1984-12-04

GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. John A. Fraser (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans) moved: that Bill C-6, an Act to amend the Saltfish Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure to introduce Bill C-6 for second reading. It is legislation to amend Subsection 17(2) of the Saltfish Act to increase the permitted borrowing limit of the Canadian Saltfish Corporation to $50 million from the present ceiling of $30 million.
This is part of the backlog of legislation left over from the previous session. I am seeking the co-operation of Hon. Members to give speedy passage to this item of legislation. Its implementation is of considerable importance to the effective operation of the Canadian Saltfish Corporation and the large number of fishermen and saltfish processors in Atlantic Canada who depend upon the Corporation to market their catch.
Let me briefly outline the situation which has led to the introduction of this amendment to the Saltfish Act. The Canadian Saltfish Corporation, as I am sure many Hon. Members are aware, is a Crown agency which was established in 1970 with the primary aim of improving returns to fishermen. It was set up to bring about a change in the inefficient and haphazard marketing situation for saltfish which existed previously. The record shows that it has done a commendable job in this regard.
Under the Act the Corporation has a monopoly of the interprovincial and export trade in cured codfish-that is to say, salt bulk and dried codfish-produced in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador and on the lower north shore of the Province of Quebec. Under matching provincial legislation, the Corporation has exclusive purchase rights to cured codfish and to codfish for curing within the mandated region. The Corporation is required to buy all cured fish of an acceptable quality which is offered for sale within its area of jurisdiction.
When the Saltfish Act came into effect 14 years ago, the Corporation's borrowing limit was set at $10 million, which
was deemed adequate at the time. This limit was increased to $15 million in 1976 and to $30 million in 1980.
Due to the soft market conditions currently prevailing in the frozen groundfish industry, an increase in salt bulk and saltfish production is expected in the coming year. Because of this, and due to a number of other factors outside the Corporation's control, such as inflationary cost increases combined with severe devaluations of currency in importing countries, the Corporation anticipates that its peak borrowing in 1985-86 will be in the neighbourhood of $37 million. By the year 1988 it is predicted that this borrowing requirement will rise to $48 million.
I cannot emphasize too strongly that the sum of money established under the Act as the borrowing ceiling represents the absolute level of funds available to the Corporation as working capital in any one year. The Corporation cannot obtain additional credit outside this limit.
In summary, it is very clear that for the Corporation to operate effectively its borrowing limit must be increased from the current $30 million level. If this does not happen, the Corporation is likely to find itself in the impossible position of being obliged under its mandate to buy all the fish offered to it, at the same time having insufficient credit reserves to be able to pay the fishermen or processors. Of course, this is the same state of affairs confronting the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation which is also seeking to raise its borrowing limit under separate legislation.
As far as the Saltfish Corporation is concerned, this dilemma can be overcome by passage of the legislation before the House today. I trust Hon. Members will see their way clear to take that action with the minimum of delay.


Mr. George Baker (Gander-Twillingate):: Mr. Speaker, I will try to be very brief with respect to this Bill. The Minister omitted to say that the major problem with the Canadian Saltfish Corporation today is markets. The problem is further complicated by currencies, the value of those currencies and whether they can get their money within six months or a year if they sell to certain countries.
There used to be a problem of grades of fish. That problem has been partially overcome. We now have in Canada some of the best grades of saltfish in the world. It is unfortunate that the Canadian Saltfish Corporation cannot in certain cases reward those areas of Atlantic Canada, specifically Newfoundland, which produce grade A top quality fish.
Under the Liberal administration a couple of years ago, the Government of Canada encouraged a system of quality control
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whereby fish were brought in to the wharfhead and iced. When taken out of the water, they were immediately bobtailed or bled, as we call it, then iced and graded on the wharf. For the first time we had what we, the industry and others, call a grade A product.
Unfortunately, when that grade A product was brought in, it did not fetch a higher price than the grade B product. Various excuses were made at the time for these discrepancies, mainly that there had to be a certain quantity of grade A fish available in order that a higher price would be paid. Without that quantity, you could not get into the grade A market in Brazil, for example. In a certain part of Brazil you can sell a high-priced quality product and in another part of that country you can sell the medium grade product.
The Government had to develop a system of subsidies. I know that is a bad word with the present Government, but a system of subsidies was developed for a grade A product. The major buyers were given the money to pay the difference to the fishermen who brought in the grade A product. I cannot see in the policies of this Government whether that system of encouraging quality fish in the market-place is being continued.
The Canadian Saltfish Corporation buys mostly in Newfoundland because it is mainly a Newfoundland-based product that we are talking about. There is some product along the coast of Quebec, but it is mainly a Newfoundland product. This year, the fishery in those areas was very poor. I would think that with all of the problems in the fresh fish industry and with all of the major plants in Atlantic Canada encountering closures due to strikes and to their financial situations, we would see an automatic increase in the amount of saltfish that is handled by the Canadian Saltfish Corporation.
Three and four years ago there was a crisis in the fresh fish industry. That is the industry which deals with fish that is normally frozen into cod blocks in Newfoundland, unfortunately to be sent to Massachusetts or somewhere else in the United States to be made into a finished product. At that time when the plants were unable to buy the fish, the fishermen normally salted the fish and sold it to the Canadian Saltfish Corporation. The Canadian Saltfish Corporation, the Corporation we are dealing with today, must by law buy every bit of saltfish that is offered to it. Three and four years ago the amount of fish that was sold to the Canadian Saltfish Corporation rose because there were problems in the fresh fish industry.
The fishery was very bad this year. There were problems with the fresh fish industry in Atlantic Canada. There were a certain number of fishermen who salted their fish and sold it to the Canadian Salfish Corporation through a licensed buyer. However, the amount of fish that was sold to the Canadian Saltfish Corporation was substantially less this year than it was in previous years. That was probably a godsend to the Canadian Saltfish Corporation because, according to my understanding of the situation, it had large inventories.
I estimate that the amount of fish sold to the Canadian Saltfish Corporation must have decreased by about 20 per cent. I imagine the Corporation would tell the Minister that the amount of fish that was sold to it had decreased by about 10 per cent or 15 per cent but I would say it was about 20 per cent. This highlights a very serious problem in the inshore fishery, specifically in the areas where there are fishermen who sell to the Canadian Saltfish Corporation. This problem is very, very serious and is of a magnitude that has never been seen before in this country. The fish were not there. They were simply not in the ocean in the latter part of this past summer.
The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Fraser), in bringing forward this Bill, should keep in mind that because there were these problems in the inshore fishery in eastern Canada and because no action was taken by the Government to assist these fishermen, there are a couple of Cabinet Ministers in the present Government who are in serious trouble with the inshore fishery. They are in very, very serious trouble with the fishermen who sell to the Canadian Saltfish Corporation.
I recall that it was this Minister of Fisheries and Oceans who, together with the fishermen's union of Newfoundland, sent to the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Miss MacDonald) a list identifying some 1,600 fishermen who simply did not have enough stamps to collect unemployment insurance this winter. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans identified some 200 such fishermen in the northern area, about 400 in the northeast area and about 1,000 in the extreme lower east coast of Newfoundland.
I do not know what happened to the Minister's recommendation to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. I imagine that the people who work in the Department of Employment and Immigration must have gotten their hands on it and said: "We will hold off a bit now until the fishery season is over". That was in November. They will hold off until the fishery is over. The Minister of Employment and Immigration said that there would be no special program to assist the fishermen who sell to the Canadian Saltfish Corporation. The 400 fishermen that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans identified, who were in financial trouble a month ago, were from Fogo Island. Fogo Island is solely the Canadian Saltfish Corporation indirectly selling through the buyer of the Fogo Island Co-op.
The fishermen were in serious trouble, worse than ever before in their history. Last year it was bad. The federal Government last year-the Government that was accused of throwing money at problems-had a special program for fishermen. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Hudon) recently stood in the House to read a statement from the Department which denied that such a program existed. It is frustrating for me, as a representative of the fishermen, as well as for other members on the government side who represent fishermen, to have this confusion.

December 4, 1984

The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans knows that there was a special program whereby fishermen's groups, associations or co-operatives, such as the case of the Canadian Saltfish Corporation, received an amount of money from the Department of Employment. That amount was exactly equal to the amount of money required to put fishermen to work fixing wharves, stages and haul-outs. The work would give the fishermen the required number of weeks to enable them to receive unemployment insurance. Why? Because it was not simply a subsidy. It was required to keep these people in the fishery. If that is not done this year-and it should have been done a month ago-we will see a decrease in the number of people fishing indirectly for the Canadian Saltfish Corporation.
We cannot have respectable people, full-time fishermen, going on welfare. They are much too proud for that. Therefore, they will get out of the fishery-as a lot of them have this year-and look for jobs in Toronto or Fort McMurray where they have relatives. Of course, they will not receive money from the mobility program of the Department of Employment and Immigration because that program has been substantially cut back. The restrictions of that program mean that the fishermen will not receive the money which would enable them to travel to another area to get a job.
The fishermen were laid off as they obtained the required number of stamps to qualify for unemployment insurance in order to get them over the serious problem they faced last year. If a fisherman had six fishing stamps, he could match them up with four labour stamps; if he had seven fishing stamps, he could match them up with three labour stamps. But if the fisherman only had five fishing stamps, the law stated that he must have had ten labour stamps in order to qualify for unemployment insurance. As the Minister of Fisheries understands, these fishermen had anywhere from nine stamps to seven stamps. It required one or two weeks' work to get those stamps. Under the previous government, as the fishermen worked that one or two weeks, they were laid off, collected unemployment insurance during the winter, and then went fishing again in the spring.
Now there is no program. Somehow, through the jigs and the reels and through misinformation, the Minister of Employment and Immigration stood in the House and told Members-representing the areas that the Minister of Fisheries identified to the Department of Employment-that the Government would put them to work on Canada Works grants. Everyone knows that a fellow cannot be laid off after a week if he is hired under a Canada Works grant. He cannot be laid off after two, three or four weeks. It is not allowed under the Canada Works Program. What are they doing? Even if some of those fishermen were employed under Canada Works, they would have to work right through the winter and probably next summer, taking a job away from someone in the community who really needs it.
[DOT] (U25)
There are several problems, Mr. Speaker. If a Canada Works Program was begun it would mean that if a man had
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worked one week in the previous eight weeks, he would not be allowed to go to work. There are various problems associated with the announcement of the Minister of Employment and Immigration, who made an unforgiveable error by saying she will top everyone up to $3 million knowing full well that the districts affected are already up to $3 million under the the Canada Works Program. The Minister of Employment and Immigration is in very serious trouble with the fishermen who are covered under Bill C-6, an Act to amend the Saltfish Act. To lose these fishermen, Mr. Speaker, would be a tragedy for the Canadian Saltfish Corporation.
In examining their problem one can see that 99 per cent of these fishermen are poor people who sell their catch to the Canadian Saltfish Corporation. There is a program under the Department of Employment and Immigration but one cannot go to work under that program unless he is drawing unemployment insurance. Provincial governments have community development programs administered through the Department of Welfare, but one cannot go to work under those programs unless one is drawing welfare.
In the latter part of this summer the fishermen covered by the Canadian Saltfish Corporation, as a result of the cuts that were made, found themselves in the position that their boats had to be tied up and they could not fish. They had no money coming in and there was no special program in place to help them. Then, Mr. Speaker, we saw the discrimination practised against the fishermen which is inherent in our system in eastern Canada. These fishermen had no money to spend but when school opened their children's school books still had to be purchased. These fishermen went down to the welfare office and asked for welfare but they were denied for a variety of reasons. In some cases they were denied welfare because they were self-employed and in other cases they were denied because of a stupid 90-day rule under which provincial welfare departments operate. Under this regulation, if a fisherman had a good lobster season or a good groundfish season-and you can make quite a bit of money in a week with groundfish-he could not draw welfare for the next 90 days according to provincial regulations. So the trick used by a lot of these 1600 fishermen was to try to get on welfare in order to get their children's school books paid for.
I recall a phone call I had from a fisherman who sells his catch to the Canadian Saltfish Corporation. He is a gentleman about 55 years of age and he has three children in high school; one in grade 12 and two in grade 11. He asked me if the federal Government was going to come up with a special program and I told him to hoped so but I could not be certain. We have a change of Government now and this Government does not believe in throwing money at problems. This is a Government which does not believe in just maintaining a system because it is there. He told me he had a problem. He said that he had $70 on an upper shelf of a cupboard. That $70 was to buy food for the family during hard times. He has three children in high school and he cannot afford to buy their school books, which cost about $100 per student. He asked me: "What am I going to do? Welfare will not look at me because

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of the 90-day rule and I am a self-employed man". What he had to do was give the $70 to the three children and tell them to buy whatever they could between them and he would have to borrow flour from next door to help them over this crunch.
For the areas covered by this poor inshore fishery, Mr. Speaker, on the northeast coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, that is how bad things were this summer. If you went into a community like Tilting you would have seen all the boats hauled up three-quarters of the way through the so-called fishing season. But this Government will not do what the previous Liberal government did. It will not assist those people although the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans sent a list of the fishermen to the Minister of Employment and Immigration and she verified in this House that that was done. So did the union. Then we see a provincial system which discriminates against these poor people. Is there any wonder that we have lost fishermen? They are not going to go back to the boats any more this year, those very inshore fishermen who keep the Canadian Saltfish Corporation alive.
I would say, Mr. Speaker, a few Cabinet Ministers are in trouble with these inshore fishermen. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is one, together with the Minister of Employment and Immigration, the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Beatty) and the Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier). That particular Minister is in trouble because these very inshore fishermen who sell to the Canadian Saltfish Corporation did not like it one little bit when she, in response to a letter to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) from Greenpeace, sent a letter to a Canadian delegation somewhere in Europe and told them not to object to Greenpeace being recognized by this international union of environmentalists. She can stand up and say: "We did not want to object. Is it not right that they become a member of this organization?" However, Mr. Speaker, by this very act she is supporting that organization.
I said at the beginning that I would not be very long, but I wanted to bring to the attention of the House a serious problem that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is going to have with the buyers for the Canadian Saltfish Corporation. The problem concerns the interpretation of rules and regulations by government departments. I have here a letter from Employment and Immigration Canada to a fisherman which says:
-this is to verify that the amount of salted ground fish, wet salted (salt bulk) is 600 cwt (600 lbs.) for an insured week. This is calculated at the end of the fishing season and for each 600 lbs., you would be entitled to one fishing insured week.
That is what the regulation says. The calculation is not on the value of the fish you sell, it is on the weight. Six hundred pounds entitles you to one fishing insured week. That is how salted fish is distinguished from fresh fish or other products controlled by the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Department of National Revenue in the determination of a question, as they put it. The fisherman brings this letter to the buyer and tells him he is supposed to be calculating the benefits in this way. The buyer turns around and writes two
letters, one to Employment and Immigration Canada to verify this, and another to the Department of National Revenue because that department determines who qualifies and who does not under the Unemployment Insurance Act.
In the letter that the buyer sent to the Department of National Revenue, he says that the fisherman said:
-we should take his total number of pounds of fish shipped and divide by 600 pounds to arrive at the number of insured weeks. However, this is not the way that we do the calculation.
If that is not the way they do the calculation, then they are in very serious trouble with the Department of National Revenue and the Department of Employment and Immigration. He continues:
We have been calculating the number of insured weeks in the week that the shipment was made.
Please inform me if the above calculation is correct. If it is not correct, 1 would like to have some clarification on the matter.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the chief of source deduction of the Department of National Revenue is a man who knows. He has never made a mistake that I can recall. Never. He writes to the buyer:
-this will confirm that your method of computing the insurable earnings and weeks from the sale of a cured catch is indeed correct.
The information provided by Canada Employment and Immigration Commission . .. will be discussed at a meeting of the Commission and this Department with a view to ensuring the proper information emanating from both offices is factual.
As far as I can see, the Commission was correct in its interpretation. The Department of National Revenue was correct in its interpretation. Then we turn to the Deputy Attorney General of Canada and let us see what he thinks. Here is a buyer who averaged out the entire earnings for the total period covered by the fresh and cured catch deliveries instead of calculating the earnings separately and for the week in which they were caught. There have been countless cases like this, Mr. Speaker, in which a fisherman seeks an opinion from the Commission, the Department of National Revenue and then perhaps a judge, and all three are at variance. But the bottom line is that if that fisherman or buyer takes it to the final court, the Federal Tax Court of Canada-regardless of what the Departments involved have said-whatever that court says, that is it. If someone in the Commission made a mistake, it is the fisherman who suffers, not the buyer. It is not the Commission, not the Department of National Revenue, but the fisherman involved.

I wanted to bring that to the attention of the Minister as an illustration of the confusion around the sale of saltfish in the country and of a grave injustice that has been dealt to a poor fishermen who does not know any different and sells his fish to a buyer in good faith. If the buyer, the Unemployment Insurance Commission or the Department of National Revenue has made an error in determining the question, it is the fisherman who then faces having to pay back to the Government thousands and thousands of dollars.
December 4, 1984

At this very moment in the area covered by the Saltfish Corporation, there are 106 cases of fishermen who have been told they must pay back to the Government of Canada thousands of dollars. This happened at a time when the fishery was bad and the Government of Canada said it was not going to give them enough stamps for unemployment insurance. At that time 106 fishermen left and in 1985 they will have to face the courts. The cases will be brought pursuant to the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, the appellant versus the Minister of National Revenue, respondent. It will be a case of the Minister of National Revenue versus the 106 fishermen who sell to the Canadian Saltfish Corporation.
I wanted to bring that to the attention of the House for a particular reason. It is fine to look back and say that the Department has made a mistake. It is in black and white, but in a court of law it does not matter who made the mistake. No one is reprimanded in the Department of National Revenue or the Unemployment Insurance Commission. It is the fishermen who must pay on the bottom line. The buyer was misled in written statements from government departments. Therefore, in 1985 it will be the Minister of National Revenue versus each one of these fishermen before the Federal Tax Court of Canada.
I brought that up because under the Act the Minister of Employment and Immigration has the power and authority in cases of hardship, when it is determined that a person must pay back money, to forgive that money owed to the Crown. That is why I am bringing this up today. I am asking the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to make representation to the Minister of Employment and Immigration to forgive the amounts owed to the Crown. Another way to short-circuit it would be if the Minister of National Revenue would say that they are not going to proceed with these cases. I do not know what reason he could use. I suppose he could say that there was written contradictory evidence from government departments. If that were done, I suppose it would be creating a precedent which would be very difficult to change in future cases.
Certainly, Mr. Speaker, something must be done. Any fair-minded person must realize that something must be done for these fishermen who sell to the Canadian Saltfish Corporation. Who would deny that? One would have to be crazy not to realize that something must be done for the fishermen. It is unfortunate that the Minister of Employment and Immigration could not have set up a special program to give these fishermen their unemployment insurance stamps. He could have put them to work for $200 a week so they could draw 60 per cent of their income in unemployment insurance. Is that too much to ask for a primary producer in the country? Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, that is not the way it worked out.
I have gone on longer than I should have, Mr. Speaker. I mentioned that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, who was in trouble, is not in as much trouble as the other Ministers are. I would like to congratulate the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans for sending that list to the Minister of Employment and Immigration to verify the 1,600 people who needed their
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unemployment insurance. I also want to chastize the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, in the areas covered by the Canadian Saltfish Corporation Act, for agreeing to policies handed down from on high and for agreeing with the group of people in the back room who decided to do this, that, and the other thing without consulting him. He will stand up in the House and say he was consulted, but I do not believe he was consulted when they decided to charge fishermen for the charts. I think he had to do what he was told with the substantial cuts in his Department. I know the philosophy behind that.
There was a statement issued in the PC Handbook called "Pocket Politics". I wish there were a hole in whatever pocket it went into. It is absolute garbage as it relates to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. In Newfoundland we would call them all cracked. It is insane, Mr. Speaker. It says in "Pocket Politics" that:
The current budget for the department is almost $700 million per year, almost 20 times what it was in 1968.
Under Liberal management, Canada's fisheries have become virtually uneconomic, and have taken on the characteristics of a social welfare system, especially in Atlantic Canada.
Fisheries policy has been designed to make the industry dependent upon Liberal goodwill, patronage and government handouts.
An example given is Crown corporations that rigidly monopolize vital sectors of the market. The Minister is now bringing in a Bill to extend the borrowing authority of this Crown corporation. It continues:
Subsidies expand the industry with no thought to the limits of biological resources. Over-expansion on the Atlantic coast has bankrupted the processing industry and forced a massive federal bail-out that does not solve the real problem.
The Premier of Newfoundland called that massive bail-out the best thing that happened since confederation. Who creates over-expansion in the Atlantic fisheries, Mr. Speaker? They did not say that in "Pocket Politics". Those licences are issued by provincial governments and have nothing to do with the federal Government.
Reading this is almost like reading a communist manifesto. It says:
The current budget for the department is almost $700 million per year, almost 20 times what it was in 1968.
So what, Mr. Speaker? It should be 40 times what it was. The policy emanated from cuts in the Department.
I know my time is running out, Mr. Speaker. Have I used up my 20 minutes? I have two minutes left in 40 minutes? I have gone on a little too long.
The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is going to cancel the fishing vessels insurance scheme. In the one minute I have remaining I would like to appeal to the Minister not to cancel the program. If it is cancelled there will not only be fellows who will owe thousands and thousands of dollars to the Department of National Revenue, but they will also have their boats repossessed because, under provincial law, they must have insurance for provincial loans to remain in force. You must have your own insurance before you can get a loan from a provincial loan authority. You cannot just cancel something
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and leave a little fellow with a 19-foot boat trying to make a living on the great northern peninsula unable to get insurance through a normal insurance company.
I see the Minister nodding his head. He is perhaps going to be dealing with this, and I know he is going to try to overcome what the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) laid down as being the law of this country. It is wrong for a small group of people from on high to cast down his policies without consulting the very people they should be consulting in this country.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell).


John Allen Fraser: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Hon. Member.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: There are no questions for the first three speeches. However, if we have unanimous consent, the Hon. Minister may ask.
Is there unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Waddell:: No.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell).


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the remarks made by the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate (Mr. Baker). I thought for a moment he was going to ask for unanimous consent to go on for another 40 minutes. We certainly would have enjoyed listening to him for another 40 minutes.
He used a phrase I have never heard and I thank him for teaching it to me. I imagine it must be an East Coast phrase because we do not have it on the West Coast. He referred to the jigs and reels, and somehow through the jigs and reels in a debate on the Saltfish Corporation he managed to speak about Greenpeace, welfare, unemployment insurance, taxation, the communist manifesto and finally insurance. I congratulate him for doing a good job on behalf of his constituents in getting through the jibs and the reels into the things that concern his constituents. I gather he has very many poor people in his riding, particularly the inshore fishermen on the north coast of Newfoundland, and I learned something from his speech.
I have noticed that Mr. Richard Cashin and the officers and members of the Newfoundland Fishermen, Food and Allied Workers Union have also been speaking out and working hard on behalf of those people. They are quite disadvantaged compared to we rich city dwellers in other parts of Canada. The Hon. Member talked about the syndrome of going down the road, this time fishermen from Newfoundland, to Toronto, to Fort McMurray and to other places in Canada. I am sorry that sort of thing happens in this country. I wish it did not. I am sure the Hon. Member and the Minister would agree that
we should be putting together a fisheries policy to help those people stay and thrive.
I have just returned from Europe. I spent some time talking with people in the European Economic Community, particularly the Danes and to a lesser extent the Greeks, about the fishing industry. When I see what the Danes have done, especially with their industry and how they have concentrated on quality, we have something to learn. The Hon. Member mentioned in his speech how important quality is, how important the product is and how important it is to sell in foreign markets. We have a lot to learn from them, and I hope we can.
On behalf of my Party, I have a few things I want to say about this Bill. The Bill seeks to amend the Saltfish Act in order to increase the Canadian Saltfish Corporation's borrowing power from $30 million to $50 million. The last time an increase in its borrowing authority was authorized was in 1980, as we heard from the Minister, when it went up from $15 million to $30 million. This is a simple amendment seeking to put the borrowing authority up to $50 million.
I want to say something about the background of the Corporation as I understand it. The Corporation was established in 1970 by the then Minister of Fisheries, Mr. Jack Davis, a fellow British Columbian. This Corporation has the exclusive right to market saltfish produced in Newfoundland, Labrador and the lower north shore of Quebec. It is a nonprofit Corporation which was established for the purpose of improving the earnings of the primary producers of cured saltfish. What is important to note here, Mr. Speaker, and it is important for Conservative Members in the House to follow this, is that before the establishment of this Corporation the saltfish industry was in a shambles, in much the same way as the freshwater fish industry was in the West before the establishment of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation in the Prairies. In other words, the private sector-the market here-was unable to operate effectively and efficiently in the fishing industry and so the Government set up this non-profit corporation. We seem to be going in reverse these days and I will come to that in a minute. The market was not working for the fishermen so the Government stepped in and set up this non-profit Corporation.
The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Fraser) said in his speech, to quote what he said a few minutes ago: "The record shows it; the Corporation has done a commendable job". I hope the Minister and the Government generally will not take corporations like Petro-Canada and other government corporations that have done a commendable job, to put it mildly, and out of pure ideology get rid of them. This is an example.
The Saltfish Corporation has been very successful. It has turned a profit every year since its creation, with the one exception of 1983-84. The annual report for this year, as far as I know, has yet to be published and the loss for the year 1983-84 is not yet known.
It should be noted that since this is a non-profit Corporation, any surpluses made by the Corporation are rebated to the fishermen as annual dividends. In 1983-84 the Saltfish Corpo-
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ration was able to absorb its loss by depending on reserves it had built up for a rainy day. The Corporation has yet to cost the taxpayers a dime. It has been self-sufficient. The only place it gets its money or working capital is from the Government, but so far it has not run at a loss.
The Corporation is small and efficient. It has 48 full and part-time employees. It packages, markets and in some cases processes saltfish, which mainly consists of codfish but also includes pickled herring and salted salmon. It buys fish from agents, who are private entrepreneurs, and then markets the fish. The primary consuming countries to which the Corporation exports saltfish are Portugal and Puerto Rico, the latter country being part of the United States.
Unfortunately, since 1980, the last time that the Corporation had its limit of borrowing capacity raised, the devaluation of the European currencies against our Canadian currency has had a serious impact on the export of saltfish. The Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate mentioned this in his speech but he did not elaborate. Let me say something about it so that you understand it, Mr. Speaker. The Portuguese escudo is now worth one-third of what it was against the Canadian dollar in 1980. That is not bad for Canadian tourists-


John Allen Fraser: May I ask the Hon. Member a question, Mr. Speaker?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: No. The Hon. Member has the floor. The only way that could be done is with unanimous consent.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Maybe the Minister will ask a question at the end of my remarks. Beware of Scotsmen asking questions, Mr. Speaker, as the English learned to their chagrin! The Minister and I have both been seen together in kilts, but I can tell you that I am the only one who has worn a kilt in the House of Commons. You can ask me that later.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Let me go back to the Portuguese escudo. The point is very important. The reason is that this currency has fallen in value vis-a-vis the Canadian dollar. Other European currencies have also fallen, such as the Italian lira and the Spanish peseta.


John Allen Fraser: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Ordinarily I would not rise at this point, but in the interests of the democratic functions of the House I must ask the Hon. Member, who is well known to me and who wears the kilt, as I do, if he would consent to a question being asked.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Certainly I would.


John Allen Fraser: Are you for the Bill or against it?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for the Minister to ask a question?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
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Mr. Gauthier:: No.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: There is not unanimous consent.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: The Minister wants to know whether I am for the Bill or against it. We are for the Bill, and I am explaining why.


Mr. Dick:: We were having trouble.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: The Hon. Member should not have trouble. There is something to learn from the Bill. What I am pointing out is that this Corporation is a successful Government Corporation. It had to take over from the free market which was not working in this particular case. Sometimes it works, but in this particular case it did not. The Minister has acknowledged that. This is very important because some time down the line in this Parliament we will have some problems.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Then why are you smiling throughout your speech?


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I say to the Hon. Member who is asking that question that he should look at the Government's report entitled "A New Direction for Canada". The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) indicated that it was "An Agenda for Economic Renewal". The Hon. Member should look at page 31 which indicates the failures of some commercial credit corporations in international marketing of products. One paragraph on that page reads:
Other Crown corporations which have an export-facilitation role include the Canadian Dairy Commission, the Canadian Saltfish Corporation, and the Canadian Freshwater Fish Corporation.
Then on page 32 it speculates as follows:
Is it clear that a need exists for other specialized services promoting the export of selected agricultural and fish products? Could this role be assumed by the private sector or by other established government programs?
I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will participate in this debate. I should like him to tell us whether the Government will privatize the Canadian Saltfish Corporation. If the Hon. Member does his homework and looks at this report, he will understand. Why is it mentioned in here beside the concept of the market not working and the idea of changing or getting rid of these corporations? This is why I mentioned it.
The reason I mentioned the Portuguese escudo was that I was trying to point out that one of the difficulties the Corporation had with marketing the product of fishermen from Newfoundland and the lower north shore of Quebec was that they have had to compete in a market where our currency has been over valued. The currencies of countries such as Norway and Iceland which compete with them have in fact been devalued. This makes the situation even worse.
I have been told-and I looked into it-that it is very difficult for us to cut costs here in Canada. The fishermen and processors of Newfoundland are making very little money. The average income from fishing activities in that area has been between $3,000 and $4,000 per year. A plant worker makes $7.38 per hour, tops. This is not full-time, year-round work.

December 4, 1984
Saltfish Act
The prices paid to fishermen and the wages of workers cannot go any lower. Fishermen will simply not fish at the lower price; it would not be worth their while. More fishermen will go to Toronto, Fort McMurray or wherever.
The Corporation is taking its first loss for 1983-84. This was not due to bad management of that Crown Corporation, because it is properly managed. It is due to the international economic market and its associated problems. There is plenty of fish. The problem is marketing it without taking a loss.
I have already referred to "A New Direction for Canada" and the agenda therein. I would point out that the former Tory Minister of- Fisheries, the Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath), stated that he had a firm belief in the Corporation and was committed to it. I hope this Minister, through his Parliamentary Secretary when he speaks, will be committed to it as well.
In summation, the Government has our co-operation in passing this amendment. It is a small one. I have indicated the background facts as to why the amendment must be passed. I have tried to set out some of the problems of the Canadian Saltfish Corporation as I see them. We in the New Democratic Party consider this to be a very important issue and hope that the Bill is passed quickly.


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order and to keep the record straight. It was just communicated to my office that the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Miss MacDonald), on the recommendation of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Fraser), approved $6 million to take care of the problem to which the Minister of Fisheries and I referred this morning. I congratulate the Minister of Employment and the Minister of Fisheries for a job well done on that very serious problem.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Morrissey Johnson (Bonavista-Trinity-Conception):: Mr. Speaker, I suppose I should say that it is ironic that my colleagues from Newfoundland should steal the announcement I was about to make. I am sure he saw me go across the House and talk with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Fraser) and suspected something was in the wind. Obviously he wanted to find out what it was. In any event, I congratulate him for making the announcement.
I fully support the amendment to Bill C-6 which is presently before the House. There are six major saltfish processing plants within any riding. I think it is safe to say that the largest percentage of saltfish processed in Newfoundland is done in my riding. I am quite familiar with the Canadian Saltfish Corporation. I could elaborate quite a bit on it. I want to say that it is well managed, as the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) stated. It is essential that it continue.
As has already been stated, since its inception the Saltfish Corporation has until this year operated without a deficit. I did not hear the Minister when he made his statement, but I hope he pointed out that the deficit would not be repaid from
this extended borrowing. According to my information there are reserves in the Canadian Saltfish Corporation to take care of the deficit incurred this past year.
Not only does the Corporation play a vital role in ensuring that fishermen receive equality in prices paid for fish throughout Newfoundland, Fabrador and on the lower north shore of Quebec; it also has during peak periods in the fishing season in Newfoundland provided a means for fishermen who deal exclusively in fresh fish to find an outlet for fish which fresh fish processing plants are unable to process because of a glut in catches. They have done that by bringing in foreign vessels to purchase fish over the side.
If I were to talk about all the problems that exist in the fishing industry today in Newfoundland, I would need a full day. I have been involved in the fishing industry directly and indirectly for more than 35 years. I have caught fish, helped to process fish and bought fish from fishermen as a sub-agent of the Canadian Saltfish Corporation. There are many problems that have existed and still exist today. If Members of this House fully support the amendment to Bill C-6, some of those problems can be overcome with the extended borrowing of the Canadian Saltfish Corporation.
I want to elaborate a little on the remarks of the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate (Mr. Baker). I do not believe that the Ministers referred to are in as much trouble in Newfoundland as the Hon. Member has stated. The announcement with regard to the $6 million program for fisherpersons and fish plant workers shows the compassion this Government has for those in need. That program will not be implemented on a constituency basis. The monies will be allocated to the areas most affected and where the most need exists, where the least catches were obtained this year. I congratulate the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Miss MacDonald) on that decision.
Other Members have elaborated on when the Canadian Saltfish Corporation was incorporated and the role it has played. Therefore it is not necessary for me to say anything further on that. I believe that the Minister for Fisheries and Oceans and the other Ministers to whom the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate referred should not be criticized by the Hon. Member but be given constructive ideas. I am sure these Ministers would welcome any ideas he might have to improve the welfare not only of those in his constituency but throughout Newfoundland and Canada. That is why I will not elaborate further. I work in consultation with the various Ministers. I will make my views known to them rather than seek the glory of having my constituents seeing me stand here and ramble on, talking about what I am already putting forward to the Ministers concerned.


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Hon. Member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception (Mr. Johnson), who is perhaps the most experienced man in the Newfoundland fishery ever to sit in this Chamber. He is experienced,
December 4, 1984

both directly and indirectly, in all aspects associated with Newfoundland fishermen, such as the seal hunt and so on.
Will the Hon. Member inform the House what regulations should be changed in the Department of Fisheries relating to the size of boats and licensing? Will he give the House some indication of what he believes should be done in so far as these matters are concerned?


Morrissey Johnson: Mr. Speaker, with regard to the size of boats, we have vessel allocations with a restriction on size. The regulations state that a fisherman with a 50-foot boat can only increase the size to 60 feet. That is ridiculous as it now applies on the west coast of Newfoundland, which is covered by the gulf region of the Department of Fisheries. If a vessel has an allocation of x number of hundreds of thousands of pounds of fish, it is almost criminal to say the fisherman must catch that fish in a 55-foot boat. He may have to build a new boat, requiring subsidies from both the Government of Canada and the Government of Newfoundland. He could purchase a 65-foot boat by borrowing from a commercial bank, which in some cases is guaranteed by the Government of Newfoundland. It is wrong to say he must pay an additional $300,000 or $400,000 to acquire a 55-foot boat if he can purchase a 65-foot boat, as long as he is only permitted to catch the same amount of fish with that vessel. I do not mean to say that because he gets a 65-foot boat, he should start pleading with the Government for an extended allocation. Those problems exist in my riding today. I also receive representations from other parts of Newfoundland requesting me to present these views to the Minister of Fisheries, which I am now in the process of doing.


Hon. William Rompkey (Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador):: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to prolong the debate because I support this Bill. I notice the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Fraser) has left the Chamber. I want to say to him that I welcome his appointment. Because he is from the West Coast of this country, he may bring a whole new perspective and point of view to the East Coast and the Atlantic fishery. I welcome him to that portfolio and hope that he will do an effective job. He has the ability and the right spirit to do the job that sorely needs to be done in the Atlantic area.
I do not want to talk about the fishery in general in the Atlantic, but I do want to say a few words about the Canadian Saltfish Corporation and make some remarks about a special subject in connection with that Corporation.
I support the points very effectively made by my colleague from Gander-Twillingate (Mr. Baker). He clearly staked out the plight of fishermen who make maximum use of the Canadian Saltfish Corporation. It was very dramatic when at the end of his remarks an announcement was made to the effect that the money he was seeking had been made available. I congratulate the Government on that. There was no other way to help those people caught in a situation through no fault of their own, except by a special ex gratia payment. That is now there, as it was in the past. I am pleased it is because if this did not happen, there are fishermen who would have no
Saltfish Act
other recourse this year because of the way the system works. My friend, the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate, has pointed that out very effectively. Now these fishermen will have a way to collect unemployment insurance benefits this winter and to retain their dignity.
Let me give a brief example of this that I came across this morning. In the community of Griquet on the northern peninsula of Newfoundland there are about 30 fishermen who do not have enough qualifying weeks to draw unemployment insurance benefits this winter simply because the fish were not there. Under the normal Canada Works allocations, it is not possible to fit all those fishermen in because we cannot rotate them on Canada Works. Canada Works was not a vehicle. My friend has explained why welfare was not a vehicle. There were no other vehicles available to them. There was no safety net for these fishermen like the one farmers have. If this action was not taken, those people, through no fault of their own, would have been caught this year.
I am pleased that the Government has now come through. I would like to give my friend, the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate, a lot of credit for pressing his case and for making the views of his people known.


John Allen Fraser: He got the $6 million all on his own?


Bill Rompkey: No. It is too bad that the Minister was not present earlier because I was saying some very nice things about him while he was gone.


John Allen Fraser: I'm back now.


Bill Rompkey: He can check the record, but I cannot keep on saying too many nice things about him. After all, we are the Opposition.
Let me talk about the Saltfish Corporation. The Minister has described how it came into being and I do not want to trace that course of history any further. Suffice it to say that it was a godsend for fishermen in Atlantic Canada and particularly for those in Newfoundland when the market for fresh fish was very weak. The Saltfish Corporation offered an alternative. The fresh fish industry in the Atlantic provinces sells basically to the U.S. market. When the U.S. market is soft, there is no alternative. However, the Saltfish Corporation has sought out markets all over the world. It has sought out alternatives and it has the backing of the Government of Canada.
I think it is fair to say that the Saltfish Corporation has not only been an effective marketing arm but has also been financially responsible and effective. We have not had to give great subsidies to that particular corporation. I think I should give credit on the record here in the House of Commons to some men who have made the Saltfish Corporation what it is today.
One name that I recall is that of Knell Henriksen who was a Scandinavian with private sector experience in his own coun-

December 4, 1984
Saltfish Act
try. He came to Newfoundland and took over the Saltfish Corporation. He is no longer with us, but I think that his contribution will be remembered and it is appropriate that I place on the record of the House of Commons the name of that man who did so much to make the Saltfish Corporation what it is.
Another name that I recall is that of Len Cowley, another public servant who is no longer with us but whose name I think will be remembered with a great deal of respect and affection. I would like to remember him today for his contribution to the Saltfish Corporation.
I can recall other men, Aiden Maloney among them, who have made their contributions over the years. Suffice it to say that the Saltfish Corporation is strong and we must continue to keep it strong. I support the improvement offered by today's Bill.
There is one thing that I would like to deal with particularly, Mr, Speaker, and that is the Northern Fishery Development Corporation. That Corporation is, in theory, a creature of both the Government of Canada and the Government of Newfoundland. It was set up because of a very ironic situation which is occurring on the northeast coast of Newfoundland and the coast of Labrador. In these places are some of the most disadvantaged fishermen anywhere in Canada. They have the lowest incomes and their plants are in need of upgrading. By and large, they are small-boat fishermen. Yet off the shores of the northern peninsula and off the shores of Labrador, there are some of the most lucrative resources anywhere in Canada. There are shrimp, salmon, Arctic char, herring, codfish and crab. All of those resources are available. There are maximum resources and minimum income. One of the reasons for that is that the private sector has simply not performed up to scratch in those areas for a long while.
For example, St. Anthony was part of the Fishery Products chain. However, it did not prosper under the Fishery Products chain. When Fishery Products decided to withdraw from St. Anthony, the Government of Canada stepped in and asked the Saltfish Corporation if it would take over the St. Anthony plant and run it for a year. The Corporation did that. Bear in mind that there was no other alternative within the private sector. The Government of Canada asked the Saltfish Corporation to operate that plant and it did. It broke even and possibly even made a small profit a couple of years ago.
As a result of the Kirby task force, the governments then decided that they would indeed create a Northern Fisheries Development Corporation to include St. Anthony, certain plants on the northern peninsula and along the Labrador coast, some of which were owned by the Government of Newfoundland. Both governments signed an agreement indicating that that would be done. That happened almost two years ago yet nothing concrete has been done to put that Northern Fisheries Development Corporation in place.
I and others submitted that the easiest, simplest and most effective way to put in place the Northern Fisheries Development Corporation was to set up a subsidiary corporation under the Saltfish Corporation. After all, if we already have a wheel
there is no need to invent one. However, there were others who said there were other alternatives. If there are other alternatives, I have not seen them put on paper. I have seen no other proposal that I can compare with a subsidiary of the Saltfish Corporation. My proposal still is that both governments would act to set up the Northern Fisheries Development Corporation, something to which they both agreed, through the Saltfish Corporation, an already existing mechanism. However, that has not happened.
Because this is an urgent matter I want to do what I can today. The fishermen of the northern peninsula and the Labrador coast want to know where they stand and what their future will be. We have now restructured the industry. There is a major company in place. However, that major company will not look after all the little plants in Newfoundland. The fishermen in that area want to know if their future is assured. That is the urgency involved in setting up this Northern Fisheries Development Corporation. I suggest that we put it in place by this spring.
I would like to use my time in the House of Commons today to try in whatever way I can to move forward the Northern Fisheries Development Corporation. When we get to committee, I intend to move an amendment to this Bill which Your Honour might want to take under advisement; I have the amendment with me. It simply indicates that Bill C-170 should be amended by adding thereto the following Clause 2, that the Saltfish Act is further amended as follows, and then it deals with amendments to the Saltfish Act which would indeed allow the Saltfish Corporation to deal in fresh fish. That is essentially what it would do. That would open up the way to creating a subsidiary corporation under the Saltfish Corporation which would become the Northern Fisheries Development Corporation.
The Minister of Fisheries is present today and I hope that he will put his views on the record as well. I know that he sees the wisdom of moving ahead with the Northern Fisheries Development Corporation as was agreed in the past. At least I hope he does see that wisdom, and that he will put his views on the record. If he agrees with moving forward with that particular development corporation, I hope he will give us his views on how we might most speedily and effectively do it in order to have it in place for this spring.
I have proposed a course of action and I intend today to push it forward. However, I would be interested in knowing the views of the Minister of Fisheries. I hope that he concurs with this course of action and that he will consult with his provincial counterparts who are now all of one congregation. I hope he will consult with them and attempt to expedite an agreement which will put in place the Northern Fisheries Development Corporation before next spring. If he does, I will give him credit for doing so. He will fulfil my expectations of a westerner who has come to Atlantic Canada, has seen from a pure perspective what is needed and has done the job. I know the Minister has the spirit and the capacity to act. What I want to know is, will he act?
December 4, 1984


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Are there questions or comments on the speech of the Hon. Member? If not, is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


John Allen Fraser: Mr. Speaker, I-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Does the Hon. Minister wish to ask a question or does he wish to speak on debate? I want to ensure the House is aware that if the Minister speaks, it will conclude the debate.


John Allen Fraser: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am aware of that. I have spoken and I am not rising to speak again. However, I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House to move the Bill into Committee of the Whole and have the Bill considered at all stages.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is that agreed?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Mr. Fraser, seconded by Mr. Layton, moves that Bill C-6, an Act to amend the Saltfish Act, be read a second time and, by unanimous consent, referred to a Committee of the Whole. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time and, by unanimous consent, the House went into Committee thereon, Mr. Danis in the chair.
Marcel Danis: Order. House in Committee of the Whole on Bill C-6, an Act to amend the Saltfish Act. Shall Clause 1 carry?
On Clause 1-Limitation


Bill Rompkey: Mr. Chairman, as I mentioned in my remarks, I propose to move an amendment. Therefore I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate:
That Bill C-6 be amended by adding thereto the following Clause 2.
2. The Saltfish Act is further amended as follows:
"The definition fish in Section 2 of the Saltfish Act is repealed and the
following substituted therefor:
'fish' means, except in Section 7.1, fish of the cod family (Gadidae);".
The said Act is further amended by adding thereto, immediately after
Section 7 thereof, the following section:
Additional "7.1 (I) The Corporation may
powers	(a) own or operate, alone or together with one or more persons,
facilities for the processing, storage or transportation of fish in those parts of the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland and the Quebec north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence that are north of the fiftieth degree of north latitude, and in Labrador; (b) harvest fish destined for processing at a facility referred to in paragraph (a) and own or operate vessels or equipment for the harvesting of such fish;
(c) market fish processed in the area described in paragraph (a); and
Saltfish Act
(d) carry on, for any purpose, in respect of any fish processed at a facility referred to in paragraph (a) or harvested or marketed pursuant to this subsection, the activities that it has the power to carry on under Section 7 or 8.
Definition	(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), fish includes shellfish,
of "fish"	crustaceans, marine animals and the eggs, spawn, spat and
juvenile stages of fish, shellfish, crustaceans and marine animals." The said Act is further amended by adding thereto, immediately after Section 15 thereof, the following section:
Moneys	"15.1 Notwithstanding subsection 15(1), sums required for the
purposes of Section 7.1 shall be paid out of such moneys as may be appropriated by Parliament for that purpose."


Marcel Danis: The Chair rules that the amendment of the Hon. Member is out of order, as the Chair believes it is an attempt to amend the whole Act and we are dealing specifically with Section 17.2 of the Act. The Chair would like to read Citation 773(1) of Beauchesne to clarify the ruling. It reads as follows:
(1) An amendment is out of order if it is irrelevant to the bill, beyond its scope or governed by or dependent upon amendments already negatived.
The Chair feels that the amendment is beyond the scope of the law as it presently stands and therefore rules the amendment out of order.


Bill Rompkey: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that ruling and obviously the House must abide by it. I simply want to say to the Minister that the amendment has been ruled out of order because it is beyond the scope of the Bill. However, it is not beyond the scope of the Minister.
Having exhausted whatever parliamentary vehicles are available to me, I will now throw myself on the mercy of the Minister, and throw the fishermen of northern Newfoundland and Labrador on the mercy of the Minister. The group of people who live in that area are among the most disadvantaged in Canada. They have one of the greatest resources off their shores. They are looking to the Minister for leadership and support in putting in place a corporation which they very much desire, need and deserve. I hope that the Minister will give us some indication that he will proceed speedily in order that the Northern Fisheries Development Corporation will be in place by next spring.


John Allen Fraser: Mr. Chairman, I do want to reply to the Hon. Member for Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador. I would make it very clear to him and to the committee that I understand the purpose of the amendment which he has proposed. Regrettably, it is not in order, as Mr. Chairman has ruled, but I understand the purpose of and the reasons for that amendment. I am sympathetic to it. I would ask the Hon. Member, who has served with distinction in this House both as a Private Member and as a Minister, to meet with me to discuss the matter further. I hope that an appropriate response will be forthcoming. I thank the Hon. Member very much.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Shall Clause 1 carry?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Clause 1 agreed to.
December 4, 1984

Borrowing Authority


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Shall the title carry?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Friday, November 30, consideration of the motion of Mrs. McDougall that Bill C-ll, an Act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs; and the amendment thereto of Mr. Riis (p. 694).
Mr. Ernie Epp (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, I rise in debate on Bill C-ll, an Act to provide borrowing authority for billions and billions of dollars, not just for the needs of the current year but for the following year. This Bill has aroused a strong reaction from our Party which has resulted in an amendment by the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) which points to the inappropriateness of this action taken by the present Government. In the same way, it was inappropriate two years ago as was pointed out by the then Official Opposition.
In considering the foolishness of the Government in asking for authority to borrow for the following year, I would like to explore the concerns about the deficit which were put before us by the Government. I would like to refer in particular to some of the questions involving the size of the deficit, the way in which that deficit is growing and the Government's inability to deal with it.
Earlier in the life of this Parliament we heard a statement on the economic situation of our country. The importance of dealing with the deficit to which this borrowing authority now addresses itself was stressed. We were told in the Throne Speech that the deficit had to be dealt with. This was the first concern of the Government. There was no dispute about the importance of dealing with the deficit and the fact that it was the highest priority of the Government. However, there has certainly been some disagreement among commentators on our economic situation as to whether we must immediately find ways of reducing the deficit or whether we should be preoccupied, as was suggested by the Conservatives during the election campaign, with getting people back to work. I believe that the top priority should be working towards a full employment situation. Instead, we are now seeing a preoccupation with the deficit, as stressed in the Speech from the Throne and laid before us in the economic statement of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson). That seems to be the main challenge and basis for action on the part of the Government.
What seems to me to be very strange is that while the deficit has been pointed to as the greatest problem which faces usand it is recognized that the deficit has grown over some period of time-there has been no real consideration of why we are in the situation in which we find ourselves. The Speech from the Throne and the economic statement which followed, although they can be pointed to for encouragement and inspiration if not for actual reality, are statements which simply failed to explore the reasons the deficit has grown to its present dimension. The Business Council on National Issues produced a document in August which addressed the federal deficit. It laid out some options for expenditure reduction. It is quite remarkable that although there are the same assertions in the document about the size of the deficit, there is no explanation of why the deficit has reached the state it has.
The Canadian Real Estate Association indicated on November 5-coincidentally with the convening of this Parliament- a more careful consideration of the existence of a deficit. The statement is entitled "The Deficit Albatros: The Realities of Forming the Next Budget". There is a bit more care taken here in exploring the situation in which we find ourselves. However, the fact remains that while it is recognized that the deficit has been growing since the middle 1970s, reaching much higher levels in 1981 and 1982 because of the recession, there is again no real consideration of why that is the case.
What distresses me is that the Government produces statements such as the Speech from the Throne and the economic statement, then goes on to explore the matter in "A New Direction for Canada, an Agenda for Economic Renewal", but there is still that lack of analysis as to why the situation has developed as it has. We just see a description of our situation, a description of what is regarded as the national plight and the potential disaster for certain areas, indicating the prospect, for example, that if government deficits remain large, interest rates will remain high. Surely the forces which act upon Canadian interest rates are much less the Canadian deficit than certain activities in the United States with its enormous deficit. The United States is going through higher economic activity than is true of this country and the Federal Reserve Board has followed the policies which are carried out in the United States in order to finance its deficit and to compensate for other areas of economic weakness. When those are the factors which keep interest rates high, it seems open to debate that the Canadian deficit has those effects.
But we fail to ask ourselves why over the past ten years the Canadian federal Government, and other governments as well, have run the sorts of deficits they have, and what the national policies have been which have created the situation. That fact opens in my mind the possibility that the new Government, for all of its intentions to change the situation, will in fact maintain this sad reality of deficits, unemployment and slow economic activity, and will not accomplish anything which will give us the kind of country which we want and which we were promised during the election campaign.
By contrast, in a document entitled "Government Limited" published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, I
December 4, 1984

find the kind of analysis that is so totally lacking in government statements. I find a careful consideration of how from the middle 1970s government deficits in Canada began to grow. We are reminded that it was in the Budget of 1975 that the then Minister of Finance, now the Right Hon. Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Turner), made a couple of careful decisions. He asserted that the federal Government was becoming too large a factor in the Canadian economy and he was going to do what he could to ensure the role of government did not continue to expand in the same way. There were, of course, tax concessions to business which were designed, it was thought, to produce investment and expand business activity. If on the one hand the Government held back and on the other hand business expanded, surely we would have an improved economic situation.
I remind everyone that corporate and individual tax breaks had begun two or three years earlier, but in effect it was from that point in the middle of the 1970s that the deficit began to grow. That is the striking thing. If one considers the statistics of all governments in Canada, not just the federal Government which serves in so many ways as financier of last resort, if I can use that phrase, particularly in areas of social services, then the really quite astounding thing is this. When the Conservatives last governed for any length of time in the days of the Right Hon. Member from Prince Albert, the Government of Canada ran some substantial deficits. I do not intend to get into the question of what sort of economic mistakes at that time created the situation, but my constituents certainly have not forgotten that the Diefenbaker days were bad days for many Canadians. With that and the Bennett record, to go back even further, Conservatives ought to be very certain that this Government does not renew memories of what Conservatives do when they are in government.
More particularly, Mr. Speaker, if one looks at the tables of surpluses or deficits in total government operations in Canada, it is quite remarkable that from about 1964 through 1974 total government operations were in balance. A surplus was being run in government, be it federal, provincial or municipal. It is only from that point in 1975, when these policy decisions of the federal Government were beginning to take effect, that we find deficits beginning to grow. Of course, they began very rapidly to rise up into the billions of dollars with the effect that we are well aware of now. Incidentally, it is worth considering carefully how large this deficit really is. If one deflates it to 1971 dollars and compares the 1946-47 situation after the war with the situation of the 1970s and into the 1980s, the deficit is not necessarily the ponderous weight that some of the business rhetoric would have us believe. It is not necessarily a destroyer of economic activity in this country.
To return to the point, Mr. Speaker, exactly why have government deficits grown as they have? Why does the government of the day think it necessary to borrow not just billions of dollars for this year but billions of dollars for next year in order to provide for its financial needs into the fiscal year 1985-86? Surely it is because, not having analysed the situation and come to a clear understanding of why deficits
Borrowing Authority
have grown, this Government wants to be prepared for any eventuality. It wants to be prepared for the possibility that, in spite of the best attempts to hold back on spending, the deficits will continue to grow.
That, of course, takes us back to the decision in 1975 concerning corporate and individual tax concessions, all of them designed to encourage investment. They had begun to take effect and there was clearly a marked decline in revenues to government. One cause of the deficit is to be found right there. The discussions in government about this problem have been largely, not entirely but largely, silent on that particular reality.
There has been a remarkable consistency between the Conservative and Liberal governments in pursuing, as I believe, those misguided policies, and the question is the extent to which those particular policies have in fact created the deficit.
I concede that in these last days there has been some indication from the Minister of Finance that there will be a reconsideration in this area, and I trust that Private Members on the government side will keep the pressure on their Cabinet colleagues to ensure that that really happens and that they do not knuckle under to the pressure that will surely come from business interests to avoid paying all the taxes they should.
In any case, Mr. Speaker, it has always seemed to me that there is no way you can encourage business investment to any extent if there is not enough economic activity in the country to justify the establishment of new productive facilities. As long as economic activity in the country is as slow as it is, as long as Canadians do not have the money to buy goods to the extent they should, there is no real reason for investment and it is just throwing tax money away and weakening the Government's ability to deal with the situation if we remain caught in those policies.
On the other side, Mr. Speaker, we have something about which the Government has said a good deal, something of which we desperately need careful reconsideration. I suggest that we need a fundamental reconsideration of the decision to try and reduce the role of government in the economy. That is an ideological position. You may well say that our ideology is the contrary, to make government grow. But we do not want to do that just for the sake of doing it. Rather, we use government as an instrument in order to meet social needs.
When I hear of a list of 450 people in Thunder Bay who cannot afford housing and who want to get into social, low rent housing, and then I hear a government that for its own ideological reasons is cutting back efforts to ensure that kind of housing is provided, then I see a kind of ideological lunacy here that says that government must not do these things. Business confidence will grow when government restrains itself. I say that is stupidity. When the needs of the Canadian people are met, when those housing needs particularly are recognized and governments do what is necessary to ensure the construction of that housing, then I see an incentive to investment. I see a demand for construction and an increase in economic activity.
May I call it one o'clock, Mr. Speaker?

December 4, 1984


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


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Hon. Douglas C. Frith (Sudbury):: Mr. Speaker, 10 years ago the federal and provincial Governments began the process of reviewing the pension systems not only in the private sector but in the public sector as well. During those 10 years there have been several commissions on the subject. There has been a parliamentary task force. There have been individual task forces set up by the federal Government and, in some cases, by provincial Governments.
A year ago, after the parliamentary task force had met and presented its viewpoints to the Government, there seemed to be a degree of consensus in the country on the way in which we should undertake pension reform. However, since that time there have been delaying tactics which we did not envisage at the beginning. That led to a provincial conference in June of last year at which the provincial Ministers responsible for pension reform reviewed the various scenarios. On November 1 and 2 they met with their officials, and yesterday the Ministers met again in Toronto.
There are areas in which a consensus has been reached. Those areas include eligibility criteria for full-time and parttime workers, minimum employer contributions, pre-retirement and post-retirement survivor benefits, among many. In addition, the Treasurer of the Province of Ontario, Larry Grossman, has indicated that in the event that total consensus cannot be arrived at by February-


Mr. Speaker:: I regret to advise the Hon. Member that his time has expired.



THE ADMINISTRATION


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, considering that the new Conservative Government is a corporately-oriented Government, we felt it appropriate that a quarterly report be presented.
A statement released by Brian Mulroney in Halifax on August 2, 1984, said: "A P.C. Government will set up an industry-government panel to produce a new and positive role for Canertech to play in advancing renewable energy and conservation." Canertech is now being wound up.
In the election it was promised, in reply to a Friends of the Earth questionnaire that "a P.C. Government will promote a phased and orderly completion of the National Parks system." The economic statement cut $19.5 million from planned spending in the National Parks.
In the election the Conservatives promised to "establish a new Department of Forestry at the federal level". That was in the P.C. Campaign Handbook, at page 49. Rather than create a separate Department, a junior Minister has been appointed in the Department of Agriculture.
In the election the Conservatives promised to rebate fuel taxes to farmers. They have done so, but only for three years.
The Conservatives promised to give the Auditor General Cabinet documents relating to Petro-Canada's takeover of Petrofina. They are now continuing Liberal stonewalling.
The Conservatives promised open government, and then announced a communications management strategy which places new restrictions on the right of public servants to talk to the public, the media, and Members of Parliament.
The Conservatives opposed the 1 per cent increase in the federal sales tax announced in the last Budget, and then implemented the tax increase themselves.
In the election the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Miss Carney) promised federal funding for a natural gas pipeline to Vancouver Island. She now says no money is available.



COMMUNICATIONS


Mr. Leo Duguay (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, my constituents in St. Boniface reacted very favourably to the economic and financial message presented in the House on November 8 of this year.
However, I would like to point out that the Franco-Manito-ban community is concerned about the proposed budgetary cutbacks for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
The CBC's French network is the only national network serving Francophone communities outside Quebec. Local and regional programming is absolutely essential for the people of St. Boniface and for all Franco-Manitobans.
Local TV programs on CBWFT take up less than five hours per week, so that any cuts would be disastrous.
December 4, 1984

The CBC must provide a national service that meets the needs of all Canadians. Any reduction in local programming would only further increase the number of Quebec-oriented programs.
I might add that the service we have now is already at a basic minimum. I would therefore urge the Minister responsible for Communications to do everything in his power to maintain present regional production.



THE LATE HON. GEORGE R. PEARKES SUGGESTED COMMEMORATION IN NAMING OF NATIONAL DEFENCE HEADQUARTERS

Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg-Assiniboine):: Mr. Speaker,
I rise to encourage the House to recognize, in a tangible way, the contribution to Canada of a most honourable gentleman, the late George R. Pearkes. General Pearkes served Canada well in the two world wars, earning the highest military decoration, the Victoria Cross. The Hon. George Pearkes was a distinguished Member of Parliament and Minister of National Defence. He later became Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia.
May I suggest that we memorialize this fine gentleman, recently deceased, by naming the twin towers located at 101 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, "The Major General George R. Pearkes, V.C. Building". These twin towers are at present referred to as National Defence headquarters, a misnomer, as the Defence headquarters is spread through a number of buildings in the national capital region. It would seem both opportune and appropriate to provide a more descriptive title for the towers. It would also be an opportunity to pay tribute to a distinguished Canadian soldier.



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


Mr. Dave Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, as a result of the economic statement of the Minister of Finance, the proposed cut-backs at the CBC station in my constituency are of great concern to myself, as well as to the majority of people I represent, not only because of the reduction in service but indeed because of the loss of jobs.
CBC Cape Breton is, and always has been, a great supporter of our culture and customs and has, more than any of the other electronic media, promoted the uniqueness of our area. Locally produced programs such as "Talent Cape Breton", "Island Echoes", a program which promotes the ancient Gaelic language, and "Fresh Air", are virtually theionly such programs dedicated to the promotion and preservation of our local musicians and their talents.
Presently, Mr. Speaker, we have only one hour a day of local television programming, "Cape Breton Report". That deals with local issues such as sports, weather, and news. It is all we have left and it should not and must not be cut back, because it is the only real service for those communities. If we are to keep our identity as Canadians and Cape Bretoners in this great country, we must be permitted to keep our local CBC productions whole. I urge the Minister of Communications to reverse this decision on behalf of the people of that area.



THE ADMINISTRATION


Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, to continue the quarterly report on the Government's activities, the Conservatives promised to establish review boards to mediate between farmers and their creditors. No action has been taken, even though farm bankruptcies are at an all-time high. The Conservatives promised major new spending initiatives in the area of research and development, yet cut $107.2 million from federal research grants.
The Conservatives told the Co-op Housing Foundation of Canada that they were committed to strengthening Canada's co-op housing program. The subsequent economic statement cut nearly $10 million from the program. The Conservatives told the Catholic Register that "we will increase Canada's contribution to official development assistance to .7 per cent of our GNP by 1990." They eliminated this target in the economic statement.
The Conservatives specifically told the National Radio Producers' Association that "we are committed to maintaining the level of funding for cultural agencies, including the CBC". They also told La Federation des Franco-Colombiens that they hoped to see the CBC expand its service in French for French Canadians outside Quebec. They cut funding to CBC by $75 million.
The Conservatives told the Canadian Council for Children and Youth that they supported a House of Commons report calling for the phase-out of lead in gasoline. There was no action. They also told the Family Service Centre that their Party supported the recent amendments to the Canada Labour Code providing for unpaid parental leave following the expiration of maternity leave. They have since delayed that. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the quarterly-


Mr. Speaker:: I regret to inform the Hon. Member that his time has expired.

December 4, 1984



TOURISM


Mr. Fernand Ladouceur (Labelle):: Mr. Speaker, I have a few comments to make on the development of the regional tourist industry.
As the House is probably aware, the riding of Labelle is blessed with abundant resources in this sector, so that tourism contributes very significantly to local incomes and job creation. In the Laurentians, the tourist industry alone generates over $250 million in income and helps create over 15,000 jobs. The people in my riding and the main agencies involved in promoting tourism in the Laurentians, both regionally, nationally and throughout the North American continent, were delighted to hear that a new Ministry of State for Tourism had been created, and they were particularly pleased with the Government's emphasis on an industry which, on a nationwide basis, generates about $18 billion in revenue and helps to create over 600,000 jobs.
Mr. Speaker, the tourist industry is unusually sensitive to a number of factors. Now that the Hon. Minister of State for Tourism has announced an aggressive promotion and marketing policy, and considering the new climate of detente in federal-provincial relations, I hope that, first of all, these policies will be able to provide conditions for harmonious growth and management and enhance this sector's stability, and second-


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry I have to interrupt the Hon. Member, but his time has expired. The Hon. Member for Fundy-Royal.

[DOT] (MIO)



SHIPBUILDING


Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Mr. Speaker, Canadian shipyards are in serious trouble. Work orders from the private sector are going off-shore and unemployment still remains high.
A significant problem for the industry is a number of loopholes left open by the previous administration. These loopholes allow foreign shipyards to continue to provide equipment to Canadian companies that could, and should, be made in Canada.
Private sector demand for Canadian built ships and equipment must increase before shipbuilding, ship repair, and allied industries can expect to see rejuvenation. This can be aided by the closure of several loopholes that operate to discourage the private sector from placing orders in Canadian yards.
I would urge the Minister responsible for shipbuilding to act on policy that would provide financial assistance for petroleum exploration activity only to companies that build equipment in Canada or maximize Canadian content; double the temporary entry duty rate to one-sixtieth a month; include duty on fishing vessels 100 feet or longer, and provide concessionary financing to domestic shipowners.
The industry was heartened by the P.C. commitment to revive shipbuilding as a major economic factor. I am confident the Government's efforts to ensure national renewal will put in place factors that will encourage our shipbuilding industry and create long-term employment. However, I would ask that these measures be implemented with speed to prevent the further loss of work.



THE ADMINISTRATION


Mr. John V. Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Mr. Speaker, let it not be said that the Conservative Government does not keep its promises. The man said: "I had a choice, I had a choice. I could have said no but I said yes. The devil is making me do it".
The man said: "Oh, there will be jobs for Liberals and New Democrats too, but only after I've been Prime Minister for 15 years and I can't find a single living, breathing Tory to appoint".
The man said: "Let's face it. There's no whore like a old whore. If I were in his position, I would have been right in there with my nose in the public trough just like the rest of them".
After some token non-partisan appointments to quell criticism, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and his cohorts are totally immersed in the trough, fulfilling the nose-grinding duty he campaigned against during the election. This Government and this Prime Minister are drenched in hypocrisy.
He told the Canadian public that what the Liberals had done was wrong. Well, Mr. Speaker, it was wrong then, and it is wrong now. The pork barrelling should stop, but it hasn't. The list of Tories nosing in on the action grows daily: Ron Huntington, former Tory Member of Parliament, now Chairman of Canada Ports Corporation; Pierre Boutin, Mulroney associate and bag-man, now Chairman of the National Arts Centre; Huguette Pageau, wife of a long-time Mulroney supporter, now a citizenship judge; Jean Pigott, former Tory Member of Parliament, now President of the National Capital Commission-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I must advise the Hon. Member that his time has expired. The Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn).
December 4, 1984



GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES


Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Mr. Speaker, the details of the waste and maladministration of the former Liberal Government are now appearing. Today's report of the over-indulgence, the horrendous staffing practices, the lack of any sense of frugality shown by the former Minister of Transport the present Member of Parliament for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy), shows clearly how the former Government ran the finances of Canada into their present sorry state. No wonder, Mr. Speaker, the House is asked for over $23 billion in borrowing authority.
The former Minister of Transport had an overly fat budget for his personal office. But $1.2 million was not enough for him, and in five and a half months he not only spent his entire year's budget, but over $860,000 on top.
He squandered public money for no reason other than to try to advance his personal image, secure his personal re-election, and protect, nurture, and provide cushy jobs for Liberals.
This Parliament ought to commence an inquiry into that abuse of public funds by the former Minister so that the public will be fully apprised of how his country was managed. There should be provision whereby Ministers who abuse the public trust personally repay the Government money lost and wasted. Parliament will now be called upon to supply a supplementary appropriation to cover the former Minister's profligacy-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member's time has expired.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Right Hon. Prime Minister. I do not know whether he was able to catch the 6 a.m. radio news today.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Napier Turner: I thought I would, while the CBC is still able to provide the news.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Napier Turner: The Minister of National Health and Welfare, when asked whether the savings from a review of social programs would be used to reduce the deficit, told the CBC:
We have not discounted any options.
Oral Questions
The Prime Minister will recall that in an interview with a reporter for The Toronto Star on November 17 he was asked the same question, namely, would savings accruing from reducing social programs be used to reduce the deficit?
No, absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Would the Prime Minister be good enough to explain to the House the contradiction between what the Minister of National Health and Welfare said on CBC radio this morning and what the right hon. gentleman told The Toronto Star reporter?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I did hear the news at six this morning.


Ian Deans: You were on your way in.


Martin Brian Mulroney: I was in my jacuzzi, listening to it.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: And then, just to be sure I had heard right, 1 turned on my satellite.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: There, indeed, was the Minister of Health in living colour-in the jacuzzi!


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Martin Brian Mulroney: I heard the thoughtful statement of the Minister of National Health and Welfare. He said nothing inconsistent at all with the view that I expressed in Toronto, and a view that the Hon. Member for Sudbury expressed some sympathy for, namely, that we were ready to review some of these aspects to find out whether we could not make a better utilization of public funds, in other words, to direct those funds to those people in our society who needed them most. I do not see anything inconsistent between the statement of my hon. friend, the Minister of Health, and the general view that 1 expressed as supported by the Minister of Finance.


STATEMENT MADE BY MINISTER OF NATIONAL HEALTH AND WELFARE
John Napier Turner: submit, Mr. Speaker, to the right hon. gentleman, that the statement which the Minister of Health made is directly contradictory to the interview which the right hon. gentleman gave to The Toronto Star reporter.
In that same interview he said the money so found by a review of the social programs would be, as he said this afternoon, redirected to the needy. When that same question was put to the Minister of Health in the committee yesterday by the Hon. Member for Sudbury, the Minister said:
No, I think our imagination is a little more fertile than that.

December 4, 1984
Oral Questions
I am saying to the right hon. gentleman that there are contradictions appearing in the Government's stance, and that I think he perhaps owes it to Parliament to clarify the situation and to say who is speaking for the Government.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the view I expressed was on behalf of the Government. What my friend, the Minister of Health, was doing was exploring options, which is a good idea, in the expression of a national debate in which we hope all Members of the House will become engaged. It was a thoughtful expression of opinion and not at all inconsistent with the broad thrust of what we are trying to accomplish. I do not think there is any doubt but that our principal hope is to redirect, if we can, and if it meets with the favour of the House and broad public support in the country, some of our scarce assets to helping those who need them most.
[ Translation]


GOVERNMENT POSITION
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, 1 hope the Prime Minister is going to review his Ministers' statements, because it might.. . My question is as follows: When is he going to admit that his own Ministers are confusing and upsetting Canadians by their contradictory statements about Canada's social security system?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago I heard the Right Hon. Member say on television that he was prepared to review universality. What he said was entirely in agreement with a statement made by the Member for Sudbury, who said more or less the same thing, while other Members of his caucus were saying the exact opposite. We are just saying that there is considerable debate on the issue in this country, and we are seeking opinions from all Canadians on this matter. We hope to be able to allocate more funds to the neediest in our society, but it will depend on the outcome of the debate.


THE ECONOMY
Hon. Donald J. Johnston (Saint-Henri-Westmount):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Would he tell us whether he is aware of any reason, which has not been disclosed either to the House or to the Canadian public, to alter the economic projections for the Canadian economy that were set out in some detail in his mini budget of November 8?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, no, I don't know of any reasons to alter those projections. They will stand. If the Hon. Member looks at some of the recent releases by other economists, he will find that the projections are well within the consensus range of leading economists in Canada.


ISSUANCE OF GOVERNMENT BONDS
Donald James Johnston: Mr. Speaker, if that is the case, how can the Minister of Finance justify this week's $1.2 billion issue of Canada bonds-obligations of the Government of Canada-with four maturities through to the year 2005, non-callable, and with interest rates far in excess of anything projected in the mini budget, which was 6.5 per cent from 1986 to 1990? We have ranges going up to 12 per cent for the latter part of that issue. That is a tremendous waste of taxpayers' money, if he really has confidence in the numbers which he gave us on November 8.


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member looks at the broad range of the debt management program of the Government, which is necessitated by the huge borrowing requirements left by the previous Government, he will understand that a range of securities has to be offered at any one time. I would point out to him that some 56 per cent of the outstanding securities of the Government of Canada are in Treasury bills and in Canada Savings Bonds. Therefore, they are very sensitive to the changing nature of interest rates. We will benefit in a very major way if we are able to get interest rates down, and that is what we intend to do.


AUDITOR GENERAL
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. It arises out of something which she said in the House yesterday. I want to give her the opportunity to correct what I think she will have decided was an error. When she was asked about providing information to the Auditor General, she said:
-the Auditor General wants from me what the law does not permit me to give, that is, access to other Cabinet Ministers' material.
I should like the Minister to tell the House what law she was referring to, or will she take the occasion to correct what she said?


Hon. Pat Carney (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, there is nothing to correct in this matter because I was referring to a convention which has the force of law-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
December 4, 1984


Pat Carney: -and which has been used in the parliamentary system for many, many years. It was the convention that I addressed.


John Edward Broadbent: Perhaps the Minister could consult either of the gentlemen sitting in front of her, who, I think, have had some legal training, presumably passed the courses, and therefore know that there is a distinction between a law and a convention.


MINISTER'S POSITION
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, is the Minister telling the House that, in her judgment, it was only a convention which stopped her from passing on the material that the Auditor General requested?


Pat Carney: Mr. Speaker, may I remind the Hon. Member that a former Leader of our Party took a convention to the Supreme Court of Canada for a ruling on the Constitution.


John Edward Broadbent: To see if it was law.


Pat Carney: I can only repeat what 1 told the House yesterday. As a Minister of the Crown I am advised by our legal advisers that I cannot have access to my predecessors' files, as much as I would love to have them. The other point is that I do not have the files. The information the Auditor General is seeking is not in my files.


John Edward Broadbent: The Minister could get some more advice from the Prime Minister. She would discover that other conventions were taken to the Supreme Court of Canada and it was decided that they were merely conventions, not laws. There is a distinction.


CONVENTION GOVERNING CABINET DOCUMENTS
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I will turn to the Prime Minister himself instead of going about it indirectly. What is at stake in part in this issue is indeed a convention, not a law, which was established by a Cabinet itself at one time, and therefore can be changed by a Cabinet. Considering that the Prime Minister promised-


Mr. Speaker:: With great respect, it is time for the question.


John Edward Broadbent: -change, and considering that he had a choice when he became Minister, will he change this convention and provide the information which the Auditor General ought to get?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we are going to have to start charging for all this legal advice. The fact of the matter is that my hon. friend, if I may say this with respect, is cavorting a little here. He knows full well that he and my right hon. friend, the Leader of the Opposition, and myself, will be meeting in about half an hour to attempt to find a solution to this problem.
Oral Questions
I said yesterday that it appeared, inadvertently or otherwise, that there was a bit of a collision between the rights of Parliament and certain privileges of the executive. In my judgment, in that kind of confrontation Parliament should always prevail.


John Edward Broadbent: I will remind you.


Martin Brian Mulroney: What we will try to do, being respectful of traditions which have existed under the British parliamentary system for many years, is find a forum which, hopefully, will allow us to respect the necessary degree of confidentiality at Cabinet meetings and discussions and to provide the Auditor General and Members of the House with all available information to enable the Auditor General to make a good value judgment.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, the Great Lakes supply water to millions of Canadians and Americans. Last week the Ontario Minister of the Environment was quoted as saying that if pollution continued unabated or increased, "We can have environmental catastrophe, no question about that".
The Canada-United States environmental study which was just released showed that 1.5 tonnes of potentially dangerous chemicals were oozing into the Niagara River daily. Does the Minister of the Environment have plans to convene a meeting with the new head of the EPA and, if so, when will the meeting take place so that this very important matter can be raised?


Hon. Suzanne Blais-Grenier (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I can assure my hon. friend that I am giving the issue of water quality in the Great Lakes all my attention, and that in the months and weeks to come, I shall be giving it at least as much attention and energy as did my hon. friend when he was Minister of the Environment.


PROPOSAL MADE BY CANADIAN REPRESENTATIVES
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Minister knows that the Canadian side of the joint committee recommended a clean-up of the Niagara River. This recommendation was turned down.


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Caccia:: Therefore I would like to ask the Hon. Minister-

December 4, 1984
Oral Questions


Mr. Speaker:: With great respect to the Hon. Member, when the Speaker rises it is normal to sit. I ask the Member, please, to put his question.


Charles L. Caccia: Mr. Speaker, I was ready to ask my question. Therefore I understood your rising to remind me of that necessity, and I was ready to do so.


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Charles L. Caccia: What initiative does the Hon. Minister have in mind to pursue and promote the proposal advanced by the Canadian side of the joint commission, which was turned down by the U.S. side?


Suzanne Blais-Grenier: Mr. Speaker, it was not a case of the two Canadian recommendations not being accepted. The U.S. side wanted more extensive studies on pollutants in the Great Lakes which do not originate from the Niagara River only, and we shall continue to press for preparing an action plan as soon as possible.


ABORIGINAL RIGHTS
Mr. Keith Penner (Cochrane-Superior):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. The Minister is not in the House at the moment.


An Hon. Member:: Here he comes.


B. Keith Penner: I welcome the Minister back from his travels across the country.
The Minister has promised a full review of the native claims policy. It is long overdue, and I welcome it. Will the Minister give the House a firm undertaking that in that review he will eliminate the unacceptable and perhaps unconstitutional requirement of extinguishment, whereby a native group negotiating a claim must surrender all of its residual aboriginal rights in settling a claim and not just those mentioned in the agreement?


Hon. David Crombie (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for his question and remind him that the parliamentary task force respecting indian self-government made a similar recommendation. In my consultations with various Indian communities, I indicated that I would undertake a review of Indian land claims, particularly onthe question of extinguishment. That is still the position of the Government.
We will continue to review the land claims with a particular eye to the policy of extinguishment.


ROLE OF DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
B. Keith Penner: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is addressed to the Minister of Justice. In the past the sticking point in getting rid of this odious extinguishment policy has been the Department of Justice. Does the Minister agree that this extinguishment policy should go, and will he work in co-operation with the Minister of Indian Affairs to abolish it once and for all so that we can have a decent, respectable, just, native claims policy?


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, we are working as hard as we can to get rid of most of the odious practices that were left by the last regime. There are very many odious practices. We will attempt to reach some accommodation with the aboriginal peoples on that question.
As the hon. gentleman knows, if you pay a consideration, you have to get some consideration in return. If you are going to pay for certain rights to be surrendered, there has to be some finality to the process. That concept has to be observed somewhere along the line, and we must remember that the provincial Governments are also involved. We are certainly prepared to try to work this matter out. We will be meeting with the representatives of the aboriginal people on December 18 and 19. That will be one of the matters discussed.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF SASKATCHEWAN MINISTER OF EDUCATION AND MINISTER RESPONSIBLE FOR STATUS OF WOMEN
Mr. Speaker:: May I interrupt the proceedings to advise the House of the presence in our galleries today of the Hon. Patricia Smith, Minister of Education and Minister responsible for the Status of Women, of the Province of Saskatchewan.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


AUDITOR GENERAL
Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Is the Minister aware that, according to the latest edition of the cabinet paper system of the Privy Council Office, there are three types of documents, the first being a discussion paper, the analysis and background papers, the second type being the memo to Cabinet from the Minister, and the third type being
December 4, 1984

the record of the Cabinet decision? Is the Minister telling this House that her Department does not have in its files the background papers, that is, the discussion papers with regard to the take-over of Petrofina by Petro-Canada?
Hon.	Pat	Carney	(Minister	of Energy, Mines	and
Resources): Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what I am telling the House.


LOCATION OF FILES
Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, according to the same document, those files do not have to be destroyed. They can be kept. Has the Minister given notice, or has notice been given in her Department, that those files have been taken out of her Department? Has she given notice to the Privy Council Office?
Hon.	Pat	Carney	(Minister	of Energy, Mines	and
Resources): Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is being extraordinarily obtuse about this. My Department was not asked for information or support from the previous administration on this issue. They were not asked to deal with this issue. Petro-Canada was the agent in this whole affair. My officials have assured me that my Department does not have that information.


NUCLEAR ARMAMENTS
Ms. Pauline Jewett (New Westminster-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs who will know that six of the fifteen NATO nations and two of the three ANZUS partners either voted yes to the nuclear freeze in the UN First Committee or abstained on that vote, thereby rendering ridiculous the Minister's arguments for our voting against the freeze. Will the Minister now free himself from the Pentagon and its control, and instruct Canada's Ambassador for Disarmament at the UN to join Greece, Denmark, Australia and others at the vote in the UN next week, and vote yes to a nuclear freeze?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, in deciding Canadian foreign policy I pay as much attention to the Pentagon as I do to the Hon. Member.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: I listen to them both in the interests of some balance. The answer to the Hon. Member's question is that the Government of Canada does not intend to change its vote on that declaratory motion in the United Nations.
Oral Questions


POSSIBLE REPRESENTATIONS TO UNITED STATES AND SOVIET UNION
Pauline Jewett: The
Minister's answer that we shan't change our vote and join our friends at the United Nations is most disappointing.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to pursue another comment that the Minister made.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. With great respect, the Chair is trying to make it clear that the purpose of supplementary questions is to ask questions and not to make statements. Does the Hon. Member have a question?


Pauline Jewett: When the Minister is talking with the United States and the Soviet Union, when he discusses ceasing the deployment of cruise missiles, will he tell them that Canada, wanting credence on this matter, will itself cease to test the cruise missile?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, there are really two questions here. I have made it clear in the House that this Government does not intend to take unilateral actions that we believe would reduce significantly our influence within the North Atlantic Alliance which, among other things, is very important to our being effective on questions of arms control and disarmament. The second question has to do with communications. I was requested by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry to pass on representations to the Soviet Union and the United States in preparation for the very welcome discussions at Geneva. We are still in the process of considering what, if anything, should go into that representation. As soon as that decision has been taken, I will advise the House.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Gabriel Desjardins (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Hon. Minister of the Environment.
The riding I represent in this House, and more specifically the Rouyn-Noranda region, has a serious pollution and acid rain problem caused by Noranda Mines. Could the Minister inform the House whether she intends to take any specific action in the near future to improve the quality of life of my fellow citizens?


Suzanne Blais-Grenier: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to inform my hon. friend that I had a meeting on the subject yesterday with the Quebec Minister of the Environment, and I will be meeting the presidents of the smelting companies tomorrow evening in Montreal, including the president of Noranda Mines.

December 4, 1984
Oral Questions


GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TARIFFS AND TRADE
Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. I know he will be aware of the situation because I wrote to him about it last October, although he has not seen fit to reply. Does the Prime Minister agree with the Minister for International Trade that the steel labelling provisions of the U.S. Trade and Tariff Act, which could cost hundreds of Canadian jobs, or that it is a violation of GATT?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the matter is open to discussion and debate. We are advancing Canadian interests in Washington and elsewhere with vigour and, I hope, with great success.


REQUEST FOR RETALIATION
Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, given that since the election of this Government more than 2,000 employees of the Steel Company of Canada have either been laid off or have received lay-off notices because of a downturn in the steel industry, will the Prime Minister guarantee to the House that he will proceed with retaliatory measures if the U.S. legislation is not changed, or will his bowing to the U.S. President force Canadian steelworkers to scrape the bottom of the barrel when it comes to jobs?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, one thing that I can guarantee my hon. friend that we will not do is indulge in retaliatory rhetoric such as the kind that we hear from her, which does nothing.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Sheila Maureen Copps: Two thousand jobs is not retaliatory rhetoric, Mr. Prime Minister.


Martin Brian Mulroney: I think my hon. friend has forgotten that she is no longer in Queen's Park.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Martin Brian Mulroney: We are delighted to have her here. I just want to say that we believe that by putting the case firmly and effectively, we can create new jobs and arrest those lay-offs to which she refers. She has our full support in that initiative.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Has the Minister recommended to the task force on government reorganization that the Unemployment Insurance
Program be transferred to the jurisdiction of the Department of Finance?


Hon. Flora MacDonald (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: No, Mr. Speaker.


STATEMENT ATTRIBUTED TO MINISTER
John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, if that is the case, can the Minister tell the House why, on October 30, while speaking to a training group in Kingston, she suggested that that is so? Is it because she wants to get rid of a hot potato portfolio, or was she simply suffering from loose lips?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I must say that that discussion in Kingston centered on how we could improve training programs for people, and it focused particularly on how human resource development could be expanded and encouraged. One of the things that was discussed at that time was how better usage could be made of the Unemployment Insurance Fund in this regard.


GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES
Léo Duguay: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the President of the Treasury Board. Today's Globe and Mail contains an article entitled "The Axworthy empire". In a six-month period prior to the election, this empire spent almost $900,000 more than its excessive yearly budget of $1.2 million. Can the President of the Treasury Board reassure the people of Canada that this self-serving empire building will not be tolerated?


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Hon. Robert de Cotret (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, we were obviously quite concerned by the very high costs of ministerial offices, including that of the previous Minister of Transport. Among others, in the Ministry of Indian Affairs expenditures were about $2 million, and expenditures in the Ministry of Employment and Immigration were above $3.5 million. There was obviously a need to bring in measures, which we did, to ensure that there would be strict control over the budgets of ministerial offices in the future. This will reduce the spending in that area in the year to come. I will table the document.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.
December 4, 1984


ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY SYSTEM BLOCKAGE-REQUEST FOR INDEPENDENT INQUIRY
Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport and concerns the continuing shutdown of the St. Lawrence Seaway system. As the Minister knows, the weather is not co-operating with attempts to get the Seaway system reopened by December 7. In fact today, with high winds and low visibility, work is stopped and equipment is on stand-by. In view of that shutdown at Valleyfield, and in view of the fact that a very similar but unreported incident occurred at Sault Ste Marie a month previous to the Valleyfield shutdown, will the Minister agree to have an independent commission of inquiry examine that 40-year-old system, to restore public confidence in Canada's Seaway?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I can confirm that work has been delayed due to the excessive winds on site. The equipment and men are standing by and waiting for the winds to subside. As I have said in earlier responses to questions put by the Hon. Member, we are putting forth our very best efforts to get the system operational again and, of course, we will be undertaking to take all steps necessary to ensure that breakdowns of a similar nature do not occur in the future.


INTERNATIONAL REACTION
[Stage Direction]
Oral Questions
people. Has the Minister given consideration to putting an end to the scam that is being perpetrated on these low-income people?
Hon. Michel Cote (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. friend for raising the issue. In fact, the demand for the services of discounters has more than doubled since 1982. We are keeping a close watch on the procedures being followed, and if there is any infrigement of the law, we shall act accordingly.


CHEQUE-CASHING SCAM
Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Minister is aware of a new fast growing scam, the cheque-cashing scam, in which people are charged a rate of 6 per cent for cashing a government cheque. The Government of Quebec has banned the operation of that kind of business. Would the Minister give consideration to having the federal Government put in place a similar policy?


Michel Côté: Mr. Speaker, my department is monitoring the situation and plans to intervene if there is any further infringement of federal statutes.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In view of the fact that alternate routes to the Seaway system are available, is the Minister concerned about Canada's international reputation, given the fact that the Seaway, an important economic generator, will be impacted negatively unless something is done by the Government to demonstrate that the Seaway system is in fact dependable?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Minister of Transport has indicated, we are facing an unanticipated and serious accident. I believe that international opinion, like opinion in Canada is greatly encouraged by the high priority the Minister of Transport has given the accident and the great dispatch with which he is proceeding to repair the damage.


INCOME TAX
David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, almost
400,000	Canadians who were entitled to income tax refunds received money in advance by going to discounters who charged 15 per cent per rebate, making an annual interest rate of 180 per cent, because people could not wait to receive the money in the usual fashion. Most of these are low-income
*
* *


FORESTRY
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Forestry, but in his absence I will direct it to the Acting Minister of State for Forestry. In view of the threat to the economic life of many communities in northern Ontario due to the infestation of jackpine budworm and the apparent reluctance of the Ontario Government to act, will the Minister urge his provincial counterpart to take the necessary steps so that an effective control program can be put in place by next spring?


Hon. Charles Mayer (Minister of State (Canadian Wheat Board)):: Mr. Speaker, today the Minister is attending a meeting dealing with conservation of our forests. I will certainly bring the matter to his attention so that he may take notice of the Hon. Member's question upon his return.


REQUEST FOR AUTHORIZATION TO USE INSECTICIDE
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I put my question to the Hon. Minister because, since the Minister of Agriculture has been away for over a week now, he is often the Acting Minister of Agriculture. Will the Minister undertake to urge that the biological insecticide BT be authorized for use on

December 4, 1984
Oral Questions
an emergency basis, so that this program of control can be put in place next spring?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, might I say that the Government puts a high priority on the forests of the country. That is why a separate Ministerial responsibility was created. I will certainly take the question as notice, and I will see that the Minister is made aware of it upon his return.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Neil Young (Beaches):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. He is scheduled to visit the United Kingdom in the next several weeks for bilateral discussions with that Government. Could he advise the House whether he intends to give top priority in those discussions to the plight of some 41,000 U.K. citizens who now reside in Canada, who receive a U.K. pension, but who do not receive cost of living increases from that Government? If he does intend to raise that, will he give it a high priority?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I know that matter has been of great and continuing concern to the Hon. Member, as it has to several Members on all sides of the House. I do intend to raise it in my discussions in London, and I will give it a high priority.


EXPORTATION OF ELECTRICITY
Bill Rompkey: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion. We will know that various areas of Canada have exported electricity to the United States and that other areas want to export electricity to the U.S. Could he tell the House if he supports the sale of electricity to the U.S. not simply to New England but as well to the Midwest? Could he give the House some indication of the policy of the Government in this regard?


Hon. Sinclair Stevens (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Hon. Member is aware that the sale and generation of electricity is essentially a provincial matter. If he has some actual knowledge as to a province which is interested in selling electricity to the United States, of course we would be very interested in hearing the details.


Bill Rompkey: Mr. Speaker, I am sure there is adequate evidence on the record, but I would be glad to tell the Minister that my province, for one, wants to sell electricity.


MINISTER'S POSITION
Bill Rompkey: Mr. Speaker, has the Minister met with his counterparts or is he going to be meeting with them? In addition, can he tell us through what mechanism he will support the sale of electricity to the United States?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member knows from his time as a Minister of the Crown, if he wanted to do something with respect to the sale of electricity during that five-year period perhaps he could have taken some action. I can only repeat the answer which I gave to the first question. Give us the details and we will be more than pleased to work with any province, including the province of the Hon. Member, in trying to sell electricity into whatever market where they feel they can sell it.


FOREIGN INVESTMENT REVIEW AGENCY
[Stage Direction]
PLANNED SHUTDOWN OF BLACK & DECKER PLANT AT BARRIE, ONT.
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion. Black & Decker has just announced that its world profits rose by 116 per cent this year. Could the Minister now report back to the House on the undertaking which he made last week, which was to consult FIRA about the planned shutdown of the Black & Decker plant in Barrie? Would he assure the House that the information which was reviewed was correct and accurate?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I have had discussions with FIRA. As a result of those discussions I have asked that certain of the Black & Decker officials come in and go over the various undertakings and explain why they feel certain projections have not materialized and why it was necessary to close down the Barrie factory.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to hear that this close investigation is taking place.


REVIEW OF TAKE-OVERS
Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit himself to keeping the review of indirect take-overs of this kind in the FIRA Act in the future? In addition, will he permit unions and local communities to have access to the information that is given by companies in their undertakings to FIRA in cases such as this?
December 4, 1984


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the first part of the Hon. Member's question, I would ask him to be a little more patient. He will shortly see the Bill in its entirety.
In answer to the second part of his question I can only indicate that the previous Government developed the precedent of not making available any of the information with respect to undertakings unless the party involved agreed to such a disclosure. I am now looking at that situation to determine whether it must be followed. Again, I will advise the House when I have something further to say, perhaps during the debate on the revisions to FIRA.


CRIMINAL CODE
Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Justice. The Minister knows that Christmas is coming and that the Christmas Party season has already begun. When he was in Newfoundland he indicated that he was intending to bring forward tough legislation to deal with drunk driving, before New Year's. The former Government had legislation before the House on that subject. Is the Minister going to bring that legislation forward? Will he give the House time to consider it properly before New Year's?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I am certainly prepared to admit that Christmas is coming, and I thank the hon. gentleman for tipping me off.
I hope that before the middle of December the Criminal Code amendments will be before the House. I cannot tell the hon. gentleman exactly on what day. The draftsmen are busy working on not just the amendments which relate to impaired driving, but on other matters as well. If the House is interested, there should be time to consider it adequately before Christmas. That is my hope.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of the Environment. In view of the concern expressed by many Canadians over the last two weeks about cut-backs in environmental monitoring, and in view of the report which was released last week that highlighted the problems of pollution in the Great Lakes and the Niagara River, could she tell the House whether she is reconsidering the decision to cancel the Herring Gull Egg Program? Is she prepared to tell the House now if she will do the better thing and reinstate that program?
Oral Questions


Suzanne Blais-Grenier: Mr. Speaker, as far as the Herring Gull Egg Monitoring Program is concerned, I am consulting with various authorities to assess the scope of this program, and I might refer the Hon. Member to a reply I gave in the House a few weeks ago. However, if the fact that we are considering cutting this program poses a threat to the health of Canadians, the research program or our international agreements, I am prepared to reconsider.


MINISTER'S RECONSIDERATION
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, could the Minister tell the House how long this reconsideration process will take? When can we expect to hear from her on whether she will stick by the cancellation of that program or whether she will do the better thing and reinstate it?


Suzanne Blais-Grenier: Mr. Speaker, I shall make a decision within the next few weeks.


PORNOGRAPHY
Mrs. Lucie Pepin (Outremont):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Revenue.
Since the Minister is responsible for customs and excise, could he inform the House whether officials of his Department banned the importation into Canada of the January 1985 issue of Penthouse, or if it is because of inadequate controls at the border that, today, the Minister has been forced to instruct distributors to keep the January issue in their warehouses?


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, first I would like to thank the Hon. Member for her question. When we had the chance to look at the January issue of Penthouse, I was very concerned about one of the pictorials which was in it. As a result I asked for a legal opinion from my Department as to whether it would be possible to prevent importation of that issue as we did in the case of the December issue. The legal opinion I received from the Department was that it was not possible to do so.
As a consequence we held up the importation of the issue at the border while we requested a second legal opinion from the Department of Justice. The second legal opinion was similar to the first, that is, it is far from clear that, if we were to ban importation, we would be able to succeed in the courts.

December 4, 1984
Point of Order-Mr. Blenkarn


CLERK OF PETITIONS' REPORTS
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the petitions presented by Hon. Members on Monday, December 3, 1984, meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.



POINT OF ORDER


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In replying to the Hon. Member for Saint-Boniface (Mr. Duguay), the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) made certain comments and read from certain documents. Would he now be required to table those, as he offered to do in the House?


Mr. Speaker:: I take it the Hon. Member is making an allegation that a Minister referred to documents, or cited or quoted from them. I will check the "blues" and determine whether there is a procedural requirement on that matter.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Ministers have the right as Ministers to table documents under "Tabling of Documents". The Hon. Member is rising on a point of order, I presume, to ask the Speaker whether there is a procedural requirement imposed upon the Minister as a result of his reference during Question Period. The answer is that the Speaker would have to check the "blues" in order to determine whether in fact the documents were cited or quoted. He would then have to determine whether the rules with regard to that matter apply to Question Period.
As I have indicated in a previous ruling, if the Minister chooses of his own volition to table the document under "Tabling of Documents", that is his freedom. At the moment the point of order has been raised and I must reserve on the point of order.


Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn (Minister of State (Government House Leader)):: Mr. Speaker, perhaps my hearing of the point of order with respect to the tabling of that document was somewhat different from yours. I understood it to be a request of the Minister to table the document to which he was referring.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Right on!


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: The Hon. Member says "Right on".


Mr. Speaker:: With due respect, it cannot be a point of order if it is a request to the Minister. The point of order which I heard was, did the Minister have an obligation to table as a result of quoting from the document? I presume that is the only point of order which could relate to the matter.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I take it that our rules say that during the course of Question Period it is not possible for Ministers to table documents.


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry, I have indicated 1 will reserve on the point of order raised. That is normally the practice of the Speaker with regard to a point of order related to some comment regarding citing or quoting. The Speaker is also indicating to the House, as is his obligation, that should the Minister have documents which the Minister wishes to table of his own volition, there is a procedure in the rules for that. I believe the Hon. House Leader knows that as well and we will get to it.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Jack Shields (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the first report of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, in both official languages.


REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT-FIRST REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Mr. Murray Cardiff (Huron-Bruce):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the first report of the Standing Committee on Regional Development, in both official languages.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS AND NATIONAL DEFENCE-FIRST REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Mr. William C. Winegard (Guelph):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the first report of the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence, in both official languages.


NATURAL RESOURCES AND PUBLIC WORKS-FIRST REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Mrs. Barbara Sparrow (Calgary South):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the first report of the Standing Committee on National Resources and Public Works, in both official languages.
[Editor's Note: For above reports, see today's Votes and Proceedings.]
December 4, 1984


GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES
Robert René de Cotret: Mr. Speaker, I would like to table the document to which I referred earlier with respect to the expenditures and budgets of officers of Ministers and officers of Ministers of State, for the period 1980-81 to 1984-85.


PETITIONS
Mr. F. Oberle (Prince George-Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, it is my duty and honour to present a petition signed by residents of the City of Prince George who share a common concern over the issue of world peace and disarmament.
The petitioners applaud the Government for the appointment of an ambassador for peace and disarmament and express the hope that Parliament will resolve to work towards specific goals: to end the testing of the Cruise missile in Canada; to declare Canada a nuclear weapons-free zone; to have Canada support no first-use of nuclear weapons policy at NATO; and finally, to support a vote in the United Nations for a multilateral nuclear weapons freeze.


Mr. Blaine A. Thacker (Lethbridge-Foothills):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition signed by 29 residents of my constituency. They are most unhappy with the Canada Post Corporation. For 14 months they have been attempting to have post boxes installed, if only at the end of their block. The next block over there are 30 boxes, plus 30 extra. Therefore, I present their petition and pray that the Government will do its duty.


Mr. Fernand Robichaud (Westmorland-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition from the people of the Town of Sackville in which they express their concern and objection to cuts which have been announced to the Canadian Wildlife Service, especially the cut to that service in Sackville, New Brunswick.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, I am
Order Paper Questions
delighted to announce that the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 22 and 87.


Mr. Howie: How many lawyers are employed by the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: There are eight lawyers assigned to the Department from the Department of Justice.


Mr. Nickerson: What progress is being made towards the establishment of the Canadian Long Baseline Array?


Hon. Thomas Siddon (Minister of State for Science and Technology):: The Canadian Astronomical Society, sensing that funds available for science are limited and aware of the interest in Long Baseline Interferometry which has developed in other countries, has undertaken a reassessment of the Canadian Long Baseline Array proposal which it put forward in 1982. The report of this study entitled "Collaborative Options for the Canadian Long Baseline Array" was presented to the Presidents of the National Research Council of Canada and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council in August of this year.
While reaffirming its preference, based on scientific merit, for the original nine-antenna design, the Canadian Astronomical Society now proposes an optional configuration involving only four antennas. This array (referred to as CLB 4) could not operate as a stand-alone instrument for astronomy, but if used in conjunction with antennas in the United States or Europe, its performance would exceed that of the original Canadian Long Baseline Array. The four Canadian antennas could operate as a stand-alone array for geophysical studies, although collaboration would be important in this area as well.
A study to define the benefits to Canadian industry which would result from construction of the array is currently being undertaken by a committee of the Canadian Astronomical Society.
The National Research Council is awaiting the results of the study of benefits to Canadian industry before proceeding with further consideration of the project.


Mr. Speaker:: The questions as enumerated by the Parliamentary Secretary have been answered.


Paul Wyatt Dick: I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Borrowing Authority



GOVERNMENT ORDERS

[Stage Direction]
December 4, 1984

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mrs. McDougall that Bill C-ll, an Act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs; and the amendment thereto of Mr. Riis (p. 694).
Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, when we reached the luncheon adjournment earlier this afternoon I was exploring the failure of the Government to examine the reason why the deficit from which the Canadian people are suffering has developed. I indicated the way in which the deficit has grown since 1975 and suggested that in large measure decisions of past governments to encourage capital investment by various tax expenditures and other programs, and the attempt of government at the same time to reduce its role in the economic development of this country, has had the result of slowing economic activity in this country. The safety net provisions, as we euphemistically call them, tend to increase the amounts of money government has to spend. The result of these decisions, then, has been to create a higher deficit year by year.
In the few moments I have left this afternoon, I would like to explore briefly whether there is going to be any change in these matters and what sorts of changes government ought to undertake if we are ever going to have any prospect of real resolution of our deficit situation and, consequently, less need to borrow funds.
It seems to me all too doubtful that there is going to be action taken with respect to the role of government. There may be some action taken with respect to tax expenditures. There have been some indications of that and, as I said previously, I hope very much it will take place. However, it is even more true now than in the mid-1970s that government seems to be convinced that government itself is the prime operator in the economy. That thinking is, in its way, a detriment to prosperity in this country. If government meets needs and in the process is forced to borrow money, that supposedly reduces confidence. The classic result is that we begin to enter a kind of depression in which there is no shortage of human needs to be met but government refuses to assist in meeting those needs.
Our people long for better housing and employment. There are all sorts of economic and social needs to be met and the Government's refusal to do so means we have this incredible disparity. As long as this is the case, as long as there is not the ability to purchase goods, as long as business does not have the demand it so desperately wants to supply, there will not in fact be the confidence in the economy that is warranted. Thus the hopes that Conservatives have been expressing in one statement and another are going to fall flat and they will be back for even more money next year.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Are there questions and comments on the Hon. Member's speech? If not, we shall resume debate.


Mr. John Gormley (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in favour of Bill C-ll, an Act to provide borrowing authority, introduced by the Minister of State for Finance (Mrs. McDougall), and to speak against the most recent amendment. This Bill means the Government is seeking authority to borrow $23.3 billion. Of that amount, $7.3 billion is for the fiscal year 1984-85, and the balance of $16 billion is for the next fiscal year, 1985-86. Of the $7.3 billion, I think it is noteworthy that $5.3 billion reflects further financial requirements resulting from the deficit inherited from the former government. The remaining $2 billion may be carried over into the fiscal year 1985-86. Of the $16 billion being borrowed for the next fiscal year, none may be carried over to the following fiscal year.
The $2 billion reserve I spoke of for this year is designed to provide flexibility in the event of large, unpredictable changes in the Government's financial requirements; for example, the foreign exchange operations to stabilize the dollar may be required. The $16 billion is expected to meet borrowing demands until next fall, and legislation will probably be introduced following the Budget next spring to cover the remaining part of the fiscal year.
As Shakespeare put it in Hamlet, Mr. Speaker: "Neither a borrower not a lender be". I think most Canadians will acknowledge the wisdom of that statement. No one wants to borrow money for the operation of a household or business or, in this case, government. But as desirable and agreeable as that statement is, I think Canadians will acknowledge just how necessary this borrowing is. The previous government left a legacy of crippling debt for Canadians and thus necessitated this borrowing Bill.
The saddest part of all this, Mr. Speaker, is that there should be no deficit. If we look at the past decade from the years 1969 to 1979, there were times of record economic growth. As some provinces have demonstrated, we have seen that by proper financial management and fiscal housekeeping a government should emerge from good economic times and a strong vibrant economy with a surplus. But this was not the case here. As one of the outgoing Ministers quite rightly put it, we have a bare cupboard. Because of this background of wasteful spending we find ourselves having to approach this House seeking authority to borrow more money.
Over the course of this debate it has been interesting to listen to the use of the word "hypocrisy". The critics have said that this debate involves hypocrisy because of this Party's opposition to borrowing Bills when it was the Official Opposition and the now Opposition's position against borrowing Bills, given the fact they were the government that incurred all of this debt. This allegation of hypocrisy comes from the third Party in this House, the Party that believes the economy will get going again if the Government puts dollars directly into the
December 4, 1984

pockets of the people. On the face of it that might sound good until one begins to examine the economic foolishness inherent in that statement. Someone has to pay for government handouts, which means taxation and deficit financing, which is what got us into the situation we are in.
This allegation of hypocrisy is interesting also because it is only half right. As we examine the statement of the financial cupboard, Mr. Speaker, we can see that this Government is left with no alternatives. However, the Official Opposition, when it was in government, did have alternatives over the decade of prosperity. It could have bequeathed to Canadians a much stronger and vibrant economy than it did. If one is to talk about hypocrisy, then indeed that is the boldest form of it.
If we look to this morning's edition of the national newspaper we can see the kind of spending that resulted in this deficit. We see the squandering by the former Minister of Transport, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy). His government brought us to the point where one dollar in every three is needed just to service the debt. His government was spending $264 million every day or, to bring it down to something more understandable, $190,000 a minute. His government held this absolutely perverse rationale that by giving people money from the government, that would somehow solve the long-term economic problems. We have found instead a record deficit, record high interest rates and record pressures on the Canadian people. This is what we have been left, but there is hope.
I think all of us would agree, Mr. Speaker, with the hope we found in the statement by the Hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), the hope as exemplified in what he talked about as the four positions we must take as the Government. First, we must put our own fiscal house in order and get control of government spending. Second, we must redefine the role of government as a player in the economy. Third, we must adopt policies that foster investment. Fourth, we must bring about changes in a fair, open and equitable manner.
The expenditure cuts and other measures announced by the Minister of Finance will hold next year's deficit at $34.9 billion, a level only marginally larger than this year and considerably lower than the $37 billion projected by the previous government. Canadians have seen others suffer the tragic consequences of a government that spends so much more money than it brings in, the negative economic ripple effect which has resulted in high interest rates and a lack of investor and consumer confidence. The message should be abundantly clear to all Members of this House: responsible deficit management is needed. We do not need what the third Party of this country has advocated-reckless spending.
It is for these reasons, Mr. Speaker, that we have come before this House seeking passage of Bill C-ll. It is for these reasons that we are left with no other choice. Therefore, I support Bill C-ll, I agree with the necessity to borrow, and I thank you for the opportunity to address this issue before the House.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Questions and comments?
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Mr. Nystrom:: Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I have had a chance to listen to our new colleague from The Battlefords-Meadow Lake and I welcome him to this House. I was very interested to hear him talking so much about the deficit, about Shakespeare and all those fine words. He also talked about our Party and the deficits we would like to run.
I would like to ask him about a very real situation back home. Under the Douglas Government of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, the Government of Woodrow Lloyd, and on through that of Allan Blakeney, we did not have deficits in our province. In fact, two years ago when the Blakeney Government was defeated, there was no deficit in the Province of Saskatchewan. Now all of a sudden, after two years of Tory rule, there is a deficit of over $800 million in the Province of Saskatchewan. In a province of only one million people, that is a deficit of over $800 for every single man, woman and child.
Why would the Hon. Member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake accuse us of being a Party which likes to run up huge debts when the record speaks so clearly? When one compares the NDP record in Saskatchewan against that of his party, it is clear that the Party of irresponsibility and deficit financing is the Party of the Hon. Member. In fact, according to the statistics I have here, the number of people on welfare in Saskatchewan has gone up in the last two and one-half years by 73 per cent. How can the Member stand in his place and say that our Party is the Party that likes to drive up government debts when indeed the record speaks clearly for itself?


John Kenneth Gormley: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom) for asking that question. It is an honour for me to respond to his comments. It is an opportunity I have long waited for.
Two years ago, after the prosperous decade of growth which I spoke of earlier, the Province of Alberta had untold billions of dollars. The Province of Saskatchewan came in with a balanced budget every time. A lot of us thought that was odd because if the government was indeed playing in the fair market in the real world there should be a surplus. Then we looked at the books and found that through third party lending on Crown corporations and very creative bookkeeping the state-oriented type of government which this Party advocates and has been so fond of would have bankrupted Saskatchewan. However, the interesting type of bookkeeping which we saw resulted simply in a balanced budget.
With all due respect and honour to be accorded to the new government, they have simply opened the books of the Government of Saskatchewan to look at how the New Democratic Party would run a government. What we found has resulted in an $800 million deficit. This is a warning to the people of Saskatchewan for the 1986 election and a warning to the people of Canada about what would ever happen in the country if that kind of Party even became the Official Opposition rather than simply the third party rump of Canadian politics.

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Mr. de Jong:: Mr. Speaker, that is a most novel suggestion from the Hon. Member. Even the Conservative Party back home does not claim that the deficit which now exists in the Province of Saskatchewan was really an NDP deficit which existed before and that only a change in the bookkeeping system has resulted in the deficit. Even the Minister of Finance in Saskatchewan is not making that claim.
I am sure the Hon. Member has received, as all Members of Parliament from Saskatchewan have, a letter from the Saskatchewan Natural History Society. In the letter they make a plea to all Saskatchewan Members of Parliament to do whatever we can and to use our good offices to attempt to persuade the Government not to cut as severely as it has the wildlife program. As they point out in the letter, they feel that the Conservative Government has unfairly burdened these agencies with excessive costs. Whereas the over-all cuts only amount to 1 per cent of the civil service, the Canadian Wildlife Service has been cut by 33 per cent.
Does the Hon. Member support the Government in these cuts, particularly in the closing of the Prairie Wildlife Interpretation Centre near Swift Current, the halt to the planned reintroduction of the swift fox, which is an endangered species, and the cancellation of the 1985 opening of the Grasslands National Park? Is the Hon. Member in favour of these cuts? Does he believe that there was not other government waste that should have been cut? Does the Hon. Member believe that these programs were really wasteful programs that should have been cut? Or, can the Hon. Member display his loyalty to the Province of Saskatchewan and our natural heritage by being honest and telling us he really does not believe these cuts were justified and there was indeed other fat that could have been cut instead?


John Kenneth Gormley: I would like to thank the Hon. Member for Regina East (Mr. de Jong) for his question. By way of preamble, it is interesting that in his recent householder there is a pre-occupation with Saskatchewan Government politics to such an extent that I think we may have jurisdictions rather confused with regard to which recent financial statement we are talking about. However, I will leave that as a matter for provincial debate.
I share the concern of the organization mentioned, Mr. Speaker. The answer that I gave in my correspondence was that the process of trying to control government spending is indeed a very painful one. I assured these people, as we have assured people all across the country, that sharing in government restraint is not a process which one wants to participate in but it is necessary. If we share the painful process of government restraint across all geographic regions of Canada, including our province, as Canadians we will see the benefits of this kind of government restraint with the slow winding down of the deficit. Our children will see a Canada which will be an economically better place to live in a generation from now.


Douglas Jung: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Hon. Member the question again. A straight yes or no will do. Does
he not believe that cutting the Canadian Wildlife Service by 33 per cent is too severe a cut?


John Kenneth Gormley: Mr. Speaker, I believe that whatever cuts have occurred to the Canadian Wildlife Service are reflective of the cuts going on in many corners of the country, in many government departments, and affecting many Canadians. If Canadians have the courage, moral strength and conviction to bear down and get used to the idea of a government that is responsible with our tax dollars, we will see untold benefits in the future.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, my question is again with regard to the deficit. I have not heard Premier Devine or the Minister of Finance back home say that the deficit was really an NDP deficit because of the Crown corporations. What evidence can the Member give the House today about what he said? You must realize, Mr. Speaker, that our budget in the Province of Saskatchewan is only around $3 billion, so a deficit of over $800 million is extremely large. That was run up within less than two years because the new budget has yet to come down. It will probably be around $1 billion. That is one of the most astonishing increases in a deficit that any government in the country has seen in the history of Canada. What kind of evidence can he cite, or is he just trying to create some rhetoric here?


John Kenneth Gormley: Mr. Speaker, to keep my answer brief, I would refer the Hon. Member to the financial statement of the Saskatchewan Power Corporation, and particularly to the lending and borrowing that Sask Power did. I believe that was in the neighbourhood of $2 billion. This was ostensibly capital borrowing. I think if you were to look that up and see where that money often went in the provision of government services, it would show that the past NDP government had become masters at robbing Peter and Paul to pay someone else. If the Hon. Member would read the Sask Power Financial statement, that should bear his consideration.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: What was the deficit of Sask Power? May I ask one more question?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Yes, the Member for Yorkton-Mel-ville with a very very short question, please.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: He is talking about $2 billion. They do not spend anywhere near that much money. Following the train of thought of the Hon. Member, what was the deficit of Sask Power in 1981-82?


John Kenneth Gormley: When the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville reads the financial statement he will be able to enlighten all of us about the financial picture of Sask Power.


Douglas Jung: You don't know.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: He does not know.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The period for questions and comments is now over. We shall continue with debate.
December 4, 1984


Mr. Ken James (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, while I stand today in support of Bill C-l 1, an Act to provide borrowing authority, presented by the Minister of State for Finance (Mrs. McDougall), I must say that I deplore the circumstances that have led us to this point. There is not one of us in this Conservative Government who would willingly lend himself or herself to the prospect of increasing the national debt and the burden on the Canadian taxpayer. We are just beginning to realize the depth of the financial hole in which we have been left by previous governments. The job of climbing back out of that hole has only just begun.
The Minister of State for Finance has asked that our borrowing power be increased by $7.3 billion for this fiscal year. That will take care of current commitments and allow for a $2 billion contingency fund that, if not needed, will be carried over into the next fiscal year. This reserve fund will allow flexibility in the event of unpredictable fluctuations in our financial requirements, such as changes in the exchange rates and the value of our Canadian dollar. Looking forward into the next year, the Minister has asked for authority to borrow $16 billion more for fiscal 1985-86.
I submit, Mr. Speaker, that this estimate of our spending needs is a sound one and the request for borrowing is born of necessity. While we are apparently still on the same Keynesian track that led us into this morass, we are not, as a Government, committed to handing out money pell-mell, as was the last administration. The course we set with the passing of this Bill, coupled with the measures set forth in the Finance Minister's economic statement, will lead us out of our debt-ridden circumstances and on to the road to fiscal recovery.
Let us look at why we are now in this state today. Let us look at what led us here. We have inherited a situation with this Government that I believe to be unique in Canadian history. We are following a dynasty of Liberalism that led this country down the garden path. In talking of economic mismanagement, I shall quote from a book entitled Business Cycles in Canada by Maurice Lamontagne, excerpts from which are found on pages 73-82 in the 1984 paper of the Canadian Institute for Research on Public Policy. The late Senator Maurice Lamontagne was a former Minister in the Pearson government. I quote:
The medium-term government strategy was not clear-cut. A few specific fiscal incentives and a less effective tax cut applied to manufacturing but in 1974, a substantial increase in taxes on profits was implemented. More important, after the Canadian dollar was allowed to float in 1970, the rapid rise in the exchange rate significantly dampened the cyclical expansion in business investment by shrinking the market outlets available to Canadian industry.
The coupling of structural and supply-push unemployment and inflation became the dominant phenomenon of this period.
Errors in forecasting and in economic policy made by the government did not help to attenuate these undesirable trends and to achieve greater stability.
Government short-term fiscal strategies were seriously mistaken throughout the period.
However, the seeds of a serious disequilibrium in the government budgetary position had been planted. The government had practically lost control over its budgetary position.
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Since 1967, the Liberal governments have spoken about their concern for the deficit and preached the message of restraint. In December of 1967, the then Prime Minister Lester Pearson told Canadians that the government was doing something about the deficit. He said:
By cutting our expenses, and increasing our revenues, as a result, the next budget will be a balanced one.
That year the government spent $11 billion, and there was a net debt of $ 18 billion.
Two years later in August, 1969, Pierre Trudeau told Canadians that:
We'd be on the road to financial disaster if nothing is done to bring spending under control.
Spending was $13 billion and the net debt came to $18 billion. Four years later, the present Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) told Canadians, in his November, 1974 Budget, that:
We must do all we can in these circumstances to restrain the growth of government expenditures.
Spending was $30 billion and the net debt jumped to $24 billion.
Let us move another four years down the road to the next Liberal Finance Minister and his November 1978 Budget, who said:
There can be no weakening in our determination to keep expenditures under tight control.
Spending was $46 billion. The net debt up to $60 billion. Four years later in his June, 1982 Budget Allan MacEachen told the Canadian people that some say the Government:
-should print more money. Others say it should let the deficit rip. But that would fail miserably. Inflation and unemployment would get worse. Interest rates would rise even more. Canada would price itself out of world markets. Recovery would be postponed.
That year, spending was $80 billion and the net debt had climbed to $124 billion.
This last summer the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition told Canadians that:
There are programs that are duplications; there are programs that are wasteful; there are programs that are no longer useful; there are programs that no longer serve a purpose; and I am going to cut that down-
This is the legacy left the Canadian people, left to this Conservative Government. After taking into account the expenditure reductions outlined in this November's economic statement, the Government will spend $100 billion this year, with a net debt by the end of the fiscal year of $191 billion.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that you look at this record of prudence and sound fiscal judgment espoused by the Liberal government: from spending of $11 billion and a total debt of $18 billion in 1967 to the $100 billion spent this year, and the $191 billion that is net debt. This is the legacy left the Canadian people and this Conservative Government following two decades of Liberal control.
I spend a great deal of time in my riding. I feel that the duty of a Member of this Parliament is to be accessible to the people who put us here. I see a multitude of constituents

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weekly and 90 per cent of them ask: "What can we do with the economy the way it is today?" They are not condemning anyone now in power; they are simply wondering what direction we must take to find the light at the end of the tunnel. They are not looking for the quick fix because they know only too well that those who say there is a fast and easy way out do not have a clue as to what they are talking about. They do not wonder how this came to pass. They see the evidence daily in the newspapers, such as, for example, today's edition of The Globe and Mail with its reference to the "Axworthy Empire". People are well aware of the fact that there has been mismanagement and wanton spending in the past that cannot and will not be repeated during this thirty-third Parliament.
Let me close, Mr. Speaker, with another quotation from the Right Hon. Leader of the Loyal Opposition. It reads:
I start from the proposition that there are many things that only government can do. And the first priority is to get these right: fiscal policy, tax policy, trade policy, monetary policy. Then the government must provide a safety net for those who are unemployed, ill, aged, disadvantaged-
The last governments have failed miserably to reach even their first priority, and have worsened the situation for all those mentioned in their second.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I feel I am representative of all Conservatives sitting here today in saying we do not like the prospect of increased borrowing but recognize the necessity of such a move at this time. We as a Government have made a commitment to the Canadian people to bring their financial house back to order. By real restraint and judicious handling of the national purse strings we will realize this goal.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Are there questions or comments?


Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a comment and conclude with a question on the speech made by the Hon. Member for Sarnia-Lambton (Mr. James) relating to the need to borrow money. We have had a lesson in history, or at least a scanning of the record of the past. The record was provided to us in a descriptive way. There was not much analysis. My question for the Hon. Member will deal with his analysis.
As he did this historical scanning, I was reminded of another time some 100 or more years ago when the Liberal and Conservative Parties of the day were, by circumstances, being pressed toward a common position. After the Conservative government under Sir John A. Macdonald brought in a national policy, the Liberals resisted it at the time. The Conservatives established a 20 per cent tariff, and the Liberals had a 17.5 per cent tariff. As O. D. Skelton writing about this just before the Great War observed, the difference between protection and free trade became the difference between 20 per cent and 17.5 per cent; 2.5 per cent was sufficient.
I was struck by the fact that the Hon. Member said that a profligate government which squandered money and so on was defeated. Presumably a 4 per cent reduction in expenditure gives us a government which is responsible and prudent. If we
look at the areas in which the trimming takes place, it is startling that they are the environment and others where Canadians lose important services and where there is not a great deal of fat to be wrung out.
In our day what we have in the Liberal and Conservative Parties, for all the rhetoric, is similar policies of restraint which the Liberals, as the Hon. Member documented very well, had been trying to follow. The result had not been economic success, so his constituents-and he does not want to take their comments against himself and his Government-are very anxious. In that continuity of policy we have the grave concern which I expressed that a year hence the request will be for even more borrowing authority.
In all this description of how it has become worse, what actually is wrong with the Canadian economy? What will the Government do other than give us 4 per cent less as a measure of responsibility and urge us all to tighten our belts? As I said before, Canadians have various needs which are not being met. 1 do not want to say yet that the Government will not do anything about it. Important programs are clearly under the knife. Time will tell whether the Government gives a damn about them. Would the Hon. Member tell us what will really be changed other than this minor 4 per cent change?


Kenneth Albert James: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the Hon. Member's question. We cannot disregard the kind of overspending of which we have seen examples. There were clear indications that many corners had to be cleaned out and that probably many programs needed to be examined by the past government. Many aspiring leadership candidates espoused that. Certainly it was a clear indication to this Government that we should look into the matter. There was another example in today's newspaper. Of course, one of our Cabinet Ministers mentioned that many other Departments had overspent. I do not think the situation is any different from that of a household or a business.
Canadians were looking for some clear signals. I think the Canadian public is already reacting to the indications of the Government by being prudent and by looking at cutting, not at spending. We cannot continue spending more than we take in. Perhaps the Hon. Member can do it, but in the long run I personally think he will run into problems, just as governments will run into problems. I think a very clear signal has gone out to the people of Canada, and they appear to be responding.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the presentation of the Hon. Member. He mentioned that he felt quite comfortable asking the House to provide a borrowing authority for $16 billion into the next fiscal year.
I see that the Right Hon. Member for Yellowhead (Mr. Clark) is in attendance this afternoon. As Leader of his Party, he argued long and hard that this was a precedent which we ought not to consider. For example, if a government were asking for $16 billion for the next eight months and into the new fiscal year, using the same principle I suppose it could come in asking for a borrowing authority for the next two, three, five or fifteen years. We have a precedent where the
December 4, 1984

government obtains borrowing authority for the year in which it is requested. Why does the Hon. Member feel it is appropriate to go against that precedent and particularly against the argument presented by his previous Leader?


Kenneth Albert James: Mr. Speaker, it is a request for funds to carry us to the next budget. As a new Member I have been concerned about the amount of verbosity which takes place here every time a government comes in asking for borrowing authority. We ought to get down to running the country. We might want to look at some efficiencies. This is a clear example of that.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, two years ago on July 19, 1982, my very good friend from Yellowhead moved an amendment to a very similar Bill. I agreed with him and supported him at that time. My position is very consistent, my position is the same now. At that time his amendment read as follows:
"this House holds the opinion that the granting of an authority for the borrowing of a sum greater than that amount which is required to meet the government's needs to the end of the current fiscal year is objectionable in principle and this House therefore declines to give second reading to Bill C-125, an act to provide supplementary borrowing authority".
If the Conservative Party found it so wrong for the government of Mr. Trudeau to do that two years ago, in other words to borrow money not for the current year but for the next fiscal year, why the sudden change of heart?


Kenneth Albert James: If I were facing a government with the kind of record that government had, I might have felt very much the same. We have a new Government, a Government with responsibility and certainty.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I should like to ask a supplementary question. When the Right Hon. Member for Yellowhead (Mr. Clark) was Leader of the Opposition he objected to this in principle. He was not playing political games. I know him very well; he does not play political games. He was not only concerned about the record of the government at that time. He was objecting in principle to the borrowing of money for the next fiscal year when parliamentarians should have some kind of budget before them. He is a very principled man. He was objecting in principle. What has happened to those principles?


Kenneth Albert James: I do not question the Hon. Member's principles whatsoever. I am sure that he spoke with conviction.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: He did speak with conviction.


Kenneth Albert James: And I am sure he does. I remind the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom) that there was a different government at that time. He probably had some serious concerns over the ways in which it would manage the fiscal affairs of the country.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my friend and neighbour from Sarnia-Lambton. While the government may have changed and it may be a very different government, the principle remains the same. The principle was well elucidated by the Hon. Member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson) when he was opposition finance critic. He is now
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the Minister of Finance, and I should like to quote what he said about that principle. He said:
The first amendment we offered was to decline second reading of this bill.
This is when he spoke on the amendment of the Right Hon. Member for Yellowhead (Mr. Clark). He continued:
There is a well established principle that Parliament only provides sufficient borrowing authority to a government to allow it to finance its operations within the current fiscal year.
He clearly outlined that principle. It supersedes any government which sits on that side of the House, whether it be Liberal, Conservative, NDP or whatever.
Would the Hon. Member please explain why the principle, to which his Party held as the ideal a year ago, has become a principle upon which it is prepared to trample now that it has become the Government?


Kenneth Albert James: Mr. Speaker, we are looking to a new budget in a few months. This Government has a conviction and follows the principle of getting on with accomplishing things that will turn the economy around and do what Canadians are looking to have done. There is an efficiency in what we are doing.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: We shall now resume debate.


Mr. Dan Heap (Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak against this borrowing Bill and in support of the amendment moved by my colleague. It is the same amendment that was moved by the Right Hon. Member for Yellowhead (Mr. Clark) when he was Leader of the Opposition. In the very same words, our amendment states:
"that this House holds the opinion that the granting of an authority for the borrowing of a sum greater than the amount which is required to meet the government's needs to the end of the current fiscal year is objectionable in principle-
The Right Hon. Member does not say that it is the government that is objectionable. He says the borrowing is objectionable in principle. This is what we say. It continues:
-and this House therefore declines to give second reading to Bill C-l 1, an Act to provide borrowing authority".
The Hon. Member for Sarnia-Lambton (Mr. James), in answer to our questions about the principle, repeatedly said, in effect, "Trust me. Trust my Leader. What is wrong for the Liberals to do is right for the Conservatives because the Conservatives have good intentions". He implies that the Liberals had bad intentions, the Conservatives have good intentions. The principles of both the Right Hon. Member for Yellowhead and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) disappeared on election day.
What was a matter of principle before September 4 is no longer a matter of principle for the members of the Conservative Party. They are willing to do anything to advance purposes which they claim are good. Unfortunately, they do not tell us in any clear way what those purposes are that are worth $16 billion. They tell us they will create more jobs. All they have done is to lay off people. They tell us they are going to reform the tax system. All they have done is to make the tax

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system worse by loading more taxes this fall on to low and middle income people without touching with one finger the loopholes that are making the rich richer and the poor poorer. They have not told us one word about what they will do with the money to be borrowed for fiscal 1985-86. They refuse to tell us what they want to do with $16 billion in a fiscal year that has not yet started.
We agree with the principle they expressed a couple of years ago. We regret that they have sold their principle down the river. They sold it for a piece of opportunism in the conduct of the government which the people entrusted to them. Perhaps the people believed that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), the Minister of Finance and the Secretary of State for External Affairs held those principles. They now find they held those principles only until election day and they are now expended.
What is at stake here is a different principle entirely. What is being operated on is a different principle, the principle of making the rich richer and the poor poorer. This Bill adds $23 billion to the debt. That debt has to be paid by working people and small business people.
The Eton. Member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake (Mr. Gormley) said nobody likes to be a borrower or a lender. He is half right, nobody likes to be a borrower. There are people who just love to be lenders. They become rich. They become billionaires because they are in a position to lend and to charge any interest rate they can force out of the borrowers. The members of the Conservative Party are in league with those lenders. It is the pleasure of the lenders and of this Government to lay still further debts on the people of Canada, for the most part without telling them what they are going to do with the money.
We do not object to the money they are asking for in order to finish fiscal year 1984-85 or even the $2 billion they want because they are not sure they can count correctly and do not know how much money they will have to pay public servants. They are not sure how much they can chop off public servants' wages or other budgets they administer, so they want $5.3 billion plus an extra $2 billion.
We are not arguing with that. We want to focus on the main point. They ask for $16 billion for the coming year without one word of explanation as to what they will do with it. If that passes, and they have a majority, they can do anything they please. This Parliament will not be able to hold them accountable in any effective way.
This flies directly in the face of the teaching given to this country approximately two years ago by the Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church when they put forward two basic principles of Christian teaching that ought to be taken into very serious consideration by the Government of this country and by Members of Parliament. One of their principles was what they called the preferential option for the poor. They warned that if we feed the rich first, the poor get left out and the country is in trouble, whereas if we make sure that the poor get fed, the rich get fed as well. This wisdom has been brought forward for centuries. It is urged upon us not only by
the Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church but by other Christians and leaders of other religions as well.
Their second principle is the priority of labour over capital. That does not mean a choice as between the Canadian Labour Congress and the Canadian Manufacturers' Association. It means a much more basic principle, namely that the work we do today, our live labour, whatever kind of labour we do, must make use of the work we did yesterday or a century ago, which is dead labour, the capital, the tools that we have created in the past which we can use in the present. Our present work must dominate the use of those tools. Those tools must not dominate our present work.
This borrowing Bill enslaves us to the past. It makes the poor poorer in order to make the rich richer. I want to give a few illustrations. Contrary to the Prime Minister's promise to make the tax system fairer, which he has the opportunity to do this month but refuses to do, he promises it will happen some time in the new year, in the sweet bye and bye. What he has done and is doing now is primarily to tax low income people. There is a sales tax which he and his colleagues ridiculed and abhorred when in Opposition. They then changed their principle, turning it upside down on election day. A billion dollars or more a year is to be taken primarily from the pockets of those who can least afford it. Cuts were announced at the beginning of November, $48 million out of a social program which was already nowhere near meeting the needs of the country either for housing or for useful employment. People have been cut from the unemployment insurance rolls by doing what was advocated not only by the former Liberal government but by the Conservative Opposition. People who have taken early retirement, people who have built up pensions and people who have negotiated severance pay are now to lose out on their unemployment insurance benefits because of this Government. To make sure that these people lose out, the Government is hiring 700 snoopers. The Government is taking several hundred people away from the business of counselling workers who are looking for new jobs and has put them into the business of harassing workers to find excuses to cancel their unemployment insurance benefits.
The same Government, without any legal authorization from Parliament, has publicly offered to provide publicly-funded services from the National Revenue Department to help businesses find still more loopholes in the tax structure so that they can pay still less tax. The amount of corporate tax paid has declined sharply in the last several years as personal income tax has risen. The Government will make the amount of corporate tax paid decline still further.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Where did you get that idea?


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Where did I get that idea? I got that idea from the admissions made by the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Beatty) in answer to a question put by the Opposition. He said, in a statement made in the City of Toronto, that the tax officials will now freely, at public expense and not at
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cocktail parties after work, tell corporations upon request how they can avoid taxation.
In the last seven years, according to the Economic Council of Canada, there has been $100 billion worth of tax expenditures and forgone revenues under the previous government. This Government is continuing that policy and intensifying it. If that $100 billion had been collected, our deficit would be insignificant. The deficit about which the last government howled and about which the present Government howls would vanish if those revenues had been collected. They should have been collected primarily from the big corporations and the high-income individuals of the country.
In order to try to persuade the public to forget the promises made by the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister has taken on the mantle and stepped into the shoes of the previous Prime Minister, the Right Hon. Pierre Trudeau. The new "Mr. Trudeau" who now sits across from us on the right-hand side of the Chair now says that the deficit is the only problem. He says: "Pay off the deficit at the expense of low-income people and the country will prosper". Those are the same words we heard from his predecessor. The promise is no longer "jobs, jobs, jobs", a promise upon which the Prime Minister was elected. The promise now is "soak the poor".
Seen as a percentage of the Gross National Product, the deficit ought not to be used as the fabricated bogyman that Hon. Members opposite like to use. As a percentage of the Gross National Product, the deficit is smaller than it was during some of the years when Canada thrived after World War II. The deficit is simply being used to cover the rip-off of working people, small business people and farmers.
This is not the change Canadians voted for but is more of the same. The only thing that has changed is that the Conservatives now sit on the right-hand side of the Chair rather than the left-hand side of the Chair. There has been no other basic change of direction. Beyond that, the Conservative Government has intensified the very faults it liked to criticize when it was in Opposition, as shown by the complete sell-out of principle as I have described it in the motion for amendment that is before us.
We have a long history of this kind of policy. The Canadian people have suffered for a long time. This suffering in the main part goes back at least nine years and in some parts even a little further. The erosion of unemployment insurance benefits by policy occurred for several years under the previous government and is continued by this Government. The erosion in the support of post-secondary education occurred under the previous government and will clearly remain no better and perhaps even worse under this Government. The erosion of social housing occurred under the previous government and a further $9.6 million has been cut by this Government.
The erosion of the public health system occurred under the previous Liberal government in connivance with the Conservative governments of many provinces of Canada. We have every reason to believe that that erosion is to continue because we cannot get straight answers from the Prime Minister and his colleagues on the question of universality. One day they are for
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it, another day they are against it. They say that they are for it except for certain things. They want to find some ingenious system for preventing a banker who earns $.5 million a year from collecting old age pension benefits. They want people to forget that we have a system for doing that, and that is, the income tax system. This could be done if the present Government were willing to live up to the promises it made last summer.
There is the further erosion of the living standards of working people, small business people and farmers, which has occurred because of the interest system. In the last 15 years, interest payments as a share of the Gross Domestic Product have more than doubled. During the same 15 years, 1966 to 1981, wages as a share of the Gross Domestic Product grew by only 14 per cent. However, the share of interest payments grew by 140 per cent, which is 10 times as much as the share of wages grew. Nothing is being done by this Government to control interest rates just as nothing was done by the last government to control interest rates.
The tools for controlling interest rates are at hand. At one time, those tools were used. Some of us who have grey hair can remember the days when mortgages had, by law, a 6 per cent ceiling. That happened in years when Canada was very prosperous. It can happen again and it would make Canada more prosperous. The lenders who love to lend money at extortionate rates might not be prosperous, but they form a tiny minority of parasites that we do not need to serve as the Government serves them now.
As I said, the main fault with the Bill that we are opposing is that it requests to borrow for the year 1985-86 without proper authority. It is flying in the face of the principle and tradition of Parliament that the Party opposite claimed two years ago and until September 4 to support. No private borrower would be able to get away with something like that. If one were to go to a bank manager and say: "Lend me some money. I will not tell you what I will do with it, just trust me", the bank manager would laugh. The friends of the bankers who sit opposite expect us to take them seriously and to tell our constituents that these are honourable gentlemen who will use the money honestly. They have not given us one reason to believe that they will use the money honestly.
The Government is doing the same thing as R. B. Bennett did when he turned the five-year depression into a 10-year depression using the same policies that the Government is using now. He soaked the poor, increased interest payments, increased the taxes on the poor and made sure that the investors got the gravy. That is how R. B. Bennett undertook to save Canada in the years 1930 to 1935. It took another five years for Canada to find its way out of the hole into which he put the country. I hope the Government will be warned by the example of R. B. Bennett. If not, I hope the people of Canada will take the Government in hand to make sure it does not lead us into 10 years of misery.

December 4, 1984
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Are there questions or comments?


Mr. Nickerson:: Mr. Speaker, I have one question for the Hon. Member for Spadina (Mr. Heap). It has been quite properly brought to our attention that the Bill we have before us is divided into two parts. Part I deals with the request for borrowing authority within the present fiscal year, and Part II deals with borrowing authority for the next fiscal year.
Am I correct in assuming that the New Democratic Party has no objection to Part I of the Bill? If the Bill consisted solely of Part I, would NDP members have no objection to the request for $7.3 billion in borrowing authority, with an amount of $2 billion continuing on to the new year?


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to the Hon. Member for his question. Yes, we would not object to that. We would support the Bill if it were asking for money which was required only for this fiscal year. That point has already been made. Presumably the Hon. Member just came into the House. It is the same point our House Leader attempted to make in negotiations with the government House Leader. If the Government is asking only for the money it needs in this fiscal year, there is no problem. We object to the request for $16 billion for next year, in advance, without any planning, budgeting or accounting.
If Members opposite would instruct their House Leader to agree to the request and split the Bill-a request which the Government made when it was in Opposition-there would be no problem.


Dave Nickerson: Mr. Speaker, am I to gather from those remarks that if the Bill were split and reintroduced as only Part I, the New Democratic Party would be prepared to allow the Bill to pass without further debate? Is that correct?


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Yes.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, the amendment before us deals with a complaint that the Bill has a second part to it, which is to borrow $16 billion for the next fiscal year. The House would have to pass a Bill in this fiscal year for the next fiscal year, otherwise the country would have no borrowing authority to start the next fiscal year.
In view of the fact that there has been a financial statement before the House for some time, would it not seem reasonable to the Hon. Member that this should be treated as a different condition than one which existed in the past, and that the Government should be permitted some borrowing authority for the next fiscal year so that it would not find itself totally out of borrowing authority on April 1 ?


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make two points. First, supposing that the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) is serious in what he said, he cannot seriously claim that the financial statement gives us any projection for fiscal year 1985-86. It talks only about the period ending in
March, 1985. We are not disputing that. However, there has been absolute refusal to give the House a projection beyond the end of March.
On my second point, I will quote the Minister of Finance when he was the opposition critic. He said:
There is a well established principle that Parliament only provides sufficient borrowing authority to a government to allow it to finance its operations within the current fiscal year.
The Government has said that it has not had time to do its arithmetic for the 1985-86 fiscal year. That is fine. Let it work during December, January, February and March. In March let it give us some figures and projections for the next year as to where it will put the money it wants to borrow. Then let it ask for borrowing authority. The Government should not ask for a blank cheque, which it refused to give when in Opposition.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member ought to know, if he has taken a look at the financial statement, that it clearly sets out the borrowing requirements for 1985-86. Those requirements are in excess of $29 billion. The Government has a statement for 1985-86, albeit it is not a complete and proper budget. But this Government has just taken over. Is it the view of the New Democratic Party that we should go back in history and talk about another government which had been in power for two and a half years and which came in with a borrowing authority Bill without first having presented a budget or even an estimate of expenses? Is it saying that this is the same situation? It is not.
The financial statement sets out what the likelihood is for deficits, borrowing authority and spending for next year. Surely that should be sufficient to the House. It should give the House an indication that at least $16 billion will be required for next year. Would it not be wonderful if only $16 billion were required? Surely the Hon. Member for Spadina is not so hidebound or ridiculous to suggest that we will not need to borrow at least $16 billion in the next fiscal year in view of the financial statement already presented by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson).


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member has said that there is a $29 billion debt proposed for the coming fiscal year and has made several remarks about it. However, there is no budget and no possibility of debating a budget. We are told that there will be a budget but that it will be brought forward after we have given the Government the money with which to operate. The financial statement is utterly vague with respect to fiscal year 1985-86. If the Government seriously intends to bring forward a budget for the 1985-86 fiscal year, beginning on April 1, 1985, then there is time for it to ask for borrowing authority.
Yes, the Government will get the money once we know what it will do with it. But it is asking us for a blank cheque. The Government says it has not had time, and yet it has December, January, February and March in which to put those figures together and tell us what it wants to do with the money.
December 4, 1984


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member will know that the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) have clearly said that there will be a national economic council with the first Ministers of all the provinces. He will know that the fiscal arrangements between the provinces and the federal Government must be resettled. He will know that the Estimates will be before the House before March 31. He will know that the financial statement, and the projections in the many documents that went with it, clearly set out where the Government is going and the travesty and problems it faces. The Hon. Member will know the demands which are clearly set out as being payable by the Government of Canada, and he will know that the required borrowing is very slightly in excess of half the anticipated borrowing for the next fiscal year. That is all the Minister of Finance has asked for. Surely, with those facts before him, the Hon. Member should not be so hidebound as to suggest that he has not had disclosure.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: I recognize the Hon. Member for Spadina (Mr. Heap), keeping in mind that the time has almost elapsed, in all fairness.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I will simply say, "It is the highest demand of Parliament in the history of Parliament. It is unconscionable. It is improper. It cannot be supported by any thinking Member of the House". I hope the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) will remember that those were his words when he sat on this side of the House.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: 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 Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry)- Mines and Mining-Announced closing of Stelco Mine at Red Lake, Ont. (b) Assistance to miners; the Hon. Member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. Wilson)-Finance-Fuel sales tax rebate-Position of bulk fuel dealers; the Hon. Member for Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador (Mr. Romp-key)-Unemployment Insurance-Plight of Newfoundland fishermen not eligible for benefits, (b) Level of assistance for affected constituencies.
_______________________________________893
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GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mrs. McDougall that Bill C-ll, an Act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs; and the amendment thereto of Mr. Riis (p. 694).
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: The period for twenty-minute speeches and subsequent ten minutes of questions and comments has now expired. We shall now proceed with ten-minute speeches, without questions or comments.


Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard-Anjou):: Mr. Speaker, the Government talks of creating an atmosphere of confidence in which business can operate. This atmosphere of confidence, Mr. Speaker, which it plans to generate in the private sector will, we are told, solve the country's problems. The Government will not create any private sector confidence with Bills like the one we are debating here. No business would even think of going to the bank and asking for a major loan without telling the bank what it is for. Yet this is just what the Conservatives would have us do. Despite all their rhetoric on fiscal responsibility, they want to borrow $16 billion for the next fiscal year. If the Government is trying to create a credible image for the private sector to see, it should avoid doing what it is doing now. It is behaving in a financially irresponsible manner.
This loan which the Government is asking for is irresponsible. If some businessman in my constituency dared to ask his bank manager for a substantial loan without explaining what the money was for and without demonstrating how the debt would be financed, the bank manager would throw him out. I am warning the Government that it is making a mistake in trying to pursue this dangerous course of action.
I know that a small business could not borrow in the foolish way the Government is proposing. How can the Government create anything but distrust and lack of confidence in that most crucial and vital sector of our economy, small business, if it behaves in the kind of irresponsible fashion which no small-businessman would even consider?
The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) would have us borrow $16 billion without any indication of how the debt will be financed. What good manager would go to the bank for a loan without knowing what revenues would finance the carrying charges? This, Mr. Speaker, is what the Conservatives are trying to do. They are trying hard to manage the flow of information. But if the Minister of Finance himself does not know how he is going to finance the loan, then he is no better at managing borrowing authority than he was at managing information flow in the hotel lobby in Winnipeg.
894

December 4, 1984
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Mr. Speaker, if the Government wants the permission of the Elouse to borrow $16 billion for the fiscal year ending on March 31, 1986, let it first bring down its Budget, and then we can consider a request for borrowing authority.
Does the Government have any respect for the democratically elected representatives of Canadians? Does the Government have any respect for Parliament?
Mr. Speaker, they are so arrogant they introduced Bill C-l 1 without tabling either a Budget or interim supply for the period from April 1, 1985 to March 31, 1986.
Mr. Speaker, that is the least we should expect of a Government that claims to be open. Actually, they are more pretentious than they are open, because only yesterday, in the House, Government Members ... In fact, the Hon. Member for Gatineau (Mrs. Mailly), in quoting from the December 1, 1984 edition of The Globe and Mail, claimed that the economic situation had picked up during the third quarter of the year, unfortunately leaving out the next paragraph:

While the federal agency said this growth took place mainly in July, when the Liberals were in power-

Right after that, Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Chateauguay (Mr. Lopez) asked me to tell the House which jobs were lost.
Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Hon. Member for Chateauguay to read the "Expenditure and Program Review", tabled in the House on November 8 of this year by the Hon. President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret).
The other weekend I met one of my constituents who worked for VIA Rail, and he told me that as soon as the cutbacks were announced, 59 of his fellow workers were to be laid off the next morning.
Only last Sunday I was at a meeting of the Cooperative d'Habitation Vierge Altagrace, whose members are originally from Haiti. They were concerned about this Government's cutbacks. The community really needs this housing co-operative to provide accommodation for its members who live in substandard housing. Now that the project is about to become operational, the Government cuts.
What do Government Members have to say about cuts totalling $29.4 million in Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Programs? How many thousands of jobs have been cut? Only the Hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) knows the exact answer, Mr. Speaker, because he has the projections, but he has refused to table them in the House.
Those were two examples, Mr. Speaker, of this Government's arrogance.

This sort of behaviour can do nothing but discredit the present Government in the eyes of the hard working Canadian business people. What we are asking for is not a lot in exchange for $16 billion-actually closer to $18 billion if the $2 billion carry-over slush fund is included. All we ask for is a budget to establish the Government's credibility which is in question. It cannot be given carte blanche when it has not proven itself. The Government has a lot to do before it can win the trust of this House.
All we are asking the Government to do is to observe sound business practice. Deficit financing is acceptable under some circumstances, but only if the pertinent facts and figures are known. We want this factual information and we want it on the record. We want the facts and figures on what the $16 billion loan is for and how it is going to be repaid.
The Government should come to its senses and accept the amendment of the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis). When the Government has presented a budget, it can come back to this House and ask for $16 billion if it needs it. [Translation]
Mr. Speaker, the Government had promised that it would administer the country in a businesslike manner. No businessman will apply for a loan unless he knows exactly why, and no bank would lend him money. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, the Government must bring in a budget before proceeding with Bill C-l 1 if it wants to inspire confidence in business circles.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say a few words about Bill C-l 1.

It is very interesting to see, after being here a number of years, that when a different Party takes office, the more things change, the more they remain the same. You would never dream there has been a change of government when you look at this Bill. I remember so well two years ago when the Trudeau government came to the House to borrow money and we had this highly principled amendment by the then Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. member for Yellowhead (Mr. Clark). He said that it was a terrible thing to do, against the practices of parliamentary procedure, and it was taking all kinds of power away from the Parliament of Canada. All of a sudden, that same Party forms a government and it is doing exactly the same thing that Mr. Trudeau did year in and year out.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Is this debate or a question?


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: This is debate.


Paul Wyatt Dick: He is the guy you are asking the question of.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I am not asking him a question. I have been recognized to participate in this debate, and you would know that if you followed what happens in the House a little bit.
December 4, 1984


John R. Rodriguez: He did not pay attention last Friday.


Paul Wyatt Dick: I did so.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: In that debate years ago they made argument after argument as to why that Bill was so horrible. We heard argument after argument from the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn), if I can get his attention down there on the far side of the House.


John R. Rodriguez: He has a short attention span.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: He was so incensed that the Government wanted to borrow some $29.5 billion. That was horrible.


Paul Wyatt Dick: We are not.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: He says, "We are not". I do not know what he means when he says they are not borrowing a large amount of money. The Government is borrowing $23.3 billion.


Paul Wyatt Dick: That is less.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: That is an awful lot of money to Members on this side of the House. Two years ago the Hon. Member for Mississauga South said the following about that, if we can get his attention once more. He said:
The amount of this Bill, Sir, strikes a new level in borrowing demand. This Government is coming to the House and asking that the House approve its going to the markets for $29.5 billion of authority.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: That is right.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: He said:
That is $10 billion higher than any other previous demand. It is the highest demand on Parliament in the history of Parliament. It is unconscionable. It is improper. It cannot be supported by any thinking Member of the House.


Mr. Murphy:: He stopped thinking.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Then do you know what he said, Mr. Speaker? He said:
This House should rise up, Sir, and demand an end to this, not only on behalf of us as Hon. Members and of our constituents, but on behalf of our children, our children's children and our children's children yet unborn or even thought of.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Paul Wyatt Dick: A good speech.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Scandalous.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: It was.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Two years later what do we have? We have Mr. Trudeau reincarnated. We have a new Prime Minister who is doing exactly the same thing. No wonder the people of this country are so cynical about the political process. The Party in Opposition says one thing, it goes to the people of the country and says one thing, and then when it comes into government it does exactly the opposite. The Government is doing exactly what it promised it would not do and what it criticized the Liberal Party for doing two years ago. I do not think that is very principled at all.
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The Government is borrowing $7.3 billion for this fiscal year. I can accept that. But it is also trying to borrow $16 billion for fiscal year 1985-86, and I cannot accept that. I have not seen a budget, and I have not seen any precedent for this except for one two years ago in 1982. At that time we had the amendment of the Leader of the Opposition which said that this House holds the opinion that the granting of an authority for borrowing a sum of money other than the amount required to meet the Government's needs to the end of the current fiscal year is objectionable in principle. Those were the words of the Leader of the Opposition. If it was objectionable in principle in
1982,	the same in 1983, then is it wrong in December, 1984? To me a principle is a principle, and if it is wrong in 1982 or
1983,	then surely to goodness it is wrong on December 4, 1984.
I really wonder what the Tories are doing in this House in
trampling on our rights as parliamentarians. If the former Member for Prince Albert, John Diefenbaker, were here, I am sure he would be scandalized but what he sees in this House today. A lack of accountability by the Government which wants a blank cheque. There are a lot of poor farmers in my riding and they cannot go to the Farm Credit Corporation and ask for a blank cheque for the next 10 years. They cannot do that. They have a tough enough time getting money for their farm operations if they present a detailed and well thought out plan to the FCC, let alone ask for thousands of dollars to do something in the future even though they are not sure what it will be. Yet that is what the Government of Canada is asking for. I think that is trampling on the rights of Parliament. Parliamentarians should have a right to say whether or not a certain program is good or bad and should be funded.
The purpose for which we were elected is to decide how to spend the taxpayers' money. But what I see happening across the way with this new Government really makes me very angry and I do not intend to sit silently by and let it borrow all kinds of money for goodness knows what in 1985-86. I wish some of those Members, like the Hon. Member for Mississauga South who was so angry two years ago, would rise up on their hind legs and express some of the same outrage and anger he expressed when he sat here in the House just a few short months ago. If he did that, then I would know he was a very principled man and has the courage of his convictions. He would get up there and fight. I know all kinds of other Members-

I see the Hon. Member for Joliette (Mr. La Salle) in the House. I remember very well that, two or three years ago, he often criticized the Trudeau government.


Mr.   La Salle@: I had to!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Yes? But now you are doing exactly what Mr. Trudeau did in the House. Here you are with a bill to borrow $23 billion. Mr. Trudeau did exactly the same thing in the House two years ago. At the time, Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Joliette vented his frustration and shouted in the House: It is a bad government! This country needs a change,

December 4, 1984
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we must change the situation for our people! But now, after September 4, they are behaving just like Mr. Trudeau used to do. This government is not being altogether honest with the people of Canada.

I wish some of these people across the way who got up and showed outrage a few years ago would get up now and say the same thing to the new Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney). If they do not do it now, that Prime Minister is going to create an empire in the PMO and the PCO. He will create an empire that makes the empire of the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy) look pretty small in comparison. The only way for them to stop is for them to get up in this House and put a stop to it. They have the majority of Members.
I wonder what they are going to use this money for, Mr. Speaker. I have had the opportunity to watch first-hand a Conservative Government in my province for the last few years. As I said earlier in the House today, when it took office in April of 1982 there was a surplus in the Saskatchewan treasury of over $100 million. After two years there is a deficit of over $800,000 because of the incompetence of that particular government. The unemployment rate has gone up from 4 per cent to 8 per cent, which is one of the most rapid increases in any part of Canada. The number of people on welfare in my province has gone up by 73 per cent in the last two and a half years.
The Government across the way is borrowing money for the same kinds of programs and purposes as the Government of Saskatchewan and the Government of British Columbia did. They say that confidence, the private sector, and business will do it. Grant Devine says the same thing in Saskatchewan. He says they are open for business and will allow the private sector to do it. They will create all kinds of jobs. Exactly the opposite has happened, Mr. Speaker, and that is another reason why the House should say no to allowing the Government across the way to borrow some $23.3 billion, which is going to put debt upon debt upon the people of Canada in the years ahead.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Before giving the floor to another speaker, I would like to remind the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom) that I inadvertently let him cite a speech made by another Member of the House. There was a decision reported on July 28, 1979 which stated that it is not in order for a Member to obtain or quote during the current sitting the official record of the remarks of any other Member. I would just like to remind the House of that decision.


Mr. Vincent Della Noce (Duvernay):: Mr. Speaker, this being my first speech in the House of Commons, I would like to start by thanking my constituents in the riding of Duvernay for sending me to Ottawa to represent them. I promise to do everything in my power to honour the trust they have placed in
me. I also wish to say a word of thanks to my colleagues in the House, who were most generous with their help and advice from the first day I started my new life as a Parliamentarian.
Mr. Speaker, the riding of Duvernay is the eastern part of the City of Laval and today encompasses an area with a population of over 108,000. Duvernay has a large francophone majority, 89 per cent, while 7 per cent of the population are English-speaking and 4 per cent represent the various ethnic communities. The riding is a veritable paradise for people who like peace and quiet. As far as the economy is concerned, there is a good business environment with the following main industries: manufacturing, construction and the petro-chemical sector. I may add for the information of the House that today, five correctional centres are located in the riding, and even more important, there is a training centre for correctional centre staff, the only francophone centre in Canada.
As a new Member of Parliament I would like to take advantage of the occasion of my maiden speech in the House to say that I fully realize I have yet a great deal to learn, while sharing with my colleagues the business of Parliament and the responsibilities we have to the people we represent here in Parliament.
Mr. Speaker, as a newcomer to Parliament, I have not only a great deal to learn, but also much to offer in the way of experience and my perception of the economic problems facing this country today. Speaking with the people of Duvernay who have entrusted me with the difficult task of speaking for my constituents and explaining their needs before this national forum, I have a deep sense of my responsibility in meeting their expectations and helping them to put the economy of our country back on the right course.
One could compare Canada's distressing economic situation to what happens when we want to renovate an old house. Before you can renovate or expand, you first have to remove any rot from the beams and reinforce the frame. Our Government has made a firm resolve not to act hastily, to ensure that both the economy and the Government will be operating effectively in the interests of all Canadians. I am therefore very happy to be part of a team that is determined to bring this country's horrific deficit under control.
1 would like to add, as the only Italian Member of the Government, that I am proud to represent in this House both the riding of Duvernay and the entire Italian community. Even as a junior Member of Parliament who may not have a great deal of impact on Government decision-making, I am confident, after many conversations with my colleagues, that I will be able to explain satisfactorily the problems of my riding and to act as my constituents' spokesman in the House of Commons.
Mr. Speaker, today is the first time I have spoken to Bill C-ll, an Act to provide borrowing authority. I am pleased with this opportunity to say a few words about the reasons for tabling this Bill. I would like to mention briefly some of the premises that form the basis for my comments today. I would
December 4, 1984

like to speak to the Bill presented by my colleague, the Hon. Minister of State for Finance (Mrs. McDougall), in my capacity of entrepreneur representing small- and mediumsized businesses.
It is actually somewhat against our principles to support the Bill before the House, because in our opinion, there is a crucial and almost direct link between reducing the deficit and sound management of the Canadian economy in general. However, considering our goal of economic renewal, I wish to express my support for this Bill. No obstacle is as impressive, almost insurmountable and threatening as this federal deficit!
The Bill before the House is aimed at giving the Government an additional borrowing authority of $7.3 billion for fiscal 1984-85, of which $2 billion may be carried forward to fiscal 1985-86. The reserve of $2 billion is intended to cover unpredictable changes in financial requirements. But why has the national deficit suddenly become an important priority on the list of our national policies? After all, we all know that a deficit for a given year is not necessarily a major problem.
However, Canadians are beginning to understand that in recent years, the previous Government registered deficits in years of growth as well as during recession periods. The accumulated deficits have, over the years, generated a cumulative debt of alarming proportions.
This year, the public debt will reach $190 billion, which works out to the equivalent of an individual debt of $24,000 for each Canadian family. Because of this disastrous economic liability we inherited from the previous Government, today we must put the national economy back on course by restoring the confidence of consumers, business and entrepreneurs who are anxious to see a return to responsible management of the country's economy. We do not like borrowing, and as far as that goes, we do not really like the Bill before the House today. However, we are faced with a dilemma. The previous legislation has already given the Government a borrowing authority of $24.5 billion. However, to ensure the proper functioning of our economy, we must go ahead and ask, through Bill C-ll, for a total borrowing authority of $31.85 billion.
A maximum borrowing authority of $16 billion is provided for the 1985-86 fiscal year without possibility of carrying it over to 1986-87, and as the Minister of State has noted, the Bill introduced in this House should enable the Government to meet its borrowing needs until next fall. Later on, a Bill should be introduced after the budget is brought down next spring to cover borrowing needs for the rest of the 1985-86 fiscal year.
Of course, some people might be shocked at the contents of this Bill, but we have no choice: if we had not taken this action, we would very soon have been deeper in debt. To improve borrowing management, to restore a sense of responsibility and active participation in the operation of our
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economy and to provide some financial stability, we must support the solution provided by the legislation itself. By its very nature, this Bill constitutes a kind of incentive which will allow us to break the vicious circle of indebtedness; the loss of confidence of consumers and investors has already cost us a lot during the last few years, especially where stable employment is concerned.
The deficit is eroding the very foundation of our economy. It is only by reinforcing the framework of our economy that we can restore business confidence. We need positive investors. We must give them back the motivation to undertake new economic ventures in a true spirit of competition.
Mr. Speaker, the last years of the previous Government are a typical example of a system which I think works like the well-known story about the antelope and the lion. When the lion wants to eat, it runs after the antelope, but when it comes back without having caught the antelope, it does not ask for a grant to tie it down.
I shall close with these words, Mr. Speaker, as the time allotted me has run out.


Mr. Maurice Tremblay (Lotbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, I thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to say what I think about Bill C-ll to provide borrowing authority, but before I do that, I should like to commend my colleague from Duvernay (Mr. Della Noce) for his brilliant statement, particularly since it was his maiden speech.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will not hold it against me if I go into the background of Bill C-ll. Previous speakers have already eloquently said everything that needed to be said, and then some. However, I think it is important, and that is the purpose of my contribution, to emphasize one aspect which is half way between what the Opposition is blaming us for and what we are proposing.
For at least two or two and a half months now, we have been told again and again that Canadians wanted the change of government we had promised during the election campaign. The key word was "jobs, jobs, jobs", and now we are being censured because of the cutbacks. Well, it is true that giving jobs to Canadians will be quite a departure from the former administration, but one thing they seem to forget is that we have promised jobs and, true enough, jobs there will be. But how are we going to do that? Basically, the Opposition is blaming us probably because we are not using the same means they did.
Surely, Mr. Speaker, you will agree that if we were to use the same means, we would obviously reach the same point as the former government-a shameful deficit and an intolerable unemployment rate.
We never said to the people that we had a magic formula, a wonder recipe for creating jobs. We did say quite clearly that we would improve the economic and social climate through a

December 4, 1984
Borrowing Authority
policy of reconciliation and consultation with the various levels of government. And already we have seen tangible results of that consultation and reconciliation process.
Mr. Speaker, this august body stands as evidence of the fact that, not only throughout Canada but especially in Quebec, we have managed to achieve what some people thought was impossible: we were able to have more than 57 Conservative Members elected in the Province of Quebec. Why? Because we consulted one another, each of us in his or her riding, throughout Canada, but particularly in Quebec where I know what is going on, we consulted one another, we all worked together towards a common objective. Many people think that it was a miracle. Well, Mr. Speaker, it was not a miracle, but the result of joint efforts among the various talents we had at our disposal. There you are. That is exactly what we are suggesting to the Canadian people. We want to promote a climate of dialogue with the various levels of government in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, I am quite surprised to see once again that the Opposition, particularly the Official Opposition, is raking us over the coals about the cutbacks. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, that was part and parcel of that climate of consultation. We simply had to divorce ourselves from the previous administration, its wasteful ways and its shameless patronage.
As an individual and as a representative of a riding, I am not overly enthusiastic about those cutbacks, particularly when I am directly affected. That is understandable. But when I keep in mind the ultimate objective of this exercise, I am even prepared to vote today on the basic principle of this Bill, since it will eventually help us give Canadians what they expect from us.
As to the other Opposition, the New Democratic Party, they keep on raising objections very forcefully but all in all, they are simply in favour of virtue. I am also in favour of virtue, except that in their case-and I do not know whether they are listening-the problem is that they have no definition of virtue. They always say where they stand once the train has gone by: if it is good, I am all for it, if it is not good, I am against it. But that, always after the fact. Before, we have no idea where they stand. Criticizing seems to be their raison d'etre.
Mr. Speaker, sensible Canadians-they make up the majority in this country-had their say on September 4, and the results are there to see.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Order, please. It being five o'clock, the House will proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-MOTIONS

["Order. The hour provided for consideration of private Members' business has now expired."]
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Shall all orders and items preceding No. 27 stand by unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



[Stage Direction]
ADVISABILITY OF PROMOTING INDIAN SELF-GOVERNMENT Mr. Keith Penner (Cochrane-Superior) moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of promoting Indian self-government by:
1.	Announcing support for an affirmative policy of constitutional recognition of aboriginal self-government;
2.	Pursuing actively, a bilateral process of discussion with representatives of first nations on such issues as self-government, natives claims and the elimination of the extinguishment policy; and
3.	Introducing legislation to recognize first nations self-government which should be developed by means of a joint process and utilization of the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I believe that most Canadians would be dismayed and perhaps even outraged if they knew fully that there is a significant group of people in our country calling for emancipation. As difficult as it may be for us to believe, there is a group of people wanting to be decolonized.
The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Crombie) said it very well in committee this morning when he indicated that there is a group of people in Canada who have a sense of powerlessness because they virtually have no control over the most important decisions affecting their daily lives. I am talking about more than a quarter of a million people who are living in Canada and who are weary beyond words of having us standing on their toes. Small nations of people, people who describe themselves as Canada's First Nations, can no longer bear the burden of having us on their backs. The Indian people of Canada want to have their right to self-government, their right to self-determination, recognized in the Constitution of Canada. There is a great need for the federal Government at the next two constitutional conferences between the spring of 1985 and 1987 to be a very strong advocate for Indian people as they seek to have this right defined and entrenched in our Constitution.
I do not think they are asking for too much. For a very long time Indian people have disputed the right of the Government of Canada to run their lives. However, it is only very recently that this situation has begun to receive the public attention it deserves. Their claim to self-government is historically based. Before European settlers arrived on these shores, there were numerous Indian First Nations which were governing themselves quite adequately. They had their own economies, cultures and languages; they traded with one another.
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[Stage Direction]
The Indian Act of 1876 eroded and undermined these traditional Indian governments in Canada. They were replaced with a form of government which we in our wisdom thought was appropriate for them. We called these new forms of government band councils. These band councils never had any real power. Little chores were delegated to them from time to time, but they never had any real power. All decision-making remained with the government of Canada through the Department of Indian Affairs.
In the mid-1960s it looked as if some enlightenment had arrived in the mind of the government of Canada because it started a new policy called devolution in which it transferred, as was said, responsibilities to Indian communities. Let me examine what that really was. It increased the flow of funds, fairly significantly I should add, and asked band councils to administer certain programs. However, they were never given any decision-making power. They could not participate in the way budgets were derived. They could not participate in the programs developed on their behalf. They were only administrative arms of the government of Canada. I may say that in most cases they administered very well and did so very cheaply on behalf of the government of Canada. All of that has to come to an end because we know how unsuccessful it has been.
Social statistics in Indian communities are a national disgrace. They are appalling, whether we are talking about housing, education, health or any area vital to everyone's daily life. I will not take the time of the House to repeat those statistics. I have done it in the past and they are available. For example, they are available in a public document prepared by the government in 1980 entitled Indian Conditions. So dismal is the record of the government of Canada in directing and controlling the lives of these people that now they are saying, "Give the responsibility back to us; let us manage, control and direct our own affairs; bring to an end this domination and manipulation which has been going on for so many years".
There should not be any misunderstanding in the minds of Members of the House. There is nothing here which is not perfectly legitimate, fair and reasonable. Let it not be thought by any Hon. Member that this is a call for absolute sovereignty or that this is somehow thinly disguised separation. Not at all, not at all.
Indian people are asking to be within the confines and the limits of the Canadian Confederation. Indian people are not asking to be excluded from our Confederation; they are asking to be allowed in. There may be some people in this House and in other parts of the country who will resent these claims for self-determination. This subject is open to misinterpretation, misunderstanding and even ridicule.
Speaking of the relationship between the government of Canada and the Indian people, I should like to quote a statement by Dr. Lloyd Barber of Saskatchewan who once said:
I suppose we tend to react like somebody who has been standing on the other fellow's toes for so long that we are indignant when he wants to pull his foot out.
Indian Self-government
Nearly 100 years ago Leo Tolstoy put it this way:
I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all possible means-except by getting off his back.
Did Hon. Members know, for example, that these artificial governments which we invented and imposed upon Indian people, these chiefs and councils, spend 75 per cent of their time dealing with the administrative overburden imposed upon them by the Department of Indian Affairs? They have been elected in a democratic fashion the same as all Hon. Members of the House were elected. Yet the chiefs and councils have virtually no time to serve the people who elected them and to be accountable to them.
Indian people want the right to govern themselves recognized in the Constitution of Canada. They also want to be recognized by way of statute in this House. They want a self-government Bill that will replace this outmoded and antiquated Indian Act by which we now govern Indian people. Indian government in this country will be distinct. It is not to be confused with provincial governments. It is not municipal government. It is distinct. It is different. It will take many different forms because there is a tremendously rich diversity within the Indian community of Canada. Some forms of government will be tradional, like the potlatch. It is ludicrous to recall a time when the potlatch was actually outlawed. RCMP officers swooped down on a potlatch, arrested people, confiscated relics and objects of art. That is part of our glorious history.
These individual Indian governments will be distinct. Some forms will be suprisingly innovative and modern. I invite Hon. Members to attend on some occasion in the near future an Assembly of the First Nations. It is a parliament like ours. They have a Speaker. Delegates are elected. It is amazing how the order of business is conducted, that with a very large assembly, Members listen to what the others say and try to reach a consensus. When you compare their parliament and ours, what a shame ours is. We appear immature compared to the way their parliament functions.
Whatever form Indian government takes, it must be indigenous government. It cannot be something imposed, such as band government. The powers that these indigenous governments exercise are inherent powers. They belong to them. They are not powers that can be derived from some other level of government whose origins date only to the arrival of Europeans on this shore.
Following recognition by way of the Constitution and by way of statute, which I hope we will pass in this House, there will have to be some protracted and difficult negotiations to define the jurisdiction of these people. The Indian people are quite willing to enter into this bilateral process of government to work out what their jurisdiction will be, but they do not want to proceed by way of consultation.
If Hon. Members have reserves in their constituencies and they visit them from time to time, if I am not being arrogant in
[Stage Direction]
December 4, 1984
Indian Self-government
doing so, may I counsel them to avoid the word "consultation". That word has become so badly tainted in the relationship between the government of Canada and Indian people that it is no longer an acceptable word. In the past, consultation meant a few little discussions after the decision was made. They knew all the time it was a unilateral, imposed decision. They want genuine negotations to determine exactly the jurisdiction that will be exercised by these distinct governments in Canada.
We had such a Bill in the last Parliament, Bill C-52. It was an Indian self-government Bill, but what an inadequate, flawed Bill it was. It was totally unacceptable.
An Hon. Member:: It was a Liberal Bill.


B. Keith Penner: I do not think it was very liberal at all. It was an illiberal Bill. It did the same thing that has been done for so long in the past. That Bill was not developed by way of joint process. It was developed in the usual way, unilaterally, with a few telephone calls and a bit of conversation from time to time. It was not developed bilaterally as the special committee said it should be.
I would like to see that Bill referred to the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development, but not at second reading stage which would lock us into a clause by clause study. The subject matter could be referred to the standing committee under our new and very able Chairman, the Hon. Member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Schellenberger). If we had that Bill in its subject matter form and had the resources to call upon, I believe we could submit for consideration to this House a vastly improved Bill, one that would be acceptable.
I have been talking about legislation. I want to interject very quickly that legislation will not be a substitute for recognition of the right to Indian self-government within the Constitution of Canada. It is merely a step along the way.
Before concluding and allowing other Hon. Members to express their views to the House, my motion also includes reference to the native claims policy. This morning in committee, the Minister indicated that he was going to undertake a full-scale review of that policy. That is long overdue. In reply to a question I put to him in the House today, the Minister stated that part of that review will look very carefully at what is known as the extinguishment requirement.
I wish to take a moment to tell Hon. Members about the extinguishment requirement and see whether they believe that it actually exists. This is how it works. If a native group has a legitimate claim that has been accepted by the government of Canada and enters into negotiations to reach a settlement and a new agreement, at the time that agreement is signed all residual aboriginal rights must be surrendered. The other party to the agreement, the government of Canada, surrenders nothing except what is in the agreement. The other party must surrender everything.
Whoever heard of an agreement like that? Obviously that which is in the agreement must be surrendered. If it is the amount of land or compensation, there has to be a quit claim on that. It cannot be re-opened. To have all other aboriginal
rights surrendered is unreasonable and unacceptable. I believe it is also unconstitutional. Some day that will have to be tested in a court of law.
This policy of extinguishment must go. In his answer today, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development indicated that he is prepared to lead the way in getting rid of it. He will have some problems. He will have problems with the Minister of Justice (Mr. Crosbie), not because the Minister is an unreasonable man but because this policy somehow got entrenched in the dark corridors of the Department of Justice and it is now believed to be right.
The former Minister of Justice gave me a letter dictated to him by his officials. They were adamant that there could be no movement at all on the extinguishment policy. Today I listened to the Minister of Justice who replied in a confused, halfhearted way. There were more hedges in his answer than in an English country garden.
I conclude by asking whether the Parliament Secretary will give careful consideration to not talking out this motion this afternoon. I ask that he consider having the subject matter of this motion referred to the standing committee. In doing that, there will be no commitment by the Government. Let the standing committee use this motion to do a number of helpful things. This morning in committee, the Minister indicated that he wants to work with the committee, to take it into his confidence. He does not want to use us in some manipulative way. He wants us to be part of the process in developing an Indian policy of which the country can be proud. Here is an opportunity for the Parliamentary Secretary to have a few of his Members make some comments, and before six o'clock agree that the motion not be talked out but be referred to the committee. Other Members will then have an opportunity to express their views in committee and we can carry on for some period of time by looking at these very important, sensitive and difficult issues.


Mr. Girve Fretz (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, I listened with intent interest to the speech delivered by the Hon. Member for Cochrane-Superior (Mr. Penner). Many of us know the Hon. Member. Those of us who have been Members of previous Parliaments and have worked with him on Indian affairs and on the special task force on Indian self-government know that he has earned a reputation which is perhaps second to none for his regard for the Indian people and for the justice he wishes for them. I commend the Hon. Member for Cochrane-Superior for the general thrust of his motion.
The report of the Special Parliamentary Committee on Indian Self-Government, which was tabled in the House a little over a year ago, has come to be known as the Penner report after the Hon. Member who just spoke. He and all members of this special parliamentary committee are to be commended for the manner in which they approached the
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committee's mandate and for the provoking, detailed report which they produced.
In attempting to ensure that Canada's relationship to the Indian First Nations is one of honour and decency, the Hon. Member and his committee have done a great service to all Canadians. By recommending a new relationship which combines historic precedents with current realities, the special committee has set forth a vision for a future in which other governments in Canada might relate to Indian First Nation governments in a spirit of mutual accommodation.
The relationship between the Indian First Nations and the Canadian government is indeed unsatisfactory. Far-reaching change is needed. I think we all agree that an entirely new relationship must somehow be established. It seems to be obvious and indeed reasonable that the people of Indian First Nations must be able to control their own affairs in a manner which respects their diversity, rights and traditions.
We on this side of the House support the concept of a new relationship between the federal government and Indian First Nations. An essential element of the new relationship is the recognition of Indian self-government. This would be beneficial to Canada. The current dependency cycle in which the Indian people and Canada are caught must end. If the communities have the power to determine their own destinies within the Canadian Confederation, they and all of Canada will be strengthened.
The current legal assumptions are not an adequate basis for the new relationship. Now that aboriginal and treaty rights have constitutional protection, Canada requires a new legal framework to ensure that the rights and well-being of the Indian First Nations are protected. Canada must re-order its legal system to accommodate First Nation governments.
Consultations and constitutional discussions have been put under way to determine how self-government can be recognized in Canadian law and how self-government is to be dealt with in the Canadian Constitution. I know the Hon. Member believes that Indian self-government must be specifically stated and entrenched in the Constitution of Canada and that constitutional amendment is the surest way to achieve a permanent and fundamental change in the relationship between Indian First Nations and the federal government. Be that as it may, any such basic change must be carefully considered and accepted by Canadian society at large.
One of the processes through which self-government might be achieved would be bilateral discussions and agreements made within the context of current laws and constitutional arrangements. The multilateral or constitutional amendment process gives provinces an opportunity to co-operate with the federal government in a joint program and policy to advance self-government among Indian peoples in their own communities and on their own lands.
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 which is acknowledged in the Constitution of Canada provided the first basis for recognition of Indian governments and a direct link between First Nations and the Crown. It established a means through which
Indian Self-government
the federal government could enter into treaties and agreements. This arrangement can be used again to enter into agreements with the Indian First Nations so that there will be no confusion with the jurisdiction exercised by the various levels of government.
One thing is obvious to me, Mr. Speaker. The Indian Act is not an acceptable blueprint for self-government. Even if it were to be amended, the Indian Act is not acceptable. Any legislative framework in the area of Indian self-government must be flexible enough to allow for all the governmental arrangements that will be proposed by Indian First Nations.
I am sure a wide variety of Indian governmental styles will emerge, depending upon culture, location, size and the wishes of the people involved. As well, the development of Indian First Nation governments will be sure to proceed at different paces. Needs will change and forms of government will change as well. Such diversity, changes and varying paces are to be welcomed and indeed are to be accommodated.
On an interim basis, pending constitutional change, the federal Government has the option to introduce new legislation which would enhance constitutional entrenchment and which would then reaffirm the special relationship of the federal Government with the First Nations. Through this legislation, the federal Government could then affirm the maximum amount of self-government which it can within its current powers. This possible option is one for which consultations with many sectors are taking place and will continue to take place. The widest possible consultations and participation are necessary if such fundamental legislation is to be developed.
Before colonization, Indian peoples had governments which were accountable to them. This principle has been disrupted by the Indian Act. We support the principle of arrangements which allow Indian people to maintain governments accountable to them. In some instances, joint control will be desirable where First Nation, provincial or federal jurisdictions might overlap. With attitudes of mutual accommodation, sensitivity and respect on the part of provincial and federal governments,
I think agreements on how the jurisdictions could best be jointly exercised would be possible. Such agreements would ensure a workable sharing of power and responsibility.
The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Crombie) is beginning to engage in a serious review in which the Indian First Nations will be involved. This is a review of all existing policies of his Department so that policies may be changed to enhance self-government. He will ensure that only initiatives which lead in the direction of increased self-government are acceptable. This transition process is immediate and will be ongoing. It will be a visible indication of the serious wish of the federal Government to respect a relationship of mutual accommodation.
Recent court decisions have caused a re-examination of federal responsibilities including the degree of obligation of the federal government's specific duty to promote the interests of Indian First Nations. We recognize that there are competing interests. Perhaps there is a specific duty of the Minister to protect the rights of First Nations against encroachment of

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Indian Self-government
other interests. Perhaps his responsibility must be to act on behalf of the federal Government so that its agreements with the First Nations will be honoured. Ele might be the first recourse of First Nations for action in remedying problems in their relationship with Canada. All of these concepts are now under review by the Minister.
The Government recognizes that there are Indian persons who may not be members of Indian First Nations or who live away from their First Nations lands who continue to have special needs. This is particularly true of those Indian people who live in cities. In this discussion on self-government, I would like to mention that our Government reaffirms its willingness to work with Indian people, Indian First Nations governments, provincial governments and organizations toward arrangements that respect the rights and aspirations of such people so that they may benefit equally with others in the Canadian society in which they live.
The Indian First Nations have shared with Canada the resources of this great and bountiful land. We believe there is a special obligation on the federal Government to ensure that First Nations have the power to plan and implement economic ventures on the community level in whatever forms may seem appropriate to the people of the First Nations. We are moving to adopt those policies and to make them operative. The federal Government will adopt policies which will see that an adequate land and resource base is restored in a manner which does not prejudice the rights and interests of third parties nor the rights of the provinces. Claims for past wrongs must be fairly settled. These are measures the Government is taking so that Indian First Nations will be able to help build the economic bases which are needed if they are to prosper with the rest of Canada.
We note with concern that recent federal initiatives in this regard have been inadequate, as was indicated by the previous speaker. They have been inadequate and inappropriate. They neither serve First Nations nor Canada.
We cannot speak of Indian dependence without noting that Indian First Nations have been denied sufficient resources to maintain themselves for well over a century. As a result, serious deficiencies of community infrastructure exist which we would like to see corrected so that community infrastructure can be improved to a level equal to that of the surrounding communities, but according to priorities, policies and planning established by each Indian First Nation. We will not confuse funding for these purposes with economic development.
What about fiscal arrangements for self-government? We recognize that Indian First Nations require a financial underpinning in a manner which is in harmony with and reinforcing of self-government. The current method of federal funding is totally unsatisfactory and new fiscal arrangements are required. The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has recently announced that he is exploring a means of introducing block-funding to Indian governments which are held accountable by their people. Such new funding
arrangements for Indian First Nation governments will enable them to decide how best to meet their people's needs, to set their priorities and to make their own policies. The people of each Indian First Nation will then be able to assume the responsibility of ensuring that these powers are exercised responsibly.
The present duplication, wasteful budgeting and accountability requirements which sap a large percentage of funds allocated by Parliament to benefit the Indian First Nations will no longer be required when ministerial accountability is eliminated in favour of the accountability of Indian governments to their own people. We are exploring a system of direct transfer payments in which Parliament would be asked to take the responsibility for allocation by grants as the means of funding. Eventually, we can see the day when each Indian First Nation will have its own assured sources of income as a result of a control of land and resources, resource revenuesharing, income from investment and economic activity. Until then, interim grants are necessary and justified. We are seeking a way of funding which would allow each First Nation to chose the mechanisms through which it would provide services to its people.
We must find a way, in these times of restraint and fiscal responsibility, to provide a level of funding sufficient so that First Nation governments can provide levels of services on a par with others in Canada, which will allow them to become healthy and productive communities. This can be done only when funds can be expended in accord with their own values and under their own control. This is imperative.
We believe that Indian First Nations which have not yet established sufficient political infrastructure or mechanisms for self-government but which wish to participate in the new arrangements should be able to do so by arranging for a third party to provide services on a contract basis. In some cases these services might come from a provincial government or from the private sector. By moving to these new fiscal arrangements, the federal Government is not only enhancing Indian self-government, but it is reducing unnecessary administrative costs and providing for the best use of scarce funds.
It is a special relationship. The federal Government is moving in these directions not only because it seems to be the right and just thing to do, but because the special relationship between the Crown and the Indian First Nations can best be honoured by enhancing the recognition of Indian First Nations self-government and by providing the resources to make it work. We believe that by moving in these directions the Government will strengthen a relationship with the First Nations which is in compliance with international standards and within the spirit and intent of the original special relationship which was established by our ancestors and the Crown.
In conclusion, there certainly will be areas in which we will be urged to move more rapidly. There can be no doubt about that. There will be those who feel that we are not going far enough. These are uncharted grounds, both for us and for Indian people. There are vast areas which require clarification and others which require fine-tuning. By following the guidelines already set out by the distinguished Hon. Member who
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presented the motion and the special committee which he chaired, the Government is demonstrating its commitment to the spirit of this motion.


Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I would first like to express my appreciation to the Hon. Member for Cochrane-Superior (Mr. Penner) for bringing this motion forward. I think that three parts of the motion are consistent with the report on First Nations self-government which was unanimously approved by Members of all three Parties in the last Parliament.
I was interested in listening to the Parliamentary Secretary, the Hon. Member for Erie (Mr. Fretz), who made a number of suggestions and proposals upon which, he said, the Government would be acting. I simply urge him and his Government to act upon those proposals as soon as possible and to lay them on the table so that the standing committee and the Indian people themselves can examine them and make suggestions and criticims. Then we can get this whole process in place as early as possible. The Hon. Member knows, as we all do, Mr. Speaker, of the urgency of this situation.
There is a general consensus on what needs to be done which is recognized by all people who have looked at this situation. We realize that the present system is not working. It is certainly not working for the Indian people who have been caught in a downward spiral of poverty and dependence. They have been subject to the discrimination and restrictions of the Indian Act. It is not working for the Canadian taxpayer either. We have seen some attempts over the last 110 years to 115 years to force Indian people and Indian communities and governments into a preconceived mould. These attempts have been expensive failures. They have not worked. If they have not completely destroyed the Indian governments which existed prior to the establishment of the Dominion of Canada, they have certainly prevented these Indian governments from functioning in an effective way; they have prevented Indian governments from effectively meeting the needs of their people; and they have prevented Indian governments from helping to keep their people abreast of the needs of the 20th century. They have worked in a very negative manner indeed.
Indian people do not want to become assimilated and have been willing to pay the price of poverty rather than to become assimilated. They do not want to see their nations reduced to the status of municipalities. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, now is the time for action. I was disappointed that there was no reference in the Throne Speech to any action with regard to First Nations government, but I was very pleased to hear what the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary had to say and we hope that the Government will act on those proposals in this section of Parliament.
The previous government acted to the extent of appointing a special committee. After that committee made its report, the government then moved very slowly. Finally, in the dying days of the last Parliament, the government brought in Bill C-52, but it was brought in so late that it was never debated in the
Indian Self-government
House, never referred to committee and, therefore, there was no opportunity for the committee to hear Indian witnesses or make any general examination of any shortcomings or strengths the Bill might have had.
Roberta Jamieson, the liaison member for the Assembly of First Nations, examined the Bill and developed a critique of it.
I would like to quote some of her comments because I believe it is important to have on the record the perspective of one person who was very close to this situation as a member of an Indian First Nation. Miss Jamieson said, and I quote:
C-52 speaks of "special responsibility to Indian peoples", but does not speak of special relationship with Indian governments. The new status for which some bands might be eligible is more corporate than political in nature, and it is acquired from the federal government.
In the Bill, the federal government has been careful to protect its own interests and to protect itself from possible liabilities. In doing so, it has weakened the already weak protection of First Nation interests available under the Indian Act.
There is no recognition of the inherent right of First Nation self-government, nor is there in the Preamble any commitment to seek entrenchment through the constitutional process nor commitment to seek to establish a distinct order of First Nation government. Bill C-52 is not related to nor does it enhance constitutional entrenchment.
Approved bands would have more powers under the legislation than are now available to band councils. But these powers must be exercised within contribution agreements, and the federal government may withdraw its recognition at any time, or be put under a federal administrator, Any law made by an Indian government can be cancelled by the federal government at its discretion.
The federal government maintains total authority over what is acceptable and what is not.
In short, the Bill provides a complex system of cosmetic changes in which the federal government maintains the power and control in the hands of the Minister and the Cabinet.
Bill C-52 continues legislating over Indians and Indian lands. In fact, it seems to ignore the fact that the Canadian Constitution recognizes that aboriginal rights limits Parliament's powers.
No proposal is made for the kind of dramatic change in federal government machinery necessary to allow First Nations to deal with the Canadian government on a government-to-government basis. It does not even establish a new Ministry-everything is left to Indian Affairs. Nor is there any indication Indian Affairs will ever be reduced in size. The new legislation would require increases in the bureaucracy to administer it.
Bill C-52 does not call for revision of the land claims process. No mention is made of accelerated settlement of long-standing grievances, and the concept of "extinguishment" remains as a pillar of federal policy.
No real changes in fiscal arrangements are proposed. Only modifications in current arrangements are suggested. Indian governments will simultaneously have to be accountable to their own people while continuing to be accountable to the Minister for all funds spent and for performance of its governmental functions.
Obviously, Mr. Speaker, there are a great many flaws in Bill C-52 and it is not satisfactory. We look forward to something better from the present Government. In that connection, I was pleased to hear the Hon. Member for Erie say that there is going to be the widest possible participation and consultation with Indian leaders. I would urge the Government to bring in funding for the Assembly of First Nations-the funding has expired at the end of the second quarter-so that Indian First Nations can continue with the process of developing their Indian self-government proposals. If there is going to be the widest possible participation, then it is absolutely essential that Indian peoples be funded so that they can participate in a reasonable and responsible manner.

December 4, 1984
Indian self-government
The motion as introduced by the Hon. Member for Cochrane-Superior has three parts. The first part calls for government support for an affirmative policy of constitutional recognition of aboriginal self-government. This coming spring we have another of the constitutional conferences involving the federal and provincial governments. Indian people all across Canada have been very suspicious of the process which involves the provinces. Until now they have only been involved with the federal government. They are suspicious of provincial involvement and have been very disappointed with the results so far. Part of the reason is that the previous government did not take a sufficiently outspoken attitude toward the whole question of the entrenchment of aboriginal rights. The previous government was prepared to sit back until the very last moment when it suddenly decided that it was going to support the concept of aboriginal rights.
What the Indian people, as well as other aboriginal people, would like from the present Government, Mr. Speaker, is that it become an outspoken advocate of aboriginal rights and that it recognize the right to self-government now. There will then be time to mould a consensus involving the Canadian people so that at the time of the constitutional conference the provinces will not be able to say, "Well, we have not had time to consider this. Our people are not prepared", and that sort of thing. We would like to see the Government take an active advocacy role on behalf of First Nation's government.
Second, the motion calls for a bilateral process. There are already many areas where the federal Government and Indian First Nations can negotiate so that Indian First Nations will have much more power under the present system. Certainly the improvements to the land claims process are of the ultimate importance and priority here. Then there is the whole question of introducing legislation, and I urge the Government to do that now.
It is important for all Members of this House and the Canadian people generally to recognize that the situation of aboriginal peoples in Canada is changing. First we had constitutional recognition. Second, we are beginning to get some court decisions which recognize the fundamental nature of aboriginal title. Perhaps the most important of those decisions was handed down in Vancouver just last month. It said that the interest of Indian people in their lands is a pre-existing right, not created by royal proclamation, by Section 18(1) of the Indian Act or by any other executive order or legislative provision. These rights existed before the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which simply recognized those rights. It is important for the Canadian people to begin to recognize the fundamental nature of those rights and to do justice to them. We do not do justice when we continue to insist upon an extinguishment clause, which is really like telling people: I will agree with you that I owe you money if you will agree that I can keep it. That is what we insist on when we demand that Indian people have an extinguishment clause in every kind of land claims agreement that is signed.
There is a general consensus among all people who have looked at this that the present system is not working, that the direction in which Canada and this Government must go is that of the right of aboriginal peoples to govern themselves. Along with that right there must be a granting of the necessary funding so that it is not a meaningless ritual. There must be the provision of an adequate basis, and consensus already exists among people who have looked at this question.
I urge any Members who do not agree with that consensus to study our report. The consensus exists, the time for action is now, and I urge the Government not to talk out this motion but to refer it and its subject matter to the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development so that we can continue to make some progress. I underline the need for the Government to continue to make funding available to Indian peoples so that they can make progress on this subject also.
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine
East): Mr. Speaker, I fully support this motion but because it is getting near six o'clock I will sit down and ask you to put the question.


Mr. Stan Schellenberger (Wetaskiwin):: Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the Hon. Member for Cochrane-Superior (Mr. Penner) for bringing forward this motion. He will note that because we debate this issue so little in this House, when a motion comes forward there are many Members who want to participate in the debate. I guess that is a problem we faced during the last number of years. Legislation on this issue has not been forthcoming and, as a result, few Members have an opportunity to discuss the issues in the House of Commons, other than in committee. That is why it has been so important in the past that the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development has taken up the cause of the Indian people in various ways and has been very successful in putting forward ideas and suggestions which may be helpful.
I know that it has been the experience of many of us on that committee over the years that there are many varied and different interests of Indian people across this country and it is very difficult for any Minister or any government to bring forward a piece of legislation which will fit every Indian band or Indian self-governing organization in the country. The desires and aspirations of the Indian people of British Columbia are so different from those of the Indian people of Nova Scotia that when the Bill on self-government was brought forward, immediately Indian nations from across the country had many disagreements with the terms. That is why I am encouraged by the Hon. Member's suggestion that the committee take up the subject matter of this legislation and use it as the basis for our discussions so that the legislation is good for the whole of the nation.
The bilateral process has, Mr. Speaker, in my opinion been essential. I could never understand how we got involved in a constitutional process of attempting to entrench various aspects of the Indian way of life when many of the provinces are not comfortable with the terms that Indian people have
December 4, 1984

using for the last number of years, such as "Indian nation", or with the attempt to eliminate the extinguishment policy. That is why they have been demanding specifics. They do not want problems resulting from entrenchment.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the Hon. Member for bringing forward the motion. I hope the committee can take up the work, and I look forward to working with him and other Members as we hopefully continue to foster the work of this Parliament and the Indian people across the country.


Mr. John A. MacDougall (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to congratulate the Hon. Member for Cochrane-Superior (Mr. Penner) on introducing his motion today. I also congratulate other Members who have worked long and hard over a number of years on this very important report. I had the opportunity a year ago to take part in this committee which travelled to parts of my riding in northern Ontario and to listen to different band members from northwestern Ontario and hear their concerns regarding selfgovernment, dealing with government, and their day-to-day problems.
The Parliamentary Secretary announced today some of the areas which the Government and the Minister are prepared to deal with, such as Indian self-government and the day-to-day problems from coast-to-coast that we have to deal with.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Order. The hour provided for consideration of private Members' business has now expired.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. John Parry (Kenora-Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, on November 16 I directed a question to the Hon. Minister of State for Mines (Mr. Layton) concerning the closure of the Griffith Mine located between Ear Falls and Red Lake, Ontario. It was with regard to the 283 jobs, almost one-quarter of the areas workforce, which would be lost should Stelco go through with its intention of closing this mine in April of 1985. I rise today to basically get an update from the Parliamentary Secretary and to offer him an opportunity to read into the record some of the initiatives and moves that his ministry has taken in the meantime.
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Specifically, I would like the House to be informed about what discussions have taken place with Stelco and what they have revealed. I am assuming that there has been discussion at the ministerial level with the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Sinclair) who was responsible for the ILAP Program, and also with the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Miss MacDonald) who, if the mine in question does close, will be charged with the responsibility of delivering the adjustment programs that will be necessary. I have the assurance of the Minister of State for Mines that the area would qualify for these programs, at least on a "level of assistance similar to that given mines recently closed in Quebec".
In the economic statement the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) announced that there would be special consideration for single industry towns that were closed down. In his original answer the Minister of State for Mines said that the Government is "ready to assist them to the fullest possible extent with existing programs".
Could the Parliamentary Secretary bring us up to date on discussions with the provincial Ministers concerned, particularly the Ministers of Northern Affairs and of Labour? Have there been any exploratory discussions along the lines of determining a bad ministry and appointing a federal-provincial co-ordinator? Has there been any work done with Stelco in exploring the possibility of obtaining alternative customers? I have in mind the Ipsco plant in Regina, Saskatchewan and the Manitoba rolling mills plant? Would the Parliamentary Secretary take this opportunity to bring us up to date on federal Government initiatives?


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, I would first like to express to the Hon. Member my appreciation for giving us ample notice of his question and for accommodating the Minister in the sense that we are not prepared last week or the week before to respond in greater detail to the question, simply because the Minister was absent from the city.
The Hon. Member is aware of most of the information that I can give him tonight. As he knows, in a press release dated November 15, Stelco announced that the Griffith mine located between Ear Falls and Red Lake, Ontario, would close permanently as of April, 1985. There will be a displacement of up to 282 jobs in that area. Whenever anything like that happens it is very critical and serious. I want to assure the Hon. Member that this announcement arrived here at a vital moment and was taken very seriously.
Yes, there has been dialogue with the company. There have been efforts and examinations into the potential for new customers for the type of product which the mine produces. Unfortunately, it is of a type and a quality that does not lend itself, in present market conditions, to be sold elsewhere.
This mine is the highest cost iron ore mine in Canada, if not one of the highest cost mines in the world. It is a very low

December 4, 1984
Adjournment Debate
volume mine. In other words, there is a lack of economy of scale to consider further operations. It has not been the judgment of any previous government to develop long-term policies with regard to closures of mines. That is the nature of a mining venture. Mining ventures are not only subject to the cyclical nature of that particular industry, but are subject also to the phasing out of an ore body or the volume in the mine.
I can give the Hon. Member the assurance that the Minister has discussed the situation with his counterparts in Cabinet. Every existing program, including enriched ILAP, will be made available to the area. These are training programs, manpower relocation and so on. There have been discussions with provincial counterparts. I cannot tell the Hon. Member which ministry will be the lead agency to service the communities, but everything possible has been done.
In addition to that, the Minister is committed as is the Government to work most expeditiously to develop more longterm policy that would address itself to this general situation; naturally not to this problem because it is an immediate problem and we can only use the existing facilities that we inherited when the Government took office on September 4. There will be very expeditious movement toward a long-term policy that will plan the phasing out of a mine at the inception of a mining venture. That is a critical development involving not only federal and provincial governments and their agencies but industry and unions as well. I want to assure the Hon. Member that everything possible is being done.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Order, please, the Hon. Member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. Wilson).


FINANCE-FUEL SALES TAX REBATE-POSITION OF BULK FUEL DEALERS
Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker this is further to my question raised November 29 concerning rebate of sales tax on farm fuels. I would direct my remarks to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lanthier). Let me say first that this Government is to be congratulated for moving quickly to fulfil another major promise to provide fuel tax relief to hard-hit primary producers such as farmers, fishermen, miners, and laggers.
I note that Bill C-12, to amend the Excise Tax Act, was read for the first time November 26. Hopefully it will move to second and third reading soon. The amendments will provide for a rebate of sales tax of 3 cents per litre on gas and diesel fuels used in off-highway primary production. As well, the producer will be exempt from the recent 1.8 cent per litre increase in the petroleum compensation charge. Thus the total rebate will be 3 cents plus 1.8 cents, for a total of 4.8 cents per litre or almost 22 cents per gallon, effective December 1, 1984.
Unfortunately there are several problems associated with the rebate. Notwithstanding a communique concerning the program issued yesterday by the Hon. Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Beatty), there appears to be confusion about
application and, even worse, the possibility of discrimination against a large number of bulk fuel dealers.
Since my riding in southwestern Saskatchewan is largely agricultural, I will use the farm community as an example. The sale tax is essentially a refinery tax, and it is payable at the time of sale by the manufacturer. Some bulk fuel dealers- and these are the dealers in villages, towns and cities who retail to the farmer, notably Imperial, Shell, Texaco and Petro-Canada who hold fuel on consignment from headquarters-have an inventory free of sales tax. In effect they are agents of the refinery. They will be in a position to give an immediate sales tax rebate of 22 cents per gallon to their customers.
On the other hand, many bulk fuel dealers have purchased their inventory for resale. I am told that these dealers include Gulf and Husky as well as all co-operatives and independents. These dealers hold inventory on which sales tax has already been paid. Therefore, in order to reimburse themselves they must pass the tax on to the farmer.
1 should like to examine the producer end for a moment. The rules appear to say that the farmer is to secure a bulk fuel permit from Revenue Canada and present it to his dealer. If the dealer has tax free inventory, obviously the rebate benefit of 22 cents per gallon will be given immediately at the time of the sale. However, if the dealer has tax paid inventory, then he must collect the 22 cents from the farmer and tell him to remit an application form along with purchase invoices to Revenue Canada for a rebate.
The average farmer purchases some 10,000 gallons or
45,000	litres per year of farm gas and diesel fuel. The rebate will mean something in the order of $2,200 annually. Let me assure the House that most farmers will be inclined to go for their fuel where they can get it for 22 cents per gallon less up front. They do not want to mess around with the forms and the usual government delays. I see the potential sales of those dealers with tax paid inventory being very seriously affected, through no fault of their own. We realize the difficulties in administration owing to the nature of the tax at the refinery level, and because the rebate is going to only a certain segment of the population. Nevertheless, there appears to be no reason to discriminate against certain dealers.
There appear to be two possible solutions. The first would be to require all dealers to collect the tax. All producers would then submit their invoices and application forms for rebate. Such an application form could be combined with the existing application for the 1.5 cent per litre excise tax refund. Producers could then apply on the same form for all three rebates-the three cents per litre on the sales tax, the 1.8 cent per litre on the petroleum compensation charge and the 1.5 cent per litre excise tax, for a grand total of 6.3 cents per litre, or something in the order of 28 cents per gallon.
The second alternative would be to permit those dealers holding tax paid fuel inventory to give the rebate to their qualified customers over the counter and then seek refund from the Government of the sales tax not collected. If this alternative were selected, the dealers would have to be assured
December 4, 1984

of speedy reimbursement, perhaps through a system of revolving credits.
Another possibility which may occur to the bureaucrats is to resort to coloured fuel to distinguish inventory available to primary producers from that available to the general public. Bulk dealers, who have only so many compartments in their delivery trucks and limited holding space, unanimously beg the Government not to resort to the use of dyes.
In conclusion, I trust the foregoing has explained the potential problem faced by many bulk fuel dealers. The rebates are to take effect from December 1. It is now December 4. Of course the amendments are not yet law; there is still time to rectify the problem. I raise it now in the hope that remedial action can be taken. The producers and dealers need a rebate system that is fair to all and simple to administer.
I again congratulate the Government on instituting a system which will provide much needed relief. At the same time, I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to comment on whether a solution to this apparent problem is at hand.


Mr. Claude Lanthier (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, on my first appearance on the "late show", I have been asked to talk about rebates, and I will try to do so with all the dignity this requires.
In fact, we are concerned here with a fuel sales tax rebate and the differences existing in the position of bulk fuel dealers.
The Member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. Wilson) has expressed some valid concerns with respect to the fuel sales tax rebate program announced in the Government's economic message on November 8 of this year. He observed, quite rightly, that some dealers have tax-free inventory while others have tax-paid inventory. The former are therefore free to offer a direct rebate, while the second group's customers must apply especially for the rebate.
The simple solution would be to demand that all people benefiting from the rebate submit claims. We realize that this procedure will not be attractive to farmers, who would probably prefer to do without the administrative red-tape. On the other hand, they are familiar with the practice because it has existed for a number of years in connection with the one and a half cent excise tax rebate per litre of gas.
Another more complex solution might be to allow retailers to claim the rebate on behalf of the primary producers in the case of bulk sales. Retailers would then be required to provide names, sales permit numbers, sales volume and proof that the rebate was indeed credited to the client. This solution, however, does pose a few problems.
First of all, it would impose an additional administrative burden which some retailers would certainly not be willing to take on. Second, identifying clearly what constitutes a bulk
Adjournment Debate
sale might also be a major problem. Third, since the claiming party is not the actual recipient of the rebate, there is a risk of a tax "leak"-no pun intended-which might take on increasing proportions. Finally, retailers electing to submit claims on behalf of their customers would have to wait some time before receiving the funds claimed from Revenue Canada.
The Government is now consulting with the fuel sector, and we are confident that a solution satisfactory to all parties concerned will emerge from these consultations, which are being held as part of the regular policy of this Government.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE-PLIGHT OF NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERMEN NOT ELIGIBLE FOR BENEFITS. (B) LEVEL OF ASSISTANCE FOR AFFECTED CONSTITUENCIES
Bill Rompkey: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a subject that came up in the House today. As some Members will know, the Minister announced today a $6 million program for fishermen and plant workers who were affected by the inshore fishing season this year. That is welcome news. I congratulate the Minister on it, but I would say to her that it is too late. I wish she had agreed to the request we made some six weeks ago.
1 raised a question in this House, as did my colleague, the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate (Mr. Baker). We wrote and spoke to the Minister pointing out the seriousness of the situation. We tried to help the Minister to understand, as I am sure the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Fraser) did, that fishermen and plant workers have no recourse; there is no safety net, no alternative. If the fish do not come ashore because of ice, dirty water or whatever, there is no recourse. The system is built in such a way that the welfare system will not support them adequately. There is no alternative for fishermen and plant workers caught in that situation.
If one responds at the proper time, such as in October, one can work out projects that will be beneficial to the community. As it now stands, it will take about another week to identify where the fishermen and plant workers are who are affected. We will then have to hastily design projects which will last until the end of March. You can repair some gear and do some inside work, but you cannot build a slipway or repair a wharf in the winter. Nor can you fix a stage. These are things that cannot be done when frost and snow is on the ground. Bear in mind, Mr. Speaker, that most of the fishermen affected here are on the northeast coast of Newfoundland and the coast of Labrador.
I welcome the news, but I say to the Minister that it is too late. In September and October we told her that she should act then. She insisted on waiting for the end of the fishing season. Sure, the fishing season is not legitimately over until Novem-ber-December, but the reality for many communities is that it finishes as of September.

December 4, 1984
Adjournment Debate
I welcome the news but I would urge the Minister to act quickly next year, or the next time this happens. Please God that it will not happen next year. I believe it is an act of God. If it does happen next year I would urge the Minister and the Government to take speedy measures, bearing in mind that we are dealing with disadvantaged people who suffer through no fault of their own, and to whom there is no recourse or alternative. An ex gratia payment is the only alternative. I welcome the Minister's announcement today. I simply wish she had made it six weeks ago.
[ Translation]


Mr. Jean-Guy Hudon (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: As my colleague pointed out, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Miss MacDonald) has already said that we are monitoring the fishing situation very closely. Fisheries and Oceans Canada have advised us that, according to recent data, roughly 1,100 Newfoundland fishermen might have enough weeks of insurable employment to be eligible for unemployment insurance benefits this winter. That figure has been confirmed by the United Fishermen and Food Workers Union.
We have also been advised that most fishermen along the coast of Labrador might be eligible for unemployment insurance benefits and that the situation in the south-east region has improved since Fisheries and Oceans Canada have authorized higher herring quotas.
The special fund mentioned by the Hon. Member for Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador (Mr. Rompkey) was in fact a subsidy to provide assistance to fishermen in areas where during the normal fishing season, fishing is restricted because of icing conditions. Last spring, the ice remained longer than expected, which left the fishermen in many communities without work and without income, the winter period of unemployment insurance benefits having expired. This special initiative was taken by Employment and Immigration Canada, but the money did not come from the Unemployment Insurance Fund.
The Minister recognizes the importance of short-term job creation programs for people in the fishing industry who are not eligible for unemployment insurance benefits. I am therefore happy to inform you that the Minister of Employment and Immigration has allocated another $6 million to the Canada Works Program to provide assistance to fishermen and processing plant workers who are suffering because of the plight of the fishing industry. The Minister has already provided that information to the Hon. Member, in a letter he may not have had the chance to read.
I would also like to inform the House that we are in the process of amending the National Employment Service regulations with respect to the referral of applicants for Canada Works Projects. Such an amendment will ensure throughout Canada that any fisherman or fish processing plant worker who has not qualified for unemployment insurance will be referred as a priority for projects approved under the Program.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would like to stress once again that we are closely monitoring and that we will keep monitoring the situation in the fishing industry, and that the Minister has taken firm steps to improve that difficult situation. I can also assure the House that problems related to fisheries will be discussed during the talks to be held with the provinces on the Government's overall directions in the area of job creation and training.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at two o'clock p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).
At 6.25 the House adjourned.

Wednesday, December 5, 1984