cent guideline and our new policy on collective bargaining demonstrate our belief that the federal Government and, indeed, all levels of government have a fundamental responsibility-to quote the Minister of Finance in his Budget Speech-"to continue to exercise discipline in their own wage and price decisions". As was said in the Budget, Mr. Speaker, the Government will resume collective bargaining in the federal public sector as the six and five program expires.
I welcome a return to collective bargaining. Collective bargaining provides employees in both the public and private sectors with the capacity to play a meaningful role in determining the terms and conditions of their employment. Each group of federal public sector employees will leave the mandatory restraint program two years from their date of entry at best. This means individual groups will begin to phase out of the six and five program this June; by July, 1985 all federal employees will have exited and thus collective bargaining activities will have resumed commencing in May or June of this year.
In its own collective bargaining, the federal Government will bargain hard, but responsibly and fairly. Four major principles will guide the Government as it carries out its side of the collective bargaining process. We will bargain for settlements that will contribute to reducing inflation and are fiscally responsible. We will bargain for settlements based on total compensation comparisons with the private sector; that is, taking into account the whole range of benefits and conditions
March 8, 1984

of employment. We will bargain for settlements that do not exceed the private sector in compensation for comparable jobs; and we will bargain for settlements that encourage increased productivity and improved performance and recognize relative job responsibilities.
Therefore, while there are no hidden numerical pay guidelines, we will apply these four principles which are not only fair but are, I believe, consistent with what the public expects of the Government in its settlements with its own employees. In this regard the Government has no intention of making catch-up payments to its public servants. This is because other sectors have indeed followed the federal wage restraint initiative, as the wage adjustment figures so clearly show. The guaranteed wage increases of 6 per cent and then 5 per cent for federal public sector employees mean that these public servants have not lost out relative generally to other wage earners in Canada. Now the Government will bargain compensation with its employees in a fiscally responsible manner. We will not agree to increased wages to the point where upward pressure is put on inflation or where revenues, in addition to those provided for in the fiscal plan, must be sought through increased borrowing or taxation or through the diversion of funds from other programs in order to meet higher public sector payroll costs.
The Government has indicated its willingness, Mr. Speaker, to ask Parliament to legislate wage settlements in those specific cases where there are excessive arbitral awards, or excessive settlements by federal Crown corporations, or where federal public sector strikes may be damaging to the public interest because of their lengthy or disruptive nature. This recognizes the Government's ongoing responsibility to protect that public interest. The Canadian people generally, and I hope the public sector unions and their members will understand this responsibility and necessity.
The principles for collective bargaining with the federal Public Service set out in the Budget are fair and reasonable, and 1 believe that federal public sector employees, their unions and the Government itself will act in such a manner that the intervention of Parliament in the process of determining compensation will seldom, perhaps never, be necessary.
The public expects the federal Government, in fact all governments, as well as public sector unions, to strive responsibly to meet the challenges inherent in the resumption of collective bargaining. The public has expectations about the level, quality and continued delivery of government services. It expects value for tax dollars and it expects the public sector, both federal and provincial, to play its part in the restoration of the country's economic health.
I should add that I will be undertaking consultations with labour and other interested groups on possible proposals to amend the Public Service Staff Relations Act. This Act governs collective bargaining in the federal Public Service and has not undergone substantive change, if any, since it was first proclaimed in 1967. We would obviously have some suggestions from a management and a government point of view and I am sure the bargaining agents would have theirs. My objec-
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tive is to have meaningful dialogue on the matter with unions and others who want to make their views known.
It would not be helpful to speculate at this time on what might or might not eventually be proposed to Parliament on this subject. I would like to have an approach which involves a collective bargaining system in the federal Public Service operating to the mutual benefit of public servants and Canadians generally.

Mr. Speaker, the substantial progress we have made as a nation, fighting together against inflation since 1982, is not entirely due to the 6 and 5 program. However, the program did make it possible to focus the efforts of all Canadians on working towards a more competitive and less inflationary economy. We must not lose what we have gained with considerable effort.

To conclude, Mr. Speaker, we must strive to make further headway in reducing inflation and increasing productivity, economic growth and jobs. For this purpose the Government has decided to build on the positive results of the six and Five program. Therefore we have introduced a new program with a 4 per cent price guideline and with four principles for achieving reasonable public sector wage settlements. I call upon all Canadians to continue to follow the leadership of the federal Government and to work together to achieve our shared goals for the well-being of the Canadian economy.


Mr. Blenkarn:: Mr. Speaker, the Minister's remarks would be much more credible if he stayed within that 4 per cent guideline in his estimates. It makes one wonder when we see his estimates rising year after year and when we see all his previous ceilings broken in his current supplementaries.
The Minister is responsible for the Treasury Board and in his period of responsibility Canadair has received approval for $750 million from him. Before any of that money was given he had a complete outside report with respect to that corporation indicating major changes which would have to take place. He gave the corporation $200 million in 1982. This year he has provided the corporation with a total of $550 million in his various supplementaries.
Why has the Minister not insisted on a concrete plan of reorganization of that corporation? According to the senator involved in the corporation, the Minister's colleague in the Cabinet, the concrete plan is not going to be available until after March 31. As President of the Treasury Board, how can he possibly authorize $750 million to Canadair and, I might add, $500 million to de Havilland, without a reorganization plan which was demanded in October or November of 1982? That plan has been promised by Senator Austin on three occasions. On the last occasion he promised to have that plan in place by September of 1983. That plan is still not in place and will not be available until after March 31. How can the
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March 8, 1984
Borrowing Authority Act
President of the Treasury Board say he controls spending and waste without coming to grips with that issue?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my hon. friend that if we examine one portion of the total expenditure plan, the Main Estimates which I tabled a few weeks ago, it illustrates that the rate of increase in expenditure is down from 17.5 per cent, as was the case last year, to 10 per cent this year.
[DOT] (M30)
My hon. friend should tell the whole story. He should also be willing to tell the House that when we take the total outlays in the Government's expenditure plan and add the reserves in it for supplementary estimates to the main expenditures and the matters contained in these outlays, the total outlays are down from a rate of increase of over 9 per cent last year to 8 per cent this year.
This takes into account the new initiatives, such as the increased payments under guaranteed income supplements to older Canadians. I hope my hon. friend is not objecting to that. It takes into account additional expenditures of at least $150 million to fight youth unemployment. I hope my hon. friend is not objecting to that. It takes into account the increased amounts we must pay, by law, to provinces for such things as post-secondary education and medicare. I hope my hon. friend is not objecting to that because that would be quite inconsistent with the statements made by his Leader.
Speaking of inconsistencies, I wonder what my hon. friend is getting at with his question, because when it comes to funds requested from this Parliament by the Government to enable Canadair and de Havilland to carry on, these are amounts that were agreed to not only by myself but the Government as a whole. They were voted on by Parliament, and it did so after the responsible Minister came to the committee and gave details of steps that were initially presented to Cabinet for the purpose of effecting the necessary improvement in the over-all management of Canadair and de Havilland. This information was provided initially to Cabinet and subsequently to the House, prior to the amounts in question being voted on.
As I said in the House yesterday with respect to further amounts being sought for these companies in the supplementary estimates, the responsible Minister is coming to the relevant committee and I believe he is coming to more than one committee. At that time he will put forward the information which he has on plans for reorganization. It is up to the members of the committee initially and then up to the House to say whether it is satisfied and to vote for or against the request for these funds.
Let me say to my hon. friend, the country as a whole and to the workers at de Havilland and Canadair in particular, that when one listens to my hon. friend's question, one can wonder what really is the desire of the Conservative Party. Is it the desire, as his colleagues were saying yesterday, to make sure that these companies continue to operate, or is it their desire to carry out another Avro Arrow debacle like the Diefenbaker
Conservative government? If they were sincere about wanting to avoid that kind of debacle and preserving the jos and technology base of these two companies, he would not be speaking in that doubting, questioning and critical way about this proposal in the supplementary estimates. Where does he stand in comparison to the view of his colleagues who spoke yesterday?


Mr. Huntington:: Mr. Speaker, I think the question asked by my colleague concerning Canadair, the fact that a $1.4 billion write-off has been effected on Canadair and that another $700 million is being fed into de Havilland and Canadair is legitimate. If the House of Commons means anything, it is a legitimate question. I noticed that the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray) absolutely refused to accept the legitimacy of the question and led back with a fist punching, political barrel of rhetoric that really disgraces the House totally.
In his speech here today, dealing with a borrowing bill in which he and the Government are asking for $29.5 billion of spending authority, he talked about delivering top value for the taxpayers' dollar. That is the kind of rhetoric with which the people of Canada are absolutely fed up. If we are getting top value for the dollar, why is it that out in British Columbia there are gravel beds where fish have spawned that are now covered with silt and the Government does not have the money to go and wash that silt off those gravel beds? Yet the same Department of Fisheries can increase its advertising budget to $4 million, a 31 per cent increase over the $3 million it spent in advertising last year. If we are getting top value for our dollar, why does the Department of Fisheries have to pay for beautiful colour ads advertising recipes on how to cook fish when there are recipe books in every kitchen of Canada that are better than the recipes the Department is giving. Why does it have to spend money on advertisements explaining where one can get information on the federal Budget? Why does he stand up here and tell us that the Government is cutting out red tape and will make life in the private sector a lot easier when all it is doing is superimposing more regulation and arbitrary decisions on the system and causing it to collapse absolutely? Can he answer some of these questions?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for the concerns of my hon. friend. We share them. He has played a role in some of the initiatives for better management and parliamentary information that I have often talked about. I have recognized that in the past.
In responding to his colleague, the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn), I was not suggesting that his question was not legitimate. As he says, this is what Parliament is for. Frankly, however, the way the Member for Mississauga South phrased his question could well suggest to people who are reasonably fair minded that he did not want to have this money provided. If it is not provided, these companies would not continue to operate. This is the reason for the response I made.
March 8, 1984

Certainly the question is legitimate. We must explain why the money is needed and what we are doing to deal with the management problem of these companies. That is what we are doing.
My hon. friend for Mississauga South reminds me of the person who tried to suck and blow at the same time. It is impossible to do. I suppose that people do attempt it, even in a parliamentary setting. From the way the Hon. Member phrased his question, one might assume that in spite of what his colleagues said, including the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington), deep down they did not want to vote this money and were ready to accept and agree to the implications of this happening. However, this is a matter for further debate.
I want to repeat that questioning the amount and the motives is part of the parliamentary process and it is quite fair.
With respect to the second question, I believe my hon. friend is trying to compare two different things. If the Department of Fisheries advertises for the purpose of encouraging Canadians to buy and eat more fish, this does not mean that it is not interested in cleaning the silt off gravel beds. In my view, the Department has a number of purposes. One purpose is to preserve the fishery itself, the renewable resource in question. Another is to increase the market for the product of that resource. If that were not the case, the well-being of the fishermen in his province and other parts of Canada will not be maintained.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The question period is over. Debate.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Speaker, I have not put together a formal address, but in hearing the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray) this morning, we listened to a very well massaged, professionally written speech. One just keeps going back to one of the commandments of the Liberal Party of Canada and its mental guru concerning politics of Canada. It is that in politics, perception is reality. We heard a speech from one of the very senior Ministers of the Liberal Government in which he spent ten minutes still talking about six and five, which most of us, I in particular, agreed with. I had a little more courage than the Government because I said that we should move from six and Five to four and three, which would have then kept pressure on a system that desperately needs to be corrected.
When questioning the President of the Treasury Board, we mentioned the fact that in his rhetoric he talked about getting top value for the taxpayers' dollar. I noticed that he stumbled and choked a few times when he was reading his address. He must have trouble with some of this rhetoric because I know that the President of the Treasury Board is a very, very hardworking man. He and I do not agree in ideological terms and in terms of the way the country should be run for the well-being of the greatest number of Canadians. We have watched 15 years of his ideology being imposed upon the Canadian people and we have seen the system lose opportunities in the expansion of natural resources. We have seen a work force decline with 1.5 million unemployed. I readjust the
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other day that the work force, if you take the true account of it, contains over two million unemployed because at least half a million people have given up trying to get jobs.
Today we are in very serious condition. We have a lot of young people coming out of educational systems who are not really properly trained and equipped for what lies ahead. We have a national attitude that is leaving us outside of the ball game in terms of the newly emerging industrial world.
What is interfering with and impeding a substantial, meaningful, purposeful recovery in Canada that would start to correct some of these very serious problems we have is government spending. Government spending is at the core and heart of the problem. Government spending has grown from 16.8 per cent of GNP since 1968 to 24.2 per cent of GNP in 1982. Government spending is up this year to 26 per cent of GNP. If we look at the total levels of government spending and we bring federal and provincial spending together, we notice that it has grown from 33.7 per cent of GNP to 47 per cent, and 47 per cent is getting awfully close to 50 per cent of GNP in the form of total government spending in Canada. That is a burden choking us in terms of bringing about a proper recovery.
Let us look back to The Globe and Mail for March 5. We find that an axe hangs over social welfare programs in all OECD countries. Although they just love to label me a red-neck and a right-wing idiot here in Ottawa, I throw out, and you have heard me, Sir, warning after warning after warning that if we continue down this growing path of government intervention over the wealth-creating sector of the country, we will not be able to sustain the very enviable across the board social welfare programs that we have.
The President of the Treasury Board knows as well as I do that the underpinning of the whole pension plan, the CPP and everything else that we have, has teredo-ridden piles. Yet we in this avalanche of government spending and government interference with all our lives are just suffocating any ability to create the wealth we need to sustain the system.
When the President of the Treasury Board today stood up and read that well-massaged speech, he ruined a very valuable speech which I have spent time trying to prepare. He threw me completely off base which, I guess, was his plan. The President of the Treasury Board talked about more pilot projects. He talked about federal statistics and regulation and removing red tape as part of his program. He talked about a new working environment within the Government that will correct the productivity problems within it. I am not allowed to talk about productivity in the federal Government out loud, but obviously the President of the Treasury Board recognizes-he has to recognize because the Auditor General has been putting it on the public record for years now-that there are productivity problems, morale and attitudinal problems existing within the Public Service. Strictly management problems and failure have caused this condition.

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The President of the Treasury Board says we are getting top value for our tax dollars. That is rhetoric this House cannot stand. I have great respect for the ability of the President of the Treasury Board but I do not agree with his ideologies. I think we have reaped the benefit of his opportunity and policies in government. I have a great deal of trouble accepting what is valid in any statement the President of the Treasury Board makes. When I sat on the other side of the House, I listened to him every single day saying that he would resign if interest rates went above 14 per cent. Every single day he said that.


Mr. Mazankowski:: Another Liberal broken promise.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Yes, another Liberal broken promise. Then he stands here today, Mr. Speaker, and tell us that he is delivering top value for the tax dollar. I remember $34 million being given to Maislin, given to a friend of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), after the company was in a bankrupt condition. The President of the Treasury Board was the Minister responsible for delivering that bail-out. How, then, can you accept the validity of what is right in what the President of the Treasury Board says, Mr. Speaker, when he overruled the Enterprise Development Board when he was Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and delivered $9 million to a friend in his riding building a Hilton Hotel on an interest-free loan? Is this giving the people of Canada top value for their tax dollars? It is this kind of behavioural aberration that destroys the rhetoric that is delivered here. Are we getting top value for our tax dollars, Sir?
In the month of February alone I found a whole series of ads paid for by Canadians. They are for art, Summer Works Canada; and there are more, and more, and more of them. These ads cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. They are full page ads. One reads: "Good news from CMHC", a housing authority. We have a "fall rhapsody". This ad constitutes a full page in a magazine. This is top value for our Canadian dollar? We have ad after ad after ad. I have one for human resources. It is in colour. Isn't that marvelous? We are getting top value for our dollar? Our fish are dying in streams because the Department of Fisheries and Oceans does not have the few dollars needed to send out a crew of students or unemployed people to wash off the silt smothering the eggs. There is something wrong with the priorities here. This Government feeds our tax dollars out to a publishing industry full of advocacy nonsense. These ads include fish recipes. And we are getting top value for our dollar, Mr. Speaker?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. As Hon. Members know, displays are not allowed in the House.


Mr. Harquail:: That is shameful.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I really do not know how to interpret the Hon. Member's gestures, but I would simply make that comment and invite him to co-operate.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. When you are dealing with corruption, Sir, you use every conceivable device at your disposal.


Maurice James Harquail: That is provincial jurisdiction. Admit it.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. Hon. Members surely know the rules of debate. I invite them to respect them.


Mr. Thacker:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It has always amazed me that this is the only place in the country where telling the truth can get you sanctioned.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Chair was not commenting on the Hon. Member's speech in any way, shape or form. I simply suggest that in keeping with earlier rulings from the Chair there should not be displays in the House. I will not prevent the Hon. Member from demonstrating his ire. That is not for me to say or to do.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: I trust, Mr. Speaker, that this myriad of interventions will be added on to the time I have for my speech. Usually the Government gives me the courtesy of extended time.


An Hon. Member:: No way.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: No way?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I will resolve that matter immediately. The Chair will exercise its usual discretion.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: I am perfectly satisfied with that, Mr. Speaker, because I find you are very fair.
While we are talking about top value for our dollar, let us move on to Winnipeg. Only two Liberals have been elected west of the Lakehead. This Minister is able to deliver $780 million to his city. Every time this Government stands up with its perfect, beautiful, massaged, professionally-written speeches, it always talks about equity and fairness. I remember $1.3 million in the City of Winnipeg being spread around in advertisements and speeches by the Minister from Winnipeg. It was a make-work project for Canadians to go into the Max Bell Athletic Centre.
[DOT] (U50)
All of this rhetoric, and what do they do? We have in Canada one of the finest, most renowned experts in the world on the design and building of track and athletic facilities. He has even had design awards from Italy, the mother base of design talent. This man, who lives in my riding, is in desperate need of work. He has a small staff he is trying to keep employed. This Minister with the $780 million, delivering $1.3 million in make-work projects supposedly for Canadians, hires an American as the consultant to work on the design of this track facility in Winnipeg. Why does he hire an American when Canadian designers need that work in Canada? Canadian designers gave of their talent before the Government came through with the money. This is what is going on. In his speech, the Minister talked about top value for the tax dollar.
March 8, 1984

Let me move on. I can handle the statistics; I have loads of them. I sit in this House and I really weep for the audience or anybody who has the tolerance to watch what goes on here. I have here a book that I think Members on all sides of the House should read. The way we use statements and statistics in this House, we are con artists. Members on the Government side of the House are not going to hear a darn thing I have to say. They have a fixation, a blind and an iron wall in terms of trying to get anything through their thick skulls. All you have to do is look at the performance of the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Bussieres) in this House. He cannot understand that the people of this country are terrified with one of the greatest threats there is to freedom. That is the misused arbitrary powers of the public servant over the people. That is what has happened in this country.
Today the President of the Treasury Board stood up in this House and said that he would eliminate red tape, that we are getting equity and fairness, that we are getting top value for our dollar, that there is a new price guideline of 4 per cent. They have really moved to 4 per cent with their opening up of collective bargaining. All of this rhetoric is disgusting.
We on this side use statistics to support our point of view. Following my speech, somebody on the other side will quote a bunch of statistics to disprove what I have said. I have here a marvellous book which I recommend for reading entitled "How to Lie with Statistics", by Darrel Huff. When you read that book, you wonder whether we should use statistics or whether we should behave the way we do in this House. We use figures and research to support a particular point of view. No wonder this House disintegrates in the eyes of the Canadian people, 65 per cent of whom feel it is no longer relevant. We ask a legitimate question of the President of the Treasury Board and we get a garbage political answer. This House is designed for accountability and protection of the taxpayer.
We have with us today in the Chamber the President of the Treasury Board. He is responsible for overseeing the management of the Government and that there is some degree of uniformity. A committee of this House has worked for over 20 months trying to assist the President of the Treasury Board, the Comptroller General and Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board to see how we can make this place more meaningful, how we can pull the Government, no matter who is in power, down to account and how the taxpayer of Canada can be protected.
We presented ten reports and the Government rejected nine. In one of those reports we tried to improve the muscle, mind and ability of the average commoner in terms of representing the taxpayer and how to get a handle on this runaway spending. The report attempts to show how we can assist the President of the Treasury Board with one of his four principles, and how we can assist with getting a new attitude out to the managers within the system whereby managers can manage and be held to account for performance of their ability and the delivery of a defined objective.
We are masters at massaging and playing with words. We are masters at playing with people's minds. When he tabled his
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estimates the other day, I challenged the President of the Treasury Board to refute that this Government, including its Crown corporations, is spending less than $1 billion in advocacy advertising, playing on the minds of the Canadian people and providing a power of suasion over the whole publication industry.
We talk about freedom of the press. They have to answer to publishers responsible for balance sheets. Somebody scattered a lot of mess around here, namely the advertising which this Government put out in the month of February. All of this money is being pumped into the so-called free press. If you were managing a magazine or a newspaper and you got too aggressive in attacking and defending an essential element of freedom and had to go back and look at an advertising account from the federal Government that was being threatened, Mr. Speaker, you would think twice about where that article or that issue was placed. We are dealing with one of the most powerful things of all, impressions on minds. The Liberals are masters of that science. Never since Goebbels in Nazi Germany in the middle of the thirties have I seen anything so frightening as today's use of advertising and advocacy power.
The Minister talks about the people of Canada getting top value for their tax dollars. He should retract that comment because he is misleading Canadians. The anger within the people is serious. I am going to challenge The Globe and Mail on this issue. If you look at the top of every day's editorial page in The Globe and Mail, you will find their motto. It is a quotation from Junius. It talks about the Chief Magistrate and the need to protect the people and Chief Magistrate from the arbitrary powers of government. Look at the symbolism of the Minister of National Revenue today. They do not even understand why the people of this country are so frightened with a bureaucracy that is out of control in terms of arbitrary powers of government over the lives of the rank and file in Canada. They are basically honest, simple people trying to deal with a tax Act and a government regime that is so complicated that nobody can understand it.
This country is in deep trouble because of government spending and government waste. There will be no industrial recovery until the interest rates of the day can come down at least two percentage points. In Britain, the Government cut five billion pounds from its deficit. As soon as that five billion pounds was cut from the deficit in 1981, interest rates came down two full percentage points. The British pound sterling floated on its own on international money markets. Until we do that here in Canada, there will be no meaningful recovery and there will be no lasting help for the one and a half million people who are unemployed.
Government spending is at the heart of this situation. Interest rates will not come down and people will not get back to work in the country until we bite the bullet. I can tell the people of Canada that the people on the other side do not have the guts to bite that bullet.

March 8, 1984
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Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, when asking this question, I would like to assure my hon. friend that I did not know what he was going to say in his remarks. If I threw him off the rails, as it appears I did from some of the things he said, I apologize for it. It was not intentional.
I would like to know from my hon. friend if I can take it from what he said about federal Government projects in Winnipeg that he and his Party oppose those projects and are saying to the people of Winnipeg, a city which, as I recall, contains more than half the population of the province, that if they had formed the government, they would not have started those projects there. If that is the case, I think that should be on the record.
As well, I would like to ask my hon. friend if he realizes that he made some very erroneous statements about the Hilton Hotel project in Windsor. The federal support through ILAP of not $9 million but $6 million was in the form of a repayable loan and was approved and not rejected by the enterprise development program. Does he not realize that that same project received substantial financial support of over $1 million from the Ontario Conservative Government? That Government was so pleased with that project that not only did it provide support but it sent a member of the legislature who belonged to that Party to the opening ceremonies a few weeks ago in order to take credit for its contribution to the support of that project. Can I take it that the Hon. Member's Party is saying to the people of Windsor that it does not think that that project should have taken place there?
Finally, I would like to ask my hon. friend why, if he says that government spending is the main problem, his Leader is calling for more money to be spent on defence, amounts that would be in the billions? Why is his Party calling for more spending to deal with the alleged under-funding of hospitals? Why is his Party calling for more spending to deal with what his Party describes as the need for more funds for research and development? These objectives are all worthy ones but require substantial amounts of money. My hon. friend, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I regret to interrupt the Hon. Minister-


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: May I finish my sentence, Mr. Speaker?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The Minister has put a question, made a comment and put other questions. In the previous round of questions and comments, Hon. members must have noticed that we only managed to hear from two Hon. Members. The Permanent and Provisional Standing Orders require that questions, comments and responses be brief and to the point. I must ask Hon. Members to abide by the rules. I will now recognize the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington).


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly apologize to the President of the Treasury Board, who is the former Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, for saying that $9 million went to the hotel project in Windsor. I know that that figure should have been $6 million. I deliberately said $9
million because I thought that might at least get him on his feet. This is the first time he has been on his feet regarding that issue since it was raised in the House of Commons.
The fact is that it is the type of spending that I am questioning. I am sure that I could look at the files in my office and find out that the application for that hotel was originally rejected by the Enterprise Development Board and that a ministerial imposition brought it back and put it through the system. Is spending on low interest rate loans or forgiveable loans the right way to spend money, particularly when it is spent in the Minister's riding? Does the Hilton Hotel need that kind of aid or should that aid go to permanent projects?
The Minister might reply by saying that he opened the dockyard in my riding which the Liberals had talked about since 1974 and which I began when I was a Minister. In six months of governing, we go that dockyard started. That is a project that is creating work on a permanent basis for the shipyard industry in that terminal port of Canada.
It is the classification of spending and the use to which we put the tax dollar that is so important. Spending money on advertising and on interest-free loans to hotels which apparently cannot stand on their own feet is not the type of spending and aid that we need. It is a classic example of the political abuse of the system and of the protections that are built into the system.


Mr. Riis:: Mr. Speaker, when the Hon. Member just spoke about his use of the $9 million and $6 million figures, I could not help but be reminded of his comments regarding Mr. Huffs book, How to Lie with Statistics. However, I will not pursue that.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Yes, pursue it. I used it on purpose.


Nelson Andrew Riis: In other words, he manipulated the discussion by misleading us with statistics.
I listened very carefully to the Hon. Member's presentation and I know that he is serious when making his various allegations. I believe he believes in what he is saying. I would like to ask the Hon. Member to do me a favour by being precise when he refers to the need to reduce the benefit. The Hon. Member used Mrs. Thatcher and how she was able to reduce spending in that government as an example, of reducing the deficit. Perhaps the Hon. Member could provide us with two or three specific examples of areas of government spending in which he feels cuts should be made or spending reduced in some form or another. I do not think it is unrealistic to ask that. I know that when the Hon. Member was a member of government, he was concerned about ways to cut back. I would ask him to be as precise as possible when describing the areas in which cutbacks could occur.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I would go back and re-examine on a zero budgeting base all of the existing programs that we have had in place from day one that have experienced nothing but inflationary incremental increases. I
March 8, 1984

would force the managers in the system to go back and justify the nature of those original programs in terms of the objectives they were designed to serve and see how relevant they are today. I would turn the programs back to the managers and redefine in narrow terms the objectives of those programs. I would tell the managers to manage to these objectives and to manage efficiently.
In the area of discretionary spending, Sir, we are dealing with 15 per cent of total government spending. We cannot correct the whole ball of wax when dealing with 15 per cent of government spending. I would like to call for a debate in the House without the television cameras and without Hansard which would be an in camera session. We could then talk out the problem with transfer payments to the provinces, the use the federal Government makes of those transfer payments, the use the provincial governments make of those transfer payments and the wasteful competition that goes on between those two political levels in terms of the same taxpayers' dollar. I can tell you that within the first year we could find $5 billion if we really had the guts and the political courage to do so.
I am trying to be as concise as I can, Mr. Speaker. We could simply look at the Auditor General's report to see that there are hotel operations in New Brunswick which are simply scandalous. People should be in jail over those operations. What about Deputy Ministers of Departments who are responsible for Consolidated Computer or for Canadair? At least $1.4 billion is wasted there. Those Deputy Ministers should not be around any more or should be brought before a parliamentary committee and examined in order to see if they need to be disciplined. There is no discipline or managerial control in the system. There is nothing in the system that delivers top value for the Canadian dollar. The whole system needs to be reorganized.


Mr. Ferguson:: Mr. Speaker, I am amazed by the comments made by the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington) regarding the-


Mr. Blais:: But you are not surprised.


Ralph Ferguson: I am not surprised at the comments made about the silting of the salmon spawning streams in British Columbia. Just two weeks ago, a fisherman came into my office expressing this same concern and he was not aware of the Environment 2000 program which was established by the Government of Canada to assist communities and municipalities in cleaning up the environment and making the necessary corrections. This program is designed to clean up streams and to plant more trees, which is actually within provincial jurisdiction but the provinces are not doing anything about it. In order to get this information to Canadians-


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Have you read the Fisheries Act? The fisheries is a federal responsibility.


Ralph Ferguson: And forestry is a provincial responsibility. It is because of the depletion of our forests that this has happened. Consequently, is it not logical that the Government of
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Canada should pay for advertising to make these programs known to Canadians? These programs are connected to the environment, and without our forests, the spawning grounds will not be viable and the fisheries cannot continue.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I regret to interrupt but the question period is finished.


Some Hon. Members:: Continue.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. Please hear the Chair out. I am bound by the Standing Orders which state very clearly that there will be a period of not more than 10 minutes for questions and comments. If the House wishes to allow the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington) to respond, I am in the hands of the House. Is it agreed?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I regret it is not agreed.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: He asks a question and then won't let the Member answer.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. May I draw to your attention and to the attention of the House that unanimous consent was denied by the person who asked that scurrilous, misleading, improper question.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. Debate. The Hon. Member for Welland (Mr. Parent).


Mr. Gilbert Parent (Welland):: Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to this debate for two or three days. I have come to a couple of conclusions regarding the speech of the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington). First of all, there is no question that he believes in his heart all the things that he said. There is no question that he feels very irate and frustrated. I can well understand that when he delivers a speech like that in the House he is going to become quite emotional. I propose to address a couple of points made by the Hon. Member and others and I will try to bring some rationality to the debate so that we can get away from the emotional side of it.
The opposition Parties have focused on a few major points in connection with Bill C-21, claiming that the contingency amount is irresponsible. I want to talk about responsibility, Mr. Speaker. Quite contrary to indicating that the Government is acting in an irresponsible way, the request for a contingency amount indicates, in my judgment, realistic and responsible planning on the part of the Government. The contingency amount has traditionally been included in the request for borrowing authority. In earlier years when new borrowing authority was sought by way of appropriation Bills, a contingency amount was always included. In recent times,

March 8, 1984
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when the borrowing authority has been sought by way of special Bills an implied or implicit non-lapsing amount has also been included.
The contingency amount is designed mainly to cover two important situations: first, the need to cover the impact of large and unpredictable foreign exchange operations on the financial requirements; and second, to ensure that the Government will be able to continue its regular debt program if the House is not in session or has been dissolved.
In essence, the contingency amount is designed to avoid any disruption in the borrowing program which might lead to unnecessary disruptions in the exchange or capital markets which, in turn, might lead to upward pressure on interest rates. Hon. Members have had a great deal to say about interest rates recently, but I defy anyone in the House to come forward now or at any time and say that they are in favour of higher interest rates. All we have been hearing are speeches to the effect that interest rates must be kept down. We are moving in that direction, Mr. Speaker, and this is one of the things we are bringing up.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Are you, now?


Gilbert Parent: Now we have the lightweight from the other side chipping in. He is also lightheaded, trying to interrupt. He will get his turn.
These developments could very well lead to higher debt charges for the taxpayer. That is who is going to be carrying the load. These developments could also lead to higher borrowing costs for individuals and businesses. Hon. Members opposite are supposed to be concerned with businesses. In this Party we are concerned with businesses but we are also concerned with individuals.
By requesting a contingency amount, in my judgment the Government is attempting to ensure that it will always be in the best position to take action that will avoid disruptions to the debt program that could have adverse effects on interest rates and on debt costs. These are two reasons that we should examine, Mr. Speaker.
With regard to accountability, the Government will account for all borrowing undertaken in a fiscal year. It will not borrow more than is necessary. It does not have to use up all the borrowing authority granted by Parliament. That is common sense.
Cause 3 of Bill C-21 provides for the cancellation of all unused borrowing authority carried forward from previous fiscal years. Could anything be more accountable than that? We want to have enough money to operate, to protect the Canadian taxpayer. We want to have enough money so that interest rates will not jump as they did in years gone by when they were 21 per cent and 22 per cent. Yet the opposition Parties are opposed to the very thing that we are trying to put in place.
Thus, with the passage of Bill C-21 the only contingency amount would be the $4 billion we are discussing. It would be our intention that once new borrowing authority is obtained
for the next fiscal year, any remaining unused portion of this contingency would also be cancelled. That is on the record. We believe that the Government should proceed in this way on a regular basis. We envisage an on-going process which provides a non-lapsing contingency amount once a year which would give the Government some flexibility but at the same time would be unavailable to be carried forward beyond the coming into force of new authority, thereby preserving Parliament's ultimate authority.
When Hon. Members opposite speak about Parliament's authority, they seem to believe that if they do not agree with something, Parliament as a whole should not agree. With all due respect, I suggest that we were all elected and when the majority of Members of Parliament speak, then that is the will of the Canadian people. Hon. Members opposite, by themselves, do not speak for the Canadian people; all of us make the decisions. When they say that if they do not agree with what we are doing, then Parliament does not agree, I object to that. Parliament belongs to the people of Canada who put us here to make decisions on their behalf.
Hon. Members opposite speak of the lack of control over expenditures. I have heard the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) say that the contingency is really a porkbarrel for the Government. I want to put something to him and to the House, Mr. Speaker.
I happen to come from a riding that had a chance to get some money in order to create jobs. The amount was $700,000. This is public information and everyone should know about it. Was that porkbarrelling? I invite any Member to ask the 115 young people who got jobs because the Niagara South Board of Education used this program to give them jobs in the schools about that. The program was started some four months ago and since then 15 per cent of the people who were hired have found permanent work. That is because we were able to give them jobs and they got some experience. I defy any Hon. Member to ask any of those 115 young people who got a start in life, if that was porkbarrelling. In my riding we went after this money and I am proud of it. I would do it again. I would do anything I could to help young people and those in my riding who are unemployed. That is why I was elected-to represent them.
Government expenditures are controlled by Parliament; that goes without saying. The contingency does not permit spending beyond what has been approved by Parliament or has been given on-going authority by Acts of Parliament. The House has just completed debate on the Budget and the Main Estimates were provided to the House a few days ago. The recent Budget does not represent any shift in the fiscal policy stance developed in the April, 1983 Budget. The House has had ample time to review and debate the Government's fiscal stance and expenditure program. In my view the contingency amount provides the Government with flexibility in its financial operation and helps avoid unnecessary disruptions in the borrowing program which could have an adverse effect on interest rates and debt costs.
March 8, 1984

There are other questions that I want to address, Mr. Speaker. I have done a great deal of thinking about the federal deficit and no doubt most Members of the House have as well. We have all asked ourselves why the federal deficit is so high. Surely, this is a bad thing for the country. The federal deficit, Mr. Speaker, is projected to be approximately $27 billion this year, measured on a national accounts basis. The amount of $27 billion must boggle the mind. I do not believe any of us in private life would ever deal with such massive sums. They frighten me.
However, I am here and you, my colleagues, are here to make decisions in terms of these amounts of money because these are the terms we deal with on a national basis. This amount of $27 billion would be a rise of some $20 billion from its level in 1981. Again, Mr. Speaker, $20 billion is a staggering amount. The effects of recession on government revenues and expenditures, particularly with respect to unemployment insurance, account for about half of the rise in the deficit since 1981. We are taking care of those people who, through no fault of their own, find themselves out of work. We and the rest of the people in society have joined together to try to tide our co-citizens over through the tough times.
A substantial portion of the remaining rise in the deficit is due to the increasing public debt charges. Only a relatively small portion of the expected increase in the deficit is due to explicit policy initiatives of the Government. The Hon. Member for Capilano said as much, and agreed to as much in his speech. He said there was only about 15 per cent with which we really have to work. That is true, Mr. Speaker, and 1 would ask all Hon. Members to reflect on that point.
The Government has accepted the rise in the deficit in order to provide important support for economic activity. I believe that a continuation of the recovery will result in a narrowing of the deficit. I believe that. Rising employment will mean less money will be required for unemployment insurance benefits and personal income tax revenue will go higher. Corporation income taxes and revenue from sales taxes will also increase.
One can say I am just an optimist. I do not want to see the bad side of things. However, I tell you, Mr. Speaker, that a country without hope is a country without a future. We must continue to hope and to build and this is the way we are doing it as we go through these tough times. In addition, scheduled increases in tax rates in part implemented in order to finance the stimulative measures announced in the April Budget will reduce the deficit further. This, I believe, Mr. Speaker.
Does the high federal deficit not reflect the Government's inability to control its spending? Surely, these are questions we have all asked ourselves. Is spending really out of control? Is it not the responsibility, not only of Hon. Members of the Opposition, but also of Hon. Members of the current Government, to ask themselves those questions? Should we not be putting forth at least our own opinions which we can share with one another?
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Again, Mr. Speaker, at the risk of being accused of using statistics "any way you want", I will use a few statistics to put this particular point into perspective. Since 1975, Mr. Speaker, the federal Government has been committed to restraining the trend growth in spending to no more than the trend growth of the Gross National Product. This commitment does not mean that the growth of expenditures must equal the growth of the Gross National Product every year. During a cyclical downturn, expenditures would generally be expected to grow faster than the Gross National Product, as is the case right now, since a deterioration in economic conditions would put upward pressure on expenditures and the Gross National Product growth would, of course, be slower. Similarly, the ratio of expenditures to Gross National Product would be expected to decline during the recovery phase of the cycle. The Government, in my view, has been successful in this sense; it has been successful in meeting the expenditure targets. In the 1975-76 fiscal year, total outlays, which are the expenditure control variable, were 22.9 per cent of the Gross National Product. By 1980-1981, they had fallen to 19.1 per cent of the Gross National Product.
Slow growth in the Gross National Product, the associated upward pressure on spending from low activity levels, rising public debt charges and limited discretionary measures, resulted in total outlays rising to an estimated 23.3 per cent of Gross National Product in the current fiscal year. And, yes, to the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) I do admit this is an increase. However, I think that on balance if he would look at the situation which we have been going through, he will find that this follows logically and naturally in the tough times we have faced. I would invite the Hon. Member to question me on any one of these points so that at least he would know what my views are. If the trend, rather than actual Gross National Product, were used in the calculation, the total outlays to Gross National Product ratio would fall to 21.6 per cent, and that is significantly below the ratio in 1975-1976. I will leave the statistics now, Mr. Speaker, because all of us will become embroiled in them.
I would like to direct myself now to specific questions which were brought up, one of which caused me to do quite a bit of thinking and to make inquiries. It was the simple question: Are deficits inflationary? Developments since 1981 demonstrate, in my view, that there is no clear connection between deficits and inflation. Indeed, the recent rise in the federal deficit was accompanied by a decline in inflation. However, there are circumstances, and I admit them, in which deficits could be inflationary. For example, if the Government decided to finance too large a portion of the deficit by printing money-


Donald Alex Blenkarn: By monetizing money.


Gilbert Parent: -by printing money, inflationary pressures could eventually build up. I admit to that. We both agree to that.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: You are right.

March 8, 1984
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Gilbert Parent: There is no question. This has not been the case in Canada-


Donald Alex Blenkarn: It has in the past. It has not been in recent years.


Gilbert Parent: Federal deficits have not been financed through excessive money creation. The Hon. Member for Mississauga South can give us his views on it, but I believe he agrees with my last statement. I would invite him, of course, into the debate as soon as I am finished. Do deficits not drive up interest rates and crowd out private borrowers from financial markets? Surely, this is a legitimate question which we all must look at, Mr. Speaker.
Again, recent developments demonstrate, in my opinion, that there is no clear connection between the deficit and interest rates. Interest rates are considerably below their prerecession peak despite a rise in the federal deficit. During a cyclical downturn, private demands for credit generally decline-indeed, this is in large part what caused the recession-so there need not be any conflict between private and public borrowing, in my opinion. As economic conditions improve-and they will and are improving-government borrowing requirements should automatically diminish when private credit demands are rising. If it becomes clear that the federal deficit is not falling fast enough, then I believe that the Government should stand ready to adjust its fiscal plan in order to prevent a clash of credit demand. I believe this is one of the things we should be doing.
The federal deficit in Canada is similar to its United States counterpart when expressed as a percentage of Gross National Product. Given the degree of concern expressed over the United States deficit, should Canada not also be concerned?
I want to close with some personal thoughts, Mr. Speaker. I started out by saying that we should not become too emotional, which I confess I am probably as guilty of as anyone else. However, I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, and to all Hon. Members in this House, that if we were to look at these problems as Canadians instead of as Parties in opposition to one another, if we could do as the Hon. Member for Capilano said and turn off the television cameras and get away from the so-called press galleries, if we could talk to each other in the spirit of sharing ideas, we could solve in a more equitable manner some of the problems facing us right now.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, I say to the Hon. Member that it is this Party's proposal that a parliamentary committee be struck to priorize the budgetary requirements of the country and keep the deficit down so borrowing will not be too great. That would mean looking at all expenditures from a zero base and determining what is necessary in view of the financial demands placed on the economy, and what is not necessary and perhaps could be eliminated. I suspect the Hon. Member would be in favour of that.
Early this morning Treasury bills were being sold at interest rates in excess of 10.7 per cent, and the debts are that the auction at two o'clock this afternoon will be in excess of 10.85 per cent. This means that trust companies and banks who finance homes and make loans to business will obviously have to pay more interest than the Government of Canada to compete in the marketplace.
In light of that, does the Hon. Member not agree with me that the borrowing demands of the Government are perhaps now crowding out private demands for money, and that the danger of a recession instigated by high interest rates is now upon us? May I remind him that this borrowing Bill represents 91 per cent of the estimated personal savings in this country and it is far greater than the country can really absorb. This Bill will have to be cut back and some priorizing of expenses will have to take place in order that we can cut back on our borrowing; otherwise we are going to borrow ourselves right back into another recession.


Gilbert Parent: There are three questions there, Mr. Speaker, and I will address myself to the first one concerning a committee being set up. It is my understanding that a committee such as that exists. I know it is not a special committee, but when we look at the estimates we have the right and responsibility to ask questions as to what these expenditures are.
Regarding the bills that are going to be auctioned today, it would seem, according to the information the Hon. Member has, and I have no reason to doubt it, that we are going to be auctioning these bills at 10.85 per cent, I believe he said. This is, in my view, a dramatic increase, but one thing I do question is that the Member says we have borrowed up to 91 per cent of the total savings of the Canadian people. I would have to verify that. The information I was able to get through my researchers is that it is not that high, that we were talking in the neighbourhood of 75 per cent to 80 per cent. That was the best estimate. But even that is high.
The Hon. Member asks if this borrowing will drive up interest rates. If that were the case, Mr. Speaker, we are trying to look ahead, at least in the field of home ownership. Hon. Members will be aware that in the last Budget we brought forward a proposal which would protect the home owner-and I believe everyone should have the right to own a home-from rising mortgage interest rates if they take out what we call mortgage insurance.
As far as the business community is concerned, I suggest that in the last year or so they have had the best borrowing rates they could possibly have had and we hope this trend will continue.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the Hon. Member that the Department of Finance estimates gross personal savings this year at $32.3 billion. This Bill is for $29.5 billion. While it is true borrowing last year reached 70 per cent to 80 per cent of available money, this Bill is the largest Bill ever before any Parliament and it represents 91 per cent of the personal savings in this country this year.
March 8, 1984

As to home owners, clearly this insurance does not protect and create houses. It protects people against huge rises in interest rates but that does not help the ordinary guy who is going into the market to buy a property because he has to pay the current rate. All he can do is protect himself against further increases, so that does not help a bit. As rates go higher, it drives people out of business and into bankruptcy.
However, one of the estimates we have before us now, Mr. Speaker, concerns advances to de Havilland and Canadair. In the last 15 months we will have advanced to those corporations a total of $1,250 billion. Those corporations together have 2,709 employees, which represents $173,600 for each job in the last 15 months. Does the Hon. Member think that is responsible? Does he really think that he as a Member of Parliament can justify going into the marketplace and bidding up interest rates at a time when the Canadian dollar is falling? How does he expect us to account to our children and grandchildren in order to justify this kind of activity?


Gilbert Parent: Mr. Speaker, the question the Hon. Member asks should be couched in other terms. Yes, we are dealing with economics, with money, no question about it. However, it was not very long ago that we in Canada had a massive brain drain where a great number of our engineers in the aerospace industry left the country. This is what we are talking about at Canadair and de Havilland. I know the Hon. Member was not part of the government at the time, he was not a Member of Parliament, but it was his Party which finished off the Avro Arrow. This place would have put us in the forefront of the aviation industry. It was 20 years ahead of its time. And so ashamed were we of that act, Mr. Speaker, that the government of the day saw fit to destroy all information that we ever had on the Arrow.
If you were to ask whether I believe that the aerospace industry in Canada is worth investing in and tiding over until times are better, my answer would be yes. If it means that at this juncture we must invest the amounts of money we are investing into these businesses to keep them going, to ensure that our children will have a chance in these industries and in all of the high technology jobs which spin off, my answer is that it is worth that type of investment for us as a nation.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, I would like to put the question of the deficit to the Hon. Member in a different way. In 1968, 5 per cent to 10 per cent of tax revenue went to service the debt. Since 1968 it has risen to 10, 15, 20, 25 and now over 30 per cent of tax revenue used to service the debt. That means it is going into the hands of people who already have wealth and we must tax the middle class to get that money.
Where would the Hon. Member cut it off? When it was 10 per cent we were saying it was high enough. When it was 20 per cent we were really angry. Now it is over 30 per cent and we are inflamed. If it was okay at 20 per cent and 30 per cent, why should it not be at 60 per cent or 70 per cent? Where would the Hon. Member cut if off?
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Gilbert Parent: Mr. Speaker, on the face of it that would seem to be a very reasonable question. I wish I had an answer but I do not. The only answer I could give would seem evasive. I guess it is whatever the Canadian people can bear, whatever they can do to carry this debt. If I were to say I do not believe it is high at 30 per cent, I would not be telling the truth.
There are other nations, including Japan and Germany, where more of the money taken in is used to pay their debt than we are paying now. They seem to be surviving. Also, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. 1 regret to interrupt the Hon. Member but the question period has terminated.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate this morning by the Progressive Conservative Party and the Liberal Party. In a moment or two I would like to make some observations about the points being made by Hon. Members.
I cannot help but ask a rather fundamental question, Mr. Speaker. Imagine the scenario of a small business person or other individual walking into a banker's office to take out a loan. The individual wants to take out a $29,500 loan. The banker asks what the money will be spent on and how seriously the matter has been thought out. The individual says how he will spend $25,500 because he has been spending that amount year after year and just wants to top up what he has always been spending. He has not given it a fair evaluation. The banker asks what the other $4,000 will be spent on. The individual indicates that he just threw that in case he might need it for something in the future and he will be checking it out.
If you were a banker, Mr. Speaker, would you consider allotting that extra $4,000 when the individual has no idea how he is going to spend it, only that he may have some use for it in the future? During very tight financial times I do not think anyone as a banker would throw that in with enthusiasm.


Jean-Jacques Blais: You do not understand very much, do you Nelson?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Bill C-21 asks us to do this as responsible parliamentarians. It requests authorization to borrow $29,550 billion. This includes a $4 billion contingency fund for things which may come up in the future. This is the largest borrowing Bill in Canadian history, Mr. Speaker. It is only a thin page but it will lock the country into an incredible amount of spending. I will come back to that in a moment.


Jean-Jacques Blais: Nelson, it is an authority. It is to authorize the spending.


Nelson Andrew Riis: That is right. The Minister of National Defence (Mr. Blais) says it is to authorize the borrowing and spending of this money as required. That is what it is.


Jean-Jacques Blais: It does not lock anybody into anything.

March 8, 1984
Borrowing Authority Act


Nelson Andrew Riis: Why do we have governments, Mr. Speaker? I suspect a lot of people in the country have been looking at individuals and reading the accounts of various Ministers as they travel across the country, and are asking themselves why we have these people and whether they are acting in our best interests. What is the point of having a government? I believe there are three reasons we have governments. They are not particularly earth-shattering, but one is to collect taxes fairly from people. That is a fundamental objective of governments throughout time.
One could argue whether taxes are being collected fairly. Over the last number of weeks we have heard many accounts which make it perfectly clear that taxes are not being collected fairly. There is ample evidence to suggest that is the case. I am certain I would not have to read long lists of names, but I could if necessary, Mr. Speaker. For the next three hours I could read lists of corporations in the country which did quite well last year, partly because of the concessions in corporate taxation. Their profits in some cases were hundreds or thousands of millions of dollars. Yet they do not pay any income tax at all. A lot of businesses today do not pay any income tax because they are not making any profits. More and more businesses are coming into that category. However, I am speaking of those corporations which make millions and millions of dollars in profit and pay no income tax at all.
It is obvious that the Government is not collecting taxes fairly in the country. We can list thousands of individual Canadians-


Jean-Jacques Blais: That is demagogy. You know that.


Nelson Andrew Riis: The Minister of Defence shakes his head and says that is not true. He can stand in his place and explain why thousands of Canadian citizens, whose incomes-


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Name me a company that has taxable income and does not pay tax.


Nelson Andrew Riis: -are $50,000, $100,000, or $1 million a year, pay absolutely no income tax.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Because they do not make any income.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. May we have one debate at a time please? The Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) has the floor.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Why is it whenever I raise the matter of individuals not paying income tax, or corporations making profits and not paying income tax, that people try to interrupt this portion of my speech? It is because I touch a nerve in people over there? Is it because I suggest to people, wherever they sit, that this is an uncomfortable topic to a lot of people?


Donald Alex Blenkarn: We thought you were brighter than that.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Another reason we have governments, Mr. Speaker, is to spend wisely, in the best interests of the people of the country, the money that has been collected. When we see how
these moneys are being spent it is perfectly clear they are not being spent in the best interests of Canadian citizens.
I will use one simple example to illustrate this. We have oil companies which call themselves Canadian oil companies but which are really Canadian subsidiaries of the transnational oil companies. They say they are hesitant to explore for oil in the frontier areas unless we bribe them into doing that. I do not believe they would use the term "bribe", but I use it consciously. Therefore, the Government bribes the transnational oil companies, through their Canadian subsidiaries, to explore in the Beaufort Sea, the Hibernia fields and so on.
How much do we bribe these people, Mr. Speaker? When one considers the great expense of drilling some of those oil wells, perhaps $200 million, the taxpayers of Canada pay about $180 million out of that $200 million through PIP grants. There is not one oil producing country in the world that would even think of doing that. There is not one oil producing country that welcomes transnational oil companies to come in and explore their frontier areas on that basis. Those countries give absolutely no grants or bribes to the oil companies yet they are still exploring there.


Jean-Jacques Blais: You don't know what you are talking about.


Nelson Andrew Riis: The Minister of National Defence says that I do not know what I am talking about. Let us talk about Norway which is also conducting offshore oil exploration. Does the country of Norway bribe those companies with taxpayers' money? No, it does not. It does not use the taxpayers' money to pay for 80 per cent or 90 per cent of those exploration costs. I am just suggesting that if there is a fundamental purpose of government, it is to spend taxpayers' money wisely. The Government is not doing that.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Chair is attempting to follow the Hon. Member's speech but the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Blais) continues to shell the Hon. Member. He uses crossfire. That is not permissible according to Standing Order 15, I remind the Hon. Minister.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Thank you for your intervention, Mr. Speaker. I would not call the Minister rude at all because I think that what I am saying is embarrassing to the Minister. The Minister knows that what I am saying is perfectly accurate but he finds it embarrassing since some of his constituents may be watching television and thinking that perhaps they should pay the Hon. Member a visit to his office to have him explain why so many people with sizeable incomes do not pay income tax and how the Government justifies that. However, I will leave that aside since I do not want to stray from my remarks.
The Government has another role besides that of collecting taxes fairly and spending taxpayers' money wisely. One of its very important roles is to provide leadership and the opportunity for Canadians to expand and take advantage of the natural and capital resources of our country.
March 8, 1984

I am sure most of my colleagues used the opportunity of the last week or ten days to visit their constituencies. I made a point of talking to some of my constituents. If there is one sad occurrence in our country today, it is that the Government has not provided any optimism, sense of hope or any vision for people to see a future in our country that is creative or innovative.
I talked to representatives of the disabled community. There are 1.5 million Canadians who are disabled and the unemployment rate in that group is approximately 80 per cent to 85 per cent. What is the Government of Canada doing for these individuals? Is it giving them some hope that they will be employed in the future? Is it introducing an affirmative action program so that when corporations receive sizeable tax concessions or grants they cannot merely contemplate hiring disabled people but must hire disabled Canadians who are able to work in their plants, offices or factories? Does the Government have that kind of sensible, decent or compassionate approach? No, it does not.
It is evident from talking to the young people of our country that well in excess of 500,000 of them are unemployed. At this time in their lives they should be in the job market or going to post-secondary educational institutions to develop their careers and occupations. They should be beginning their families, buying homes and establishing themselves as productive, creative citizens. However, to do this one must be able to work or be able to afford to continue one's education. When there are
500,000	people under the age of 25 who want to work but cannot find a job in a country as rich as Canada, you would expect the Government to do something about it other than come up with some simplistic make-work program that will assist less than 2 per cent of those already unemployed. There will be hundreds of thousands of young Canadians leaving secondary schools in the next few months. What are their expectations when they enter the job market?
I remember that not too many years ago when I and my colleagues left our secondary schools, colleges, vocational schools or universities, there were up to 15 job opportunities for every graduate, which allowed us to choose our jobs. We were able to decide where we wanted to work, what type of job we wanted and to what extent. Today, the situation has reversed and for every single job there might be 15 young people applying for it. It is a terrible situation. It is a terrible deed we are doing not only to the young people of our country but to the future of our country.
Today is International Women's Day. It is a day when we reflect for a moment on how unfairly women are treated in our society, in the workplaces of Canada, in the Canadian tax system and in the fiscal policies of this country. I think it is perfectly clear that any sensible person would believe that major changes are required in our country to enable women to play their rightful role in our society. But is the Government taking any bold steps in this direction at this time? Is any leadership being provided in this particular area? No. Again, there is that sense of despondency and hopelessness along with the belief that the Government does not care about women,
Borrowing Authority Act
young people or the disabled of Canada. That feeling exists because people look for a hint that this is not so but cannot find it.
When I toured my constituency I talked to the small business people in my area. At a time when the Government has allowed interest rates to remain at these excessively high levels, small businesses can see that the tax concessions are going to the corporations so that they can pay an effective tax rate that is less than that paid by the small business community. They see numerous tax policies that are aimed strictly at the corporate level but not at the small or medium-sized businesses of this country. The number of foreclosures and receiverships has risen. People are being forced to close their doors and walk away from any optimism about the next decade in this country? No, they do not. Again, it is a reflection of the financial leadership of the Government.
We can talk about the food producers of our country, such as the farmers, ranchers and the fishermen from the interior and both coasts. Are they optimistic about being able to maintain their ranches, farms and fishing boats? Will they be producing food for Canadians in the future? There is no feeling that there is an opportunity for growth and development. The opportunities for young people to become farmers and fishermen are not there. The present level of interest rates will not permit a successful economic recovery to allow young people to get into food producing operations. But does the Government do anything about it? No, it does not.
Today the native people of Canada are meeting to discuss their future. One of the most pathetic experiences for parliamentarians is to visit Indian reservations in our ridings. When we see how Indian people are treated in this country, we enter the fourth world, with areas of extreme poverty and hopelessness. There is 90 per cent unemployment. That is the situation in many of the Indian reservations in our country.
We lack leadership. We lack a responsible system of tax collection. Our taxes are not collected fairly and not expended wisely. There is not much good one can say about the present Liberal Government of Canada.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. It being one o'clock I do now leave the chair until two o'clock p.m.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

[Stage Direction]
March 8, 1984

Mr. Jack Masters (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, International Women's Day has been celebrated by women of all nations for more than 70 years. When International Women's Day was first celebrated in 1911, Canadian women in most provinces were still struggling for suffrage, and were not even considered persons in the eyes of the law.
Traditionally on this day Members of this House have taken time to acknowledge the legislative milestones that have been passed on the road to full equality and to remind us that there is still a way to go. We have learned that legislative action, while essential, does not automatically result in changes in ways of thinking.
I would like to focus on the initiatives presently under way in Canada as we look forward to the 1985 World Conference marking the end of the United Nations Decade for Women. As we celebrate International Women's Day, the U. N. Commission for the Status of Women is meeting in Vienna as the preparatory body for the 1985 World Conference to review and appraise the achievements of the U. N. Decade for Women.
My colleague, the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, has just returned from these meetings, and has committed this country to the development of a new Canadian plan of action for the Status of Women. This plan, to be tabled at the 1985 World Conference, will cover two very essential periods of history.
I cannot over emphasize our ongoing commitment to the achievement of equality. The work that was started must continue. We view the participation of women in the public life of our country as essential. We join today with women from all countries-


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



Hon. Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, today is International Women's Day. It may seem somewhat anachronistic that in this so-called age of equality we still have to designate a day to focus attention on the struggle for equal rights for women.
This day commemorates the events of March 8, 1908, when a fire in a New York garment factory caused the tragic deaths of female workers whose employers locked the doors during working hours. These women died because they were trapped.
Our society has come a long way since that time, but many women are still trapped by the economic and social realities of today. For instance, older women, trapped in poverty, because of inadequate or non-existent pensions; low income women, trapped in job ghettoes with little or no hope of advancement, and single parent mothers, trapped in a daily struggle for survival because maintenance payments are not forthcoming for them and their children. Indian women have lost their status, trapped by discrimination and inequities not of their own making.
As long as these conditions persist there will be a need to call attention to the injustices still facing women. It is important to do so on March 8, International Women's day, but it is equally important to do so every other day of the year.

[ Translation]



Mr. Michel Veillette (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, International Women's Day has been celebrated in all countries for more than seventy years. In fact, when the first International Women's Day was held in 1911, in most of our provinces Canadian women were still fighting for the right to vote and were not even considered to be persons in the eyes of the law. Traditionally, on March 8, Hon. Members take a few moments to consider what had to be done over the years to obtain full equality, and to reflect on what remains to be done. Mr. Speaker, we know from experience that, although essential, legislation alone does not necessarily bring about a change in thinking. Attitudes and behaviour solidly anchored in a society will change only under constant and increasing pressure.
Today, however, I would prefer to forget the past and draw the attention of the Hon. Members to current activities in Canada in preparation for the World Conference that will mark the end of the United Nations Decade for Women in 1985. On International Women's Day, the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women is meeting in Vienna, as the agency responsible for preparing the World Conference in 1985 that will review and evaluate the results of the United Nations Decade for Women.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the Parliamentary Secretary. The Hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Domm).

March 8, 1984


CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Mr. Speaker, in Canada we have recently witnessed an unprecedented wave of violence resulting in unwarranted acts of brutality and, in my cases, death. The list of most recent victims is ample proof of the rise of violent crime in our country.
Barbara Turnbull, 18 years old, of Mississauga, Ontario, a Becker's store clerk who was shot during the course of a robbery on September 23, 1983, remains paralyzed; Nizam Ali, 18 years old, of Mississauga, Ontario, stabbed to death last Saturday while he worked the overnight shift; Nepean Police Constable, David Utman, shot to death at Bayshore Shopping Centre in Nepean, Ontario, on October 14, 1983.
Paul Chapman was fatally stabbed on the night of June 22, 1983, after being strapped into a chair while the two men accused of the crime sexually molested his girlfriend.
The increase of rampant crime is clearly evident and demands the immediate attention of all Members of Parliament. Consequently, on behalf of the 87 per cent of my constituents who favour capital punishment for premeditated first degree murder, I intend to use today's allotted hour for Private Member's Business to debate Bill C-213, which seeks to reinstate capital punishment for all cases of first degree murder.

[ Translation]



INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY


Mr. Terry Sargeant (Selkirk-Interlake):: Mr. Speaker, in conjunction with International Women's Day, I would like to speak for just a minute about the situation of women in sports in Canada. For too long women have been the victims of stereotyping and sexism when it comes to athletic participation. They have been discouraged from participating actively in sports when they approach puberty since vigorous activity is seen by many in our society as unfeminine. It is time this stereotyping stopped, and I hope our educators are leading the way by encouraging girls' activity in the same way they encourage boys'.
There are other problems, too, Mr. Speaker. If a young woman wants to participate in any level in sports, she must compete, first, for time and space in which to train, since access to facilities, particularly for organized sports, is a battleground between men and women. And it is men's sports which seem to take precedence when sports administrators dole out time at gyms, pools, and fields.
Women athletes are not the only ones who suffer discrimination in the sporting world. Women who wish to be coaches, who aspire to the boards of sports organizations, or who wish to be involved as senior staff in sport agencies, face roadblocks similar to the ones faced by athletes. Women deserve equal representation in all these facets of sports. And those who have the stamina and courage to seek excellence at the level of "elite" sports need the support of Canadian tax dollars to the same extent as their male counterparts. 1 urge the Government to improve the lot of women with affirmative action programs both in hiring and funding allocations.


Mrs. Therese Killens (Saint-Michel-Ahuntsic):: Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased with the announcement made this morning by the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) at the Constitutional Conference of First Ministers, to the effect that the federal Government is now prepared to repeal Section 12(l)(b) of the Indian Act. Mr. Speaker, the House will recall that the Act discriminates against native women and their children. By marrying a white man, native women as well as their children lose their Indian status, while an Indian who marries a white woman continues to benefit from the privileges arising from his Indian status, both for him and his children. I am very pleased, and I am sure women members on both sides of the House and all the women of this country share this feeling with me today, especially on a day that is dedicated to the women of this country, namely, International Women's Day.
Mr. Speaker, I want to express my personal commitment to do everything I can to have this Act amended as soon as possible.



BILINGUALISM


Mr. Louis Duclos (Montmorency-Orleans):: Mr. Speaker, the outcome of the debate in the Manitoba legislature on language rights for the Francophone minority in that province must give serious cause for concern to Canadians who favour equal language rights, a concept that is a cornerstone of Canadian unity, as it gives people with closed minds and with intolerance as their political credo cause to rejoice.
Although for some people, this debate has been an opportunity to show how narrow-minded they are and to indulge in demagoguery, others have shown remarkable political courage.
I want to express publicly my admiration for the almost heroic attitude of the Premier of Manitoba and his colleagues. I also wish to applaud the unqualified support given Franco-

March 8, 1984
Manitobans by the Federal Leader of the New Democratic Party at a recent convention of the Manitoba wing of his Party in Winnipeg, and also the spontaneous support of all my anglophone colleagues in the Liberal Caucus for the position of the Right Hon. Prime Minister on this issue.
As for the Official Opposition, we cannot question the good faith of its Leader, but the profound hostility shown by some Members of his Caucus and prospective Party candidates to Franco-Manitobans and the French language is eloquent proof that francophones still cannot depend on the Progressive Conservative Party to defend their language rights, and the Leader of that Party will do well to remember before he starts to woo Quebec voters in the next election campaign that Quebec's motto is: "Je me souviens".



MARINE TRANSPORT


Mr. Tom McMillan (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, marine workers face fatal hypothermia due to exposure in cold water, especially if forced to abandon ship at sea. Recent sea disasters such as the Ocean Ranger make stronger safety regulations essential.
Prince Edward Island employees of CN Marine sail steamships to distant drydocks each Spring when ice and weather conditions render voyages hazardous. Such employees need immersion suits that provide both hypothermic protection and buoyancy. They also need inflatable life rafts that, unlike existing lifeboats, can be launched in stormy conditions. Yet Transport Canada's regulations permit CN Marine vessels headed for drydock to carry only conventional lifeboats, and those inflatable life rafts in use are often removed from ships prior to sailing for drydock.
The Canadian Brotherhood of Railway, Transport and General Workers has lobbied since 1981 for legislation requiring all CN Marine crews to be provided with proper survival equipment. The $50,000 cost to equip P.E.I. vessels would be a small price to pay to prevent tragic loss of life. I urge the Minister of Transport (Mr. Axworthy) to update relevant safety regulations with all possible speed and urgency.



FRANCO-MANITOBAN RIGHTS ALLEGED HOSTILE ATTITUDE OF CERTAIN M.P.S

Mr. Jean-Guy Dubois (Lotbiniere):: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I want to say that I entirely agree with the comments made by my colleague from Montmorency-Orleans, and I would like to quote here in the House a short report that
appeared in the newspaper Le Devoir on February 28, 1984, which said: "According to three of the five Federal Conservative Members from Manitoba, the Ottawa resolution requesting that Province to guarantee French rights will have no effect, even if it receives the support of all three political parties."
The three Members are the Hon. Member for Lisgar (Mr. Murta), who is here in the House today, the Hon. Member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Clark) and the Hon. Member for Port-age-Marquette (Mr. Mayer). According to Le Devoir, the three "also said they felt rather uncomfortable about the position taken by their Leader, Mr. Brian Mulroney." "We are not a bunch of sheep," commented Mr. Mayer. In the House, Mr. Mulroney stated that when the Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party speaks, he speaks for all members. However, the Member for Portage-Marquette revealed that at a caucus meeting, several members informed the Leader that they did not share his opinion, and that was the quote from the newspaper Le Devoir.
It seems there is now a situation where there are divergent and dissenting views. Mr. Speaker, I see one of those Progressive Conservative Members here in the House, and I would like him as well as some of his colleagues whose names I mentioned earlier to rise in the House and say whether they are for or against the rights of francophones in Manitoba. Are they for or against bilingualism? If they are against francophones and against bilingualism, I would ask their Leader to expel all three, as well as other members who refused to follow the Party's line on bilingualism. With all this dissidence and divergence of opinions, the Progressive Conservative Party is in a state of confusion, and as my Hon. colleague from Montmorency-Orleans (Mr. Duclos) so aptly said, the motto of Quebec is: "Je me souviens", and Quebecers will certainly remember the Progressive Conservative Party!



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. John C. Crosbie (St. John's West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. In his absence I will direct it to the Deputy Prime Minister and former Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance said, as reported in The Globe and Mail for March 7:
I am not one spending my nights up worrying that the dollar is not at 81 cents, I can assure you .. . interest rate levels in Canada have nothing to do with the value of the dollar.
Does this indicate a new policy on behalf of the Government? The dollar today is trading below 79 cents U.S., 78.89.
March 8, 1984

The Bank of Canada rate has just gone up to 10.20 per cent, indicating that interest rates may go up shortly. In view of these statements of the Minister, and because we have had a policy for eight or ten years where it has been necessary for interest rates in Canada to be high to support the dollar, I ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether it is now official policy that the Canadian dollar can depreciate despite the inflationary pressures that would bring, and is it now Bank of Canada policy to allow interest rates to find their own level quite independently of what effect this will have on the value of the Canadian dollar?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member knows that for quite some years now the dollar has been responding to a number of forces in the market. It has not been the policy of the Government or the Bank of Canada to intervene to alter the fundamental trends in the value of the dollar. I share the view of the Minister of Finance that this present development is not a matter for alarm. We have had two experiences recently when the dollar dipped below 80 cents on the market. I do not see anything new or worrying about this development at the present time.


INTEREST RATE LEVELS
John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, it is too bad the Deputy Prime Minister cannot answer a question when it is on such an important matter. If the Canadian dollar sinking to under 79 cents does not matter, if the impetus that this gives to inflation does not matter, if the fact that that keeps interest rates high does not matter, why did the Government permit interest rates to go to 21 per cent and 22 per cent just a year ago? Why are they as high as they are today, if none of this matters?
Is the Minister of Finance speaking for the Government when he says that interest rate levels in Canada from now on are going to have nothing to do with the value of the Canadian dollar? Are interest rates going to be permitted to go wherever they might, without worrying whatsoever about the effect on the value of the dollar? That is my question. That is what your Minister said.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I doubt very much whether the Minister said any such thing. I cannot see that the Minister would make a comment which the Member interprets as a declaration that there is absolutely no relationship between the value of the exchange rate of the Canadian dollar and existing interest rates. We both know that there is an interaction, but it is not the only interaction.
Every time the value of the Canadian dollar changes, it is not necessarily linked to interest rates. The Hon. Member knows that. When he is asking this question, he is obviously misinterpreting what the Minister of Finance said. I am sure that no Minister of Finance would ever say that there is no relationship whatsoever between interest rates and the
Oral Questions
exchange value of the Canadian dollar at any time in any circumstance.


GOVERNMENT POLICY
John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I am looking at the March 7 Globe and Mail where the Minister of Finance is quoted as saying: "Interest rate levels in Canada have nothing to do with the value of the dollar." It is in black and white, not denied by the Minister. He should not be Minister of Finance, according to the Deputy Prime Minister. It is here in black and white. I know that the Deputy Prime Minister did not set a glorious record for his successor, but his successor has plunged even deeper than the Deputy Prime Minister.
[DOT] (M20)
On October 19 the Minister of Finance said that within six months interest rates in Canada would drop by another two to three percentage points. That was five months ago. That is the kind of prophet he is. As well, he said that Canada could respond very quickly to lower U.S. interest rates if inflation remains low and the value of the Canadian dollar stays steady at its current 81-cent or 82-cent range here in Canada.


Mr. Speaker:: Would the Hon. Member ask his question?


John Carnell Crosbie: In view of that, how can the Minister and the Government now adopt a policy that says that our interest rate levels will go wherever they like without having any effect on the Canadian dollar, and they will do nothing to prevent this from having an effect on the Canadian dollar?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I just told the Hon. Member that that is not the policy of the Government of Canada. May I repeat to the Hon. Member that, if that is his fear, then his fear is unjustified. He ought to know that in addition to interest rates there have been quite marked changes, not only in the value of Canadian currency but in the value of the United States dollar, and in the value of European currencies. That does not have very much to do with interest rates in Canada at the present time. The Hon. Member ought to know that.


STATEMENT MADE BY BANK OF CANADA GOVERNOR
Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Speaker, it is very hard to supplement a lead question when we get the kind of answers we have been getting from the former Minister of Finance who is presently the Acting Deputy Prime Minister of Canada. I am really confused, Mr. Speaker, as is everyone else in the Chamber, regarding just is what the financial policy of the Canadian Government. Where does it stand in light of the Governor of the Bank of Canada's statement of November 29, 1983, which reads as follows:
-any major depreciation of the Canadian dollar at this time would be much more likely to damage than to help our economic situation in that it would be

March 8, 1984
Oral Questions
strongly inflationary in an environment where confidence that inflation is under control is still so fragile.
We are struggling with a recovery. The Minister of Finance has been talking to all kinds of economic leaders across the country, and their statements are on the record. Why has the Government of Canada not reduced the federal deficit, when doing so is the one signal that world markets, the Canadian market, and the private sector need in order to have a stable interest rate environment and to have some stability that will allow us to pick up the challenge given by the Minister of Finance in his last Budget?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: First, Mr. Speaker, a major depreciation of the Canadian dollar has not taken place. The Canadian dollar dipped temporarily below 80 cents last January and last December. That happened twice in the very recent past. It was not a major depreciation. The Canadian dollar recovered then, and precisely the same incident has occurred again. The Hon. Member cannot describe it as being either a major depreciation or as having any relationship to the size of the deficit. Neither element included in his question is relevant under the present circumstances.


ECONOMIC PROJECTIONS MADE BY CONFERENCE BOARD OF CANADA
Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Speaker, so far the
four answers that we have heard from the former Minister of Finance, who is the Deputy Prime Minister of the country, indicate the reason why our money is not at an 80-cent level as compared to United States currency but is now falling into the seventies. That is a direct measure, as compared to other currencies, of how well we manage our economy and how well we discipline ourselves as a Government.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Arthur Ronald Huntington: The value of Canadian currency can be compared against U.S. and other currencies. We have a 79 per cent performance rate as against other countries, and that is a fact. It is the one measure which tells us how well we are doing vis-a-vis other countries.
Can the Minister tell us what the Government will do to offset the predictions of an economist with the Conference Board of Canada who said, as reported by the Calgary Herald:
Without investment in new plant and equipment... there is nothing to drive Canada's economy into the mature stage of recovery-
We know that the bloom has fallen off the Canadian recovery rate. We know that recovery in the U.S. is still moving strongly ahead. What is the Government doing to create an environment that will allow us to consolidate what we have? Considering the answers we are hearing, are we going to see more inflation, higher interest rates, and a severe depression, as has been indicated by the Conference Board of Canada?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member seems to be totally unaware of what has happened to currency values in Canada, in the United States, and in Europe. If he were aware of this, he would know that for quite some time the Canadian dollar has been much stronger as compared to most European currencies than as compared to the United States currency.
If the Canadian dollar declines in value from time to time in relation to the American dollar, its historic and recent pattern has been one of strength in relation to European currencies. The Hon. Member ought to bear that in mind if he is talking about the value of the Canadian dollar as an index of our over-all performance. If it is such an index as he has just stated, then we are performing much better than most European industrialized countries. The Hon. Member ought to know that and factor it in to his rather rudimentary analysis of the current economic situation.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Ms. Pauline Jewett (New Westminster-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, I would like to direct my question to the Deputy Prime Minister. He will know that Canada ratified the international convention on equal pay for work of equal value in 1972, and that such legislation has existed in federal law since 1978. Yet women in Canada still make only 60 cents for every dollar a man makes. Even more damning, Mr. Speaker, is the $7,300 wage gap between men and women employees in the federal Public Service.
In view of the fact that Labour Canada released a report last month confirming that the federal Government is not enforcing its own equal pay for work of equal value guidelines in the Public Service, will the Government act immediately to reorganize Treasury Board's compensation standards to comply with equal value legislation?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, quite appropriately the Hon. Member is asking such a question on a day on which we are making International Women's Day. I think her question is quite appropriate, and it gives me an opportunity to say that the world is celebrating the achievements of women the world over, and that today is an occasion on which this Government and other Governments throughout the world can recommit themselves to the advancement of women. That is one of the objectives of the Government of Canada.
In this past decade, which has been the International Decade for Women, I think that this country and other countries have taken some very important strides. However, I would agree with the Hon. Member that much more remains to be done. If she wants to ask specifically about the particular
March 8, 1984

attitude taken by the Treasury Board, then she can direct her question to the President of the Treasury Board.


Pauline Jewett: Mr. Speaker, that long homily from the stealth missile did not deceive anyone, so I will turn to the President of the Treasury Board.


REQUEST THAT MINISTER ENSURE COMPLIANCE WITH LEGISLATION
Pauline Jewett: Mr. Speaker, the President of the Treasury Board will also know that Labour Canada released a report last month confirming that the federal Government is not enforcing its own equal pay for work of equal value guidelines in the federal Public Service. I would ask the President of the Treasury Board if he will act immediately to reorganize Treasury Board's compensation standards, to comply with equal pay for work of equal value legislation.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the Hon. Member has confirmed the fact that federal law, under the Canadian Human Rights Act, calls for equal pay for work of equal value. As I recall, the Labour Canada report in question points out that the federal Government is far ahead of the private sector and of any of the provincial Governments in that regard. In that connection, we have been working with the Human Rights Commission to identify situations where, in spite of this principle in the law, the principle is not being applied. In recent months we have settled a number of cases dealing with substantial numbers of people to ensure that these principles are in fact being observed.
In line with that commitment in the law, in line with my own commitment and the commitment of the Government, we are certainly working very actively to make sure that the principle is respected, not just in its written form. In fact we are making substantial progress. We are far ahead of the private sector and other Governments, and we will continue to be ahead.


Pauline Jewett: Mr. Speaker, the Minister did not answer the question when he is going to reorganize Treasury Board's compensation standards. That is what we want to know.


HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION-DELAY IN DEALING WITH COMPLAINTS
Pauline Jewett: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question arises directly out of the Minister's reply concerning the Canadian Human Rights Commission, because it does not have sufficient staff or resources to deal adequately with the complaints that come before it. The Minister probably knows that a complaint filed four years ago by the Energy and Chemical Workers' Union on behalf of 31 women in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, is only now
Oral Questions
going before a tribunal. What will the Minister do, or urge the Government to do, so that, first of all, it will not sit around and wait until complaints are filed, and second, when complaints are filed, see that they are dealt with expeditiously?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, with respect to compensation standards, they are not intended to do other than provide equal pay for work of equal value. I will be very happy to examine the situation and take prompt corrective action.
With respect to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, it operates at arm's length from the Government. If the Chief Commissioner and the other commissioners want to make proposals for additional staff and resources to deal with complaints more expeditiously, to the Minister who answers to Parliament for them, I will be very happy to work as sympathetically as I can to provide a positive and swift response to this request. The request has to come from the Commission, which is an independent body. I, for one, would be prepared to respond in a swift and sympathetic manner once the request is brought to my attention.


Pauline Jewett: Mr. Speaker, I have a final supplementary question.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member has had two supplementar-ies.


FINANCE
Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs, in the absence of the Minister of Finance, the Minister of State for Finance, and in view of the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister was formerly Minister of Finance.
The Minister will know that today at the Treasury Bill auctions the Government had to pay just a whisker under 11 per cent for one year money. That very fact alone militates against all low interest mortgage rates from now on. Interest rates on mortgages from trust companies and insurance companies are going to go immediately to the 12 per cent and 13 per cent level, certainly for a one-year term.
The Deputy Prime Minister will also know that the budget deficit and its figures were all based on much lower interest carrying costs on the national debt.
What action does the Deputy Prime Minister now propose with respect to the Borrowing Authority Act that is now before the House, and with respect to the deficit of the Government, in view of this enormous increase which has taken place in the last week in the cost of carrying funded debt by the Government?

March 8, 1984
Oral Questions


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, at the moment I would not believe that any particular action is justified with respect either to the Bill on the borrowing authority or any other aspect of government policy. The Hon. Member has talked about a development that is one week old, as he said. As I have pointed out, we have had similar incidents in the past which have corrected themselves. This may be quite another one of those. I do not think that the present change in the value of the Canadian dollar represents a fundamental weakness in the Canadian dollar; quite the contrary.


MAGNITUDE OF GOVERNMENT'S BORROWING DEMANDS
Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, would the Deputy Prime Minister agree with Mr. Paul Volcker of the American Federal Exchange who, yesterday, said to a committee of Congress that deficits of the magnitude suggested forced interest rates substantially higher than they would otherwise be?
Would he also agree that the present borrowing demands of the Government exceed 91 per cent of estimated gross domestic savings? Will he tell the House and the country how people can hope to have a mortgage on their home, to borrow money for a business to put people back to work, with the interest rates that are now being forced upon the Canadian public?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Try to understand it, Allan.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member asks me whether I agree with Mr. Volcker, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, when he talks about the deficit. First of all, I should like to know what time span the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board was talking about. Was he talking about 1984, 1985, or 1986?
As I understand the situation in the United States, I think the concern that has been expressed is directed more particularly to what the authorities call the "out" years and the failure to take action on that deficit not necessarily in 1984, but beyond. If the question is put in that context, then I agree with what Mr. Volcker has to say.


JURISDICTION OVER NEWFOUNDLAND OFFSHORE RESOURCES- REQUEST FOR RESUMPTION OF NEGOTIATIONS
Hon. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Now that the legal question of offshore jurisdiction is behind us, is the Minister prepared to move quickly on a settlement of the political issues involved in the offshore? Is he prepared to take advantage of the presence in Ottawa of the
Premier of Newfoundland and of the Minister of Energy for Newfoundland, and resume the talks?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that the situation has been clarified and that the Supreme Court has given jurisdiction to the national Government.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: As everyone knows, when I tried very hard a year ago to reach an agreement with the Government of Newfoundland before there was a decision in the court, I did not quit the negotiation table; it was the Minister from Newfoundland who quit.
Pending an agrement with the Province, the federal Government will administer the resources offshore of Newfoundland and make sure, because the climate will be better now, that there will be no conflict of jurisdiction. That will create a very good climate for investment.
I am very happy to have a Member from Newfoundland attached to my Department as Minister of State for Mines. He will make sure that the development of these resources in the future, pending an agreement with Newfoundland, will be in the best interests of the people of Newfoundland, and will make sure that the maximum benefit possible will go to them. When we do that, we know that it is in the best interests of Canada as a whole.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some Hon. Members:: Leader! Leader!


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, I had hoped that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, who aspires to the leadership of the country, would take the high road in dealing with these questions. I now give him that opportunity.


POLITICAL SETTLEMENT
James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, is the Minister prepared to take the leadership and resume negotiations with the Province of Newfoundland on the basis of the necessity of a political settlement, and on the basis of dealing generously and magnanimously with one of the provinces of this country?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I am not quite ready to take the leadership; I am reflecting on that.
If Mr. Marshall and Mr. Peckford want to see me, I am available, and I always have been available. I went back to Newfoundland many times to meet with them. One time, some reporters even tried to organize a meeting when Mr. Marshall was in the same room as I was, but he did not want to talk about the issues. Everyone knows that I want to settle this problem. I always wanted to settle it, but now the court has decided. If it is federal jurisdiction, that does not mean that it
March 8, 1984

is not good for the people of Newfoundland. The Government of Canada serves the people of Newfoundland too-


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: -and at times, much better. That is why I say that, if they want to talk with me, I am available. I am telling the people of Newfoundland that I do not want to play politics with them.


John Carnell Crosbie: Oh, no!


James Aloysius McGrath: What are you doing now?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I just say that it will be developed in the best interests of the people of Newfoundland, and the fact that there will be no fight between the two Governments is a positive factor for investment. Of course we will have to talk with the provincial Government of Newfoundland because it has an interest in that. I hope it will come to the point of reaching an agreement. However, I am informed-I hope it is wrong-that Premier Peckford has already said that he will not negotiate with me, and you should check with him before asking the question.


GOVERNMENT'S INTENTIONS
Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, my question as well is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. I wonder if the people across the way, who do not even have a policy on the offshore, or at least cannot make up their minds among themselves what their policy is, can be quiet. I ask this supplementary question on behalf of the people of Newfoundland-


John Carnell Crosbie: Send a boy on a man's mission.


Brian Vincent Tobin: -who are interested in hearing the Minister's answer, not like the Hon. Member for St. John's East who is interested in playing games.


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Would the Hon. Member please ask his question?


Brian Vincent Tobin: I do not know whether it is possible, Mr. Speaker, at this stage to negotiate an agreement, but assuming that a Government which cares about co-operation, not confrontation, comes to Newfoundland, can the Minister assure this House that it is still the intention of the Government of Canada to see that, the day an agreement is negotiated, the lion's share of revenues come to the Province of Newfoundland-


John Carnell Crosbie: Sit down, Judas.


Brian Vincent Tobin: -where those resources are located?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Oral Questions


John Carnell Crosbie: Judas told them.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, the federal Government has always wanted to negotiate an agreement which will serve the best interests of the people of Newfoundland. We have always offered some sharing in revenue. I will have to see what will happen in the next days, because already I am informed that the Premier of Newfoundland said he will wait for another Government before he negotiates.


John Carnell Crosbie: Good idea.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: He might, Mr. Speaker, have to wait a hell of a long time.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some Hon. Members:: We want Joe.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I have been able, Mr. Speaker, to reach agreements easily with Saskatchewan, with Alberta, and with Nova Scotia.


John Carnell Crosbie: Where is John Turner when we need him?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: How come I cannot make an agreement with the Government of Newfoundland?


Mr. Dick:: You are supposed to answer questions.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Some questions should be asked that way. I had no problem making a deal with Premier Lougheed or Premier Devine, who are not Liberals, but who put their interest in solving problems before their political interests.


Some Hon. Members:: More!


Some Hon. Members:: Bring back Joe.


Mr. Mulroney:: Mr. Speaker, I assume the Minister of Energy is saying to himself: "If only the applause from my Liberal colleagues could be translated into votes at the convention. Will they love me in September like they do in May?" And I am sure the Minister wants to dismiss the gratuitous comments of the almost Minister of Youth-


John Carnell Crosbie: The juvenile delinquent.


MINISTER'S APPROACH TO NEGOTIATIONS
Martin Brian Mulroney: In view of the importance of the matter, which the Minister has always taken seriously, in light of the judgment rendered today by the Supreme Court, can the Minister give this House the assurance that he will enter into those negotiations acknowledging that past positions ought not necessarily to apply, and that any possible decision which does result can result from positions different from those previously taken by the federal Government, and must be of the greatest benefit to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador? Can the Minister give us the

March 8, 1984
Oral Questions
assurance that he will look at this, now that the matter has been settled-


Brian Vincent Tobin: He can't bring back Labrador City.


Martin Brian Mulroney: -in a brand new perspective of giving to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador the type of settlement which they genuinely need and want with regard to the offshore?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I tried very hard last year to reach a settlement. We have made two good offers to the Government of Newfoundland, which it has rejected. I guess if it wants to talk, it should come with the solution to the problem. Of course I am willing to meet with them, discuss the problems, and try to find a solution. The only preoccupation I have is to make sure that these resources are developed as fast as possible, as orderly as possible, and to make sure that the economic benefit will belong to the people of Newfoundland first. Because if we can help the people of Newfoundland better their economic and social standing, Canada will be better for that.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: Chretien for leader!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Again I urge the Leader of the Opposition, and the Hon. Member in the Opposition from Newfoundland, to tell Premier Peckford that the people of Newfoundland need a settlement and the political game is over, that it is the interests of the people of Newfoundland, not of the Government, which are at stake, and that Canadians want a solution. I was able to make a deal on the Constitution and on energy with the other Provinces. It is only with Newfoundland that I can never make a deal. It is a bit frustrating.


MINISTER'S POSITION
Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I am very encouraged by the response of the Minister of Energy, and I commend him for it.
The Minister said in respect to the negotiations which must take place, and I believe I am quoting him accurately: "The resources should belong to the people of Newfoundland first". I believe that is a direct quotation. I commend the Minister on that attitude because I believe I can probably conclude from it that the Minister is sending out a clear signal to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, saying: "Come and meet me for early negotiations and I will not be hidebound by positions which I have taken in the past". Is that the position? If that is so, I encourage the Minister because this is genuine, co-operative federalism, and I urge him along that road. This will benefit Newfoundland and Labrador.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I said, Mr. Speaker, that the benefit from the development of the resources should first benefit the people of
Newfoundland. I make a big distinction between these people and the Government of Newfoundland. The federal Government can administer the programs under federal jurisdiction which benefit the people of Newfoundland. The Supreme Court of Canada has given jurisdiction over these resources to the federal Government. It is not for me, therefore, to decide against the Supreme Court.
What we need is an agreement to make sure that the development of these resources benefits first the people of Newfoundland and, in doing that, all Canada benefits from such a deal. However, the decision of the Supreme Court is clear. It is now a constitutional reality that the offshore resources of Newfoundland are under federal jurisdiction.


STATUS OF WOMEN
Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the President of the Treasury Board, and I think it is suitably asked today on International Women's Day. I believe all Hon. Members of this House know that the track record of the Liberals in terms of words but not action is clearly illustrated in their approach to affirmative action for women in the private sector.
The Minister responsible for the status of women, just two years ago said that the voluntary program "is not even moderately effective". Since the Minister and his Government have had no problem instituting contract compliance for the six and five wage restraints, I wonder if the Minister would tell this House whether or not he is prepared to introduce contract compliance immediately so that all companies with over 50 employees, which are dealing directly with the federal Government, are required to have affirmative action programs for women in place?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, this is something which I think deserves to be looked at, not just by myself but by the Minister of Supply and Services, who is the Minister in charge of the government contracting and purchasing activities. However, having said that, Mr. Speaker, I feel I should make clear to my hon. friend that when it comes to affirmative action in the federal Government itself, the program we have in place is not just a voluntary one. We are extending across the Public Service, on a phased step-by-step basis, a very strong and effective program, covering not only women but also the handicapped and indigenous people.
Last Fall I announced a service-wide target to increase substantially the number of women in the management category. Therefore, we do not have a limited program in the Public Service when it comes to affirmative action. We have a strong and effective one, and I hope it will have my hon. friend's support.
March 8, 1984


PUBLIC SERVICE-COMPARISON WITH FRANCOPHONE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PROGRAM
James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, the President of the Treasury Board has made it quite clear to Members of this House that there is no contract compliance in the federal Government.
Would the Minister rise in his place and respond to the stark contrast between what has happened to women regarding affirmative action in the federal Government and what has happened to francophones in the Public Service? Three years after implementation of the Official Languages Act, francophones were represented in all job categories in the federal Government, at all wage levels, proportionate to their presence in the population and the Public Service. Would the Minister agree today to introduce a similar kind of program related to affirmative action as was brought in under the Official Languages Act?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, our affirmative action program went into place last June.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: It went into place in 1975, and you have been dragging your feet ever since.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: When we look at the program-my hon. friend is way out of touch. It went into place in the federal Government on a limited, pilot project basis, in three Departments. We put in place a program extending across the entire Public Service, last June. When Parliament looks at this issue three years from the end of last June, I predict we will see the kind of progress we have seen with francophones and we will be very proud of the results. I am not sure my hon. friend will be here, but those of us who are-and I think a lot of us will be here- will be very proud of those results.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: You ought to be ashamed of yourself.


NATIONAL REVENUE
Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn (Saskatoon West):: Mr. Speaker, my question was for the Minister of National Revenue, who has flown the coop. He must have thought today was his day off. Therefore, I will ask my question of the Deputy Prime Minister.
I have in my hands an internal report of Revenue Canada, concerning taxable benefits. The Deputy Prime Minister will remember this resulted from the Budget he brought down. This document attempts to analyse how they can wring taxes out of the average working person for such benefits as low rental housing, parking, and daycare provided by employers. The report concludes that the Department must either establish a consistent approach to the taxation of employee benefits,
Oral Questions
or vacate the area entirely. It says the Department should not continue to assess in a random and often unfair manner.
In view of the inequitable application and administration by the Department of National Revenue in its attempt to collect tax on these benefits to employees, is the Government considering withholding the imposition of taxes on these benefits until such time as it can bring forward a rational collection basis?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member will have noted that the Minister of National Revenue was in his seat when Question Period started, and was there for quite some considerable time. The Hon. Member had an opportunity to ask his question. If he wants an answer from me, the answer is no.


TAXATION OF DAYCARE BENEFITS
Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that today is International Women's Day, can the Deputy Prime Minister answer on behalf of the Government whether or not it is the Government's policy to continue wringing every cent possible out of those people who are least able to protect themselves, namely, working women, with respect to taxing daycare benefits? Very often these women are the heads of single parent families. Does the mean spiritedness of this Government extend to continuing a policy of taxing these people who are attempting to contribute to society by working and producing an income for their families?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: If the term "mean spirited" can be applied to anything, it can be applied to the question the Hon. Member asked.


CULTURAL AFFAIRS
Hon. David Crombie (Rosedale):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Communications, who may know there is a report out of Southam News this morning that the Government intends to bring in legislation which would give it the power, through the Financial Administration Act, to erode the traditional independence of federal government cultural agencies such as the Canada Council and the CBC. If this is the case, then that of course violates the long standing principle that we should make sure our cultural and artistic life is separated and distant from political interference and control.
This is a very important matter, so I ask the Minister if the report is true and, if so, will he explain the Government's position to the House?


Hon. Francis Fox (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member knows, he will have to await the

March 8, 1984
Oral Questions
tabling of the legislation to see what is in it. We already have in front of the Elouse Bill C-20, which explains the Government's position concerning the CRTC and the CFDC. He will see, by reading the type of legislation in Bill C-20, that it is not the Government's intention to intervene to fix program content or determine who ought to be getting grants. My position has always been that there has to be an arm's length relationship between the Government and the various cultural agencies in all matters requiring judgment on values and program content.


FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION ACT-REQUEST FOR EXCLUSION OF CULTURAL AGENCIES
David Edward Crombie: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Minister understands that the basic issue here is artistic and cultural freedom. What is also important to understand is that the Appelbaum-Hebert Commission strongly urged the Government and this House to make sure that any change in the Financial Administration Act would exclude cultural agencies, to ensure that arm's length treatment the Minister spoke about. Will the Minister assure this House that if there is any chance that the cultural agencies will have their autonomy diminished by the Financial Administration Act, he will move, as the Clark Government did in 1979, to make sure those cultural agencies are excluded from that control?


Francis Fox: Mr. Speaker, I think it is quite clear that cultural agencies receive money appropriated by the Parliament of Canada. Obviously they have to be held accountable for the use of those funds. I do not think there is any grounds for disagreement between us on those questions. The essential element of the arm's length relationship between the Government and cultural agencies is the fact that cultural agencies are the ones which decide how those funds are to be spent once they are appropriated, what type of competition will be held, and how they are to be allocated to the various groups across the country. In all of those essential respects the arm's length principle as it exists today would, of course, be maintained.


ABORTION
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General in his capacity as Acting Minister of Justice. He will know that on this International Women's Day one of the major concerns of Canadian women is the inequities which exist in abortion legislation, which too often results in lengthy delays and denial of access to safe therapeutic abortion. Does the Minister support freedom of conscience on this sensitive moral question, leaving the decision to be made by a woman in consultation with her doctor? Will the Government repeal those provisions of the Criminal Code on abortion, in order to achieve this important objective?


Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, the question is really directed to my colleague, the Minister of Justice. I know he would want to answer that question himself.


PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION-GOVERNMENT FUNDING
Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare, whose Department has been cutting funding to the Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada despite the excellent work it does in promoting birth control and sex education, both of which effectively reduce the number of abortions. Will the Minister undertake to improve significantly the level of funding to the Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada, particularly in view of the very drastic cuts in funding which have been taking place in Provinces such as British Columbia where the Social Credit Government recently cut entirely its funding to the Federation?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I can go even further and confirm to the House that I was able to restore to its original level the funding of the Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada. I think that is excellent news for everyone, in view of the very good work they perform all over Canada, in communities and groups. Through my budget, which is limited and for a purpose, I am unable to replace the provincial Governments where they failed their tasks. I regret it, as do all Canadians, and particularly in this case, women and young girls.


GOVERNMENT DECENTRALIZATION
Mr. Howard Crosby (Halifax West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the President of the Treasury Board and concerns a recent report in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald. According to the article the Deputy Prime Minister congratulated the Member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys because "the Federal Treasury Board has just approved a $500,000 expenditure to begin the transfer of the Income Security Branch of the Department of Health and Welfare Canada from Halifax to Sydney".
Does this mean that the Cape Breton Liberals are opposed to the Member for Halifax, or is this some kind of new job creation program whereby jobs are created by transferring employees around the Province of Nova Scotia?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, as far as I can recall, this transfer was announced a long time ago. It is not a new decision. However, I will be happy to check into the details. I would be interested to know exactly where my hon. friend stands on the issue of decentrali-
March 8, 1984

zation, whether he is for or against it. As far as I can recall, this is simply confirmation of a decision which was announced some time ago. The current announcement is simply talking about its implementation.


Howard Edward Crosby: Mr. Speaker, I can tell the President of the Treasury Board exactly where I stand. I am totally opposed to transferring senior public servants, who have devoted many years of their lives to the Public Service of Canada, from Halifax to Sydney simply to please the Member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys and the Deputy Prime Minister.


IMPACT ON EMPLOYEES
Howard Edward Crosby: Does the President of the Treasury Board realize the effect on the people involved in this transfer? Will he look at the specific cases involved, and give consideration to those people who cannot retain their employment if they are required to go from the City of Halifax to the City of Sydney to maintain their job in the Public Service?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, there are quite generous provisions in these cases of decentralization to deal fairly with the public servants involved. I am sure that will be the case here. I am sure my hon. friend's point of view will be noted with interest by the responsible Minister, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, who is in the House now.


PETITION
Mr. Speaker:: Order. I have the honour to inform the House that the petition presented by the Hon. Member for Parkdale-High Park (Mr. Flis) on Wednesday, March 7, 1984, meets the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have two questions I would like to raise. There is the usual request I should put forth to the Government House Leader as to the items of business planned in the upcoming week.
I understand discussions have been held with respect to the second matter, and that is that the motion referring Supplementary Estimates (C) for 1983-1984, under an Order of March 5, to several standing committees of the House should be amended by deleting the referral of Social Development Votes 2c and 3c to the Standing Committee on Transport and by adding the referral of those two votes to the Standing
Business of the House
Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs. I believe there was a typographical error of some nature to begin with.


Mr. Pinard:: On the second point, Mr. Speaker, it is true that we have had consultations and agree to the motion to which the Hon. Member refers. Therefore, if you seek unanimous consent for the following, the formal motion would be:
That the Order of the House of March 5, 1984 referring the Supplementary Estimates (C), 1983-1984, to the several standing committees of the House, be amended by deleting the referral of Social Development Votes 2c and 3c to the Standing Committee on Transport and by adding the referral of the said votes to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs.
It seems there would be unanimous consent without debate for the following motion, if you would put it now.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the Hon. President of the Privy Council have unanimous consent of the House to present his motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Motion (Mr. Pinard) agreed to.


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, in so far as the business of the House is concerned for the coming week, we plan to call the following Bills tomorrow: Bill C-9, resuming debate; and the back-up Bill would be resuming debate on Bill C-10. Monday will be an Opposition Day. Therefore Monday is an allotted day. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday next week could be used to resume debate on Bill C-21. If we were to send the Bill to committee earlier than next Thursday, I would be pleased to meet with my colleagues, the House Leaders on the other side, to tell them what other plans we would have under the circumstances.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question on House business. The President of the Privy Council will be aware of the fact that the legislation on the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act provides for the designation of a committee to review the implementation of that important legislation. The Joint Committee on Regulations and Other Statutory Instruments has asked that it be permitted to assume this important responsibility, particularly given the heavy workload of the Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. The main point, Mr. Speaker, is that no committee has yet been designated to assume this very important responsibility.
I would like to ask the President of the Privy Council when the Government intends to move to ensure that this committee is in fact designated so that many of the obvious weaknesses of the legislation can be examined carefully, both with respect to the substance of the Bill and the administration and implementation of the legislation.


Yvon Pinard: The Hon. Member referred to the workload of the Justice Committee. That could be the case if he would be more co-operative. Since we have not yet sent the Security

March 8, 1984
Petitions
Bill, the Divorce Act or the Criminal Code amendments to the Justice Committee, I suppose his representation is purely hypothetical.
With reference to the Access to Information Act, I had a request from the standing committee to which he referred which was denied because our plans are to make the reference to the Justice Committee. On the other hand, if we were to have more co-operation on the legislation I just mentioned, it may be that I would reconsider and we would agree to refer the Access to Information legislation to the committee to which the Hon. Member referred.
For the time being, there is no workload in the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee. Therefore, I would be in a better position to give a more precise answer to his question once some of the Bills I have indicated have been sent to the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee.


Mr. Benjamin:: Mr. Speaker, I would also like to speak on House business. The Government House Leader and the Minister of Transport may be aware of representations about early presentation of amendments to the Aeronautics Act, particularly from the Canadian Air Line Pilots Association. Can the Government House Leader give us an indication when they intend to call that legislation? I think we can be reasonably sure of fairly quick passage. What would be the timetable for the amendments to the Aeronautics Act?


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, I take note of the representations made by the Hon. Member. I will look into this matter, consult with the Minister of Transport and will hopefully be able to report to the Hon. Member before the end of this session.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Sid Parker (Kootenay East-Revelstoke):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present the following petition. To the Honourable the House of Commons of Canada in Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents of Canada, who now exercise their right to present a grievance, humbly sheweth that whereas the residents living in the Jaf-fray, Tie Lake, Sand Creek and Galloway areas in British Columbia are faced with deteriorated television reception from CBC programs and CFCN broadcasting, and whereas this is a rural area that depends heavily on television viewing for a considerable portion of their daily lives, wherefore we, the undersigned petitioners, call on the Government of Canada to have these areas tested for interference, and have the power output increased to ensure that adequate service is provided. And as in duty bound your Petitioners will ever pray.


SENIOR CITIZENS ADVISORY ASSEMBLY ACT
Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg-Assiniboine) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-224, an Act to constitute a senior citizens advisory assembly.
He said: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this Bill is to establish an advisory assembly of senior citizens to assist the federal Government in developing policies providing services for Canada's ever-increasing number of this segment of the population.


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

A. Daniel McKenzie: for leave to introduce Bill C-225, an Act to amend the Pension Act (administrative delay).
He said: Mr. Speaker, this Bill would apply a six-month time limit to the veterans' entire pension process. If the Pension Commission failed to meet these time limits, the veteran would receive automatic payment of the applied for benefits. Hundreds of applicants die while waiting for a decision. This Bill would help put an end to this disgraceful situation.
I would like to point out that in the United States applications are processed within 90 days, a record worth praise and emulation.


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

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. John Evans (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 177, 454, 634, and 641.


Mr. Mazankowski: 1. Is there a National Advisory Panel on Skill Development Leave and, if so, what (a) are its terms of reference (b) is the (i) name (ii) background or expertise (iii) term of appointment of each member (c) remuneration, such as salary or travel expenses (i) do the members receive (ii) did the members receive to date (d) other funding, if any, is provided by the government?
March 8, 1984

2. During the fiscal year 1982-83, did the panel meet and, if so (a) how often (b) how often is it required to meet (c) what matters did it consider (d) what reports and/or recommendations were published?


Jean-Guy Dubois: Yes.
1. (a) Terms of reference: review the options presented by the Task Force on Skill Development Leave, to hear and assess the viewpoints of labour, business, educators and the three levels of government as presented in colloquia on October 25, 26, 27, 1983; and prepare a report recommending possible courses of action that the federal Government should follow in respect to skill development leave.
(b)	(i) The names of the members of the National Advisory Panel are shown below.
(ii)	The individuals were asked to sit on the Panel in view of their general experience and their knowledge of the issues at play, and with a view to achieving a balance of the major sectors.
(iii)	The appointments are effective August 11, 1983 until the publication of the report early in 1984.
(c)	(i) An honorarium of $150 per day is paid to the panel members for each day in attendance at meetings. Travel expenses are paid to the members not residing in Ottawa.
(ii) The National Advisory Panel Expenditures to December 12, 1983 were:
	Travel	Honorarium
Mrs. M. Eady	S 3,086	
[DOT]Mrs. L. Rogers	S 3,653	SI,800Mr. R. Ahenakew	$ 3,380	$1,200Mrs. A. Ironside	S 4.312	SI.800Mrs. C. Booker	S 2.077	$1,800Mrs. C. Walda	$ 1,894	$1,500Mr. G. Bourgeault	S 853	$1,350Mr. S. L. Smith	-	
[DOT]Total	SI 9,255	$9,450(d)	A budget of $231,000 was set to cover travel, honoraria, other professional services and the printing and distribution of the panel's report.
2. (a) The panel only began to meet during the 1983/84 Fiscal year and as of December 31, 1983, has met six times.
(b)	The meetings are called at major steps in the drafting of the report.
(c)	Panel members have discussed the content of their report and recommendations.
(d)	The report is expected to be released early in 1984. (See 1. (b) (iii) above.) * *
*	Mrs. Eady does not receive an honorarium due to her position with the Manitoba Government.
*	Mr. Smith does not receive an honorarium due to his position with the Federal Government.
Order Paper Questions National Advisory Panel Members
Carolynn Walda,
Vice-President Human Resources,
General Foods Inc.,
105 Moatfield Drive,
Don Mills, Ontario,


[Stage Direction]
Clare Booker,
Regional Director of Education,
Canadian Labour Congress,
2267 Albert Street,
Regina, Saskatchewan,
[Stage Direction]
Anne Ironside,
President,
Canadian Association for Adult Education;
Program Director, Centre for Continuing Education, University of British Columbia,
5997 Iona Drive,
Vancouver, B.C.,
[Stage Direction]
Mary Eady,
Deputy Minister of Labour & Manpower,
225 Legislative Building,
Winnipeg, Manitoba,
[Stage Direction]
Stuart L. Smith,
Chairman,
Science Council of Canada,
Berger Building,
100 Metcalfe Street, Room 1705,
Ottawa, Ontario,
[Stage Direction]
Lenore Rogers,
President of Canadian Congress on Learning Opportunities for Women;
Regina Plains Community College,
2708-12th Avenue,
Regina, Saskatchewan,
[Stage Direction]
Ray Ahenakew,
President / Ex-Director,
Saskatchewan Indian Community College, 201 Robin Crescent,
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan,
[Stage Direction]
March 8, 1984
Order Paper Questions
Guy Bourgeault,
Doyen de la Faculte de l'education permanente, Universite de Montreal,
3333, chemin Queen Mary,
Montreal, Quebec,
Mr. Howie: Are any persons employed by the Canadian Coast Guard and, if so, how many and how many persons were employed in each of the two preceding years?


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Transport):: The
Canadian Coast Guard employed 6,799 as of December 31, 1983, 6,619 as of December 31, 1982, 6,404 as of December 31, 1981. These figures include all tenures of employees e.g., terms less than six months, terms over six months, seasonal, full time.


Mr. Stewart: Is there a Management Excellence in Small Business Program and, if so, what (a) department or agency is responsible for its administration (b) amount was budgeted for the program in the fiscal year 1983-84?


Hon. David Smith (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Yes. (a) The Department of Regional Industrial Expansion (DRIE). (b) $395,000 was budgeted for fiscal year 1983-84.


Mr. Stewart: With reference to the answer to question No. 123, in the fiscal year 1983-84, what amount was budgeted for the Fashion Design Assistance Program?


Hon. Ed Lumley (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion):: As indicated in the response provided to question No. 123, answered in the House of Commons on Thursday, January 19, 1984, the Fashion Design Assistance Program (FDAP) terminated in 1982. Therefore, no budgetary allocation was provided for the fiscal year 1983-84.


John Leslie Evans: 1 ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.
In response to a question asked of me yesterday by the Whip of the Official Opposition with regard to Question No. 717, I should indicate to him that manifests are available each month from the Ministry of Transport with regard to Transport Canada aircraft and from the Ministry of National Defence with regard to DND aircraft. Since that is publicly available information to the Hon. Member, in a public place, according to Beauchesne Citation 357(ff) a Member shall not "seek information set forth in documents equally accessible to the questioner, as Statutes, published reports, et cetera". Therefore, I would suggest that the question placed by the Hon. Member is out of order.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
*


Mr. Speaker:: Would there be unanimous consent for the House to revert to Introduction of Bills? 1 believe the Hon. Minister of Transport (Mr. Axworthy) has in mind the introduction of a Bill.


Mr. Nielsen:: Mr. Speaker, he will have to be much sharper and keep much more alert than that if he expects to go anywhere in the forthcoming leadership campaign.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, if the Minister would quit talking to other Liberal Members he would not be on the bit. But yes, we will agree to that.



PRAIRIE GRAIN ADVANCE PAYMENTS ACT


Lloyd Axworthy: for leave to introduce Bill C-23, an Act to amend the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act.


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


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. MacLaren that Bill C-21, an Act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs.
Mr. Pierre  Gimai@: Mr. Speaker, thank you for allowing me to rise in the debate on to Bill C-21-


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. When we adjourned at one o'clock, the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) had just finished his remarks. No opportunity has been made available to ask him certain questions. Could we have the regular question period now that the
March 8, 1984

Member is here? I am sure he would consent to answer questions according to House rules.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: If there is no objection from Members, we will have a ten-minute question period.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Kam-loops-Shuswap, who is the finance critic for the New Democratic Party, indicated in his speech today that there were many Canadians who did not pay income tax. Of course, there are. Could he name one Canadian person or company who had taxable income but was not required to pay tax, was excused from paying tax or something of that nature? Or is the whole question of tax and escaping tax just rhetoric and nonsense from him as NDP finance critic?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, that is a really difficult question. I want to remind the Hon. Member that the point I was making is that at this time of the year when everyone is busy preparing to fill out their tax return, or paying accountants to do it, one becomes very sensitive to the fact that certain corporations, firms and individuals do not pay their fair share of tax in our country for a variety of reasons. They are not doing anything illegal; they are not doing anything that is wrong in terms of the laws of the land. It is simply that the laws of the land have been written in such a way that they favour certain types of individuals or firms. Many of the laws were written with good intentions but have been abused over the years, or circumstances have changed such that those intentions have been found to be inappropriate or have changed over time.
I am referring to the approximately 200 loopholes that the present tax system makes available to corporations. As a result, we find a long list of corporations whose books show that they were very profitable in the year 1982-83. Perhaps I could bring one example to the attention of the Hon. Member. It is one that is often cited in the House. It concerns the Bank of Montreal whose profits in 1982, I believe, were in excess of $300 million. For a variety of tax reasons it paid no federal income tax that year as a result of the loopholes or tax incentives provided by the Government of Canada. And I might also say as a result of subsequent Liberal and Conservative governments. We feel that is inappropriate. When you have so many people not paying what I think is their fair share of income tax, either on a personal or corporate level, someone else has to pay extra.
That is a shameful situation when you have individuals who are working hard and paying a tax rate higher than what they ought to be paying as a result of a multitude of tax loopholes, or corporations, particularly small ones, which are paying effective tax rates now higher than they should because so many are not paying what I call their fair share.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, I am rather intrigued that the Hon. Member, after a very dramatic speech, could not name one corporation or individual in Canada who was not paying tax on taxable income.
Borrowing Authority Act
I would ask the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap this. If there are such loopholes in the Act, why did the New Democratic Party vote for the small business bond system which allowed the Bank of Montreal to absorb certain income that would otherwise be taxable as non-taxable income? Does the New Democratic Party favour, for example, imputed rent on homes and businesses if you have an investment there? Indeed, which of this huge number of loopholes which the New Democratic Party talks about would he abolish? Would the Hon. Member abolish child care credits? Would he say to people who make charitable donations to worthwhile causes that those donations are not deductible from income? Would the Hon. Member say, for example, that if you have interest to pay on a debt in connection with earning money in a business that that interest should not be deductible? Where does the New Democratic Party stand on sensibility? Or is the New Democratic Party out for rhetoric, saying that some people are not paying taxes, but when asked who is not paying taxes, the New Democratic Party cannot come up with one name?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to learn of the Hon. Member's hearing problem. It did seem to me that I did specifically name one firm. Perhaps I will name a few others: Hudson's Bay Company of Canada, Steinberg's, Simpsons-Sears, Domtar-


Donald Alex Blenkarn: "Taxable" income.


Nelson Andrew Riis: The taxable income was $30 million in 1981. They paid no income tax that particular year.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Taxable income.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I am saying there is quite a long list. I suppose if I am going to be specific about a tax loophole that I feel could be changed or removed to a large extent, it would be the PIP grants. I believe anybody, even those in the Progressive Conservative Party if they were to be honest about so-called tax incentives to oil companies, would have to admit that we have been excessive when you find 80-plus per cent of the exploration costs in our frontier areas being paid for by the people of Canada as a result of PIP grants and other tax concessions to oil companies, most of which are foreign-based. I do not think that is a tax concession we can afford to keep in place much longer.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, I have a short supplementary question for the Hon. Member. Now that the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap has named the Hudson's Bay Company as evading taxes on $30 million, will he go to a justice of the peace this afternoon and lay a charge of tax evasion against the Hudson's Bay Company? Will he do the same with the Bank of Montreal? Or is it a fact that those companies have no taxable income? Is it not a fact that this is hokum, nonsense and drivel?
Let me ask the Hon. Member one more question. Where does the NDP stand on this Bill? Is it in favour of $29 billion in borrowing authority or will the New Democratic Party be voting against the Bill?

March 8, 1984
Borrowing Authority Act


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, this is getting to the point of being silly. Are we in the New Democratic Party going to vote to provide authority for the Government of Canada to borrow and spend nearly $30 billion when we stand up daily in this House and outline very specifically how that money is being inappropriately spent and inappropriately collected? To suggest for a moment that we would consider supporting this Bill, I find rather amusing would be the best way to put it.
I want to clarify a point which the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) has made. I have not suggested that the Royal Bank of Canada, the Bank of Montreal to which I specifically referred, Domtar or Steinberg's are evading taxes. I said very specifically in my response that these firms and individuals are obeying the law. His political Party, in co-operation with the Liberal Party, has over the years devised a set of tax rules which enable Canadian individuals, mainly upper income earners, and Canadian corporations to use legitimate laws of the land to provide loopholes which enable them to pay little or no tax. These people are acting within the law, thanks to the law written by members of the Liberal and Conservative Parties.


Mr. Pierre  Gimai@: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in the debate today on Bill C-21, aimed at giving the Canadian Government sufficient borrowing authority for the year 1984. It is, of course, not the first time a debate on the subject is being held in the House. It is, in fact, a yearly occurrence, when the Government seeks borrowing authority to be able to meet the needs of Canadians and its various departments.
What I find surprising in these yearly debates, and perhaps even more so this year, are the repetitious arguments of the Official Opposition. Every year, we hear the same old cliche about blank cheques and an incredible amount of rhetoric that would have Canadians believe that the Government is doing an incredibly bad job. In fact, their arguments are entirely at odds with what is actually happening in Canada. Mr. Speaker, Canada is a vast and beautiful country, and in this country, in nine provinces out of ten, the authority responsible for collecting taxes from all Canadians or money in any other form, to meet the needs of the provinces, is the Government of Canada. All the more incredible, when one listens to what the Opposition has to say, and surprising, Mr. Speaker, since, as we know there is not a single Liberal government in our Canadian provinces.


An Hon. Member:: Your time will come!


Mr. Pierre  Gimai@: There are several Conservative governments that spend money and pass legislation to meet the needs of their people. What kind of legislation are they passing and how do they do it? I do not know whether all the provinces are doing a good job, but if we look at Quebec ... It would take a long time to enumerate the many points on which I disagree with the Government of my unfortunate province, which is
increasingly suffering the consequences of having elected an outrageously dominating Parti Quebecois Government. I would not go so far as to say the same of the other provinces, but the fact remains that these are the people, and many are Conservatives like those here in the House, or Members of the New Democratic Party, these are the people who are going to spend a large part of the $29 billion the Canadian Government is seeking to borrow. Mr. Speaker, this year the Canadian government will be giving nearly $20 billion to the provinces in transfer payments to meet the needs of Canadian in areas under provincial jurisdiction, such as health care. I see the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) who is in the midst of negotiations at the present time and has introduced a Bill to ensure that Canadians receive proper care, that they can be born, live and die in this country with the assurance that Canada can provide them with health care and also post-secondary and technical institutions. Every year, the Government of Canada transfers $20 billion to the provinces. I would therefore suggest that Members of the Opposition who want to know what this money will be used for call up their provincial colleagues who might be able to tell them how that money is going to be spent. I would be surprised if they did because that party is totally inconsistent in several areas. Whether the issue is languages, oil or anything else, what the big brothers in the federal Parliament want, is unwanted by the kid brothers in the provincial Assemblies. In other words, there is no agreement, just controversy. This is more or less how we see the Progressive Conservative party at this time with their nine days' wonder, their new leader who, by the way, now has to cope with a new trend known as "Bring Back Joe", which is gaining quite a momentum in Western Canada, and who does not seem too sure of making it to the upcoming elections.
"Bring back Joe" is the new trend originating from Western Canada. It is the BBJ or "Bring Back Joe" trend, and 1 can easily understand why the Members opposite feel dejected because, as the Hon. Member for Joliette (Mr. La Salle) said during the Progressive Conservative leadership campaign a year ago, the Leader of the Opposition is proving to be with every passing day nothing more than just an idolized fake. He even lost the power of speech recently. He found it this afternoon for two short questions and quickly left the House to ask his friend from St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) whether he had asked the right questions. I think that he will be back on his usual pedestal tomorrow. Then once again he will lose the power of speech as has been the case these last few weeks.
To come back to the issue being considered, Mr. Speaker, I have heard during the last few days Members opposite trying to make us believe that Canada was getting deep into debt. How awful! Canada is engulfed in debt. I heard the Hon. Member for Joliette yesterday giving as a perfect example the
March 8, 1984

way people use credit cards. Mr. Speaker, what is wrong with using a credit card to pay for what you buy? It is simply a banking tool that was the best example the Hon. Member had to explain what is going on in Canada, but he did not do so. It is obvious that if the credit card user has no money to pay for what he buys with his card and has to borrow from someone else there is a problem. However, when the card user has the money in the bank to pay for his purchases, there is no problem at all in using a credit card.
The Canadian Government will borrow in Canada over 90 per cent of the $29 billion requested in this Bill. This means that Canada will not be borrowing money on the foreign markets. What the Government is asking is the authority to borrow, to obtain the moneys it needs by a means other than taxation to generate economic activity, to fulfill the requirements of the population, to meet its commitments under the various pieces of legislation which were passed through the years in this House by the various parties.
When the Canadian Government borrows from Canadians, is Canada's deficit increasing? No. The deficit of Canada as a nation does not increase. When the Government borrows from Canadians, it uses their money to invest in various social and economic programs, and in most cases, especially in the last few years, the Canadian Government has invested to acquire assets. For instance, in my area of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, the Canadian Government is investing $245 million in infrastructures which will be owned by Canadians to bring gas by way of a pipeline to the area, and this will enable businesses and individuals in the area to buy less crude oil, which often comes from abroad, especially from the Middle East. Such is the cause of the actual deficit, when we have to buy something outside Canada. What the Government is doing is taking money and converting it into an asset, and the best part of it all is that Canadians are the ones who are working to build this pipeline.
The same applies to the other infrastructures which the Government is building for harbours, airports, industries, industrial parks, and so on, in my own area and everywhere else in Canada. Over the past two or three years, the Government has shown its determination to take every advantage of the strong economic recovery and use the money of Canadian taxpayers to set up the mechanisms which, in coming years, will be needed to spur and upgrade our industry to meet the challenge of the new computer technology. It is extremely important that we take that step into the future. Needless to say, the economy has been rather sluggish in the first two years of the current decade. In 1982 and 1983, Mr. Speaker, individual Canadians and businessmen alike have put a lot of money in the bank and been rather reluctant to borrow. But they made an about turn in 1983 as a result of improved economic conditions both in Canada and in the United States, and the Canadian Government also played a major role by
Borrowing Authority Act
offering incentives such as the $3,000 home construction grants and other incentives.
The result of all this, Mr. Speaker, was that a lot of people ended up with huge bank accounts, as many of our fellow Canadians did.
Would Hon. Members of the Opposition have preferred that Canadian banks lend that money to foreigners, for instance? Do they think that when a Canadian puts money in the bank and earns interest on his deposit that the interest falls from heaven? When a deposit brings in interest, it is because the borrower has put the money to work or because the bank which took the deposit has loaned the money to somebody.
Let us say that the Government stops borrowing, as the Opposition seems to be suggesting. Who will go out tomorrow and borrow the $29 billion needed to stimulate the economy? If the Government, as leader of the country and the main lever behind economic activities, does not show that it is prepared to promote economic growth actively to fight unemployment, who among businessmen will have enough confidence to get his feet wet if the Government itself is standing still? Will we let the major Canadian banks lend money to Third World countries or even to Eastern nations whose regime is so corrupt that they cannot even repay the interest on their debts? Is that what the Opposition parties want? We do not know, Mr. Speaker. It never fails, it is always the same old tune!
It is unbelievable, but I see across the floor people who have been elected years ago and who are supposedly knowledgeable in economic affairs, yet they keep repeating the same irrelevant and misleading speeches, trying to make Canadians believe that they will end up in bread lines if the Government keeps borrowing, that it is increasing the national debt when it borrows from Canadians. That is not true. Mr. Speaker, some countries have found themselves in financial straits because they borrowed too much on foreign money markets. That has been the economic bane of a number of countries, but Canada is certainly not among them. What the Canadian Government is doing now and what it has done in recent years is that it has assumed that responsibility when Canadians were reluctant to invest as they used to, it has made the investments required to get our economy moving.
Yesterday I heard the Hon. Member for Simcoe South or Simcoe North tell the House that the Bank of Canada rate was going to increase as a result of Canada's huge $30 billion deficit-


Mr. Rossi:: That is hypothetical!


Mr. Gimaiel:: My colleague from Bourassa (Mr. Rossi) says that it is hypothetical. It is more than hypothetical, it is wrong. How can the Hon. Member suggest that our interest rates could be lower than those of the United States without driving the value of our dollar down into the ground? The strongest

March 8, 1984
Borrowing Authority Act
pressure on interest rates in Canada . . . This is something they kept saying everywhere when they were in office in 1979. The strongest pressure on interest rates in Canada comes from the interest rates of American banks. Whatever the level of borrowing of the Canadian Government, it changes absolutely nothing. Because tomorrow morning, even if Canada's operating deficit were nil our interest rates would have to be comparable to those in the United States to support our dollar.
And why at this point should we tell Canadians that the borrowing level of the Canadian Government has an impact on interest rates, when we know full well they reflect what goes on down South? Again, this is presumably political tactics of the kind that was used in Manitoba by their provincial colleagues, to make Manitobans believe that if Francophones were given rights everyone would lose his shirt, his bones or his job, everyone would have to be bilingual in that province. No. That kind of tactics, Mr. Speaker, tends to upset the people needlessly.
In all fairness, if those Opposition parties were serious, they would try to work out or help us work out policies that would be good for Canadians. This is what the Canadian Government has been trying to do and has been doing for years. An area such as mine, a so-called resource area, which has been a major source of electrical power for the rest of Canada and the people down South since the turn of the century an area which is an extremely important source of wood, pulp and paper, aluminum, and various resources is one where work is often seasonal. In my constituency, many people work only six months a year. This is part of our life pattern, because there are operations at the resource level that are conducted on a seasonal basis only. Should this country penalize people because they are in the Saguenay-Lake St. Jean area rather than in Montreal? Should Canada forget to support the people in areas such as mine when there are no jobs available? If the Canadian Government were to do that it means it would have to pay to set up infrastructures that would be used only six months a year to bring workers to large centres, which would create big social problems! That is not the way the Liberal Party of Canada under Pierre Elliott Trudeau and his supporters have envisioned this country over the years. His vision of this country was one where people were given the opportunity to move about, to settle down to grow, to develop, and to live all year-round, whichever they please, through economic policies established by the Canadian government such as DREE or the new DREE or the PRID Program intensive economic development policies, whether it be through job creation programs or manpower training in plants or in schools, or the various policies for direct social action, which I referred to earlier, such as medicare and support to university, technical and college training programs. All Canadians-men and women-were given the right to be born, to live, to receive health care to retire, to work, as I said earlier, to exist. One of the struggles we have just won is that pregnant women are no longer penalized by the Employment Insurance Act for giving
Canada the gift of life which will produce the next generation of Canadians means today-
This is what being Canadian to be able to be born, to live, to be cared for, to be housed, to be fed, to grow up, to retire carefree and at all time, to enjoy freedom of action, freedom of speech, freedom of thought. But all this, Mr. Speaker, requires money. And what the Canadian Government is doing, whether the Official Opposition likes it or not, is to borrow from Canadians to invest in Canada and to give work and benefits to Canadians. In the final analysis, Canadians receive interests on the money they have lent to a country they trust, to their own country, to their Government, to Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: There is a ten minute period for questions or comments. The Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis).


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of straightforward questions to put to the Hon. Member. I listened to his speech and found it very interesting. He is obviously very concerned about the ability of the Canadian economy to recover and to get back to life, in a sense. He has indicated a number of steps that the Government has taken in that direction.
My questions are restricted to a particular area. At a time when we need consumer spending as one of the factors which will kick-start our economy back to life or sustain a recovery, could the Hon. Member explain how the Government's increasing of taxes to the average Canadian family of somewhere between $200 and $300 per family would assist the recovery at a time when disposable incomes are needed to allow Canadians to purchase additional goods and services? How will personal income tax increases help a recovery?


Mr. Gima'iel:: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member's question surprises me somewhat. If the Government is now requesting a borrowing authority of $30 billion, it is because during recent years, it has decided to give more discretionary money to all Canadians. I do not know how he can refer to a tax increase of $200 or $300. He is probably considering more than one tax.
I do not deny the fact that some taxes can fluctuate but generally, it cannot be said that Canadians are now paying more federal taxes than at the beginning of the '70's. Quite the contrary. Federal taxes have always been indexed, as we all know, and if we consider the increased revenues during the last ten or fifteen years, compared to what Canadian taxpayers are paying to their Government, it is quite the contrary. I will even go further. In the last budget, it is provided that the individuals who spend their entire income, for example those who receive the guaranteed income supplement, will get an additional $50 at the end of the year 1984 from the Canadian Government. They are the best consumers in Canada, because they spend their entire income.
March 8, 1984

The same applies to statutory increases granted under the various welfare programs of the Government for senior citizens or for the unemployed. The unemployment insurance system, which is a comprehensive insurance provided by the Canadian Government is also indexed every year. The economy will benefit from these consumers who, as I said, are our best consumers, because whether they are unemployed or not, the money they receive from the Government of Canada is almost immediately reinvested in the Canadian economy.
In a town such as my home-town of Alma, whose industrial infrastructure over the past six or seven years has been quite unstable as a result of the modernization or closing of plants which were no longer competitive, a million dollars in unemployment insurance benefits are injected every week. Otherwise, our tradesmen who are helping hundreds and even thousands of unemployed workers survive would have much difficulty supporting them in their hour of need. It will be my responsibility, as a Member of Parliament, to make sure that until such a time as the provincial government comes to our rescue by providing us with aluminium works or some other plant to restore the Alma area to the strong economic position it enjoyed previously, we have many more Canada Works projects, unemployment insurance policies and schemes for the redistribution of wealth throughout Canada, so that although our plants may not be producing it year round we can still continue to provide the South with aluminium, and survive the rest of the year.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: The Chair recognizes the Hon. Member for La Prairie (Mr. Deniger).


Mr. Deniger:: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my hon. colleague.
Could he explain to me something I just cannot understand, that is, how Hon. Members opposite will go about reducing the deficit while increasing considerably defence expenditures as well as transfer payments to the provinces for Medicare purposes, without increasing the tax burden?


Mr. Pierre  Gimai@: Mr. Speaker, this comes with the territory when you sit here as a federal MP. What I really mean is that members of the Official Opposition and of the New Democratic Party as well are displaying a total lack of consistency, so that one day they urge the government to cut its spendings, and the next they call for an increase in its defence budget. This worries me when I think that we might see, and in fact, we are seeing it already in some provinces, these people come to power, because their choice of expenditures is awful!


An Hon. Member:: It is a nightmare!


Mr. Pierre  Gimai@: And when we see what their priorities are, we wonder how they view human values, which are essential to our work as politicians, since we must represent people who rely on us to make sure that Canada is a country of which each and every citizen may be proud. I am referring mostly to members of the Progressive Conservative Party. This goes for
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their approach to the language issue, the economy and the overall development. Fortunately, it is not the same with the New Democratic Party. What I have against the NDP is that they will never complete whatever they undertake. I find it unfortunate that they have chosen to be what I would call a non-decision party or a non-development party. It is paradoxical that though the idea is there, it is never fully developed; I find this unfortunate. We have had an example of this in Manitoba, and in fact, their people should have been more persistent, the Legislative Assembly should have continued to sit and the session should have continued, but this did not happen. As far as the Progressive Conservatives are concerned, the contradiction is awful, and I say intolerable! In economic matters, there is even greater contradiction than elsewhere because, in the same breath, the Government is asked to increase its expenditures, but told that it should not borrow, and in addition, the Government is charged with collecting taxes erringly and with harassing Canadians. It is incredible!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: The Hon. Member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker).


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Hon. Member for Lac-Saint-Jean (Mr. Gimai'el). Is it true that the Hon. Member believes that the Liberal Party would become Communist if it became necessary?


Mr. Pierre  Gimai@: Mr. Speaker, if I may, I first want to say how glad I am to hear the Hon. Member ask me his question in French. It is great; I really appreciate it as the Lac Saint-Jean area is 100 per cent French-speaking.
As for the question, if such a thought can come to your mind, it is because you really do not know the Liberal Party. I can give you my word that the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Trudeau) has never written any letter in which it was said that policies as applied in northern Russia, in Siberia, for instance, could be applied to a place like Schefferville and even that a delegation from Schefferville could be sent to Russia to see how northern communities are developed in that country. You will never hear such a thing from the Liberal Party even though the former president of Iron Ore thought that this was a good solution and truly believed, to the extent that he put it down in writing early in 1983, that this was the way to go. Personally, since I know the Liberal Party well and am a true Liberal, I can vouch that, as long as Canadians put their trust in us Liberals, they will live in a country where freedom is honoured, where the individual is important, where the rights of people to their language and their culture, whether they are French- or English-speaking-we are seeing this today in the negotiations with the native people-all these rights of Canadians will be respected as long as they put their trust in the Liberal Party, because in this party, what is of the utmost
1910

March 8, 1984
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importance is the individual. As for you and the Official Opposition, the most important things are symbols such as the golden calf which they found in Schefferville and will have to return C.O.D. because no one wants him over there. He will probably end up in Toronto.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, I was here on January 29, 1982, when the Hon. Member spoke. It is recorded in Hansard that he said that if necessary the Liberal Party would become communistic in order to retain power. Is he now denying that statement? I was here; I heard it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary has the floor for a very short reply.


Pierre J.J. Georges Adelard Gimaïel: Mr. Speaker, I categorically deny what the Hon. Member has just said, for I have never said that Liberals would do anything to remain in power, since their concern is with the welfare of the Canadian people. As to the members of the Progressive Conservative Party . . . Look at what is happening in Newfoundland, Mr. Speaker: Today the Minister of Energy has given us an example of the insincerity of the Progressive Conservative Party in Newfoundland. It is not the welfare of Newfoundlanders which concerns Brian Peckford, but power. He wants wealth and power, just as "Joe" did before him!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian public will know now why we are in the mess in which we are now after listening to the Hon. Member deliver that 20 minutes speech. Another Member spoke about coherence. I should like to know what is coherent about having three philosophies. There has been talk that we are going to be communistic and talk about oppression. No doubt Hon. Members opposite would have their Siberias too. We know they are going to have these concentration camps in this country, so maybe that is another start toward communistic rule. I will get around to January 29, 1982, in a minute, Mr. Speaker.
Bill C-21, an Act to provide borrowing authority, will provide authority to borrow up to an additional $29 billion in new money. Of this amount, $4 billion in authority is a continuance that may be carried over beyond March 31, 1985, while the other $25.55 billion may only be used in fiscal 1984-85. The Government does not have to borrow every dollar of this deficit and it has some non-budgetary sources of funds. Of the $29 billion deficit, only $25.55 must be borrowed after taking into account non-budgetary sources of $4.5 billion.
The Government is asking for $4 billion more than it needs in fiscal 1984-85. That is a very weird philosophy. I will go into the statistics that applied over the years under the Liberals to show how they reached this type of borrowing and uncontrolled spending.
After listening to the Liberals it is evident that they do not even know what the Auditor General's report is about. They do not read it so they do not pay any attention to it. That has been made quite evident by the Auditor General who says they simply do not have the will to implement his recommendations. We see such things as a $600,000 motel sold for $200. It is too bad that the general public cannot see the Liberals laughing at this time. They think these things are a big joke.
This was taxpayers' money, Mr. Speaker, the $315,000 that was poured into this motel, which was sold for $200. Now Hon. Members opposite tell us how brilliant they are, how astute they are at controlling expenses. Who will ever believe the word of Liberal?
After I read from Hansard of January 29, 1982, I think the Canadian people will understand why we are in this awful financial mess, heading toward complete financial ruin through completely uncontrolled spending.
On that date the Hon. Member for Lac-Saint-Jean (Mr. Gimaiel) pointed out, as reported at page 14479 of Hansard:
To be a Liberal is first and foremost to be an elected representative, a person whose leitmotiv, whose supreme will is to provide opportunities for development and progress for all Canadians.
That certainly is not happening. They have been driving billions and billions of dollars of investment money out of the country. He continued:
In such a situation, anything can be justified. If the development of individual Canadians is to be achieved through socialization, the Liberal Party can turn socialistic. If the development of individual Canadians is to be achieved through a turn to the right through a strengthening in the industry, the Liberal Party can move to the right.
They are like a hockey team, they are all over the map. He went on:
If in order to promote our development the Liberal Party thinks we have to be communistic, we shall be communistic. This is what it is all about to be a Liberal. To be a Liberal is to be open to all ideas.
They have all kinds of philosophies. This is what they call being a true Liberal. It is what they call being coherent. It is some coherence, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Fisher:: Oh, come on!


A. Daniel McKenzie: The Liberals tell me to come on. I did not say this, the Liberals did. I have one philosophy. I believe in the free enterprise system. I do not believe in communism because I know what is happening in Russia. I know what type of government they have there and how the people are oppressed. I know the standard of living the people have under communist rule.
To date the Government has come to Parliament eight times since the 1980 election to seek more borrowing authority. The Government's projected financial requirements between 19841985 and 1987-1988 total $87.2 billion. This would indicate that Parliament is in for a steady stream of large borrowing Bills over the next few years. This is the seventh borrowing Bill
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over the last few years. So one can see this is a trend under the Liberals.
The financial requirements are only part of the picture. Many Crown corporations are able to raise debt in the financial market without seeking borrowing authority from Parliament. This has been highlighted by the Auditor General time and timea gain. There are no cost controls over the operations of the Crown corporations. And that is how it is to be a true Liberal: Do not have any cost controls.
Over the past 16 years, government spending has risen at an unprecedented rate on a national accounts basis where data is comparable over time, spending has climbed from $12.6 billion in 1968-1969 to an estimated $107.5 billion in 1984-1985, an increase of 773 per cent. On the more commonly used public accounts basis, spending has increased from $12.3 billion in 1968-1969 to $96.9 billion, an increase of 668 per cent. That is unbelievable. It is not acceptable. It is not normal to conduct business in such a way as to have borrowing and spending increase at that rate.
Relative to fiscal 1979-1980, spending has risen by 92 per cent on a public accounts basis or 97 per cent on a national accounts basis. Spending in 1984-1985 will be up by a further 9 per cent. The public accounts deficit for fiscal 1984-1985 will be equal to 31 per cent of public accounts expenditures. For every $3 the Governor spends, it must borrow $1. There are only two ways to finance a deficit, first, by printing money-and over the past 12 years the Bank of Canada has monetarized a total of $12 billion of the government's financial requirements-and, second, by borrowing money. In 1983, borrowing by the federal Government accounted for 58 per cent of all new security issued placed in Canada. Borrowing of that magnitude clearly must have an effect on the supply and demand for money and thus on the interest rates which must be borne by the private sector. In addition, it should be noted that the 1983-1984 financial requirements of $27 billion are equal to 81 per cent of the 1983 personal savings.
I do not know what the philosophies were of the Liberals at the time, whether communist, socialist or free enterprise, but the present Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) said, "This Party will not simply stand by and let the recession come. We will fight it and overcome it. We have an economic program for the 1980s which all enhance dignity, create opportunity and provide security". What do we have now? We have a million and a half to two million unemployed in this country and record bankruptcies. Since 1980 the Liberal Party, the all-philosophy Party, has driven $14 billion investment money out of this country. The Liberals are good for the economy of the United States. The Liberal Party is the best friend the United States ever had. I have developers who live in my city in Winnipeg. They spend their time developing projects in Florida, California and Texas because they do not trust this Government and they cannot operate under its rules. So they take their money and they get out, and that is all on the record.


John Leslie Evans: It is your provincial government and municipalities that set the rules.
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A. Daniel McKenzie: Yes, the Hon. Member says it is the Manitoba provincial Government, which has a socialist philosophy-


John Leslie Evans: Yes, and the one that was there before.


A. Daniel McKenzie: I am well aware of what the New Democratic Party has done to the economy in Manitoba. Since the return of the Liberals to power, Canada has experienced not one but two recessions. Canadian factories are operating at two-thirds of capacity. One worker in eight is officially unemployed. These are hardly circumstances which "enhance dignity, create opportunity and provide security". In 1979, following John Turner's time as Minister of Finance, the Auditor General stated that the present state of the financial management and control system of departments and agencies of the Government of Canada is significantly below acceptable standards of quality and effectiveness. Mr. Turner, who was an expert on emptying public coffers when he was Minister of Finance, is the type of person the Liberal Party is looking for to lead them now, an irresponsible person, a person with a dismal record as Minister of Finance. There is only one other Minister who has equalled him, and that is the present Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. MacEachen), and no one can touch his record as Minister of Finance.
The former Finance Minister, Mr. Turner, has on occasion appeared before service clubs and civic organizations delivering addresses aimed against excessive government spending. It is a topic about which Mr. Turner knows plenty. In fact, I am tempted to say that he wrote the book on the subject. He certainly did a great job of introducing "blank cheque" government to Canada under his reign as Minister of Finance. Now even the media are praising him, along with the Liberals-with a record like this-saying he will make a great Prime Minister. He will be another walking disaster, the same as the present Prime Minister.
During the period in which Mr. Turner was Minister of Finance, spending by the federal Government jumped 99.8 per cent. Why did we have to have an increase like that? There was no need for any increase like that at all, Mr. Speaker. To put it another way, it took us 105 years to reach a federal spending level of $17.44 billion. John Turner doubled that figure in 44 months, taking the level of government spending in his brief term in office to twice that reached by the federal Government since Confederation. As I said before, Mr. Turner is an expert on emptying public coffers, and under the Budgets which he brought to Parliament, $113 billion of taxpayers' money was spent, or at least borrowed.
When Mr. Turner took over from Edgar Benson, inflation was running at 4.9 per cent. When he left, it was 10.6 per cent. Under Mr. Turner as Minister of Finance the cost of living jumped 38.5 per cent and the dollar, if one assumes it to have been worth 100 cents in January, 1972, was worth only 72 cents when he walked out. And the way we are going in this country, before long we are going to have a 50-cent dollar, Mr. Speaker.

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There are other aspects of the record of Mr. Turner which the former Minister of Finance should explain to Canadians if he is going to be a candidate for the Liberal Party. At the time John Turner was given the mantle in January of 1972 there were 544,000 people out of work. When he left, 732,000 Canadians were unemployed. What kind of Minister of Finance was he? Obviously, he was just a load on the backs of business and the taxpayers of Canada. In spite of the record spending and in spite of all the measures he took to promote employment and business, only 69,000 jobs were created in the manufacturing sector from December, 1972 to December 1975. In 1972 there was a surplus of $700 million in our current account balance; the equivalent of our country's checking account in international trade. In 1975, there was a deficit of almost $5 billion. When John Turner got the job as Minister of Finance, real growth in this country amounted to 6.6 per cent. When he left, it was .3 per cent, and on a per capita basis it was absolutely negative. He was a negative Minister of Finance. In terms of real growth, we lost ground under John Turner as Minister of Finance.
As Minister of Justice, Mr. Turner was responsible for the lax criminal laws which have created the present fear that stalks the streets. His imprudent bail laws are one example. That is his record. That is the record of a man who is now busy telling Canadians what is wrong with the monetary and fiscal policies of the Government, policies which he himself promoted as Minister of Finance. That is the record of the same John Turner who presided over this country's greatest spending spree since Confederation. One needs more than blue eyes in this business to be a good Minister of Finance, Mr. Speaker.
In 1976, during Donald MacDonald's term as Finance Minister, the Auditor General said, "I am deeply concerned that Parliament-and indeed the Government-has lost or is close to losing effective control on the public purse". Mr. Macdonald is doing pretty well with the public purse today. He is receiving $800 a day from the public purse. The study he is conducting now would not be necessary at all if the Liberal Government had paid attention to some of the studies which have been done in the Senate. Sound recommendations were made years ago and if the Government had implemented a lot of those recommendations you would not need Donald Macdonald at $800 a day.
The Auditor General has unearthed appalling new examples of untold millions of dollars being wasted because of Government bungling and carelessness. More disturbing is that many of the financial misdeeds continue to be repeated. The Auditor General puts more emphasis on this every year. His reports do not get better, they get worse. It took seven years and the loss of more than $900,000 in operating costs to deal with the request by the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources for a new press to print maps. The Government lost an estimated $10 million by continuing to rent office space in Ottawa while three of its own buildings were vacant for up to five years. In a case which hit close to home in New Brunswick, Mr. Speaker, a motel valued at nearly $500,000 was
built with a $315,000 federal Government guarantee. It was sold at a bankruptcy auction for $200. Where was the control? The communist-socialist-free enterprise Liberals just handed the money out: have fun, build hotels! Oh, it is great! We will bleed the sucker Canadians to death. If you need more, come on back. That is how the Liberals run this country, Mr. Speaker. The buyer at $200 turned around and sold it the next day for $75,200. It is taxpayers' money paying for all this entertainment. Incidentally, it is no longer a motel, and after several changes, efforts are currently under way to turn it into a senior citizens' complex.
As the unemployment insurance fund heads toward a whopping $4.2 billion deficit in 1983, substantial overpayments to claimants are still slipping through the system undetected. The federal deficit, which the Government places at $31.1 billion, is being seriously underestimated because of the way Ottawa's financial statements are arranged. The country's 300 to 400 Crown corporations remain largely unaccountable to Parliament.
You can see, Mr. Speaker, that there is no control. When we say there is uncontrolled spending, it is backed up by the Auditor General, who is the supreme authority. When the Prime Minister was asked about the last Auditor General's report with all the horror stories and what he was going to do about it, he said, "Oh, that is one man's opinion". The Auditor General is not expressing an opinion; he is the supreme authority with the documentary evidence of the fact that there is no control over spending in this country under the allphilosophy Liberal Party.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Mr. Speaker, I note another gripping speech from the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Assiboine (Mr. McKenzie). I wonder if he would mind reverting to a few facts after this florid rhetoric we have just been exposed to. For example, the net public debt expressed as a percentage of the gross national product was 37.9 per cent in 1958-59, 37.1 per cent in 1959-60, and dropped from there to 36.2 per cent in 1962-63, all of which are the Diefenbaker years. Then we look through this period he describes as John Turner's wild spending period and we find that debt as a percentage of GNP in those days was 15.5 per cent, half of Diefenbaker's, and 17.2 per cent the next year. Today, after one of the worst recessions our country has experienced, it is at 33.5 per cent, which is still 3 per cent lower than it was at its lowest point in the Diefenbaker years.
I remind the Hon. Member that since the Diefenbaker years we have instituted expanded payments for Old Age Security and GIS, we have the Canada Pension Plan, expanded unemployment insurance, the Canada Assistance Act, medicare, help for post-secondary education, and we have expanded help through companies like PetroCan. All of these things have expanded, yet in 1958-59, the Diefenbaker record was that public debt was 37.9 per cent of the gross national product. The John Turner record in 1974-75 was 15.5 per cent, and today it is 33.5 per cent.
If we are terrible spenders, could the Hon. Member tell us what John Diefenbaker was?
March 8, 1984


A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, during the Diefenbaker years they were paying off the World War II debt. That is the burden they carried in their six years in office.


John Leslie Evans: That is 18 years after the war, what are you talking about?


A. Daniel McKenzie: Federal spending increased by $1 billion over the six-year period. Under Mr. Diefenbaker there was no blank cheque government. He did not hand out blank cheques to his ministries. We did not have 480 Crown corporations. We had stability in the country because we had reasonable control over spending.
The Hon. Member talks about PetroCan, Mr. Speaker. We know all about that, and there is no control there either. There is empty office space in Calgary like you would not believe. They are building their own empire and they still have all kinds of office space rented in other buildings around Calgary. That is some record, and it goes on all over this country. The Standing Committee on Public Accounts is out looking at empty offices in Government buildings and other buildings down here. There is no control over anything.
Here is another example from the Auditor General's report. The Minister of Transport, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy), named a Winnipeg Liberal Party official to take over the books of the Canada Ports Corporation. The Auditor General pointed out that this situation illustrates his concern about the whole issue of accountability of Crown corporations, appointment of auditors and the nature of audits conducted for Parliament. The excuse was, well, we are giving employment to Winnipeg. That is very nice, but you do not make any gains if you are losing control over Canada Ports. The Liberal fund raiser who received the contract to do the auditing said in an interview that he has been the Liberal's official agent responsible for collecting funds donated to the Party and forwarding them to Ottawa.


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


John Leslie Evans: This is question period, Mr. Speaker.


A. Daniel McKenzie: He is a Liberal bagman. If the Auditor General says auditing should be here, that is where it should be, Mr. Speaker. He is the supreme authority, not the Minister of Transport. He is trying to save his political behind because he is in political trouble.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Order. May I remind Hon. Members that if the questions are short, then I shall make sure the responses are equally short.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of my friend and colleague. The Government always compares debt to GNP, but of course we know that the GNP here is of quite a different structure than that in the U.S.A. The real measurement of whether you are going forward or back is the percentage of tax revenue used for servicing the national debt, which used to be 5 per cent to 10 per cent and is now over 30
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per cent. I would like to hear the Member's view as to whether that is wise in Canada and what that does to Canadians.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Uncontrolled spending, uncontrolled debt and uncontrolled borrowing is not good for any country. The net national debt now grows by more each year than the total money borrowed to finance the Canadian participation in World War I and World War II. The Hon. Member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington) was speaking this morning. He has been working on the Public Accounts Committee for the last 10 years trying to bring some sanity into the spending and accounting procedures. They drafted 10 concise reports and all kinds of recommendations to bring some control over the spending, and only one has been implemented. They will not implement the other nine.
That is what the Auditor General said. The all-philosophy Liberal Party does not have the will to do it. Liberals, please read the Auditor General's report. Take it home with you tonight and go through it. You will learn something.


Mr. Orlikow:: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Hon. Member a question. He has spoken about the deficit and the wastages. I am not going to defend the wastages. He has spoken about the very large increases in the expenditures. Surely the Member knows that the increase in expenditures in recent years has been due to the increased levels and funding of services such as medicare, hospital care and post-secondary education which we share with the provinces.
How does the Hon. Member think we can stop this increase in spending, particularly since, according to today's newspaper, his Leader made it very clear yesterday to members of the Conservative caucus that universal programs which are now in place are a fundamental principle which a Conservative Government would follow? If we cannot get rid of universal programs and cut the expenditures for the large number of programs which are cost-shared with the provinces, how does the Member think we can get back to the days when we did not have the kind of expenditures we have at the present time?


A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) was not here for all of my address. The Auditor General is not pointing out that we will have to cut back on medicare or other specific areas. He is pointing out the waste of hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. A Conservative Government will be able to attract investment into the country. It will stop flowing out of the country. That is on record in the United States. They are waiting for a change of Government here. If the $14 billion which the all-philosophy Liberal Party has driven out of the country since 1980 had stayed here for development, we would have jobs. All this money would not be spent on unemployment insurance. The Government revenues would be increasing and we would be able to increase our social benefits. We are running into real trouble finding the money to keep the social benefits up. That is the problem. We need a change of Government, Mr. Speaker.

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PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 45, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: The Hon. Member for Laval (Mr. Roy)-Industry-Development of high-tech industry-Montreal region; the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier)-The constitution-Request for interpretation of Section 23(3)(b) of Charter of Rights; the Hon. Member for Dauphin-Swan River (Mr. Lewycky)-Agriculture-(a) Farm fuel sales tax, (b) Throne Speech proposal to help farmers.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. MacLaren that Bill C-21, an Act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and be referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs.
Mr. Roland de Corneille (Eglinton-Lawrence):: Mr. Speaker, in speaking to Bill C-21, an Act to provide borrowing authority, it seems to me that I would be remiss if I did not suggest that this whole process can be repetitious and unnecessary. It suggests that we have to look again for major overhauls and streamlining in parliamentary reform.
The process we go through, in budgets and finance at least, Mr. Speaker, reminds me of the explanation a clergyman gave as to what he did when he gave a sermon to his congregation. He said, "First I tell them what I am going to tell them, then I tell them what I am telling them, and then I tell them what I told them." It seems to me that this applies to the whole budgetary process. First, we tell them what we are going to do. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) brings in a Budget. Overall Estimates are given by Departments for what needs to be done. Huge piles of information are provided as to what will be spent. Documentation which we get when the Budget is brought down can literally be six or seven inches high. Then we explain not only what will be spent, but also what we will receive in terms of revenues in our Budget papers. Then we talk about what the shortfall, which is called the deficit, will be. Finally we discuss what must be borrowed. All that is in the budgetary process. We debate the Budget for eight days, giving quite a bit of time to all of these facts. That is telling them what we are going to do.
Then we tell them what we are doing. That process goes on at length. We submit the Estimates in detail as to how much each Department will spend. These Estimates, as they are called, comprise what the Government submits are going to be the amounts of money needed to conduct the Government's business. We take into account the fact that aside from the money the Government collects in income tax for the provinces, a very large part of the federal Budget, that section which is given for federal taxation, is also transferred to the provinces. In fact, estimates have been made, Mr. Speaker, that approximately 60 per cent is now either collected by the provinces or transferred to the provinces in what is collected through income taxes. In other words, we then say how much we will have to spend. The Government again submits huge piles of material to give a detailed accounting of what was spent last year and what the Estimates are for this year. They are debated, sent to committee, witnesses are called, there is ample opportunity to discuss and debate them some more, and then they are finally passed.
Then we continue to tell them what we are telling them. We have Budget Bills. We may have one, two, three or more Budget Bills. These are there to implement the raising of the money and to authorize the taxes. Each of these, Mr. Speaker, is debated, discussed, passed through various phases, sent to committee perhaps, and then finally they come back and are passed.
You would think that after all this debate on the Budget, the Estimates and the Bills for executing the Budget, we would then have exhausted the subject. But no, we must still have another Bill. We now have to tell them again what we told them. This one is to authorize the Government to borrow the money needed to do what Parliament has already agreed needs to be done.
That is what we are doing now, Mr. Speaker. We are debating the Bill to borrow the money which the Budget has predicted will be needed, that is, $29,550 billion, which includes a $4 billion cushion to meet possible unexpected contingencies. It seems to me that there is a little too much repetition. Think of the time which could be saved if the parliamentary system were streamlined and planned in order to eliminate at least one of these operations. However, such is the system we have. Even though we have already justified the expenses and revenues, and therefore the deficit and borrowing needs in the Budget, we now come back to hear the same repetition and litany of gloom and doom from the Opposition Members. But there are many others who are not as pessimistic as they are. Last night, when I attended a meeting of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, I was impressed by the fact that they did not bring to Ottawa a long list of grievances, pejorative attacks and a crying towel. To the contrary, they came to express a feeling of relief that a real process of consultation has been developing over the last several years between business, labour and government. They pointed out that this dialogue which the Minister of Finance has initiated led to real results and improvements in creating a positive climate for business over the last two budgets. It is a positive
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climate for businesses, large and small, to develop an ability to improve their productivity, profits and competitiveness. They also felt that this dialogue must continue.
They pointed out that we in the country are not yet back to where we were before the recession. They also noted last night that the recovery was real and the future, if this dialogue between government and business will continue, was more promising.
We in the Government share their concerns, lest the deficit become a chronic case, lest interest rates and inflation rise and the recovery be nipped in the bud. But what was significant was their anticipation of better results from dialogue and co-operation.
Business leaders to whom I spoke last night and to whom I have been speaking generally have expressed those thoughts in the last couple of years. They also asked me last night what I thought. I explained that we believe the deficit which we have budgeted is necessary to keep the economy growing and fuelled, to honour the commitments to social justice we have made, as well as to provide useful employment. I pointed out that our deficit is not as serious in its implications as is the American deficit, as the Americans themselves have pointed out, because ours is not the same kind of structural deficit and therefore not as dangerous as the one in the United States.
If we get the economy stoked up to a sufficient level, more people will go to work and therefore will be able to pay their taxes. In turn, we will be able to receive revenues, which again will increase the amount of employment and reduce the deficit. If the money we borrow is spent to provide jobs, those who will be earning money will no longer need the social safety nets which cost the Government money. The system will prove beneficial because when they return to work the deficit will be reduced.
I also observed that our deficit is a lower percentage of our GNP. This is something that the Hon. Member for Mississauga North (Mr. Fisher) just indicated. Our deficit today is a lower percentage of our gross national product than it was some 30 years ago in the days of the Right Hon. John Diefenbaker. My reason for pointing this out was not to minimize the seriousness of deficits but to put them in perspective. When we have a deficit, we must borrow. That is the reason for this borrowing Bill. But the reason why we are budgeting and planning a deficit is that we are investing in Canadians and in the future of Canada. If a government of Canada does not believe in Canada, then we cannot expect other Canadians to believe in Canada. In other words, we are not just borrowing to give handouts. We are borrowing to make the new Budget possible, and the new Budget will invest in making the climate better for large and small businesses, farmers and fishermen to enable them to become the engine for industry to work and the economy to roll.
Of course, making the climate for businesses better will cost the Government money. It will increase our deficit. But we are assured in our dialogue with businessmen that the gains that
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we make in improving the climate for businesses will be so great that they will fuel a recovery which will more than compensate for the revenue that is lost. For example, some of the deficits in our new Budget will go to creating a better tax system, a system which will stimulate and reward investment in business. The new Budget will simplify the tax reporting system and the bookkeeping for over 300,000 small businesses, which will give them the incentive to continue to increase investment in their own companies and motivate them to continue to be in business. While that will cost the Government revenue, it will provide relief for the small businessman and provide him with incentives to invest further.
The new Budget will improve the fairness of the tax system. It will give farmers the long hoped for break in transferring their farms to the next generation, and it will also ensure that they will have an opportunity to work incrementally on the side in other kinds of work in order to keep their farms operating and to survive without being penalized. They will be able to write off the losses of their farm operations.
Again, the new Budget will provide aid to the private sector to play a larger role in international development. It will aid the Canadian automobile industry by ensuring that it has a fairer opportunity to compete with foreign auto makers in the Canadian marketplace.
The budget will aid the petroleum industry and much more. All of these programs will cost money. This will increase the deficit. However, we believe, as a result of our dialogue with businessesmen, that they have convinced us that if we take certain measures which will cost us only a relatively small amount of money, the returns from the infusion of enthusiasm and elimination of much paperwork will give those companies new opportunities to grow and be encouraged. For example, this will be done through our efforts in making rather large investments in aid overseas through aid in trade. It will also provide Canadian businesses with new opportunities that otherwise would not be there. In order to help business we must bring up a deficit at this point. Of course, that deficit requires us to borrow money, and that is the purpose of our debate today.
The Opposition questions us about all the money we are wasting. If we were wasting money, I would be against it. When evidence is brought to light which indicates that this happens, I certainly am the first to call for a halt. On the other hand, it is the opinion of some Members that the money we spend on some programs is wasteful. Some in the Opposition do not favour the growth of social services and social spending, but I must ask if raising the guaranteed income supplement to bring single pensioners over the poverty line is wasting money. I do not think so, and I hope that not too many Members of the House hold that view. I believe that giving money to pensioners who built this country and are now elderly Canadians, but whose present pensions have been eroded before their eyes because of inflation, is paying an old debt. They are in a situation where they are no longer able to live in dignity, and it seems to me that we are simply paying an old debt. If we must borrow to pay that debt it should be our first priority.

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Furthermore, it is not like buying oil overseas when money is being sent away, because giving pensions to elderly Canadians means that Canadians are paying Canadians. The money that those senior citizens receive is not being put away in a bank; it is money that will be spent immediately and put back into the system. People at this level of income, such as GIS recipients, will certainly be putting that money back into the Canadian economy immediately through the purchase of goods and services and professional assistance. This, in turn, will put Canadians to work who will then be able to pay taxes. Those revenues will ultimately lead to a reduction in the deficit. Therefore, the money paid in pensions will be circulated throughout the country, and some of it will come back to the federal government in the form of taxes that are paid by those who serve pensioners.
Is putting billions of dollars into employment wasting money? That is one of the many reasons we incur a deficit and borrow. We are putting billions of dollars into employment. We believe retraining Canadians for more relevant jobs is a good investment. We believe that putting money into educational programs, job retraining, career planning and job searching is an investment into our human resources. This will pay off because it will enable our people to do the kind of work and to provide the services that can be carried in goods and trade to other countries. People will be more capable and more productive if they are retrained and re-educated. They will be able to hold jobs that are more productive. This in turn will make Canadian products more competitive abroad.
Sure, it causes a deficit if you put money into that kind of retraining and education. But so does borrowing for improving plant facilities. Businessmen know that they have to renew their plants, buy new machinery and keep up with modern technology to be competitive. Therefore, they are prepared to invest in their resources and their plants. We, on the other hand, have to be prepared to invest in human resources, the engine to make plants work using modern technology. While it may seem a great expenditure of money, it is money that is worth borrowing and worth spending. We are investing in the best and most important thing we can, the people of our country. That is what our Government is doing.
I could go on to discuss all the steps we have taken to invest in Canada, Mr. Speaker. You could look at the renewal of railway lines in the West, the double-tracking and the building of tunnels. Yes, the Government is putting in billions of dollars, but then more and more billions of dollars are being put in by private enterprise, not only to match but to double and triple that investment. This will provide the kind of swift transportation needed to carry the products of the people of central Canada to the West Coast and will provide an outlet for Canadian goods to get to the ports and then on to the marketplace in the Pacific Rim.
While we invest in the railroads, this investment brings people to work. Canadians can then sell their wheat, their potash, and other products, thus earning money for Canada,
which will produce taxes and reduce the deficit. That is an investment in the future. I could give examples of other investments in our infrastructure-the building of roads, communications systems, and so on-which will make us more effective and more competitive. This will bring more sales for Canadian goods and trade. Most of the spending which causes deficits puts Canadians to work. People then pay taxes which reduce the deficit.
We believe in Canada, Mr. Speaker. We want Canadians to believe in Canada. The world sees us as a shining example. Others believe in Canada more than Canadians believe in Canada. We hear carping and negative voices amplified by the purveyors of news who usually think that the only good news is bad news. They talk of gloom and doom. We borrow because we believe in Canadians, we believe in Canada, and we believe in our future.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, could the Hon. Member for Eglinton-Lawrence (Mr. de Corneille) tell us if he knew anyone who ever borrowed himself or herself rich and became rich borrowing more money all the time? Could he tell us how he felt if he believed in Canada that borrowing 31 cents out of every dollar this Government spends can somehow be treated as a progressive thing to do, particularly when that borrowing represents 91 per cent of gross domestic savings?


Roland de Corneille: Mr. Speaker, the question is somewhat rhetorical, I suspect. In any case, I suggest that, yes, Governments borrow. If you look at the United States of America, you will see-


Mr. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: This is Canada.


Roland de Corneille: -that is also the custom there at the present time. Countries borrow because they believe in their future. They borrow because they know that when the opportunity is there to repay, it will be done in times of prosperity and growth. Therefore, they anticipate that as an investment in their future. I think the question is rhetorical.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, being very rhetorical, then, perhaps the Hon. Member would advise me when he anticipates we might be paying back some of this debt? The Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) has indicated that we will have 5 per cent growth this year. It would mean that this year must be almost a boom time. We have not had 5 per cent growth in Canada since the very early 1970s. The Minister says we are going to have 4.4 per cent growth next year. That will be boom time too, and the following year we are to have 4.4 per cent growth. On that basis, should we not be paying back some debts? And on that basis, could the Hon. Member tell the House why the forecasts in the Budget indicate not only borrowing well over $20 billion this year, next year, the year after, and the year after, and into the dim, distant future? Why do we have a Budget with all these good times forecast where we will never pay any money back but we will just borrow more, more, and more?
March 8, 1984


Roland de Corneille: Mr. Speaker, I think it should be remembered that we owe the national debt to ourselves. It is not as though we owe these debts to some foreign nation. If you look at it, it is a fact that makes the associated taxation, bond interest payments and the principal retirement simply redistribution within our own society. As I understand it, very little of the federal debt is held by foreign interests.
Some critics have pointed out that it is unfair to transfer tax burdens from one generation to the next. I would say to you that when we are borrowing, as I was describing, to provide a better education and to provide jobs for young people, that is not borrowing against their future but for their future. It is investing in their future now so they will have a future.
In terms of the specific question, when does this ever get paid off, I think that all nations at present have to be asked that question. It is a game they are all playing. All nations have to play that game in order to try to bring about a recovery and regain confidence. I suggest that one of the problems is not so much the statistics but rather a lack of trust and confidence in the future, and that can bring a nation to its knees. I often feel very concerned psychologically when people talk of gloom and doom. That is a self-fulfilling prophecy and a dangerous one. One has to be very careful about how we approach the subject of discussing the future of Canada. I wish there were a little less oratory and a little more careful analysis before suggestions are made. I have not heard suggestions from the Hon. Member's Party as to how to reduce the deficit other than maybe to save some money on a motel.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, I am interested in what the Hon. Member says. The Hon. Member for Eglinton-Lawrence utters the usual Liberal myth. He says that there is nothing wrong with having a large national debt, that we owe the money to ourselves. He must appreciate that as far as the direct federal debt is concerned, that is 90 per cent true. But if he takes a look at the municipalities, the provinces, and the provincial Crown corporations-the hydro corporation for instance-and if he takes a look at large corporate debt, he will find that over $78 billion is owed by Canadians to foreigners. Of course, the enormous drop in the exchange value of the Canadian dollar as of today makes that debt, which is usually denominated in American dollars, very much more expensive and more dramatically costly for Canadians to repay. It will likely lead to their bankruptcy and the bankruptcy of the entire economy, very much like in Mexico or Brazil. Does he not realize that the total Canadian foreign debt approaches the foreign debt of Mexico and is in excess of the foreign debt of Brazil?


Roland de Corneille: Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that we cannot take the blame for literally everything, athough the Hon. Member may wish us to. Never mind from a political point of view, just from the point of view of fairness, I do not think it is possible for the federal Government to explain how the provinces are spending 60 per cent of the revenues which are collected either by themselves, through us or which we transfer
Borrowing Authority Act
to them. They in fact do spend, as the Hon. Member has been pointing out, a lot of the money. They spend 60 per cent of the money collected in revenues by the federal Government and the federal Government spends 40 per cent. I certainly understand that there are problems for provinces when they get themselves into deep debt.
Talking about when this will ever stop, let us look at the figures that have already been brought to the attention of the Hon. Member. I believe he was in the House when the Member for Mississauga was speaking. He should look at the figures on the fiscal plan, table C-2 on page 62 of the net public debt. If he looks at what were the percentages of the net public debt against GNP in billions of dollars, he will see that the percentages, as was pointed out, have historically been lower in the last 30 years than in the period before that.
In the 1926-27 period, 45.6 per cent was spent as a public debt of the gross national product, that is public debt over against GNP. Imagine how this Member would be railing if he had been around then and heard that. In 1946-47, it was 109.8 per cent. In the period 1958-59, the net public debt was 37.9 per cent, nearly 38 per cent of the GNP. We have seen this pattern in Canada since 1926-27. I happen to believe the same pattern existed before that.
Governments believe in the country. Governments invest in the country and provide that infrastructure which allows the country to grow in its economy and to be so successful in its business that the gross national product becomes enormous. That is how every year the various administrations, whether they have been Conservative or Liberal, have conducted themselves. In the Diefenbaker years, the amount of percentage against gross national product was slightly higher than even this past year.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: Mr. Speaker, I have been here for some time listening to the discussion as it pertains to the borrowing of $29.5 billion which the Liberal Government is looking for in order to carry on the business of government. It amazes me that they are spending so much time talking about this Bill, taking unnecessary House time from more important matters. All we are asking the Government to do is to look at its history of borrowing. We ask it to look at its specific needs as laid out in its fiscal planning policies for the years 1984-85 and relate the borrowing requirements to the budgeted figures.
What we have is a request from the Liberal Government, not to borrow what it needs for the fiscal year 1984-85, but for an additional $4 billion plus in order to cover contingencies. If they were responsible Members of Parliament looking after the moneys collected from their constituents, they would first take the time to justify the need for the $4 billion extra amount of borrowing at a time when our deficits have reached an all-time high in Canadian history.
We could go back over the requests for borrowing just since the 1980 election. I am sure the Hon. Member for Eglinton-Lawrence (Mr. de Corneille) would agree that it is reasonable for a government to ask for the moneys it needs in order to

March 8, 1984
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fulfill the commitments that it places on the Supplementary and Main Estimates. Why is the Government all so fired up to borrow an additional $4 billion if there is no possible devious program for which it wishes to use the money? That would not require coming back to Parliament to ask for endorsement of those extra funds.
The Member for Eglinton-Lawrence clearly stated that we are just not borrowing money to "hand it out", using his exact words. Having sat in the House for the past five or six years, I question whether they are perhaps thinking about the possibility of borrowing money for other purposes than carrying on the business of government. Perhaps they are concerned about their re-election. It would be nice to have a little slush fund of $4 billion or $5 billion which they could direct wherever they wished.
Those on the Government side are not so naive that they think for one minute that we are not suspicious of that. Therefore, why would they expect us in Opposition to endorse a request for funds in excess of what they have given us statistics to substantiate?
It stands to reason that any lay persons, regardless of whether they have been in business or not, with the kinds of statements coming from the Government side that affect us, would believe it is all right to have increased deficits year after year, accumulating to the point where it takes almost our national savings, public or private to pay the national debt.
It is not logical to assume that you can run a government any different from a business. It is grossly unfair to leave the impression that we are just borrowing from ourselves, that it is totally okay for A to borrow from B because we are all in the same nation. That is like saying it is all right for Eaton's to borrow from Simpson's or The Bay to borrow from some other retail establishment. If their debts keep going up and up, sooner or later the day of reckoning will come. It will not come during your or my term of office. The day of reckoning will come when our children and grandchildren cannot borrow any more just to service the debt.
We are now looking at a debt in Canada that exceeds the total budget of the Canadian Government of not very many years ago. I am getting a little tired of listening to Members on the Government side saying that it does not matter how much we borrow, that we can borrow all we need plus. They expect the NDP and Conservative Opposition to hold up their hands and say there is nothing wrong borrowing more than you need. There is. We are not going to trust the Government with a $4 billion extra amount this time around. We are asking for a $10 billion reduction in the $29.5 billion for which it is asking. The reason we ask that is that in the short term that is the amount we can establish as a credible request to carry on the approved business of this Parliament.
The Government is irresponsible. It is not accountable to the Canadian people if it believes it is going to hoodwink everyone in Canada into believing that a $4 billion slush fund is okay. With the permission of the House, Mr. Speaker, I will call it five o'clock and ask to be recognized at a future time.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: 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

['Mr. Speaker, on seeing this Bill before the House, I am somewhat surprised because 1 realize that this is partly due to the Progressive Conservatives. At present they claim they are for the death penalty, but actually they are against something, they are against abolition because, they are against anything which exists, anything that is valid in our society. This will give me an opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to quote from the official Record of Hansard of December, 1983, when the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) rose, this is on page 46 of Hansard, and asked where the Progressive Conservatives were standing. Well, here is the sponsor of the Bill who is always proud to launch crusades for or against something. Today, the only positive thing that can be noted, is that in the title of his Bill, he is in support of something because, actually, he is against it. That Hon. Member! He is against metric, as is his Party. He is against everything, against abolition. And, if I quote from Hansard on page 47, as suggested by the Right Hon. Prime Minister, when the more negative elements of reaction look for a place to go, they inevitably flock to the Progressive Conservative Party. It is the Party of those who are against. All those who say no when everybody else says yes, all those who are in favour of negativism, you can find them there, in the Opposition, Mr. Speaker. This is why we can draw an exhaustive list of them. We only have to dig in our memory, to remember those who\nare against bilingualism, against unemployment insurance, against the changes in the Crow rate, against helping Cana-dair, against Bell Helicopterestablishing a plant in Quebec, against bilingualism in Manitoba. That is the Progressive Conservative Party. Today, the Hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Domm) supports something; but what he supports is capital punishment, Mr. Speaker. Therefore, the only positive aspect of the matter is that, for once he is "for" something, despite that positive "for", he is against abolition of the death penalty. When the Right Hon. Prime Minister, at that time, and this is again taken from December 9, was referring to those who had not yet reached the current century, he meant the Progressive Conservatives. And this is where the previous speaker said: "You killed me, I am going to kill you. You did this, I am going to strike you. You slapped me in the face, I will slap you. Well, through that Bill, you killed, I am going to kill you."\nMr. Speaker, in 1976, this House voted the death penalty out of the books, yet the Official Opposition Party has not forgotten it. I remember that as recently as 1982, when the Hon. Member for Yellowhead (Mr. Clark) was leading the Official Opposition, there was an opposition day on that subject. I recall that the then leader of the Official Opposition, the Hon. Member for Yellowhead, was beyond himself, suggesting he was not supporting the reinstatement of capital punishment, but various things had to be considered and studies made. Although this is always a situation that has to be monitored, my view is that there was a vote here in this House in 1976. The penalties in the Criminal Code were changed to life emprisonment. When there is reference in the amending bill, through Clause 1 of the bill, for instance . . . Section 47 of the Criminal Code deals with high treason offences. What is the present wording of subsection 47(1) of the Criminal Code? Everyone-and besides, my colleague from Levis (Mr. Gourde) agrees with me, and I wish to congratulate him on his recent appointment as Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General. He will surely see to it that all those questions are debated and this one in particular, but today he may not have the opportunity to tell his constituents whether he supports capital punishment or not. However, he surely has a lot to say on the matter and he will deal with it in detail at a later date. Therefore, Subsection 47(1) at present reads as follows: Everyone who commits high treason is guilty of an indictable offence and shall be sentenced to imprisonment for life. Then, Subsection 47(4) at present reads as follows: For the purposes of Part XX, the sentence of imprisonment for life prescribed by subsection (1) is a minimum punishment, Mr. Speaker. Of course, first degree murder is also mentioned, under Section 218 of the present Criminal Code. Having practised law and as a practising lawyer from time to time, Mr. Speaker, when faced with this situation at the present stage of development of our society, one must look at reality with a view to improving things instead of remaining at a standstill as the Progressive Conservative Party wants to do. We must do one thing, namely\nMarch 8, 1984', "try to improve our social programs in order to help people who are in a depressive state, in financial difficulty or otherwise, and tend sometimes to be aggressive or too harsh with their fellow citizens. We must try to implement social programs but not at the expense of society by spending huge amounts of money to improve the social conditions of our fellow citizens, but in order to prevent violence. This is in contrast with the maxim I quoted at the beginning of my remarks: Thou hath killed, I will kill thee . . . Will that solve in anyway our society's problems? This maxim comes to my mind and I cannot help repeating it when I read the bill before us. In fact, since capital punishment was abolished, statistics do not point to an increase in violent crimes. May I call it six o'clock, Mr. Speaker?"]
Donald W. Munro: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I ask that with the unanimous consent of the House the order for the second reading of Bill C-222, to amend the Criminal Code, be discharged and the Bill withdrawn.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: The House has heard the terms of the Hon. Member's motion.
Is there unanimous consent that the order for the second reading of Bill C-222, to amend the Criminal Code, be discharged and the Bill withdrawn?


Some Hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: There is no unanimous consent.

Shall all orders and items listed under Private Members' Business preceding Order No. 14 be allowed to stand by unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



William Henry (Bill) Domm: that Bill C-213, an Act to amend the Criminal Code (capital punishment), be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.
He said: Mr. Speaker, in recent months, a series of events have occurred in Canada, some of them very close to home here in the Ottawa area, which would give rise to a concern for the need for a review of the issue of capital punishment. Here in Canada, we have recently witnessed an unprecedented wave of violence and unwarranted acts of brutality, and in many cases this has resulted in death. A list of most recent victims is very ample proof of the rise in violent crimes in the country.
Barbara Turnbull is a perfect example of this rise in violent crimes. She is an 18 year old girl from Mississauga, Ontario,
March 8, 1984

who was a Becker's store clerk and was shot during the course of a robbery on September 23, 1983. She remains paralysed from the neck down. Nizam Ali, an 18 years old boy from Mississauga, was a promising youth with all kinds of expectations for his future. He was stabbed to death last Saturday while he worked the overnight shift. Right here in Nepean, a Nepean police constable by the name of David Utman was shot to death at the Bayshore Shopping Centre in Nepean, Ontario, on October 14, 1983. As well, there is the case of Paul Chapman. He was fatally stabbed on the night of June 22, 1983, after being strapped into a chair while the two men accused of the crime sexually molested his girlfriend.
It is clearly evident to many of us that the increase in rampant crime demands that some action be taken by Members of Parliament. Subsequently, some surveys have been taken here in Canada. Not too long ago, a 7,000-response survey was taken in the riding of Peterborough. I was surprised by the results of that survey when 87 per cent of the respondents supported capital punishment for premeditated first degree murder.
I would like to use today's time from five o'clock until six o'clock during Private Members' Hour for the purposes of looking at statistics, looking at the responsibilities of Members of Parliament to their constituents, and looking at the responsibility of Government to allow the voices of those constituents to be heard through their elected Members of Parliament. More specifically, we are faced with the frustration of being unable to respond to the concerns of our constituents.
It is not good enough to say that we must always vote on every issue according to our conscience, because in reality we must live with our conscience. Having been an abolitionist all my life, I have a great deal of difficulty living with my conscience when I do not represent my constituents. The issue is not cut and dried. It is not easy for a Member of Parliament to say: "The only way that I can satisfy my conscience is by voting the way I think I should vote and by ignoring 87 per cent of my constituents".
I challenge any Member of Parliament to show me one poll that has ever been taken in Canada which supports abolition. There has never been such a poll taken and there has never been an opportunity, during my five years as a Member of Parliament, to vote on the issue. The issue has been muffled, it has been shoved under the rug and it has been railroaded into such a position that the Government does not wish to hear through elected Members of Parliament about where their constituents stand.


Mr. Laniel:: Do you want to vote on abortion?


William Henry (Bill) Domm: I am saying that we are discussing the issue of premeditated first degree murder. We are talking about a perceived guilty person. In answer to the question, an unborn child is not a perceived guilty person. We are dealing with a first degree murder charge.
It is grossly unfair of members of the NDP to stand up in the House and say that if members of the Official Opposition had had their way, we would now be facing a situation where
Capital Punishment
Mr. Marshall would not be around to be acquitted but would have been hanged. That is not true because, according to the Solicitor General of Canada (Mr. Kaplan), Mr. Marshall was accused of second degree murder. I have confirmation of that fact from the Minister's office. We are not discussing second degree murder here but, rather, first degree premeditated murder.
There are no members of the NDP in the House today, but the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans) stood in the House on November 29, 1983 and, as reported in Hansard, asked how, had the Government followed the advice of the Conservative Party and reinstated capital punishment, we would have apologized to Marshall for the errors which would have been made, because the accused would be dead. Because of that statement which was made by the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain, I looked up every Private Member's Bills which has been brought forward for first reading by members of the Official Opposition. I have them all here and I will table them as evidence. There is not one Private Member's Bill here that advocates capital punishment for second degree murder.
We now have that out of the way and we know that we are talking about someone who carries a gun or knife and goes into a retail outlet and fatally stabs an 18 year old boy, or shoots down a girl and paralyses her for life, or shoots down police officer in Nepean in the line of duty, or stabs someone who is tied in a chair. We are not talking about second degree murder. We are talking about first degree murder and we are only asking government Members to speak on behalf of the majority of their constituents once in a while. If they do not wish to vote or if they have very strong feelings on the issue, then they should not stand up as members of to Cabinet or as Privy Councillors and unanimously support a position when they know full well that they did not take that position at a certain time with their constituents.
What happened in 1976 was shameful. When we abolished capital punishment in 1976, it was not a free vote, and no one will ever convince me that it was. We in the Official Opposition, when we form a government, have committed ourselves to having a free vote. We support a free vote even though many of us have been born and raised as abolitionists. There is something wrong with a system of Government that will not allow the people to be heard.
I think it should be noted, so that we can discuss a few statistics, that in reports prepared by the Government, it is shown that more acts of first degree murder have been committed while in the act of committing a federal criminal offence since the abolition of capital punishment. People come into the Becker's or Mac's Milk stores and the like with guns in their pockets or knives under their coats, but without fear of retaliation. We have to realize that when we give these people a 25 year sentence and a chance of parole, something is going to happen very suddenly in the next generation. Some of the people committing these acts today are in their twenties. It is

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safe to say that anyone who commits first degree murder today will be locked up for 25 years, and anyone who commits second degree murder will be locked up for 15 years with no chance of parole before the sentence is served.
The same things will happen in 25 year's time that happened prior to 1976 when such people got out after five or ten years. In the United States they are still getting out in five or ten years because they do not have a 25 year life sentence. Prisoners are eligible for parole for good behaviour, and they get out into the public and commit acts of atrocity. There is not a punishment that fits some of the crimes I have mentioned this afternoon.
When there is a full attendance in the House, how many Members would stand up and say that they do not think that 70 per cent or 80 per cent of their constituents should have any say in this; that they were elected to parliament because their constituents knew they would act as they saw fit on every issue? Why do we have political lobbies? An Hon. Member opposite mentioned the pro-life movement. If I happen to be a pro-life supporter and my constituents lobby me long and hard enough, they might convince me that there is a need to study the issue of abortion-not to reinstate it-and I would be prepared to study it in committee.
Who in the House would not be prepared to study the most recent statistics dealing with criminal acts of violence resulting in murder? I suggest that a lot of people on the other side of the House would not be too willing to have that reviewed in committee. I think there is a good deal of piloting on this issue by some leaders on the other side of the House. Why else would they vote against referring the matter to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs?
I brought the same issue before the House on the only day we had a vote on capital punishment, to my knowledge, since 1979. There was an all-Party vote not three years ago on a motion that I presented to the House. It did not deal with a return to capital punishment but was a simple request for the subject matter to be referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. The purpose was to review the most recent statistics; to determine in our minds, as the responsible Members of Parliament we think we are, just where we are going on the issue. There is not only our own position to consider but also the position of the people who sent us here. There are only three ways you can vote, Mr. Speaker-with your Party, with your conscience, or with your constituents. There is no other way to go.
In this Private Member's Bill I am asking that consideration be given to referring the subject matter of the Bill to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. In that way we could review the most recent statistics and determine in our own minds whether someone who stabs an 18 year old boy to death in Mississauga should be eligible for parole in 25 years; whether someone who shoots a girl in a Becker's store in Mississauga and paralyses her for life-not 25 years, but life-should be eligible for parole, in 15 years, and whether a man who stabs a man fatally after raping his wife or girl friend should get more than a slap on the wrist and five years in jail.
Things change, Mr. Speaker. Circumstances change, society changes and society needs protection in some of these areas. We cannot just pass a Bill and hope that the whole thing will go away. There is a lot of unrest in the country about what is happening to law enforcement today and about whether the sentence fits the crime.
It can be asked how someone can be a pro-life supporter and, at the same time, support capital punishment. That is a difficult question to answer. It took me a long time to solve that problem in my own mind. When I am dealing with the pro-life issue versus abortion, 1 am dealing with an innocent person, the unborn child. For that reason I have a great deal of difficulty supporting abortion under any circumstances. But when I am talking about capital punishment and the way to treat an individual who stabbed, shot and murdered, I am dealing with a person proven to be guilty by the courts. 1 would be the first to admit that the courts are not always right and that you cannot bring life back once it is taken. At the same time, however, you cannot say to the people adversely affected by the act that it is fair to let the perpetrator free to go out and do it a second time.
If government does not satisfy society's need for protection with a sentence to fit the crime, then it is irresponsible. That applies to all of us.
Bills that go from second reading to committee do not always return to the House in the same form, Mr. Speaker. It is very easy for anyone to find something in the bill that he or she does not like. Perhaps they do not want to see a person hanged but would sooner see them electrocuted, injected or have any number of things happen to them. That is not what we are discussing at the moment; all we are discussing is whether the issue deserves consideration in committee.
I hope that at the conclusion of today's debate there will be an indication from Members of the Government that the issue can be reviewed in committee. We could hear witnesses and listen to some of the associations that are interested, such as the police associations and law enforcement agencies, and people who have been affected by a murder in the family. We could review the subject matter and perhaps make another decision for a free vote. I hope serious consideration will be given to the matter of how to deal satisfactorily with people who commit premeditated first degree murder.


John Gerald (Jack) Masters: Mr. Speaker, the issue raised by the Private Member's Bill is a very serious one. It is one that keeps coming back to the House through the efforts of Members and, from time to time, of the public. It is a difficult question to handle, and I believe the Hon. Member would ultimately like it to go through the next stage and eventually end up as a free vote, because that is where it would end up somewhere down the line. There is an attractive thought to that, to review a process which has already been reviewed and on which in fact we had a free vote in 1976. The result at that time, Mr. Speaker, as we know, is that Parliament passed into law a Bill which officially brought capital punishment to an end. However, the death penalty was replaced by a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment with a
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minimum parole eligibility period of 25 years for first degree murder and a 10 year to 15 year minimum eligibility period for second degree murder.
It would appear from this motion which has been brought forward before the House today, and the many motions which have come before us over the years, that in fact the 1976 vote did not forever settle the matter. In fact, since then we have had a stream of Private Members' Bills, motions and proposals for a national referendum on the subject, another look at the whole situation and, perhaps, another free vote in the House.
1 suppose we have to take opportunities like this. I do not think there is anything wrong with it. It is a very serious moral question in the country, as the Hon. Member has said. It is also a subject which each of us as an individual will have to work out in his own mind, whether we do it in the formal setting, as has been suggested, or as we contemplate the lurid crimes which take place in many of our communities across the land. I suppose we would then, Mr. Speaker, have to dwell a little bit on the effectiveness of capital punishment as a deterrent. The Hon. Member opposite is quite right to bring this matter before us again for perusal, whether it be in committee, as was suggested, or in this forum. However, the statistics which I have seen on the subject so far do not seem to indicate that there has been an increase in capital crime since the law was changed. I have not looked at these statistics within the last couple of weeks, but if memory serves me correctly, I think in fact there has been a decrease in capital crime.
It is a moral question with which we must deal, and I suppose it will continue to come up in light of the cold-blooded crimes which have been committed very recently, and they have been mentioned before. We have had in my riding comparable crimes, very sporadically, thank the Lord, but they do happen. Therefore, when one looks at those cold-blooded crimes, it seems to be a very appropriate solution to take the position of an eye for an eye. However, one must take a look at the other side of the coin, I feel, and try to maintain a cool perspective on the whole situation. The question is whether the state has the right deliberately to take a human life. The right to life is given explicit recognition, I remind each of us, in our new Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I do not believe we can simply accept the principle of an eye for an eye. There are other areas where the state, in punishing people for crimes committed, does not work on an eye-for-an-eye principle, and that is what taking another life by the state is all about. If we work on that principle, we could perhaps drift back to the extreme example of societies where if one mutilates another individual, he will be mutilated in return, and so on. I feel the suggestion of capital punishment is that it suits the crime because the person has taken someone else's life, and if we extend that theory, then that presents a pretty monstrous thought of how we might deal with a number of possible situations.
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We are dealing with a very moral question and a difficult one to resolve, and I come back to the question: Does the state have the right to take someone else's life deliberately? Would a return to capital punishment be in fact an effective deterrent? Once a crime has been committed, yes, we must appropriately punish the person responsible for the crime, no matter what its nature, but more important, in another sense, we must try to deter future actions in that same area. I do not believe that capital punishment would necessarily act as a greater deterrent. Nothing has been stated so far which would prove that. In fact, I do not believe we are coddling criminals or acting immorally in handing out the kinds of sentences which are being handed out now in relation to mandatory life sentences and matters of that sort.
Once again I come back to the question of the appropriateness of capital punishment. Those who are in favour of it have the burden of proving that this form of execution by the state is justified. It seems that this ultimate penalty carries with it the seeds of severe injustice through its potentially unequal application to the poor, the ignorant, the uneducated, and through the very real possibility that it might be applied in error. This has happened, despite the elaborate safeguards which have been built into the system. No matter how shocking some of the particular examples which are described by anti-abolitionists, it is unlikely that many of those crimes would constitute first degree murder, given the emotional element of the crime and the lack of premeditation.
I believe that, as the Hon. Member has suggested, we have to also consider the feelings of the public at large. We are in this House, after all, representatives of the constituencies, the constituency of Canada and the constituency of our individual ridings. While it is attractive to take a look at capital punishment as the ultimate solution to a problem, I am not aware of any overwhelming change in public opinion which says we must return to capital punishment. I do not believe Gallup polls of which I am aware would support that idea.
While I personally have had some representations in my riding on the subject, as I suppose all Hon. Members have had from time to time, particularly when some abhorrent crime takes place within our area-and perhaps participating in this kind of a discussion will precipitate it-I am not aware, nor have I had any strong representations from my constituents at large telling me that they would like to see this matter reopened, re-explored and perhaps once more go back to the House for a free vote. There are many things within our system, Mr. Speaker, with which we are not comfortable, which we do not like, which we as Members of Parliament must deal with. We must deal with tax matters, and everyone would rather not talk about that. However, we must act as parliamentarians and do the necessary things to make sure that the country has the revenue it needs to carry on the programs deemed necessary.
The problem is, as I said earlier, a moral one. Is it right for the state deliberately to take a life? In so doing it might be justified if we had proof positive, or a stronger expression of proof, that by taking the life of a particular abhorrent criminal

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we have done something more than just take revenge, that we have actually done something which would add to the deterrent factor in capital crimes.
While it is argued, I believe, by the Hon. Member opposite that capital punishment would in itself deter capital crime, I cannot agree with that particular argument. I agree that we have to take a firmer stand on capital crimes. We have to become more firm in the sentences passed. But that is another way of dealing with the same problem. I would support capital punishment if it would preclude someone else's life being taken in a particularly abhorrent fashion. I too have wrestled with this issue and I would go that route. However, I am afraid that I personally am not convinced that that is the way to go at this particular time.
This debate is useful in that it reminds us of a subject that we, whether we like it or not, as Members of Parliament have to look at one way or another periodically. That is necessary. When 1 was given the opportunity to participate in today's debate, I did so almost reluctantly because we are opening a can of worms that we really do not want to get into if we can avoid it. However, that is a coward's way out, so I am pleased to have been given this chance to express a few thoughts on the subject.
I know I will probably hear from many people in my constituency on this issue, pro or con. I welcome that because this is a way of developing opinion and a feel for the people we are here to serve. However, I must conclude that so far I have not heard any compelling reason for reopening the debate further than we have done here today. I believe the matter has been given careful attention over time in the House and elsewhere, and I believe this debate will precipitate another careful look at a very difficult issue.


Mr. Dan Heap (Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, in dealing with this debate I am not primarily in agreement with the argument that all we want is a discussion. As I understand it, we are asked to give approval to the Bill on second reading, which would mean approval in principle. That I cannot do.
A few years ago Parliament decided to abolish the death penalty. As part of the general public I was very much in agreement and pleased with that decision. I still believe the decision was sound. I want to give my reasons for that, but first I want to consider what I find to be the main arguments in restoring the death penalty.
The most common argument I hear is that it is needed as a deterrent. This is where the extreme examples are most powerfully used. The example of a particularly recent and particularly dreadful murder is bound to move a person. There is also an argument which is a little bit more general, and which I would say really means we want in principle to satisfy our anger. Some people would use rather old fashioned imagery, perhaps even quoting selectively from the Old Testament about justice and retribution. However, I think the moving force there is anger, which I note can arise over one matter but
be expressed on something entirely different. In this case people find their anger is often brought to the surface when they read a newspaper story about a dreadful murder. They say that that guy ought to be hanged, or else they express even more lurid alternatives for what ought to be done to him. They are not angry at that guy. They may not be particularly concerned with the person killed. They may be just angry, angry about something in the family, something at work, on the street, and this is an outlet for the anger.
The third argument is like the second, but there is an attempt to make it much more reasoned. Those people argue that there is a principle of justice involved in which the innocent victim should be distinguished from a guilty killer. If we do not make that distinction, quite apart from anger or deterrence, we are simply being unjust.
On the other side, Mr. Speaker, I find mainly two arguments used in opposing the death penalty. One is that the courts, with the best will and effort in the world, are still subject to error. There have been cases of the wrong person being executed for a crime. There is a case we all know of the wrong person having been imprisoned for a crime. Fortunately he was not executed, although in his case he probably would not have been executed under the previous law. But the case does raise the question.
The other argument is that focusing on the death penalty for carefully defined premeditated murder, while having some merit in the abstract, I think narrows far too much the attention of people to a very limited kind of crime. It narrows it down to the individual who may be frustrated by all kinds of injustices he or she has experienced directly from the person he or she killed or, more generally, from society, as when a person walks into some public office and kills one of the public servants there because of what he thinks is the run-around he has received over life necessities such as workmen's compensation or other public obligations. The two great dangers of using the death penalty are that we may make the ultimate mistake of killing the wrong person. Second, it seems to treat the matter, in a sense, too easily. I know it may seem ridiculous to say that killing a person is treating it easily, but killing one individual may be a way of kidding ourselves into thinking that we have solved the problem of violence in our society to an extent that we simply have not.
That is a brief statement why I think there are strong arguments against the death penalty, and I want to return now to the arguments in favour. The first one I mentioned was that of deterrence. There will be less people killed by murderers if we restore the death penalty. That is an attractive argument and, like many others, if I were convinced that the argument was true I would have a much harder time opposing or voting against the death penalty. But I am not convinced. There are studies, not just in Canada but in many other countries, which show very powerfully that whether there is a death penalty or not, it does not seem to make much difference overall. Undoubtedly there are some cases in which we are told it does. When you add it all together, it does not seem that it is a
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reliable method worth stacking against the risk of an innocent person being killed by the State.
Further, there is the evidence in our own country that since the death penalty was repealed, not only did the rate of murders per capita not rise, but in fact it declined slightly. 1 have not heard anyone argue that abolishing the death penalty caused a reduction in the rate of murders. I cannot imagine that being a likely argument. However, I cannot find any argument that the abolition of the death penalty caused an increase or was followed by a significant increase. There were ups and downs, but more downs than ups, in the rate of murders per capita. I do not think there is a sustainable argument that the death penalty is an effective deterrent.
I believe anger may be the main motivating factor among people who say "hang him" or "shoot him" or whatever else. It is sometimes justified by words taken out of an historical context from the Old Testament; "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth", anyone that kills shall be killed and so on. That is a law which very few people now take seriously in all its instances in the Old Testament, the scripture of the Jewish people. It is also a law which was specifically superseded in the teaching of the religion to which 1 belong. The teaching there is that law is now superseded and anyone who is angry with another person will be brought before the court of judgement. The teaching says that the distinction between the murder and the anger which may have led to the murder should not be made so hard and fast. We should not think we are free to indulge in anger and in expressing our anger in all kinds of ways, but so long as we stop short of murder we are all right. That is a misunderstanding of the teaching of the Old Testament which was specifically countered by the teaching of the New Testament.
I find from my own experience, and I see around me, that vengeance is a very common desire. I will not say it is natural to people because I am not sure what is natural to people. It certainly is habitual. If somebody hurts me, I want to hurt him. It is often done vicariously. When I hear of somebody in our city, our country, or another country doing something dreadful, I may want to hurt that person. That is not healthy. I say it is habitual. I do not think it is natural to human beings and I do not think it is healthy. I find from personal and public experience that indulging in anger does not satisfy. When I decided to hit back at somebody physically when I was younger, or verbally now that I have grown older, and I do hit back, usually I want to then hit back again and again. It is never enough. I think that is not a unique experience. Anger does not really satisfy. Rather, there is something inherent about it which dissatisfies. Of course, when you kill a person, you cannot kill him again. However, you can go on looking for more people to kill and more excuses to kill them. That is not a healthy habit for society.
There is the third argument about principle and fairness. Why should an innocent person suffer by being murdered and a guilty person suffer less, that is, by not being killed? On this
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point we have to look again at the remark of Jesus about anger to which I referred before, that anger is like murder. He did not say they are exactly the same but he said we will be judged for either of them. When we are angry at murders we should also remember there are people who are angry at deaths by automobile accidents on the road. There are people who are angry at death by Fire when they are caused by negligence, for example, of an absentee landlord. We have had some terrible fire-trap deaths in downtown Toronto. There is bitter, deep-seated, long-running anger amongst hundreds of thousands of industrial workers in Canada over our country's negligent record of industrial safety. Construction workers, miners and other workers have been required to work under unnecessarily dangerous conditions by employers who sometimes conceal the facts of the danger. An example of this is asbestosis. Governments connived that concealment and therefore caused painful death by cancer of employees in those industries. There is a lot of anger over those deaths. However, no employer or Government inspector is ever brought to court and accused of those deaths in the criminal sense. There is anger over those people being let off scott free with what is not legally defined as murder but, in the minds of many workers in this country, is equivalent to murder. Why not put a negligent employer at least in jail when he knowingly profits by risking the lives of employees because he is too cheap to pay the cost of safety devices and procedures?
We must go a little further with this. This country likes to indulge in violence where it is profitable. The TV industry peddles violence continually. It makes violence attractive to look at, think about and contemplate because there is money in peddling violence. This country allows the TV industry to do it in the same way as this country promotes the consumption of alcohol to excess. We have ads in the streetcars saying, "Don't drink too much, but drink". The question of what is too much, of course, is uncontrollable.
We have the often unnecessary use of firearms for sport. We have the glorification of the way of life of killing, whether in the military or hunting. This country likes to promote a spirit of violence. However, when someone is carried too far by it and kills a person, we then want to use that person as a scapegoat. We want to blot out all the other violence in the country and blame that person for the whole of it as a scapegoat. We want to transfer our sense of guilt to him. It is not healthy, Mr. Speaker. It does not stop murder. All the public hangings in the 19th century did not wipe out murder. Although hangings are not made such lurid festivals any more, the statistics in the 20th century show the same thing. They do not blot out murder.
There is no serious reason for supposing that if this Bill were approved at second reading it would lead to anything that would reduce murder, the occasion of anger or satisfy any principle of justice within our country. I believe it would be far more to the point to pay stronger attention to the care of victims of murder, that is to say, those immediately connected

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to the murder victim. This is an area in wich there is still a great deal of room for positive and constructive action.
I believe there is also a great deal of room for intelligent action on the reduction of social activities that encourage violence, whether it is the careless use of automobiles, the careless use of alcohol, the careless use of firearms or, for that matter, the glorification of physical violence in certain sports. I have played football, rugby and soccer. I have boxed. I have engage in unarmed combat training in the army. I understand something of the enthusiasm for combat. I also understand that it can be very dangerous. I believe that the entire sports enterprise must be much more careful about how body contact sports are promoted. Whenever there is money to be made in those sports, anger and violence is peddled for the sake of earning that dollar. We are told that hockey games would not draw the same gate if there were not a little violence taking place on the ice. That is quite cynical.
As long as the country wants to live by violence, some people in this country will die by violence. We will not end those deaths from occuring just by being violent toward the killers, because we have in fact been contributing to the killing by the way we let these patterns of profiting by violence by action or inaction, as in the case of industrial accidents, grow unchecked in our country.
There is no good reason for trying to blame it all on individuals who have committed murder. Therefore, I would not be able to support second reading of this Bill.
[ Translation]


Jean-Guy Dubois: Mr. Speaker, on seeing this Bill before the House, I am somewhat surprised because 1 realize that this is partly due to the Progressive Conservatives. At present they claim they are for the death penalty, but actually they are against something, they are against abolition because, they are against anything which exists, anything that is valid in our society. This will give me an opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to quote from the official Record of Hansard of December, 1983, when the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) rose, this is on page 46 of Hansard, and asked where the Progressive Conservatives were standing. Well, here is the sponsor of the Bill who is always proud to launch crusades for or against something. Today, the only positive thing that can be noted, is that in the title of his Bill, he is in support of something because, actually, he is against it. That Hon. Member! He is against metric, as is his Party. He is against everything, against abolition. And, if I quote from Hansard on page 47, as suggested by the Right Hon. Prime Minister, when the more negative elements of reaction look for a place to go, they inevitably flock to the Progressive Conservative Party. It is the Party of those who are against. All those who say no when everybody else says yes, all those who are in favour of negativism, you can find them there, in the Opposition, Mr. Speaker. This is why we can draw an exhaustive list of them. We only have to dig in our memory, to remember those who
are against bilingualism, against unemployment insurance, against the changes in the Crow rate, against helping Cana-dair, against Bell Helicopterestablishing a plant in Quebec, against bilingualism in Manitoba. That is the Progressive Conservative Party. Today, the Hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Domm) supports something; but what he supports is capital punishment, Mr. Speaker. Therefore, the only positive aspect of the matter is that, for once he is "for" something, despite that positive "for", he is against abolition of the death penalty. When the Right Hon. Prime Minister, at that time, and this is again taken from December 9, was referring to those who had not yet reached the current century, he meant the Progressive Conservatives. And this is where the previous speaker said: "You killed me, I am going to kill you. You did this, I am going to strike you. You slapped me in the face, I will slap you. Well, through that Bill, you killed, I am going to kill you."
Mr. Speaker, in 1976, this House voted the death penalty out of the books, yet the Official Opposition Party has not forgotten it. I remember that as recently as 1982, when the Hon. Member for Yellowhead (Mr. Clark) was leading the Official Opposition, there was an opposition day on that subject. I recall that the then leader of the Official Opposition, the Hon. Member for Yellowhead, was beyond himself, suggesting he was not supporting the reinstatement of capital punishment, but various things had to be considered and studies made. Although this is always a situation that has to be monitored, my view is that there was a vote here in this House in 1976. The penalties in the Criminal Code were changed to life emprisonment. When there is reference in the amending bill, through Clause 1 of the bill, for instance . . . Section 47 of the Criminal Code deals with high treason offences. What is the present wording of subsection 47(1) of the Criminal Code? Everyone-and besides, my colleague from Levis (Mr. Gourde) agrees with me, and I wish to congratulate him on his recent appointment as Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General. He will surely see to it that all those questions are debated and this one in particular, but today he may not have the opportunity to tell his constituents whether he supports capital punishment or not. However, he surely has a lot to say on the matter and he will deal with it in detail at a later date. Therefore, Subsection 47(1) at present reads as follows: Everyone who commits high treason is guilty of an indictable offence and shall be sentenced to imprisonment for life. Then, Subsection 47(4) at present reads as follows: For the purposes of Part XX, the sentence of imprisonment for life prescribed by subsection (1) is a minimum punishment, Mr. Speaker. Of course, first degree murder is also mentioned, under Section 218 of the present Criminal Code. Having practised law and as a practising lawyer from time to time, Mr. Speaker, when faced with this situation at the present stage of development of our society, one must look at reality with a view to improving things instead of remaining at a standstill as the Progressive Conservative Party wants to do. We must do one thing, namely
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try to improve our social programs in order to help people who are in a depressive state, in financial difficulty or otherwise, and tend sometimes to be aggressive or too harsh with their fellow citizens. We must try to implement social programs but not at the expense of society by spending huge amounts of money to improve the social conditions of our fellow citizens, but in order to prevent violence. This is in contrast with the maxim I quoted at the beginning of my remarks: Thou hath killed, I will kill thee . . . Will that solve in anyway our society's problems? This maxim comes to my mind and I cannot help repeating it when I read the bill before us. In fact, since capital punishment was abolished, statistics do not point to an increase in violent crimes. May I call it six o'clock, Mr. Speaker?



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. Marcel Roy (Laval):: In the 1980s and the 1990s, some high technology companies will be looking for locations giving them the opportunity to control their operating costs, to improve their productivity and maintain a fast pace of technological and product development. An important consultant firm for the establishment of companies, Fantus has recently made an analysis and a detailed assessment of the Montreal area to determine to what extent it would offer special advantages as a site for various kinds of high technology centres.
That report indicates that the choice of Montreal has substantial advantages for high technology. The table on page 6 clearly shows the advantages of that area as far as costs are concerned. Some annual savings of 37 to 51 per cent can be made in the region in comparison with other large metropolitan areas in the United States such as Boston, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago and the savings according to the size of the plants considered could vary between $8 and $11 million.
Now, Mr. Speaker, on February 8, I informed the House of the situation and of the contents of the report in a statement under Standing Order 21 and I asked the minister during the question period whether he had contacted his Quebec counterpart about this report because of the numerous advantages mentioned about Montreal. There is an ample source of electricity, a substantial pool of technical engineers and
Adjournment Debate
scientific personnel, a network of 20 CEGEPs in the metropolitan area of Montreal have turned out some 12,300 graduates in 1982 and finally, the seven engineering schools actively involved in research produced 2,100 graduates in 1982-83. The aerospace centres are also mentioned.
On the basis of those advantages Montreal seemed to be the ideal place to establish high technology plants. However, during consultations with several other companies mention was made of the limited nature of these advantages. How come? Well, management in the Province of Quebec, was too heavily taxed and Bill 17 created some political uncertainty. That was another constraint that made those advantages less appealing.
Mr. Speaker, when we hear Minister Gilbert Paquette speak of separatism, of independence and of sovereignty for Quebec, can we really say that such comments contribute to the establishment of Montreal as a aeronautical centre? Do they really help create jobs for our young people looking for one or is it not rather the way of mortgaging the future of thousands of Quebecers?
Therefore, I would ask, Mr. Speaker, and this is the reason why I took part in the debate this evening ... I think that we cannot overlook the tremendous advantages the city of Montreal has to offer, and I am proud of being part of a Government which over the last ten months has invested $2 billion in high technology in the Montreal area.
Therefore, I would ask the Minister not only to send the report to his Quebec counterpart, as he mentioned in his answer to me, but also to meet with Mr. Paquette in an effort to show him the district advantages offered by Montreal where young people would have extraordinary opportunities to find jobs in the field of high technology and where they could be assured of a good future rather than signing away their future as a result of his separatist attitude.
Therefore, I ask the Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Johnston), through his Parliamentary Secretary (Mr. Dion), to request a meeting with Mr. Paquette in order to discuss this report and to consider seriously the best ways to encourage high technology industries to settle in Montreal.


Mr. Rolland Dion (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State for Economic and Regional Development and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, 1 am pleased, on behalf of the Minister of State for Economic and Regional Development and Minister of State for Science and Technology, to reply to the concerns of the hon. member for Laval (Mr. Roy) who, incidentally, is working very hard for the economic development of the Montreal area.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Lumley) has commissioned a report called the FANTUS report on the advantages of the Montreal area with regard to the establishment of high technology

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Adjournment Debate
facilities. This report confirms that Montreal is a very attractive location for such investments and even provides many advantages as compared with many cities in the United States. More specifically, the area has several excellent technical colleges and universities in both English and French languages, something few North American cities can boast of.
Those, Mr. Speaker, are major assets to ensure the future industrial growth of Montreal as well as the diversification of the Quebec economy in general.
Mr. Speaker, I want to point out to the Hon. Member for Laval that the federal government is fully confident in the potential of Montreal; this is reflected in the major investments in science and technology announced by this government over these last few months. The global value of those facilities exceeds SI 10 million to this day, and as was mentioned by the Hon. Member, the future investments in science and technology over the next few years will reach over $2.1 billion. The Office automation Centre in Laval, the Bell's Helicopter Plant, the Robotic Training Center in Sainte-Therese, the Food Processing Center in Saint-Hyacinthe, although only a few miles from Montreal, and the expansion of the Pulp and Paper Institute are some of the capital investment projects of the federal government. This demonstrates a genuine government concern for investments in the Montreal area.
The Hon. Member asked if the minister mentioned them to his Quebec counterpart. He told me personally, although the report is available to both levels of government, that he would certainly discuss the matter not only with the minister responsible for Science and Technology but also with all Quebec ministers who are again campaigning on the independence platform for the next provincial election. Their statements are of public record and they can only bring uncertainty once again to Quebec and to the Montreal area. And we have to dispel that uncertainty to be able to attract investments in Quebec and the rest of Canada. I will most certainly communicate the representations made by the Hon. Member for Laval to the Hon. Minister who will inform the Quebec government accordingly.


THE CONSTITUTION-REQUEST FOR INTERPRETATION OF SECTION 23(3)(B) OF CHARTER OF RIGHTS
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, my contribution to the debate this evening follows a numbers of questions I put to the Minister of Justice (Mr. MacGuigan) on January 20 and January 27 of this year. Briefly, I was seeking to establish as clearly as possible the position of the federal Government on the interpretation of Section 23(6) of the Canadian Constitution of 1982, and more specifically, what this section means for Ontario, and I would refer my hon. colleagues to Hansard of January 23 of this year, when in a
debate similar to the one being held this evening, I said that in my opinion, Section 23(3)(6) gave the linguistic minority of a province the right to manage and control its educational institutions.
Mr. Speaker, the House will recall that last year, the Province of Ontario asked its highest court, the Ontario Court of Appeal, to rule on four questions. These four questions may be found in Order in Council 2154-83-Ontario, and I would invite my colleagues to read them if they are interested.
Among other things, the Court of Appeal was asked to rule on the matter of control and management by minorities of their educational institutions. The Court heard testimony in the middle of January of this year.
Intervenors included the federal Government, of course, which, in a well-prepared statement, unreservedly supported the position of the minorities, that is, that Section 23(3)(6) could be interpreted as giving a minority a constitutional right to control and manage the institutions in question or, if you prefer the constitutional term, its educational institutions.
It will be recalled that in his testimony, Federal Government counsel Brad Smith had expressed some doubt about management and control. He had stated, at least according to certain press reports, and I quote one of them: "The Canadian Constitution does not give minorities the right to manage and control their educational institutions". And again, according to Mr. Smith: "Management and control if necessary, but not necessarily management and control".
The press report goes on to say that Mr. Smith had maintained that the right to education in the language of the minority as guaranteed in the Constitution does not include the management and control of educational institutions.
That is the intervention which prompted me to ask the Minister of Justice to take a stand in the House on January 20.
I do not blame him, he supported his counsel by saying: "The Canadian Constitution does not guarantee to minority groups the right to control their educational institutions".
The media, newspapers, TV and radio, reported freely the remarks of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, so much so that it has become a highly politicized issue with us, and people were wondering just what the federal Government position was on this question. Although the brief on the case tabled before the judges was clear and accurate enough, the interpretation given was not quite what was expected.
I think it might be appropriate as well to remind Hon. Members that, last January 27, I again put a question to the Minister and asked him to set the record straight and perhaps repeat or give us his interpretation. He stated, in a clear enough answer, clearer than the others, in my opinion: "Should a province decide to share its authority over education with its residents, it would then be under the obligation to
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ensure equal treatment of the majority and minority groups in the province".
That, Mr. Speaker, is the essence of the federal argument. In other words, when a province has exclusive jurisdiction such as it has over education, but decides to share it with its residents, it must do so equitably with all residents, be they majority or minority groups. That has been the basic argument of minority groups for many years. Mr. Speaker, there is no question of invading a provincial jurisdiction. We are saying: Indeed, the province has exclusive jurisdiction, but if it does share it with its residents, it must do so equitably. A province which established school boards, for example, must establish school boards which take Section 93 into consideration, including religious denominations, as well as Section 23 of the Constitution Act, 1982, that is to say minority language educational rights. It must do so equitably.
I asked the Minister-and again I do so in concluding, Mr. Speaker, because my time is running out-to present, because of the perceptions, additional submissions to the courts. I realize that it is seldom done, that it is unusual. Still I thought it was necessary, considering that people feel that the federal Government was in fact quite ambiguous and hardly convincing on this question.
The Minister replied vaguely in the House that it might be something which he would take under consideration. I wrote to the Prime Minister to seek his support. I saw the Ministers whom I believed were involved in this matter. I am now asking the Parliamentary Secretary to tell me whether the federal Government has decided to present additional submissions to the courts in order to clear up this issue.


Mr. Al MacBain (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) is raising a very important question concerning the federal position on minority language education rights and, more specifically, on the interpretation to be given to Section 23(3)(Jb) of the Charter, insofar as it may relate to the management and control of minority language educational facilities by the linguistic minority of a province. He is also asking whether the Attorney General of Canada intends to present additional submissions to the Ontario Court of Appeal on this matter.
The Hon. Member is probably already aware that, on Tuesday, March 6, counsel for the Attorney General of Canada (Mr. MacGuigan) asked the Registrar of the Ontario Court of Appeal to inquire whether the court would be prepared to entertain a motion to permit the Attorney General of Canada to add to the submissions originally made on his behalf in the Ontario language reference which was heard last January and referred to by the Hon. Member. We are waiting for an answer from the court to that inquiry.
Adjournment Debate
In these circumstances, the Hon. Member will no doubt understand that it would be highly inappropriate to discuss in this House the reasons for which the Attorney General is asking the court to entertain the motion. Such reasons would have to be submitted to the court itself if it accepts to hear the motion. Morever, for the same reason, it would be totally inappropriate for me to outline here the nature of the additional submissions that would be made on behalf of the Attorney General of Canada, if it was decided by the Court of Appeal to entertain and to grant a hearing on the motion. The Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier will understand that such additional submissions would first have to be made to the court itself. I strongly believe that, having regard to the circumstances, with deference for the Court of Appeal, we ought to refrain from discussing this matter for the moment.
Having said that, however, I feel it is open to me to reaffirm the Government's position on Section 23. That section confers rights which are of fundamental importance to Canadians and to the nature of Canada as a bilingual country. There should therefore be no doubt about the approach of the Government to the interpretation of the section. It is our view that Section 23 (3) (b) in particular should be given a broad and liberal interpretation, a generous interpretation that is most consistent with the fullest realization of the minority language education rights which it entrenches and which lie at the very root of the future of bilingual Canada.


AGRICULTURE-FARM FUEL SALES TAX. (B) THRONE SPEECH PROPOSAL TO HELP FARMERS
Mr. Laverne Lewycky (Dauphin-Swan River):: Mr. Speaker,
I would like to pursue the question I raised on March 5 regarding the problems faced by farmers. I would like to say that I am happy to see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ferguson) here to answer the question. He has served on the Agricultural Committee so I think it is appropriate that the Department of Finance have the benefit of his expertise in that area. I am glad he will listen to the problem I raise here, because I was not satisfied with the answer I received from the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan).
The Minister said that when the farming industry in Canada is compared to that of other industries, it is probably the best in the country. That particular response did not really strike any kind of soft chord in me, Mr. Speaker. All I have to do is look at the statistics we have with regard to the farm income situation in 1983, and the outlook for 1984. I refer the figures of the agricultural statistics division of Statistics Canada. The prediction for Manitoba is that we can expect a 26 per cent decline in realized net income for 1984. That is a rather bleak outlook in contrast to the rosy picture the Minister of Agriculture was painting.
I just want to emphasize how important it is that there be some sort of triggering of the mechanism with regard to the western grain stabilization fund, that there be some payouts

March 8, 1984
Adjournment Debate
immediately, because many of the farmers are in dire straits. I could elaborate further in respect to the farm incomes to which the Minister of Agriculture referred. He should be aware that the projected net farm income for 1984 is actually lower than the 1973 net farm income. In terms of actual dollars, the actual net farm income for Manitoba for 1984 is projected to be some $244 million and in 1973, it was $278 million. A lot of things have taken place between 1973 and 1984 and this certainly is not a bright picture.
On the other hand, if we were to look at the projected net income in terms of 1971 constant dollars-and again these are statistics from the agricultural division of Statistics Canada- we find that projected in 1971 constant dollars net farm income for farmers in Manitoba is $83 million for 1984, and it was $296 million in 1974. So we are talking about something projected for 1984 to be roughly between a quarter and a third of the 1974 net farm income for Manitoba.
I am trying to emphasize this critical situation, Mr. Speaker, so that the Minister of Agriculture will understand. Hopefully, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ferguson) will communicate this to him; that these rising costs are really hurting the farmers. If we look historically at why this has happened we find that the number one increase in costs to farmers in Manitoba-and farmers in my riding come into my office and show me their bank books and their income tax statements-is in fuel and fertilizers. These costs are becoming the number one costs farmers are faced with. It is because of this that I have been asking the Government to consider giving an energy rebate to farmers who are using diesel fuel and, of course, gasoline.
The excise tax which is rebated now, I am told by individual farmers, is of some help, but the excise tax does not apply, of course, to diesel fuels. More and more farmers are using diesel equipment on their farms and, therefore, we need some sort of rebate of sales tax. Of course, this sales tax would apply to gasoline and diesel fuel. I believe that the Government has room to manoeuvre in this regard, if it looks at the breakdown of the sales tax and, of course, other federal taxes which are involved there. These are things which could be done immediately to assist the farmer.
As far as the western grain stabilization plan is concerned, we had promises in the Speech from the Throne of changes, but I was a bit baffled as to why there was nothing in the Budget which would show that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) is at least working on this particular problem. Hopefully today the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance will give me some good news which I can immediately pass on to the people in constituencies such as Dauphin-Swan River.
Discontent with the western grain stabilization plan is pretty well universal out west. There is a need for something to be done there and I suggest the Government consider making a pay-out retroactive to 1983 immediately so that farmers have money in their pockets to finance their seeding. It might also
consider combining any sort of new grain stabilization idea with something along the model of crop insurance, making it available on an individual basis to insure against crop fluctuations. I will eagerly await the Parliamentary Secretary's comments. I hope he has some good news for the farmers in western Canada.


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Hon. Member for his comments. I have been following the situation very closely and I believe the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) said a few days ago that the Western Grain Stabilization Act is under review. However, we have to realize that wheat and grain prices reflect world market conditions.
Perhaps it sounds old hat, but for other commodities we grow, not only in western Canada but in eastern Canada, there are vehicles and legislation in place whereby farmers can organize to ensure that they have an income from the marketplace commensurate with that of the rest of society. I am speaking here of the poultry and dairy industries which have an excellent system of marketing in place, perhaps the envy of the world.
I fully realize that there is a special problem regarding grain markets which are depressed at the present time and we trust they will pick up and that this will be reflected in farm income.
The Hon. Member also raised an issue debated in this House on February 17, 1984, specifically that the federal Government provide a further subsidy for Canadian farmers by eliminating the 9 per cent federal sales tax on diesel fuel and gasoline used by farmers. At that time the Hon. Member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski) proposed that the subject matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs for consideration. Subsequently, with some wording changes, the House approved referral of the issue to the committee.
During that exchange of views it was pointed out that exempting gasoline and diesel fuel from sales tax for farmers, hunters, trappers and fishermen would present problems in ensuring that only those persons benefited from the relief, and denying it to others who would like to get on the tax free bandwagon. I should point out that the federal sales tax represents only a small portion of the price of a litre of fuel, less than 3 cents, and all users of motor fuels, including individuals, transportation companies, municipalities and manufacturers, in addition to farmers, are required to pay the tax.
However, it is important to look at what has been done for farmers in the recent Budget. There are proposals to shelter up to $120,000 in capital gains by placing them in RRSPs. Incorporated farmers and fishermen will benefit from the new proposals which will simplify the law for small incorporated firms. The Budget went a long way to accommodating the concerns of farmers, and I hope the committee will seriously consider the pros and cons of a sales tax concession for farm
March 8, 1984

fuels, as the Government is well aware of the needs and concerns of the agricultural community.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: 1 regret to interrupt the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary, but his time has expired.
Adjournment Debate
The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow morning at eleven o'clock.
At 6.30 p.m., the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Friday, March 9, 1984