1985-05-16

Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg-Fort Garry) moved:: That this House condemns the Government not only for its failure to protect Canada from potential problems of foreign direct investment as demonstrated by the Government's failure to take effective action in dealing with foreign takeovers in the cases of Mitel and of the book publishing industry, but also for its contempt for the parliamentary process by cutting off free debate on its iniquitous investment legislation without providing adequate time for consideration of dozens of important and constructive amendments.
He said: Mr. Speaker, we are now in our sixth straight day of Opposition motions and resolutions. This has to be one of the most incredible and unorthodox situations with which Parliament has been faced in decades. What it basically adds up to is that the Government has gone on strike, or perhaps on lock-out. The Government doesn't want to govern, Mr. Speaker. I think the real reason is that the Government has realized that once all the fun and games of making appointments and having public relations meetings and television interviews, is over, it really has to get down to the hard, difficult and serious business of governing this country and it doesn't want to do it.
Conservatives have never liked to govern. Their long history has shown that. Now that that Party finally has a chance to govern, what happens? We have six straight days in Parliament with no government business on the Order Paper. Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, any Government in a western democracy so totally abdicating its responsibility that it has to rely upon the Opposition to maintain the entire parliamentary business for almost a whole week?
I have to say that this really is one of the most curious commentaries on this Government. It is perhaps not only that the Government doesn't like to govern any more, but, probably more importantly, it is embarrassed by what it has on the Order Paper and doesn't want Parliament to bring it out for public examination or review. All I can conclude from this strange and unusual period we are going through is that the Government is somehow hoping that if it keeps the Opposition presenting the business of the day in Parliament it will then be able to squeeze all its Bills and estimates into the very last weeks of Parliament, and rush them through in order to make
sure Parliament does not get the opportunity to exercise its proper function, which is clearly to examine these issues and exchange different points of view. That is what we basically see in the attitude of the Government in this parliamentary procedure of having nothing but Opposition Days for a full week, and in its attempt to bring in closure on the only major piece of economic legislation that has been introduced. It is clear that they are afraid, and not prepared to defend their case in an honest, forthright, and effective way. Instead they rely upon all of the dodges; they hide behind procedure, and look for ways of avoiding and evading those responsibilities.
U0)
The fact is they cannot evade them. Holiday time is over. Canadians who are going to the polls are giving a very clear message.


Mr. Stevens:: Fifty-four per cent in the last Gallup.


Lloyd Axworthy: There is only one poll which really counts; that is when people put their ballots in the box.


Mr. Dick:: You got 26 per cent.


Lloyd Axworthy: They gave a mandate last September and we all admitted that. No one is shying away from that. The only people who are unprepared to live up to that mandate are the Conservatives themselves. We are prepared to admit that we were defeated and are no longer the Government. We are now acting as the Opposition. Unfortunately, the Conservatives have been unable to recognize that their role has changed. They do not want to govern.
The Canadian people are sending messages in one provincial election after another as they vote against the Conservative Party. A large part of that vote is directed toward the "Mul-roney mugwumps" who do not know what they are up to. There is a very large counter-reaction taking place because the people realize that the Government is not prepared to effectively concentrate on the economic issues of the country.
In the past week we have seen clear examples of incredible confusion and contradiction. The Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) made one of the century's greatest jokes; he calls it a foreign policy review. However, if Canadians are to make any use of it, the Government had better send crayons out with it so it can be used as a colouring book. There is nothing in that document other than contradictions. It says they will review Canada's military strategy, but they will make decisions before making the review.
The grey or chartreuse document says that in order to stay internationally competitive we must ensure that Canadians

May 16, 1985
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invest in research and development, that we control our own economic destiny, and that we hone our ability in high technology industries. Immediately after the paper was tabled the Minister of Science and Technology (Mr. Siddon) said that the Government cannot live up to its commitments on R and D. The Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens) joyfully applauded the fact that a number of our major high technology industries are being taken over by foreigners. He said it is wonderful that a Canadian high technology industry is now owned by a company beyond our borders. He wants Canadians to agree that that is a wonderful thing. During the course of the hearings which were held on this Bill evidence was produced time and again that foreign owned companies produce far less research and development than do Canadian controlled companies. We are now simply selling off our birthright, our opportunity to do that which the Secretary of State for External Affairs says we should be doing.


Mr. Brisco:: You sold your birthright, turkey.


Lloyd Axworthy: We're not talking about agricultural policy. You are in the wrong chamber. You had better go to the other committee. Turkey is what they serve at Conservative fund raising dinners because they are all sitting at the head table.
During the very week that a paper is tabled on the need to develop research and development there is a take-over of Mitel and CTG. There are now reports in the paper that the Hon. Minister is trying to work out a sweetheart deal with foreign owned defence companies. In order to get them to buy Cana-dair and de Havilland he has to give them defence contracts. This is what we call purpose and direction in our economic affairs. This is what we call smart government. They have got to be kidding. Canadians have got to be asking themselves who is in charge here.
This Minister, who has a lot of time to go and give interviews to The Financial Post and all the business papers about his grand economic strategy, does not have time to do his job. His job is to be an economic development minister and establish clear guidelines and goals to make sure that control of a critical industry like high technology is retained in this country. Where was the Minister when he should have been trying to find alternative Canadian buyers? Where was he in trying to develop a pool of Canadian capital? We were told by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) in his Economic Statement that Canada has the largest pool of savings in the world; 13 per cent of our income goes into savings.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Your Government was borrowing it all.


Lloyd Axworthy: If that is where all the capital is, why is it not being allocated or directed into our high tech industries? Surely we can learn the lessons of the past and not sell off this industry, as we have the mining and manufacturing industries.
The Government has taken almost 200 days to come up with a Budget. The only initiative taken by the Minister of Finance was to cancel R & D spending. We desperately hope and pray
that in the Budget next week there will be some initiatives which will provide incentives to Canadians to invest in the high tech industry. But in the meantime this Minister, who said he is going to be the economic Czar, is really acting like a Czarina. He is not dealing with the business of the economy, he is much more interested in telling people what he wants to do. But actions speak louder than words. We will test him, not on his rhetoric, but on what he does, and what he is really doing is nothing; he is simply standing still, with the exception of cheerleading every takeover which takes place. That seems to be his role and responsibility.


Robert Hylton Brisco: Tell us about the ERDA agreement in B.C.


Lloyd Axworthy: Let me talk for a minute about the book publishing industry.


Mr. McDermid:: Oh, yes, tell us about that one.


Lloyd Axworthy: Let me go back to the words of the Minister who said in this House that the one area of the Canadian economy which was another sacred trust to the Conservative Party was the Canadian cultural industry. We all know the book publishing industry is an essential ingredient in the maintenance of our cultural identity; the written word is critical. So what happens? On March 31 the program to provide direct grants to the book publishing industry ran out. Was it replaced? Was any action taken by this Government to provide grants, tax incentives or support of some kind to the Canadian book publishing industry? No, the program was allowed to lapse. In the meantime we had an application for another takeover, that of Prentice-Hall by Gulf & Western, a company which has already taken over four or five publishing firms. Here was an opportunity for the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion to give a very clear signal to foreign investors that at least in this one area we were not going to accept foreign ownership; in this one area we were going to protect our Canadian culture. But six months later there has been absolutely no action, no decision, nothing from the Minister. As a result of that omission, that inaction, that ineptitude, we now have two other firms, including Gulf & Western, which want to buy a fourth Canadian publishing concern, having taken over two other Canadian publishing companies in the month of April.
The foreign business community is pretty smart; they know how to read signals, and the signal from this Minister is that he does not care, he is not interested, not involved. If you are going to wait six months to make a decision on Prentice-Hall, let's get these other acquisitions and takeovers in under the wire.
The real tragedy in all this, Mr. Speaker, is that we brought in amendments to the Investment Canada Bill which took note of these problems of foreign ownership, but this Government and this Minister refused to pay any attention. In the case of high tech we clearly telegraphed what is now happening with Mitel, because that is only the tip of the iceberg. We said that any company which receives R & D grants from the Govern-
May 16, 1985

ment of Canada under the Investment Canada Bill should be subject to review.
Mitel gets the publicity because it is a large company. However, there are hundreds of smaller high tech firms in Canada that will be totally vulnerable and unprotected under Investment Canada. Did the Minister pay any attention to that warning from the Science Council? Did he pay any attention to the representations made at committee that in such a critical area to economic growth in Canada there should be at least a requirement for a review of those companies? The Minister said no, let the foreign companies come in and take over because his Government believes that is a virtue.
That amendment was not brought in because we wanted to confront the Minister and the Government. We were not opposing the principle of the Bill. We were offering to improve it and make it better in an attempt to deal with this matter.
Similarly, in the case of book publishing, we brought in amendments to the House that clearly indicated a desire to have Parliament establish the criteria upon which reviews will take place in the cultural industry. Let us not have it subject to regulation that can be shifted on the whim and caprice of orders in council. Our amendment would have Parliament establish the criteria so that it would be clearly understood by those in our economy, including the cultural groups and publishing groups, that this is in fact the parliamentary sanction. Once again, the Minister said he had no business with that because his interest really is keeping power unto himself. There is a clear disregard for Parliament in these actions and a clear interest in maintaining his own arbitrary, discretionary powers without reference to anyone else.
The Investment Canada Bill is severely flawed because it gives the Minister total and complete power without any accountability for his decisions to anybody else. He is not required to answer to Parliament, to the committee or even to his own Cabinet.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Not true. Why can't you stick to the truth?


Lloyd Axworthy: He has no accountability whatsoever in these areas.
We introduced an amendment that would allow for this accountability in order to maintain some kind of balance in this area. Was there any willingness to consider these amendments or any willingness to debate? The Conservative Members sat in their places and would not debate the issue. Instead, the Government introduced closure.
Not only are the Conservatives not willing to administer the Government, they are not prepared to engage in the give and take of parliamentary exchange through the parliamentary process. They do not really favour Parliament because they believe that their large majority on September 4 gave them some form of divine right.


John Horton McDermid: You won't participate.
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Lloyd Axworthy: Time and again we have said that if Members opposite are going to use Parliament, they should use it legitimately. The Member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid) is cackling in his seat. I said earlier that we are not dealing with agriculture, so I do not know why he is cackling so loud.
Of course, we want a foreign policy review but it should be legitimate. The Government should ensure that the document does not consider decisions that the Government is going to take without reference to Parliament. It should not be turned into a charade.
Similarly with respect to the Investment Canada Bill, the Government should ensure that the report stage of the Bill provides an opportunity to carefully consider every amendment. However, that is not the intention of the Government. We are prepared to spend as many hours, days or weeks in the House debating these matters as is required. That is why, in one sense, the opportunity to have an Opposition day is a form of blessing in disguise, because at least it gives us an opportunity that is denied us through the normal process of Parliament to bring these matters to the attention of the public.


John Horton McDermid: You have never been denied anything.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: When are you going to say something?


Lloyd Axworthy: We are quite prepared as an Opposition to sit down with the Government and discuss the Investment Canada Bill. We are prepared to work out timetables for debate and find a reasonable and rational way to present amendments. If the Minister offered to sit down with us, we would be prepared to discuss what might be useful and constructive amendments.
We recognize the Minister's right and responsibility to present legislation and maintain the principle of the Bill. However, I remind him that when we brought in the Western Grain Transportation Act over a year ago, which was equally controversial legislation, we accepted 15 to 20 amendments from the Opposition because they were legitimate, sensible and constructive amendments. We have tried to conduct ourselves in the same manner, but the Minister and the Government do not believe in that process. The Government does not want to get into such an exchange.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: You better start talking to Herb.


Lloyd Axworthy: The Government should recognize the threat posed by the Mitel takeover this week. It represents the danger of an incredible loss of ability in this country to provide for growth and development in the critical area of high technology and the ability to maintain our international competitiveness. The Investment Canada Bill is severely flawed in that respect. It contains serious errors. The responsibility of this Parliament should be to correct those errors to provide for improvements and constructive amendments.

May 16, 1985
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Let me say to the Government that we are prepared to negotiate and to deal on that basis, but it is the Government that must take the initiative. It must show at least a modicum of interest and goodwill to make that happen. Up to this time, as our resolution clearly states, there has been none of that. There has been a disregard of the committee, a disregard of Parliament, a disregard of the interests of Canadian industry and the economy because the Government is bringing in a Bill that will simply provide for "Open Sesame". The Government is going to allow for a pillaging of our economy that by comparison will make the rape of the Sabine women look like a church picnic.
I do not think this Minister really cares that much about this. I believe what is at the bottom of the whole approach to this issue is that the Minister really wants foreign investment to take over industry in Canada. He is not really concerned about Canadian investment or Canadian involvement. What he really believes is that Canada can operate most effectively as a satellite to other countries. That is the message this Government is giving. In the actions or lack of action it is taking on questions like Mitel, book publishing and legislation such as Investment Canada, the Government is showing what its economic philosophy is. The Government wants Canada to be a branch plant economy. The Government wants to take its orders from Cleveland. That is the kind of approach the Government is taking. It is not providing the kind of direction, purpose and goals that Canadian investors and Canadian business want to make sure that we maintain some control of our industry and ultimately some control of our destiny.


Mr. Duguay:: Mr. Speaker, everyone in this House knows very clearly during the last campaign we put our position before the Canadian public on the Foreign Investment Review Agency. The contents of this Bill are not strange to Canadians. We told Canadians we would introduce this legislation and we have done so.
I want to comment for a second on the matter of contempt for the Parliamentary process. Up to and including May 1 the House had spent 36 hours on Bill C-15. In addition, the standing committee spent 40 hours. The Liberals have intervened 82 times and the New Democrats 72 times. Considering their number in the House, it seems that to have each member of the Opposition intervene twice on a Bill which the Canadian public knew we were going to introduce really demonstrates the weakness of the Opposition's position. It is a very weak argument if it has to be made more than once.
My point is very simple. The contempt of Parliament is on that side of the House. My constituents phone me on a regular basis and say: "What is stopping you from stopping Opposition Members from getting up day after day to make the same arguments they made yesterday?" The contempt is on that side of the House, not on this side.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I would like some opportunity to respond to the Hon. Member for St. Boniface (Mr. Duguay).
Let me provide a contrast. The Hon. Member said we had spent some 36 hours or so on this Bill. A year or so ago when I was the Minister of Transport and brought in the grain transportation bill we spent several hundreds of hours in this House on the very same legislation.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: How much time did you spend on FIRA?


Lloyd Axworthy: We spent hundreds of hours in debate in this House. We provided the Opposition a full committee hearing that went on for something like six months. Hearings were held across Canada. There were representations from every region. We then spent almost four weeks at report stage in this Chamber dealing with hundreds of amendments. We sat and listened. We also used that process in a creative way. We accepted amendments from the Opposition. We sat down and negotiated with them on amendments.


John Horton McDermid: That is because they were good amendments.


Lloyd Axworthy: That is because they were good amendments. This Government, by showing its absolute disregard and its disdain for Parliament, has never made the offer.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Untrue.


Lloyd Axworthy: It has not even bothered to show up. It has not provided the opportunity to sit down to look at the amendments and decide which ones it should consider, which ones it should bring into effect, or how it could recognize what representatives of a number of distinguished and important Canadian organizations said before the committee. They were all voted down and thrown out in committee. The same is being done at report stage. That is the kind of disregard to which we are pointing.
The reason for the resolution this morning is to try to give these people a deathbed reprieve. We saw the case of Mitel this week. Is the Hon. Member for St. Boniface saying that he is speaking for his constituents and that they are condoning the sell-out of the Canadian high-technology industry? Does he want to see Burroughs leave his riding, disappear, and not have the world product mandate which was negotiated as a result of the FIRA process? Is that what he wants to see? That is what will happen with Investment Canada. Burroughs would not be required to have a plant in St. Boniface doing the kind of operation it is doing, had it not been for FIRA negotiating that world product mandate for that particular plant. It would be useful if the Hon. Member for St. Boniface looked more closely at what is going on in his own riding. Then he might come to the House and approve or support our amendments.


Léo Duguay: Mr. Speaker, with all respect to the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy), I am quite aware of what has gone on in my own constituency. However, my point is really a fundamental one. We have to spend hours and hours amending legislation in committee when it is not very well thought out or has not been com-
May 16, 1985

municated clearly to the Canadian public. This legislation was communicated very, very clearly to the Canadian public. Hon. Members opposite knew that. As a matter of fact, some of them shared platforms with me last summer and took an opposite view. The people of Canada knew that we would do it, and they chose us on September 4 partly because we would do it. We are doing it, and we know what we are doing.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, my answer will be very short. As I said during the course of my remarks, I have no argument with the mandate which was given on September 4, but Canadians did not have an opportunity to see the Bill at that point in time. They did not know what would be in it. In fact, I recall for the benefit of the Hon. Member that during the course of the election the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion was contradicted by the Minister of Finance who was contradicted by the then Leader of the Opposition. They all had different points of view on what they would do in the area of foreign investment. One was to abolish it totally, one was to conduct a review. They all had different positions.
I am simply pointing out that certainly Canadians voted for a change. They voted for a large number of promises which were made by Mr. Mulroney at that time. Since, they have learned that Mr. Mulroney's promises are not really worth the paper they are written on.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. The Hon. Member should know that we address Hon. Members of the Chamber by their titles. He should refer to the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), please.


Lloyd Axworthy: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Orlikow:: Mr. Speaker, I am puzzled by the comments of the Hon. Member for St. Boniface (Mr. Duguay). Of course members of his Party put forward their views during the election campaign, including their views on foreign investment and how it should be dealt with. They received a majority. Of course, since they have formed the Government, they will in time get the legislation which they want, and we will no longer have the benefit of a real examination of proposals for takeovers by foreign companies of Canadian companies. We, as members of the Opposition, also put forward our views, and we were also elected. We were elected to come to Parliament to put our points of view. That is precisely what we are doing.
Before the Hon. Member for St. Boniface became a Member of Parliament he was a teacher and was active in the Manitoba Teachers' Society. If, in the years before he became President of the Manitoba Teachers' Society he had wanted to express views which were not in accord with the then leadership of the society and was told by members of the society that they were elected and did not want to hear from him, I wonder what he would have said. Now, because he is a very small part of the administration, he wants the rest of us to keep quiet. Perhaps as a back-bench Member of Parliament on the government side he is not required to speak very often, or they do not want him to speak. We are here to put our points of view, and we intend to do so.
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Let me point out two very serious situations which will not be given any real consideration if we pass the Investment Canada Act. There is a proposal by Gulf and Western to take over Prentice-Hall. Surely the Hon. Member for St. Boniface, as a past teacher or educator, should be interested in seeing that the book publishing industry remains Canadian. If we follow the Government's direction and pass the Bill, we will have no control over that.
Similarly, we have the Mitel situation. It is a Canadian-owned company which deals in an area that will be important in the future. The proposal is that it will now be taken over by a British company. When that happens, we will see more and more of the work and the research required to make that company successful in a very competitive Field go either to the United States or Great Britain. The Government is proposing to take away any authority or power it has to see that that company and others remain Canadian. This is why we are raising our objections. I tell the Hon. Member for St. Boniface that we will use every opportunity to put our views before Parliament and before the people of Canada.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to put words in the mouth of my colleague, the Hon. Member for St. Boniface (Mr. Duguay), but the Hon. Member completely misrepresented what he said. He did not try to stifle debate or anything else. The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy) said that we were stifling debate in the House, and the point my colleague was making was that we had not stifled debate at all. That completely misrepresents the remarks he made.
I want to refresh the memory of the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry by referring to a little publishing company by the name of Irwin-Dorsey. It had 30 employees in the small community of Georgetown in my riding. It was owned by an American company. It was the only operation it had in Canada. It changed ownership in the United States. In order to get approval in Canada to change ownership it had to come to FIRA. FIRA refused the transaction taking place in another country between two companies which affected this little company of Irwin-Dorsey in Georgetown. What happened is that the American company pulled it out of Georgetown and brought it back to the United States. It is doing the same job; it is still shipping books into Canada. However, 30 people in my constituency were put out of work because of the inflexibility of FIRA.
Does the Hon. Member remember that particular case? Does he remember those jobs being lost because of a stupid decision by the Foreign Investment Review Agency, which did not do one good thing for Canada? As a matter of fact, it took jobs away from Canadians. That is what we are talking about when we debate the Investment Canada Bill. Does he remember that case? I will tell him that the people who lost their jobs in Georgetown remember it very well.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I will make my reply very short. Yes, I remember the case very well, but I think the Hon. Member has it all wrong. It was not FIRA which made the

May 16, 1985
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decision. It was the foreign-owned company which closed down that branch plant.


John Horton McDermid: There was no choice.


Lloyd Axworthy: That is why we are fighting against the dumb, stupid policies of the Minister which will allow foreign companies to close down factory after factory, business after business, mine after mine, because there is no longer any policy of direction on the part of the Government which says that we want Canadian control and direction. It is foreign ownership and foreign management, which do not give a damn about this country, that are closing down Canadian plants. We are bringing in amendments to try to protect the Georgetowns and other constituencies.


John Horton McDermid: You would not let the ownership transfer.


Lloyd Axworthy: If they were smart, they would look at our amendments and change Investment Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. The period provided for questions and comments has now terminated.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, in rising to speak on this motion I must comment that we have in this motion perhaps the greatest example we have had in this Parliament of inconsistency and irresponsibility. In his speech and in his motion, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy) has demonstrated why today he is sitting on the Opposition benches along with various Members of his caucus instead of on the government side of this House.
The Hon. Member says that we have shown a contempt for the parliamentary process by cutting off free debate. One of the first things he said in defence of his motion was that we should not be giving them six Opposition Days to debate. Somehow he is flabbergasted that we have given them freedom for six days to come in, choose their topic and have a debate in this House. How on one hand can a Member ask the House to agree that there is contempt for the parliamentary process by cutting off free debate and then use as part of his argument that this is the sixth Opposition Day and that it is unforgivable to give the Opposition six days of free debate?


Lloyd Axworthy: It is an abdication of responsibility. Why does the Government not bring in the debate? You are the Government, start acting like it.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Here is the inconsistency. If the Hon. Member really believes what he is saying, he obviously would have mentioned it in his motion. Some time between drafting it last night and when he got up this morning, he changed his mind and said "Why on earth do we need a six-day debate? I'm going to go in and criticize the Government for giving us so much time", after yesterday telling us that we were not giving them enough free debate.


Lloyd Axworthy: Right.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: And now he says it is right. My goodness, if Fort Garry residents could only see him in his true splendor in this House.


Lloyd Axworthy: They just remember the Bank of Western
Canada.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Let me go on.


Lloyd Axworthy: They remember your wonderful record in
the West.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. I would like to hear the Minister's speech and we can then have questions and comments.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Let me go on. The motion states that we have not provided adequate time for consideration of dozens of important and constructive amendments. My colleague, the Hon. Member for St. Boniface (Mr. Duguay), pointed out the various hours that had been given to debate, either at second reading, report stage or in committee. Let me be a little more specific.
At second reading there were 32 Liberal Members who joined in the debate. All but eight of the total caucus had an opportunity to speak at second reading. Twenty-five New Democratic Party Members spoke. All but five of their caucus had an opportunity to tell the House their feelings. Most who attended committee will agree that in committee there was a full opportunity given to both the Official Opposition representative and the socialist party representative to present their case and their amendments. Each was considered. Virtually all were voted on, with the Official Opposition almost consistently voting with the socialist representative at the committee level.
At report stage on Motions Nos. 1 and 2, we have had 23 Liberals join in that discussion and 21 NDP Members. On Motions Nos. 4, 6, 7, 19, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18, we have had 12 Liberals and 11 NDP Members speak. On Motions Nos. 8, 12, 32, 63, 69, 74 and 75, we have had 13 Liberals and 13 NDP.


David Orlikow: We are just doing our job. What is wrong with that?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: On Motions Nos. 19 and 20, there were 12 Liberals and 9 NDP. On Motions Nos. 23, 24 and 25, again Liberals and NDP Members participated. What they are really saying is that they want to filibuster.
When it comes to free speech and free debate, they do not like to let democracy work. They do not wish the majority of the Members of this House, who I suggest reflect the majority wish of the Canadian public, and judging from today's Gallup poll, 54 per cent still say they believe in the Government, to move legislation forward. They basically feel they know best. Notwithstanding the fact that they are two minorities, they know better than the majority what is good for Canadians.
May 16, 1985

Let us put it into perspective. The Hon. Member talked about FIRA. Let there be no doubt that the thrust of his amendments would basically not only restore FIRA, but make it a much more onerous piece of legislation than the legislation we now live with.
Think of the record. Ten years ago, this country had unemployment at about one-third the level it is at today. Partly as a result of the misdirected policies and actions of the then Government, now Official Opposition, many of the people out of work in Canada today are out of work, I say, because of the policies of that Government, including its attitude toward non-Canadian investment. After 10 years of that kind of a record it is almost beyond belief that the Official Opposition and the NDP caucus would be so determined to try to persist in the mistake. Surely Canadians want change. They want to have a freshness. They want a new approach. In short, they want constructive investment, jobs to be created and people back to work in this country. This Government is dedicated to getting the confidence of the business community restored, investment flows once again constructively coming in to businesses with a view to creating jobs for Canadians. That is what this is all about.
Perhaps we could symbolize what we are talking about with the Liberal and NDP attack on this possible Mitel deal with British Telecom. I say "possible deal" because that is all it is. We have two concerns signing a letter of intent in which a British company says "Subject to various considerations, we would consider buying up to 51 per cent of your company, putting in $320 million fresh equity, helping to preserve 2,500 Canadians jobs, 5,000 jobs around the world".
What is the response of the Official Opposition, backed up by their friends to the left? They are almost horror-stricken that somebody would positively say they would like to participate in a Canadian company with a view to not only keeping the jobs that are now in Canada, but expanding upon that base. They are calling on us to somehow block it or stop it. They are calling on us to take action even before we have received an application to consider the nature of the deal. I would suggest that the Opposition has a blind hatred to anything which they deem to be foreign.
Surely, what we in Government and in the House should be doing is looking at the essence of the deal. In this particular instance I believe that the action of the Official Opposition is inconsistent. To hear those Members talk, it sounds as though Mitel has been a sacred Canadian company which has been wholly-owned by Canadians and has used Canadian technology. Do they think we have forgotten that the previous Government permitted 48 per cent of the company to be sold to foreigners? I am surprised they have forgotten that.
As far as the Opposition is concerned, the most hated of all foreigners are the Americans who did most of that buying. At the present time, 52 per cent of Mitel is held by Canadians and 48 per cent is held by a foreign group. Because another foreign group has come forth and offered to give the company the
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$320 million which is needed, we have this historical reaction. It is odd. I can only suggest that it is a cold government interventionist approach which is bound to cost Canadian jobs, just as it cost Canadian jobs in the past decade. That is what this Government is trying to reverse.
Let me comment on the motion before us. In my view, we have prospered most in the country when we have been open to trade and investment with the rest of the world. The periods of greatest protectionism in Canada have coincided with periods of stagnation and recession. Throughout our history we have used non-Canadian capital to supplement our savings, to establish transportation and communication infrastructure, to develop wealth in natural resources and to expand and diversify Canadian industry. In other words, Canadians have seen non-Canadian capital as an opportunity, not as a threat.
We believe that the policies which have been pursued over the past 10, indeed 15 years, have tended to tie up Canada with laws, rules and regulations which have held back growth and smothered opportunities. We must start thinking internationally in Canada. The Canadian economy has become an integral part of the international economy. Some people timidly shrink back from the challenges which are associated with that. I think it is time for Canada to stop being so frightened. It is time to stop being so timid. It is time for Canada to boldly accept the world and invite the type of capital and investment which would be available to us if we stopped being so protective-minded, as the previous Government was during the past decade.
Under FIRA-and I have gone through many of the files- I found that there were months of bartering, haggling and bargaining before foreign investment was allowed to enter Canada. The attitude which the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy) is showing with respect to the British Telecom proposal is typical of what took place during the past decade. Essentially, non-Canadians were told that they were not welcome and that their investment proposals would not be considered favourably. Meanwhile, Canadians kept joining the unemployment lists. As far as I am concerned, that mental attitude is peculiar to the Liberal Party and the NDP Party, but it is certainly not the outlook of the average Canadian today.


Mr. Deans:: The "P" stands for Party.


John Horton McDermid: Where did that come from?


Ian Deans: The wilderness.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Boy, the House Leader for the NDP has certainly got one thing right, he is coming from the wilderness.
We believe there is room for joint ventures, international ventures and partnerships in Canada. We believe that will bring capital, new ideas and technology to the country, and we believe that Canada has nothing to fear from such interchange with the capital and technology pools which exist in the world.
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The motion refers to the Investment Canada Bill and states that there has not been an adequate review in committee. That is just not true.
The motion seeks to condemn this Government for:
-its contempt for the Parliamentary process by cutting off free debate on its iniquitous investment legislation without providing adequate time for consideration of dozens of important and constructive amendments.
The amendments to which the Hon. Member is presumably referring, if accepted, could have turned back the clock and virtually re-invented FIRA. In short, it would send a new signal to the rest of the world that once again non-Canadian investment is not welcome in Canada. It would also send a message to the 1.5 million Canadians who are out of work that they would have to do without the jobs which non-Canadian capital might have helped to supply. As Hon. Members know, a considerable amount of time has been spent in both Houses on Bill C-15, and in the Standing Committee on Regional Development. I think it is very fitting for discussions to be held in committee which relate to Investment Canada and nonCanadian investment.
As far as I am concerned, one of the great opportunities which we have in the Investment Canada approach is to positively encourage Canadian investment and to seek the non-Canadian who wants to invest in some of the regions of Canada. We will be announcing certain of those investments. I only hope that by that time the spokesperson for the Official Opposition, the Hon. Member who has put the motion before the House today, will have changed his attitude from virtually insisting that we should discourage employment in the country, to the attitude of encouraging jobs for Canadians. I hope it is understood by all Hon. Members after this debate today that we have clear evidence, once again, of how pathetic this Official Opposition is, how in truth it simply is becoming the Party of obstruction. Having demonstrated over ten years the disastrous results of its policies, it is now virtually insisting that the Government of the day not get on with restoring the great vitality and prosperity which can be ours. I think it behooves every Hon. Member to call it what it is, pure obstructionism, and let's get on with the will of the Canadian people.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I have a quite specific question to put to the Minister. I would appreciate very much if he could give me an answer. It has to do with the Lapp Industries take-over of Canadian Porcelain. Has the proposed purchase of Canadian Porcelain by Lapp Industries gone to FIRA? If not, can the Minister tell us whether it will in fact have to be dealt with by FIRA? If it has to be dealt with by FIRA, will FIRA, once it is seized of the matter, be required to complete its review and report, notwithstanding what happens to the Investment Canada legislation which is now before us? If that is not the case, will the Minister guarantee us and, of course, the people most concerned, that under Investment Canada proposals he will undertake to review the proposed take-over in order to ensure that it is in fact in the best interests of Canada?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, as you undoubtedly will recall, this question was raised several times by the Hon. Member. The fact is that the Government has been in touch with those who are trying not to consummate a deal involving Lapp. But there are two other possibly interested parties who might come up with some transaction which would involve the company. The short answer is that we have indicated to Lapp that if it proposes to go ahead with the purchase, we feel it would be reviewable as far as the existing legislation is concerned, and we anticipate that it will be making an application, at which time we can look at exactly what it has in mind. Orally, of course, the company has given us to understand that rather than any closing down or moving out of assets to the United States, as some Hon. Members have indicated, it would be making its move with a view to restoring and reopening the company in Canada.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, once again we have been treated to what is known as the "B.C. and I Chamber of Commerce, Speech No. 57", rapping the socialists, dealing with the terrible record of the Grits and promising all kinds of glorious miracles based upon foreign investment. I want to point out, Mr. Speaker, that unfortunately that was all repudiated during those committee meetings we held. People from the investment communities said they would not expect that much more investment from foreign companies because of this legislation. Even the New York investment community itself made statements to the effect that we could not expect any major onrush of new capital. What we would see, however, is a number of takeovers of existing Canadian companies because the Investment Canada legislation has a much broader, wider and more open screen.
I would like to point out something else I find amusing at times in the Minister's remarks, Mr. Speaker, because he has his own peculiar view of history. He is like the Soviets who took power in the 1920s and rewrote Russian history back 500 years. The Minister loves to talk about the ten years of disaster of the Liberal Government. But as the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion he is using all of the federal Liberal initiatives, such as the ERDA program, which were put into place by that past Government. I have not seen him disbanding ERDA. I have not heard him saying, "It was a terrible idea that we should have co-operative planning with the provinces". We put the machinery in place. We allocated the funds and now the Minister is going out and spending these funds and taking credit for it. Unfortunately, that is part of the disastrous record he talks about, but it doesn't get explained in that way. The Fact is that the legislation was brought in by our former colleague, the former Hon. Member from Cornwall. We had negotiated all of the outstanding agreements across Canada with the exception of two, and we negotiated a number of sub-agreements in most of those provinces. We set aside the regional fund which the Minister is presently utilizing for his expenditures.
I would simply say that if the Minister was true to his word, he would probably have gotten rid of all our disastrous programs rather than riding them and using them as he is now
May 16, 1985

doing in the most gleeful fashion. I would say that is also true in the area of training programs, industrial programs, and we can go right across the board. What has this Government changed since it came into office? What has it dismantled other than FIRA?
We simply point out that we are not against foreign investment. I would ask the Minister who asks us to look at the record, to look at the record himself. In the last year of our Government, close to $4 billion of foreign investment came into Canada. The difference is that 40 per cent was based upon an upgrading of that investment to ensure that the jobs, research and development and the world products mandate would be retained for Canadian firms. That is the difference.
The Minister talks about Mitel. I am suprised that a gentleman who used to have some experience in the business world does not understand the difference between holding an equity position and having control of the company. I would assume that surely a Minister of Industrial and Regional Expansion might have some scintilla of understanding that it is control which is important, because that is where the decisions are made. It is not simply holding a piece of the action, it is where the control and management lie. The difference in the Mitel take-over and CTG is that where the management has taken over, that's where the control is.
The Minister doesn't care about that, but in our committees we heard from the business community itself that it is those companies which are not controlled and managed by Canadians which have the poorest record in R & D and which bring in far more import to this country, which affects our balance of payments, and those companies, in fact, employ fewer Canadians. We are concerned about jobs, not about the kind of nonsense the Minister is talking about.
I have a couple of specific questions for the Minister because he, perhaps I could say, deliberately evaded the issue of book publishing in his remarks. With respect to Prentice-Hall of Canada Ltd., can we expect a decision immediately? Will this Minister go forward and try to find and solicit Canadian buyers for that particular company? Will he establish a very clear statement in the publishing industry, as our Government did, that the dominant element must be Canadian? Will he make that statement? Will he reject the application of Gulf Western to take over Prentice-Hall in the recent application for Ginn and Co. and Longman Inc. which will also take out two very major firms in the Canadian text book trade? What is this Minister waiting for? If he believes in Canadian culture, why does he not make a decision today and turn down these applications?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, I noticed how you almost burst out laughing the more you listened to the Hon. Member.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


David Orlikow: You know you can't do that.


Lloyd Axworthy: That shows your disdain for Parliament.
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Sinclair McKnight Stevens: How inconsistent can the Hon. Member get? In the body of his remarks he said we were doing nothing, that I was sitting here and taking no action. Then, in the guise of a question, he said we were using too many of the former Government's programs, that we were spending money. He referred to ERDA as something which had been put in place by the former Government. Of course, as we know, it was unable to sign such an agreement with the Province of Quebec. It was unable or unwilling to sign one with the Province of Ontario. It was unable or unwilling to sign one with the Province of British Columbia. Within months we signed those agreements.


Lloyd Axworthy: Seven out of three is the record?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: And we have concluded some agreements with all of the provinces to a fuller extent than certainly was done before. Yesterday, you will recall, Mr. Speaker, we also announced that the largest funding arrangement in history, between the Province of British Columbia and the federal Government, has now been agreed to. It is for $525 million. How on earth can the Hon. Member then stand up and say we are doing nothing? The fact is, and it is an embarrassing fact for the Hon. Member and his associates, we are doing too much; there is too much change, including the fact we are once again encouraging non-Canadian investment along with Canadian investment in this country. It is change that this reactionary group cannot seem to adjust to. As far as I am concerned, it is time that the democratic will was allowed to be recorded in this House and that we get on, for the sake of the unemployed, with creating a new mechanism which will encourage instead of discourage investment in this country once again.


Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, as a new Member of Parliament, it is interesting to try and relate to some of the debate that takes place in the House of Commons. I think many of us who are new Members of Parliament have had some sense of frustration at what we might call the role playing, the synthetic conflict, the sometimes empty, sometimes exaggerated rhetoric which occasionally dominates this House. If I possibly can, I want to try to break through that rhetoric to ask all of us as reasonable, thoughtful and caring men and women to focus on a very real problem in a very real way. I want to confront that problem and I would like us to try and understand the problem. I would hope that it might be possible for all of us as Members of Parliament to work together to try and deal with this problem. For that reason I want to talk today almost exclusively about the Mitel takeover by British Telecom, because the problem is Canada's weakness, our sense of incapacity in technological development, and the consequent problems for the unemployed in this country.
It would be possible to underline some of the points of outrage which have been raised by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy). There were amendments we moved which I would very much like to have had a

May 16, 1985
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fuller chance to debate here in this House of Commons. We have a concern, too, about the process by which Investment Canada has been debated, the witnesses who have not been heard, and what seems to me to have been the limited amount of debating time with respect to certain crucial amendments.
I think, too, that it is possible to focus on some other areas of concern; the Gulf & Western takeovers which are threatening Canadian publishing, the case raised by my hon. friend for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans) concerning Canadian Porcelain, and others. However, Mitel deserves central attention because it is a symbol of our potential as a country because of the tremendous growth which Mitel has shown. However, it is also a symbol of the failures of our technology policy, a symbol of how crucial is our technological development problem in Canada in 1985.
What is that problem? Let me set it out in as non-partisan a way as possible. To do that, let me quote the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) who has said that the way to improve our dismal trade performance lies in increased research and development. He said we have to double our research and development commitment and triple our resolve to reach it. As a key part of that, the Prime Minister went on to say in a different speech that his Government was going to encourage the production of new technology and ideas by Canadian industries. He went on to say that this was because, according to the National Research Council, a 1 per cent increase in research and development expenditure as a percentage of GNP means creating 800,000 jobs in this country. Another document ties that challenge to the question of foreign ownership, and the Prime Minister then said that recent data indicates that the R & D intensity of foreign subsidiaries in Canada tends to lag behind domestically owned operations of comparable magnitude. That is from the Progressive Conservative task force on technological displacements.
So that is the problem. It is a clear problem, one that has been recognized on every side of the House, and it is a problem we have desperately to address. The Mitel case is crucial to helping us understand the problem. Let us stand back, if we can, and recognize the Mitel story, because it has been a dramatic story. Sales of that corporation have increased from $300,000 in 1975 to $255 million in 1983, an incredible increase of 132 per cent per year. By 1983 some 83.1 per cent of the sales of this company were outside Canada, 52 per cent to the United States, which we think of as our primary trade target these days. Starting with 30 jobs in 1975, the company reached 5,210 jobs in 1983.


John Horton McDermid: How many in Canada?


Steven W. Langdon: Some 2,682 of those jobs were in Canada, including over 80 per cent of research and development jobs. R & D expenditures average 12 per cent of sales, compared to 2 per cent of sales for foreign subsidiaries with over 500 employees operating in Canada.
Mitel experienced problems. There were losses in 1983 and 1984, and over 800 lay-offs in the last 15 months. This was primarily because of the transition to an important new product, the SX 2000. This has been a difficult transition, representing one of those intrinsic and basic realities of the high tech sector, the fact that there are risks and gambles in new product development in technology intensive industries. But this company turned the corner. The last quarter saw a $64,000 profit after payments of interest on an incredible debt which the company had built up.
The founder of the company, Mr. Cowpland, makes it quite clear that Mitel would survive without the British Telecom takeover. But there is a problem of heavy debt, some $266 million worth as of 1984. Mitel searched for help on the basis of this clear success story and the problems of risk in the technological sector. It asked for $30 million to $40 million in assistance from the former Government. According to reports in the paper today, that request was rejected by the former Government. If that is true, it shows that the responsibility for our technological failure lies with the previous regime as well as with the present Government.
Apparently Mitel tried to find Canadian partners. It failed, in part precisely because the Government dangled in front of the potential partners of Mitel in Canada the possibility of purchasing Teleglobe, a vastly profitable state corporation with $400 million in assets. That led many Canadian communication companies to earmark that for potential expansion. That is when British Telecom stepped into the picture.
I would like to review for Members of the House the crucial problems which exist with British Telecom. The House must recognize basic problems which exist with all takeovers of thriving Canadian firms by foreign companies. Witnesses who appeared before the Standing Committee on Regional Development laid out some of these problems. In the case of Philco-Ford they talked about how its purchase was transferred abroad. They talked about research facilities being shifted abroad. These are real threats which have been testified to by the business people who have experienced those realities.
Aside from those general problems, there are some extremely specific problems with British Telecom. I ask all Members of the House to study very carefully that company which we are hoping will take into its arms a successful and thriving Canadian enterprise. First, as the prospectus for the privatization of British Telecom indicates, the company remains subject to Government involvement in shaping its policies. Government retains the power to intervene and vote its largest shareholdings in a pool of 1.7 million individual shareholders and one large shareholder. The Economist, which is not generally recognized as a socialist newspaper, noted that fact with respect to British Telecom. It said:
Foolishly in most of its privatizations so far, the Government has retained shareholdings of just under 50 per cent in the new "private" companies; it plans to do the same with B.T. This leaves ministers with great influence whenever managerial decisions threaten political interests, and so preserves the most economically damaging aspect of state control.
The May 13, 1985 copy of The Financial Times makes it quite clear that British Telecom continues to feel "some
May 16, 1985

commitment to promoting U.K. employment". Moreover, Mr. Speaker, we have legislation in the form of the Telecommunications Bill of the British Government. If the Minister and Members will look at Section 85 of that Bill they will see quite clearly the capacity of the Secretary of State of the British Government to intervene and give directions to British Telecom with respect to points which the Secretary of State considers crucial to the national interest of Britain.
I am sure that some Members of the House have lived in Britain, as I have. I am sure they have dealt with British Telecom, as I have, and have learned how long it takes to get a telephone in Britain. I would like to quote from Francis Mclnerney, the Vice-President of Northern Business Information in New York who predicted the problems with Northern Telecom. He said that British Telecom "has not demonstrated its marketing savvy or product management ability". He goes on to note that the British company has spent almost all of its corporate life in the hothouse atmosphere of Government ownership. He said:
It has operated in highly structured markets where most of the competition is by Government fiat.
We must recognize that British Telecom is under threat from all three British Opposition Parties of being renationalized, and of having complete control over that company once again established. As the present public opinion polls in Britain show, with the Thatcher Government running behind Labour, that is a threat which must be taken seriously. The uncertainties for Mitel which arise from that are quite damaging.
What will happen as a result of the take-over? At best, British Telecom will use Mitel to fight IBM and AT & T in the U.S. market. As sure as I am standing here, Mr. Speaker, that will shift production to the Mitel subsidiaries in the United States. If we had a state role in Northern Telecom I would want to see it behaving in this way too. I would want it to give preference to Canadian employment, which is what British Telecom is expected to do. We will see a shift of production to Mitel's British subsidiaries and a shift of research and development expenditures to Britain to be close to the British Telecom staff. That is the best case scenario, Mr. Speaker. The worst that can happen is that the company will face those problems as well as the additional problem of being cut off when nationalization takes place again in two or three years.
We must take a fast moving route, Mr. Speaker, not one which waits for review by FIRA. We need the pluses of a loose association between Mitel and British Telecom. The Minister must intervene with people at Mitel by telling them to take up the 18.5 per cent share offer and forget about majority control. Second, the Government must come through with that which the Government before it did not provide, Government assistance, to get this key success story back on the rails and to enable it to provide us with the jobs, research, and spin-offs which will meet the technological problem which the whole House recognizes. I plead with the Minister, not to react as an ideologist in this case but in recognition of that sense of danger
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to our country and this company. I ask the Minister to listen and act with the interest of Canada at heart.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, during the course of his remarks, the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon) made reference to a statement by the President, Mr. Cowp-land, concerning the assistance or lack of it by the previous regime. I think it is important to point out that I dispute those comments.
If one examines the record, it will show that since approximately 1979 at least $35 million was allocated for that company in direct assistance. There was some $20 million set aside for their establishment of factories at Buctouche, New Brunswick, and Arnprior. In fact, the company in Arnprior did not go ahead because of market problems, but the Government still offered the assistance.
Second, there was a $9.9 million grant given directly for R and D purposes that allowed Mitel to do the upscaling work on the new technology they are developing, the RX-2000.
Third, there was a grant of approximately $5.5 million to develop a program for the expansion of their Ottawa facilities.
When I was the Minister of Employment and Immigration, I personally recall negotiating with the high tech industry in the Ottawa area, along with my colleague, the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier), a very important training program with the high tech industry in the Ottawa Valley that provided major investments of federal funds under the skills upgrading program to provide for high tech training of the existing workforce. That was in 1982.
During all of this period, the federal Government, of which I was a member, recognized the value and gave support. Obviously, it would have to operate in terms of its discretion with respect to the management decisions that were being made.
I stand to be corrected but I understand that in the latest case, before the election there was an application by Mitel that had never been specifically rejected.


Paul Wyatt Dick: It was rejected.


Lloyd Axworthy: Maybe in your mind, as a legal counsel, it was, but the fact is that the final decision had not been taken.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Ed Lumley said no.


Lloyd Axworthy: There was never a public announcement.


Paul Wyatt Dick: You never announced your negatives.


Lloyd Axworthy: The member for Mitel might want to comment because he is closely associated with the company. The fact is that I wanted to point out that some $35 million worth of assistance was put forward. That was only a small part.
The point we are making is that it is critical in cases such as manpower training and research and development that there be a policy in place. We had a policy in place, the IRDP,

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which provided for expansion of plants and development of new products.
The Government, in its November 8 statement, eliminated that form of support in Tier 1 areas, which include the Ottawa Valley. Those are the problems we are facing. I want to make sure that the record is not simply interpreted through the mind of the President who obviously has his own reasons for wanting the British Telecom application to go ahead.
I think it is important to recognize that governments must play a role in this area but not necessarily one in which there is involvement in an automatic way. I remind my friends in the NDP that the role of the Government in this case is to be discretionary.
We believe that another major omission by the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion is his unwillingness to make any effort to seek out alternatives for the infusion of the necessary equity capital. He has taken a simple hands off approach, and I suggest the Government's version of free market is really an evasion of its responsibility to work with companies such as Mitel.
I find it very strange that the Minister spoke about Liberal protectionist measures. He is the very one who, in a Financial Post article, said that he would guarantee markets of 30 per cent to 40 per cent in markets such as textiles and shoes. I suggest that he must decide which way he will face in the morning, and what kind of Minister he will be, so that other Canadians will not be as confused as he seems to be.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, we must go by what we read. Of course, the quotation from Mr. Cowpland is:
We tried very hard a year ago to get government assistance of about $30 million to $40 million, and we couldn't get it. At that point in time, the company was nose down, and there was no relief from the government-not even a nickel. We had to scramble on our own.
This raises a general point. During my speech I talked about a national problem. I think Mitel and what is happening to that company is a symbol of that national problem. It is not a problem that was created in the last eight months, but a problem which we all recognize is the legacy of many changes in the world. It is not something that was created wilfully by any government.
However, the legacy of our failure to respond effectively to the high tech challenge is a legacy from the previous Government, just as much as it is a problem for the existing Government. I believe that the previous Government had a system of grants and support which it hoped would provide support to important high tech initiatives. However, from looking at some of those initiatives, such as the Bell helicopter case, I know that incredible sums of money were spent with very little in the way of commitment and benefit for this country.
I believe that we need a strategy and approach which will learn from the failures of the past regime, build on those failures, and take some of those commitments from the Prime Ministers and others and put them into reality.
Mitel brings it all to a head. As I said at the beginning of my speech, Mitel becomes a symbol of our potential as well as a symbol of how urgent the issue is.
I simply want to conclude by saying that I can understand members opposite who talk about wanting to make Canada open for business. It is a perspective with which I disagree, but it is a philosophy that we can debate. There is a difference between "open for business" and "open for surrender". In the case of Mitel, we do not have to surrender that company. There is an alternative. There is the possibility of minority shareholding. There is a tremendous gain from that alternative. We do not have to go in the direction that we lost effective control of that crucial company in the future. I urge all my colleagues in the House to urge the Government to recognize that symbol of Mitel for the importance that it represents.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, there was an intervention by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy) during the comment and question period. He showed his ignorance of the matter and showed that-


Mr. Rossi:: A point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order. The question should be directed to the Member making the speech and not to comments or questions that were made during the debate. I would ask the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary to follow accordingly.


Paul Wyatt Dick: I intend to put a question to the Hon. Member. I believe that during the comment portion I am not fettered by any rule of the House that I know of on the comments which I am allowed to make. That is what debate is all about. If I want to make a comment on some idiotic statement made by another Member I think I should be able to comment on that. There is no rule that says I cannot.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The period for questions and comments has now terminated. I would now recognize the Hon. Member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria) for debate.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, first I would like to congratulate you on your ruling as to the debate initiated by the last intervener.
I would like to congratulate the Hon. Member for Win-nipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy) for the excellent motion he has brought to this House today.
Some. Hon. Members: Hear, hear!


Don Boudria: On behalf of Liberal caucus members I would like to congratulate the Member for the excellent fight he has led on behalf of our Party in this House. It is important to have people who can stand up for those things we believe in, not just those who roll around and play dead such as we see the Conservative book-ends and surfers doing occasionally.
May 16, 1985


Mr. Gauthier:: What is a surfer?


Don Boudria: A surfer is one of those Conservative Members who came in with the tide. They will go out with the tide in the same way. We refer to those members as surfers.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Don Boudria: I think I struck a nerve, Mr. Speaker.
The Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens) said in the House today that the Liberals were criticizing the Government for cutting off debate. On the other hand they were permitting today's debate. I am relatively new to this House, but I would have thought the Minister should have known there is a difference between debating legislation and Opposition motions.


An Hon. Member:: Substance.


Don Boudria: I am sure there would be unanimous consent to withdraw the motion we put forward immediately if the Government would agree to debate the amendment my colleague, the Member from Winnipeg-Fort Garry, has brought forward.
The Minister has also accused the Opposition of being negative. I believe he said: "We are a Party of obstruction". I find it passing strange that a Party which let the bells ring for two weeks in the previous Parliament is now accusing someone else of being obstructionist. We have no moral lessons to take from Tories in so far as the whole issue of respect for Parliament. Those people across the way, and I am sure, Mr. Speaker, you will know this, being the objective non-partisan person you are, are the ones who failed to respect Parliament in the last session. They have the same contempt today in their attitude, demonstrated by cutting off debate on this very important initiative.
I see the Minister of State for Small Business (Mr. Bisson-nette) sitting across the way. If he were the Minister he would permit more debate. I know a frank and honest minister such as he, who is concerned about people, if he were permitted by his superiors in Cabinet, he would like to bring assistance to small business and to protect small business from foreign takeovers. It is quite obvious that Minister has that interest. He is here today listening. We know deep inside-


Mr. Bissonnette:: Do not speak for me. Speak for yourself. I can speak for myself.


Don Boudria: -even if he cannot do it publicly, the Minister for Small Business is on our side on this issue. We are glad to have his support. I am sure all my colleagues in the Liberal Party are glad to have the Minister's support. It is unfortunate that he has to sit on his hands and cannot manifest that support publicly. We are, however, still grateful, Mr. Speaker.
The Government is abandoning the high tech industry. When research and development tax credits were introduced the first beneficiary of those measures was Mitel. Who cut off those grants? None other than the Minister of Finance (Mr. Supply
Wilson) on black Thursday, November 8, when the Minister slashed all kinds of useful Government programs. The Government slashed the very useful and worthwhile program helping Mitel and others.


André Bissonnette: Look at what the President said in the newspaper yesterday.


Don Boudria: The Liberal Party when it was in Government worked very closely with the high tech industry in establishing those vital programs to protect Canadian industry and small business about which I know the Minister across the way is supportive. What happened? The Tories took over. The Tories started dismantling the good initiatives of the Liberals, and they are destroying them.
The Minister of Regional and Industrial Expansion a little earlier this morning said that the Liberals wanted to turn back the clock. His argument is that the Government is cutting off debate on the Liberal amendments because we are tyring to turn back the clock. Who is destroying FIRA and taking us back 50 years? It is the Minister himself who is now accusing Liberals of wanting to turn back the clock. The Minister cannot have it both ways and he cannot speak out of both sides of his mouth simultaneously, although he is trying very hard.
Even the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion this morning in his speech said that in his review of several FIRA applications he had determined that sometimes FIRA had taken a long time to bargain for Canadians. We should be proud a Government agency was bargaining and being a tough negotiator for the benefit of Canada, a position which the Minister said that Fira had taken. He wants to destroy that. The Minister wants to take us back 50 years. That is enough to make the Hon. Member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid) revolt, and enough to make the rest of the voters in Brampton who voted Liberal provincially vote Liberal federally next time around. The Hon. Member for Brampton-Georgetown who is obviously very concerned about such matters will in caucus next week tell his Leader and the others to withdraw that legislation immediately.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Hon. Member is completely misleading the House. I support my Minister and my Government 100 per cent on this Bill.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I just want to bring to your attention that it is not customary for Members to accuse others of misleading the House. I am sure you will want to ask my colleague to withdraw that statement.


Mr. Andre:: It is also not customary to impute motives.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member did not say it intentionally. The Hon. Member for Glengarry-Pre-scott-Russell has the floor. I would appreciate it if he would carry on with his debate,


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, the next time I accuse a Member of misleading this House I will preamble by saying I am not doing it intentionally. Perhaps that will give us this

May 16, 1985
Supply
new parliamentary precedent by which we can accuse all Members of misleading everyone else.
I want to tell the Hon. Member across the way, the Member who just accused me of misleading the House, that I am not misleading the House when I say Members on the Government side have in the past on several occasions been in favour of and wanted to strengthen FIRA. Let me give you an example of this Mr. Speaker.
The Hon. Member for Simcoe South (Mr. Stewart) during the last election campaign was talking about the Black & Decker deal. He said in his riding that FIRA had to be strengthened in order to protect the jobs at Black & Decker. What do we have now? The Minister is destroying FIRA, an agency which a backbench Conservative Member has said was not strong enough and needed to be strengthened. This is enough to cause a backbench revolt of Tories.


Paul Wyatt Dick: I doubt it.


Don Boudria: I just read about that Hon. Member in the newspaper this morning. I hear him saying that he doubts it. Perhaps he doubts it. Obviously he seems to be saying that he will not participate in such a revolt. However, other members of his caucus have stated publicly that they want FIRA retained and enhanced.
Let us look at the priorities of the Government in the areas of investment and job creation. During the election campaign the Conservatives made promises; in fact they made 338 of them.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Do you have a copy?


Don Boudria: Perhaps I will hand a copy over to the Hon. Member across the way.
The motion before us today concerns protecting and enhancing Canadian industry, not just allowing foreign takeovers. We want protection. It is correct that we want foreign capital and investment in our country, but we want the best deal for Canadians. That is the difference between a Liberal and a Tory. We want a good deal for Canadians. That is the Liberal position. The Conservative position is, let everybody do whatever they like with no assured benefit for anyone; it does not matter. That is the Tory position, as stated by the Minister himself.
I would like to refer to some of the Conservative promises. This morning we heard the Minister speak against protectionism and such measures. Referring to the textile and apparel industries section of the Tory promises, the first one reads:
Promote fair trade, but not free trade.
Surely that Minister could not have been party to the listing of campaign promises. Perhaps he should review the document which indicates the 338 promises before he makes another speech. Even better, perhaps he should give a copy of it to whoever wrote the speech which he gave this morning. Then his speech-writer would be aware of the promises and would
not write speeches that contradict the positions of the Conservative Party during the last election campaign.
The second promise reads;
Promote stability, through the rigorous enforcement of our existing international rights and obligations, including, if necessary, the establishment of global quotas and a controlled increase of import volumes.
The third promise reads:
Review Canada's existing obligations in order to ascertain whether modification should be pursued.
Everyone who listened to the Conservatives had to put up with the empty promises that were made. They promised Canadians that they would protect and enhance our industries, in particular our textile industries which are so vital and important to the riding I represent.
What is the Government's first priority? Is it to assist small business? I see the Minister of State for Small Businesses across the way. The first objective of the Government is to destroy FIRA, directly contradicting the promises which I just listed. That is the priority of the Government. Why has the Government given itself that mandate?
The Government has spent far too much time on this issue. It has expended far too much energy on destroying FIRA. Also it has concentrated on pleasing the President of the United States by having fanfares in Quebec City which will cost Canadian taxpayers over $1 million. It has spent so much time and energy doing such things that it has neglected other very important areas.
Also I see the Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. Andre) sitting across from me. I know he would agree with me if I were to read a letter from the Shoe Manufacturers' Association of Canada. On April 1, 1985, the President of the Association, Mr. Jean-Guy Maheu, wrote a letter to the Minister for International Trade (Mr. Kelleher). He wanted to discuss with that Minister and with other Members of Cabinet issues affecting that industry. We all know how much protection the shoe manufacturing industry needs. In part his letter reads:
In your letter of October 16, 1984, nearly six months ago, you wrote me that "I hope to be in a position to get together with you, representatives of your association and the unions at an early opportunity". We know that as Minister for International Trade you are travelling very much and that you are very busy but we would appreciate an hour of your time in April.
Since October 16, 1984, and at least until April and probably until now, no meeting was held with that group. There was all kinds of time to meet with the President of the United States in Quebec City. There was all kinds of time to genuflect in front of the Americans. However, there was no time to help out industries that are so important to my riding. That is the disgraceful behaviour of the Government.
The Minister of State for Small Businesses cares about small business. He cares about ensuring that these industries are alive and well. I am surprised that he would not have a very quick and fast discussion with his colleague and order him to withdraw Bill C-15 immediately in order to protect the vital Canadian industries I have just described. That is not bound to happen.
May 16, 1985

The Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion said this morning that he wanted to accept the world boldly. That is a euphemism for rolling over and playing dead. Who wants to face new challenges boldly? The Liberals want to face new challenges. Who brought in foreign investment legislation to ensure that foreign investment would be welcome and would protect Canadian industries to the maximum benefit of our country? That is a bold initiative. There is nothing bold about rolling over and playing dead. There is nothing bold about 200 Conservatives sitting here and not speaking on these very important issues. I am sure the voters in their ridings, whose industries are being taken over and are being threatened by the lack of a proper foreign investment policy on the part of the Government, will remind those Conservative Members in the next election of promises which were made in ridings such as Simcoe South and others, promises indicating that our industries needed to be protected and that a Conservative Government would never allow a foreign takeover of Black & Decker, according to some of those Members.
What has happened? What has caused the sudden conversion of Conservative Members? What has caused them to hold ceremonies, which of course will be paid for by Canadian taxpayers, such as the reunion in Quebec City? In singing a duet, the President of the United States and our Tory Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) mutually agreed that there would be a new era of friendliness between the two countries. The engines had not cooled on the jet plane bringing the President of the United States to Washington when there was a countervail on Canadian pork products, a vital agricultural industry in my riding. This has had the effect of lowering the price of pork products by some 12 cents per pound. Farmers are in severe financial distress. The Prime Minister said that the President was as close as the telephone and that they would be meeting and discussing such issues. Where is that telephone call? Why does the Prime Minister not get on the telephone and tell Ronnie over there that we need protection for our agricultural products? That was not done.
In conclusion, I want to say that I fully support the motion presented by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. Before calling it one o'clock, perhaps we could reflect upon the Hon. Member's speech and have questions or comments for him, should he be in his seat when Government Orders are resumed this afternoon.
It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this afternoon.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Mr. Jean-Claude Malepart (Montreal-Sainte-Marie):: Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago, we heard that in Quebec, funding for the Home Renovation Plan had been cut by $17 million, which is particularly unfair since only $2 million was cut from the same program in Ontario.
And now, the Minister has announced that Ontario got $22 million under the Canada Rental Supply Program, while Quebec got nothing.
Mr. Speaker, I think all Members of this House should put pressure on the Minister responsible for CMHC to urge this Government to respond to the requests of hundreds of mayors of Quebec municipalities who would like to have additional funding of at least $10 million, not only for the sake of better housing but also to create and maintain employment in the construction industry.
Mr. Speaker, Quebec now has more than 720,000 people on welfare. The unfair cutbacks made by the Minister to the tune of $17 million mean that in Quebec, 4,600 units will not be renovated and 1,300 jobs will be lost. I think all Members of this House should ask the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) and the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) to correct the injustice being done to Quebecers.



INDIAN AFFAIRS


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to indicate my support for the Lac La Hache Indian band in its attempts to prevent Eldorado Nuclear Limited from pursuing uranium mining under Wollaston Lake, Saskatchewan. I do this for three reasons.
First, there is the question of aboriginal rights. Northern native people have a right not to have their land exploited in this way against their wishes. Second, there is the question of environmental degradation. We should not be in the business of producing the kind and quantity of radioactive waste that uranium mining creates, and which will be a problem for generations to come. Finally, all this is being done as part of the whole nuclear fuel cycle. We, as Canadians, should unambiguously reject any participation in this cycle, whether it be for the production of nuclear power or nuclear weapons.
I have called for a public inquiry into the whole nuclear fuel cycle. Canadians did not like it when the Liberals imposed a nuclear future on them. At one time the Conservatives seemed to share this dislike. Now all we get from the Minister of

May 16, 1985
Energy, Mines and Resources (Miss Carney) is talk about the commercial benefits of everything from marketing reactors to, believe it or not, marketing radioactive waste disposal.
It is about time the Government owned up to the fact that it is business as usual for the nuclear industry in Canada while, tragically, morally and ecologically superior energy alternatives are having their funding seriously cut back. Meanwhile we continue to waste our money on an unacceptable nuclear future.



CANADA POST CORPORATION


Mr. Bill Gottselig (Moose Jaw):: Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House once again to voice the concerns of many of my constituents regarding the claims made by Canada Post. For the most part, postal service is woefully inadequate. Not only is mail service slow across Canada, but it is very inefficient with local city and rural deliveries.
My constituents welcome the news that Canada Post is establishing a task force to eliminate unnecessary jobs within the corporation. We also hope this review will cover jobs at the executive level. Unless Canada Post can assure us of reasonable time for mail delivery, as well as an improvement of service generally, I call for a halt to the proposed rate increases, not only for mail deliveries but also the proposed increase in rental rates of post office boxes as well.



THE ECONOMY


Mr. Jean-Guy Guilbault (Drummond):: Mr. Speaker, in connection with the business seminar held recently in the riding of Drummond, I would like to draw the attention of the House to a very important piece of legislation that was adopted by our Government, and I am referring to the Small Businesses Loans Act, which will help thousands of Canadians to start or expand their own businesses. As a businessman myself, I am particularly interested in this legislation, because since 1982, all new jobs created in Canada were created by small businesses. Another fact is that 30 per cent of small businesses are owned by women. In 1961, the Progressive Conservative Government, led by the Right Hon. John Diefen-baker, adopted this legislation for the first time, and one of the first steps taken by our Government was to update the legislation and extend it until March 31, 1990.
In adopting this legislation, which deals with loans by financial institutions that are 85 per cent guaranteed by the Federal Government and are designed for businesses that provide goods and services, the Progressive Conservative Government has shown its commitment to small businesses and has helped to create an economic climate that is favourable to growth. The maximum interest rate on such loans is the chartered banks' preferred rate plus one, and borrowing terms are designed with small businesses in mind.



INDUSTRY


Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, once again I rise to address an issue of great concern to the people of my constituency. A month ago we read in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald that the federal and provincial Governments were very close to reaching an agreement on the second and final phase of the modernization program at Sydney Steel Corporation. We were told that the new costsharing agreement for the $65 million project to replace SYSCO's outdated hearth would be concluded in a few weeks. Well, we are still waiting. It seems like we have been waiting forever.
The plan for the modernization of Sydney Steel was first put forward by a provincial Tory Government. The former federal Liberal Government provided up to $96 million to help carry out renovations in the technological operations of Sydney Steel, while the present Government, with all its high-minded rhetoric about consultation with the provinces, has done nothing.
At issue is jobs, the jobs that will be lost if the federal Government presses ahead with its plans to install an electric arc furnace. Both the Conservative Premier of Nova Scotia and the steelworkers' union have ruled out electric arc technology on the grounds that it would reduce employment in the primary steel-making operations, the blast furnace and the coke ovens. The union in particular has noted that the federal Government's proposal would turn SYSCO's steel plant into a turn-key operation employing merely 500 workers. The steelworkers' union is pushing for a basic oxygen furnace as recommended in the original rehabilitation plan.
It is high time that the federal Government listened to the voices of those most directly concerned with the operations of Sydney Steel, the workers themselves.


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



HUMAN RIGHTS


Mr. Ernie Epp (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, last night the Ukrainian Canadian Students' Union gave Members of Parliament the opportunity to view Harvest of Despair, a


May 16, 1985

film on the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33. This famine was the result of the Soviet Government's demand for large quotas of grain for sale abroad, and its refusal to release food to the people. Stalin's intention was to break the opposition of Ukrainian farmers to his economic policies, and to bring the Ukrainian people to heel. This film presentation underscored the evidence currently being provided by the Canadian Helsinki Group about Soviet and East European violations of human rights.
Unfortunately communist countries hold no monopoly on disregard of human rights. Millions of people in the so-called free world are ruled by repressive military Governments. Who of us would want to choose between living in Poland or in Chile? Humanity can rejoice these days at the trials of secret police officers in Poland, and of army officers in Argentina. Abduction, torture, and murder of dissidents by dictatorships of both the left and the right are equally violations of human rights. We all need to be more sensitive to the human rights consequences of government policies. Western countries have become proficient at policies of restraint that throw people out of work and drive many to despair.
Does the International Monetary Fund consider the social consequences of its Third World economic-


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



ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Elliott Hardey (Kent):: Mr. Speaker, a recent American poll shows that U.S. citizen awareness of acid rain pollution has soared to 94 per cent. Poll analysts are amazed at this kind of awareness. Of those polled, 72 per cent would like to see the shareholders of corporations that spew the pollution that returns to earth as sulphuric acid bear the burden of clean-up, but they are also willing to accept a $70 per person per year assessment if necessary to get the job done.
[DOT] (M10)
That tells me and my constituents that we do have an ally across the border, an ally that will help us get the message to the U.S. leaders who seem reluctant to make this a priority item. That ally is the American people.
The message is that we must not wait any longer. Canada is committed to move now, and will cut 50 per cent of sulphur emissions by 1994. Just last week the Province of Quebec and the State of Massachusetts announced a joint agreement to develop a program for the control of the pollution.
If Canada will continue to be sincere and make positive moves toward reducing sulphur emissions, and embark on a program of encouraging the American people to demand action, the problem will be defeated, and our lakes, forests and crops can and will return to normal.
S.O.	21 INDUSTRY



DEFENCE INDUSTRY PRODUCTIVITY PROGRAM CONTRACT

Mr. Alan Redway (York East):: Mr. Speaker, many Canadians who are understandably concerned about preventing a nuclear holocaust strongly oppose any government involvement in defence research. Sometimes, however, that research may be of great benefit to mankind.
Yesterday, for instance, I announced on behalf of the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens) a federal government contribution of $3 million under the Defence Industry Productivity Program to a Toronto area company called Sciex.
The company will use the contribution to help it complete the development of the AROMIC Cargo Examination System, which is a sensing device used to detect contraband materials such as drugs, firearms, and explosives, which are concealed in legitimate cargo. Two of the systems have already been sold to a Middle Eastern country, for delivery next year.
Sciex, which is a 100 per cent Canadian-owned company, expects to create 260 new high-tech Canadian jobs, and generate $150 million, mostly in export sales. It it succeeds, the federal Government will not only recover its entire contribution and help to create Canadian jobs, but it will also assist humanity in its war against illegal drug and gun trafficking.
We Canadians long for peace and mutual and verifiable disarmament. Sciex and the Defence Industry Productivity Program may very well help us to achieve those goals.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



DANGEROUS PRODUCTS


Mrs. Therese Killens (Saint-Michel-Ahuntsic):: Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Government has confirmed that research on health problems related to urea formaldehyde foam, also referred to as UFFI, has been stopped, but a study by pediatricians at Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal reveals that 65 per cent of a group of 76 children who were given examinations suffered from chronic coughs, and that of these, 43 per cent were asthmatic or had similar symptoms. At least, that is what was said in the May 2 edition of Le Devoir.
It is absolutely intolerable that the Government should abandon these children, whose average age is six and a half. Physicians also found that the children suffered weight losses of up to 20 pounds, which is not normal. These are growing children who should not be losing weight to such an alarming extent.

May 16, 1985
The study, to be published by the magazine L'Union medi-cale du Canada in July, also says that the findings do not allow for the percentage of children who are unable to put into words what is the matter with them. In the light of these facts, the Government ought to reconsider its decision and order research on health problems related to UFFI to be resumed.



HUMAN RIGHTS


Mr. Andrew Witer (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, since the banning of the Polish Trade Union Solidarity, human rights activists and Solidarity leaders have been subjected to repeated harassment. As cases in point, Wladyslaw Frasyniuk, Bogdan Lis, and Adam Michnik have all been imprisoned or detained, with or without trial, for various periods since December, 1981.
On February 12, 1985, at a meeting with Lech Walesa in Gdansk, they were again arrested and charged with "making preparations for a strike ... in protest against increases in food prices and extension of the work day".
The rights of freedom of expression, freedom of association, and due process of law are too often taken for granted. This glaring example of another violation of the Helsinki Accords and the international pledge made by Poland as a signatory must be noted. Signatories of the Helsinki Accords are responsible for upholding their commitment to their co-signatories and must be held accountable.
The Canadian Government would be justified in making the countries involved in violations of the Accords aware of our abhorrence of such actions.



CANADA MORTGAGE AND HOUSING CORPORATION


Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, on April 29, 1985, officials of CMHC in Saskatoon indicated to the Co-operative Housing Association of Saskatchewan that Saskatchewan's housing allocation for 1985 would be 28 units. That amounts to a mere 35 per cent of the 1984 allocation of 80 units.
The Minister responsible for CMHC needs to explain to the people of his own province what he is intending to do and why he has seriously reduced the amount of social housing in Saskatchewan. The people of Saskatchewan would like to know why Saskatchewan is being forced to accept these large cut-backs in housing, which are much larger than they are in the rest of the country. Is it a part of the federal Government's approach to Saskatchewan residents, particularly senior citizens, to deny affordable housing, and to make Saskatchewan a second-class province?



PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF HON. ROGER STEELE, SPEAKER OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF THE NORTHERN TERRITORY OF AUSTRALIA

Mr. Speaker:: May I advise Members of the presence in our gallery today of the Hon. Roger Steele, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory of Australia.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct my question to the Right Hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs. In his discussion paper entitled Competitiveness and Security: Directions for Canada's International Relations, he cited on page 3 that one of the objectives is the protection of our natural environment. But there are absolutely no lines of enquiry contained in the document, no questions posed, and no options given. How can Canadians respond to the environmental question internationally, and particularly with respect to our relationship with the United States, with such a slim section on the environment in that discussion paper? Perhaps the printer misplaced the chapter.


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, it goes without saying that the people of Canada cannot respond to that question, to SDI, to trade, or to any other questions if the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party prevent the Parliament of Canada from allowing a public hearing by the Parliament of Canada so that Canadians can be heard.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: What we have provided is an invitation to Canadians to take part, for the first time, in the discussion of Canadian foreign policy. The position of the opposition Parties denies Parliament the opportunity to be heard on foreign policy, and it denies the people of Canada the opportunity to take part in the discussion of foreign policy. It also denies the Government the benefits of the advice of individual Canadians on environmental, strategic, trade and
May 16, 1985

other questions. I hope the Hon. Member, his Party, and his colleagues will change their opposition to public debate.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


CANADA-UNITED STATES FREE TRADE PROPOSAL
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the Minister wants debate, but the debate has been foreclosed on a number of issues. That is the point. For instance, what is the point of having a committee-and he can take his Conservative back-benchers across the country because they need something to do-which will ask the people of the country whether we want free trade with the United States, which is one of the options, when the Prime Minister and the President of the United States have already signed a joint declaration in Quebec City which has moved us toward freer trade? Does the document mean anything? Which is the valid document, the communique which was issued by the Prime Minister and the President, this document, both, or neither?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition might not want to hear from the people of Canada. The Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party might not want to give the people of Canada an opportunity to take part directly in the formulation of Canadian foreign policy. But we do want Canadians to take part in the process.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: We believe very deeply in the parliamentary process, and in the interests of individual ordinary Canadians in being heard and being influential on the questions which so vitally affect our future. I guess, Mr. Speaker, the best thing I could do is ask the Leader of the Opposition why he is refusing to allow the people of Canada to be heard on international questions.


John Napier Turner: I will tell the Minister, Mr. Speaker, it is because we don't want to be party to a fraud on the people of Canada. A phoney, peripatetic committee is looking at questions which the Government has already decided in its own mind-which the paper itself may have already decided-before the conclusions and deliberations of this committee are in.
[ Translation]


GREEN PAPER-TRADE LINKS WITH UNITED STATES- GOVERNMENT POSITION
John Napier Turner: Now in the green paper, or should I say grey paper, the following question appears on page 33, and I quote:
Oral Questions
Do Canadians believe that an agreement on closer trade relations with the United States entails important... advantages or disadvantages? In summary, what kind of
However, the joint press release by the President and the Right Hon. Prime Minister of Canada says that both heads of state-of course the Right Hon. Prime Minister is not head of state yet-have agreed on measures to expand mutual and reciprocal access to their countries's markets. My question is as follows: Is the green paper deliberately setting out to deceive us, since the decision has already been made by the Government?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the green paper is giving Canadians, for the first time in Canada's history, the right to be directly involved in formulating and determining Canada's foreign policy. This was not a practice of the former Liberal Government. However, today it is the practice to which this Government is committed, and I hope that the Opposition parties will be prepared to respect the right of Canadians to be consulted on our national and international policies.


CANADA-UNITED STATES RELATIONS ON ENVIRONMENTAL MATTERS
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, my question is also directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs who has chosen not to answer the question posed to him by my Leader. If the right hon. gentleman examines the book, he will find that having made the grand declaration in the opening pages that "we are pursuing the objective of the integrity of our natural environment", the Green Paper then reveals, and I quote:
In the past decade new areas of disagreement have arisen on the protection of the environment, particularly acid rain, and on threats to water quality posed by chemical pollutants-
What security is there for Canadians if all that can be said in this paper is that there have been disagreements between Canada and the United States?


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: Is that a question?


John Napier Turner: That is a good question. You haven't figured it out yet, but it is a good question.


Mr. Crosbie:: That's a Caccia nut question.


Mr. Caccia:: You haven't seen the title of the book, perhaps.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, on environmental, on trade, on strategic and other questions, this document provides the opportunity for broad public debate by the people and the Parliament of Canada. We know the views of the Hon. Member for Davenport. We know the views of the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry, and we know the views of the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition. Parliament knows those views. We believe

May 16, 1985
Oral Questions
that there is an interest in Parliament in knowing the views of the people of Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ian Deans: Before the decision is made or after?


Charles Joseph Clark: I would like the Hon. Member for Davenport to explain to me why it is that he should have a right in this House to express his views, but he denies to his constituents, the people who vote for him, the right to be heard themselves? Why is he more important than the people?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: Shame.


Charles L. Caccia: I will just say to the Minister, Mr. Speaker, that he would not have given that answer if he had realized that in his own document, which evidently he has not read, there are no lines of inquiry on the environment proposed by the document itself. That shows an abysmal lack of knowledge of the contents of his own paper.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: My supplementary question is directed to the Minister of the Environment. Can the Minister tell us what kind of credibility she can sustain in Washington in her talks with the authorities there when she allows this year a cut of $6.5 million in her environmental protection service and a cut of $5.3 million in the environment conservation services?


Hon. Suzanne Blais-Grenier (Minister of the Environment):: I do not think the Hon. Member for Davenport is fooling anyone with his concern for the environment and his repeated protests, because this Government has done more in seven months than those gentlemen in the Opposition did for years.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed as well to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. He said a number of times so far today that he and other members of his Government respect the people of Canada. They want to listen to the people of Canada, and believe in the consultative process, and so on. Does it show respect to the people of Canada to set up a consultative process in order to listen to their views and then to announce in
advance that the Government, before the results are in from the consultations, is going to make decisions in the key areas about which it is listening to the views of the people? Is that showing respect or is that showing contempt for the people of Canada?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, that is showing respect for the people of Canada and for the parliamentary process. Let me give the Hon. Leader of the Opposition-excuse me, John-the Leader of the New Democratic Party, an example. The question of the Strategic Defence Initiative is, I believe, of interest to Hon. Members in the House. Certainly the Government of Canada, before we have to take our first decision, the decision as to whether or not we accept the invitation of Secretary Weinberger to become involved in star wars research, would like the benefit of the advice of ordinary Canadians about the Strategic Defence Initiative.
The New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party are denying the Government of Canada access to that kind of advice by refusing to establish a parliamentery committee which would let the people speak.


UNITED STATES STRATEGIC DEFENCE INITIATIVE
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, is the Secretary of State for External Affairs telling the House that the Government is now asserting that it will not take a decision on committing the Government of Canada to participation in star wars research until this committee makes its final report? Is that what the Minister is telling the House?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, of course I am not saying that.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: What I am saying is that we are seeking a way that allows the Government of Canada to meet its duty to decide, and allows for the first time the people of Canada to express their views in a way which will have an influence upon the decision of the Government of Canada. There is nothing new, Sir, about Governments having to decide. What is new is that this Government is seeking the opportunity to hear from the people before the decisions are taken, and that opportunity is being denied us by the position taken by the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, we are hearing a phoney process from a phoney Minister.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Edward Broadbent: Once again he has told the House that he is going to consult before he makes a decision. One minute ago in reply to my other question he said, no, the Government wasn't going to wait. I wish the Minister at least would get his lines straight in the House of Commons.
May 16, 1985


GOVERNMENT POSITION
John Edward Broadbent: Since the Minister has reiterated in the answer he gave me one minute ago, and in answers he has given to the Liberal Party as well, that the Government intends to go ahead and make a decision about star wars, and intends to make a decision about trade matters, before the consultative process is over, will he acknowledge that this is a sham process, that it is going to cost the Canadian people thousands of dollars, probably on a weekly basis, and that it makes a whole mockery out of democratic consultation? If the Minister acknowledges that, will he put an end to this sham process?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I remind the Leader of the New Democratic Party that he asked me if a decision would await a final report of the committee. The answer is that a decision obviously cannot await that final report-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Edward Broadbent: Why not?


Charles Joseph Clark: I made it clear earlier that I was not going to accept the deadlines imposed by the Secretary of Defense of the United States. Nor do I think we should accept other artificial deadlines. What we should seek is a means by which, before we decide, we have the maximum possible opportunity to hear from the people of our country. We have provided a process which would allow the public of Canada to speak on this issue, beginning in the next few weeks. The Liberals and the NDP are refusing to give the people of Canada that voice on that decision.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: I know the NDP do not like making decisions; they have taken eight years to figure out their decision on NATO. But the Government of Canada-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


MINISTER'S VIEWS
Hon. Jean Chretien (Saint-Maurice):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the Right Hon. Minister that one year ago he was conducting his own consultation with Canadians. He prepared his own paper on foreign policy. But he never had the courtesy to use the wisdom of the people who made the presentations to him which he put in the paper, which was then put in the waste-basket by his Leader last summer.
Will the right hon. honest friend of mine come clean at the beginning of the discussion and table the paper he prepared last summer, so we will know the real thinking of the real Joe?
Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External
Affairs): I admire the Hon. Member's agility in trying to change the subject and get off a position of denying public
Oral Questions
debate, which he knows is an insupportable position. What is at issue here is not my views, indeed not the views of the Hon. Member, because our views are known. What is at issue is whether or not the people of Canada are going to be allowed to be heard on the Strategic Defence Initiative. I want to hear from Canadians on the Strategic Defence Initiative. The Liberal Party will not let Canadians speak on the Strategic Defence Initiative.


REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE COMMITTEE HEARINGS
Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a little proposition to the Right Hon. Minister. Will he agree to let the committee sit right now, have public hearings on star wars, and give a mandate to the committee to report three months from now?


Charles Joseph Clark: I read very closely the report of the debate yesterday in Hansard and I saw that at 2.30 yesterday afternoon the spokesman of the Liberal Party on external affairs was in favour of the committee; at 2.50 in the afternoon his Leader was opposed to the committee.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: If we discuss star wars right away.


Charles Joseph Clark: Do I now understand that the Liberal Party's official position is that they are prepared to let there be public debate and that they will give-


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: On star wars right away.


Charles Joseph Clark: -agreement to a reference of the Green Paper to a special joint committee? Is that the position of the Liberal Party now?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Right away on star wars.


Some Hon. Members:: Get up!


Mr. Siddon:: Get your act together.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


U.S. STRATEGIC DEFENCE INITIATIVE-COMMITTEE REFERRAL
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Secretary of State as well, a question not at all unlike that just asked.


John Carnell Crosbie: Are you still stimulated, Ian?


Ian Deans: Will the Minister take out of his report the question of star wars, refer it now to an all-Party committee, with the reporting date to be that date on which Parliament returns in September? If he will do that, we will participate.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: You never said that on House Leaders' day.


John Carnell Crosbie: The great participator.

May 16, 1985
Oral Questions
Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External
Affairs): Mr. Speaker, we have now had both opposition Parties move off their opposition to public debate.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: The place, Mr. Speaker-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Wednesday is taking a long time to go by.


Some Hon. Members:: It's Thursday.


Mr. Speaker:: That is what I am saying; Wednesday is taking a long time to go by. Go ahead, please.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the appropriate place for a discussion among House Leaders is in a meeting among House Leaders. We would be prepared to have that discussion occur immediately.
From my own point of view as the sponsor of the paper, while I do not want to give instructions to the committee, certainly I would have no objection at all to the committee giving priority to questions on which the Government has to make decisions quickly, so that we will have the benefit of the advice of the people and Parliament of Canada before we have to take those decisions. I would have no objection to that.
Naturally I do not want to limit the Government of Canada by artificial deadlines coming from the Hon. Member, as I did not want to accept the artificial deadline of Mr. Weinberger. But if, for example, we are to make a decision on this limited phase of the question of a response to an invitation on the Strategic Defence Initiative sometime within the next three to four months, I would think that if the committee could get going quickly we would have some expression of consensus to help guide us. I think that is reasonable, and I hope that Hon. Members do, as well.


REQUEST FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I want to be absolutely clear and understand what it is the Secretary of State is saying. When the Government House Leader discussed this with me-and he shouted across the floor of the House that this was not my position yesterday-my position yesterday, as he well knows, is that I would consider whether or not it was possible to work out some arrangement. That is what I said.


John Carnell Crosbie: You were stimulated yesterday?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: And now I want to carry through on that.


Ian Deans: Thank you. Now I am asking if the Secretary of State is prepared to establish a committee with the primary purpose of reviewing the question of star wars, to report back not later than the day on which the House returns in September, and will the Government hold back any decision until that report is made to the House of Commons?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the world is wider than the Strategic Defence Initiative. There are questions of international development which have to be considered; there are questions of human rights which have to be considered; there are questions of the environment which have to be considered.
What we have done here is establish the means by which, for the first time, the people of Canada can take part directly in the discussion of Canadian foreign policy. I have just indicated to the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain that I, as the Secretary of State for External Affairs, would have no objection to the committee giving priority to questions on which the Government has to come to a decision in the next three to four months. That allows us to decide, that allows the public to participate, and I want to know why the opposition Parties are opposed to government decision and public participation.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


NORTHERN AFFAIRS
Mr. Keith Penner (Cochrane-Superior):: Mr. Speaker, I will direct my question to the Deputy Prime Minister, and it concerns the fate of the Cyprus Anvil Mine at Faro, Yukon, and the future of the town itself. As the Deputy Prime Minister knows, the previous Government took imaginative steps to keep that mine open.


John Carnell Crosbie: What were they?


B. Keith Penner: So far all we have had from this Government is one more study and not even a report. I am advised that there are meetings going on today to offer the employees a one-way ticket out of Faro; the Cyprus Anvil Mine is going to be mothballed.
Is the Minister fully satisfied that everything possible has been done by his Government to keep this mine open and operating, and to keep this town alive and keep the citizens living there, or will he now admit to the House of Commons that the town and the mine were written off by his government quite some time ago?


Mr. Forrestall:: By the Liberal Government.


Hon. Erik Nielsen (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. gentleman knows, that question is more properly directed to the Minister responsible, that being the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. But I can remind him that the mine was closed while the Party to which he belongs was in government, not by this Party. I will remind him as well of the efforts
May 16, 1985

initiated by this Government in an attempt to reopen a mine which was closed down during the Government comprised of the Party of which he has the dubious honour of being a member.


REPORTED OFFER OF SEVERANCE PAY TO EMPLOYEES
B. Keith Penner: Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister knows there was $11 million set aside to try to keep that mine open. It was in the Budget of the last fiscal year and it was taken out of this year's Budget. It is gone.
Today the employees of that mine are being offered severance pay and a moving allowance which will amount to about $10,000 per employee. I want the Deputy Prime Minister to tell the House if the Government of Canada is offering any direct financial assistance to Dome to move people out of Faro and out of Yukon?


Erik Nielsen: Well, again, as the Hon. Member knows, or should know, that is a matter falling within the responsibility of the Minister of Labour. I, of course, keep current with these affairs from a constituency point of view. His figures are wrong in the first instance with respect to an initiative taken by the mine itself, in which the Government of the day participated, to the extent of $25 million on either side, with a stripping program.
With respect to the current request by labour for assistance on ending the lock-out and all the assistance which flows from that, that matter is now under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Labour. I hope it is met to the satisfaction of the union which first initiated the request.


FINANCE
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance who has stated that the upcoming Budget is going to be tough, but fair. In the last few days we have heard from a number of business leaders advocating massive cuts in social spending. However, they have been surprisingly mute on corporate welfare, the billions of dollars spent each year on corporate tax breaks. Since these tax breaks are disproportionately beneficial to the upper income earners and to the large capital intensive corporate sector, would the Minister not agree that, for his Budget to be fair, the matter of corporations wallowing in their own federal welfare will have to be addressed?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I think the Member's rhetoric is a little too colourful. I have said a number of times in the past that a number of matters
Oral Questions
relating to the question which he has just posed will be addressed in the Budget.


TAX EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, in 1979 the then Minister of Finance had the courage to bring in a tax expenditure account with his Budget, to enable us to evaluate the pros and cons of the tax expenditures. Will the Minister of Finance follow in the footsteps of his colleague and introduce a tax expenditure account to enable the people of Canada to evaluate how fair his Budget is?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Laval-des-Rapides referred to my last effort in the House as courageous. Maybe he will do it again.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of the Environment. The Ontario Government is currently appealing a decision of a United States court which allows toxic chemicals to continue to leak from a storage dump in the United States into the Niagara River and Lake Ontario. Would the Minister tell the House if the Government would be prepared to take action in the American courts to prevent Americans from polluting the Great Lakes? If the Minister feels she wants further negotiations, would the Government consider taking that action after those negotiations have been completed?


Suzanne Blais-Grenier: Mr. Speaker, since Canada is a sovereign country, I do not think it should use the judicial processes of a foreign country to make those decisions.


FINANCE
Hon. Donald J. Johnston (Saint-Henri-Westmount):: Mr. Speaker, I would like the Minister of Finance to explain why, days before the Budget, he chose to meet secretly with a privileged group of investors and businessmen as reported in The Globe and Mail? Why on earth would he have such a meeting during this sensitive period? Would he kindly tell us who these privileged people were?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the meeting was not sensitive. It was one of a series of meetings that my colleague, the Minister of State for Finance,

May 16, 1985
Oral Questions
and I have been having for the last six months. I think we have met with 56 different organizations. The matter on which we met was in the ordinary course of pre-Budget consultations. I suggest that the Hon. Member discuss this with his colleague, the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition. Maybe he could learn a little more about the matter, since the meeting was held in his former law office.


Donald James Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I do not regard that as a serious answer.


PURPOSE OF MEETING
Donald James Johnston: The
fact of the matter is that, according to spokesmen for the Minister's office, the Budget has largely been printed. Is this the same charade that the Secretary of State for External Affairs took us through? If the meeting was not to discuss what might be in the Budget, what was it for? Why would the Minister hold a meeting at this particular time?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the Budget is not printed. This particular meeting was originally scheduled back in January or February. It was a meeting with a group which was established originally in 1975 by the Leader of the Opposition. It was just a continuation of discussions that have been going on with previous Ministers of Finance since that time. The only time in which these discussions were not held was in 1982 and 1983 when the then Minister of Finance did not want to discuss the particular matter.


RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Mike Cassidy (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Science and Technology. In June of 1984 the Progressive Conservative Campaign Handbook, which included the promises by the Conservatives for the 1984 election, stated:
A Progressive Conservative Government will make up the ground Canada has lost in technological research and development through:
Doubling our national commitment to R&D from 1.3% of Gross National Product (GNP) to 2.5% of GNP within the first four years we are in office.
Earlier this week the Minister stated:
We cannot promise that by 1990 we will have moved to the point of 2.5 per cent.
Mr. Speaker, when is a promise not a promise? Will the Minister now agree that the Government has abandoned the promise it made in the election campaign of doubling R and D within its first four years in office?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, the usual NDP version of a political commitment is that it is a matter of the public sector
promising to hand out vast amounts of public resources to accomplish a goal.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Edward Broadbent: That was your promise.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate a little tolerance from the Opposition if they wish to hear the answer.
The Government remains committed to achieving a level of national expenditure on research and development approaching that of our major industrial competitors. 1 am optimistic that that goal will be reached.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, in June of 1984, less than a year ago, acting on the advice of the then critic for Science and Technology, the present Minister, the Progressive Conservative Party stated explicitly that it would achieve 2.5 per cent in the first four years, that is, by 1988. Is that now still the promise, or has the Government abandoned that promise and therefore undermined the future of the economy of the country?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is ascribing to myself words which were never uttered.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Thomas Edward Siddon: In the question the precise words were not quoted. In fact it is an objective of the Government to raise Canada's investment, in the public and private sectors alike, to a level approaching that of our major industrial competitors, hopefully within the next five years. However, that ultimate goal will be achieved in due course.


INDUSTRY
Mr. Reg Stackhouse (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion. Ninety-three Dominion stores have been sold to A&P and many employees in the remaining stores in Ontario centres such as Scarborough face what some fear is an uncertain future. What action can the Government of Canada take to give these employees the assurance that they will receive fair treatment if any more stores are sold or closed by this company which has a dominion charter?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, this issue is substantially a provincial matter. At the time of the acquisition of certain stores by A&P we were most concerned about the preservation of jobs. As I recall, over 7,000 jobs were preserved. We will naturally be concerned about the jobs in the remaining stores. I will take
May 16, 1985

his question as representation with a view to checking to ensure that there is no serious threat of them losing their present positions.

[ Translation]


FINANCE
Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Today he admitted that he agreed to have a meeting with the "big bosses" of the financial world, as had been reported by the Globe and Mail.
Could the Minister of Finance inform the House why he agreed to meet with the big bosses of the financial world, when yesterday he refused to attend a meeting with representatives of Quebec family agencies, representing 100,000 people, who wanted to meet with the Minister to discuss the needs of the real people of this country? What were his reasons? Is this the old double standard? He has time for the creme de la creme but no time at all for the people.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I have a list of the various organizations that I have met over the course of the last six months. I could read the list to the Hon. Member if he wishes. It would only take me about ten minutes. They include the Consumers' Association of Canada, the Canadian Council on Social Development, the Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, and the Canadian Federation of Municipalities.
I have met with a wide range of people and not just the "Pooh-Bahs", to use his words from the translation. The group that I met a week and a half ago was part of the same series of consultations.
I do not understand, for the life of me, why the Liberal Party is against consultation. Surely it is important for the Minister of Finance to have access to the ideas and views of a wide range of Canadians. That is the process we have gone through over the last six months, and that is the process that will continue flowing in this place.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


REQUEST THAT MINISTER MEET FAMILY ORGANIZATIONS TOMORROW
Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary.
Oral Questions
First of all, I am glad the Minister asked me why we were opposed to consultation. In connection with Bill C-26, all groups were asking to have the spouse's allowance expanded and the Minister is refusing to do so. His consultations are a lot of bullshit!
Could the Minister-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I am sure the Hon. Member wants to withdraw that word.


Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the word, but the smell lingers.
Could the Minister of Finance inform the House whether he would be willing to meet tomorrow with these family agencies so they can explain their position on policies affecting the family?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, again the Hon. Member demonstrated a total lack of respect for the House.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Comments like that do not reflect on me; they reflect on this whole House. If the Hon. Member had any respect, he would take back that comment in a far more complimentary way than he has just done.
I have met with a number of groups that represent social organizations. I can tell the Hon. Member right now that any meeting right now would not be timely in terms of this Budget, but I would be very happy to meet with the organization to which he refers, but not under his auspices, because I do not think that would do any credit to the organization involved.


SHIPBUILDING
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion.

Last week, the Davie shipyards at Lauzon, near Quebec City, sent layoff notices to 880 employees. The remaining 770 will be laid off this fall, and the company will have no new contracts until the fall of 1986, when it will start on the Federal project for refitting four Canadian Navy destroyers. My question is as follows, Mr. Speaker: Is the Federal Government going to accept the union's request to award the company a contract for the construction of another ferry for CN Marine, so that union members will have work until the fall of 1986?

May 16, 1985
Oral Questions


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, of course we are concerned about any layoff, in particular a layoff of the nature referred to by the Hon. Member. I can only tell the Hon. Member at this time that we will be having discussions with the company to see if there is some realistic way to avert this layoff and other possible layoffs in related companies.


ASSISTANCE TO VERSATILE-DAVIE-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, two months ago, the Minister approved a loan of $15 million for Versatile-Davie to cover capital costs until work would begin on the Canadian destroyers.
My supplementary is as follows: Does the Minister intend to be as attentive to the needs of the shipyard's 1,600 employees, for whom the shipyard is one of two major sources of employment in this part of Quebec? This is a matter of great importance to many Quebecers.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, surely the Hon. Member realizes that our attempts to keep the shipyard open, and particularly to give it the kind of contracts that he has referred to, were very much in the interest of workers in that shipyard. I think he should be standing up congratulating us.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance, the Frank Miller look alike. In November the Minister of Finance said that his Government could have made more decisions and taken more action, but to do so in the absence of full consultation would undermine the effectiveness of his Government's economic plans. Will the Minister be true to his word and give an unequivocal undertaking to the House that no changes will be made to the Unemployment Insurance Act, or its regulations, before there has been full consultation with the Canadian public?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member should have some confidence in me. Let him wait until next Thursday and I think he will be able to make up his own mind.


MINISTER'S CONSULTATIONS
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, with regard to specific provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Act, particularly those dealing with sickness, fishermen, and individuals who cannot work because of pregnancy, will the Minister indicate to the House whether he has had any consultations on those three areas of the Unemployment Insurance Act? Is he telling the House that he is prepared to move on those, thus deviating from the Prime Minister's commitment that universal social programs are a sacred trust?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, using the expression I have applied to other members of the Hon. Member's Party, the Hon. Member is trying to use the politics of fear. Let him wait until next Thursday. If he thinks about it, I believe he will be able to make up his mind in an appropriate way. There has been full consultation by my colleague, the Minister of Employment and Immigration, and myself, on a wide range of issues surrounding the topics that he has raised. I can assure him that we have a great deal of sensitivity toward the Fishermen and women who would be affected by any changes. The Hon. Member should wait until next Thursday. '


CANADIAN ARMED FORCES
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Defence. Yesterday he stated that he had no knowledge of the January gag order issued by the NDHQ to members of the Armed Forces who might want to appear before the committee on the important issues of equality rights. Now that the Minister has reviewed this matter, will he tell the House his policy with respect to the appearance of the members of the Armed Forces? Specifically, will he inform all members of the Armed Forces that they are free to make written or verbal submissions to the committee without any possible present or future adverse impact on their careers in the Canadian Armed Forces?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I answered that question yesterday. I would be delighted to appear before the committee, if that is what the committee wishes. They simply have to get in touch with me.
With respect to the officials, there are well recognized procedures with respect to officials in the Department, whether they be military or civilian, appearing before committee members.


Svend Johannes Robinson: The Minister has not answered the question.


APPEARANCES BEFORE COMMITTEE
Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, there are 83,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces. Is each man and woman in the Armed Forces free to appear, without any possible repercussions, before the equality rights committee to
May 16, 1985

voice their concerns on the serious issues which have been raised in the discussion paper and which directly affect each and every member of the Armed Forces? I am not concerned with just the Minister or senior officials, but members of the Armed Forces themselves.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, my only observation is that if 83,000 members of the Armed Forces appeared before the committee, in our committee rooms as they are presently constituted, it would be a little crowded.


MULTICULTURALISM
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: My question is directed to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism. This Tuesday's federal-provincial conference on multiculturalism was a dismal failure. Not only was it conducted behind closed doors, but when the doors were finally opened we found how empty that conference really was. I would like to ask a specific question on racism which the Minister irresponsibly said is outside his jurisdiction. How can the Minister make such a declaration when an integral part of his mandate and his directorate is within the race relations area? Was racism discussed around the table? If so, what strategic conclusions and recommendations can the Minister make at this time?


Hon. Jack Murta (Minister of State (Multiculturalism)):: Mr. Speaker, first, the conference attended by all the Ministers was deemed by many people, most people in Winnipeg except for the Hon. Member, a success. It was the first time we have been able to get together to sit down and talk about one of the most important subjects in the country, namely, multiculturalism. We dealt with that in a spirit of co-operation and unity.
Dealing with the second part of the Hon. Member's question, I and the multicultural Department have a major responsibility for the area of race relations in Canada. If you take the very narrow definition, in terms of legislation it falls in our area. We have a major thrust in terms of fighting racism at every level of society. The Department and myself are committed to doing that, and I hope the Hon. Member is in agreement.


CLERK OF PETITIONS' REPORTS
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the petitions, with the exception of two, presented on Wednesday, May 15, 1985, meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.
Point of Order-Mr. Gray (Windsor West)
The petitions presented by the Hon. Member for Calgary South (Mrs. Sparrow) and the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) do not meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.


PRIVILEGE
Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege relating to the answer given today by the Minister of National Defence concerning participation in a Parliamentary committee on equality rights.
I would submit that the effect of the decision which has obviously been made by that Minister denies the right of Members of Parliament to hear from important witnesses on matters of concern before this Parliament. What that Minister is doing is denying Members of the Armed Forces the right to appear-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. This is clearly argument arising out of Question Period. It is not a question of Privilege. The Member may have a point he wishes to make, but he will have to find a different arena.


Ian Deans: It is a very good point.


Mr. Speaker:: Before we get to the business question, because of the nature of the point of order that was made to me yesterday, I must at this point indicate my decision on that matter. One way or the other it might have an effect.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: It might be asking for a lot.


POINT OF ORDER
Mr. Speaker:: I am now prepared to rule on the Point of Order raised yesterday by the Hon. Member for Windsor West (Mr. Gray) relating to a Notice of Motion on the Order Paper under Government Notices of Motion concerning a proposed allocation of time motion.
The Hon. Member for Windsor West is quite right in saying that the contemporary practice has been to propose motions pursuant to S.O. 82 on Routine Proceedings without written notice. I also agree with him that the Government can give written notice to the House of the actual text of the motion. Rulings by my predecessors having clearly established that no written notice is required but as the Hon. Member for Windsor West has stated a Minister of the Crown may, if he so choses, give written notice of a motion of allocation of time and I concur with him that our rules do not prevent this.

May 16, 1985
Point of Order-Mr. Gray (Windsor West)
The first point to be decided is whether the written notice should appear under Motions rather than under Government Notices of Motions. I say again, that it is a fact that motions pursuant to S.O. 82 of which oral notice has been given have been proposed during Routine Proceedings under Motions. However, in this case, the Clerk of the House received specific instruction from the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Hnatyshyn) to have the said motion appear on the Notice Paper under Government Notices of Motions. I draw to the attention of all Hon. Members Citation 268 of Beauchesne Fifth Edition which says:
The Government may, from time to time, put on the Notice Paper notices of motions concerning business of the House. When these items are called they are deemed transferred to Government Orders on the Order Paper.
The Twentieth Edition of Erskine May at page 296 defines the type of motions that are considered to be Government Motions as following:
Also classified under this heading are the motions regularly brought forward by the Government for regulating the length of the Christmas, Easter, spring and summer adjournments of the House-Another important example is that of allocation of time or "guillotine" orders which the Government moves in order to hasten progress on one or more of its bills-
Once again, review of our recent practice relating to motions dealing with the sittings of the House and with its adjournments shows that they have been appearing under Motions on the Order Paper, but a review of the Order Paper of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s shows that such motions have most often appeared under Government Notices of Motions. There is no doubt it is this practice that inspired Beauchesne's comment.
The Hon. Member for Windsor West has stated that such motions must be made on Routine Proceedings, pursuant to
S.O.	36(1 )p). I must differ with him on the purpose of S.O. 36, in my opinion, its only object is to define which motions are debatable motions.
The Hon. President of the Privy Council has argued that since a motion for allocation of time can only stand in the name of a Minister of the Crown it can therefore only be a government initiative and it should quite properly appear under Government Notices of Motions.
On reviewing the precedents and the arguments, I must say on this point, that I agree with the Hon. President of the Privy Council and I must rule that the Government has the right to proceed in this manner if it so choses.
The second point to be determined is whether the prescriptions of S.O. 82 can be made to apply to such motions if and when they are transferred to Government Orders. In fact, I am being asked in effect, to rule on a hypothetical point but I believe it to be in the House's best interest to rule now.
On May 2, 1985, the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion, (Mr. Stevens) pursuant to S.O. 82, did inform the House that it had not been possible to reach an agreement pursuant to S.O. 80 or pursuant to S.O. 81. He also gave notice of his intention to propose a motion pursuant to S.O. 82 to allocate one more sitting day to each of the said stages of Bill C-15.
A close reading of S.O. 82 will reveal that the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion has complied with the prerequisite conditions of the Standing Order. The Standing Order prevents him from moving his motion during the same sitting at which he gave notice of his intention. But the Standing Order is silent as to how or when in a future sitting he may do so. The practice has been to propose the said motion without written notice under Motions.
I refer Hon. Members to an analogous Standing Order:
5.0. 9(1) which specifically prescribes that a motion for the extension of the sittings of the House can be made by any Imember on the tenth sitting day before the summer adjournment. Unlike S.O. 82 it does prescribe that such a motion must be made on Routine Proceedings.
I must tell the House that the Chair cannot go beyond the Standing Order as it is now and that I can only rule on the Standing Order as written since there are no precedents. Perhaps the Standing Order may be rephrased and presented in another way to make it clearer. As it reads now, however, I must rule that S.O. 82 does not require that a Minister's motion be made on Routine Proceedings. If a Minister has given notice of his intention before filing his written notice, the Minister has then complied with the prerequisite conditions of
5.0.	82. In my opinion he now has two avenues: he can move his motion of allocation of time at the next sitting following his notice of intention during Routine Proceedings without written notice or he can give the House 48 hours written notice under Government Notices of Motions. Once it has been transferred, it can be called under Government Orders, at which time the debate would be limited pursuant to S.O. 82.
The Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans) has claimed that this procedure would be a dangerous precedent which this House would live to regret. I can only tell him that in my opinion very little would be changed since such motions, if moved on Motions and interrupted, are in fact transferred to Government Orders pursuant to S.O. 49(2) which is the same point raised by the Hon. Member for Windsor West and the limits on debate provided in S.O. 82 survive the transfer and are applied when the Order is recalled, and we have ample precedent in such cases.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Jacques Guilbault (Saint-Jacques):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the House that we have reached the mid-May long weekend and it is customary at this time of the year for the Government to tell the House what business it plans to complete before the summer recess. This is my main question of the Government House Leader. While he is at that, could he let us know when he wishes to hold the Budget debate.
On the subject of Bill C-49, the Prostitution Bill, which we believe is of an urgent nature, although we do not agree with all that is in the Bill we believe it should be sent to committee
May 16, 1985

as soon as possible. If the Government chooses to bring it to the House, we would not delay it unduly on second reading. Will the Government House Leader tell us when he plans to bring this legislation before the House?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Hon. Member's question. The House Leader of the Official Opposition has not made the same inquiry of me. In the course of House Leaders' meetings I have listed-


Ian Deans: Oh, oh.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: I am not talking about the content. We have had discussions with respect to the business before us and whether we will make progress on the items of business. Since he is asking me, I will try to give some idea of what we intend to do before we rise, if we do rise, for the summer recess. We hope to make progress.
In the spirit of consultation, we have dealt with a number of legislative initiatives. Some have been easier than others, but that is to be expected. Perhaps I will deal with the immediate future. On the basis of consultations with Opposition House Leaders, we have talked about what we might be able to do before the Budget is brought down at 4.30 p.m. next Thursday, as established by an Order of the House. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) will be in the House at that time.
We have some legislation on which I would like to see whether we can make progress starting tomorrow. We will proceed with Bill C-25 dealing with the Agricultural Stabilization Act. Hopefully we can get that matter into committee, and there has been some discussion about the reasonable prospect of that happening.
Perhaps the Hon. Member was referring to the Bills relating to divorce and the enforcement of maintenance orders, not the one respecting prostitution.


Jacques Guilbault: I referred to Bill C-40.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: I am sorry. That is a new situation. It has not been discussed with me. We have talked about it in a very general way. I am pleased to have had that representation from the Liberal Party, and to know that it is interested in proceeding with the Bill relating to amendments to the Criminal Code on prostitution and street soliciting. That will be helpful. I will take it under advisement. I know the Minister of Justice (Mr. Crosbie) wants to make progress on it. I will discuss it with the representative of the New Democratic Party to see whether we can get as quick a disposition of it as possible.
However, there have been discussions with respect to Bill C-46, Bill C-47 and Bill C-48 relating to divorce and the enforcement of maintenance orders, as well as an ancillary Divorce Act amendment. There may be a disposition on the part of all Hon. Members to deal with the three Bills in one debate. 1 think the House Leader of the Official Opposition
Business of the House
indicated on behalf of the Hon. Member for York Centre (Mr. Kaplan) that, rather than repeat the debate on each on the items, we deal with them in one debate and discuss all items relating to the legislation, on that basis I thought I would put that legislation on as a back-up for tomorrow.
If the House concludes consideration of those Bills, we could move on to consideration of Bill C-32, the fisheries Bill. There are discussions taking place with respect to that legislation. I was hoping that we would get the fisheries Bill on for tomorrow, but, since there are discussions and the possibility of coming to an agreement with respect to moving on it, I will have it as the third item.
Of course the House will not sit on Monday, and if consideration of the Bills which I have enumerated is not concluded on Friday, they will be considered on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday until 4 p.m. when the Order of the House indicates that we will suspend the sitting until 4.30 p.m. As usual the Government will monitor the progress made with respect to House business, and changes and additions to the business will be made as required and appropriate.
In general terms with respect to the legislation on the Order Paper, of course we are interested in making progress on those items. We hope to make early disposition of those items which are now moving through second reading to get those matters into committee, so that the month of June could be used for the purpose of hearing witnesses and considering legislation in detail. As the Hon. member knows, it is possible to make some progress during the last two weeks of June. I hope we will make that progress, and I hope we will be able to sit down and work out an agenda to the mutual satisfaction of the Opposition and the Government. It seems to me that there is an attainable objective of making progress on most of the items on the Order Paper at the present time, including those items now before committee. I know it is an ambitious proposal, but I hope with some goodwill we will be able to make that kind of progress.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, dealing with one question which was asked but not answered with regard to the budget debate, perhaps the Government House Leader, when he rises, could address the question of how he intends to allocate time for the replies to the Budget.
The second matter concerns the order in which the legislation will be called. I totally agree that in fact we came to an understanding with regard to Bill C-25. I anticipate that that Bill will be dealt with tomorrow. However, my recollection was that we thought we would be able to deal with the three Bills related to the divorce legislation on Tuesday and perhaps on part of Wednesday, to resolve those questions and get them into committee. We think that they should in fact go into committee quickly so that the views of those persons most affected and most interested will be heard, and then the House of Commons might deal with it.
As the Government House Leader said, we are actively looking at ways to deal with Bill C-32, the fisheries Bill. I hope

May 16, 1985
Business of the House
we might be able to work out some arrangement at some time in the not too distant future.
The third point I want to make is that the Government House Leader knows-and perhaps he will acknowledge it- that there is no end to the co-operation. In fact, we are all working very hard to try to achieve, on behalf of the Government, of the people of Canada and of course on behalf of Parliament, the utmost, maximum amount of co-operation on legislation which we all understand to be of vital importance.


B. Keith Penner: Mr. Speaker, could the Government House Leader advise us how soon Bill C-31, the amendments to the Indian Act, will be back at report stage? I remind the Hon. Minister that great pressure was put on the committee to get it back to the House. How soon will it be debated? There is great concern on the part of many people about that Bill and its inadequacies.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I will respond to the questions that have been put. I apologize to the Deputy House Leader of the Official Opposition. I misunderstood his question. I thought he was asking for the date of the Budget. Of course it is next Thursday. As far as the budget debate is concerned, at the present time I anticipate that we will carry right into the budget debate, that is to say, the Budget would be brought down on Thursday and then Friday would be the first day of the budget debate.
I want to sit down at the appropriate time and talk with Opposition House Leaders with respect to the scheduling of the budget debate. It seems to me that there may be an opportunity for some understanding about the dates being at the convenience of all Hon. Members so that we will know when the votes are and how we can arrange our speakers, particularly as that relates to the Leaders of the Parties.
In connection with the Bill relating to the amendments to Section 12(l)(b) of the Indian Act and other amendments, it is our intention to bring this matter forward at an early date.
I have listed some items on which I thought we might make progress because of my discussions with the House Leader of his Party and the House Leader of the New Democratic Party. I know that this is a matter of importance and of some great interest. It is a question of looking at the most efficient use of the limited time that we have on the floor of the House of Commons to make sure there is an appropriate debate and an opportunity for points of view to be expressed. I share the Hon. Member's concern about this legislation. It is an important item. I will do my level best to ensure that we have an opportunity of dealing with it at an early date.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I have a short question for the Government House Leader. There is immense interest in the distribution Bill. Can the Government give some indication as to when we can expect some motion or movement on distribution? Is the Government intending to proceed soon on that?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, the Bill which the Hon. Member refers to I believe deals with redistribution. There has not yet been an announcement with respect to specific initiatives that have been taken, although in all candour I have to say that I have spoken to the House Leaders about some review of the existing situation. I intend to move on it, I hope, at an early date. Possibly within the next week I will have specific proposals to put forward to the Opposition House Leaders concerning this matter. On the basis of my discussions thus far, there may well be a disposition to have parliamentarians deeply involved in this very interesting, if I may be permitted to say so, legislation in which we all seem to have an interest.


Mr. Speaker:: That is one Bill in which even the Speaker has an interest, or a special interest I should say.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Marcel Prud'homme (Saint-Denis):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will be delighted to hear that today I have the honour of tabling the Second Report of the Standing Committee on Management and Members' Services, pursuant to its order of reference of Tuesday, February 26, 1985.
Yesterday, in your presence, our committee examined Vote 5 under the item "Parliament" in the Estimates for the financial year ending March 31, 1986, and we have the honour of tabling it today-

Of course in both languages. I am sure you will be very relieved, Mr. Speaker, to know that your estimates were accepted yesterday.


PETITIONS
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I have here a number of petitions from residents of Vancouver, British Columbia, who call upon the Government to take action to save the National Postal Museum. They suggest it is incumbent upon this Parliament to do whatever it can to preserve this valuable cultural institution which has served Canada so well.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition signed by a number of
May 16, 1985

residents of the City of Toronto in which they request the Minister in charge of the post office to intervene and find a suitable location near Parliament for the Postal Museum in order that the employees of the Postal Museum might continue to work during the transition period and, furthermore, that they can continue to provide the valuable service they have provided in the past to the people of Canada.


Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to present a petition to Parliament signed by numerous Canadians residing in the City of Regina and several from the City of Saskatoon, in fact residing in the constituency of the Elouse Leader of the Government Party. These Canadians are asking Parliament, particularly the Government and the Minister responsible for the post office, to re-establish the National Postal Museum so that this valuable cultural institution can continue to serve Canada, particularly the Ottawa region.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: My constituents spoke to me about that.


Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, I too have the honour to present a number of petitions from residents of southwestern Ontario, the communities of Kitchener, Stratford, London, Brampton, Guelph and Georgetown, who are calling upon the Government to take action to save the National Postal Museum. It is incumbent upon this Parliament to do all that it can to preserve this valuable cultural institution which has served Canada so well for over 10 years. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Beatty) and the Minister of Public Works (Mr. La Salle) should join with representatives of our Party, the labour movement, the mayor of Ottawa and members of Canada's philatelic community to prevent the permanent closure of the National Postal Museum.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition on behalf of a large number of residents of Ottawa, Aylmer, Hull, as well as Almonte and other communities in eastern Ontario who are philatelists and who have expressed their concern about the closure of the National Postal Museum. They call upon the Government of Canada not just to keep a shrunken service but to maintain the National Postal Museum as a full facility which will continue to provide its services in the vicinity of Parliament Hill, and who call upon the Minister responsible for the post office as well as the post office officials and Members of this House to seek and find a new location near Parliament where the National Postal Museum can continue to serve the people of Canada.



INVESTMENT CANADA ACT


[Stage Direction]
On the Order: Government Notices of Motions:
May 14, 1985-The Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion:
Order Paper Questions
That, further to the notice given on Thursday, May 2, 1985 by the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion, and pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 82, in relation to Bill C-15, An Act respecting investment in Canada, one sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration of each of the report stage and the third reading stage of the said bill; and
That 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for government business on those days, any proceedings then before the House shall be interrupted, if necessary, for the purpose of this Order and, in turn, every question necessary to dispose of the stage of the bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.
Mr. Speaker:: Pursuant to Section (2) of Standing Order 25, this Government Notice of Motion stands transferred to and ordered for consideration under Government Orders later this day or at the next sitting of the House.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, Question No. 316 will be answered today.


Mrs. Killens: 1.	Did the government make any renovations in the constituency offices of the Minister for External Relations in (a) Rimouski (b) Cabano and, if so, in each case, what was the cost of the (i) design (ii) construction?
2.	Were private sources used and, if so, what was the name of the individual or company concerned and were tenders called before the contract was awarded?


Hon. Roch La Salle (Minister of Public Works):: 1.	(a) Public Works Canada made renovations to the ministerial office of the Minister for External Relations in Rimouski, which was set up pursuant to Treasury Board Minutes dated May 7, 1974. (i) No design costs were involved, (ii) The construction costs of the renovations were $8,100.
(b) No renovations were carried out to the Minister's constituency office (House of Commons) in Cabano.
2.	Sacona Inc. did the construction work. No tenders were called as it is in rental space and the owner retains the responsibility for carrying out the repairs by utilizing a contractor of his choice.


Mr. Speaker:: The question enumerated by the Parliamentary Secretary has been answered.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, if Question No. 145 could be

May 16, 1985
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made an Order for Return, this return would be tabled immediately. I might indicate that it is about two inches thick.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that Question No. 145 be deemed to have been made an Order for Return?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Angus: As of (a) December 12, 1984 (b) September 3, 1984 (c) December 3, 1979, what was the name, law firm and community of all federally appointed prosecutors?
Return tabled.


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


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Axworthy:
That this House condemns the Government, not only for its failure to protect Canada from potential problems of foreign direct investment as demonstrated by the Government's failure to take effective action in dealing with foreign takeovers in the cases of Mitel and of the book-publishing industry, but also for its contempt for the Parliamentary process by cutting off free debate on its iniquitous investment legislation without providing adequate time for consideration of dozens of important and constructive amendments.
Mr. Speaker:: At one o'clock the Hon. Member for Glengar-ry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria) had completed his speech. His time had expired. I will now recognize Members who wish to participate in the usual 10-minute question and comment period following a speech.


Reginald Francis Stackhouse: Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of his remarks, the Hon. Member made reference to this motion as an indication of a Government not willing to participate in the parliamentary process. The fact is that motions of this kind were introduced by the Liberals in the years from 1971 to 1979 and 1980 to 1984 no fewer than 39 times. Of those 39 times, 23 notices of allocation of time were given in the last Parliament alone.
If this kind of motion indicates a lack of desire to take the parliamentary process with full seriousness, we have learned from magnificent teachers. We are certainly following a much-applied example on the part of the former Liberal Government. In this instance it is a motion which is more than necessary because of the great many times various speakers on all sides of the House have participated in the debate. Thus far the amount of time devoted to this Bill in the House and in committee amounts to sufficient hours that if they were put into numbers of debating days, based on the number of hours usually devoted to government business, we would have debated this issue just under five weeks of parliamentary sitting time. Surely it is time for the debate to terminate and to get on with the next stage and action.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to the remarks just made by the Hon. Member. Obviously, I totally disagree with what the Hon. Member said. I am sure that even he realizes that what he said was totally inaccurate. We spent only 20 hours deliberating one of the most important Bills we will see during the life of this Parliament. After 20 hours the arrogant Conservatives have tried to cut off debate on that very important issue which will affect workers in my riding and workers in every constituency across Canada. We want to ensure that there will not be foreign takeovers of our domestic industries and that we will not lose jobs because of the inactions of this Government. To have the unmitigated gall to tell us that 20 hours is enough, when the Conservative Party in Opposition deliberated 200 hours on the Crow legislation, is totally unacceptable. Even Conservatives in the back-benches know that.


Robert Hylton Brisco: Mr. Speaker, I would like the Hon. Member to listen to the facts. Twenty-three associations appeared before the committee for a total of 26 hours. The Minister and his officials, including the clause-by-clause deliberations, took up a total of 14 hours. That amounts to a total of 40 hours at the committee level. I do not know where the Hon. Member gets his 20-hour figure from, but if the facts are borne out by my statement he should be asked to withdraw. His statement is totally inaccurate.
At report stage, the Bill was debated for approximately 10 hours. On three separate motions there were five hours, four hours and 15 minutes, and three hours and 55 minutes of debate, respectively. From where did the Hon. Member get the 20-hour figure? He cannot add.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I was talking about House time, not committee time. Perhaps some Tories in the back row do not come to the House very often to participate in debate. Maybe they should.


Léo Duguay: You do not either.


Don Boudria: Thank you. I am glad someone said that I do not speak enough in the House. I will admit to that. I will try to speak more in the future. I am glad to have that kind of
May 16, 1985

encouragement given to me by a Conservative back-bencher. I will attempt to speak more often in this House, and more forcefully, at every possible opportunity. I appreciate the kind of encouragement given to me by the Hon. Member who so rudely interrupted.
The issue which we were discussing is that not enough time has been spent debating this Bill. The proof of that is that the Conservative back-benchers have hardly participated in the debate. On behalf of the Tory book-ends, the surfers who were elected along with the tide in the last election-and who will likely go out with the tide in the next election-I demand more House time so that we can discuss this very important issue. The Hon. Member for Simcoe South (Mr. Stewart) has told the constituents of his riding on many occasions that FIRA had to be strengthened. On his behalf, and on behalf all the other Tories who have not spoken, I demand more House time so that we can speak about this very important issue. I am sure the Hon. Member for Lanark-Renfrew-Carleton (Mr. Dick), who will make a contribution in the debate, will undoubtedly be aware of that.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, I do not think the Hon. Member would ever yield the floor to allow anyone else to give a speech. All he does is talk. If he listened to the 20 minutes prior to one o'clock he would know why most people in the country find Parliament boring. He did not say one thing which had any foundation or one thing which made any common sense.
He said that he was not against foreign capital coming into Canada. I would like to suggest that his Party was not against that. After all, 93 per cent of the applications to FIRA which went before Cabinet were approved.
The Hon. Member said that he wanted the best deal for Canadians. I do not believe anyone in this House would disagree with that. The fact is that we do not think that their way of doing it is the best, and the Canadian public agreed with us when they sent 211 Conservatives to the House on September 4, versus 40 Liberals.
The Hon. Member asked whether we were willing to take control and move on quotas to protect Canadian industry. I would like to tell him how much better we will do than the Liberals did. We will not allow 53 million pounds of European Economic Community beef into Canada. I will guarantee that we will cut that amount down from the 53 million pounds which the Liberals allowed in last year.
The Hon. Member said that this Government had not moved on any agreements. We have extended the agreements on shoe manufacturing. He should know that, as he has some shoe manufacturers in his riding.
The Member spoke about promises and that we would not implement FIRA to protect our international rights and obligations. He listed a number of promises which were made by the Conservative Party during the last election. If he knew what he was talking about, he would realize that each and every one of the promises to which he referred related to GATT negotiations, the rights which we have under GATT, the tariffs which exist under GATT and the ways in which we
Message from the Senate
can defend ourselves through anti-dumping and other mechanisms. Those are the promises which he mentioned. There may be others which deal with FIRA, but certainly the ones to which he referred do not.
The Hon. Member has spoken at length about FIRA. Why is the Liberal Party so bound to one simple Act under which they approved 92 per cent or 93 per cent of the applications which went to Cabinet? Why are the Liberals taking up so much House time when the people of Canada agreed in the last election that the system was not working? Canada had an unemployment rate of 6 per cent when FIRA was introduced, and it is now pushing an unemployment rate of 11.5 per cent. That tells us that the Liberal way was not necessarily working. Why not revise it? Our Party has given it a different name- Investment Canada. Why should we not give it an opportunity to work? Why do the Liberals not think of some other mechanism and be constructive? Why is the Liberal Party tied exclusively to an out-dated out-moded, old-fashioned idea which was not working well? Perhaps the Hon. Member could explain why the Liberals are tied to something which is out of date.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I am always pleased to discuss issues which are out-moded with a Party that still supports the Ontario Conservative Government which was in office for 43 years.


Paul Wyatt Dick: What relevance is that?


Don Boudria: I am glad to discuss out-dated issues with Tories; it gives me pleasure. They were talking about the fact that the policies were out-dated. The Hon. Member opposite, whose Party wants to revert to a policy which was used 30 or 40 years ago-


Paul Wyatt Dick: Investment Canada was not there 30 years ago.


Don Boudria: -is now saying that the policies of the previous Government are out-dated. But, the Hon. Member is advocating policies which are decades old. Why is it that the Conservatives are always adding restrictions to their promises after the election? I have a list, which I have brought to the attention of the House on a number of occasions, of the 338 Tory promises. Why does the Hon. Member now say that this promise only affected such-and-such an endeavour? He has placed restrictions on his own promises. The Conservative Party should have come clean with the people before the election. It should have been forthright with its promises, instead of adding caveats after the fact.


MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed the following Bills without amendment: Bill C-30, an Act to amend the Bretton Woods Agreements Act and to repeal the International De-

May 16, 1985
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velopment Association Act and to amend certain other Acts in consequence thereof; and Bill C-33, an Act respecting the import and export of and interprovincial trade in meat products, the registration of establishments, the inspection of animals and meat products in registered establishments and the standards for those establishments and for animals slaughtered and meat products prepared in those establishments.



THE ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received which is as follows:
Government House Sir,
I have the honour to inform you that The Right Honourable Brian Dickson, The Chief Justice of Canada, in his capacity as Deputy Governor General, will proceed to the Senate Chamber today, the 16th day of May, 1985, at 5.55 p.m., for the purpose of giving Royal Assent to certain Bills.
I have the honour to be Sir,
Your obedient servant,
A.P. Smyth
Deputy Secretary to the Governor General



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Axworthy:
That this House condemns the Government, not only for its failure to protect Canada from potential problems of foreign direct investments as demonstrated by the Government's failure to take effective action in dealing with foreign take-overs in the cases of Mitel and of the book publishing industry, but also for its contempt for the parliamentary process by cutting off free debate on its iniquitous investment legislation without providing adequate time for consideration of dozens of important and constructive amendments.
B. Keith Penner: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary who just spoke-I don't know whether intentionally or inadvertently in the heat of debate- made a government announcement regarding the quotas on manufactured beef from the European Common Market. The red meat industry is anxiously awaiting this news. I would like to ask, on a point of order, whether that in fact was a government announcement. If it was, could we have more information and could we ask questions on that government
announcement? If it was not, if it was just a slip or a leak, I wonder how soon we can expect this announcement from the Government?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I regret to inform the Hon. Member that, unfortunately, I do not consider that to be a point of order.


Robert Hylton Brisco: Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised that immediately after having spoken, the Hon. Member is no longer available so that the record could be corrected. I would like to total up the hours spent on Bill C-15. There were 40 hours in all in the House and 40 hours in committee. Simple arithmetic would lead one to believe that that is 80 hours. The Hon. Member would have us believe that 20 hours were spent on the Bill, but with selective memory recall he said that that only applied to the House. But 20 hours times two equals 40 hours, plus 40 hours in committee. Let that stand on the record as being a point beyond challenge.
I have a great deal of pleasure to be able to debate Bill C-15 today. I do so in the context of the announcement yesterday by the same Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens) who brought Bill C-15 before the House. Yesterday he announced a general development agreement with the province of British Columbia, which is historical because of the large amount of money involved. Never before has an ERDA agreement of such scope and dimension been signed. It is for $525 million which is to be jointly shared by the Province of British Columbia and the federal Government.
It think it is very important to realize that within the framework of that $525 million, $300 million has been specifically earmarked for the forestry sector. This is a recognition of the degree to which the forestry sector of British Columbia and, for that matter, of Canada, has deteriorated over the past several generations as a result of the notable lack of attention paid to it. I think it is fair to say that a Conservative Government, given the opportunity and different times in terms of the availability of money, would have doubled the contribution to the forestry sector.
Critics of the Minister of State for Forestry (Mr. Merri-threw) are quick to agree that probably what is needed is a $600 million agreement over five years, not $300 million. But, Mr. Speaker, we have done what we could and I would like you to compare it, Mr. Speaker, to the measly and trivial sum of $5 million which was last given by the former federal Government forestry in British Columbia. Not only are we attending to our resources in terms of our forests, but we are also working toward a better degree of stabilization of another resource, which is more important than any other, and that is, the people. By the signing of this agreement, we will have an opportunity to create a substantial number of permanent employment opportunities in the forestry sector alone.
I look forward very much to seeing a change in the unemployment figures for the regional district of Central Kootenay. It is faced with an unemployment situation which statistically shows a 27.4 per cent level, but that is a statistic only in terms of those who are registered with manpower. Clearly the figures
May 16, 1985

are higher than that, and there are some serious social and economic problems in that area. It is in the context of this Bill as well that we hope to address some of those economic problems.
When we examine the other provisions in that ERD agreement, whether it is the element of tourism, science and technology, agriculture, the mineral sector, or the industry sector, collectively, we should see some very heartwarming opportunities for job generation on a permanent basis.
1 must remark in the context of forestry, as I did yesterday, that it is notable that the forestry critic for the Liberal Party, the Hon. Member for Humber-Port-au-Port-St. Barbe (Mr. Tobin), that noteworthy gentleman who sits over there occasionally, has never once directed a question from his seat to the Minister of State for Forestry during Question Period. Yesterday, the Leader of the Liberal Party spoke out about the need to do something for forestry. I find that passing strange because in seven months during which this House sat, that Party's forestry critic has never asked a question of the Minister during Question Period. Clearly, that should spell out to Canadians the shallow depth of interest which that Party has in one of the most major resources of Canada, namely, the forestry sector. It is the biggest employment generator and money earner by far. It is head and shoulders above all other sectors. Yet we still await a question from the forestry critic of the Liberal Party. That clearly gives us a sense of where that Party's priorities lie.


Mr. Turner (Ottawa-Carleton):: Where is the critic? He's not even here.


Robert Hylton Brisco: He is not here. Let me move on with respect to Bill C-15, Mr. Speaker-


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am sure my colleague, the Hon. Member for Kootenay West (Mr. Brisco), did it inadvertently, but it is a well known tradition of the House that we do not refer to Hon. Members who are absent from their places. I believe he did that at the urging of one of his colleagues. I just want to make the point that that is an understanding we have.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) is correct.


Robert Hylton Brisco: Mr. Speaker, I can understand the genuine concern of the Hon. Member, but I would like to point out- and I think my colleague on this side would agree-that the comment did not come from me. I am sure the Hon. Member would be quite prepared to indicate that the comment came from him. I am prepared to accept the responsibility, but I do know the rules.
With respect to Bill C-15, one of the first facts was introduced by the Minister when he said that the European economic forum reported two years ago that on the list of 24 countries which welcomed foreign investment, Canada was twenty-fourth. Last year the list was expanded to 28 countries. Canada, on that expanded list, was twenty-eight. That is the
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bottom of the line, Mr. Speaker. It does not indicate that we welcome foreign investment or that we are interested in foreign investment. It indicates that we do not welcome foreign investment, that we really do not want it. "Keep out", is what the sign says. There is a big sign there with the Liberal Party logo below it which says, "Keep out foreign investment".
Surely the fact is that Canadians do not have that attitude today. That really is a mind-set of a former Government, not a mind-set of Canadians today, with a couple of notable exceptions. I would like to turn to one of those notable exceptions who appeared before the Standing Committee on Regional Development, namely, Mr. Mel Hurtig. I found him to be a very interesting gentleman, and in the minutes of that standing committee, at page 13:5, he is reported to have said this:
I would suggest that you scrap this bill-
Then he goes on to offer what he considers to be some positive solutions and makes some very interesting remarks. On page 13:11 he is reported to have said:
-you asked me about the national energy program, and I think my answer may surprise you. I live in Alberta and I have seen the national energy program in operation. I have no hesitation whatsoever in saying I strongly support the goals and objectives of the National Energy Program.
Now, there is a man with courage. Perhaps he is not smart, but he has courage. There is a man from the Province of Alberta who said that he supported the National Energy Program. Having become a little nervous about that statement and in order, perhaps, to protect himself later on, he went on to say:
Having said I agree with the objectives of the NEP, I must tell you that I thought it was poorly thought out.
Now he is seeking some concurrence, and there is a wide body of opinion that would support him on that. He went on to
say:
I thought it was hastily put together, and there is no question in my mind that some aspects of the NEP were very damaging to the Canadian petroleum sector as well.
Yet, Mr. Speaker, he loved it. He thought the NEP was great because it was his view that what the NEP would do for Canada would be to drive out those foreign giants. That is what it would do, drive out foreign investment. He was not one bit concerned about the fact that at that time in the economic life of Canada, the Province of Alberta was the single biggest tax generator in Canada with the highest levels of employment. Obviously he is not aware of the fact that it was Canadians who were crucified by that program, that it was the blue collar worker who was hurt the most.
He said he was there to observe. Let me tell you that I was there to observe as well, and I had the opportunity, although I am from British Columbia, to spend several months in Alberta during that disastrous period. I talked with the workers, with the service and supply industry which was collapsing like a house of cards, and I talked with the Canadian oil people. I can tell you that it was a story of unmitigated disaster. I drove into the town of Fort St. John in my province some months

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after this program has had its full impact, and whereas before, if you had driven into that town unannounced, unprepared, and without a room reservation, you spent the night in your car or on the street, this time there were rooms available everywhere. What we were faced with was a ghost town, an economic collapse of major dimensions. That, Sir, was the Liberal Government's answer to Canadian ownership: drive out the foreign devils.
Let us talk about the foreign devils, because later on in his diatribe before the committee Mr. Hurtig made reference to "cultural baggage". That is an interesting phrase. That was the first time I had ever heard it. I asked him what he meant by "cultural baggage". His response was something like this: When foreign firms come into Canada, whether it is Japan, India, the U.S., Germany, France or England, wherever they come from, they bring some of their own people with them. That is the "cultural baggage" to which Mr. Hurtig alluded. These people bring with them books that they read in their homeland, they bring with them the habits of their homeland, they bring with them the business practices of their homeland. All of that, Sir, is right here in these minutes, in the words of Mel Hurtig. I might have been prepared to listen to that gentleman and accept some of his supposed wisdom until we came upon this blind spot. I can only say that, as far as I am concerned and, I would hope, as far as all Members of this House are concerned, that is a racist remark which does not belong in the minutes of any standing committee of this House of Commons. Just as sure as the people who invest in Canada from outside bring in their own people, whether it is at the management level or at whatever level of expertise they may have to lend to the project, most assuredly they are no different from those people who emigrated from their homeland to come to Canada, whether it is from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, or wherever. So I reject that kind of thinking.
I would like to talk about Canadian investment for a moment because throughout this debate we have heard about the sins of foreign investment, but one component which has been absent in this debate is the Canadian component overseas. We do not hear anything from the Opposition about the Canadian dollars which have been driven out of Canada to be invested inthe U.S., Japan, Great Britain, Germany or elsewhere. We hear nothing about that.
Let me tell you about a little fellow who runs a sawmill of a special type in the small community of Nakusp. He is selectively logging, and doing a very good job of it. He often cleans up behind the big time operators, but he is selectively logging one kind of wood, that is, white pine. He cuts that wood into what are called cants that are perhaps 12 by 12 or 16 by 16 in dimension. He ships those by refrigerator car in order to preserve them from a sort of blue stain which develops on them. He ships them all the way down to North Carolina to a Canadian firm which manufactures wood for furniture. They then take these big cants and shave them, and those shavings, thinly sliced, are used as white pine veneers on furniture. They have another operation in Montreal that looks after the eastern market, but it is a Canadian operation down there and it is the largest furniture wood producer in the U.S. Now I see nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong at all, because there is an exchange of money, an exchange of expertise and an exchange of products. That same operation could just as easily take place here, so why was it not encouraged?
I now want to reverse the scenario and look at an American company which came into Canada to the riding of the Hon. Member for Yellowhead (Mr. Clark), the former Prime Minister of Canada. The company is St. Regis Pulp and Paper. Not too long ago our Minister of State for Forestry had the opportunity to go through this pulp and paper operation. I was already familiar with it because I had spent time there. I can tell you that it has a very remarkable reforestation record, better than many I have seen.
Finally, let me tell you about Weyerhaeuser, a large American company in the forest products industry, whose location in Canada was supported by the Canadian IWA. It came in and took over a major forest management project in British Columbia, while Canadians who wanted to do the same thing were turned down. The reason was that the IWA, in its wisdom, felt it could get a much better bargaining unit going with Weyerhaeuser than with a Canadian group, and I have to agree with that. The bottom line is that both firms are highly productive and Canadians do not view them as being American firms. They are part of the family working in Canada, creating jobs, and generating employment opportunities and dollars for Canada.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to contribute to this debate, although it is a pity that the debate must take place. The purpose of the motion is to express concern, which my Party shares, over the failure of the new Government to protect Canada from the problem of direct foreign investment, with specific reference to the case of Mitel, and over the fact that after a short period of renewed debate in the House, the Government has decided to impose a guillotine in order to ram the Investment Canada Bill through without considering the various constructive amendments which the opposition Parties have put forward.
In listening to some of the contributions to this debate, I see some irony. I find it ironic, for example, that the Member for Lanark-Renfrew-Carleton (Mr. Dick) talks with pride about the fact that his Party intends to cut beef imports from the European Economic Community down from the level to which they have risen in order to protect the beef farmers in the country. Yet he does not understand the problems that are being created in terms of Canadian jobs due to the takeover of Mitel in his own riding. If it is important to ensure equitable treatment and fair trading environments for beef farmers, the same should be the case for workers and industries in the electronics field. In the case of Mitel we are facing the sell-off of control of a very important company in the Ottawa area. This company has contributed an enormous amount to the development of the silicone valley in the Ottawa area and to
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the development of all of Canada. One of the major players in the important high-tech industry of the future is now to be alienated to foreign control.
I find it ironic as well that this motion was put forward by the Liberal Party. I find that ironic because the Liberal Party was forced to introduce the Foreign Investment Review Agency during the minority Government from 1972 to 1974. Pressure by my former Leader, David Lewis, and the New Democrats in Parliament at that time led the Government of the day to introduce a review process for foreign investment to give Canadian investment a certain amount of protection for the first time. The Liberal Party talks in pious terms about maintaining Canadian ownership. However, it should be acknowledged that for most of the past half a century during which the Liberals were in power their policy was to encourage foreign investment. During most of that time they presided over a tremendous sell-off of Canadian industries, particularly to the United States. C.D. Howe was one of the architects of that particular policy. The Liberals were forced into changing their views because they feared losing office after 1972, not because they had a fundamental change of heart.
I remind the House that during the recent election campaign the policies enunciated by the Progressive Conservatives with respect to the termination of FIRA and its powers were almost identical to the policies advanced by the present Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Turner) in his proposals with regard to weakening or eliminating FIRA. The Liberals have now had a change of heart. The Leader of the Official Opposition no longer rules the roost in his Party. The Rat Pack is now dictating policy for the Liberal Party of Canada. The Liberals have suddenly discovered that foreign investment is a problem in the country.
Foreign investment is a serious problem in the country. In all the time during which they were in office the Liberals did not lift a finger to ensure any review to guarantee that Canadians would benefit from foreign investment when it took the form of expansion or acquisition by foreign companies already resident in Canada. Expansion or new investment by General Motors or any number of other large Canadian corporations and manufacturing industries was totally immune from review. FIRA only got to a minor portion of the problem, which was that foreign investment had gained control of more than half of the manufacturing industry in the country. Foreign investment was running Canada as though it were the fifty-first State. Many companies in the country were denied access to the American market. They were not given the products, allowed to do research, or given the freedom to export into the United States. They did not have any strategic freedom to search for natural markets which might occur down there. As well, in many cases they were not free to export into the United Kingdom, the Common Market, or the Far East. Foreign-controlled companies in Canada which were given any freedom to export were given markets in countries such as Latin America, South Africa and Australia, markets which were too small and unimportant for American parent
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companies to bother to manage from their head offices in the United States.
Recent figures from StatsCan show us the picture. Fifty-one per cent of our manufacturing industry is still foreign-con-trolled. Ninety-eight per cent of our rubber industry, 51 per cent of our agricultural machinery industry, and 92 per cent of the transportation equipment industry is foreign-controlled. Seventy per cent of electrical apparatus is produced by companies which are foreign-owned or foreign-controlled. Seventy-one per cent of the chemical industry and 52 per cent of miscellaneous manufacturing is foreign-controlled. My figures do not extend to petroleum, but the vast bulk of that industry is also foreign-controlled.
The Progressive Conservative Government is arguing that foreign investment stimulates jobs. Mr. McMurtry, the High Commissioner for Canada in Great Britain, made a speech the other day. Essentially, he said that Canada is open for business, that it is not the same as when the Liberals were in power. He said there will be no carping when foreign investors want to go in. Sure enough, as soon as Mr. McMurtry's words had been reported in the Time and The Guardian, British Telecom was on the doorstep.
One must ask whether the record supports the case that unlimited access to foreign investment, with no conditions at all, will in fact create jobs in the country, or whether there is not a serious risk that it will turn Canada into a warehouse for products made in Japan, the United Kingdom, Europe, or the United States. We have called the Investment Canada Bill the "Warehouse Canada Bill" because that is what it is in danger of making the country. I grant that the lowering of tariffs and the gradual movement toward free trade with the United States have benefited some Canadian companies. However, in large measure, they are removing the impetus which led to the creation of many companies in the country. That allows Americans and other foreign investors to take jobs away from Canada and into other parts of the world. It is liable to continue if we have no control to ensure significant benefits for Canadians from foreign investment or from the expansion of foreign companies already here.
It is well known that foreign investors have great leeway in avoiding Canadian tax through buying and selling practices which shift their tax obligations to areas where the tax burdens are lesser. That sometimes means moving to Bermuda or to the Caribbean rather than to another industrial country. It is noticeable that the large foreign-controlled companies in the country spent only 2 per cent of their sales on research and development over the past few years, while larger Canadian companies with 500 employees or more spent 10 per cent of their sales in research and development. That suggests that rather than getting a dynamic, progressive, and advanced industrial sector through opening the door to foreign investment, we are likely to perpetuate the situation of Canada having a second class industry and being left with the crumbs off the tables of other countries.
I cite the case of General Motors. That was once a Canadian company set up by Sam McLaughlin in Oshawa in the

May 16, 1985
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second decade of this century. He was very successful. Eventually, the day came when Mr. McLaughlin decided to sell out, as he was allowed to do in the climate of the time. GM established a foothold in Canada which it had not previously enjoyed. General Motors has been in this country for approximately 60 years, and I believe it is instructive to note that despite the fact that it has made some contributions to our country in places like Oshawa, it has not once had any genuine commitment to carry out research and development here.
1 have visited GM's entire research and development activity, which is its cold weather testing service that is located in Kapuskasing in northern Ontario. The reason it located that research facility there is northern Ontario's very cold weather. Such consistent and lengthy cold periods do not exist in Minnesota, Wisconsin or Maine in the northern United States. Consequently, GM gave us this one R and D facility only because of the advantage of our climatic conditions. Although General Motors has existed in Canada for many years, it has established only that one research and development centre out of the hundreds of millions of dollars that it spends annually on research and development. That example is germane to the case of Mitel which we are discussing today.
My colleagues and I have raised a number of objections with respect to the case of Mitel. Mitel has grown into a company with a net worth in market value of more than $300 million and annual sales of approximately $375 million.
As a Member from the Ottawa area, I regret that the Minister of Regional and Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens) is too focused and seized on the fact that Mitel faced difficulties approximately two years ago because of the slow development and marketing of the SX-2000 superswitch. It suffered losses for a couple of years and it did not reach its target of $1 billion in sales by 1985.
However, that should not gainsay the fact that this company has had an extraordinary growth record. Perhaps my Party does not always acknowledge the success stories of entrepreneurship where they occur, but Mitel has been an extraordinary success story in entrepreneurial terms. I congratulate Mr. Cowpland and Mr. Matthews and those others who are behind that success.
Those same people are facing a situation today in which the management of Mitel is much different from what it was when it was a small company. Mr. Cowpland has been a good citizen in the Ottawa area. However, I regret to say that, to some extent, he has lost interest. His shareholdings in Mitel are down to 6 per cent and he has invested in other areas, which means that his focus has turned to other areas, perhaps to developing another Mitel.
Those proprietors who were so good for Mitel in its first decade are essentially walking out the door in the assurance that British Telecom will rescue Mitel. They are not allowing the control of the company to go to foreign hands on their own. They are enlisting the support of the Hon. Member for Lanark-Renfrew-Carleton. He received handsome contributions during his election campaign. He is faithfully saying that this is bound to be a good deal as far as Canadians are concerned. I suggest there is ample reason to doubt that this is a good deal.
I pointed out in the House a couple of days ago that British Telecom has an alternative plan B. Anyone who studies business knows that it is necessary to have a fallback position in the event that the primary plan does not work. British Telecom's plan B was to buy 18.5 per cent of Mitel, inject approximately $60 million of equity into the company, and possibly inject some loan capital or bond capital into the company to help it with its debt position. It would therefore gain the advantages of the close link with a good manufacturing subsidiary, even if it did not acquire 51 per cent ownership. I suggest to my hon. friend that that was the alternative plan that Telecom devised in order to have an insurance policy if Canadians would not let it have 51 per cent.
Why did Telecom devise that alternative? The reason is that countries throughout the world protect their telecommunications industry. The British should know because British Telecom itself was a wholly-owned Crown corporation of the British Government until very recently. It was part of the British Post Office. Until very recently British Telecom had the policy to buy British.
Ironically, Mitel was the first major foreign company that broke that restriction and was able to enter into the British Telecommunications market. That market is opening up now and it provides real opportunities. Mitel has helped to create those opportunities for Canadian entrepreneurship, research and products.
Japan is another example of a company with restrictions on foreign ownership of the telecommunications sector. British Telecom knows that most countries continue to have restrictions on foreign ownership of the telecommunications sector because of the critical nature of that sector. That is why British Telecom had plan B.
Let us consider that option. Mitel gains access to an important new market. It gains the marketing savvy of a large European company. Although it is untried because it has only recently been partially privatized, it does have the backing of the British Government. Mitel gains financial support in terms of opening up markets in North America, which are extremely competitive since the deregulation of AT & T in the United States. In the meantime, Canadian ownership is retained. Surely that is a preferable option to losing Canadian ownership of Mitel.
Will we see a position in 10 or 15 years where the R and D carried out by Mitel in Canada has shrunk to 2 per cent or 1 per cent of sales? Will Mitel simply become another manufacturing company with a nostalgic link to the Ottawa area but a company that is a trans-national or British based multi-national? I believe that is a very real danger.
The advent of Investment Canada and the way FIRA is being administered by the Government presently will not improve the situation. The fact that the Government is pre-
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pared to ram the Investment Canada Bill through parliament without considering the important amendments which our Party and the Liberals have put forward suggests to me that the Government does not understand the issue of foreign investment and foreign ownership.
Not only are we talking about the loss of an important and major telecommunications company, my hon. colleague, the Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon) pointed out that the style of management of British Telecom is still very unproven. Until a few years ago it was hardly the model of a driving, vigorous and progressive entrepreneurship that one would like to see as a partner in Mitel. British Telecom has improved recently, but it must still prove itself as a privatized company.
Conservative Members have raised concerns about state owned industries being non-progressive. It is quite clear that these concerns are not legitimate because Canadian national and Air Canada are two dynamic publicly-owned corporations of which Canadians can be proud. However, British Telecom and other British Crown corporations face some problems which, in many cases, have occurred under Conservative rule. I suggest that we are casting Mitel into a very murky future.
Mitel may no longer make the same contribution in the Ottawa area. There has been a very healthy competition between Mitel and Northern Telecom. Northern Telecom is a very successful Canadian company, and Mitel, one-tenth the size of Northern Telecom, vigorously, competes with Northern Telecom in terms of technology, marketing and production in a number of key products. That situation will be vitiated and we will all be the losers as a result.
I fear that this is only the first step of many such examples that we may see over the course of the next three or four years. There is no question that the Progressive Conservatives have a mandate to govern for three or four years, but their mandate is for change. Canadians believe that the Liberals were discredited, and they were right.
1 say for the record that no matter how poor the policies of the Progressive Conservatives-and we are learning quickly how poor they are-the country is better off with a change of any kind than if the Liberals stayed in power. The Conservatives may last for only one term. The powerful mandate they have now will disappear as quickly as it was created for them if they carry out policies of selling the birthright of this country and allowing major Canadian corporations to pass into foreign hands. That is just paper shuffling. That is not going to be the creation of new jobs. We have to look at policies for entrepreneurship. We have to look for the development of small industries. We have to find ways by which industry and jobs can be created in the remote regions of Canada, not just in areas like Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton and Calgary. We have to look for a whole range of policies, as did our task force on jobs, which was headed by my colleagues, the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) and the Hon. Member for Essex Windsor. We have to do all these positive things. A policy of simply saying, "Lie on your back and take what happens to you, we are going to open the doors to
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business and any business that wants to take over any industry in this country is welcome to do it regardless of the consequences for Canada" is not right. I say we can do better than that, Mr. Speaker.
A policy of unlimited access to foreign ownership which will be the effect of the policy advanced by the Minister for Regional Industrial Expansion and all of the Government is a policy of Conservative sell-out, a policy of despair, a policy that will not build industry, create jobs and bring down unemployment but a policy which will leave us hewers of wood and drawers of water. I believe our country can do better than that.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 45, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: The Hon. Member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Dingwall)- Unemployment Insurance-Impact of changes, (b) Request for freeze on implementation of changes; The Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow)-Regional Economic Expansion-Financial institutions-forthcoming White Paper, (b) New Democratic Party proposals; the Hon. Member for Scarborough West (Mr. Stackhouse)-External Aid- Sudan-Food crisis-Canadian assistance.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Axworthy:
That this House condemns the Government, not only for its failure to protect Canada from potential problems of foreign direct investment as demonstrated by the Government's failure to take effective action in dealing with foreign takeovers in the cases of Mitel and of the book-publishing industry, but also for its contempt for the Parliamentary process by cutting off free debate on its iniquitous investment legislation without providing adequate time for consideration of dozens of important and constructive amendments.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Are there questions or comments?
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Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a number of questions of the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy). I thought his speech was very interesting. I disagree considerably with his philosophy. I guess that is why we belong to different Parties. It was a decent speech, except for the last three minutes when he got into his more usual strident self and raised his voice to try to show great anger. But until then, the Hon. Member was quite reasonable and intelligent. In his last three minutes he was back into the insane, inane sort of emotionalism which contained a lot of rhetoric and meant nothing.
If 51 per cent of a company happens to be owned by one person, does the Hon. Member believe that that owner of the 51 per cent can do anything he or she wishes? Is the Hon. Member not familiar with the laws of the province, the Dominion and the number of court cases which protect minority shareholders? Does the Hon. Member think the majority shareholder can cream off the assets and do as he or she wishes? Is the Hon. Member not familiar with the law cases which protect minority shareholders? I would suggest that 49 per cent is a rather significant minority. One per cent and 2 per cent have been protected by the courts from rip-offs that might take place.
Second, is the Hon. Member stating a fact that he knows, as he implied when he said that Northern Telecom has plan B, or is the Hon. Member being hypothetical, guessing or making a prediction, or being any of those other things described by weasel words, rather than stating fact? Could he clarify whether he is guessing or whether he knows? Does the Hon. Member have any documentation to back up what he said?
The Hon. Member indicated at the time that $60 million might come in through plan B, but this would still leave the company with a debt of over $200 million, which would make it rather difficult for it to carry on unless, which the Hon. Member did not say at the time, he was also thinking the Government would participate to the tune of $30 million or $40 million, an amount the Liberals turned down when requested last year?
In the Hon. Member's statement he said that British Telecom is now free to be more aggressive and more innovative. The Hon. Member said it was unproven. Is the Hon. Member implying it is better for British Telecom now that that company has been privatized? Is the Hon. Member differing from his usual socialistic beliefs that the Government always has the best of all possible worlds? Those were the adjectives the Hon. Member was using.
Does the Hon. Member not agree that this tentative offer at this stage has to be approved first by the board of directors of Mitel, then by the board of directors of British Telecom? The offer has to be approved by the shareholders of Mitel, the shareholders of British Telecom, the Canadian Government and the British Government? There are six different groups that have to approve thiis proposal before finalization. Does the Hon. Member not believe that during that period of time there will be negotiations? Does the Hon. Member not think that there ought to be negotiations? I firmly suspect there will
be. I hope there will be negotiations that will embody most of the rhetoric which the Hon. Member had spoken about, namely, that we have given the company away. I do not think this company is given away at all. Those are subjects for negotiation. I certainly hope that much of that will be protected through the negotiation process.
The Hon. Member also said that he had a fear. Is it his fear, or is he trying to engender fear in the country that the Government is going to give everything away? In fact, the Government if it does support an offer like this, and it has not indicated yet whether or not it does, will be protecting maybe the jobs at Mitel and enhancing the environment by reemploying some of those 600 to 800 people who have been laid off over the last 15 months? After all, Mitel was broke and did not have any money to pursue its marketing to carry on.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the questions from my colleague. I will respond to them as quickly as I can.
First, there are laws to protect minority shareholders, but the stakeholders in Mitel include this community, Canada as a whole, the people who work for Mitel and the companies that supply parts and components. There is a wide variety of people who are stakeholders in Mitel who are not protected by the security laws that ensure that minority shareholders cannot have assets pillaged from them. The minority shareholders may find that their investment is protected, despite the fact that Mitel is transferred lock, stock and barrel to South Wales or to some other part of the United Kingdom. The shareholders alone are not who I am talking about. I am talking about the interests of all Canadians.
Does British Telecom have a plan B and do I know it for sure? I am judging on the facts that British Telecom has announced the unconditional option to take 18.5 per cent. I have spoken to someone at Mitel, but my efforts to reach Mr. Cowpland and Mr. Matthews have failed. I talked to a public relations person at Mitel who simply said that this is the greatest deal since sliced cheese. When we contacted British Telecom in New York, because it has no offices here in Canada, there too the only person we could contact was somebody in the public relations department who was particularly uninformative. Since not much more than press releases have been issued, I cannot say for sure that this is plan B. All 1 know is that it is significant to me that if British Telecom really thought it could get 51 per cent for sure, British Telecom would not have mentioned it was taking 18 per cent just in case.
What about government participation in Mitel? If Telecom injected $60 million into Mitel through the minority offer that we have mentioned, then it is not beyond the grounds of reason to believe that there might have been some public money or money from other Canadian companies. My colleague, the Hon. Member for Essex Windsor, pointed out that a lot of Canadian companies were holding back because they wanted a crack at Teleglobe Canada and did not want to commit themselves to Mitel, which has been losing money in the last few quarters while Teleglobe has been consistently profitable.
May 16, 1985

In addition, the Member said, "We could not have government participation", yet he and his Party came in over a weekend with a $260 million bail-out for the Canadian Commercial Bank where only a handful of jobs were involved as opposed to 2,000 or 3000 Canadian jobs right here in the Ottawa area in the case of Mitel.


Paul Wyatt Dick: I did not say that. 1 asked you about it.


Michael Morris Cassidy: As far as the various approvals that are required are concerned, the Mitel board has indicated that this is a friendly takeover and not a hostile one. British Telecom would not make a bid if its board were not on side. As for the shareholders of Mitel, there is enough control in the hands of the controlling shareholders that they are pretty likely to get approval, and the Canadian Government is in fact the only bullwark, the only avenue of defence, against Mitel's control going into foreign hands. The Canadian Government, through FIRA, has the right to do that. Unfortunately, as has been pointed out, all foreign takeovers which have gone before FIRA since this Government took power have been approved. This Government is even more open for business and less a guardian of Canadian industry than the Liberal Government under which 93 per cent were approved. We suspect, without knowing because FIRA has been so secretive under the Liberals and the Conservatives, that the conditions placed on takeovers have been even less demanding under the Conservative Government than they were under the Liberal Government.
The Hon. Member asked me about my fear that the Government would give everything away and whether I could prove it. No, I cannot prove it. All I am saying is that the signs in the Investment Canada Bill and the signs in terms of the quick support without a lot of throught given to the Mitel takeover by the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion indicate to multi-nationals everywhere in the world that if they want to come into Canada and take over a few companies, they are welcome to do so-no ifs, ands or buts, no conditions-and if they want to move them out of Canada afterwards, the Government will not try to stop them.


Paul Wyatt Dick: That is not what he said, and you know it.


Michael Morris Cassidy: That is exactly what the Minister said. That is the signal he and his Party are sending by the way Conservative Members talked during the campaign and by the way they acted and brought forward the Investment Canada Bill. I remind the House that the Investment Canada Bill is almost the only substantive piece of legislation we have seen from the Government in its first eight months of office.
Are there alternative means to protect the jobs at Mitel apart from a foreign takeover? Of course there are. The Government found a quarter of a billion dollars for CCB, to protect investors in California. When such an important Canadian company is involved, it seems to me that government participation as part of a partnership to refinance Mitel, which was already recovering from the difficulties of last year and
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the year before, would have been a creative option that should have been explored. I regret the fact that that was not done by the Government.


John Barry Turner: Mr. Speaker, I have a question and a comment, but I will be brief. The former Government put anvils around our collective necks, slit our wrists and threw us into a school of pirhanas with the greatest deficit in our history. We are talking here about jobs and dollars and cents. Fortunately, on September 4 we were saved by the people of Canada who pulled us from that river of debt and gave us a second chance. That second chance is to encourage-and I underline the word "encourage"-more foreign investment in Canada. Today's opposition motion condemns the cutting off of debate on the important issue of foreign investment legislation. We have had debate. We have spent dozens and dozens of hours, as the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens) explained this morning, and as the Hon. Member for Kootenay West (Mr. Brisco) explained this afternoon. I cannot understand this paranoia about not having enough debate on this whole question.
I would like to refer to something which I think is very relevant in that we are talking about the debate on foreign investment. I have a study which was conducted by the Conference Baord of Canada entitled The Foreign Investment Review Agency-Images and Realities. It contains some quotations by very knowledgeable and experienced businessmen, one of which reads:
We have never experienced anything as fearsome as FIRA before.
Another reads:
- on a scale of one to ten I would rate Canada a zero. Canada is in a class by itself.
Some class! Another quotation reads:
FIRA is an interventionist nationalistic policy the likes of which I have never seen anywhere else.
I would like to refer to the document entitled The Future of Foreign Investment in Canada, produced by the Conference Board of Canada and dated January, 1985. I should add that the Conference Board is a very highly respected institute and is an independent body. In part it reads:
Debating the virtues of various approaches to the control of foreign investment is fast becoming a luxury that Canada can ill afford.
Does the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Centre (Mr. Cassidy) agree or disagree? Yes or no.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I would simply say that I disagree with the statement. As the Hon. Member should well know, Britain, France, United States, Japan and almost every other industrial country have substantial restraints, limitations or agencies to set conditions on foreign investment, as does Canada. We can debate the kinds of controls or how conditions should be adapted as time goes on and conditions change. I have no trouble with that, but to abandon those restraints completely, which is the position of large numbers of Members in the Conservative Party, including the present Minister, is a policy of folly.

May 16, 1985
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Mr. David Berger (Laurier):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to make my contribution to this debate. I am astounded by the statements we have heard in the House over the past few days by the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens), and by the fact he is happy with the proposed takeover of Mitel by British Telecom. It would be more appropriate to hear the Minister state that he had mixed feelings. Why do I say that? To me it is very clear. One as to feel happy that this particular company, under the circumstances about which we know, has found a partner described by the founders of the company as a preferred partner. They have said that this is a good match. From what we know of British Telecom, it does not have a manufacturing arm. It does not conduct research and development. It is simply a telephone company which provides a service to British customers. Therefore, it is now acquiring a company which may become the principal manufacturing and research arm of Telecom.
This is in an era of global trade when companies are located all across the world, on different continents and in different countries. In this case we have a telephone company in Britain which presumably has access to the European market and we have Mitel, a manufacturing and R and D company in Canada, which has plants and a distribution network in Canada and in the United States. In many respects it seems that this may indeed be an ideal marriage.
I also understand that no Canadian investor was available and that in the past year Mitel actively sought investment by many major corporations. None of them, for one reason or another, was willing to get involved in this company. Despite all these points, I do not think we should say that we are truly happy about the takeover. As Canadians we should feel somewhat saddened that this uniquely Canadian company is slipping a little out of our hands.
Several years ago I was one of the ordinary investors who bought maybe 100 shares in Mitel. I was swept up in the enthusiasm over the fact that here was a small company located in our nation's capital that was making a go of it in Canadian and in world markets. I was proud to participate in the success of this company. With the recession and falling sales in world markets, the company encountered difficulties over the past couple of years. However, we had this initial enthusiasm. The company did fall upon difficult times, but it seemed to maintain its footing. It seems that something can be done to keep this company in Canadian hands. The best one could say about this is that we have mixed feelings. It is strange that the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion would say that he is happy about this in an unqualified manner. It tells us something about the size of the Canadian economy as well as the size of our market.
Once Canadian companies reach a certain size, they enter a league of their own. In Canada we could not support two, three, four or five Mitel companies. They could merge and form one solid company that could compete on an international basis. In an economy the size of the United States, you
might well have 10 or 12 companies of that nature. If one fell, two might come together. In fact, three or four might join together and have the wherewithal to make a go of it in this tremendously competitive world. We cannot have that in Canada. We can only have one such company.
As I said earlier, when this company had its problems, it went to the Canadian capital market. There are not many companies that are compatible with that kind of request. I do not know who they went to. You could ask yourself who you would go to in this situation. You may go to Brascan, Olympia & York or Cadillac Fairview. All of these companies have their expertise in a specific area. These are Canadian companies in which we take pride. They had made their mark in real estate in Canada and in the United States, but they would not touch a telecommunications company with a ten-foot pole. They do not have the expertise, know how or management to deal with this kind of situation.
The alternatives in Canada are not many, but there are some. In preparing some notes for my speech today, I asked myself about the Canada Development Corporation, as distinct from the CDIC. When the Canada Development Corporation was founded a number of years ago, its purpose was to serve the combination of public and private enterprise. Its purpose was the bringing together of pools of public capital to support investment of a somewhat risky nature. Would the Canada Development Corporation not have been a good partner in this case? Could it not have come in and, not bought control of the company, but rather left control of the company in the hands of the original owners? Maybe it could buy 49 per cent. That would provide the financial stability the company needed to leap-frog into the next level where it could compete with the major companies of this world.
We should be somewhat concerned about this. Our feelings should be mixed. We should be happy. At the same time, we should have a bit of concern that the control of a uniquely Canadian company is somehow falling out of our hands.
Today's papers report that British Aerospace is eyeing two other well-known Canadian companies, de Havilland and Canadair. It is the policy of this Government to put these companies up for sale. It seems that the only buyers available are foreign. Is that what this Government promised Canadians when it sought their confidence during the last election campaign? Did they say there were no solutions in Canada, that we would have to seel all of our critical industries in the area of telecommunications and aerospace to foreigners? Is that the kind of confidence that they offered Canadians? Is that the outlook for our economy? If that all this Government has to offer today, one could say that the September 4 election was won on somewhat false pretences.
This leads me to another point. In the past two days, the Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Siddon) has, for all intents and purposes, stated that the Tory promises of doubling spending on regional development will not be kept. Two days ago in committee, he stated, and I quote from the committee transcript:
May 16, 1985

-we cannot promise that by 1990 we will have moved to the point of 2.5 per cent, which would be a desirable target, nor are we able to promise that we will have the necessary human resources in order to support that level of activity in research and development.
This is a far cry from the rhetoric that we heard during and prior to the last election campaign. In 1984, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) stated, "We have to double our spending on research and development and triple our resolve to reach it." What did the Minister of State for Science and Technology say today? He said, "I do not recall the specific wording, Mr. Chairman, that was used-
We have come a long way in the last 18 months. From the doubling of spending and the tripling of resolve, we now have, "I do not recall the specific wording-". I am sure that Canadians who are listening to this debate and who have seen what has been doing on in the House in the last couple of days will soon catch up with this game. They will quickly come to the conclusion that all that they were offered during the last election was a lot of smoke and mirrors.
I wish to refer to another statement of the Minister in the last couple of days. I again refer to the committee report where, in reference to the promise that was made for double spending on research and development, the Minister said:
Opposition members are accustomed to thinking in terms of promises; I am accustomed to thinking in terms of goals-
That leads to the question which I asked yesterday in the House. When is a promise not a promise? We now have the answer from the Minister of State for Science and Technology. A promise is not a promise when it is a goal.
The promise to increase the spending on research and development has now been reduced in the priorities of the Government. If there is one area in which this Government should be maintaining its promises, it should be in that area. The Government promised that it would provide renewed growth to the economy and that it would create tens and tens of thousands of jobs. What is the foundation of the renewed economic strategy? There is unanimity today that in the areas of technology, science and research we will lay the foundation for future economic growth. However, today the Minister and his Government are telling us that this must take a back seat because of the deficit.
During the election campaign the deficit was not the focus of the Conservative Party's attention. We were promised growth. Certainly, the only way in which to eliminate the deficit is by putting Canadians back to work. That was the promise. It is true, we do have a large deficit. But there are 1.5 million people unemployed in Canada. If we could put half of those people back to work, 750,000 of them, the deficit would be reduced substantially, if not completely.
How will we put those people back to work? The ways in which we can put those people back to work are through the stimulation of the economy, research and development, and the application of new technologies to our traditional industries, such as fishing, forestry and agriculture. Another way
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would be to spend judiciously in the new technologies-biotechnologies and aerospace.
I cannot help but remark on the comment which came a moment ago from across the aisle, that the only way to stimulate the economy is through foreign investment. That, certainly, was not what was promised. To me, foreign investment is the approach of a Government which is bankrupt of ideas, which has no confidence in the ability of Canadians and which has no programs to create investment and jobs through the efforts of Canadians. Canadians were promised in the last election that efforts would be made to stimulate their imaginations and energies. It has been almost ten months since the election and all we are hearing from the Government is the plaintive cry that foreign investment will solve the problems.
It is for those reasons that I support the motion. I feel that the House should condemn the Government. Unfortunately, we do not have the numbers, but I am sure that if Government Members looked at themselves in the mirror and searched their souls before coming to the House for a vote, they would join with the Opposition and defeat the Government.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Questions or comments?


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Hon. Member. I wonder how much recent Canadian history the Hon. Member has studied. Does he not realize that it was in the period from 1945 to 1957, under the leadership of the then Minister responsible for everything, Mr. C. D. Howe, and that Liberal Government, that there was a tremendous influx of American capital which took over Canadian companies? Does the Member not realize that when the Liberals returned to power under Mr. Pearson in 1962 and 1963, the then Minister of Finance, Mr. Walter Gordon, recommended to the Liberal Government that it should take a hard look at foreign investment and place restrictions on it? The Liberal Government of the day introduced the Foreign Investment Review Agency, but gave it no power. So foreign investment continued to flow into Canada in ever-increasing amounts and 95 per cent or 97 per cent of all applications to FIRA were approved.
Does the Member not know those things? Does it now show, once again, the vast difference in the opinions of Liberals between the time when they were in office and did nothing and the time when they are in opposition and say some of the right things?


David Berger: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for his questions. He was referring to the period between 1945 and 1957. I cannot claim responsibility for the actions which were taken by C. D. Howe and the Governments of those days. I think the Hon. Member, if he is frank, in spite of the drawbacks which he sees in FIRA, will recognize that in many sectors of the economy the past 10 or 15 years have seen vastly increased Canadian ownership.
Perhaps FIRA did not provide all the answers, but I would suggest that other actions were taken by Liberal Governments which enabled Canadians to take control of part of the econo-

May 16, 1985
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my which provided, either through the Income Tax Act or other legislation, the necessary tax incentives and subsidized programs to Canadians so that they could use their imaginations and energies to take control and exercise substantial control of major parts of Canadian industries.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member says that in recent years we have had an increase in Canadian control of business and industry. I urge the Hon. Member to look at the automobile, rubber and mining industries, which have the largest manufacturing plants in this country and he will see that, despite everything he says the former Liberal Government helped to accomplish, foreign investors still hold the major, indeed, in some cases, 100 per cent, control of those industries.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, with respect to the point raised by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow), of course I was not around in 1945 either, but I take it the father of FIRA was the Hon. Member for Windsor West (Mr. Gray). I think it is recognized by well informed people that he did play a very important role in getting the FIRA Bill before the House when he was Minister without portfolio, and that eventually he got FIRA into law in 1971-72.
From the comments just made by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North, we would be led to believe that Canadian ownership has not improved. I think we should look at the facts, Mr. Speaker, and at a recent poll which I am sure the Hon. Member for Laurier (Mr. Berger) has seen, which suggests that the majority of Canadians are no longer worried about foreign investment in Canada. Before this Government starts to snap its suspenders and crow about all of this, it had better be understood why Canadians say they are not worried. The reason is that FIRA-and that is the Foreign Investment Review Act-notwithstanding the vendetta of the Conservatives with respect to it, changed the composition of investment in this country. For example, in 1974, foreign ownership in Canadian manufacturing was at 61 per cent; in 1980, that figure dropped to 53 per cent, and it has fallen further since. The same can be said for the petroleum and natural gas sector. It was 76 per cent in 1970, 51 per cent in 1980, and it is now even lower. I could go on to show the House the importance to the Canadian economy of the Foreign Investment Review Act.
The Hon. Member for Laurier did mention tax incentives. There have been comments made today in the House about Mitel. God knows, we in the Ottawa area find that company important to us. It has created thousands upon thousands of jobs and has been a good economic generator in the region. We do not think that Mitel should close. However, would the Hon. Member set the record straight? He knows about research and development. He is our critic, our official spokesperson, in this area. He knows, as do all honest Hon. Members of this House, that $20 million was given to Mitel under the special electronics program in 1980 by the former Liberal Government and that $9.9 million in research and development grants was given to Mitel in 1982. He knows that a $5.5
million grant to upgrade the Ottawa facilities was given to Mitel in 1983. I was part of that. A group of companies in the Kanata region called the Kanata High Tech Training Centre, I believe, received $3 million to improve its management services and capacity.
Since we have had the economic statement of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) who imposed a moratorium on the tax credits for research and development, does the Hon. Member believe, for example, that there has been a loss to the Government in revenues of $1.6 bilion? Does he believe that the Government helped Mitel by taking away the research and development tax credits?


David Berger: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member raises a very interesting question. The Government placed that moratorium on the scientific research tax credit because it claims that through what are called "quick flip" transactions, there was a substantial drain on the public purse. However, if one really understands and looks at that mechanism, one sees that it is indeed possible that this was not a drain on the public purse. These are tax incentives which the Government would have given anyway. There was, perhaps, just a change in the timing. These tax incentives were taken by companies in 1983, 1984 and 1985, rather than having them claimed by these companies in coming years.
Perhaps I should explain myself. The scientific research tax credit was introduced because there are a number of companies which are in a non-taxable position. A company has to earn profits to be able to take advantage of a tax credit. It so happens that there are many young companies in their formative years-indeed, many high-tech companies-which are not in a taxable position and, therefore, cannot take advantage of tax incentives under the Income Tax Act. So the scientific research tax credit was introduced by the previous Liberal Government in order to allow these young innovative companies to transfer tax credits, which they could not otherwise claim, to investing companies. They would do it by issuing a debt instrument to these companies, or by issuing shares, and then the investing company could claim the tax credit. The investing company would give money to the research company and this would give this research company the money to enable it to undertake the research. The tax credit, which the research company could not claim, was transferred to the investing company which, obviously, is in a taxable position. So really what one had, Mr. Speaker, was a transfer of a tax incentive from a research company to an investor. One cannot, therefore, entirely conclude that this was a drain on the Treasury. It was perhaps just a difference in timing. Probably a great deal of research was undertaken in Canadian companies as a result of this initiative. A moratorium was placed on it by the Government in November. Obviously, we are all waiting with bated breath for next Thursday night to see if there are any other solutions to be offered by the Conservative Government.
May 16, 1985


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Resuming debate. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mrs. B. Tardif).


Mrs. Monique B. Tardif (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to go back to the last part of the motion before the House today and consider more specifically the part that says the Government is to be condemned:
-for its contempt for the Parliamentary process by cutting off free debate on its iniquitous investment legislation without providing adequate time for consideration of dozens of important and constructive amendments.
Mr. Speaker, since the beginning of the proceedings on Bill C-15,1 was present at every debate in the House and attended all meetings of the Committee, and I shall try to recapitulate what has happened so far. As soon as we reached the second reading stage, it was not the Government that cut off debate but the Official Opposition. After six hours of debate on the substance of the Bill, the Official Opposition decided to move a motion to adjourn or postpone consideration of the Bill for six months. The motion was debated for many hours, and it took a motion by the Government to get the Opposition to revert to the subject that was actually under consideration. We wanted to have a serious debate on the Investment Canada Bill because, as the Opposition has repeated so many times today, we believe it is a Bill that should be taken seriously, that it is an important Bill and that it deserves the full attention of the House.
After second reading, the Bill was referred to committee. In committee, after many witnesses had been heard, the Official Opposition and the other opposition party submitted 102 motions for amendments. Many of these were rejected outright by the chairman of the committee because they were not in order. I would like to make one distinction, however. The Official Opposition kept trying to find ways of delaying consideration of the Bill, but as far as the New Democratic Party is concerned, although we have our ideological differences, they nevertheless took the debate on this Bill far more seriously.
After 40 hours of examining the Bill in Committee, we went before the House with the report stage. This time we had 99 amending motions. I think the Speaker of the House probably did the lion's share of the work that, once again, consisted in looking at the Opposition motions to find out whether they were in order.
I do not have many years of experience as a Member of the House, and perhaps not as much as some of the Opposition Members in the House today, but I do not think it is a common occurrence that the Chair's ruling on whether certain motions are in order covers eight pages in Hansard. The House then decided that 50 motions would be rejected because
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they were out of order. The remaining 49 were consolidated into 18 groups, probably because here again, the perception was that the large number of motions was mostly an attempt to dilute debate and, as far as I can see, to waste the time of the House.
We spent 25 hours considering the first four groups of motions put before the House. The Opposition used all its allotted time, once again, to say nothing. I fail to see what saying 40 times over that they did not agree, without giving any reasons, is supposed to achieve. If the reason is that they wanted to give this Bill serious consideration, I object, and unlike some Hon. Members, I was present at all stages and every time the Bill was considered. I think the motion before the House today is one more reminder that the Opposition, instead of playing its role by suggesting certain amendments to improve a piece of legislation, is here in the House only to propose amendments that are just another way of wasting the time of this House.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to compare the amount of time spent in the House on consideration of the Investment Canada Bill with the time it took in 1973 to consider the Foreign Investment Review Act. For instance, at the second reading stage, the House spent a total of 20 hours on consideration of the FIRA Bill, and I imagine the Opposition at the time must have been far more co-operative and really have wanted to improve the Bill. I see the House spent 10 hours listening to 26 speakers. At the Committee of the Whole House stage, the procedure was the same as in committee, and at the report stage, the process was also much faster. Since the beginning of December, we spent more time considering Bill C-15 than the House did in 1973 on the FIRA Bill. If that is the co-operative spirit of the Opposition, I hate to think what is going to happen to the rest of our legislation.
Many comments were made earlier today on what has or has not been said during the election campaign. I have here a page of the Financial Times for July 1984 where they mention the position of the Progressive Conservative candidates, on FIRA. At that time, representatives of European and other countries told us about the kind of reputation Canada had abroad. As we know, all surveys by the European Management listed Canada in last position. If we consider how various countries welcome investments, Canada ranks 24th out of 24, or again 28th out of 28. With Investment Canada, perhaps time had come to wonder about our reputation abroad.
The most radical change is a change in attitude. Of course we will continue to welcome foreign investments. We will continue indeed, but at a certain level. Of course we also want to stand up firmly for the interests of Canadians and make sure that Canada's cultural interests are protected. But we also want foreign investors to be aware of the fact that a new Government is in office, and that the new Government is prepared to welcome investments to bolster the country's economy.

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When I think back to the election campaign and recall talking to my constituents, my primary concern was the economic situation throughout Canada and particularly in the Province of Quebec. When I consider a measure like the Investment Canada Bill and discuss it with my constituents, one thing is quite clear: they wants us to do everything possible to set Canada's economy back on an even keel, and to make sure that investments will create new opportunities in terms of high technology and assistance to some of our industries, for they know it is the only way to get Canadians back to work. Jobs is what people want. I agree with some Members of the Opposition who claim that FIRA is not the only way, that it will not work miracles. No, FIRA will not work miracles. The Progressive Conservative Party has conveyed a message of hope, a message of confidence to Canadian and foreign investors alike. Yes, right in Part I of the Bill there is a message intended for Canadian investors. Investing in Canada is a challenge and the most effective mechanism we have to create employment for young people and all Canadian workers.
I have just received an article about Mitel. It has been a major issue in the House for the last couple of days and some of the comments I heard puzzled me. I have no intention of delving into this project, as suggested by the Minister in the House. That is the kind of news making headlines these days. No application for such a huge investment has ever been made to the Canadian Government, but I was surprised by the attitude of experts who analyze the situation. It has been said that the proposed merger of Mitel with one of the world's largest telecommunications firms might allay the fears expressed by its clients. It has also been suggested that it is a golden opportunity for Mitel, the best news it could possibly hear.
I am always astonished when I realize that the criticisms we hear in the House are so far removed from reality, from what most people think, from the views of experts who analyze the situation.
I must say that we have done everything there was to do with respect to the Investment Canada Bill. Had the Opposition been prepared to take the matter seriously, the debate would be over. We have been listening to speaker after speaker, and I challenge Hon. Members to come up with fresh suggestions which might have improved the Bill.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I found the Hon. Member's remarks most interesting, and I would like to ask her a question. As far as I know, the Government has not accepted any amendments. In fact, it has yet to give any amendments serious consideration. Among the 94 or so amendments we have proposed, there is one amendment I would like to single out, one that would have the Government, through the responsible Minister-
[Editor's Note: A child cries out in the visitors' gallery.]


Jean-Robert Gauthier: -I see someone appreciates my speech-be responsible for screening and examining foreign investors in the case of a foreign take-over of a company, corporation or agency that received grants from the Government in the past year. I wonder whether the Hon. Member agrees, when Canadians invest in a Canadian company to encourage it and to help it pursue and expand its activities in order to create more jobs, whether she agrees with the principle of examining a situation and preventing a foreign company from taking over the best of what we have. You know what is going to happen under the new Investment Canada legislation. It will open the door to foreign capital which will come here to see whether there is anything worthwhile and take it, and in many cases, Canadians may have been contributing through a system of grants and tax credits towards promoting and developing this company. I would ask the Hon. Member whether she does not agree that the amendment to make the Government responsible for examining these situations and preventing certain activities and even protecting Canadian capital invested in such companies is an entirely reasonable amendment.


Monique Bernatchez Tardif: Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by correcting a mistake that the Hon. Member made in the preamble to his question. One amendment was accepted, contrary to what you said.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: There were 94 amendments!


Monique Bernatchez Tardif: To get back to your question, the matter you raised was examined by the Committee. I think committee members and the Minister looked into this very carefully. They concluded that the amendment was unacceptable and that there were other ways of dealing with such situations. If we look at the conditions imposed on foreign investment, they are such that we will be able to keep technology developed in Canada in this country. If you think that Canadian technology is going to move out of the country as soon as we have foreign investment, I think you are on the wrong track.
Earlier, I gave an example taken from a magazine that took Mitel as an example. Here in Parliament we hear shouts of protest, but analysts say it is a golden opportunity. It is a golden opportunity because the high technology we developed here in Canada will have a better chance to compete with foreign products because the money invested by the foreign company, if the transaction takes place, will enhance the company's position on foreign markets. This is a fact that must be considered, and it is a good thing for Canadians.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Since the Hon. Member has mentioned the case of Mitel, I have a good question for her. Mitel has been given $30 million these past few years just so it would extend its activities to Renfrew, to establish a business in Bouctouche precisely to improve the research and development capacity which British Telecom does not have. That point was raised. British Telecom is not a research-oriented company, it is a
May 16, 1985

service company. It comes over here and acquires a company whose strong point is research and development and which in recent years has received $30 million from the Government, not to mention God knows how many tax incentives to do scientific research.
The Hon. Member has just said that it is not important. I am telling her that it is of major importance to us. That is what we want to keep. We want to keep in Canada our investments, our research and our development, we do not want a foreign company to buy them out and then likely eliminate those Canadian companies which have had a tremendous impact on job creation and on the Canadian economy.


Monique Bernatchez Tardif: I think that the example just given proves that there are both pessimistic and optimistic approaches in the House. The approach taken by the Hon. Member is pessimistic the moment there is some talk about an investment. It has been shown that it is not that much different from others, but it will enable the company to find new capital and expand.
The minute they hear about this investment to be made in Canada, they immediately conclude that our technology will disappear, instead of saying that the money will be used to expand the company, help it find new foreign markets and take a commanding lead in research and technology. I certainly hope that after a while the company will be strong enough to do without Government grants for its research and development projects.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that Hon. Member will be a minister one day because she is quite nice.
However, her comments . .. Indeed, it is her hope. Everybody knows that there is very little research and development made by those foreign companies in Canada. Canadian companies do much more. It is a well-known and proven fact. You only have to check in reports and papers published by the Science Council in Canada. Why persist in saying that Canadian companies need foreign companies to tell them what to do? I do not understand.


Monique Bernatchez Tardif: Mr. Speaker, we do not need foreign companies to tell our companies what they can do. However, if they have funds to invest and our companies have financial needs to meet, if it is the only way to keep them afloat, I would be pleased to get those funds and it is precisely how we can carry on.


John Barry Turner: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Hon. Member for Charlesbourg (Mrs. B. Tardif) a question. Does she think that foreign investment will help create jobs in Canada? Yes or no? If so, does the Hon. Member think the new Government is creating this new climate for foreign investment?
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Monique Bernatchez Tardif: Mr. Speaker, that is the whole point of this legislation. We want to improve Canada's reputation and bring in new investment because we want to create jobs across Canada.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is good at answering questions, but she tends to forget the facts. And the fact is that last year, investments in Canada totalled $4.1 billion. There was no need to amend the FIRA Act. It was only necessary to screen applications. Ninety-seven per cent of those applications were approved, and that is a darned good average! I would suggest to the Hon. Member that if she can do better, I think we should compare notes. The Hon. Member is quite charming and I have nothing against her, except for the company she keeps. In any case, the facts are there: $4.1 billion and 97 per cent, which is not bad. I would say it is extremely good.


Monique Bernatchez Tardif: Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of criticism directed against FIRA. One point was the delays and the reputation we had abroad. Now we may get even better investors, and more investors who will develop better technologies in Canada, and that will benefit all Canadians.


John Barry Turner: This is getting to be very interesting, Mr. Speaker. We are throwing around numbers, such as $4.1 billion of investment, 97 per cent of which was improved, and that is correct. How much more money would have come into this country if we had the proper investment climate for domestic capital and foreign capital from around the world? It would probably be two or three times $4 billion. Let us not deal with these silly numbers given to us by the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier).


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member, for questions or comments.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, when we had problems, when we were in a recession, where were his rich friends? Where were all these people who wanted to invest in Canada? They certainly were not here. All I can say is that when times are hard, nobody is going to come, and he says: If we had thought... What do you expect?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. Resuming debate.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter the debate on this motion. It is interesting to note that when the Liberals are in opposition they urge policies and legislation which they ignore completely or emasculate when they are in office.
During the last years of the Liberal Government more than 95 per cent of the FIRA applications made by foreign inves-

May 16, 1985
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tors to take over Canadian companies were approved. Therefore, I do not take the protestations of the Liberal Members of Parliament today too seriously.
This is an extremely important question we are debating today. The world is going through a new industrial revolution. The days when the industrialized countries, including Canada, produce manufactured goods that are sold to the underdeveloped countries and paid for by those countries through the sale of raw materials and foodstuffs that they produce are no longer here. Today, those manufacturing operations which were carried out by the industrialized countries are now taking place increasingly in countries like South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Brazil. The traditional manufacturing industries in the western world that provided jobs for millions of people are under severe attack. The number of people employed in those industries has reduced sharply and it continues to decrease. Canadians are being told every day by Government, industry and academics that we must be more efficient through the use of new techniques and investment in new technology. Unfortunately, these are only lectures.
Currently, in the United States and Canada we are seeing large corporations use borrowed funds to purchase companies which have no relation to the operations of these large corporations. For example, in the United States these companies are discovering that these purchases made a few years ago have been an inefficient use of their capital. Very often, these companies are now absorbing large losses and divesting themselves of those companies which they purchased a few years ago.
For example, Mobil Oil is one of the largest corporations in the United States. A few years ago it purchased Montgomery Ward, one of the largest retail and mail order corporations in the United States. Mobil Oil is now selling Montgomery Ward and taking a loss.


Mr. Fraleigh:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have read the motion. I cannot see anything in it that could possibly relate to what the Hon. Member is saying at this time. Perhaps he could indicate how the takeover of Montgomery Ward by Mobil relates to the Mitel takeover or Investment Canada?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Perhaps when the Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) is finished he will make it relevant to the motion.


David Orlikow: If the Hon. Member will listen, he will see that I am illustrating what is happening with takeovers in the United States and Canada. I will come to Mitel soon as a glaring example of what we ought not to permit.
Some years ago Mobil purchased Montgomery Ward. It is now disposing of that company. It has said publicly that it will take a loss of $500 million in that transaction.
We usually follow the American example of how to do things in Canada some years after they have tried something. However, we do not take the trouble to learn from the American experience. Large corporations in Canada are now involved in takeovers by borrowing money from the banks
which could be much better used in encouraging the development of new technology and better systems. For example, Bell Canada recently bought a controlling interest in TransCanada Pipelines. While that may benefit the shareholders in Bell, what does it do for the people of Canada? Is there one new job created by this purchase?


Paul Wyatt Dick: It is not Bell Canada that bought it. It is Bell Enterprises.


David Orlikow: with the consent of a Government which had allowed every foreign takeover of a Canadian company since it took office on September 4 last year. That is the essence of the position of the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens) in this House.


Paul Wyatt Dick: I rise on a point of order. I think the Hon. Member might want to correct the record. He indicated Mitel had difficulty in 1983 with the Superswitch. Perhaps he would like to correct the record that Superwitch is Mitel's trade name. All switches are called Superswitch. It is the SX2000 which Mitel has had difficulty with. The Hon. Member might want to have the record read correctly to show that he knows what he is talking about.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I will accept that suggestion by the Hon. Member.
The question that we need to ask ourselves in this debate and everywhere else is whether permitting this takeover is the best solution to the problem. Is it the best solution for the more than $10 million in direct payments for Mitel's research and development expenditure which came from the federal Government? Is it the best solution for the $35 million in federal grants which were made to this company? Is it the best solution for a company with assets valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, one estimate I have seen is $668 million? Is it the best solution to lose Canadian control of that company for the relatively insignificant sum of $300 million? Where are the banks and the trust companies which are so ready to lend huge sums of money, hundreds of millions of dollars to the CP, to Olympia & York, or to Power Corporation to buy other companies which, as I have indicated, do not add a single job to the Canadian workforce?
It is for some of these reasons that we in the New Democratic Party think this is a very bad business deal. It is bad for a Government investing in what it believed was a Canadian company operating in world markets. It is bad for company management which will now have a head office and will put its British concerns first. Why shouldn't it? After all, the same kind of problems of unemployment exist in Great Britain as they do in Canada. Of course, the British Government and the British people will want to put pressure on that British Company to bring more jobs to Great Britain. It is bad for Canadian workers who believe that Mitel's first priority should be to provide jobs in Canada for Canadians. It is bad for Canadians who have seen commitments made with public money which have only been honoured in the breach as Mitel management slid out from agreements to keep the company Canadian.
There is a longer term process at work here. It is one we should find more profoundly disturbing. Mitel now has 14 manufacturing plants throughout the world. Only three of those plants are in Canada. Of the rest, three are in the United States, two are in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and five are in other countries.
Supply
British Telecom as Mitel's buyer has indicated it needs Mitel's manufacturing capacity and it wants to enter the U.S. market. That is the biggest market there is. To supply its captive British market and to do more United States business, the efforts of Mitel will inevitably be drawn to those countries at the expense of Canadian workers. Even if the increased jobs created do not mean a reduction of the workforce in Canada, it means the new jobs will be developed in Great Britain, the United States and in other countries rather than in Canada. As surely as night follows day, the corporate headquarters, the research and development work, the thousands of highly skilled jobs will go to those larger markets and Canadians will once again see that we are the branch plant capital of the world.
To those Members who say that all this is speculation, that there is no evidence of the case I have been making, I would ask them to look at what is happening to one of our largest and most successful corporations, one of the few companies in Canada that has made major investments in research and development. Look at what has happened to Northern Telecom. Here is a company which, in 1977, had a workforce in Canada of 19,000 people and has a workforce in 1985 of 19,000 the same 19,000. In the United States, there is an entirely different story. In 1977, the U.S. workforce employed by Northern Telecom was 4,000 people. By 1982, the U.S. workforce of Northern Telecom had risen from 4,000 to almost 14,000. I do not have the most recent figures. I am certain there has been another substantial increase. This has prompted many observers to ask whether Northern Telecom is a stagnant Canadian company and a growing United States company which will ultimately relocate more of its management, more of its research and development and more of its skilled jobs in the United States rather than in Canada.
The same question is being asked of Bell Canada as it proceeds down its acquisition-happy path, unchallenged by anything in its reorganization as seen in Bill C-19 now before the committee. Members should look at the history of Bell Canada and Bell Enterprises and the many other companies which Bell has created, all based on the profits it made from the monopoly it had providing telephone service to most of the people in Ontario and Quebec.
If the Minister can persist in his naive state that all is well as Canadian companies are bought out or acquire creeping feet where they do their work, he can understand why this Party has the gravest doubt. If the Minister wants to make certain that Mitel, Northern Telecom, Bell Canada, and others remain Canadian, now is the time to insist that that be done through legislation, through agreements with these companies and through insistence that public money invested will not be lost to the whim of the market-place.
There is a wider and more fundamental point to be made. Takeovers do not create jobs. They usually lead to a loss of jobs. Takeovers are followed usually by a so-called rationalization. Our present financial system facilitates those takeovers by the availability of money and the concentration of shares in increasingly fewer hands. If Members want to see what is

May 16, 1985
Supply
happening in the field of takeovers, they should look at the issue of The Financial Times which headlines its main story on page one with the title "Take-over fever is back". The present system leads in Canada to what has been called in the United States the process of "greenmail". In that process certain investors, wheelers and dealers, find that it is more profitable to bid for a company and force management to buy it at an inflated price, all of which means that the company finds it much more difficult to operate at a profit.
What we have seen is scarcely an endorsement of institutions which are supposedly raising capital for the expansion of industrial production. This same financial sector has failed companies such as Mitel. As I indicated earlier, they are ready to finance takeovers by companies such as C.P.E. or Power Corporation but not to finance companies like Mitel. Seemingly, not a single Canadian financial institution could provide more capital for this company, despite the fact that it was turning the corner and getting back into a profit situation in the most recent quarter.
Surely there is a lesson in all this. If Mitel cannot be kept Canadian, either by its own efforts or the efforts of the Government, what hope do we have of ever producing world-class industries that will provide jobs and opportunities for a skilled and well-paid Canadian workforce? The policies of the Government are taking this country in the wrong direction.


Mr. McCrossan:: Mr. Speaker, I was very intrigued by the Hon. Member's thesis, but I had a little difficulty reconciling it with his Party's support of the takeover by Petro-Canada of Petrofina and BP. If he is opposed to takeovers as not creating a single job and depleting the capital of the country, why did his Party support those particular takeovers?


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, 1 certainly did not mean to suggest that all takeovers were bad. I said that a very large percentage of them were bad, and that a Government which cares about the people it was elected to represent should be looking at takeovers and divising policies which would ensure that the takeovers of the future will be of benefit to all the people.
Let me indicate what happened in the case of Petro-Canada. Of course our Party supported-


Mr. Nickerson:: The Liberals.


David Orlikow: No, we did not support the Liberals. The oil and gas industry was almost 100 per cent foreign-owned until a few years ago. We believed that Canada, like every other country, should have a Canadian-owned energy sector. We do not see much point in doing what the former Liberal Government did and what the present Conservative Government is doing, that is, giving so-called Canadian investors 100 per cent tax concessions and write-offs, as was done with Dome Petroleum. If the Canadianization in private hands is a success, investors who have invested very little will receive the benefits; if it is a failure, Canadians will suffer the loss. What
we believed in and what we supported was Canadianization of the energy industry, in the main publicly-owned. We still believe that that is the route we should go in Canada.


William Paul Joseph McCrossan: Mr. Speaker, in his speech I believe the Hon. Member cited a potential takeover by Olympia & York of an entity in the oil and gas field. If he believes, as he just said, that it is in our interests to have more Canadianization in the oil and gas field, is he only supporting Canadianization when the Government owns it? Does he oppose all Canadianization when it is done in the private sector?


David Orlikow: Obviously the Hon. Member was not listening to what I said during the course of my speech. I asked the Hon. Member to look at the business section of last Friday's edition of the New York Times where he will see a list of four or five of the largest corporations in the United States that were involved a few years ago in takeovers of large companies involved in fields different from their own fields of business. Now, a few years later, they are discovering that those were not good investments because they did not really know those businesses. They are divesting themselves of the companies which they purchased at a very high price, very often taking a loss.
I have my doubts that Bell Enterprises knows very much about the shipment of gas and oil through pipelines. Olympia & York has been very successful as a real estate developer, but I have had no assurance that it knows very much about the fields into which it is going.
Also I remind the Hon. Member that the Union Corporation, that is the old Union Gas, just before its takeover by another company, recently bought Burns Foods. I suggest that the officers of the Union Corporation did not know very much about the food industry and that that was probably not a good investment. When I say that, let me indicate that that view is shared by many people who are much more involved and much more knowledgeable about the business community than I am.


Mr. Winegard:: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) has used one of the most ringing phrases when he said that all countries have their own oil companies. We know that is not true. The United States of America does not have a national oil company, and soon Great Britain will not. There are a few, but it is just one of those generalizations which rolls off the tongue so easily. We should really take some exception to it.


David Orlikow: Let me point out to the Hon. Member for Guelph (Mr. Winegard) that British Petroleum has been 50 per cent state-owned. It was made a state-owned and a state-controlled corporation, not by those terrible socialists in the Labour Party, but shortly after World War I by that great radical and great revolutionary, Sir Winston Churchill. The Hon. Member should read the facts before he asks questions.


Reginald Francis Stackhouse: Mr. Speaker, I would like to join in the comments and to respond to some of the remarks of the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) with reference to
May 16, 1985

the inability of multi-national corporations to embrace more than one responsibility at a time. He said that if a company is in one kind of business, it cannot undertake successfully another kind of business. The facts just do not bear that out. He referred to Bell Enterprises. I ask him to look at the way the market is judging Bell Enterprises. There is magnificent investor confidence in that firm and the multiplicity of its successful operations. If we look at Canadian Pacific Enterprises, we find that the same is true.
He referred to the business section of the New York Times. Let him look at the business section in The Globe and Mail and the report on Canadian business in the Financial Post, and he will find a rebuttal of the point he was making.
A very impressive example has to be Imasco. What does running a successful tobacco company teach one about running restaurants and fast food enterprises? One of the dimensions of its empire which made money for it a few years ago-


Simon Leendert de Jong: Was the federal Government.


Reginald Francis Stackhouse: No, no. Perhaps the Hon. Member-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It being six o'clock, it is my duty to inform the House that pursuant to Standing Order 62(11) proceedings on the motion have expired.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Apparently the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod is a little bit late. I hope that all Members will stay so that we have enough people to go to the Senate for Royal Assent. I expect him to come along at any time. I hope we will all "hang in" to help. I am sorry the Senate is late again.


Mr. Speaker:: We do not, of course, make reference to the other place. As the Hon. Member knows, we have no knowledge in advance of what is coming. I appreciate that the Hon. Member is asking Members to stay in case something happens. However, we do not need a quorum to do that.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, on April I asked a question and made a request of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) with regard to changes that had been announced in the November 8 economic statement on unemployment insurance. On that occasion in April, I had
Adjournment Debate
hoped that the Minister of Finance would put a freeze on all changes that he had considered implementing under the Unemployment Insurance Act. How long is it going to take?
This is the second time I have been interrupted.


Mr. Speaker:: If the Hon. Member would like to add a few words, I am prepared to allow it.


David Charles Dingwall: I had hoped that the Minister of Finance would be kind enough to agree with my request by terminating any changes whatsoever to the Unemployment Insurance Act. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The Minister, in co-operation with his sister in crime, carried on with implementing those recommendations as stated on November 8, 1984. They became effective.
These changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act are certainly not in the best interests of Canadians. Nor are they in the best interests of those Canadians who happen to be unemployed. I wish to make a point, particularly at this time, that it ought to be recognized by you, Sir, and particularly by government Members that when we talk of changes to unemployment insurance, we ought to remember the clientele which we are attempting to serve on behalf of all Canadians.
A change for an unemployed person with regard to his or her income is much more devastating than any changes which would be effected upon you, I or other individuals in society. To suggest to an unemployed person that he or she will have their income reduced over a period of time or that the requirements for qualifying for unemployment insurance will be changed, and changed unilaterally by this Government, is devastating both in terms of its spirit and in terms of its actual substance.
I want to say to the government Members who happen to be present today, although they are limited in number, that it is high time the Hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Mclnnes) and the House Leader of the Conservative Party showed some compassion and sensitivity to those individuals who are unemployed in this country as opposed to implementing and suggesting unilateral changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act.
The Minister of Finance promised full consultation with all Canadians. Thus far we have not seen full consultation. What we have seen is a Government which is bent on reducing the deficit on the backs of the poor and the unemployed in this country.
I find it quite disturbing when changes to severance pay and vacation pay have been brought in without any meaningful consultation. I hope in the next number of days, prior to the budget statement, that government Members will for once represent their constituents and say to the Minister of Finance that there ought not to be any changes in the Unemployment Insurance Act until such time as full and complete consultations are held, not only with business, but with labour unions and all other Canadians, and that the House of Commons

May 16, 1985
Adjournment Debate
should give grave consideration to it. I hope that Conservative Members of Parliament will take that responsibility very seriously.



THE ROYAL ASSENT

[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 was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the Royal Assent to the following Bills:
Bill C-43, an Act to dissolve the Crown Assets Disposal Corporation and to amend the Surplus Crown Assets Act and other Acts in consequence thereof- Chapter No. 13.
Bill C-40, an Act to confirm certain acts or things done on behalf of the Deputy Minister of National Revenue for Customs and Excise and to amend the Customs Act and the Special Import Measures Act-Chapter No. 14.
Bill C-50, an Act to provide for the continuation of payments under certain guaranteed income averaging certificates issued by the Pioneer Trust Company-Chapter No. 15.
Bill C-30, an Act to amend the Bretton Woods Agreements Act and to repeal the International Development Association Act and amend certain other Acts in consequence thereof-Chapter No. 16.
Bill C-33, an Act respecting the import and export of an interprovincial trade in meat products, the registration of establishments, the inspection of animals and meat products in registered establishments and the standards for those establishments and for animals slaughtered and meat products prepared in those establishments-Chapter No. 17.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion to adjourn under S.O. 45.
['I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member, but unfortunately his time is up.\nThe motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).']
Mr. Jean-Guy Hudon (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to reply to the Hon. Member who raised the question concerning the implementation of measures announced by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) on November 8, 1984.
I wonder, Mr. Speaker... In fact, this is the fifth time we are answering this question. Concerning the delay in the implementation of that measure, I cannot answer as to what proposals the Minister of Finance will outline in the Budget next week, but the intent was firm when the decision was made on November 8, 1984. I agree with the Hon. Member that this is affecting the clientele which is the most hard-pressed. But among that most hard-pressed clientele, a choice has to be made.
Further to numerous representations received from Hon. Members opposite and from various labour groups, we agreed, Mr. Speaker, to delay somewhat the implementation of that measure, and indeed, instead of it becoming effective as of November 8, 1984 as it would have normally, anyone in receipt of severance pay was given until March 31st as a transitional period. This was a five-month extension, and all persons reaching retirement still have until December 31st.
I would like to emphasize to the Hon. Member who asked the question that those persons will be entitled to a full year of unemployment benefits if they start withdrawing benefits before December 31st or if they started before March 31st. So there were adaptation measures, Mr. Speaker, and our goal, because the unemployment insurance fund shows a multimillion, indeed a multibillion dollar deficit, is to save that fund and make sure it will not fall victim to hasty decisions, because if year after year we have the fund sinking deeper and deeper into deficit, we know full well what the tendency will be. Mr. Speaker, these are preventives measures.



David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, on March 26 I asked the Minister of State for Finance (Mrs. McDougall) some questions which seemed to me to be obvious from problems raised but not answered in the Green Paper on the regulation of Canadian financial institutions which she tabled recently. Since then I have had the opportunity not only to look carefully at the Green Paper, but I have had the opportunity over the last week and a half or so of attending meetings of the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs in its examination of the reasons why the Canadian Commercial Bank collapsed, a bankruptcy which was avoided by the Canadian and Alberta Governments, along with a number of the major banks, putting in $255 million to save the bank.
Let me just point out some of the things I and others should have learned from those committee hearings. Virtually all of the witnesses who appeared before us, the officials and auditors of the Canadian Commercial Bank, the Inspector General of Banks, and the Governor of the Bank of Canada, assured us that the Bank had been operated properly and efficiently. The Governor of the Bank of Canada said just last week that he still had confidence in the officers of the Canadian Commer-
May 16, 1985

cial Bank despite the fact that he had to participate in the bail-out of the Bank.
I would like to put some of the facts that we learned on the record. The management of the Canadian Commercial Bank can only be characterized as incompetent. Two of Canada's largest auditing firms audited that Bank in December of 1984 and certified it to be a viable operation only two or three months before the Bank virtually went bankrupt. The Inspector General of Banks should have known of the difficulties of the Canadian Commercial Bank because he knew that over the years the Bank officers had been involved very closely, almost incestuously, with Leonard Rosenberg.
The officers of that Bank were also the officers of a trust company into which an Indian Band in Alberta had invested $1 million believing the company dealt with mortgages and real estate. That $1 million has virtually disappeared as a result of the very questionable actions of the Bank officers who were also officers of the trust company. The auditors of that trust company, Coopers & Lybrand, apparently did not take the time or trouble to discover and report that things were going wrong.
A leading investment firm, Dominion Securities Pitfield, advertise on television almost every day telling people that they would be wise to go to that company for advice on how to invest their money. That company gave the Canadian Commercial Bank its blessing, telling its potential customers that the Canadian Commercial Bank was a good company to invest in.
There is a great deal wrong with the way in which our financial institutions operate. If our monitoring system could not see in advance how badly the Canadian Commercial Bank was being operated, how will we ever monitor financial institutions if we follow the advice of the Minister of State for Finance to open up the field to trust companies, insurance companies, and other large corporations?
On March 26 I asked if there would be draft legislation to accompany the White Paper. The answer was clearly that there would not be, that there would be committee hearings this summer but no legislation. I asked if the Minister would be promoting uniformity in legislation between the federal and provincial Governments. Mr. Speaker, we have seen a veritable host of trust companies, mostly chartered by the provinces, going bankrupt. Their depositors have been saved by federal government money pumped in through the Canadian Deposit Insurance Corporation. The Government is apparently going to try to get uniformity, but the Green Paper is not very specific as to how this is to be done.
I will give one more illustration of something which should be done which would protect the depositors better than any other action the Government could take. I ask if the Government will ensure that no one person can gain control of a trust company, usually with borrowed money, and then subvert this trust by using depositors' money to finance what were really personal transactions.
Adjournment Debate
That is the method by which Leonard Rosenberg created his paper empire at Seaway and Crown Trusts. Those companies inevitably had to fail, and they took down with them hundreds of millions of dollars in the life savings of ordinary Canadians.
The Green Paper says that it can control this by banning "self-dealings". Can the minister give her assurance that the provinces will ban self-dealing? Further, if self-dealing is banned, will it really stop the Leonard Rosenbergs of this world since they seem to be so readily able to manipulate their supposedly professional staffs and our regulators, who should be protecting us, by engaging in such obvious ploys as that of Mr. Rosenberg appointing his wife to stand in as chief executive officer of Seaway Trust?
Finally, if these suggested methods are found wanting, is the Government prepared to recommend a more fundamental solution, which is the extention of the 10 per cent shareholders' limit to any individual shareholder, as we insist for our banks?
It seems obvious to me that if we wish a professional staff to follow trust relationships, it is far more realistic to keep share interests and professional decisions apart. Surely that is the lesson of Seaway, Greymac and Crown, and 1 am waiting to see if the Government has learned that lesson.


Jean-Guy Hudon: Mr. Speaker, the review of the regulations governing financial institutions is naturally one of this Government's priorities, as mentioned in last November's economic statement. That is why the Government has tabled an important discussion paper suggesting certain initiatives, and even though I can understand his position, I am somewhat disappointed that my colleague finds this paper not specific and detailed enough, and so on. However, it is a consultation paper. If such a document has to be perfect and contain all the answers, right from the start, it is no longer a consultation paper, but a piece of legislation.
Indeed, the very relevant comments made by the Hon. Member, and I am not saying that they are accurate, but simply that they are relevant, should be made in the context of the consultation process related to this document.
Mr. Speaker, the question at issue is the solvency of financial institutions. Apart from this, we have the recommendations of the Wyman report on the reform of the deposit insurance program, which will also be an integral part of this review, but there is much to be done in this sector, as was seen recently with the case of the Canadian Commercial Bank and the bankruptcies of some loan and deposit institutions.
Our purpose is to promote an economic renewal. Equity investment has to increase because, as we know, the major role of banks is to turn our savings into investments. Indeed, we are trying to encourage through incentives individual depositors to help turn those savings into investments. The amount of savings is ever increasing in Canadian banks. It is therefore

May 16, 1985
Adjournment Debate
important to develop a more modern, more rigorous and more complete framework to provide true protection for depositors. We are truly looking for honest consultation and I urge my Hon. friend to participate in a positive manner in this consultation. Draft legislation will come out of these consultations, progress will be made, and I am certain that we shall be able to adopt without undue delay effective legislation in this area.
We shall also be consulting the provincial governments. Hon. Members are aware that the federal Government must share with the provinces the responsibility of protecting consumers in their dealings with financial institutions. We shall continue to work in this sector, and our Government has already proved that it can get along with the provinces to ensure an effective and complete protection through regulations which must also be both effective and complete.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, we must act without delay. That is why consultations are under way and why I urge my Hon. friend to participate actively in this process.


EXTERNAL AID-SUDAN-FOOD CRISIS-CANADIAN ASSISTANCE
Reginald Francis Stackhouse: Mr. Speaker, on March 8, as reported at page 2817 of Hansard, I asked the following question of the Minister for External Relations (Mrs. Vezina):
Will the Minister advise the House what response the Government will make to the food crisis in the Sudan, exacerbated as it has been by so many Ethiopian refugees? In particular, will the Minister tell us if the Government intends to appoint any full-time officials to protect such a Sudan relief program from the kind of abuse suffered in Ethiopia?
My concern in raising that question was to direct attention to the emergency in the Sudan created to a large degree by the ingress of now 850,000 Ethiopian refugees, many of them driven there by the severe conditions imposed, not simply by the natural developments such as drought and erosion of arable soil, but by the policies of the Ethiopian Government in maintaining civil war in such a way that innocent people in the northern part of the country have been cut off from relief opportunities. The same Government refused to accept western proposals that there be a temporary truce to permit the delivery of food supplies that would bring life and health to so many.
It was for those reasons that I focused attention on our need to provide an adequate monitoring service to make sure that Canadian relief, so generously provided both by Governments and individual Canadians, would be delivered to the people who need it most.
In the Minister's answer, there was a reference to the MacDonald report, expected at the time of the answer since March 8, submitted to the standing committee and, through it, to Parliament. I am very glad the emphasis in the MacDonald report was a recognition of the need for increased monitoring services if we are to have a program that will be fully effective
and as well a program that will enjoy full credibility among members of the Canadian public.
It is shocking, is it not, to recognize that since I asked this question, the Ethiopian Government's army has wiped out an entire relief centre, sending over 50,000 refugees out on their own, and then within less than a week, grabbing the attention of the West, the Ethiopian Government said that it was all a mistake and really, as a Government, it did not intend that that should be done.
When that kind of possibility is before us, we need to be adequately represented in the field so that we can assure ourselves and our people that our objectives are being achieved. Since this question was raised we have had a complete overturn of the Sudanese Government. We may hope it will be a turn for the better. Certainly we will not be surprised if there is an extended period of instability in the Sudan before anything like a social order is enjoyed. Equally then, we need monitoring of whatever relief programs we have in place there.
I would like to submit that if Canada is to have a long-term commitment for development as well as relief in Ethiopia and in the Sudan, the need for adequate surveillance by Canadian authorities is all the more evident. No one can say that we will undertake such a commitment, but neither can we deny its possibility. The need is great. The desire on the part of many members of the public is greater still. It may well be that this Government may make a quite proper and understandable decision to stay in Ethiopia and in the Sudan over the long run. If we are to do that and to enter into a full scale development program there, we will have to ensure greater surveillance than we have in the past.
I recognize some of the difficulties. I certainly appreciate the reluctance of some officials to undertake what they see as high cost appoitments, but we can be sure that there are much lower cost alternatives, partly through the services of NGO's which are open to contract arrangements. I am glad that since this discussion began in mid-winter there is a greater enthusiasm on the part of elements of our government Departments to undertake such contractual arrangements, but we can make much more use as well of those individual Canadians, young, middle-aged, and old, who are available for this kind of humanitarian service at low cost, sometimes at no cost.
I hope the Government recognizes fully the need for adequate monitoring, which the MacDonald report emphasized, and will make every effort to use whatever services and talents Canadians can put at its disposal in ensuring that our humanitarian and social objectives are effective in the field.


Mr. Stewart Mclnnes (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to acknowledge the genuine interest of the Hon. Member for Scarborough West (Mr. Stackhouse) and his contribution on behalf of the famine victims about whom he so eloquently and relevantly spoke.
May 16, 1985

I believe that Canadians and the Government are acutely aware of the suffering throughout Africa. A great deal of debate has taken place in the House on that suffering, and I think there has been ample demonstration by the Canadian Government in response to that need. We recognize that some five million Sudanese have been seriously affected, in addition to almost one million Ethiopians. Canada responded immediately by providing emergency food, particularly wheat. However, we are also concerned about the long-term economic benefits. We are endeavouring to support policies which will aid transport, agriculture and forestry.
Let me emphasize that since 1980, Canada has provided the Sudanese people with some 80,000 tons of wheat and wheat flour with a total value in excess of $31 million. So far during 1985, Canadian food aid shipment through Port Sudan include
11.000	tons of wheat from CIDA for the Sudanese people and an additional 14,000 tons from CIDA and Canadian non-governmental organizations for distribution to Ethiopians. An allocation of $12 million has recently been approved for the supply of food aid to Sudan for the fiscal year 1985-86. We consider this to be substantial support.
The African Emergency Aid, a consortium of nine Canadian non-governmental organizations, is providing emergency relief assistance to Sudan at the present time, consisting of over
6.000	tons of food supplies valued at $7 million. A great deal of this aid is expected to arrive in Port Sudan on June 1. Officials will be attending that port on the date of arrival to ensure that the food shipments reach their final destination.
Adjournment Debate
Canada was a full participant in the January World Food Program which estimated that Sudan this year faces a cereals deficit of approximately 1.5 million tons. Through this mission Canada has collaborated with the Government of Sudan in preparing a list of quick recovery projects which can be implemented immediately and without great cost. This will enable Sudan to take advantage of any break in the drought this year.
We have investigated and the Canadian Government is satisfied that the distribution of food is comparatively efficient. There are a number of international organizations which are in place. They are continuing to monitor the placement of the food and the distribution system. We also recognize that the world food program is co-ordinating and monitoring all food aid and food aid shipments through a 29-person logistics team which is now established in the Sudan.
The CIDA program in the Sudan is monitored from the Canadian Embassy in Cairo which is accredited to Sudan to oversee Canadian activities. To date we have had no adverse reports that the system of distribution is imperilled or is prejudicial to the persons who are the intended recipients.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member, but unfortunately his time is up.
The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.41 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, May 17, 1985