1984-03-29

Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare) moved: that Bill C-3, an Act relating to cash contributions by Canada in respect of insured health services provided under provincial health care insurance plans and amounts payable by Canada in respect of extended health care services and to amend and repeal certain Acts in consequence thereof, be read the third time and do pass.
She said: Mr. Speaker, this is probably the last time that an opportunity will be given to me as Minister of National Health and Welfare to speak on Bill C-3, which is being debated on third reading today. This Bill may not be a Bill which received unanimous consent from parties all over Canada, but it is a Bill of consensus, and that is important. That is the Canadian way of doing things, to make improvements to what exists, thereby building up what has been the social fabric of this country for so long.
I, therefore, would like to thank all Members of this House, and in particular, of course, the members of the Standing Committee who have devoted so many hours to meeting with witnesses, studying their claims and viewpoints and making their best efforts to improve the Bill. If I may, I would like to single out the Hon. Member for Provencher (Mr. Epp), the Hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Halliday) and the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie), as well as my colleagues on this side of the House. I do not know if this is the tradition, but 1 believe it is very important for all Canadians to know that this Bill-without presuming the outcome of the vote-will be passed unanimously, based on indications given to me by all three Parties, and will not have expanded but consolidated, I believe for years to come, our health care system in Canada.
What this Bill accomplishes is modest, but it is an essential step. It has been a difficult decision to make. We would have preferred time to have settled the problem. However, time was rather against medicare in the sense of pressures from all sides, starting with the recession itself, which were pushing some of the players into overcharging patients, through extra billing by
some doctors and specialists and by user fees charged by some provinces. This Bill, therefore, is needed to clarify the existing rules of the game and to make sure that the weak spots, if I may say so, in the existing legislation will be consolidated, explained and defined in a way in which all Canadians, through a relatively simple, written piece of new legislation, can understand the rules of the game and know what their rights are. In that way they can protect themselves and will be able to see both the tremendous powers and the limitations of our health care system.
As I said, although it was a difficult decision to make, I believe this Bill is essential. Everyone will agree that I should name Mr. Justice Emmett Hall in particular, and through him all the key players, political and public, who have given Canadians over the last 25 years the medicare we know and enjoy, the medicare which is one of the best in the world. I am sure all Members will recall what Mr. Justice Emmett Hall said about the erosion of our health care system, an erosion which would have sooner or later made the house collapse because its foundation would have been too much eroded by the overcharges to Canadians.
I would like to say a word about the federal-provincial relations aspect of this Bill. Health in Canada is primarily, and I am sure everyone knows it now, a matter of provincial jurisdiction. Personal health services must be delivered by the provinces. In fact, I believe it is fair to conclude, after having travelled and heard witnesses from all over the country, that we have 12 different health care systems, including the two Territories, all functioning according to local traditions, but offering basically the same services to Canadians, and operating around the same five basic conditions of free accessibility and comprehensiveness of services, which means the basic list of ensured free services is the same for all Canadians wherever they live.
However, these services are delivered according to the corner of the country in which a particular patient lives. Patients who live in the far north will be transported to the best and closest hospital. If they live in downtown Toronto, in the suburbs of Vancouver or in the east end of Montreal, they will be transported downtown to the closest hospital. They will in both places receive the quality care we are used to in Canada and which we want to keep.
Federal-provincial relations are a major dimension of this piece of legislation. If I had had a chance to speak to my provincial colleagues to this platform, I would have liked to reassure every one of them that the meetings we had in January had been brought to realization by the amendments made to Bill C-3 in the standing committee of this House of Commons. I believe each of them would be rather pleased with

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what we have done. The members of the committee have worked together very seriously on this, and we have done our utmost to improve the Bill while respecting the basic rules of the game to which I had given my commitment. By that I mean, in particular, that in no way should we be imposing on the provinces, directly or indirectly, additional charges to the heavy financial burden they now have. Any Member who knows enough about the Bill can see that we have honoured that commitment.
We have tried to make it a better Bill, and I was pleased at the end of the committee work to hear senior officials, the people who have been implementing medicare in the last 25 years, saying spontaneously how pleased they were that it was not partisanship which had governed the work of the committee but excellent improvements made by the Opposition and the Government to make the Bill better. I think we can be proud of what will be a workable piece of legislation, which is the purpose of any Bill.
We have recognized the concerns of different players who at times may be seen by some of the parties in that complex system as "enemies", in the sense they would make demands on the system for money, equipment or for changes in orientation. We have tried to recognize their legitimate concerns without imposing anything on the provinces which is not our place to impose.
Perhaps I should refer in particular to one clause which is causing worries, it seems, in the last hours, although to my knowledge without reason. I am anxious that all parties have a chance to study carefully the revised version of the Bill with all its amendments, in particular Clause 12(2). In that clause we are adding a possible choice for the provinces who want it by defining a model process for negotiations between the medical associations and the provincial governments. This process originates from the medical associations, more precisely from the Canadian Medical Association. It was put forward first by the Official Opposition, and followed by a counter-proposal in which no mandatory dimension was included.
I know some Members would have liked to see a real process of negotiation enshrined in the law as the way to do things between doctors and provincial governments. We all know that we did not have that power under the Constitution; therefore we did not impose it on the provinces. It would have been wrong. Instead, we added to the old rule of the game, which has been there for 15 years, which says that doctors must receive reasonable compensation. That stands; it is the cornerstone of medicare in Canada.
We added a possible model which all Members thought could be tested, promoted and eventually become the way to do things in Canada. It will work only if the parties want it to work. It will be for provincial medical associations and provincial governments to decide if it is workable. If not, they can choose any other model of labour relations with the medical associations to reach reasonable compensation for doctors. I think this is a key point and I wanted to stress it.
Why do I single out only one occupation in the health system? I do so in a way to do justice to people who are key players in the system and who have been more or less outside of the federal-provincial political scene. They have expressed their views differently but I want them to know, together with other players, that I think they have been heard, that they have advanced their cause and we have to honour a commitment to them by proposing, wherever provinces want to use it, a possible new model of labour relations which can literally respect the dignity of both parties.

Mr. Speaker, perhaps I may be allowed to say a few words about my home province. I must say I was disappointed when Quebec opted for political confrontation instead of a dialogue on Bill C-3. I thought it was most unfortunate but I am happy that we have been able to allay the fears they had raised in the health services field in Quebec, and I think that now, the word has gone out that there was no problem and no reason to be alarmed. I am glad that in the process, Quebec officials came to meet with our officials at my Department here in Ottawa, and the point was clearly made that there would no longer be user charges in Quebec for patients or convalescents, and I am referring to what might be called the short-term chronically ill. This practice which started with the separatist Government was spreading, unfortunately, and the Quebec Government, and I am referring to Mr. Levesque's Government, has acknowledged that it was against the Health Insurance Act, and that in Quebec, patients who must stay in hospital for longer periods of time, for instance, three, four or seven months, before going home, can no longer be charged user fees, irrespective of the length of time they must stay in hospital. I believe this is important, and that we should all be glad we were able to deal with this problem and with a practice that goes counter to the philosophy of health insurance.
Mr. Speaker, I see my time is running out, and I would like to finish my comments regarding the future.

I am sure members of the committee, who were not necessarily specialists in health matters but who have become specialists in health matters after all the briefs they read, the witnesses they heard, the reading they did on the Bill, including the amendments and the background documents, would agree that most participants, if not all, spoke of that Bill as the first step. Some even went overboard and said it was not even important, but everyone agreed that it had to be done. Well, it takes time to pass a Bill through the House and it will be done very soon. It will be behind us very shortly.
I think one of the great advantages of this Bill and its process was to put health back on the map of Canadian concerns. I think Members will share the view that probably because of the recession, having such an expensive proposal, everybody preferred not to talk about it in order not to do it any damage. But all the participants have really said far more
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than the Bill itself. They have said that we have to fix these financial barriers and get rid of them, but; and they each had a "but". They wanted to speak of where health was going. Depending on where they come from in the system, they wanted to speak of costs that should or could be reduced by allocating resources differently and using them in the most effective way.
[DOT] (M40)
Being a woman, I am sure no one will mind if I refer to the nurses, as a group of players par excellence who are somewhat in second place in the system, if I may say, in terms of social prestige. They are still a key participant and probably spend the greatest number of hours with patients who are in the hospital. The nurses spoke of the lifestyle and asked if the environment and lifestyle was helping the cause or not. They spoke of aging and challenged us to see if we were ready for new demands on the system from an aging Canadian population. They spoke of death and how dying has lost its human aspect. They spoke of the palliative care units and how their own role could be very different.
In turn, consumer groups spoke of self-help and asked why ordinary Canadians who are not particularly knowledgeable on technical health matters could not still make a contribution and in some way control their own health. In other words, they are no longer passive.
Women question the way the conventional hospital-based birth process takes place. Is it the only way of doing it? They talked about midwives as another method in the birth process. The discussions always concerned choices as opposed to everybody being put into one mould and having to follow one procedure.
It has been very important to have the chance to debate health in Canada, to debate its orientation and the need to speed up the reorientation of health toward health promotion and prevention, as well as establishing where our great system needs improvement or more money and specific areas ensuring that we do not lose the excellence and momentum we have built.
Therefore, I would like to reiterate, since the need for the dialogue has been expressed so clearly, that to respond to such an obvious need and to move ahead with innovative ideas, I am proposing to initiate a national conference on health to provide an opportunity for dialogue with all the interested groups. None of the existing processes permits all the groups to get together in a workable manner and this conference would give everyone a chance to be equal in expressing their views.
I do not intend to dictate how this forum will be organized. I hope that all Members of the House who have done such a good job in committee would find the forum a way to remain connected to the health system. This will be a conference of all interested parties and partners in the health system. Its organization and planning will be undertaken jointly. My officials will soon be in touch with all those who are interested in order to plan the content and launch the conference.
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Let me conclude by saying that we do not want this to be simply a meeting; we would like to see these discussions have a real influence on what will happen in the health field. I have listed but a few of the topics which it could cover.
This is almost an emotional moment for me, due to what this health Bill represents for Canadians, as well as the difficulties attached to it because of the contradictory interests and problems of so many parties involved. I will finish by reading from a handwritten letter by an Ontario physician who said: "As a physician, I urge you to continue your work and to actualize the Canada Health Act. Please resist the temptation to compromise-" The letter continues.
That is what we have all done. I hope we have done our work well, which I am sure we have, so that Canadians will enjoy the best health system in the world for years to come.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Questions or comments?


Mr. Friesen:: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Minister's positive statements in the closing debate as well as throughout the entire debate. One of the policies that she has underscored most consistently has been her opposition to extra billing and user charges. I understand her concern aboqt that very well. What is her position regarding the extra billing and user charges imposed on the clients of Dr. Henry Morgentaler?


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Hon. Member to be more specific? I do not know what he is talking about.


Benno Friesen: It seems plain that Dr. Henry Morgentaler operates a business on a fee for service basis and it is supposed to be, in his jargon, health care. Does she support that kind of extra billing?


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, I do not see why I should start naming doctors who extra bill or do not extra bill. Bill C-3 is very clear that extra billing is an overcharge on the patients that is totally against the law.


Mr. Biaikie:: Mr. Speaker, the Minister has indicated her intention to begin the process of setting up a national conference on health. I think that is a good idea on the face of it.
One of the amendments that was moved in committee, by me actually, concerned setting up a national health council. It was a suggestion that was made as early as the parliamentary task force, I believe, and was called for by the nurses. Is the Minister open to the idea of there being Isome permanent opportunity for dialogue and constructive discussions between all the players in the health care system and having something permanent come from such a conference?
In other words, if it is the will of the people who attend that conference that it not simply be a one-time event, would the Government be open to that kind of opportunity?


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes. The idea of a national health council which was promoted so well during the debate in committee, particularly by the Canadian Hospitals Association, is a very good one. The first time I heard of it was

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when I became the new Minister of National Elealth and Welfare six years ago. There are some groups who care about this idea and lobby for it.
However, when I put this idea to my provincial counterparts, some time ago now, they did not approve of it. Since it was some time ago, if the idea is suggested again at a conference in which they will be the key participants, perhaps all interested parties could see the interest in it. In such a case, we will surely entertain such a project.


Mr. Hawkes:: Mr. Speaker, the Minister has had a request for a meeting with provincial ministers regarding some of the amendments in Bill C-3. Has she complied with that request? Does she intend to meet with them or will we pass the Bill before such a meeting takes place?


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, the member refers to telegrams which were received from provincial health ministers in the last few days and from the minister from Alberta in particular, probably in the name of other ministers since he will be the host of their annual joint meeting next September. I immediately sent back one telex. Today I asked officials to send back another telex to explain what their main concern seems to be. From my own conversation with some of them it is what I addressed earlier today, namely, the new section on doctors' negotiations with the provinces. Their concern is that the committee members imposed that on the provinces. I think the original amendment put forward by the Tory Party would have imposed it, but we defeated the amendment in committee. We wanted it simply as a model to give the choice to the province.


Mr. Keeper:: Mr. Speaker, the Minister in her remarks acknowledged that the biggest weakness with this legislation is the lack of being able to deal adequately with preventive health care. She made particular reference to midwives. Given the fact that having a child at home in the case of a normal birth would save a great deal of money and at the same time adds to the bonding between mother and child, what can the Minister tell us that will assure us she is going to do something that will be effective in terms of making sure the opportunity to have a midwife in attendance is available to Canadians and that this conference will not be just a way of letting things slide?


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member touches on a perfect example, among thousands, of what health is all about in the sense that it is a provincial responsibility as to personal delivery services. The recognition of midwives in the child birth process can be given at any time by any province under the existing and the new Canada Health Act. But it is a totally provincial matter-totally. It is at the choice of province x, y, or z to set into motion whatever licensing-I do not have with me the details according to each province-is needed, to make it official either on a pilot project basis or across a given province according to its own priorities in health delivery.


Mr. Flis:: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) and also the Members from all three Parties who served on the committee for coming up with a first-class made in Canada health Bill and service. As the Minister pointed out, the delivery of the services now lies, and always did, in the hands of the provinces.
This creates many difficulties for a lot of senior citizens who live part time with children in one province and then part time with children in another province. I have many examples where senior citizens in their 80s and 90s live six months or three months in the Province of Quebec and then another six or three months in the Province of Ontario. They run into the problem of a waiting period to qualify for health services. One province has a three-month waiting period to qualify for medical services. Therefore, these seniors are in a bind. Do they have to go back to the province which still covers them to get the service? Are they faced with a province saying: "Sorry, you have to wait three months"? Does the Bill address this problem of so many senior citizens who have the right to live part time in one province and part time in another province?


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, I will have to check the exact details of the situation but the general principle has been clearly established in this Bill. One of the five conditions is portability. The Hon. Member has a very good point. We did not hear much about portability. The media spoke much more about accessibility and comprehensiveness, universality. But portability raises quite a practical problem for border towns, towns exactly like Hull and Ottawa, for seniors who travel a great deal in the country to see their children and families.
I do not have the exact details but, in the case of an emergency, citizens are treated anywhere in Canada and that should not pose a problem. Again, details escape me right now. Officials of the provinces have been working, I think for at least a year now, on a detailed protocol of portability and the rules of the game both within Canada and outside. This Bill reinforces the concept of portability for all Canadians within the country.


Mr. Gamble:: Mr. Speaker, did 1 understand the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) to suggest in response to one of the questions asked by my colleague, the Hon. Member for Surrey-White Rock-North Delta (Mr. Friesen), that extra billing was illegal, to use her words? If, indeed, that is what she said, could she clarify that for the House, having regard to the specific provisions in the preamble to the Bill which clearly indicate that it is not the intention of this Bill either to abrogate or to derogate from any of the provisions of the Constitution Act of Canada, and having further regard to the well-recognized fact that the provision of medical services lies entirely within the control of the provincial governments?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The time provided for questions and comments has expired. Perhaps the House will allow the Hon. Minister to reply. Is that agreed?
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Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the courtesy of all Members. I will answer rapidly. The Hon. Member for Surrey-White Rock-North Delta (Mr. Friesen) asked me specifically about Dr. Morgentaler. To clarify that, I should say that Dr. Morgentaler's services are not insured services under provincial plans because he does not perform them in a hospital the way the Bill provides. The services that are insured must respect the Criminal Code and they must be performed in hospitals. I did say in answer to the Hon. Member that extra billing would be a breach of the Act. I repeat, and 1 hope the Hon. Member knows what extra billing means-


John Albert Gamble: Yes.


Monique Bégin: Extra billing is a breach of this federal legislation. The Hon. Member will not get me into a big constitutional debate because that would not help anybody. We made sure this Bill respects fully the Constitution by which the provinces are in charge of health care. I think I said it several times in my speech this morning. But what we buy for close to $10 billion a year does not include extra billing. We do not buy it. The Bill has spelled out why extra billing would be a breach of the Act.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Debate. Is the Hon. Member for Crowfoot (Mr. Malone) rising on a point of order?


Mr. Malone:: Mr. Speaker, I thought you had extended time to the Minister and if that was the case-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The House agreed to allow the Hon. Minister to reply to the previous question. It was not a general extension of time. However, the Chair is in the hands of the House. If there is a wish to prolong time for questions and comments I will ask the House if it is so disposed. Is it agreed?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, as I am sure the Minister and all Members of the House are well aware, the costs for medicare for a period of time now have been escalating upward at a very significant rate. I think we have probably come to a period when there has been a levelling off from those reasons that have forced prices up in the past. However, I think we are through the door now and into a new age where technology will cause new mechanisms to make the old methods of hospital treatment rapidly obsolete. We will have new machinery coming in rapidly.
Does the Minister have any concerns about the new wave of technology with respect to cost? If she has, apart from this Bill, has she any recommendations as to how we as a society might keep both the best medicare and be able to afford it in light of what the chip may do to us in an extremely rapidly exploding advancement in technology?


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, this is a relevant and a pertinent question. The Hon. Member comes from a riding in Alberta.
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His province, for example, is one of the two provinces in Canada that we pay just a little below 50 per cent; I think we pay 48 per cent of the medicare costs. It is because that province, as one of its priorities, added a major element to its expenditures when it decided a few years ago to build beautiful new hospitals in almost every small town. They are now faced with a very heavy added, ongoing cost to their health systems.
I was reading the Alberta budget yesterday or the day before. This year health in Alberta will receive 10 per cent more from the provincial government. I am giving something like 10 per cent more myself to the provincial government of Alberta this year in federal payments.
Technology alone is only one of the heavy components. Everyone wants to use high-tech and get the best and latest gadgets, often for reasons of prestige locally. If the provinces are interested, one thing which could be introduced is a small, independent national institute which would be absolutely independent of government. It would be publicly funded, of course. It would be autonomous and would assess all new technologies, which often come from the United States, Japan and West Germany. It would give confidential, detailed reports to each provincial health minister to equip them with enough good arguments in order that they could resist temptations and pressures. That is one way of getting at it.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I have a quick question for the Minister. It relates to something which many times I wanted to bring up in committee. I had even considered whether an amendment in this direction might have been in order. It has to do with the Territories. Could we get an assurance from the Minister that, upon passage of this Act, action will be taken by her to ensure that there is no extra billing or user fees in the Yukon or the Northwest Territories? These are areas of the country over which she has a great deal more influence than she has, for instance, in the provinces. The Act ensures that if certain things continue they will have consequences for provincial governments. Could we have an assurance from the Minister that she intends some action with regard to the Yukon in particular, where I believe user fees have existed in hospitals?


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, I wish my officials had signalled to me when I asked them for the detailed answer on the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. I will give them a pair of glasses for the next time!
I do not have the answer. I know why the Member asked the question. It is because of the federal privilege linked to the Territories. Of course, we will not permit in the Territories what is not permitted in the rest of Canada. To my knowledge there is no extra billing or user fees in the Northwest Territories. As to the Yukon, I must say I do not recall the situation at this particular moment, but I believe it has been abolished.


Hon. Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, the Canada Health Act is now back in the House for final reading. As I have throughout this debate, I listened to the Minister today with great attention. One of the new

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proposals she put forward was for a national health conference to continue the debate which I think has been well dealt with in committee. She did not ask us for any specific proposals today with regard to the health conference. 1 might suggest to her some dates for the conference. Perhaps the dates June 14 to 17 would be a time when she would consider holding such a conference. She might think that would be a better debate to take place than some of the other things that might be going on at that time.
As the House and those of us who have been following this debate will be aware, the Progressive Conservative Party has supported this Bill. It supported it at second reading when we were debating it in principle and has supported it at committee stage. But Mr. Speaker, I do not want the House to come to the conclusion that because the Progressive Conservative Party has lent its support that means that we are totally satisfied with this Bill. Throughout the debate we have said that we consider it to be too narrow, too restrictive, and that it really does not come to grips with the basic issue of how to provide for a more effective and efficient health care system in the country or how such a system could be adequately funded. Those things were not dealt with in this Bill. In some ways, as has been said so often in this debate, even the title of the Bill itself is a misnomer.
Our criticisms throughout were aimed at improving the Bill. We tried to do that conscientiously. We did not do it by trying to obstruct or hold up the workings of the Bill in committee. Throughout committee sessions and at report stage of the Bill we put forward amendments which we believed would improve the Bill. Some of them were accepted, at least in concept, and others, I regret to say, were turned down. Nevertheless, we did work as responsible committee members to try to make the Bill more acceptable to the groups who were intimately concerned with it. As we did this we always kept in mind the health care needs of the Canadian public.
In this regard, Mr. Speaker, I would like to pay particular tribute to the work done by the Hon. Member for Provencher (Mr. Epp), the health critic for the Progressive Conservative Party. Because of a long-standing commitment in Manitoba today he is unable to be here. When he left last night he was not aware that the health care Bill would be up for debate today. He has been diligent and untiring in his efforts not only to improve the Bill, but also to contact and discuss it with the various groups concerned-the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Hospitals Association, the Canadian Nurses' Association and the provincial health ministers. He met and discussed with all those who had a particular interest in the Bill in order to reduce the controversy which has swirled around it.
I would also like to commend my colleague from Oxford (Mr. Halliday), another full-time member of the committee. He also is unavoidably absent today. However, he has single-mindedly devoted his time and attention to this Bill over the last several months.
Upon its initiation in 1966 medicare was acclaimed as one of the greatest triumphs of our political system. It remains so to
this day. My colleague from Provencher put it very eloquently at second reading when he said:
Medicare is more than medicine and economics. Medicare is a service for individual Canadians and one of the critical bonds of Canadian federalism. Without it, we would suffer both as individuals and as a country.
Those were the remarks made by our Party's critic on health and welfare at second reading of the Bill when we approved that Bill in principle. We did so, Mr. Speaker, in part at second reading stage because of the objectives and purpose of the legislation as spelled out in Clauses 3 and 4. We thought the objectives and the purpose of the Bill were its very heart and core. You can imagine our surprise and astonishment, Sir, and indeed the surprise and astonishment of the many witnesses who had appeared before the committee, when, after all the witnesses had been heard, the Minister moved to change substantially these key clauses with little or no explanation to this date.
I would like to cite the policy objectives which were removed from the original Bill to show the way in which the purpose of the Bill was narrowed when the Minister belatedly changed her mind and brought forward these amendments. I will state what was in the original Bill and what was removed. She deleted from Clause 3 these objectives:
It is hereby declared that Canadian health care policy should be designed and administered (a) to encourage effective allocation of the nation's health resources; (b) to facilitate the provision of adequate health services throughout Canada-
From Clause 4, the purpose of the Bill, she removed this paragraph:
The purpose of this Act is to advance the objectives of Canadian health care policy while recognizing the primary responsibility of the provinces for the provision of health care services-
Those were critical statements, objectives and purposes which were removed from the Bill before us today. In that respect, it makes it a lesser Bill than it was at the beginning. Many witnesses with whom I spoke after those amendments were introduced and pushed through by the majority of Government Members of the committee felt that they had been duped, that they had been misled. They appeared before the committee on the basis on which the Bill had been presented to them in which the objectives and the purposes had been spelled out clearly. They provided their testimony on those criteria, not on the radically altered criteria that appear in the Bill today. We argued this at committee stage. I want to point out once again that I think that the changes that have been made in Clauses 3 and 4 by the Minister diminish the Bill.
I wish to turn my attention for a few minutes to two amendments which, after lengthy argument and debate, were accepted by the Government. At least the concept was accepted. The first deals with the question of guaranteeing medical practitioners a reasonable payment for their services. As Mr. Justice Hall pointed out to the committee, the elimination of extra billing should require that a mechanism be put in place that would guarantee, or at least allow for, a fair and equitable level of compensation for medical practitioners. When Mr. March 29, 1984

Justice Hall appeared before the committee, he said on February 14, at page 510 of the committee hearings:
Accepting that physicians have a right to be fairly and adequately compensated can be stated this way, no more, no less, and the state has a right to be concerned with the problem.
Not only because of his testimony but because we as members of the committee and as an Opposition Party felt there should be fairness and equity in the system if extra billing was to be eliminated, as it is in this Bill, we proposed, and the Minister referred to this this morning, that Clause 12 be amended to add a new section. That proposal was put forward by my colleague for Provencher. He said that the new Bill-
-must provide for reasonable compensation for insured health services rendered by medical practitioners and dentists by the enactment of a law providing for negotiation of compensation with the provincial organization representing a majority of the practising physicians in the province and for the settlement of disputes by conciliation on binding arbitration at the option of the medical profession's organization by a panel.
This panel was to represent both medical professionals and the Government to ensure that all parties were equally treated. We thought that would be a proper mechanism to be built into the legislation. I quoted the amendment at length. I did so because I wanted to ensure that I made a specific point. While the Government did not accept our amendment, feeling that perhaps it was too strong and had gone too far, nevertheless it did force the Government to agree to the concept that we were advocating.
Later, government members introduced a watered-down version of that amendment. That was no small achievement in itself. It was not what we thought would be adequate, but it at least introduced the concept of fair and adequate compensation. We tried to strengthen that at report stage. While it was not all we wanted, it has gone some way to meeting the concerns that we, members of the medical profession and I believe the public at large feel, realizing that this system has to have measures of equity and fairness built in.
Similarly with the second amendment. We listened to many representations, notably that of the Canadian Nurses' Association who argued so eloquently and presented their case so strongly that the definition of those who provide health care services in this country should be broadened to include those other than doctors and dentists. That was a very great concept to put forward. It meant that doctors and dentists would no longer be the sole point of entry into the health care system, thereby permitting the future reorientation of the system from one of illness treatment to one of illness prevention and non-hospital care. Without a doubt, that is one of the major changes that has been made to this bill.
If I may be permitted to refer to the original amendment that was put forward in committee by myself, our version stated as follows:
Health care practitioner means a person lawfully entitled to practise a health care profession in the place in which the practice is carried on by that person.
It would have done more to reorient our health care system to a "wellness" concept than an "illness" concept. Even though the Government did not accept it in its entirety, it did accept
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the concept. That has been a major step forward in the system of health care delivery in this country.
I would like at this point to bring to the attention of the Minister a concern that has been raised with me since the Bill came out of committee. It is one which had not been dealt with in committee and which is now causing some concern. I may be wrong in my interpretation of the rules, but before debate ends at third reading, the Minister has the option of closing off the debate with a few words. If she does that, I would urge her to address the concern that I raise. It is something the committee did not deal with and it may be that there was a minor oversight that should be addressed.
I speak of the funding of research in teaching hospitals and the adverse effects that this new Bill may have upon that funding. This point was raised in a letter that was sent to the Minister, a copy of which was forwarded to me by Dr. Lawrence Wilson, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Queens University. He wrote to the Minister in this regard. He said:
In examining the possible consequences of passage of the Canada Health Act,
I am concerned about one of the provisions of the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act which will be repealed. The regulations under the latter act clearly set out that the indirect cost of research in hospitals was an "allowable" cost under the Hospital Insurance Plan.
If the Act is repealed and no reference is made to such costs, we can expect a further reduction of funding of our teaching hospitals. And this would occur in a climate where significant under-funding already takes place. This in turn will have a most discouragingly negative effect on the research potential of Canadian medical schools.
Dr. Wilson brought that to the attention of the Minister and myself and he describes the situation most clearly. It may be that the committee failed to come to grips with that particular concern and, if so, I would hope that the Minister and her officials would look into the matter and see whether or not the point that Dr. Wilson raises is a valid one and whether or not the regulations in the former Act have in fact been transferred to the new Bill so that that issue will be covered. After all, medicare involves the quality of medical service and not simply its cost. It is that quality that is tied up with research and the funding to research in medical schools.
There is one area, however, in which the quality of medical service and its costs are inextricably linked. I refer to the question I raised earlier, which is the reform of our health care system from one of acute hospital care to one of preventive and, to a lesser degree, non-hospital care. That no doubt was an issue that was addressed by almost every witness who came before the committee.
As I indicated earlier, the use of the term "health care practitioner" and not just that of "medical practitioner" opened the door to such a reform. I must say, however, that that opening is little more than a crack which will be of small use if no further action is taken by other governments.
Dr. Helen Glass, the President of the Canadian Nurses' Association, wrote to me the other day after the Bill had come out of committee. Her letter included this statement:
In our view, this change-

March 29, 1984
Canada Health Act
She means the inclusion of the term "health care practitioner".
-allows for a better, more appropriate use of all health care practitioners in the delivery of health services which can better meet the health care needs of Canadians. While it is not all we had hoped for, it will open the window to the future, in assisting all those involved with health care delivery to begin the process of matching health care needs to insured services which must be available to the Canadian public.
That statement was made by the National President of the Canadian Nurses' Association in response to the changes that were made in committee. That association welcomes those changes but, as I said, it thinks it is only a small step forward and there is a great deal yet to be done.
One obvious question arises from the statements of Dr. Glass and from the statements of others we heard from in committee regarding this very issue. Why is such a reform necessary? Why should we move from the situation that prevails at the present time where the front line of medical care lies with medical practitioners and the hospitals? Why should we move the front line from that very critical area of care into the communities and into a preventive health care system? Why should that come about? What possible advantages could result from that?
Well, Sir, I believe that the answer to this question is two-fold. First, by reducing the emphasis on acute hospital care, there would be a much greater incentive and willingness to treat the sick and the elderly in their own homes, in community clinics or in places where they cannot now receive front line treatment. Such a move, I think, would greatly reduce the trauma and the emotional upheaval that is so often associated with entering hospitals. As well, it would begin to make us as a society much more conscious of the need to begin to take care of our own health rather than always leaving it in the hands of someone else. There is a responsibility upon us as Canadians to begin to say to ourselves that we have a need to take care of our own health. We need to know the ways in which we can take care of our own health and not always leave it up to someone to take care of us when we become ill. I think that is the direction in which the reform of the whole health care system can be moved.
Just as important as that is the fact that over the long term, and I emphasize the long term, by concentrating a great deal more than we do at the present time on preventive and outpatient care, we could greatly reduce the staggering financial burden which our health care services impose upon society. If we could begin to move these health care services into the community, it could eventually begin to reduce the tremendously high-cost services that are now delivered in hospitals by medical practitioners. I would think, Sir, that that would be a facet of the situation which we would want to take into consideration. However, I say that knowing that it will not happen overnight and that, indeed, the paradox of it might be that in the short term it might have to cost more. I am not going to hide from that particular fact. We know that it would require additional new funds to reform the system. In close co-operation with the provinces, the federal Government would have to pay its share for an expanded number of insured
services as well as perhaps some of the capital costs involved with new buildings, new equipment and support services. However, if we are to truly rationalize our health care system in the country, I believe this move to be essential.
If this matter is so important, and I believe it is, one could rightly ask why the committee did not deal with it. The problem comes back to this Bill. This Bill does not really allow us to deal with that most fundamental question. It deals with the adequate funding of the health care system, the expenditure of additional funds and the changing expenditure of additional funds, but that can only be introduced by the Government after very meaningful consultation with the provinces. It could not be introduced by opposition members in committee. Opposition members could not bring forward the expenditure or reallocation of moneys now in the system because we are not permitted under the rules of Parliament to do so. Nevertheless, Sir, on many occasions we indicated that we do not believe that the funding is as efficiently carried out as it should be at the present time. Indeed, the committee was powerless to act in this regard but I think it has spoken up and raised enough concerns about it that we know that that is the way we will have to proceed in the future.
We on this side of the House will continue to work toward what we consider to be real health care reform. We do not believe this Bill really comes to grips with what we call meaningful health care reform. We will continue to work toward that goal. We were successful, we believe, in improving Bill C-3 in some regards but the changes, though minor, were a step in the right direction. The hearings of the committee, however, proved to all of us that there is much work that remains to be done. The challenge to us is self-evident. All that is required is the courage to get on with it.
In closing, therefore, I would like to reaffirm my Party's support for this Bill. I would also reaffirm. Sir, the support of this Party for the larger question of improving the entire field of health care services in the country.


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, thank you for allowing me to put a question to the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald).

Some parts of the Hon. Member's speech I could debate but really, we agree to disagree. I wonder if she would be kind enough to contact Dr. Lawrence Wilson, the Dean of Medicine at Queen's University? I do not have the right to speak in any other final way at third reading; that is only permitted on second reading.
The problem of research in hospitals in that for 18 years, subject to federal-provincial negotiations and agreements, some of the overhead cost of research in hospitals was cost-shared on a 50-50 basis. All the cost-sharing agreements disappeared when block funding came into effect about seven years ago. The overhead cost of research that was included in


March 29, 1984

cost-sharing was built into the new financial base and is therefore in the block funding grants, but it is no longer attributable to any particular hospital. The province gets the money.
Of course, the MRC and the NHRDP programs continue their medical research funding. The problem is that since block funding, Dr. Wilson or any other medical researcher, can no longer put their overhead under special cost-sharing but it is included in what we pay to the provinces. I do not know how it is passed on.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that the rules permit the Minister and myself to get into a dialogue at this point. I appreciate the way she has posed the question, asking me to get in touch with Dr. Wilson. This is a complicated issue and I have raised it so that the Minister and her officials will look at it.
I appreciate the way she has posed her question and also the information she supplied but perhaps the Minister could respond to Dr. Wilson's letter and be good enough to send me a copy of her reply.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald). She will be aware of this last-minute flurry of concern on the part of the provincial health ministers which was referred to earlier by the Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes). Their eleventh-hour concern has a lot to do with the amendment on binding arbitration and the relationship between provincial government and doctors set out in Clause 12 of the Bill.
I wonder if the Hon. Member could undertake to speak to those of her Progressive Conservative colleagues who are Ministers of Health in most of the provinces and tell them, as I have endeavoured to do with the Minister of Health who is of this Party, that the clause is not what they think it is; it is not binding. In fact, that is the complaint that the Hon. Member and the Hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Halliday) had. Indeed, the Hon. Member for Oxford moved an amendment which, if accepted, would have made the clause binding. I should like to ask the Hon. Member if she would be willing to get the message across-perhaps she has already endeavoured to do so-that this is not what it appears to be; it is not binding.
I hope we will not find ourselves in the position that I had an inkling of from the remarks of the Hon. Member for Calgary West and other members of the Progressive Conservative Party that they might be calling for the Minister to meet with the provincial health ministers over a concern that the Conservatives feel is not there in the Bill.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I can say that I have been in touch with certain ministers. The Hon. Member will know of my close association with the Minister of Health in the Province of Ontario. Representing the same constituency, as we do, we have had an opportunity to discuss this. I have attempted to bring to this clause the clarification that the Hon. Member has outlined. Prior to introducing the motion that we did, which, as has been pointed out, was a much stronger
Canada Health Act
motion with regard to mechanism that would have introduced a fair and reasonable compensation for the medical profession, we had conveyed it to the health ministers. They knew our intentions.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, it is not often one gets a chance to question Conservatives so one must take every opportunity that is presented.
The Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands raised the question of funding and said that we were not able to do some of the things she wanted done, that I wanted done, that other members of the committee and witnesses before the committee wanted done, because there was not a willingness on the part of the Government to reopen the question of federal funding or a political willingness to provide more federal funding.
Having that in mind and the commitment made by her Leader this summer that a future Progressive Conservative Government would provide more federal funding for medicare, could 1 ask the Hon. Member if the commitment stands? Would a Progressive Conservative Government provide more federal money for health care and would it be willing to renegotiate-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I should remind the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) that comments and questions must relate to remarks made by the previous speaker.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: They do.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I may have missed the point. The Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald) will reply.	;


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I would reinforce the commitment made last year by my Leader with regard to funding of the health care system in this country. He said what he would do-the additional funds he would want to see put into the system. I would ask the Hon. Member to go back to Manitoba and urge the good folk of Manitoba to vote Conservative in the next election. That way they will be sure of getting better health care services in this country.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I should like to indicate that there are many other ways for the people of Manitoba to accomplish the same end with a happier political effect.


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


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, this is one of those rare opportunities one is presented with in political life, and I hope there are more, when one has been able to follow a political issue through what we might call a chapter in history-in this case of medicare. I believe that chapter began in 1977. What we are seeing now is an effort on the part pf the federal Government to shore up and correct some of the consequences of the mistake it made in 1977 when it went to

March 29, 1984
Royal Assent
block funding and gave up some of the control and influence it	CANADA HEALTH ACT
had over medicare prior to that time.	MEASURE TO establish
I say it corrects some of the consequences, not all of them. The federal Government also needs to be willing to reopen the federal-provincial relationship. I have had much to say about that all along and I still believe it to be the case. Nevertheless, we are coming to the end of a chapter in the history of medicare which I am particularly pleased to have been a part of, having called on the Minister many times in the four years in which I have been the New Democratic Party health critic to do something about extra billing and user fees, to bring in some legislation. I remember commenting on the recommendations of Mr. Justice Emmett Hall in September, 1980. 1 was a member of the task force on federal-provincial arrangements in 1981, which called for many of the things we now see before us in the Canada Health Act, particularly the increased flexibility on the part of the federal Government to respond to violations of the principles of Medicare by the provinces by being able gradually to withhold moneys from those provinces. That was one of the key recommendations of the task force. One does not always have the satisfaction of being able to point to things which one had an opportunity to recommend, along with other Hon. Members of Parliament, and to see them come into force.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: With the indulgence of the Hon. Member, may I be allowed to interrupt his remarks briefly so I may convey a message to the House?



THE ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:
Government House Ottawa
March 29, 1984 Sir,
1 have the honour to inform you that the Honourable Roland A. Ritchie, Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, in his capacity as Deputy Governor General, will proceed to the Senate Chamber today, the 29th of March, 1984, a 12.45 p.m., for the purpose of giving Royal Assent to certain Bills.
I have the honour to be Sir,
Your obedient servant, Edmond Joly de Lotbiniere, Administrative Secretary to the Governor General
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Miss Begin that Bill C-3, an Act relating to cash contributions by Canada in respect of insured health services provided under provincial health care insurance plans and amounts payable by Canada in respect of extended health care services and to amend and repeal certain Acts in consequence thereof, be read the third time and do pass.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Could I have some clarification, Mr. Speaker? Does that announcement mean that in a few minutes we are all going to rise and go to the Senate and watch a little lawn bowling and then come back? 1 would like the people who might be watching, Mr. Speaker, to know exactly what is going on and why things are being interrupted in this particular way.
As I was saying, we are at the end of a particular chapter in the history of medicare. The history and the future of medicare is something which we in the New Democratic Party take particularly seriously, having been instrumental from the beginning in seeing it pioneered in Saskatchewan. The first time hospitalization insurance was introduced was in Saskatchewan in 1948. The first time medicare happened was in Saskatchewan in 1962. Recently, we have had a part to play all along in the development of medicare, from warning the Government in 1977 about the consequences of block funding to our opposition to the unilateral federal cutbacks in 1982, and to our participation over the last few years in calling on the Government to do something about extra billing and user fees.
I am, therefore, proud to stand here, Mr. Speaker, 1 hope very much in the tradition of people like Tommy Douglas, Stanley Knowles, Woodrow Lloyd, and others who have had so much to contribute to the development of medicare in this country. I hope that what is accomplished here today, and in subsequent days through the third reading and passage of this Bill, will come to be seen as a significant development in the history of medicare. But history will have to judge that. We cannot because the jury is still out. There is still no verdict as to whether this Bill will have the effect which the Minister, and I imagine all Hon. Members, hope it will; that is, the elimination of extra billing and user fees.
Why is the Bill so important, Mr. Speaker, despite its flaws? It is important, Mr. Speaker, because of the consensus it represents. I am very grateful and delighted that the unanimous support for the Bill has held through committee and despite whatever pressures there may have been on other Parties in this House to be more critical of the Bill. I am very happy that the consensus against extra billing and user fees has held, and it shows every sign of holding until the day very soon from now when we can all rise in our place and vote for this Bill. There is a chance now, Mr. Speaker, that the-
Here they come, Mr. Speaker; they are calling on us to go to the Senate. All the more reason to abolish them, Mr. Speaker, because they are interrupting our business in this way.
March 29, 1984



[Stage Direction]
A message was delivered by the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Deputy to the Governor General desires the immediate attendance of this honourable House in the Chamber of the honourable the Senate.
Accordingly, Mr. Speaker with the House went up to the Senate Chamber.
And being returned:
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that when the House went up to the Senate Chamber, the Deputy Governor General had been pleased to give in Her Majesty's name the Royal Assent to the following Bills:
Bill C-27, An Act for granting to the Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending the 31st March, 1984- Chapter No. 3;
Bill C-28, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending the 31st March, 1985- Chapter No. 4.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, it is always refreshing to be back in the House of Commons after a trip down the way to the museum at the other end of the building. I wonder if I might-


Mr. Speaker:: With all due respect to the Hon. Member, the practices of this House are such that references to the other place are not made with disrespect. I am sure the Hon. Member would wish to observe the traditions and practices of this House.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, it is always nice to be in the House of Commons after having been to the other place. I was wondering if we could not agree to call it one o'clock?


Mr. Speaker:: Is that agreed?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


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


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Mr. Walter McLean (Waterloo):: Mr. Speaker, in November of 1974, the then Secretary of State, the Hon. Hugh Faulkner, told the first Conference of National Voluntary Organizations that he was creating a national advisory council on voluntarism. Four areas were identified for investigation and recommendation for government action. First in importance was the need to modernize the definition of "allowable charitable advocacy", that is, to permit government support to groups that oppose its policies or urge other action.
Now, ten years later and six Secretaries of State later, the Government is promising a task force but no incentives to encourage Canadian voluntary groups.
Beginning this Sunday, April 1, the National Voluntary Organizations, representing the 125 largest national agencies, will meet in Ottawa for "Consultation 84". Conscious of the pending general election, the delegates will develop strategies around the question: "What kind of Canada do we want for 2001?"
Mindful of a decade of broken Liberal promises, Canada's NVOs continue to ask for government action in two priority areas: first, the implementation of the give and take 50 per cent charitable tax credit; and, second, an agreement on the definition of allowable political activity by charities.



AIR TRANSPORT


Mr. Andre Maltais (Manicouagan):: Mr. Speaker, eastern Quebec is very discouraged about the whole issue of air transportation. When I say eastern Quebec, I mean the North Shore, of course, and the Gaspe.
Mr. Speaker, Quebecair has shown its contempt for the people of these regions by completely changing its schedules and the kind of aircraft it is using to carry passengers, and it has done so without consulting with the communities concerned, I am referring to the Madgalen Islands, the Gaspe, the North Shore and Quebec's northernmost regions.
I therefore ask that the Canadian Transport Commission consult as soon as possible with the people concerned, with a view to providing safe and efficient air transportation that will be available to all users in these regions.
On the North Shore and in the Gaspe, air transportation is an essential service for the travelling public, and I think it is absolutely vital that the Canadian Transport Commission rule

March 29, 1984
on the issue once and for all. Mr. Speaker, I would also ask that Air Canada, from now on, use its licence to cover the route Sept-iles-Quebec City-Montreal, and Montreal-Quebec City-Sept-Iles, in order to compete with the existing service, because at the present time, both the North Shore and the South Shore have no choice but to fly Quebecair, and it is impossible to get decent service.
Even if the region is experiencing economic problems, it is not right that two companies that are financed by Quebec taxpayers should keep these people in a state of deprivation as far as air services are concerned and for such a long time.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


Mr. Gerry St. Germain (Mission-Port Moody):: Mr. Speaker, generations have been lost in wars, generations have been lost in economic depressions. Another generation is adrift in the chaos of Liberal economic mismanagement.
Our youth today are victimized, jobless, and untrained. They are dropped like loose change as they wait to inherit the bill for this Government's reckless, unchecked credit card approach to financial management.
The Government's legacy to our youth is the national debt that has provided them with neither training nor employment. The bloated deficit spews forth higher interest rates, crushing the hopes of our youth.
Under the pressure of sliding self worth and despair, too many are collapsing into crime, alcoholism, drugs, prostitution, and suicide. The 15 to 24 age group has the largest incidence of suicide of any group. That is the highest price imaginable for man or woman to pay.
Let us remember this stark horror when we think about the Liberal slush funds that cheat the unemployed and patronize the friends of the Liberals.
As the dishonesty of the last Budget becomes more vivid every day, there is nothing forthcoming from the Government to deal with youth unemployment, the national catastrophe, the horror story of this century. It does not have to be this way. With a decent Government, the youth of this country can realize their dreams.



CANADIAN ARMED FORCES


Mr. Stanley Hudecki (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my concern that an outstanding event in our national history might pass without due recognition in the House. I
refer to the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the Royal Canadian Air Force.
From its inception on April 1, 1924, and throughout its 44-year history, the RCAF earned a reputation for dedication and excellence that placed it second to no other air force in the world. The preservation of peace was the RCAF's most important task, and its successes in this regard are now well chronicled for history. Also important were the contributions made by the RCAF in the exploration and development of our vast country, the provision of personnel and equipment for civil and humanitarian assistance, and the building of strong citizens and leaders for our communities.
Many Canadians, civil as well as military, contributed to the success of the RCAF. Their sense of vision, high ideals and standards, and their traditions are carried on today in the air element of the Canadian Forces. I am certain that I can speak for all Canadians when I express pride in our great Canadian air heritage, and congratulate all those associated with the Royal Canadian Air Force and, more recently, the Canadian Forces.



MULTICULTURALISM


Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, it is unusual for Party Leaders to participate in this time period which is normally used by other Members of the House, but I do so today because of the great importance of the subject matter. I refer to the report by an all-Party committee of the House entitled Equality Now. It is a report that concerns the multicultural nature of our country.
We in our Party believe that multiculturalism should become a day-to-day reality in every aspect of Canadian life and not merely a token gesture that occurs from time to time in the political bodies of this land. The NDP has previously committed itself to many of the key recommendations of this report and, in particular, I want to underline five of them which we think should be acted upon immediately by the Government of the day. These include: first, the creation of a full fledged Department of Multiculturalism with its own Deputy Minister; second, the establishment of a permanent Standing Committee on Multiculturalism in the House of Commons; third, affirmative action programs for the visible minorities in the Public Service; fourth, the establishment of CRTC guidelines to prevent stereotypical and inadequate portrayal of visible minorities in the media.


Mr. Speaker:: I hesitate to interrupt the Hon. Member, but the time normally allotted has expired. Is there unanimous consent for the Hon. Member to continue?


Some Hon. Members:: No.
March 29, 1984


John Edward Broadbent: I urge the House to adopt the recommendations.



INCOME TAX ACT


Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the Hon. Member for Mission-Port Moody (Mr. St. Germain), has just underlined the devastation that is facing a generation of our youth, the age group between 15 and 24 who are largely unemployed and the most hardest hit sector of our unemployed population. For many of them this is a time of disorientation, discouragement and, in fact, a total waste of time. Yet this would be an excellent time for them to spend their time in educational institutions, a time at which they could prepare for the coming technological age, not only for jobs but also for leisure time. At the same time it is a time when they are broke and they cannot afford that kind of expense to pay the tuition.
For many of them their parents would be willing to pay the tuition fees even if the children are of the age of majority if they could use that expense as a tax deductible item. I would urge the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) to look at the plight of these unemployed, encourage them to go to school, allow the parents to deduct the tuition expense as a tax deductible item in order that the young people could prepare themselves for the coming technological age, and also in order to use that time for better use as leisure time.



EMPLOYMENT


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, some federal constituencies received a total of $3 million of support funding from Canada Works and "LEAD" Programs this year. In my constituency, Crowfoot, only the bare minimum of $100,000 was allocated.
The vast majority of government assistance programs are based on data collected by Statistics Canada with respect to rates of unemployment. Government officials and policy makers argue that a high rate of unemployment is the single legitimate reason for infusion of government incentives. This mentality, at first blush, seems logical, but in reality is robbing vast regions of rural Canada of opportunities for growth. There has not been a smoke stack in my constituency since Chief Crowfoot's teepee caught on fire some time in the last century.
So ingrained is the belief in many parts of rural Canada that the surrounding hamlets, villages, and towns have no industries
Oral Questions
and, therefore no jobs, that any student who is worth a pinch of coon's breath, automatically and deliberately leaves for a larger centre as soon as he or she exits high school. Rural communities export their unemployed.
There are, of course, fewer unemployed persons in rural Canada. It does not follow in logic that we can then conclude that employment opportunities are plentiful.
It is high time that we look beyond the mirrored veil that has led Governments to false conclusions about why unemployment exists.
Rural Canada is forced to export the unemployed. Most of the unemployed from my constituency are on lists in Lethbridge, Calgary, Red Deer, or Edmonton.


Mr. Speaker:: I must interrupt the Hon. Member to advise him that his time has expired.



PRINCIPAL BUDGETS OF MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I rise today, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the entire NDP caucus to denounce the March 22 announcement by the Commissioners of Internal Economy that the principal budgets of MPs would be increased by a mere 4 per cent.
This decision by a group of Liberal cabinet Ministers flies in the face of the recommendations of an all-Party committee that the principal budgets of Members should be increased substantially to allow Members to give their assistants just and equitable pay increases and bring staff salaries in line with those of other House of Commons employees.
The NDP caucus cannot accept the injustice inherent in the decision of the Commissioners of Internal Economy. All Members of this House know that their assistants work long hours with no extra compensation, have little or no job security, and now they have been condemned to remain second class employees in relation to other House of Commons staff.
This is an issue that transcends party lines and I, on behalf of the entire NDP caucus, urge all Members of Parliament to voice their indignation and outrage at the arrogant and grossly unfair decision of the Commissioners of Internal Economy.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Chris Speyer (Cambridge):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Revenue. On February 24 the

March 29, 1984
Oral Questions
Minister had seven occasions on which he could have given a vote of confidence to his Deputy Minister. He refused to do so. This morning, in a formal way, the axe fell on Bruce MacDonald. Clearly he is the scapegoat. He is the one to carry the can.
1 ask the Minister two questions. First, will the Minister please clearly state the reasons why Mr. MacDonald was dumped? Second, what responsibility does the Minister assign to himself for the tremendous chaos that exists within Revenue Canada? What responsibility does the Minister assign to himself for the maltreatment and the maladministration of his Department?


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, I first want to correct the Hon. Member's question. The Deputy Minister of National Revenue was not fired.


An Hon. Member:: He escaped.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Bussières: He was reassigned to other responsibilities in the Privy Council Office.
Second, I want to tell the Hon. Member that I want to continue with my work with the officials of the Department-


Mr. Crosbie:: What work?


Pierre Bussières: -in order to serve the Canadian taxpayers.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: Feeble applause.


Chris Speyer: Mr. Speaker, Mr. MacDonald is being used as a sacrificial lamb. He is the one the Liberals have assigned to carry the can for the irresponsibility of the Minister.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


MINISTER'S POSITION
Chris Speyer: Mr. Speaker, does the Minister of National Revenue have any intention whatsoever, because ministerial responsibility is assigned to him, of tendering his resignation?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hey, hey!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I am glad on this side we have a Leader that the other side can say "Ho, ho, hey!" at. But when does their Leader show up?


Some Hon. Members:: Never.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Never.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Nielsen:: He asked you a question yesterday.


John Carnell Crosbie: Try to be relevant.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I would want to answer that question very simply, Mr. Speaker. If the Minister had any idea of retiring, I would have dissuaded him and refused his resignation.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Chris Speyer: It is very interesting to me, Mr. Speaker, seeing a lame duck Prime Minister defending the indefensible.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


FARLINGER STUDY
Chris Speyer: Mr. Speaker, I have another question for the Minister of National Revenue. Over two months ago Mr. Farlinger was assigned the task of looking into the administration of Revenue Canada. He was to report to the Minister on an interim basis on what he found.
Has the Minister talked to Mr. Farlinger? Has he talked about the administration of the day-to-day activities of Mr. MacDonald? Was any weight placed on Mr. Farlinger's representations in the reassignment of the Deputy Minister?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I have to make it clear that the Hon. Member does not know what he is talking about. Deputy Ministers are not reassigned by Ministers. Deputy Ministers are appointed on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, not of the Minister.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


SUGGESTED APPOINTMENT OF OMBUDSMAN
Mr. John McDermid (Brampton-Georgetown):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also addressed to the Minister of National Revenue. The Minister appointed Mr. Farlinger to investigate the Department. The Prime Minister fired the Deputy Minister as he just stated. The Department is now putting cute little ads in the paper to try to appear to be helpful. It is the first time the Department has done so in six years.


Erik Nielsen: At a cost of $300,000.


John Horton McDermid: The Minister is saying that Members should contact district offices to solve the problems. Then, lo and behold, last weekend the Minister went out to Vancouver, admitted he could not solve the problems of his Department, and suggested that the Government appoint an ombudsman to solve the problems of the Department. Don't you think that is enough evidence to demand the Minister's resignation?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member stated something which is false in his question, that Mr, MacDonald had been fired. He has not been fired, Mr. Speaker.


John Carnell Crosbie: Dispensed with, emasculated, removed.
March 29, 1984


Mr. Fraser:: Wasted.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If I did not have extreme confidence in the competence of Mr. MacDonald, first, he would not have stayed in his Department for six years and eight months, because that is way above the average, that is way above the three to five years that have been recommended by the Lambert Commission as a normal assignment time. Therefore, I kept Mr. MacDonald there because I believed, and I still believe, that he was doing a good job. I also believe that Mr. Farlinger's report will show that he was doing a good job. He was reassigned. He was not fired.
Second, he was reassigned to the Privy Council Office, and that is not a place where we take incompetents. That is a place where we take people who can do a job.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY
John Horton McDermid: It is interesting to note that the Deputy Minister has been there for six years, but after six months of heat he is soon moved out of there and hidden somewhere in the back of the Privy Council Office where no one will see or hear from him again.
Does the Minister accept any responsibility for the mismanagement of that Department at all? If so, why does he not do the honourable thing, submit his resignation and admit he has been a complete failure?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, Members opposite have been complaining for at least six months about how badly this Government,-this Department-had been administered.


Some Hon. Members:: Right on.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: They have been asking the Minister almost daily why he did not take a grip on that Department, why he did not deal with some officials who were displeasing the Canadian taxpayers and why he did not intervene with officials at various levels. Now they are suddenly discovering that everything was perfect in that Department and only the Minister is wrong. If anybody was to blame, perhaps I should have considered moving Mr. MacDonald earlier, but I did not want to do it until the Tory task force has finished its hearings and is prepared to make some kind of recommendation.


John Carnell Crosbie: Sixteen years of irresponsibility.


John Horton McDermid: There is enough evidence to prove he should be moved.


Mr. McKnight:: You are not helping him, Pierre.
Oral Questions


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The only thing that is certain is that the people sitting on that side should not be moved. They should stay there for a long while yet.


John Horton McDermid: It is not going to happen and you know it, Prime Minister.


FINANCE
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. We have just learned that the Bank of Canada has increased interest rates again for the sixth week in a row. This is bad news for farmers, small businesses, home owners, and for the more than 1.5 million Canadian men and women who would like to get a job. This is bad policy from the Government of Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: The Minister is always talking about the necessity of sending appropriate signals out to Canadians to build confidence in the future. Why did the Government of Canada not send the right signal out today by saying no to this increase in the interest rate by the Bank of Canada?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, last week when the Hon. Leader of the NDP was travelling in northern Ontario he had some hallucinations, no doubt coming from the aurora borealis, to the effect that there was a great conflict between the Governor of the Bank of Canada and myself. That was absolutely without foundation and was an irresponsible statement for a man, who claims he is a responsible man, to make.
Today he is no more knowledgeable when he speaks about terrible increases in interest rates and what that will do to farmers, small business people, et cetera.
First of all, the Bank of Canada does not set the rate. That rate is set by the market for Treasury Bills every Thursday.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the Bank of Canada rate went up today by two one-hundredths of one per cent. That is a terrible increase which is going to stop the economy dead in its tracks no doubt, if we listen to what the Hon. Leader of the NDP is saying. He knows very well that a change like this does not, and will not, make any difference to the interest rates, whether the prime rates at the banks, the consumer loans, or the mortgage rates. We do not expect any impact from this development today on the interest rates which are being charged to Canadians.

March 29, 1984
Oral Questions GOVERNMENT POLICY


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Minister says they do not expect any impact. If they do not expect any impact why did they go ahead and do it?
The Minister also notes that this incremental increase is really not that important. Two years ago we went through such incremental increases week after week and the Government did not do anything about it. Interest rates went right up to 22 per cent. That type of thing can happen. We in this Party want the Government to take action to stop it.
After interest rates went up for the fourth time a question was put to the Government which linked unemployment with increases in the interest rates. I will repeat that question to this Minister now. The question was : -will the hon. gentleman tell the House whether the Government intends to abandon its policy of deliberately creating unemployment-" by pursuing these high interest rates? I would like to ask the Minister that again today.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the answer will be very short and very quick. It is exactly the same as the one I gave to the previous question. The Government policy is not to maintain high interest rates, but to keep them as low as possible. Our policy is to create as many jobs as fast as possible in Canada. It is not a policy such as the one advocated by the Hon. Member.


EFFECT OF INTEREST RATES ON UNEMPLOYMENT
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell the Minister that that question came after the fourth interest rate increase that occurred in 1979. The interest rates were then raised by the Conservative Government of the day. The question came from the Hon. Member for Windsor West. The Minister's answer today was exactly the same answer that the Hon. Member for St. John's West gave a couple of years ago.


John Carnell Crosbie: Think up your own answers, Marc.


Mr. Deans:: It is because they both think alike that they give the same answers.


John Edward Broadbent: If it was true in 1979 that high interest rates increased unemployment when the Conservative Party was in government, will he please provide his wisdom to the people of Canada and tell us why unemployment will not worsen when a Liberal Government increases interest rates?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, 1 answered that question several times last week. I suppose my hon. colleague was once again not in the House, and perhaps he could read Hansard from time to time. If he does, he will realize that I explained that in spite of the increase in interest
rates in Canada and the United States during the last few weeks, we should not necessarily conclude this will have a negative impact on employment and the growth rate of the Canadian economy any more than it does on the U.S. economy. In fact, although interest rates in the United States started to go up in January and February, the American economy's rate of growth was higher than it had been for many months. So there is no automatic and immediate connection between a slight increase in interest rates and slower growth and increased unemployment. Such a connection cannot possibly be established as directly and simplistically as the Hon. Member suggests. I may remind him that in Canada, in 1980 and 1981 for instance, interest rates rose rapidly, and for several months the Canadian economy continued its growth and unemployment continued to drop, despite the fact there had been an increase in interest rates.
The Government does not favour an increase in interest rates. Once again, our policy is to have the lowest possible interest rates, although I realize that people would prefer to have rates that are lower than those we have at the present time. However, I repeat that we cannot adopt the NDP's philosophy which boils down to saying: Stop the world, I want to get off. We are living in the real world, we are on the North American continent, and the Canadian and U.S. economies are extremely interdependent. To ignore this elementary fact is to be totally unrealistic, which is, I would say, rather typical of the NDP.


THE ECONOMY
John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. I would like to point out to the Leader of the New Democratic Party that the Minister of Finance faces the same problem I did. I faced 12 years of irresponsible Liberal Government wreckage of the economy. He faces 16 years of the same. That is why the interest rates are going up.
We have a very sombre forecast from the Conference Board today. It predicts a slowing in the pace of economic growth. It predicts just 3.3 per cent this year and .5 per cent for next year, with the possibility of a recession in 1985. It says the unemployment rate shows no improvement and in fact will be rising over the next few months. It says the most notable factor causing this outlook is the continuing high level of the interest rates.
The Minister has consistently downplayed the influence of high interest rates. When will he make the adjustments that he said last Monday he could make? When will the Minister start making those adjustments? When will the Minister bring in a
March 29, 1984

Budget that has an effect on the economy rather than no effect, leaving people in the pickle they are now?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member will have to explain. I know the Liberal Government and Liberal Party have been in charge of this country for most of the last 16 years. I told my friend I was going to make an important speech on the subject yesterday. I invite him to read it. In fact I have taken the trouble of personally sending him a copy. I hope he will read it from beginning to end. He will find that, compared to any other industrialized country, over the last 16 years the record in Canada compares favourably. In fact it is better than most other industrial countries during that period.
In order to save time and to help educate the Hon. Member, I will send him a copy now across the aisle. It will be very helpful if he gets this important address delivered to La Chambre de Commerce de l'Outaouais in Hull, Quebec last night.
Second, if he wants to blame us for the rise in interest rates, he will have to explain to me why they have risen by the same amount in the United States in the last few months. In fact they started to rise in the United States before they began to rise in Canada.
Finally, my friend refers to the Conference Board forecast. He knows that for the last several months this has consistently been the most pessimistic of all forecasts. Instead of spending his time trying to find the gloomiest possible forecasts, I invite him to look at the most recent figures for growth in the gross domestic product. He will find that in January the gross domestic product, the Canadian economy, grew by 1.3 per cent in that single month. If he were to project that over a full year, which I do not, it would generate something like 16.3 per cent growth. That would be totally unrealistic, but the economy is not in a state of going into a recession. It has gone from a stage of recovery to a stage of expansion. We intend to continue our policies to achieve that purpose.


REQUEST FOR STOP TO TAX INCREASES
John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the weaker the Minister's ground, the more gaseous he gets. The trouble with the Minister's speeches is that the unemployed cannot eat them. I want to ask the honourable ostrich this- the Conference Board forecasts continuing high interest rates for Canada, with all the bad consequences that has for consumer spending, residential construction and so on. It notes that tax increases in Canada 'sharply contrast to the United States where they have real growth and real job creation. Will the Minister now take action to stop these tax increases in Canada, the 1 per cent increase in sales tax in October and the increase in income tax? Will he stop that so that we can get growth in jobs and growth in the economy like they have in the United States?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, hearing the Hon. Member, the Canadian public will have no
Oral Questions
difficulty in concluding why they should continue to leave that Party in opposition for another 16 years. The only outlook they give to the country is one of pessimism, doubt, self-doubt, a lack of confidence in this country, and an outlook that offers no hope to this country. I invite my friend to look at the figures again. Look at the forecasts that have been made in this country. They forecast real job growth. They forecast real growth in the economy in 1984, not the kind of gloom and doom that the Conservatives are offering as the only alternative.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: Feeble applause from Bussieres again.


Erik Nielsen: It sounds like Hull to me.


BANKS AND BANKING
Hon. Sinclair Stevens (York-Peel):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance, who undoubtedly is concerned about the possibility of the Argentine defaulting by not paying interest on its international loan commitment. Will the Minister indicate how our banks, under his supervision, got into this unfortunate situation where they have about a $14 billion loan position with various Latin American countries, in sharp contrast to roughly $7 billion to Canadian farmers and only $1 billion to Canadian small business men? Will the Minister explain how, under his supervision, Canadian banks got so exposed? In short, can he assure the House that the loans will be repaid without default?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, since the Hon. Member himself was once involved in certain banking operations-about which I will say no more today- he ought to know that the Minister of Finance has nothing to do with the lending activities of banks.
In fact, Canadian banks have been lending a lot of money to many foreign countries and, generally speaking, those loans have quite often paved the way for the purchase of Canadian goods and services, thus contributing to job creation in Canada. Canadian banks are very active on the international scene and, like banks in other countries such as Europe and the United States, they are doing a great deal of international business which helps Canada. Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Romania did have some difficulties. I would refer my colleague to the events in recent years, when the international banking community and other international institutions cooperated to make arrangements with those various countries to make sure that they would pay back the money owed to Canada as well as to Canadian banks and other countries.

March 29, 1984
Oral Questions
International organizations and banking institutions are now involved in international negotiations. The best indications are that the Government of Argentina, which is now under a democratic regime, will take the necessary steps with a view to respecting fully all its international commitments. Indeed, the Argentinian Government did say that it knows full well that Argentina's real and long-term interests will best be served if it meets its international obligations.


ROLE OF EXPORT DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs, who is in charge of the Export Development Corporation. Has any move been made in that Corporation, presumably at the Minister's direction, to require the Corporation to extend no further credit to the Argentine until matters are clarified? In answering the question, will the Minister indicate what is EDC's current exposure with respect to loans to the Argentine?


Hon. Gerald Regan (Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, the nature of the confidence that I have in the management of the Export Development Corporation is such that it is customary to allow them, with their executive officers and board of directors, to determine the method and amounts of credit that, according to their formula, are appropriate for various countries. The question of lines of credit for Argentina or any other country would be determined in the way that they have always functioned. I have to say that at the present time Argentina is not regarded as a very good credit risk.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. Due to a merger between Consolidated-Bathurst and MacMillan Bloedel, Consolidated-Bathurst closed its plant in Hamilton about a year ago. Of the 225 who lost their jobs, 75 were over the age of 50. They now have no job. They will not qualify for UIC benefits as at the end df next month. There does not appear to be anything under the labour adjustments program that will permit them to be compensated. They have no hope left. Is there anything for them within any of the Government programs presently in effect? Is there anything that the Government can offer that will guarantee that those older workers who lost their jobs through no fault of their own will not have to live in poverty until retirement age?


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman speaks in terms of a guarantee. No one can give absolute guarantees to workers
who have-lost their occupations as a result of technological change or as a result of a recession. There are extensive programs for training and for retraining which are available, particularly to those who are receiving the benefit of unemployment insurance payments. Something close to $500 million worth of funds is available for training throughout the country. Much of that is available to people who are in the condition described by the Hon. Member.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I must say that that answer is simply not good enough. The fact of the matter is that the Minister knows full well that, for people over age 50, the opportunity to be retrained for any kind of meaningful employment is dramatically reduced as compared to other age groups. He also knows that in the Hamilton area very few employers are employing individuals who are currently unemployed.


RETRAINING PROGRAM INQUIRY
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, my question is quite simple. What about those people who have lost their jobs because of a merger, a decision made by Consolidated-Bathurst and MacMillan Bloedel, and who are now at an age when retraining is virtually impossible and finding another job is almost equally impossible? What kind of program can the Minister now offer to those people to guarantee them that between now and the time they are able to retire legitimately, they will have some kind of income to keep themselves and their families from starvation?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman has asked an impossible and obviously flawed question. If he makes the assumption that it is not possible for those people to have jobs, and if he makes the assumption that it is not possible for them to receive training, then obviously it will not be possible to respond to the situation in which they find themselves. He has stacked his question in such a way so as to ensure that there is no possible answer that can be given to it. I am not nearly as pessimistic as he seems to be about the possibility of people of this age finding job opportunities and retraining programs to assist them.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Jesse Philip Flis: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs, but in his absence I would like to direct it to the Minister of External Relations. In July of last year it was reported that hundreds of Tamils were killed and thousands were left homeless in Sri Lanka because of conflicts between government troops and Tamils who were demanding independence for their northern province.
March 29, 1984

Today I received a call from a representative of the Association of Tamils in Canada who was concerned that 42 Tamils were massacred by government troops in the North of Sri Lanka. His facts differ from the information reported in today's Globe and Mail. To defuse any wild rumours and accusations, could the Minister tell the Tamil Canadians and the House whether his Department was in touch with the High Commissioner, and when, and could he give a status report to the House on the conflict in that country?


Gerald Augustine Regan: Mr. Speaker, in response to the question of the Hon. Member, the Department keeps in regular contact with our ambassador in Colombo regarding the situation in that troubled land. Canada, of course, expressed its concern in relation to the events of a tragic nature that occurred there some number of months ago. Regarding the circumstances to which the Hon. Member refers today, I am not aware whether there has been a report from the High Commissioner within the past 24 hours, but I will make inquiries in that regard.

[Translation\


EMPLOYMENT
Hon. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
Since in its last Budget, the Government had set aside $1.3 billion for measures aimed at helping young people find jobs, and considering the fact that the Minister is surely aware that the funding earmarked for Summer Canada-Student Employment will cover only one project out of three that are proposed ... In the circumstances ... I have the impression my question should be put to the Minister of State for Youth. Therefore, as the Minister is well aware, there are indications that the funds earmarked for students this summer will cover one project out of three.
Could the Minister inform the House whether she has already made recommendations for additional funding within the $1.3 billion envelope, to give students a better chance?


Hon. Celine Hervieux-Payette (Minister of State (Youth)):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the Hon. Member for his question. Hon. Members, both on the Government and Opposition sides, have made a number of representations for additional funding for the Summer Canada Program. Representations have been made to the Committee on Social Development, and next week I will be able to announce how much additional funding our colleagues will receive for the program in the ridings.
Oral Questions


NUMBER OF PROJECTS TO BE FUNDED
Roch La Salle: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Minister's answer is far more informative than the one given by the Minister of Finance yesterday, and I congratulate her.
In the circumstances, since the Minister is aware that this budget covers only one project out of three, could she perhaps inform the House what percentage of the projects that have been presented will be approved, also considering the importance of the purpose of this program, which is to provide jobs for students this summer?


Céline Hervieux-Payette: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the Hon. Member that the $150 million will be spent in a way that is satisfactory to all young people in Canada, and that a sizeable portion of this amount will be earmarked for programs for students this summer.


DISTRIBUTION OF FUNDS
Hon. John Wise (Elgin):: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of State who is responsible for youth programs and is supplementary to the question put by my colleague, the Hon. Member for Joliette. We are certainly encouraged by the Minister's comments. However, could we have the assurance that when additional funds are secured, those additional funds will be given out riding by riding in relation to need, separate and apart from any political affiliation which is the way a senior Minister distributed funds with respect to an earlier program?


Céline Hervieux-Payette: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the Hon. Member that the $150 million will be spent for youth, and a good amount of that will be spent for student employment this summer. Not only will funding to this program be increased, it will never be cut by our Government.


PETRO-CANADA ALLEGATION OF GASOLINE PRICE FIXING
Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources who has been continually leaving his seat. In his absence, I would direct my question to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. I see that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources has returned to his chair, Mr. Speaker, and I will therefore direct my question to him.
Just a few days ago, the Minister said in the House that if some indication of price fixing by Petro-Canada which was causing consumers to pay more for gas was brought to his attention, he would investigate it. I would like to advise him that a major independent service station chain, Seabrooke
2554

March 29, 1984
Oral Questions
Motors Ltd. in East-Central Ontario, has had its supply affected by Petro-Canada. It has been charged more for fuel than it can retail it for in the market today.
Petro-Canada is showing favouritism to its own company-owned and operated service stations, thus cutting off supply to independent dealers. This is driving the price of gasoline up and fixing it at that level. Would the Minister responsible for Petro-Canada, Canada's own oil company, be kind enough to look into this matter and confirm to the House today that there is price fixing, not only at the refinery gate but at the retail level as well?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, 1 cannot confirm such an allegation, but I will look into it. 1 think that Petro-Canada deals with these matters like any other oil company does. The mandate that it has received from the House of Commons is to do in the marketplace what is commonly done. If something is being done which is unusual or against the law, the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs has the mandate to make sure that there is no price fixing and collusion among the companies. I think that Petro-Canada is subject to the same laws as any other corporate citizen in the land.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources is aware of the fact that this investigation by the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs has been going on for eight years. Evidence that has been before the courts has been reported in the newspapers. No one but the Minister is responsible for Petro-Canada, and the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs is responsible for the consumer.


REQUEST FOR MINISTERIAL ACTION
William Henry (Bill) Domm: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same Minister. If he has the interests of the consumers of Canada at heart and if he will tolerate a 50 cent per gallon change in price on a phone call from Petro-Canada, discriminating against the private, independent chains of petroleum stations across Canada, why will he not do something? Why would he not direct Petro-Canada to stop this price fixing at the refinery gate and at the retail pumps of Canada?
[Translation\


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Petro-Canada's job is to do business just like the other oil companies. It must serve its customers competitively while taking market trends into account. Prices are changing regularly on the markets in Quebec, Ontario and elsewhere, and Petro-Canada certainly operates along the same standards and under the same laws as other Canadian companies.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Jean Lapierre (Shefford):: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Unemployment and Immigration.
As he is aware, thousands of Quebec hotel and restaurant workers who receive tips are impatiently awaiting the results of his discussions with the Quebec Minister of Revenue about their entitlement to Unemployment Insurance benefits. I would like the Minister to tell us about the results of his discussions with Mr. Dean yesterday in Quebec City.


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, I met my provincial counterpart, Mr. Dean, yesterday morning to discuss the Quebec Government proposal and examine the situation in this regard. I indicated that it would be impossible for the federal Government to agree with the Quebec proposal at this time because there is now a case before the Supreme Court on the issue. In addition, the Quebec proposal generally concerns the provisions of the law. We would therefore have to consult the other Provinces in order to learn their views before taking any action. The third aspect of the Quebec proposal will certainly require an amendment to the legislation, and it will take some time for this to come before the Canadian Parliament if we do decide to proceed along that line.
I cannot provide any assurance for the short term to the Quebec Government, but I have suggested that it might be worthwhile to raise this issue with the other provincial governments. We would then have to wait and see whether a consensus can be had in the recommendations made by all the Provinces.


MULTICULTURALISM
Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of State for Multiculturalism. The report entitled Equality Now, which was released yesterday, documents the existence of systemic discrimination in Canada. While that discrimination may not be intentional, the impact is to exclude visible minorities from full and equal participation in Canadian society. I know that the Minister has made positive comment on the report, but I should like to inquire about a specific recommendation.
The report recommends that the Government introduce contract compliance legislation which would require people who contract with the federal Government to introduce affir-
March 29, 1984

mative action programs for visible minorities. Is the Minister prepared to act on that recommendation?


Hon. D. M. Collenette (Minister of State (Multiculturalism)):: Mr. Speaker, first of all I should congratulate my colleague, the Hon. Member for Essex-Kent, and members of the committee, for this report.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


David Michael Collenette: The fact that it has been well received by people generally, especially those in the visible minority communities, is testament to the good work they have done.
With respect to the whole question of affirmative action, and that is what we are really talking about when we talk about contract compliance which was one of the recommendations, I should inform the Hon. Member that we do indeed have a program already. It was announced by the President of the Treasury Board only last year and it has been worked on since then. When one talks of affirmative action one has to distinguish between the voluntary approach which we have taken so far in Canada, and which I believe has met with some success, and the compulsory approach which was taken in the United States after the enactment of the civil rights legislation in 1964 and the directive on contract compliance.
This is a serious question and I should like to hear the views of all Hon. Members, the Parties generally, and the Canadian public, before the Government takes this very difficult step. I will be discussing this with my Cabinet colleagues in the next few weeks and I would ask the Hon. Member to be patient.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, the Minister should know that Members of Parliament have already expressed their opinions with regard to contract compliance in the report Equality Now.


RECOMMENDATION TO ESTABLISH SEPARATE DEPARTMENT
Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister about the multiculturalism policy for which he is responsible. He knows that ethnic groups across the country, including visible minorities, have been calling for a higher priority on multiculturalism. The report that was issued yesterday calls for a Multiculturalism Act which would create a full Department of Multiculturalism, with a Deputy Minister. Is the Minister prepared to act on this recommendation?


David Michael Collenette: Mr. Speaker, first of all I should like to correct the Hon. Member's impression of what happens in Parliament. When the report was tabled, that was simply an expression of seven Members of Parliament; there has been no motion to concur in that report and therefore there is not yet an endorsement from Parliament as a whole. When the Hon. Member said that all of Parliament has expressed its views on the subject, that is a little different from the actual tabling of the report.
Oral Questions
The Hon. Member asked about an Act. Last December's Throne Speech gave a commitment to introduce a Multicultural Act. That is now progressing through Cabinet and I hope to be able to make some positive statement on it very soon.
On the question of a full Department of Multiculturalism, it seems to me that the Prime Minister answered that question rather explicitly last October. I should like to advise the Hon. Member, and perhaps warn him and those who feel that the answer is to upgrade multiculturalism to a full Department with a full Deputy Minister, that if this were done there would be a danger that we would ghettoize multicultural policy once and for all in this country. I do not want to work toward that, and I am sure that the Hon. Member does not either.


INTEREST ACT
Mr. Bill Kempling (Burlington):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Will the Minister advise why she is holding up the introduction of a Bill dealing with mortgage rate insurance and amendments to the Interest Act? Will she tell us why she is waiting? Will she also let us know how high mortgage rates must rise before she will move to introduce this legislation which was promised in the Throne Speech?


Hon. Judy Erola (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to assure the Hon. Member that those amendments are being drafted now and will be presented as fast as we can get them to the floor of the House.


PLIGHT OF HOME OWNERS WITH HIGH INTEREST MORTGAGES
William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, the Minister, her predecessor, and the Minister of Finance gave 750,000 Canadians trapped with high interest rate mortgages some hope for relief through their pious statements. Then they abandoned them. Will the Minister tell us whether she has been able to lever some special treatment from the mortgage industry for these unfortunate people, because she appears to have yielded to industry demands for changes in the Interest Act and then hung out to dry the 750,000 Canadians trapped with high interest rate mortgages?


Judith A. Erola: Mr. Speaker, we have made every effort to go to bat for every one of those people. Thousands of them have come to us for assistance through the Department of Finance and the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. We have written to every financial institution in every case, and very often we have been able to get a measure of help for these people. I have said that we will not be able to legislate retroactively. We intend to bring forward legislation that will address the problem, but in the meantime we will continue to be of every assistance possible to people who are in difficulty.

Oral Questions


WESTERN GRAIN TRANSPORTATION ACT
[Stage Direction]
March 29, 1984
Hon. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of Transport. He will be aware that farm bankruptcies in western Canada are up 110 per cent this year over last year. He will also be aware that the position of farmers in western Canada has deteriorated as a result of the new freight rate regime enacted as a result of Bill C-155.
Given the fact that the railways have now expressed the view that they will not invest the $16.5 billion as was promised, and that it will be closer to $ 12 billion, what corresponding reduction can the Minister promise to farmers? They were asked to pay more to get more, and now that investment will not take place. Is he considering any action to reduce the burden on the farmers in a corresponding way?


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member knows, the investment that will be made by the railways will still be on target in terms of developing the major expansion of the capacity of the rail system in western Canada. There is no reduction or diminution in the commitment. The realignment of the forecast is simply because of economic circumstances that have changed. Fortunately we have had a substantial reduction in the inflation rate, and this means that the actual dollar cost of the project has been reduced substantially but the work will still go ahead. There is no reduction in that respect.
Some of the projects related to other aspects of the transportation system, particularly in the coal area, have been put off for a longer period while waiting for a pickup of the export market in the coal and natural resource area.
I can tell the Hon. Member that we will hold the railways very clearly to their responsibility to expand the railway system substantially so there will be no blockages and no handicaps in the movement of our grain. We will continue to monitor the situation and, if they do not live up to those commitments, we will apply the sanctions and penalties which I am capable of applying under the Act.


REQUEST THAT ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN BE CANCELLED
Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Minister acknowledged before the Standing Committee on Transport the fact that there would be a reduction in railway investment. The railways have said there would be a reduction in investment, and there will be a reduction in the number of jobs. There is a reduction in the traffic forecast. As a minimum, would the Minister cease and desist the false and misleading propaganda which is being perpetrated on Canadians across the country through an expensive ad campaign which is insulting not only to the Canadian taxpayer but, indeed, to the farmer? Would the Minister at least do that
much in acknowledgment of the fact he admitted in committee the other day?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I do want to point out to the Hon. Member that the purpose of the information program is to alert Canadian businesses to the many opportunities this rail expansion program offers. It is one of the largest economic development projects ever undertaken in the history of Canada. It is very important that Canadian manufacturers and suppliers are able to bid for that work so that they will receive the maximum value out of the program.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Tell the truth.


Lloyd Axworthy: They will not receive that value if they are not aware of the wide range of opportunities available. That is the reason we have the information program.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Would	you	tell the	truth?


PETITIONS
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the Clerk of the House has laid upon the Table the report of the Clerk of Petitions stating that he has examined the petition presented by the Hon. Member for Kootenay West (Mr. Kristiansen) on Wednesday, March 28, 1984, and finds that the petition does not meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.

BUSINESS OF THE	HOUSE


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for the Yukon on the usual question on House business?


Erik Nielsen: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Would the Government House Leader reaffirm that tomorrow will indeed be an allotted day and inform us as to the business of the House as far as he can take us into next week?
While he is answering that question, he will know that there is on yesterday's Notice Paper notice of the introduction of a supplementary borrowing Bill which, I am informed, is in the amount of $4 billion, pursuant to a House order which was made last year. Is it the intention of the Government to move for leave today to introduce that legislation?


Mr. Pinard:: Mr. Speaker, on the first question, I want to confirm that tomorrow is indeed an Opposition Day, as I indicated yesterday. In so far as the business for next week is concerned, I had a meeting this morning with my colleagues, the House Leaders, and indicated to them, after asking them a
March 29, 1984

few questions, that I could not be in a position to be very specific at that time, unfortunately. I should be in a position to be more specific a bit later. I am waiting for some information. It is not clear if Bill C-21 will be called on Monday or on Tuesday. That is one of the items I hope to receive information on rather soon.
In so far as the special order to which the Hon. Member referred a moment ago dealing with supplementary borrowing authority up to $4 billion, indeed notice has been given to introduce this Bill. Of course, if the Bill were to be introduced, I can, in the name of the Government, put on the record-as I indicated to my colleagues earlier today-that whatever amount of money would be borrowed out of that $4 billion would be deducted at the committee stage from the amount specified in Bill C-21. This is now on the record. This is a commitment of the Government.
I want it to be clear that if we introduce and proceed with the Bill for the supplementary borrowing authority as provided for by the special order, this will be done because in the short term it is necessary and urgent to get some money for April to be able to spend, and to be authorized to borrow. Such an amount of money, up to $4 billion, once again, would be deducted by amendment to Bill C-21 before it is completely disposed of.


Erik Nielsen: Dealing first with the House business once again, I can understand the difficulty in determining whether it is going to be Bill C-21 on Monday or Tuesday. We can expect that uncertainty to be clarified when the Minister has the information which he says is about to come to him. However, what do we do on Wednesday and on next Thursday, if he can take us that far?
With respect now to the notice concerning the supplementary borrowing authority of $4 billion, we are now debating in Bill C-21 a measure which would authorize the Government to borrow $29.5 billion. Regardless of the Minister's reassurances, we know that there are $8.1 billion of cash deposits available to the Government now. It seems to us to be totally unreasonable to be introducing borrowing authority for a further $4 billion in addition to the $29.5 billion when the Government has this kind of cash deposit at its disposal to meet its April commitments.


Yvon Pinard: First of all, 1 have no intention of arguing the point Mr. Speaker, but I think that he should double-check his information. Also, the Hon. Member should be aware that April is the month when the Government needs cash because of greater expenditures. He should know, therefore, that reserves are artificial and if Bill C-21 is not referred to the committee until next week it is as a result of the stalling tactics of the Official Opposition, period. At 6.15 p.m. last night, we were ready for the vote. Hon. Members were in the House, but for no reason at all, the Official Opposition decided to delay the taking of the vote until this morning and demanded as a prerequisite that Bill C-21 be not referred today to a commit-
Business of the House
tee, delaying again by a few days the consideration by a Standing Committee of this important piece of legislation. The Hon. Member should know that basic to our Parliamentary system is the Government's ability to levy taxes, as well as borrow and spend money.
For the first time since I was appointed Government House Leader several years ago, we have had the good fortune of having the budget tabled in the House almost on the eve of the presentation of an act to provide the Government with a borrowing authority to meet its requirements up to $29.5 billion.
The Hon. Member is well aware of all that. So, when he claims that because it has some $8 billion in cash deposits, the Government should not avail itself of previously adopted regulations and ordinances of the House, he is mistaken, and if he really wants to demonstrate his good faith and desire to let the Government operate normally, he should end this filibuster and allow the House to pass Bill C-21 as soon as possible. I repeat that we are ready to negotiate in good faith, and that Members on the opposite side should do likewise. If we fail to come to an understanding, the Government will have to assume its responsibilities. If we have to introduce other bills, therefore, we shall do so in a manner consistent with our Standing Orders and Parliamentary practice.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief and will not respond in a partisan way whatsoever. Will the Minister answer the simple question: Is it the intention of the Government today to move for leave to introduce that supplementary borrowing Bill?


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, I think the answer is obvious, but I suppose the Hon. Member will have to wait and see when we reach Introduction of Bills. Certainly, we want to introduce that bill as early as possible. It is an urgent plea.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Yukon; then the Hon. Member for Nanaimo-Alberni.


Erik Nielsen: Then under those circumstances and in order that we can despatch the business of the House in an orderly fashion, and for the reasons I stated in my preamble, I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald):
That the House do now proceed to Orders of the Day.
If there is any doubt at all, Sir, about the acceptability or propriety of that motion, I would like to speak to it.


Yvon Pinard: That is moved on a point of order and so it is out of order.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Axworthy moves motions on points of orders.


Mr. Speaker:: Moved by the Hon. Member for Yukon, seconded by-

March 29, 1984
Business of the House


Yvon Pinard: I understand, Mr. Speaker, that the Hon. Member for the Yukon, who still wants to paralyse Parliament, was recognized on a point of order to ask questions on House business. Therefore, I suggest it is out of order to move such a motion on a point of order.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member was recognized, and the language the Chair used was the usual question relating to Government business, which is not a point of order. It has become a practice of this House to recognize at this time on a Thursday a question relating to the business of the House. That is the understanding of the Chair. Certainly the Chair did not interpret this as a point of order, or as an appeal to a point of order, at that time. Therefore the Chair has no alternative but to accept the motion.
Mr. Nielsen, seconded by Miss MacDonald, moves:
That the House do now proceed to Orders of the Day.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


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


Mr. Speaker:: Call in the Members.
And the division bells having been rung:


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Since it is 6 p.m., the usual hour of adjournment for the House, obviously the Orders of the Day cannot now be read. Accordingly, the motion before us has lapsed pursuant to Standing Order 8(1). I do now leave the Chair until tomorrow at eleven o'clock a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).
At six o'clock, the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Friday, March 30, 1984