1985-01-25

STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S.O. 21


Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, with the recent announcement of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Fraser) that the fishing vessel insurance plan will be phased out between now and 1986, fishermen in my community, and indeed in all of Canada, will be devastated by this move.
The original reason for government intervention in the vessel insurance business was because the private sector was not meeting the needs of fishermen. Fishermen will now have to deal with private companies to insure their boats. As a rule, the few private companies in the business of vessel insurance will not insure small boats and engines, thus causing problems for those seeking loans. The Fisheries Loan Board, as many Hon. Members will know, has a requirement that there must be insurance on every boat and on every piece of equipment for which it issues a loan.
Because of the anticipated difficulties due to this announcement, on behalf of the fishermen of Canada I urge the Minister of Fisheries to reconsider this decision.


FORESTRY
Mr. Gerry St. Germain (Mission-Port Moody):: Mr. Speaker, forestry is Canada's most important renewable resource. Nearly one million people are directly or indirectly dependent upon the forestry industry for employment. In British Columbia, one out of every four people rely on this vital industry.
Yesterday in the House the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) reiterated his real commitment to this important national industry. He told the House that a healthy forest industry is vital to our national economic renewal. More important, the Prime Minister assured British Columbians, and all Canadians, that the Government intends to bring substantial help to the forest industry in British Columbia.
For the first time in two decades the federal Government has brought forestry to the top of the list of economic priorities. A new era of federal-provincial co-operation has dawned, and new forestry agreements are being negotiated. The Minister of State for Forestry (Mr. Merrithew) and the Prime Minister will ensure that Canada's once vibrant forest industry is revitalized. We British Columbians welcome this new attitude and this new commitment.


Mr. Skelly:: Some British Columbians.


Gerry St. Germain: We all look forward to a new federal-provincial forestry agreement with British Columbia, and to the thousands of jobs and new opportunities that a healthy forest industry will bring, for which the NDP have been screaming and will get.


CANADA MORTGAGE AND HOUSING CORPORATION
Mr. Dan Heap (Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday the Minister of Labour (Mr. McKnight) asked me to give him the names of co-op and non-profit groups who met the criteria of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation on December 31, 1984, but were denied housing unit allocations when over 500 were given to one private developer linked to the DelZotto brothers. This was after two years during which the present and past Governments followed a policy of downgrading cooperatives and community-based non-profit corporations.
I am now sending the Minister the names and business addresses of four groups in Georgetown, Oakville, Vancouver, and Richmond, British Columbia, all of which I understand had, by December 31, satisfied CMHC as to land, zoning, drawings, and construction contract. I call upon the Minister to investigate and, if he finds that indeed they met CMHC criteria, to ensure that they will receive their allocations in time to build this spring, and to report on the matter to the House.
There are many other housing co-ops and non-profit groups which have worth-while projects nearly ready to go. I call upon the Minister to give these serious consideration rather than to give the preference to a phoney, non-profit corporation which is nothing but a front for a private developer who has used that means to dig in-

January 25, 1985


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


SOCIAL SECURITY
Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, our Progressive Conservative Government has asked Hon. Members and the people of Canada to present alternatives designed to make our social programs more effective. At the present time a percentage of public money goes into the pockets of the wealthy. Even though some of it is taxed back, it is my personal view that there are ways to make our programs more effective.
The biggest gap in social programs today affects women between the ages of 50 and 65 who are in dire need and receive nothing except welfare. This group includes single women who spent their working years looking after aged parents or a crippled or a mentally retarded brother or sister. Divorcees, or women whose husbands died young, and those who scrubbed floors to keep their families together, never had the opportunity to pay into the Canada Pension Plan, and now they are unable to find work even if their health permits it.
I ask the Liberals and members of the NDP who are so insistent upon nothing being taken away from the wealthy: What do you tell these women who are existing on meagre welfare while the rich simply deposit the public money and thus become richer?
I commend the Government for looking into social programs. I present the needy women between the ages of 50 and 65 as a priority group who need help. Only the very greedy will criticize a social program which effectively helps the people who need help the most.


THE ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke):: Mr. Speaker, federal-provincial government agreements on forestry were started under the former Liberal Government. I am glad to note that the present Tory Government is following another first-class Liberal policy.
Since taking over last September, the Conservative Government has mismanaged the country. I should like to refer to just a few examples. Unemployment-this Government which promised jobs, cancelled the Summer Canada Student Program, thus casting a huge shadow of uncertainty for tens of thousands of students who rely upon summer work for income to pay for the next term of school. In the environment, the Government has downgraded Canada's international role as world leader in tackling acid rain and in developing a coalition of like-minded nations willing to take action on a global basis.
The Government has cut deeply into the Canadian Wildlife Service. It has put into doubt the future of wildlife interpretation centres. It plans to reduce research on pesticides and their effect on certain species. The Government is eliminating the jobs of scientists, technicians, and other highly qualified and creative people working on long-term projects relating to the environment. Just like previous Tory Governments, it is driving talent from Canada.
In essence, what the Government is saying to them is: "Sorry, your jobs are cancelled as of March 31, 1985; try elsewhere"-


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

[DOT] (UIO)


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, since assuming office in September last, the new Government has worked diligently to bring down interest rates. Considerable success has been achieved, with the rates now being 2 to 3 per cent lower.
The high interest rate policy of the Liberal Party had a disastrous effect on the Canadian economy, with hundreds of thousands of people being sacrificed to unemployment in a vain attempt to cover up financial mismanagement by this ruse of ever increasing borrowing costs. The Conservative policy will continue to stress a downward trend in interest rates, thereby stimulating residential and commercial construction, and the manufacture of capital and consumer goods, not to mention agriculture and the resource industries.
The success of the Conservative lower interest rate policy is not only reflected in the many new jobs which have been created since the change, and the unprecedented popularity of the new Government throughout the country, but also by the fact that the combined Liberal/NDP opposition has failed to so much as mention interest rate policy on a single occasion since Parliament reconvened. One can only assume that they, too, are 100 per cent satisfied with the new Government's enlightened policies.


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


FISHERIES
Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I would like to call to the attention of the House and the people of Canada the matter of the Canada-U.S. treaty on west coast salmon interception. The Conservative Government made a
January 25, 1985

commitment to open government and to consultation. This sacred trust was worth nothing.
Yesterday, behind closed doors, the Conservative Government approved the Canada-U.S. salmon interception treaty. This treaty has very serious consequences for Canadian sovereignty and the access of Canadians to fisheries on the West Coast. This treaty will have adverse effects on every individual and every community dependent upon the West Coast fisheries.
Mayors of major communities, associated Chambers of Commerce, fishermen's organizations, and even prominent Conservatives have made appeals to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Fraser), and to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forests asking that the committee study and report to Parliament on the implications for Canadians. Instead, the Conservative Government chose to make this a throwaway. When the Prime Minister meets the President of the United States, the Prime Minister will sign away Canadian rights to Canadian fish on the West Coast in the hope of some favour from the President.


GOVERNMENT CONGRATULATED ON CONSULTATIVE PROCESS
Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, today I would like to pay a compliment to the Government.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: It happens minute after minute, hour after hour.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Members will know that for five and a half years I have been standing in this House expressing my opinion that the consultative process lies at the heart of good public policies. This Government has attended to that process, in particular in the resource industries where we now have reason to be optimistic that we are going to have jobs and economic growth. In terms of my community, the oil and gas industry is feeling very optimistic about the consequences of that consultative process.
Members from central Canada will find jobs in their factories which flow from a consultative process that produces economic growth. I simply want to compliment the Government and to say, keep on the same track, keep consulting, and jobs will come. They will be good, long-term permanent jobs.
Oral Questions


EXTERNAL AID
Mrs. Therese Killens (Saint-Michel-Ahuntsic):: Mr. Speaker, between now and next spring, more than 1.5 million people will die of hunger in Ethiopia, a country with a population of 40 million and a territory about the size of the province of Ontario.
Early this week during a broadcast of "The Journal", a team of reporters told us about the results of an investigation made in the Eritrea and Tigre regions in northern Ethiopia. Apparently, the Ethiopian government, as part of its ideological war, is withholding food destined for famine victims in this area. According to the team of reporters, the people in these northern regions are rebels against the Communist government.
Mr. Speaker, I imagine Canadians were just as shocked as I was to hear this sad news, but I ask them to please keep sending their donations. These people are counting on us to help them survive these difficult times, and I know that despite these unfortunate incidents, we will do just that.
Consequently, I wish to ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) to start a thorough investigation right away to check the accuracy of the charges being made against the Ethiopian government.
If the Minister agrees, will he review our aid policy to ensure that these people will continue to receive aid from Canadians?


OHS) ORAL QUESTION PERIOD   FISHERIES WEST COAST SALMON TREATY-REQUEST FOR COMMITTEE REFERRAL
Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, if I might, I would like to put a question to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans who is present in the House this morning. Yesterday it was my understanding that the Minister had the Cabinet approve the Canada-U.S. salmon treaty, and that the Minister has been instructed to meet with U.S. officials on Monday for an original signature. This action was taken despite the fact that not a single Member of Parliament sitting on the Standing Committee on Fisheries has had an opportunity to see, or view, the final text of the treaty, and despite the fact that yesterday all the Conservative members of the committee voted down an Opposition attempt to have the treaty and its text produced and examined before the Standing Committee.
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January 25, 1985
Oral Questions
Would the Minister be prepared to make available to the members of the Standing Committee on Fisheries the Final text of the treaty, the background papers leading up to its final negotiation and signature, and the cost-benefit analysis to Canada, and would he allow his negotiators to appear before that committee so that Members of Parliament and witnesses from British Columbia could attend that committee, before the Prime Minister of the country formally signs the treaty in Quebec City with the President of the United States?


Hon. John A. Fraser (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, the question raised by the right hon. gentleman is important for the country, and is important with respect to the relations between our country and the United States of America. I take his question seriously.
The answer to the question is that arrangements have been made within the last 24 hours to deliver the treaty and its annexes to members of the committee. I have studied the questions asked during Fisheries Committee meetings with respect to other documents and, to the degree that they are actually in existence, they will be made available to the committee.
I am completely in favour of presenting not only material but personnel who were on the negotiating team, before the committee, and to do so immediately. However, I know that the right hon. gentleman will understand that, under our system, the decision on whether or not a treaty is to be entered into is a Cabinet decision and is not a decision of a House Standing Committee.


REQUEST THAT PUBLIC MEETINGS BE HELD IN BRITISH COLUMBIA
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I might concede for the moment the constitutional argument made by the Minister. The problem is that the final text has not been made public, and Members of the House have had no opportunity to comment on it.
Now that the Minister has given the undertaking to let members of the committee view the treaty and its text, I wonder whether he would be prepared on his next early visit to British Columbia to hold public information meetings so that legitimate interest groups, and members of the public on the West Coast, affected by this treaty, could put questions to him and have his understanding of the treaty made clearly known to the people of British Columbia.


John Allen Fraser: Mr. Speaker, the request of the right hon. gentleman is a worthy one and I will do everything I can to fulfil that request. However, I would like to point out that since the treaty was first initialled I have met personally on several occasions with the members of the Sports Fishing Advisory Board in British Columbia who are showing the greatest amount of concern. Last night I had dinner with the Chairman of the Sports Fishing Advisory Board and another member of that board. We had a full and extensive discussion of this issue.
I agree with the right hon. gentleman that the terms of the treaty and its important implications must be fully explained to the people at home. I thank the right hon. gentleman for raising this matter because it is important, and I know that his interest is sincere and appropriate.


DATE OF FORMAL SIGNING
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for his comment. I will try to help him out, if I can, by putting a question to the Deputy Prime Minister in the absence of the Prime Minister.
It is our understanding that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans received pressure from the Prime Minister and his office to accelerate the processing of the treaty in order that the Prime Minister could sign it formally with the President of the United States at the St. Patrick's Day meeting in Quebec City. I ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether-


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: How do you get your information?


John Napier Turner: In answer to the House Leader, this Government loves to choose symbolic dates. St. Patrick's Day, I understand, between two Irishmen.


Some Hon. Members:: St. Valentine's Day.


John Napier Turner: This Government is going to participate, as I said earlier, in a St. Valentine's Day massacre in Regina, when it really tells the provinces what it is all about, I will tell you that.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: September 4 is a good date, too.


John Napier Turner: Given the undertaking just made by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to allow the text to be inspected by members of the Committee, would the Deputy Prime Minister prevail upon the Leader, the Prime Minister of the country, to lift that arbitrary deadline of March 17 if serious flaws are found by members of the committee in the text of that treaty?


John Allen Fraser: Mr. Speaker, the question is important and it is understandable, but it is also very important that all Canadians understand that these negotiations have gone on for many, many years, and it was with great effort that we were able to bring both teams back to the negotiating table. I have to say to the right hon. gentleman that there is no way that that treaty can be reopened. I have had to take upon myself the responsibility of deciding that that treaty, as presently worded, is the best that we can get and it is in the public interest of this country to accept it. It is not an easy responsibility, but I have taken it.


TERMS OF TREATY
Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Fisheries

and Oceans. It is a bit surprising to hear the Minister, with great earnestness and sincerity, tell us he is willing to have us look at the document and to be consulted about it, but, no, the door is closed; he will not lift an arbitrary deadline. No matter what we discover, the treaty as presently drafted, before we have seen it, is cast in stone. That is a bit amazing, Mr. Speaker.


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


Brian Vincent Tobin: The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans knows that two years ago negotiators, in full consultation with both user groups of both countries, initialled an agreement and it was rejected by the U.S. administration because of Senator Stevens of Alaska. What concessions has the Minister made to the United States that it is now back willing to sign an agreement, not only willing but eager to sign an agreement, so much so that the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry in this Parliament has to this date not even seen the text of the treaty?


John Allen Fraser: Mr. Speaker, it is not completely accurate to say that no one has seen the text of the treaty. Copies, not only of the text but of the annexes, were made quite freely available to the public and to interested groups. The Hon. Member is, I think, failing to recognize that the American system is quite different from ours. Under the American system, no matter what the administration wants, it is necessary to have Senate ratification of a treaty. That is not our system. Our system is the British parliamentary system, and it is a Cabinet decision. It is important to understand that. I am sure that the Hon. Member will help us explain to the public that that is the difference. That being so, as I said, I have taken the responsibility, and the treaty is going to proceed on the basis on which it is presently worded.


CONCESSIONS INQUIRY
Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Minister's lecture but I am still wondering, and I ask again, what concessions he has made to the Americans, on behalf of the people of British Columbia, to accommodate the American political system? Why the rush? What concessions have been made since we signed an agreement two years ago which was initialled by both sides? What has the Minister now given up on behalf of the people of British Columbia that they had not given up two years ago, in order to accommodate the American political system and the Prime Minister's desire to play kissy-kissy with President Reagan in Quebec City in March? What is going on? Who is representing the people of British Columbia?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: You just ruined a perfectly good question.


Mr. Axworthy:: I want to know is it going to be a public meeting.
Oral Questions


John Allen Fraser: Mr. Speaker, this is an important matter. The Hon. Member is a worthy and dutiful Member on behalf of the fishing community, and I appreciate his question.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Do you want a vote on that?


John Allen Fraser: The question is what concessions were made. Concessions were not made. Under the very good offices of a former distinguished member of the Hon. Member's Party, the Hon. Mitchell Sharp, whom I asked to stay on the negotiating team after we became a Government because of the usefulness of his services, what has happened is that, as a consequence of his efforts and those of the negotiating teams on both sides, the misconceptions which prevented completion of the treaty two years ago have been cleared away.
He talks about concessions, Mr. Speaker. Let me put it this way. The agreement has been made by both countries that both sides are going to have to agree that, for a while, we will not be able to take fish as recklessly and irresponsibly as we were. We are setting a conservation regime in place to bring back the stocks. This is not a concession; this is called enhancement of the salmon resource.


REQUEST FOR COMMITTEE HEARINGS
Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make three statements as a preface to my question. First of all-


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Raymond John Skelly: To rephrase the question, Mr. Speaker, the Minister will know that this is a flawed document, that there is no public input, and that it basically appears to the Canadian people to be a throwaway for when the Prime Minister meets with the President of the United States.
In view of the fact that the Americans have an opportunity to provide input, would the Minister admit right now that before March 17 the Canadian people could, through the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry, make known their concerns about this treaty which compromises Canadian sovereignty, limits access to our own fish resource, and effectively cuts us off from the fish of transboundary rivers? Would the Minister admit that by a stroke of the pen the Government could permit people to come before the committee and express their concerns about how this is going to affect them?


John Allen Fraser: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member seems to be prepared to indicate that his Party does not agree with this treaty as it is worded. If that is the case, certainly he is entitled to say so. But he also seems to be confused about the difference between the American system and the Canadian system.


Mr. Keeper:: Did you ever hear of parliamentary
democracy?

January 25, 1985
Oral Questions


John Allen Fraser: Someone asks if I have ever heard of parliamentary democracy.


Cyril Keeper: Yes.


John Allen Fraser: What I am talking about is British-Canadian parliamentary democracy, not American republican democracy. There is a difference. If the Hon. Member is asking me to put this treaty back in front of a committee or anyone else, to be renegotiated through the press and statements in the House, I have to tell him that that would be irresponsibility of the greatest order, and I will not do it.


REQUEST FOR PUBLIC CONSULTATION
Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, the Americans permit their citizens to have input on these matters through the Senate. This Government could permit Canadians to have input before this agreement is signed. Will the Minister admit that he is prepared to have behind closed door meetings with special groups to make deals, rather than allow the groups who have serious concerns about the fishery problem to come before a committee? Would he also admit that there was no confusion in the minds of the Canadian people when the Government promised as a sacred trust that there would be openness of government and consultation? The Americans have it, and we could have it by a simple decision of this House. Would the Minister admit he is prepared to do this behind closed doors instead of in the public eye?


John Allen Fraser: Mr. Speaker, this has not been a behind closed doors process.


Raymond John Skelly: You just admitted it was, John.


John Allen Fraser: The Hon. Member comes from a riding on Vancouver Island and on the mainland which has, of course, a fishing constituency. People in his own riding have had their representatives on this negotiating team, not just for the last round of talks that finally led to agreement, but for many, many years, as the Hon. Member knows. This is not a hidden process. Anyone who is paying attention to the fishing community in the province of British Columbia, as I would have thought the Member would be, knows all of this. His questions are more rhetorical than they are for the purpose of finding facts which he, of course, already knows all about.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I would like to raise another question dealing with the proposed amorous union between the President of the United States and our Prime Minister on March 17. This time it is in the very vital area of the proposed signing of a defence
agreement that carries with it major implications for expenditures of billions upon billions of dollars on behalf of the Government of Canada. It also carries with it major implications of the placement of new air defence weapons in northern Canada, new fighter bases, and perhaps ground to air missiles.
With all of the major implications bearing upon the proposed signing of that agreement and those negotiations, are the Minister and the Government prepared to make that proposed agreement public in this Parliament before a parliamentary committee so that it can be properly examined by parliamentarians, and debated in the House, before we make a commitment of such major significance to the future of the country?


Hon. Robert C. Coates (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, there is no current or projected Canadian plan regarding replacement of the DEW Line or any other matter involving Canada in any aspect of United States strategic defence initiatives.


EXISTENCE OF NEGOTIATIONS
Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, the Minister has given us a fine reading of a prepared text. However, there are statements by U.S. officials and Canadian officials, and testimony before the Senate committee, that there are negotiations-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Members are getting longer and longer. May I ask the Member to please come to his supplementary.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I will be glad to ask the question. Is the Minister saying that presently there are not negotiations and there is no intention to sign any new agreement under NORAD, or any new defence arrangement with the United States?


Robert Carman Coates: Mr. Speaker, it is evident that the systems built three decades ago in the mid 1950s are in need of replacement. Joint studies and plans began in the mid 1970s and they continue. The House will understand that I cannot report on negotiations still in progress.


Mr. Frith:: He is reading it.


Robert Carman Coates: I am reading for a very real reason. This is a very serious matter and we certainly do not want Canadians mixed up between two specific matters that have no relationship.


Lloyd Axworthy: Let's get it before Parliament and see.


PENTAGON PROPOSAL
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister is reading his answers well to make sure, presumably, that he is sticking to the facts. I would like to ask him some questions on the same very important subject matter.
January 25, 1985

Oral Questions VISIBLE MINORITIES
The report which came out last night said that there were discussions involving Canadians as well as Americans of a Pentagon proposal for major changes in the defence of the north of Canada. Would the Minister confirm whether those discussions are going on? Will he tell us the framework within which discussion is taking place?


Robert Carman Coates: Mr. Speaker, as I stated in my last answer, there have been discussions going on since 1970. Those discussions are continuing. The Hon. Member knows that until those discussions are concluded I cannot make a statement in the House in relation to them.


SUBJECT OF NEGOTIATIONS
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, it is one thing to tell the whole country and the whole world about the very specific details of defence matters. I understand what the Minister is saying in that regard. It is quite another thing for the Government of Canada to be involved in changes in strategic thinking that could take us in a whole new direction.
The news report indicated that what is being discussed is the deployment of a new anti-missile and anti-satellite system in the north of Canada. Is that being discussed? Does it involve discussions about the possibility of deployment of nuclear weapons in Canada as part of the missile system? Finally, is it connected with the star wars scheme of President Reagan?


Robert Carman Coates: Mr. Speaker, I not only want to clarify the situation for that Hon. Member, but for all Hon. Members in the House. We are talking about negotiations in relation to a radar warning system. It has nothing to do with weapons systems.


REQUEST FOR PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Minister realizes that the matter is very clear. He is assuring us that what is being discussed is not connected with the star wars proposal of President Reagan. I would like him to confirm that. Would the Minister do what the Liberal Government never did, in spite of their questions now, that is, bring the broad framework for proposals before the House of Commons and a committee for a full discussion before agreement is entered into?


Robert Carman Coates: Mr. Speaker, when I answered the first question I very carefully read it because I did not want misconceptions. After having told the Hon. Member three times that we are talking about a warning system and not a weapons system, he is asking me to confirm it again. For the last time, Sir, we are talking about a radar warning system, and that is it.


INTERNMENT OF JAPANESE CANADIANS DURING WORLD WAR II-CONSULTATION PROCESS
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Multiculturalism. In the past several days it has been rather obvious that the Government is very anxious to proceed with a redress package for the Japanese Canadian community. However, the Minister surely knows that the community is tremendously disturbed at the government imposed timetable.
Rather than rushing this package through the House at this time, will the Minister not instead refer this back to the consultation process so that this process can be given a realistic chance to forge a mutual agreement between the Government and the Japanese Canadian community?


Hon. Jack Murta (Minister of State (Multiculturalism)):: Mr. Speaker, there has never been a timetable as such set down. That has never been a consideration. I do not necessarily agree with the Hon. Member when he says that the community is terribly disturbed over what has taken place. There is concern, of course. Individuals who claim to represent a large segment of the community have indicated to the Government all along, and are now indicating in the press, that they would like to have an acknowledgement, and what they call a token settlement. Other people whom we have talked to have indicated that they would like to see something in the neighbourhood of a $50 million settlement. Individuals have indicated to us that they would like to see a $20 million settlement. The association itself has indicated that it would like to see a $300 million settlement.
In that context, Mr. Speaker, we as a Government were trying to have discussions with the community to learn whether we could agree on a set proposal and also take that to the House of Commons-


Mr. Speaker:: In fairness, I cannot ask Hon. Members on this side to shorten their questions without asking Hon. Ministers to restrict themselves to answers. Statements by Ministers are made under Statements by Ministers. A supplementary question.


Sergio Marchi: With all due respect, Mr. Speaker, I think we must have the answers a little more forthright.


REQUEST THAT DISCUSSIONS BE REOPENED
Sergio Marchi: Yesterday the Prime Minister said that the Cabinet has reached an agreement on the proposal, that is to say, that discussions are closed.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the Hon. Member have a question?


Sergio Marchi: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am coming to that.
Will the Minister display sensitivity, and make the process more genuine by continuing consultations?

January 25, 1985
Oral Questions
The Government presents itself as being consultative, yet consultations with the Japanese community were closed as of yesterday. Will the Hon. Minister see fit to reopen those discussions to give the process an honest chance to fulfil what it was supposed to do?


Jack Burnett Murta: Mr. Speaker, the process of discussion with the Japanese community has been ongoing for some time. The last week of September was the first time I had discussions and meetings with the concerned parties. We are at the point now where we would like to see the matter dealt with as expeditiously as possible. We would also like to see a general agreement here in the House of Commons, and that is what the Government House Leader is preparing and hoping to achieve over the next few days.


REQUEST FOR FURTHER MEETING
Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State (Multiculturalism). Given that there is still concern being expressed by those who are the leaders in the Jananese-Canadian community, and given that there is no great rush, would the Minister not consider one more time that it would be in the best interests of everyone that the Japanese community be satisfied that the process followed was a fair process, and arrange to meet with them again in order to try to get that kind of understanding?


Jack Burnett Murta: Mr. Speaker, I had discussions with some of the leaders of the Japanese community in Vancouver last weekend. My question to them was much along the lines of the Member's question to me. The community is not united on where it wants to go. That is nothing new, because most communities in this country are not.
There is a large segment of the Japanese-Canadian community that would like to see an acknowledgement by all Members and all Parties in this House. They would like to see redress based on a memorialization, or some other form of memorialization that could be extended to all communities in this country. We think that is the direction that will probably receive the greatest degree of acceptance throughout the community itself. As I said before, and to conclude my remarks, it will be up to the House Leaders of the three Parties to see if they can reach some agreement-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I have already done this once. I do not like to have to do it again.


ASSOCIATION REQUEST
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, the Minister has stated that there are divisions in the Japanese community. That is not surprising. Recognizing that that is true, and recognizing that the national association has said it would like to have further meetings, does the Minister not see
that that kind of approach would result in a much more satisfactory conclusion to the discussions that took place, and would he simply accede to that request?


Jack Burnett Murta: Mr. Speaker, certainly many members of the Japanese community would like to see this matter resolved over a reasonable period of time.


Ian Deans: We will.


Jack Burnett Murta: That is all we are asking the Opposition do do, to sit down with us to see whether we can come to an agreement here in the House of Commons and resolve that.


Mr. Guilbault (Saint-Jacques):: Do it.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Marcel R. Tremblay (Quebec-Est):: Mr. Speaker, last week the Secretary of State for External Affairs went to Mexico to talk about the Contadora Group and peace in Central America. Could the Minister inform the House of the results of his talks with Mexican officials?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, as the House is aware, the Contadora process is seen by everyone as the best way to achieve peace in Central America. In view of Canada's expertise in peacekeeping matters, the Contadora countries asked us for some suggestions on improving the process and providing for a peacekeeping mission.
We submitted a detailed proposal to the Contadora countries, and the Secretary of State for External Affairs of Mexico, Mr. Sepulveda, thanked me when 1 was in Mexico for Canada's contribution. This is an indication of what Canada has been able to do. It is an area in which we have considerable experience. We have made our expertise available to the countries of Central America to help them find a solution to the problems in that area.


SOCIAL SECURITY
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. I ask my question sincerely. Does the Minister think it fair that the Government of Canada reduces payments under the guaranteed income supplement to those pensioners
January 25, 1985

who are receiving workmen's compensation as a result of previous injury?


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member has raised this matter in previous Parliaments. I know he is sincere about it. I am putting forth to him that I am looking at the matter. I am not saying that to put the matter off. It has serious implications in other areas of pension eligibility, as the Member knows from previous discussions.
I know what his representation is and he has made it sincerely, as I say, in two Parliaments. I can say to him that it is an issue that is not out of my mind, but I have not come to a conclusion as yet.


REQUEST FOR AMENDING MEASURE
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I remind the Minister that members of his Party and members of my Party are supportive of changing the legislation back to the way it was. Would the Minister of National Health and Welfare consider producing a ways and means motion or make a recommendation to be contained in the forthcoming Budget?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, the recommendation which the Hon. Member has made is along similar lines that have been mentioned earlier. We have looked at various options, and the Government will make its decision. I appreciate the representation which the Hon. Member has made.


PRICE OF GASOLINE
Mr. Ian Waddell (Vancouver-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Deputy Prime Minister. It concerns the energy negotiations that are going on this week. I have a letter here submitted to the Conservative Caucus in which one of the Conservatives' own members expresses his great concerns about the recent increases in the price of gasoline at the pump.
Would the Deputy Prime Minister respond to these questions. I quote from the letter:
I am starting to believe that we are being held hostage by these companies concerned only with personal profit and that the federal Government has indeed abandoned us.
In addition:
Do we not have any alternative solutions or methods of controlling these large companies? Is it possible that we might have misplaced them since our victory of September 4 last?
How does the Deputy Prime Minister respond to one of his own backbenchers?


Hon. Erik Nielsen (Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the
Oral Questions
Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, I will see to it that the letter is read by the Minister responsible, and perhaps when she returns she can reply to the Member's question.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I bet you will.


PETROLEUM COMPENSATION ACCOUNT DEFICIT
Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I would like to put my supplementary question to the Minister of State for Finance. In the light of the concerns expressed by one of her own Members echoing what we have been saying this week in the House, would the Minister now commit the Government to imposing a windfall tax on the oil companies, which companies will gain when we go to world prices? Will she also commit the Government not to charge consumers for that $1 billion deficit in the petroleum compensation account? Will she go on record committing herself to do that?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Hon. Member knows that we have the interests of the Canadian public at heart-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Edward Broadbent: The oil companies.


Barbara Jean McDougall: -that we face considerable problems as a result of the energy policy of the former Government, and that we will resolve those issues in the interests of the country.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: What is good enough for Imperial Oil is good enough for Canada.


NATIONAL REVENUE
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Revenue. Since last September the Department of National Revenue has been holding up making a decision and giving an advance ruling on a joint venture, a limited partnership, by Algoma Steel, which is really holding up the completion of a $350 million tube mill which will create many hundreds of jobs both in construction and in the operation of that tube mill. Is the Minister ready to indicate a favourable decision on that advance ruling this morning?


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member knows Section 241 of the Income Tax Act prevents me from disclosing tax affairs of any taxpayer, including corporate taxpayers. The Hon. Member has been in touch with me from time to time with regard to the subject. Certainly his representations have been noted.

January 25, 1985
Oral Questions


ADVANCE RULING POLICY
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, since this matter is very important to a community which has suffered a great deal during the recession, will the Minister indicate when his Department will be making a decision on it? Also, could he say whether or not a policy of not giving advance rulings on joint ventures, or limited partnerships, which will create jobs and substantial economic development in the country, will be abolished, and whether the Government will revert to the previous policy where advance rulings were given?


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, there are really two elements to the Hon. Member's question. The first deals with when a ruling, if one is to be given, will be given. Again I am precluded by Section 214 of the Act from giving any such indication whatsoever.
The other question was with regard to a much broader issue of policy, as to whether advance rulings on limited partnerships will be given in the future. As a result of the fact that there were approximately $2 billion worth of unused tax credits in the system which could have been sold through processees such as limited partnerships and others, last fall the Minister of Finance asked that a moratorium be placed upon new proposals for limited partnerships. However, there were grandfather procedures put in place to allow some consideration to be given in cases where proposals were already well advanced. In those cases we have looked at them on a case by case basis.
been paying attention to the changes which this Government has brought about, he would know that the very distinguished Hon. Member for St. John's East has been designated to head a Special Committee on Parliamentary Reform. This is one of the very aspects upon which inquiries and judgment, I assume, will be concentrated by his Committee, and in due course recommendations will be put before the House.


COMMITTEE TERMS OF REFERENCE
Mr. Mike Cassidy (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the terms of reference of the Committee do not cover the topic of the scrutiny of government appointments, and that the matter has not been discussed by the Committee at all, according to our representative on the Committee, is the Government committed to having parliamentary scrutiny of Order in Council and patronage appointments, or should we be calling the Prime Minister's book Where I Stood?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, when the Hon. Member has been here for a while, he will learn that the terms of reference granted by the House of Commons directing work of the standing committees are more honoured in the expansion than in the contraction. That particular Special Committee on Parliamentary Reform has already been considering matters beyond the scope of the reference, and I am sure that it won't overlook this one.


THE ADMINISTRATION
Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Deputy Prime Minister.
In his book "Where I stand" and in the televised debates during the election campaign, the Prime Minister recommended that appointments by Order-in-Council of officials to key economic positions in the Government should be examined by a committee of the House of Commons.
Could the Deputy Prime Minister explain why, in the case of the appointments made on January 8-and I am referring to the appointment of Mrs. Sylvia Ostry as the Prime Minister's representative at the Economic Summit, Mr. Rob Richardson as Deputy Minister of External Trade and Mr. Paul Labbe as President of Investment Canada-these appointments were not referred to a committee of the House of Commons?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member had


METRIC CONVERSION
Mr. David Berger (Laurier):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Practically half a year has gone by and we do not know yet whether the Government is coming or going, and whether it is doing it in metres or feet. The Minister has said that he does not want to proceed too rapidly, so as to make the most logical decision. This was in answer to a previous question which I asked him. I should like to ask him what he means by logical. Is what is logical for consumers, manufacturers, and school children, logical for the Government?
[ Translation]
Hon. Michel Cote (Minister of Consumer and Corporate
Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I have said before, in answer to various questions, that the Department intends to look into all consultations relating to the metric system. A decision has been made, and we are determining the implementation procedures, which will be announced in due time, probably very shortly.
January 25, 1985


REQUEST FOR ANNOUNCEMENT OF DECISION
David Berger: Mr. Speaker, the Minister says a decision has been made. The Minister of Public Works says one thing and he says another.
It seems to me that consumers and business-


Mr. Speaker:: It seems to me that what we need is a question.


David Berger: Very well, Mr. Speaker.
Instead of confusing the issue for months, could the Minister inform the House when his decision will be forthcoming or let us know right now?


Hon. Michel Cote (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, we will be making an announcement as to when the fine tuning of the modality of that decision will be finalized, and it should be pretty soon.


TRUST COMPANIES
Dave Nickerson: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Finance. What is happening with respect to the proposed new Trust Companies Act? When will the Bill on that subject likely be introduced in the House of Commons?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, as I have stated in the House before, the matter of financial institutions is under review. Considerable progress is being made toward the paper we will be producing. I cannot give a time when the legislation will be produced. It will be following the issuance of a discussion paper, which I know will meet with the Hon. Member's pleasure.


MEDICAL CARE
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Many groups in Manitoba have expressed concern about whether the Province of Manitoba will be able to retain national standards of health with the $72 million reduction in equalization payments from the federal Government. With this in mind, has the Minister asked the Minister of Finance to restore that $72 million to the Province of Manitoba?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, on that question, any discussions between the Minister of Finance and myself will be done in Cabinet.
Oral Questions MINISTER'S POSITION


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, does the Hon. Minister stand by his words on March 23, 1982, when he said in the House:
-I am questioning whether any government in Manitoba has the ability to provide the service for Manitobans.
He also said:
-on this issue the members of the NDP and the Progressive Conservatives from Manitoba are united.
Is he still united with us in insisting that that $72 million be restored to the Province of Manitoba?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, politically I am never united with that Hon. Member, as he knows. In terms of serious negotiations, and in terms of the wide range not only of health services but of postsecondary services and the funding of those programs, as well as any other program, the Minister of Finance is meeting with the province. 1 think that is the appropriate route.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Keith Penner (Cochrane-Superior):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of the Environment. It was reported in today's edition of The Citizen that the Minister admitted to her Alberta caucus that she had made a mistake in chopping funds from the Canadian Wildlife Service. Later she told reporters that it was a sound decision. The Minister cannot have it both ways. Will she now admit in the House that she has made an error? Will she give us an undertaking that she will fight in Cabinet to have those funds restored to the Canadian Wildlife Service?


Hon. Suzanne Blais-Grenier (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I am not in the habit of discussing in the House any exchange of information with my colleagues in the various caucuses. However, I admit that on occasion 1 have said that not being God, I am entitled to a few mistakes, and that it is possible that I shall make some like everyone else.


COMMUNICATIONS
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Communications and his Parliamentary Secretary, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister.

January 25, 1985
Point of Order-Mr. Waddell
Before authorizing proposals by federal departments such as Transport Canada and Environment Canada, the Government normally conducts an analysis of the social and economic impact of such measures on the quality of life of Canadians. In the case of the CRTC hearings on a Canadian youth channel, no analysis was made. Could the Deputy Prime Minister inform the House why this was not done?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is making statements in the body of her preamble and question with which I am not only not familiar, but not expected to be familiar. I am certain, however, given the very methodical and management oriented approach that this Government is taking, that all of the impacts of decisions made by the Government are examined very carefully before decisions are reached.


CLERK OF PETITIONS' REPORTS
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the petition presented by the Hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Domm) on Thursday, January 24, 1985, meets the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.


Mr. Speaker:: The petition presented by the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) on Thursday, January 24, 1985, does not meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.



POINT OF ORDER


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to seek the unanimous consent of the House to have appended to today's Hansard proceedings a letter from the Hon. Member for Champlain (Mr. Champagne) to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) dated January 15, 1985, subject: new gas prices increase in Quebec and Canada.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member is seeking unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There is not unanimous consent.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: for leave to introduce Bill C-26, to amend the Old Age Security Act.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that the Minister shall have leave to introduce the said Bill?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


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

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mrs. Monique Landry (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 17, 113, 144 and 175.


Mr. Howie: How many lawyers are employed by the Department of National Revenue?


Henry Perrin Beatty: There are 14 lawyers assigned to the Department of National Revenue from the Department of Justice.


Mr. Robichaud: 1.	Did the Department of the Environment undertake any studies to determine what effects the spraying of pesticides to control bud worm infestations has on the wildlife in the Province of New Brunswick and, if so, are further studies contemplated?
2.	Did the Department eliminate seven jobs in Sackville and four jobs in Fredericton and, if so, does this mean that no further work is to be done in this area?


Suzanne Blais-Grenier: 1. Yes; further studies are contemplated.
2. No. Studies to monitor the effects of forest pesticides in New Brunswick will be continued.


Mrs. Killens: 
Hon. Andree Champagne (Minister of State (Youth)):: 1.
Yes, special funding has been allocated for International Youth Year (IYY). On May 31, 1984 the federal Government announced its program for International Youth Year with a budget of $12 million over the fiscal years 1984-1985 and 1985-1986. From this amount, over $7.9 million has been set aside to fund special IYY projects under the IYY grants program. An additional $12 million is available to support the initiatives of other federal departments and agencies. A $2.6 million program to increase young Canadians' awareness of international issues during the Year will be launched shortly.
2. Yes, the criteria used for assessing IYY special projects are outlined in a brochure entitled "International Youth Year 1984 Grants for Special Projects" which is available to the general public free of charge.
These criteria have been amended to include costs for salaries as an expense eligible for funding. For national projects, an additional deadline of August 15, 1985 for submission of proposals has been set. These changes are being incorporated in the new brochure.
With respect to the IYY initiatives of other federal departments and agencies, the following criteria will be used to assess their proposals; activities should: relate to the themes and federal objectives for the year; impact on areas of interest to youth; provide an innovative response to youth needs through projects that produce tangible results; encourage self-reliance among youth through their participation in the proposed activity; and contribute to the department or agency's on-going mandate and activities.
The criteria for the program relating to increasing international awareness among Canadian youth have not yet been finalized.
The International Youth Year Secretariat, located within the Department of the Secretary of State, is responsible for administering the International Youth Year program under the direction of the Minister of State for Youth.


Mr. Stackhouse: 1.	In 1983, by province, what was the grant per student paid by the Government for distribution to universities and colleges?
2.	What was the amount per capita?
3.	In 1983, what was the grant per student actually received by church related universities and colleges?


Hon. Walter McLean (Secretary of State):: 1. The financial support for post-secondary education under the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Federal Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act, 1977 is not provided on a per-student basis and cannot be so allocated.
2. The amount per capita transferred to provinces for postsecondary education in 1983-1984 was $159.62. This includes both cash and tax transfers.
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3. Transfers to provinces for post-secondary education Established Programs Financing arrangements are not designated for specific purposes or institutions.


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


Monique Landry: I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would respectfully request that you call the motion standing in the name of the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon).


Mr. Speaker:: I have to say to the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans) that I gave him a scare earlier that I might not agree to this request. I am fully prepared to agree to the request.


ALLOTTED DAY, S.O. 62-REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor) moved:: That this House recognizes the extreme urgency of the unemployment crisis in Atlantic Canada, and urges the government to move immediately on a major program of regional development based on:
1.	proper resource management to rebuild the forestry, fishing and coal industries;
2.	self-directed community programs to expand permanent jobs through co-coperatives and small business;
3.	affirmative action to remove job barriers faced by women; and
4.	government led investment to expand and safeguard jobs in the steel industry through Devco (Cape Breton Development Corporation).
He said: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak to you and to this House of Commons today with an extreme sense of urgency about the difficulties and dangers that face our country, as we have heard this past week, throughout Atlantic Canada. There has to be action now on the many problems of unemployment that have built up over the years and have reached a state of extreme urgency in this past period of increasingly heavy unemployment there.
I want to tell the Members of the House of Commons what groups like the St. Joseph's Parish unemployed group of Sydney told us. Young people are desperate for jobs-jobs for the long run, not the kind of short-run, make-work jobs which have too often characterized what has been taking place in Atlantic Canada. That group requested a Canada Works grant and was turned down. They report that in Cape Breton over 40

January 25, 1985
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per cent of the potential workforce is out of work. In a town like Glace Bay, over 60 per cent is out of work.
I want to report what groups like the YMCA job corps in Newfoundland said to our action group, that the real unemployment rate in the Province of Newfoundland is between 39 and 45 per cent. Over 50 per cent of high school students are dropping out and finding themselves without a future in the workforce of that province. There is a despair that results for the people of that province, particularly the young people.
I want to report what we heard from the vice-president of the Newcastle-Chatham District Labour Council. Over 18,000 employable people exist in Miramichi, New Brunswick, 8,000 of whom are on UIC and 2,000 on social assistance. Over 50 per cent of the workforce in that part of New Brunswick is unemployed.

This young student at the University of Moncton told us: "It may be the International Year of Youth, but as far as the young people in Moncton are concerned, it must be International Unemployment Year".

I have to report what we heard from the Status of Women group in St. John's, Newfoundland. Over 45 per cent of women in that province are jobless. Those women face serious job barriers. For them it is a depression, not a recession. For them the time for polite words is past.
The problem is immense. Official statistics show that unemployment, despite some decrease nationally, is up significantly in Atlantic Canada. In Newfoundland it is up on seasonally adjusted rates from 19 per cent a year ago to over 21 per cent. In Prince Edward Island it is up two percentage points to 13.5 per cent from a year ago. In Nova Scotia it is not up quite as much but it is up. New Brunswick is virtually the same. The participation rates for the population throughout Atlantic Canada are significantly lower in the workforce than in the rest of this country. The rate in Canada for participation in the workforce is 65 per cent, but in Newfoundland it is only 53.5 per cent, 61 per cent in Nova Scotia and 55.7 per cent in New Brunswick.
These figures tell us that there are people who, if they lived in the rest of Canada, would be in the workforce but because they live in Atlantic Canada cannot find jobs. That is why the real rate of unemployment reported to us by people is actually 30 per cent to 45 per cent in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
It is a chronic problem. As the social justice network in Cape Breton Island told us, it is a problem that has existed for many years but is far, far worse as we begin 1985. As the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour said to us, if we had this level of unemployment throughout the entire country, there would be a revolution here. We must do something about this problem and we must move fast because its social effects are catastrophic.
Professors from the university in Moncton spoke to us about increased violence and suicides in New Brunswick. The health coalition in Cape Breton Island told us that referrals to hospitals for mental health problems have gone up by over 50 per cent in the last seven years.
Now there are new fears that people in Atlantic Canada feel as they look at the first steps taken by the new Government to try to deal with the regional development problems in that part of Canada. There is a sense of fear and concern that has been created by the cuts that have taken place and also, frankly, by some problems in the consultation process as it begins. I would like to relate publicly what I heard from people in Atlantic Canada. Some Ministers have made good starts on consultation but there have been some serious problems with other Ministers and a sense of unease hangs over the region. For instance, we heard from the New Brunswick Federation of Woodlot Owners, a group of small business people and farmers who produce almost 30 per cent of the wood output of the province yet have received only 16 per cent of the reforestation funding available through the federal-provincial agreement. We were told that that group met on December 15 with the Minister of State for Forestry (Mr. Merrithew) who, after all, comes from New Brunswick. Yet in six weeks there has been no response from the Minister to the request that the formula dividing those funds for reforestation efforts be changed to give them a fair share. The group has asked for more fairness because that fairness could give an estimated 350 more jobs per year in New Brunswick. Yet no answer has been given by the Government.
The Cape Breton Council of Senior Citizens told us about its serious concerns regarding what will happen to people facing the possibility of early retirement in industry in order to open up jobs for young people. The UIC cuts proposed by the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Miss MacDonald) will have the effect of eliminating the possibility of receiving UIC during the first early retirement year as of the end of this year. Older people in Cape Breton Island are scared.
[ Translation]
Students and professors at the University of Moncton talked about the CBC cutbacks in Moncton, but there have also been cuts in Gander and Cape Breton. The problems created by these cutbacks for the Francophone community of New Brunswick are very considerable.

Those kinds of cuts are scaring people in Atlantic Canada because they see their ability to speak for themselves through these important national media being cut away.
The Maritime Fishermen's Union, for example, told us they entered with a sense of responsibility and hope into negotiations about the division of fish quotas in the Cape Breton area between inshore fishermen and large-scale fishermen. They compromised and worked out an agreement. They felt that they had come to an agreement that was not perfect or exactly what they wanted.
January 25, 1985

However, they had reached an agreement which they felt they could live with. Yet the Minister, in the final agreement which was established, moved it in almost the opposite direction from the direction that had been negotiated. There is a sense of profound unease felt by those fishermen about the real meaning of consultation.
We heard about the fears of the people of Glace Bay who face a cut in the Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program to 25 per cent of last year's allocation. That program is an important source of jobs in that community. We heard from the United Mine Workers and the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour about their concern over the remarks made by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Miss Carney) who spoke about perhaps getting rid of Devco and privatizing the coal mines in Cape Breton Island. That suggestion may go down very well with her constituents in British Columbia but it scares people and communities in Altantic Canada.
As our action group spoke to 45 or 50 groups in the days we were there, we sensed a growing lack of confidence and a search for alternatives to the direction in which the Government seems to be heading. However, it is important to stress that we also sensed a feeling of hope and potential for communities in Atlantic Canada. Despite the problems that exist and despite how urgently action is needed, Atlantic Canada is not a basket case. People in that part of the country are tired of condescension from central Canada. They are tired of control by central Canada, whether it be control by large companies like Noranda in New Brunswick or Abitibi-Price in Newfoundland or control by bureaucrats from central Canada. They are tired of control by bureaucrats from an organization like Devco which, despite much of its contribution, has created a sense among the United Mine Workers and the steelworkers in Cape Breton that it is not prepared to consult honestly, openly and completely with the workers who will be so profoundly affected by Devco's decisions.
These people, Mr. Speaker, have given us some exciting ideas about the future. The motion which we have put before the House today tries to summarize, not in detail but with some particulars, the kinds of hopes which we heard and which we felt. There was hope first for resource development which will operate through small groups and organizations instead of just the large companies. For instance, Mr. Speaker, we were told that reforestation efforts in Newfoundland could give us a thousand extra jobs a year if this Government and the Government of that province would get together and move fast on just those kinds of initiatives. I have already mentioned the 350 jobs which the woodlot owners in New Brunswick are convinced could come from their being given more responsibility for reforestation.
The same thing is true in the fishing industry. The Newfoundland fishermen's union told us very clearly of its plans and hopes to build that industry in Newfoundland through community-owned fishing plants which would not have to rely
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on the large external companies which do not have the sensitivity of or roots in local communities.
I have to mention coal as well, Mr. Speaker. The United Mine Workers Union has come up with what I consider an imaginative, exciting plan for re-establishing and refurbishing the coal industry in Cape Breton. I am very pleased that the Minister who is responsible in this area has encouraged this plan. However, this hope must not be allowed to become a forlorn hope. It must be something which the Government comes through on and we, Mr. Speaker, will be pushing to see that that does happen.
It is not just resources. The resource base of Atlantic Canada is important to build on but we have to go beyond that. We must use the human resource in Atlantic Canada because that human resource is there. There is a sense all across the communities which we visited that people themselves, working together, acting in a self-reliant way, can build future jobs for themselves. They can work it through, as is happening in Glace Bay, small businesses set up in an incubator mall there which is going to provide a great many jobs. It is exactly the same kind of thing with co-operatives. However, as these jobs expand, as group after group told us, there must also be fairness for women. In the basic industries of that region as well there must be an emphasis on growth in shipbuilding and in steel.
To conclude, Mr. Speaker, I would say that if this happens, if this hope is realized, we can turn around the extremely serious problems of that part of Canada and deal with the most urgent concern of unemployment which is so badly hitting the people of those communities.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Questions or comments? There being no questions or comments, I call on the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens).


Hon. Sinclair Stevens (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon) for his motion. I say that because it gives me an opportunity to bring the House up to date on many of the initiatives which this Government has taken in regional development and small business encouragement over the past few months and, in particular, over the past few weeks. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, last evening when I first saw the motion I was so pleased with its contents, the setting out of the four points, that for a moment I thought it had probably been proposed by, say, the Hon. Member for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso (Mr. O'Neil) or the Hon. Member for Carleton-Charlotte (Mr. McCain), both of whom, I think Hon. Members would agree, are very able advocates in the Government caucus of development at a regional level, especially in Atlantic Canada. However, upon checking I found that indeed the motion had been brought forward by our socialist friend who, after presenting the motion today and giving us an opportunity to hear his remarks, seems to have fallen into that pitfall which the socialists continually fall into, and that is their plaintive voice of despair. We have nothing to fear in this country and despair will only bring more despair.

January 25, 1985
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As you are no doubt aware, Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, on Monday in fact, I met with my counterparts, the Ministers responsible for regional development at the provincial level and in the two territories, and I only wish that Hon. Members who are going to participate in this debate could have sat in and listened to the positive, co-operative and optimistic spirit which prevailed at that meeting with every provincial representative and every representative of the territories. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I have had literally a majority of those who attended either write to me or speak to me, saying that it has been the best meeting of a regional development nature that they have ever attended, certainly the best that they have attended in the last three and a half years. I say that because I believe we should bear in mind that the agenda which was worked out at that meeting was one which we now intend to put to the First Ministers' conference in Regina. We are hoping that many of the things which were agreed to at our meeting on Monday will be furthered and recommended by the First Ministers in Regina.
I can tell you that Atlantic Canada will be very pleased if some of the things which have been agreed to at our level are also agreed to at that First Ministers' conference. Having said that, I would like to remind Hon. Members that on the government side there are Ministers and Hon. Members who are determined to harness a team to take up the challenges of regional economic development, taking it out of whatever is its low point and turning it into a successful, dynamic development in the regions which need it most in this country.
What we are hearing from the opposition side are the cynical platitudes of those who only know how to ride this question as a hobby horse. The provincial Ministers with whom I have met know the difference. They are prepared to be part of our team approach. The provincial First Ministers will meet with our Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) next month in Regina, as I have indicated, and they hopefully will also set the guidelines and directions for the team approach we are hoping to accomplish. We would welcome constructive ideas, of course, from all sides so I invite those on hobby horses to get down and join the real team which will do a real job for all parts of Canada.
As the House is aware, regional development is one of the four major topics with which those First Ministers in Regina will be dealing. It was put on the Regina agenda at Meech Lake. Of course, I cannot in good faith reveal the details of the discussions I have referred to that were conducted on Monday, but I can say that we had cordial and frank discussions and we have broken new ground in our deliberations.
In view of the lip service paid by the former Government to regional development, I am sure the House will be as surprised as I was to learn that the meeting last Monday was the first time there has been such a meeting of regional development Ministers in Canada throughout our entire history. Such a meeting has never been held before in our Confederation. I feel that coming out of this meeting there has been a new sense
of direction established. There has been a reconfirmation that the day of unilateral federal regional development is over. In fact, there was a new commitment to the principle that we work together, we consult and, wherever possible, we co-ordinate our activities.
Coming out of this we agreed that there will be additional meetings soon. The actual timing of these meetings and their place we would hope would be one of the items again to be dealt with by the First Ministers in Regina.
Turning now to the specifics of regional development in Atlantic Canada, I suggest that our Prime Minister summed it up in Halifax last August when he stated, and let me quote his words:
All of Canada has been the victim of 20 years of failed Liberal policies, but this failure has been most evident in Atlantic Canada. It is here where the Liberal legacy is most apparent, it is here where failed Liberal policies and broken promises have had their most damaging effects.
As the Minister now responsible for implementing many of the programs we put in place to address the problems of regional development, I realize that this failure was not as much a failure of the programs themselves as a failure to co-operate and co-ordinate programs with provincial initiatives and aims. As background to our deliberations and to set regional development in the Atlantic Provinces in a proper perspective, I would like to point out that major federal economic development commitments in the Atlantic provinces, including signed agreements with the provinces, total at the present time some $5 billion. To say the least, that is a handsome figure in any person's calculation. While many of these commitments extend into the 1990s, such as the Atlantic fisheries restructuring and the Atlantic region's share of the patrol frigate program, a large portion of these funds will be spent during the life of the Parliament we are now sitting in.
Let me now turn to the specifics raised and to point one in the resolution before us. It deals with the proper resource management to rebuild the forestry, fishing and coal industries in the Atlantic provinces. I hope Hon. Members are aware that this Department has now committed $23.5 million to the Maritime Forest Research Centre in New Brunswick, some $475 million to the Atlantic fisheries, and $493 million to the coal industry. In addition, under the economic and regional development agreements, the Government of Canada has committed $4 million to the pulp and paper industry in Newfoundland, $12.5 million to forestry resource development in Prince Edward Island, $12 million in Nova Scotia and $42.3 million in New Brunswick. As well as carrying out the Atlantic fisheries restructuring program and commitments resulting from the Kirby report, Fisheries and Oceans has committed an additional $67.5 million to Fisheries Departments in the Atlantic region.
While the legislation governing the economic and regional development agreements calls for consultation and subsequent adjustments as necessary on the anniversary date of signing, two Atlantic provinces, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, have indicated they want earlier meetings. I can assure Hon. Members we intend to meet that request by those two
January 25, 1985

provinces. These anniversary meetings provide an excellent opportunity to review the work accomplished over the past year under the agreement, to make any necessary corrections, to develop new development thrusts as dictated by experience, and to meet the ever-changing conditions in the most effective manner. I am certain that these meetings will be held in the same atmosphere of mutual respect and co-operation that was so evident at our meeting on Monday.
Let me deal with the second point raised by the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor. This Government has from the beginning made it clear that the road to prosperity in Canada rested on the private sector and, in particular, small business in Canada. Now, his motion refers to the self-directed community programs to expand permanent jobs through co-operative and small businesses. This Government has promised that it would create an atmosphere of confidence in the private sector so that it might carry out its task of getting Canadians back into the workforce. This, then, has been our major thrust in the small business sector. This does not mean that the federal Government is going to shirk its responsibilities in the field of regional development but, rather, that it will accomplish the over-all objectives of maximizing regional development through co-operation rather than confrontation.
That this policy is working out was emphasized this week by the release of a Conference Board of Canada survey which showed that Canadian companies planned to do more research and development in coming years. In its survey of 200 companies it found that these Canadian firms plan to increase R and D spending by about 7 per cent per year from now through until 1989. That level is well above the expected rate of inflation over those years and is a strong indication that business has decided to go for real-growth in home grown R and D. I would suggest that this is but one indication, and there are many others I could cite, that the private sector is indeed willing to do its share with new-found and well-founded confidence.
In coming months, very soon in fact, we will be making announcements concerning new activities, new things starting in Atlantic Canada, that I know all of those who get off that hobbyhorse of wanting to play it as a political dodge will welcome.
Since coming into office the Department has made changes to the Industrial and Regional Development Program which will have a profound effect on the processing of small business grant applications. As Members know in particular, the institution of automatic maximum sharing ratios for projects requiring less than $100,000 in Crown support ensures that this smaller type of assistance may be processed speedily, with certainty, and at the local level. That is exactly what we understand is wanted from the small business sector.
In a similar vein, the changes in the Investment Canada Bill tabled in this House and now in second reading will remove many of the aggravations inherent in the Foreign Investment Review Act. In particular, the raising of the threshold for consideration in effect removes most small businesses from the former long and sometimes tedious approval process. I find it
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startling, though, that when you are trying to do something as positive as we are trying to do with Investment Canada, something which is going to have a profound effect in starting new businesses in Atlantic Canada, it is the self same socialists and their allies, the official Liberal opposition, that are now blocking that legislation and denying future jobs for Canadians through their blockade in this House.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Another indication of our support for the small business sector came this week when I tabled amendments to the Small Businesses Loans Act which raise the loan ceiling in the aggregate by $300 million and raise the gross revenue of those businesses entitled to apply from $1.5 million to $2 million. We will have further announcements in this sector when the present consultative process with the small business community is completed.
Our Department has taken the affirmative action program initiated by Treasury Board for government employees and also encourages firms bidding on projects supported by the federal Government to adopt affirmative action programs. As a matter of record, we have just completed a study of our Department's hiring practices in order to assess any problems that may exist and remove any barriers that exist. This study will be forwarded to Treasury Board in the next few days. Affirmative action is a commitment of our Prime Minister which we are implementing with as much speed and fairness as is humanly possible.
With all due respect to the Hon. Member, I think he is perhaps a little confused when he refers to steel and Devco. Of course, as Hon. Members who are well acquainted with this area know, Devco is not in the steel business, it is in the coal business.
Over the years I think we should not forget that the federal Government has made an enormous financial commitment to Cape Breton through Devco. In the past five years it has provided over $.5 billion in direct funding. This year alone the Government will spend about $150 million on Devco which in turn employs some 3,400 people on the island. In support of our commitment to Cape Breton and Devco last year I made a tour of the island which included some of the mining projects and facilities to familiarize myself with the situation. I can assure Hon. Members that the Government is committed to strengthening the operations of Devco to ensure that the coal industry will continue to play an important economic role in the future of the Atlantic region. Positive announcements will be coming very soon with respect to that company.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I would like once again to thank the Member for Essex-Windsor for affording me this opportunity briefly to review the present Government's continuing commitment to regional development in Atlantic Canada. This commitment was appropriately summed up by our Prime Minister last year when he said:

January 25, 1985
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We recognize that the kind of assistance that will be required to prepare for the economic opportunities of the 1980s and 1990s is not within the financial resources of the provincial and local Governments in the region, and that the federal Government has a responsibility, within the limit of its own resources, to fill that gap. We recognize too that the only way to ensure that appropriate policies are identified and tailored to match changing realities is to involve the people of Atlantic Canada as much as possible in planning the economic development of their own communities.
I will assure Hon. Members that this week's meeting of Ministers responsible for regional development throughout Canada is an important step in this process, not only for Atlantic Canada but for regional development in every region and area of this great country of ours that will once again boom under a new private enterprise-oriented Government.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Nystrom:: Mr. Speaker, I have a short question for the Minister. He referred with a great deal of fierte or pride to the fact that the Government is moving very quickly on affirmative action. Can he tell the House today in a very definitive and precise way what the timetable is now for the Abella report? In Atlantic Canada we ran across many problems with women, young people and the disabled. They are very concerned about the Government's timetable for the Abella report which speaks very strongly about employment equity and affirmative action in the country. The Minister of Employment and Immigration (Miss MacDonald) has said that they are studying it and moving quickly. What is the timetable?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, one of the nice things about the Hon. Member is that often in asking a question he also answers it. He has referred to the Minister of Employment and Immigration who is responsible with respect to the Abella report. I suggest that the Hon. Member direct the question to that Minister.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, is the Minister saying that he does not know what is going on?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, I can reassure the Hon. Member that we as a Cabinet work together. We allow all of our Ministers to speak for themselves, and in no way do I intend to alter that course.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, as the Minister very well knows, regional development has linkages with other government departments. We have heard negative speculation that the nautical institute which has been earmarked for Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia, in the seat of my colleague from Cape Breton Highlands-Canso will not be honoured, but that that amount of money will be expended in the City of Halifax.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, I am not in a position to make any comment on what the Hon. Member has referred to. I would remind him that as chairman of the Cabinet committee for economic and regional development I am in the happy position of being able to co-ordinate all of the various departments and Ministers that he refers to. I can assure him that a very high priority of that co-ordination is to ensure that there will be effective and early regional economic development.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy that the Minister has acknowledged that there are linkages between various departments of government. I am happy that he is the chairman of the Cabinet committee. Would the Minister not think it only fair and appropriate, in view of the devastating economy in Atlantic Canada, that they review their expenditures within the envelope of housing so that RRAP, as we refer to it, could revert back to the expenditures of previous years? As the Minister knows, expenditures in that regard have a very good effect in the sense that the economic multiplier is greatest in the housing industry. Could he comment on that?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, I know that the Hon. Member is perhaps relatively new to the House, but I hope he would not fall into the tremendous trap that so many of his colleagues who are so chained to the past have fallen into. They can only think in terms of spending programs and governmental intervention and interference. We are into a new era. Come up and enjoy it in the 1980s and I think you will see prosperity, better housing and better accommodation. A better living standard for people will once again start to be the rule rather than the exception in Canada.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, it has become clear that at least one resource that the Minister is committed to increasing with respect to Atlantic Canada is red herrings. A tremendous number of interesting points have been made to us that have very little to do with questions of regional development in Atlantic Canada. I am very pleased to hear about affirmative action programs in his own ministry, but I suggest, with respect, that there is a great deal more in direct terms which needs to be done for Atlantic Canada.
I have some specific questions for the Minister which deal with points that were raised with us during our action group's visit. If he is unable to answer these questions himself, perhaps he can get his colleagues to answer the people of Atlantic Canada.
First, will the Minister see to it that the Minister of State for Forestry (Mr. Merrithew) gives a reply to the New Brunswick Federation of Woodlot Owners with respect to their request for a change in the sharing of facilities for reforestation under that federal-provincial agreement?
Second, will the Minister use the auspices of Devco or Sysco? As the Minister knows, Devco does coal industrial development as well as coal mining in Cape Breton.
Will he use those mechanisms to see to it that the United Steel Workers in Cape Breton get a response to their request about the second phase of the expansion of Sysco?
Third, will the Minister see to it that the status of women group in Newfoundland gets a response to its request that Canada Works programs be equitably shared between men and women in Newfoundland?
Fourth, will the Minister see to it that his Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse) at least meets with those who
January 25, 1985

are concerned with the cut-backs of the Cape Breton CBC service? A committee has been trying for months to get such a meeting.
Fifth, will the Minister finally respond to the concerns about which many in Atlantic Canada have asked concerning the UIC cuts which hit not just those facing early retirement options but a great many people who are worried about the possibility of tighter regulations in the future?
Can the Minister respond to those kinds of specifics on behalf of his Government?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member is aware, having thrown about five questions at me, it is absolutely impossible within our rules for me to respond fully to those five or six questions. I can assure the Hon. Member that if he would like to write to me and ask those questions, or if he wants to take it now as notice to me, he will get a full reply to all of his questions.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Why didn't you do it in the speech?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: He didn't ask them.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mul-roney) went to New York and spoke to the Economic Club. He essentially said: "Come and buy out anything you want in Canada". Since we have this policy of no questions asked regardless of how many manufacturing concerns are going to be shut down or whatever, and since we are debating Atlantic Canada, I would be interested to know, as a result of this request by the Prime Minister and the glowing position that the Minister has indicated with his Investment Canada Bill, which some people have graciously called a "sell out Canada Bill", exactly how many additional applications he has received under the present FIRA legislation as a result of this new policy which the Minister says will bring thousands of new businesses to Canada?
I would be interested to know what the dollar value has been for Atlantic Canada. In addition, I would like to hear how many new applications there have been and what the increase in applications has been under present FIRA rules for new industries coming into Atlantic Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: May I respectfully remind the Minister that we have less than one minute left in this period.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry I do not have more time because I would like to expand on my answer to the Hon. Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster). There is one thing the Hon. Member is obviously forgetting. The Foreign Investment Review Act is still the law of the land. We would like to change it. There is no new law. We have to implement the same provisions that have been in place for the last ten years. When the Member asks is there a great flood or are there new applicants, I have to tell him that there is no change in the law. We are suggesting that there should be a change, that there should be a more positive approach. I would like the
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Hon. Member's support to put that more positive approach in place so we can allow these applications to start flooding in.
I can also assure you, Mr. Speaker, that even in anticipation of there being a healthier and more welcome climate in this country for foreign investment, we have had literally dozens of inquiries as to when the new act will be in place so people can be received in a more wholesome way.
If the Hon. Member is wanting any independent evidence as to how on a world-wide basis this country has made foreign capital unwelcome, I ask him to read the European Management Forum which now reports that out of 28 countries reviewed, Canada stands twenty-eighth in our hostility to foreign investment. Let me say to the Hon. Member: be proud of Canada, not frightened of the world!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Maurice Brydon Foster: Just answer the question.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon), for putting forward this motion today and for reporting back to the House on some of his travels in Atlantic Canada with regard to the problems with which people in that area are confronted.
I want to tell him, and particularly the Minister responsible for Regional Industrial Development (Mr. Stevens), that I believe the solutions to these problems are political ones. I believe the solutions rest with the Minister leading the way and seeking the co-operation of the private sector.
I would like very briefly before I have to terminate my remarks at one o'clock to read to the Minister a sentence of a report which was submitted to the Royal Commission on Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada. According to the Pictou County Research and Development Commission dated October 12, 1983, any new solutions to the unemployment problem must put jobs and incomes for disadvantaged communities at the beginning of the list of priorities. Without this strategy, existing disadvantaged communities will continue to be the victims of progress.
When you look at what this Conservative Government has done, Mr. Speaker, since taking office, you will see emphasis has been put on the words jobs, jobs for Canadians.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: It is jobs, jobs, jobs. Three jobs.


David Charles Dingwall: With this statement here, the Tories are certainly not following their own rhetoric or the rhetoric of others.
I would like to point out to the Minister, who is rarely in attendance but is here today-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


David Charles Dingwall: -that the economic and regional development envelope has had its budgetary expenditures slashed by the famous slasher by $1.1 billion, representing the single most reduced area of expenditure in the Treasury Board's fiscal

January 25, 1985
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plan. So much for assisting those communities in Atlantic Canada or elsewhere in Canada.
Adding the non-budgetary reductions and loans and investments to Crown corporations of $625 million, total cuts-


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Hon. Member has reflected on my attendance in this House. I would like him to name one day that I have been absent.


Mr. MacLellan:: December 21.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: May I just make one comment before the Hon. Member intervenes. It is not permitted on the part of a Member, and I would like the attention of the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Dingwall) on this, to comment on the absence or presence of another Member of this House. It is wrong to do that.


Henry Perrin Beatty: At least when he is here, he is all here.


David Charles Dingwall: I will accept the ruling of the Chair, Mr. Speaker, but I will continue and say that maybe he is here in body but certainly not in mind.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


David Charles Dingwall: In all, $2.2 billion was cut from the federal Government's budgetary expenditures, which means that spending-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Order, please. I regret to inform the Member that having started his speech at 1255 hours he must continue after the luncheon adjournment.
It now being 1300 hours, I do now leave the chair until 1400 hours.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: When the House rose at one o'clock, the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Dingwall) had the floor.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I should like to continue with my remarks. Approximately $2.2 billion was cut from federal Government's budgetary expenditures. This means that spending originally aimed at economic and regional development represents 80 per cent of the total federal budgetary cuts.
Atlantic Canada is a region which has traditionally relied upon and benefited from federal expenditures aimed at reducing regional disparities. Our future growth and survival are vitally linked with the federal regional development policy. It is evident that the Atlantic provinces have been designated as a low priority area by the Progressive Conservative Government, as is set out in this preview to their economic master plan.
Of the $625 million dropped in loans and investments to Crown corporations, a planned equity injection of $275 million to Petro-Canada has been cancelled. Being the leading exploration force in offshore development in the Atlantic region, this reduction in the spending power of Petro-Canada can only have ill effects on the economy of the region, particularly in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
We in the Atlantic provinces depend heavily upon resource-based industry with the support of regional economic policy and job-creation programs initiated and assisted by the Government of Canada. Four federal departments are particularly relevant and co-related to the economy of Atlantic Canada. These are the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion, the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Department of Employment and Immigration. Of the 21 departments affected by recent cuts, Energy, Mines and Resources received the highest cuts by far at $613 million; followed by Employment and Immigration at $432 million. The Department of Regional Industrial Expansion is fifth in line with $200 million slashed from its Industrial Incentives Program. Finally, a Department with a relatively small budget but one that is crucial to the development of Atlantic Canada is Fisheries and Oceans. It stands thirteenth on the list at $36.1 million, far exceeding the budgets of Justice and National Health and Welfare.
The cuts affect us in the forestry. Research cuts in forestry amount to $1.4 million. Research cuts in Fisheries and Oceans amount to another $1.5 million, In programs which assist the development of the fishing industry, the marketing of products and the development of the marine resources, again we see another cut of $11.7 million. There are cuts in ferry services, including a summer only service on the Yarmouth-Bar Harbour ferry, of $16 million. The CN budget reduction is $21 million. The Trans-Quebec and Maritime Gas Pipeline is now deferred, $8 million cut from that. Corner Brook, Newfoundland as the new location for the forest research centre has been deferred, another $3.5 million cut for Atlantic Canada. Capital expenditures for the fishing industry to manage fish stocks for hydrographic and oceanographic activities now eliminated, $18.1 million. The transfer of the Nova Scotia regional office for income security programs from Halifax to Sydney another cut of $2.1 million. Construction of a new office complex in Halifax, another cut of $14 million. Increases in berthage fees, port inspections and foreign licence fees, another $6.3 million effect on Atlantic Canada. It is clear that what we were told before the election about jobs, jobs, jobs has not materialized, notwithstanding the rhetoric of the Minister responsible nor the Government as a body.
We have seen massive cuts which have greatly affected the lives of Canadians in Atlantic Canada. I have some suggestions, continuing along the line of my friend from Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon), for the Government. It is all well and good
January 25, 1985

to talk of the private sector. We in this Party support the private sector. However, to suggest as the Conservative Party has done repeatedly, particularly today, that the private sector will pick up all of the slack to create the jobs and the wealth needed in Atlantic Canada is being less than honest. The brutal fact is that there is a need for government intervention in the economy so that the less fortunate areas of this country have the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to the Canadian economy.
What better vehicle is there than the national Government taking its role seriously and honestly? The Constitution, the accord which was signed by the provinces, states very clearly that the Government of Canada will provide assistance to the disadvantaged areas of this country, but this Government is not doing that. It is doing the exact opposite. Forestry is down from a high of 70,000 jobs in August to 9,000 in December. If that is performance in Atlantic Canada, I would hate to see anything else interpreted in that way. Fishing employment in Atlantic Canada is down from 29,000 in July to 18,000 in December. The food and beverage industry has gone from a high of 54,000 to 31,000 in December.
What about the construction industry, which affects a great host of people in Atlantic Canada? Employment is down from 29,000 to 18,000 in December. The federal administration, which comes under the direct jurisdiction of the Government of Canada, is down from 40,000 to 33,000. This Government is not taking regional development seriously. If it were, it would not be zeroing in on the less fortunate areas of this country and making its most devastating and crucial cuts on the people in that area.
It has been echoed in places other than this Chamber what the Government of Canada ought to do. Members of Parliament are aware of the difficult plight of individuals in Cape Breton and what they are faced with at the present time. I suggested to the Minister that in the interim a special agreement be developed with the Province of Nova Scotia. They ought to live up to their responsibilities to provide the infrastructure. Whether the jurisdiction is federal or provincial, it ought to be a co-operative effort. A special subsidiary agreement between the Government of Canada and the Government of Nova Scotia is crucial.
With regard to the coal industry, an answer in terms of short-term economics, and more importantly in the long-term interests of Atlantic Canada and in encouraging the Canadian economy, is a pre-retirement plan. That has been suggested time and time again, whether it be in economic reports put out by various public bodies across this country, or by provincial Governments or the federal Government.
The provisions of the ILAP program ought to be increased. Other areas in this country ought to be designated. In particular, I cite the members of the United Mine Workers of America who have been pushing this Government for a preretirement plan in order to allow older workers to retire and to provide jobs for younger workers who succeed them.
With regard to the coal industry, the people of that area are awaiting the Minister's answer with regard to his commit-
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ments for a long-term project in the Town of Glace Bay. We have waited patiently. I listened to what the Minister said here earlier today. I hope he will live up to that and make an announcement forthwith, not four or six months down the road but within the next number of days. This project is absolutely essential.
The motion we are debating this afternoon calls for an injection of funds by the Government of Canada with a second phase toward the modernization of Sydney Steel. The Government has been sitting on this. That plan was not put forward by a Liberal Government but by a Tory provincial Government in the Province of Nova Scotia. It is high time that the Minister responsible and the Government of Canada lived up to the commitments of the previous Government and honoured the commitment of providing moneys for the second phase.
The forest industry is another important element of Atlantic Canada. There are approximately 148 sawmills in Atlantic Canada. Each in its own way affects various small communities. What, if anything, has this Government done to try and assist? I urge it to take its responsibility seriously. The Government ought to provide a safety net to protect laid off employees and to reduce fear of buying or constructing a home. Federal incentives for new home purchase should be a permanently instituted policy which would float as the market cycles prescribe. I urge the removal of the 5 per cent federal sales tax on lumber. Subsidies presently extended under the Maritime Freight Rates Act and the Atlantic Freight Rates Assistance Act should be increased in order to reduce the market proximity problems confronting the maritime lumber industry.
A saw mill training institute should be established in Atlantic Canada to increase productivity, reduce training and apprenticeship costs, fill the need for skilled workers capable of operating new and highly sophisticated machinery and, most importantly, to fill the shoes of an alarmingly aging workforce.
I know my time is running close. In the fishing industry, the Government ought to inject some dollars, improving marketing and promotion through research. We know what the blue book as tabled by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) has done. This Government echoes sentiments about research, but what has it done? It has cut $1.5 million from the Fisheries and Oceans research budget, that is what it has done. It has to improve, through co-operative effort with the provinces and the international community, whether the agency be called Investment Canada, our international trade or external relations, in the export of fishery products. That is a serious undertaking that the Government ought to get on with forthwith.
There are many other matters that I could touch on, but I will conclude with this because it concerns my constituency. It has to do with an economic policy built on fact, not on hypothesis or words adopted from philosophy obtained south of the border. It is all well and good to talk of the private sector. I suggest to you seriously, Sir, that the private sector does not operate in those areas of Canada with high unemploy-

January 25, 1985
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ment. It may operate in terms of small business and I think we ought to do everything we can to encourage small business. However, the reality is that the private sector in Atlantic Canada cannot pick up all the slack and create the thousands of new jobs which are needed there.
The Government of Canada has a responsibility under the Canadian Constitution to provide services to all areas of the country and to provide equal opportunities for Canadians wherever they live, whether it be in Manitoba, Quebec or indeed in the Atlantic area. I note that the Minister of State for Finance (Mrs. McDougall) is laughing. She may laugh now but I would tell her that the smugness of the smiles, attitude and intellectual bankruptcy of members of the Conservative Party is beginning to show right across the country. That smugness and lack of concern for the people of Atlantic Canada is no more evident than in the statement with which I presume she had something to do, known as the economic statement of the Minister of Finance and the accompanying blue book.
There is a great deal that the Government can do if it takes its responsibility seriously. We in Atlantic Canada do not want to receive handouts time after time. However, the hard reality is that the unemployment rate in Atlantic Canada is overwhelming and the Government of Canada, out of a sense of fairness and justice to the mosaic of Canada, ought to inject sizeable sums of money to improve the economic plight of those people who live in that region.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Questions or comments?


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question to ask the Hon. Member before we move on to debate. I appreciate some of the comments that he has made about the unemployment situation in the Atlantic provinces, and of course, one of the reasons my Party raised this issue is our concern with unemployment, not just in the Atlantic provinces but across the country.
When the new Government took power, it pledged that its priority would be jobs, jobs, jobs. In fact, no discernible action by the new Government can be linked with any change in unemployment although the Government did happen to benefit from some changes in the American economic situation and the lowering of interest rates.
How does the Hon. Member defend the fact that the unemployment situation in his riding has gotten to the state it is now at when in fact it happened under almost 20 years of Liberal governing? The Liberal Party had the opportunity to create the sustained and self-sustaining employment that Atlantic Canada so badly needs.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the Hon. Member has asked this question. Although I have taken the substance of the motion quite seriously, I think one can see quite evidently that in moving this motion today, members of the New Democratic Party are trying without success to move
into Atlantic Canada and profit from the misery with which those individuals in Atlantic Canada are faced.
The Hon. Member asked why there is such a high unemployment rate even though we had an administration that was in power for an extended period of time. I would like to take this a little further, Mr. Speaker. I was the Member of Parliament for my riding for only four years. Who was the Member of Parliament before me? Was it a Liberal? Was it a Tory? No, it was a member of the New Democratic Party. However, in four short years the Liberal Government provided to the Cape Breton Development Corporation in excess of $628 million in an attempt to assist Canadians in that area of the country.
To show the hypocrisy of the New Democratic Party and the Hon. Member who asked the question. I can indicate that members of the New Democratic Party realized their newfound concern for Atlantic Canada after taking four trips to Atlantic Canada. They took one trip to St. John's, one to Halifax, one to Sydney and one to Moncton. Apparently P.E.I. does not count. This shows that the hypocrisy of NDP Members, as stated by the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens), is such that they wish to profit from the misery of other areas of the country. I would say to that Member-not to other Members but to that Member-that he ought to be ashamed of his hypocritical stance and his-


Brian Vincent Tobin: It didn't sell in Ontario.


David Charles Dingwall: It didn't sell in Ontario. He ought to be ashamed of his suggestion that other administrations prior to this one had no concern for that area of Canada.


Mr. Rodriguez:: Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a question to the Hon. Member as well. I would like to preface my question by saying that the hypocrisy is on his part. In fact, northern Ontario, which is very similar to Atlantic Canada, has 12 federal seats in the House of Commons. Year after year, 11 out of those 12 seats were held by Liberals. Several of those Liberals were Cabinet Ministers. In fact, the seat that I now hold was previously held by a Cabinet Minister. Those Members had their hands on the levers of power. They could have reconstituted and restructured the economy of the country by eliminating single-industry communities and coming to grips with the very serious structural problems that exist. They never did. The Hon. Member has an awful lot of gall to be able to stand in the House now and accuse Members of the New Democratic Party, whose record of restructuring those economies and improving the employment situation in the western provinces in which they govern is second to none.
I would like the Hon. Member to come clean with the Canadian people and tell them how he can rise in the House after the Liberal Party has governed over the majority of the last 50 years and masquerade by indicating that he has any solutions to the problems. Perhaps he ought to look to members of the New Democratic Party for some new ideas.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, suffice it to say that I would be prepared at any time to stack the record of that Hon. Member
January 25, 1985

against his predecessor's record of four years. Suffice it to say that that would be comparing eight years with four years.
In addition, I wish to say that there is one fatal flaw in the motion. The NDP has failed as a Party to bring up the issue of heavy water plants. Do you know why this is so, Mr. Speaker? Members of the New Democratic Party, unlike members of the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, are against the nuclear industry in the country. They want the heavy water plants closed but they do not have the intestinal fortitude to go to Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia, or to Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and stand in a union hall and say: "Yes, we as a Party wish to close your heavy water plant". They will not go to Elliot Lake and tell that to the union people. Once and for all, this shows clearly to the House and to all Members that the people who profit most from misery in this country are those who sit to my left.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague, the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Dingwall), a question with respect to his comments on RRAP. He asked the Minister about RRAP and the Minister passed the question off very cavalierly without a great deal of concern for the need which exists there. It has been said by the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon) that 60 per cent of the people are unemployed in Glace Bay, which is in the Hon. Member's own constituency. How are the people in Glace Bay coping with the need to repair and renovate in order to be able to stay in their homes when they do not have any income from the workplace?


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for his question. I believe he is very much aware of my concern for that part of Canada. I would think that moneys under the RRAP program in years gone by have provided a great deal in terms of energy efficiency and providing jobs, which has added to the building industry as a whole. However, as I said earlier, and I wish to reiterate it while the Minister is in the House, a program to include additional moneys for RRAP, for environment protection and for fisheries or marine protection, ought to be included in a provincial-federal subsidiary agreement between the Government of Canada and the Government of Nova Scotia.
I am certain that if the particular subject matter which is raised by my hon. colleague was put into an agreement, it could bring benefits not only for the short term, Mr. Speaker, but would provide benefits a long way down the road for those individuals who have older homes, who wish to reside in their homes, and who, through no fault of their own, do not have the required capital to make the necessary renovations.
I would urge, therefore, Mr. Speaker, in co-operation with my colleagues and in support of the question he raised, that the Minister responsible reflect upon that matter and again raise it with his colleague, the Minister responsible for housing, so that it might be included in any provincial-federal subsidiary agreement to alleviate the economic plight of individuals in Cape Breton.
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: There is less than one minute left.


Gordon Edward Taylor: I can say what I want to say in less than a minute, Mr. Speaker. I want to know if this is a private feud between the New Democratic Party and the Liberals, or can anyone join in? The two Hon. Members of the NDP and the Liberals are arguing with each other. It seems like their own people have not suffered enough. I suggest that both Hon. Members pull up their socks, because the next time there will be a PC Member in both constituencies and then they will get results.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: The Hon. Member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Dingwall) in closing.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member raises a question which perhaps ought to be reflected upon by himself.
I do not think anyone can fault the New Democratic Party for raising such an important issue on the floor of the House of Commons. Although I may take an entirely different view from what those Hon. Members say, I think it is important that the issue be raised. However, I would have hoped that Conservative Members of Parliament would rise in their place and ask intelligent questions and put forward solutions which they may think applicable to resolving the plight of people in that area of Canada.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would think that those Hon. Members would jump at the opportunity to participate in this debate. With the exception of those Hon. Members who always go back to the phrase that the private sector will take care of them, I would think that they would have ample solutions readily available which we could share with the people in that area. I would hope that they would contribute to the debate.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Today is, of course, Robbie Burns Day which, traditionally, Scottish Canadians celebrate. I am wearing my kilt. I am a little unclear about the dress code in the House. I seek your permission, Sir, to be able to sit in the House while wearing the kilt. Considering that this country really was started by French Canadians and Scots, I think I should be allowed to do so.


Sheila Finestone: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker, I will say that I have no objection as long as the Hon. Member is prepared to share with us the knowledge of what he is wearing under that kilt.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: May I just warn the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell).


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, may I reply to my hon. friend who, I might say, I respect and admire? She is a very articulate new Member of the House of Commons, and I do not say that in a Burnsian sense. I can only say to the Hon.

January 25, 1985
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Member that nothing is worn under the kilt; it is all in perfect working order.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, I just wonder if the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) would table it?


Gordon Edward Taylor: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I would just like to say, Mr. Speaker, that a dead bird cannot fall from its nest.


Royce Herbert Frith: I rise on the same point of order, Mr. Speaker. I just want the House to know that the Liberal Party does not want to nationalize it either.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Before resuming debate, I will inform the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway that this House today, I believe, will accept his dress code as long as he does not, of course, make a habit out of it.


Mr. Dennis H. Cochrane (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, I am almost afraid to speak in case I lower the high level of this debate.
I would like to make a few comments with regard to the motion put forward by the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon). My constituency incorporates five municipalities in Atlantic Canada and is known as the hub of the Maritimes and the transportation centre of Atlantic Canada. I am going to keep my comments relatively short because I am anxious to get back to my constituency, although after listening to the comments of the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor about the terrible plight of Atlantic Canada, I am not sure why 1 should want to do that. My constituency was fine when I left on Monday but I am not sure what his socialistic policies were able to do to the spirit of Atlantic Canadians while I was gone. However, I am going to go back and do the best I can to build up their faith and confidence in Canada and Atlantic Canada.
To listen to the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor one would get the impression that all of the people in Atlantic Canada are depressed, are running around in despair, that suicide is rampant, that violence permeates our every day and all of this is the fault of the Government. I would like to assure the Hon. Member, as a Member of Parliament for the constituency of Moncton in Atlantic Canada, that that is not the case. Atlantic Canadians are proud people. They are proud to be Canadians and to put their efforts forward on behalf of this country. They are optimistic, value life and enjoy living. They are hard working and diligent. The people in Atlantic Canada, yes, occasionally do need government assistance and legislation, but they do not want handouts. We do not want handouts which emanate from very quick legislation or patchwork efforts which try to take care of economic problems. People in Atlantic Canada want meaningful jobs, which are not created by special legislation or treatment but which are permanent, long lasting, productive and exist as a result of a strong economy assisted by a cost-conscious government.
I am anxious to see exactly how the NDP action committee is going to fulfil its mandate, because if Members of this House have to hear about every little foray which this action committee takes in the country, it is going to slow us down from dealing with the national issues which we must deal with in order to get this country back on the road. A motion that is moved as a result of going out and listening to comments of people will result in the same kind of piecemeal legislation we had in the past which tried to deal with the economic problems of Atlantic Canada and Canada. We know about those piecemeal resolutions which were acted upon quickly and as a result of being motivated politically.
I might suggest that that is the motivation behind this motion today and behind the NDP action committee. We have seen all too often in the past the patchwork efforts which are made as a result of political motivation, and I would like to speak briefly to one of those efforts made in an area outside of my constituency, a constituency held in the past by the present Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Fraser). I refer to a plant where the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion got involved on a piecemeal basis for strictly political purposes. They were trying to introduce high-tech in an area that was not yet ready for it.
There was an example of no consultation. There was a commitment by the federal Government and the province was not even consulted. Yet the only money committed and spent was spent by the Province of New Brunswick. They spent $5 million they could ill afford to create an overpass and extend water and sewer facilities to a plant which had no economic justification. There was no basis for DRIE funding at that time in that plant. There was no consultation either. There again we saw the piecemeal nature of the past Government in dealing with the problems of Canada, and we are seeing that same kind of thing in this motion. These piecemeal solutions are not effective in trying to deal with the problems of Atlantic Canadians. It is a seat of your pants kind of motion and we have seen too much of that kind of legislation.
When you look at it very quickly, Mr. Speaker, and luckily that is all I was able to do, the motion does not deal with many of the issues facing Atlantic Canadians. There is no reference to expanding our industrial base other than through small business and co-operatives. There is no reference to tourism. You can certainly see in Atlantic Canada a vibrant and healthy tourist industry which has been helped by this Government through the signing of an agreement in New Brunswick for $32 million and a similar agreement in Prince Edward Island. There is no reference to that in this sketchy motion put forward by our friends opposite. There is no mention of education or retraining.
One thing it has which is correct is the reference to an excellent human resource available in Atlantic Canada. That human resource wants to work towards getting this country on the move. But there is no mention of retraining the members of that human resource. There is no mention of higher educa-
January 25, 1985

tion to provide those people with the technology necessary to compete in Atlantic Canada in this age of technological advancement. There is no mention of the transportation industry. Coming from the hub of the Maritimes and the transportation centre of Atlantic Canada, I am concerned about that. I want to be part of a government team which will work with all the provinces so that when we introduce legislation to help Atlantic Canada and the rest of this country we will deal with all the necessary components, such as transportation.
I was pleased to see members of the Liberal Party make reference to the Maritime Freight Assistance Program, Mr. Speaker. However, there was no reference at all to the freight rates assistance program to help Atlantic Canadian farmers become self-sufficient and supply our own markets as well as export. There is no reference to a lot of the problems in Atlantic Canada and their solution. That is the kind of piecemeal approach we have an obligation to fight because that is what has caused the situation to become as difficult as it is.
We in Atlantic Canada, like the rest of this country, need comprehensive policies. Sure, we need regional policies but we also need comprehensive national policies which are created to help the regions as opposed to pitting one region against the other.
It was interesting to watch the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-East Richmond who now has all the answers. I do not know where he was when that Party formed the Government of this country. Where was he in caucus when he should have gotten up and said these things? I just cannot understand why he can have all the answers now but none before. Obviously he found all kinds of things that were not referred to in this motion so I will be watching with interest when the vote is taken to see if he can support a motion that he knows does not include a lot of the things needed to get Atlantic Canada back on its feet.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: There is no vote. It is not a voting motion.


Dennis H. Cochrane: The national policies we see are good for Canada and also good for Atlantic Canada.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Nonsense.


Dennis H. Cochrane: Atlantic Canada is concerned with debt reduction. We are concerned that the Government is aware that we cannot continue to spend sums of money vastly greater than what we take in. This Government is concerned with deficit reduction, which will in turn bring lower interest rates, as we have seen. That in turn will create confidence throughout this country, certainly in Atlantic Canada.
There are commitments being made on research and development. In fact, by Atlantic Canada time there is probably a commitment being made right now. Investment Canada is the kind of legislation we need to encourage investment in our country and in Atlantic Canada.


Mr. Benjamin:: For K. C. Irving.
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Dennis H. Cochrane: I should not be baited by that but I am going to be. It is a shame that that Party cannot recognize what private enterprise and a good private entrepreneur can do for a province such as New Brunswick. As a New Brunswicker I will never stand up here and criticize the Irving family and what they have done for our province.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Buy and sell the province.


Dennis H. Cochrane: I can assure you that that family has done more in Atlantic Canada, particularly in New Brunswick, than any number of NDP task forces will ever do.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Royce Herbert Frith: Get out the flag.


Dennis H. Cochrane: As the Minister mentioned this morning, we have seen incentives provided to the fishery. We saw the $23.5 million invested in the forestry research facility in Fredericton. We also see the considerable contribution this Government is making to linking Atlantic Canada to the rest of this country and the rest of the world, the important link of transportation. We saw a previous government which seemed to be committed, judging by its actions, to doing away with passenger train service. Now we see a government which has committed itself to the reintroduction of "The Atlantic" from Halifax to Montreal. We have seen the reintroduction of the rail liner from Moncton to Edmundston. We have seen this Government commit itself to providing new equipment instead of patching up the old.
Those are the kinds of incentives Atlantic Canada is going to need to cement our connections to the rest of this country and the rest of the world, so we can hope to take advantage of the opportunities this country can afford and the world can deliver to us.
Tourism was not referred to in this piecemeal motion, but the $32 million tourism package signed with New Brunswick offers a lot of encouragement to us. In my constituency alone some $5.4 million is going to be spent on developing the third largest natural tourist attraction in this country, Magnetic Hill. That will provide the infrastructure so the private sector can employ people and attract tourists to our area. That is the kind of process we need. But there is no reference to tourism in the motion.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, what we need is a government concerned about the economic climate. We are proud people in Atlantic Canada. We will find a way to take advantage of what is available. If we can get this country moving, instil some confidence in this country, the people of Atlantic Canada will work hard to put their intelligence to work and take advantage of every opportunity we can get. If we fail in that objective then we will perhaps need specific legislation. But give us a chance in a country that is on the move. Give us a chance in a country where inflation is not rampant and interest rates are at reasonable levels. Then let us take a serious look at the problems in Atlantic Canada and at what problems remain. But let us make sure that legislation we introduce

January 25, 1985
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deals with national problems and encourages Canadians of all regions to put their expertise and intelligence to work. Then we will go out and look at what we have to do in each specific area.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Questions and comments.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the Hon. Member. He made some critical remarks about the NDP task force or group which spent several days in the Atlantic provinces. I was wondering if he would now concede that this is an exercise all political Parties have taken for a number of years.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Except for Liberals.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: His own Party had task forces travelling around the country and reporting back-


John R. Rodriguez: Ad nauseam.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: -with motions in this House or in speeches. Some of this we supported him on, Mr. Speaker. Would he not recognize that that is a legitimate exercise for any and all political Parties to carry out?
We found out some interesting things during our task force tour in the Atlantic provinces. We are only reporting back what the people in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland told us. That resulted in today's motion. I hope the hon. gentleman will decide that he is glad we did this. No one has ever objected to any political Party doing what is their duty, which is finding out what is going on in each region of the country, what the people are saying and bringing it back to Parliament to deal with. What is he complaining about?


Dennis H. Cochrane: Mr. Speaker, I think I discerned a question in that dialogue. There is certainly nothing wrong with Members coming to Atlantic Canada. In fact, we encourage them to come to our part of the country. I can certainly understand the necessity of the New Democratic Party reaching out to Atlantic Canada because they obviously could not put forth the policies which would encourage Atlantic Canadians to provide a seat for one of them in this forum.
I can assure Members that we in this Party are bringing back the message from Atlantic Canada. We are working in our constituencies. We are getting information and coming back to our caucus and ensuring that the message from Atlantic Canada is heard. As a result we are able to bring forward policies that will help that particular part of the country.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Is the Hon. Member not complaining about our reporting back what the people in Atlantic Canada told us? I presume he is not complaining about our reporting to the House of Commons what those people told us.


Dennis H. Cochrane: Mr. Speaker, I am not complaining about them bringing it back. I guess I am complaining about the
piecemeal manner in which we develop a national mosaic to deal with the problems in the country. If every time you go to one part of the country you bring back a motion to deal with that specific part, you lose sight of national policies and problems. We need a healthy national economy in order to take full advantage of that in Atlantic Canada.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, may I congratulate the Member for Moncton (Mr. Cochrane) on the evangelical zeal with which he brings his views to bear on the recent visit by members of the New Democratic Party to Atlantic Canada. I, for one, think that New Democratic Party tourism dollars are as good as any other tourism dollars. I hope they had some nice meals and enjoyed the great comradery, warmth and generosity of spirit of Atlantic Canadians. I do not know what the Member is panicked about.
The Member has some kind of religious conviction. He has received some kind of absolution since he came to Ottawa only three or four months ago. He has shown us the degree to which he has matured politically, perhaps hoping to catch a glint in the Prime Minister's eye for the front bench when the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Coates) or someone else is shuffled out. He is telling us that he will only endorse policies for Atlantic Canada that are national policies. That makes him a big, grown-up, mature Member of Parliament on the mainland in Ottawa. That makes him a centralist, Mr. Speaker.
There are issues in this country which are unique to British Columbia. There are issues that are unique to western Canada such as the Crow rate and the cost of moving grain. In Quebec the language policy is a unique issue because of the recognition of the two great languages of this country. There are certain conditions which are unique to northern Ontario and national policy has been developed to reflect them. Do not apologize for what makes your region different. Do not apologize for asking for special policy to be developed in a national forum to fit the regional need.
I would advise the Member to talk to one of the most successful politicians from Atlantic Canada, the Member for Carleton-Charlotte (Mr. McCain). That Hon. Member has fought every day for all of the years he has been here for the particular regional interests of Atlantic Canada. That is what has made him successful. Stop apologizing. We have special needs and interests which are as important as those of any other region in the country. They are legitimate interests that must be recognized.
Is the Member saying that he accepts as legitimate the dramatic increase of 20 per cent to 30 per cent in freight rates which has been imposed on Atlantic Canada by CN, given that in P.E.I., Nova Scotia and Newfoundland it is, in many cases, the only way to move goods and people around? Is the Member telling us that he accepts a slash of $200 million from the regional development fund? Does he accept the notion of his Minister, who is sitting opposite and listening, that there will never again be policies in this country designed for industrial development to bring jobs to the least advantaged areas of the country? Does he accept that we will no longer
January 25, 1985

target areas of high unemployment anywhere in Canada? Does he accept that?
If he accepts that notion this early in the game, then for the first six to nine months he should listen, contemplate and go back to his riding to talk to his constituents. When his finger is directly on the pulse of the real needs and concerns of his constituents I would like to hear him tell us that the only policies acceptable to the people of Moncton and northern New Brunswick who have serious employment problems, as does all of Atlantic Canada where unemployment has gone up in the last three months rather than down-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Please, be reasonable. The Hon. Member has only two minutes left to answer such a long question.


Dennis H. Cochrane: Mr. Speaker, I just assumed, coming from a riding called Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe, that the Member is used to being long-winded. In case the Hon. Member missed it, as I think he did, I would like to reiterate that I am not against regional policies and I am not apologizing for Atlantic Canada. However, I am also not crying out that we need something much different from the rest of the country. We are saying that we have needs and interests but they are not responded to in that piece of legislation. Let us get this country back to work. Let us get the interest rate down. Let us get some incentives and innovation in this country.


Brian Vincent Tobin: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: The Hon. Member for Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe rises on a point of order.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, there is a motion before the House, not a piece of legislation.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: The Hon. Member for Moncton (Mr. Cochrane).


Dennis H. Cochrane: Mr. Speaker, it is not addressed in this motion and therefore that is not the solution to the problems. I am not apologizing. I am asking for a chance in Atlantic Canada, in a country in which the interest rate is reasonable and the Government is aware that we cannot continue to spend vast amounts more than we make. If we cannot respond and help the economy that is enjoyed by this country, then come to us with some special legislation to deal with our specific problems which we are not able to handle.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, if there was an issue of national consensus on September 4 it was that jobs must be the most important issue in Parliament. That is one of the reasons we took the initiative of forming an action group within our Party.
While the Pope was touring our country just after the tremendous election victory of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mul-roney) and his Party, he made several statements on unemployment. An editorial in The Toronto Star of September 14 reads as follows:
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In blunt language. Pope Paul 11 has just urged that Canadians be put back to work again. Restructure the economy, the Pope pleaded in Flat Rock, Nfld., so that the blight of unemployment may be lifted from the land. The message confirms the wisdom of Canada's Roman Catholic bishops, who issued a similar appeal nearly two years ago. And it sets out a profound challenge for Prime Minister-elect Brian Mulroney and his incoming government.
I think that is the real challenge of this Parliament, Mr. Speaker. My two or three days in Altantic Canada have shown me that despite the poverty and unemployment there is still tremendous optimism in this country. There is still a tremendously positive spirit among Atlantic Canadians about the future and what can be done. I was really impressed by that. Coming from Saskatchewan where the unemployment rate is very low-it is around 5 per cent, 6 per cent, or 7 per cent in the riding-I was very shocked at the high unemployment rate and impressed that people are positive. They are looking for options, solutions, and alternatives.
[ Translation]
As the House is aware, Mr. Speaker, the national unemployment rate in this country is now 10.8 per cent. The situation is quite different in the Atlantic provinces, however. According to the figures for December, in Newfoundland the official unemployment rate was 21.2 per cent. In December 1983, the unemployment rate was 19 per cent. This is an increase of two per cent over the last twelve months. We see the same thing happening in Prince Edward Island where unemployment also rose between 1983 and 1984. The situation is the same again in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Mr. Speaker, jobs and the unemployment rate are very important issues in this country, but the problem is far worse in our four Atlantic provinces.

The action group that went to the Atlantic Provinces had three objectives when we started our tour. These objectives will continue across Canada as we visit 22 different centres in all ten provinces, including Prince Edward Island where we are going later on.
The first objective was to give ordinary Canadians a forum to speak out about the most important issue in this country, the issue of unemployment, and to try to provide us with ideas as to where to go in the future in building a new Canada and having a new vision in the years that lie ahead.
We were told a number of things by these ordinary Canadians. We were told in Newfoundland that in 1984 some 54 per cent of the people in that province were touched by unemployment at one time or another in the last calendar year. Some people worked for ten weeks and would then be on unemployment insurance, others would work 12 to 14 weeks and go on unemployment insurance. The majority of people in Newfoundland, according to what we were told, were touched last year by unemployment in a very direct and personal sense. We were also told that the number two producer of dollars in the Province of Newfoundland was unemployment insurance benefits, Mr. Speaker. The first producer of dollars in that

January 25, 1985
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province was moneys coming in to federal public servants, provincial public servants, and employees of Crown corporations, in other words, people on the public service payroll or the payrolls of government. The number two producer of income is unemployment insurance.
We spoke as well with a person very well known in this House, namely, Richard Cashin, a former Member of Parliament, who is now the head of the fishermen's union, and one of his colleagues, Mr. Earl McCurdy. They told us about the problems facing the fishing industry in Newfoundland and of the tremendous problems they have historically, the poverty, and the cycle of working for a few weeks and then being unemployed. They told us about the lack of a decent income, and how we in this country have to pay more attention to the fishing industry, just as we should be paying more attention to some of the farmers and their problems on the Prairies.
We were also told about young people. The unemployment rate in our country officially among the young is 16.7 per cent. I say "officially" because a lot of people, including young people, but particularly young people, have given up looking for work. They are discouraged and many of them are back home with their families. Some are on welfare. They have just dropped out of the labour market altogether. We were told that in many explicit ways by representatives of the YWCA in the Province of Newfoundland.
In Halifax we heard Father McKinnon give what I think was the most moving testimony we heard during our three days in the Atlantic Provinces. He told us of some of the problems facing the young people in Halifax. He runs a place called Hope Cottage, which is really a soup kitchen. He told us how in the last three or four years more and more people are totally and absolutely destitute and are coming to that soup kitchen because they have nowhere else to get food.
He told us that in 1981 they had handed out some 3,600 meals, in 1983 they handed out some 51,000 meals to people, and in 1984 some 61,000 meals were given to the poorest and most destitute people in the City of Halifax.
I think it is unfair that in our society so many poor people are living on the streets. It is very unfair that many of these people have to get their food from garbage cans. It is very unfair that some of these people are forced to steal or beg to get food to live from one day to the next. I think it is very unfair that in a city like Halifax with some of the highest rents in the country there are slum landlords charging people as much as possible and that there are many, many people living in a small room or apartment. It is very unfair that in a land of so much wealth and opportunity there is so much poverty in parts of Canada. It is very unfair that in Halifax, which has a very large black population, 75 per cent of young black people are without work. Only 20 young blacks graduated from high school in 1984. There is obviously something wrong when we have a society like the one we have which is so wealthy and so rich yet we have so many people living in absolute poverty.
We also heard from women, Mr. Speaker. We heard from the Status of Women group in Newfoundland. We heard from Beth Lacy and we heard from Dorothy Engels in the City of
St. John's. They told us about discrimination in jobs when it comes to women. They told us that they estimate as a result of their work and research that around 45 per cent of the women in Newfoundland are unemployed. They also told us that in Newfoundland there are very few daycare centres for parents who want to leave their children in daycare while they go to work. They said that Newfoundland has by far the worst record in all of Canada in terms of spaces in daycare centres and in terms of the proportion of daycare centres for the population of that province. They also told us about the large number of women who want to work and cannot find full-time jobs, who are working at very low income and part-time jobs because of the tremendous recession and depression in the economy of Newfoundland.
We also spoke with a representative of disabled Canadians.
[ Translation]
Mr. Speaker, his name was Shawn McCormick, from Halifax. He said that about 10 per cent of Canadians are disabled. This is something that I, and I think many people with me and many of my colleagues, tend to forget. He said that although the disabled represent 10 per cent of our population, federal spending for the disabled in this country has dropped in the last three or four years. He also said that although there is a great deal of unemployment among disabled Canadians, there is only one co-ordinator for the disabled in the four Atlantic provinces, only one for the province of Quebec and only one person co-ordinating programs for the disabled in Ontario, and there is only one person for the four remaining western provinces.
Mr. Speaker, it is not fair, in a country that has so much wealth and resources, to have-

-to have such a little money going to people who are disabled. That is one change we should be making. The Hon. Member for Moncton (Mr. Cochrane) says we have had a lot of task forces. There was a parliamentary task force established about four years ago. Members of all Parties participated and dealt with the problems of disabled Canadians. My understanding, according to Mr. McCormick who appeared before us, is that they made 19 recommendations and only six of them have been acted upon by the Parliament of Canada. I suggest that it is time we got our act together collectively in terms of doing something for the disabled in Canada. We have, as was mentioned before, the recommendations of Judge Abella whose report came down in the latter part of November. She made recommendations about employment equity for disabled people. I suggest those recommendations be implemented as soon as possible.
The first objective of the action group on jobs was to give ordinary Canadians a forum in which to speak out and tell us about their problems, whether they be disabled, women, fishermen, loggers, miners, young people or whoever.
January 25, 1985

Our second objective as we went across the country was to try to discover some new ideas from the people of Canada. I genuinely feel that there are no experts in this regard. I do not feel that there are any experts in terms of creating jobs. The best experts are the ordinary people of Canada. They know their communities best. They live in them. They have a better idea than most of us as to what should be done. We came across many new ideas. I suppose if there was a theme, the theme was that in the past there have been too many centralist programs imposed by Ottawa or by St. John's, Newfoundland or by Halifax, Nova Scotia. There have been too many centralist programs devised by economists, too many theories about how to put people to work or about how to organize industry. We were told time and time again that they had too many such programs.
They said that they wanted a more decentralized approach based upon the self-reliance of various communities. They wanted small-scale development based upon local economies. They wanted more decentralization, not megaprojects and large spending programs as they have seen so often in the past. In fact, Michael Kay, a representative of the Social Action Committee of the Archdiocese of St. John's, said, "What we should have are employment strategies that are based on small scale industrial approaches throughout the Province of Newfoundland". He also said, "We need more worker-producer co-ops in the Province of Newfoundland".
We heard from students Gavin Will and Nina Patey from Memorial University who said that they needed more incentives and more help for small business in Newfoundland. They said that they needed more encouragement from the federal and provincial Governments for the co-operative movement which worked so successfully in the Province of Quebec-
[ Translation]
-in the province of Quebec and in my own province of Saskatchewan, where the co-operative movement is very strong-

We have had a lot of success with it. We heard from Keith Davis from the Newfoundland Unemployment Action Committee, who said, "What we need are more community-based developments. We need local control. What we need is local initiative".
I think the message from these people is a very clear one. The direction in which we should go is helping people to help themselves. We should try to develop appropriate industries and businesses based upon local communities. We should take a serious look at trying to establish more assistance and set up co-operatives and at trying to help the co-operative movement.
Then we heard a couple of ideas about taxation which I think are interesting and at which I think we in the House should take a look. A university professor by the name of Bob Hill talked about the fact that most jobs in the country are created by small business. He made the point that we have a flat tax for corporations. Whether or not they make a large or a small profit, there is a flat tax for corporations. He suggested
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taking a look at changing it from a flat tax to a progressive tax for corporations. For example, a small company which was not making much money would pay a much lower corporate rate, and a larger company making a killing would have its tax rate rising very progressively in a similar way as now applies to individuals in Canada. I think that is an idea worth looking at. Perhaps it might be one way to help small businesses in Canada. It also might be a way of raising revenue from the large and wealthy corporations which are doing very well. He also said that we should take a look at special taxes when it comes to single-industry towns and communities. Often a big company will come into a community because the market internationally is very good. It makes a lot of money, a large profit, and then the market turns down, the mine closes, the company disappears and everyone is laid off. He suggested that we should look at the possibility of a special levy or a special tax when times are good placed on big companies in single-industry towns. He suggested that that tax should be turned over, not to the federal Government or the provincial Government for its plans and ideas, but to the local municipality, town, village or whatever in order to diversify the economy or the economic base of the particular community.
If such legislation had been in effect years ago, perhaps Schefferville would still exist as a fairly decent community within which to live, with a few opportunities for its people despite the fact that Iron Ore closed down that particular mine.
These were some of the ideas of ordinary people who appeared before the task force. After the first few days of setting up this action group on jobs. I knew there were many people out there who had many ideas. They have stories to tell about what we can do in their communities. The general theme was to look at appropriate, small-scale development, particularly in places like Newfoundland and Cape Breton where there are many small communities-perhaps a job here, five jobs there and ten jobs there, but jobs which will be permanent, long-term and relevant to their particular economies.
As I said, there were three objectives. The first was to give people a forum and the second was to get some new ideas. The third objective was to try, through this mechanism and others, to ensure that the job issue remained as the number one issue on the parliamentary agenda and to ensure that it was the most important issue addressed by the Government and indeed by all parliamentarians in the House of Commons. If we could use this mechanism to give people a forum in which to present new ideas and to put pressure upon us as Members of Parliament so that we deal with the issue, I think we are making a great contribution to the future of the country.
I feel very positive about our opportunities in Canada. I feel we can put the unemployed to work. I feel we can put young people to work. I feel we can be fair and just toward the women of the country in terms of providing them with good, decent-paying jobs and equal pay for work of equal value. I think we can do those things. We can become a nation of producers. We can own and control our own economy. We can do all those things, but we will only do it if this House of

January 25, 1985
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Commons, this Parliament, takes the leadership and tries to help people help themselves in the various communities from coast to coast as we try to build a new vision for the future of Canada.

Mr. Speaker, during the three days I spent in the Atlantic provinces, it became clear from the people we met and the way they spoke that there was an area with greater self-reliance than anywhere else in Canada. They mentioned a system for decentralization which we have here now, but they also spoke with a great deal of pride in referring to Newfoundland or Cape Breton or Halifax, and those people were very positive.

They are also very optimistic about the future. I think we in this country can have full employment. I think we can do very well.
I started by referring to remarks of the Pope when he was in Canada. I will conclude by quoting something else he said:
Men and women are meant to contribute by their work to the building up of the human community, and so to realize their full human stature-
He also said:
Prolonged failure to find meaningful employment represents an affront to the dignity of the individual, for which no social assistance can fully compensate.
I think we have a challenge which we are up to meeting, if the House collectively makes it the most important issue in the country. Rather than try to impose things upon people, we should work with pe'-nle to solve the problems province by province, community by community, neighbourhood by neighbourhood.


Mr. Crofton:: Mr. Speaker, new-found religion is a wondrous thing. Like my colleague from Moncton, I congratulate the New Democratic Party for venturing into Atlantic Canada where it has no representation. I hope it will find the time and energy to visit other parts of the country where it does not have representation. It will discover that the misery and suffering is widespread in Canada, the result of 20 years of inept and inappropriate legislation which has driven the country to the verge of bankruptcy.
The only way that we will get things back on track is by comprehensive legislation, which I hope the New Democratic Party will see fit to support when my Party presents it over time. Running about with a box of band-aids will not solve the problems that we face. That is the mechanism the Liberals used over the years, and we have seen the results.
I cannot help but point out to the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom) that over the years when my Party was attempting to focus the attention of Parliament on the problems of this country, every time the Liberals got in trouble it was the NDP that propped them up and kept them in office. It has to share the responsibility for the troubles we have in this country.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member made a few interesting comments. He commented on the voting record of our Party in terms of the Liberal Government. He should check the record. He will find that his Party in opposition voted with the Government twice as often as our Party. If we are sleeping with the Liberals, I do not know what his Party was doing with them because it voted with the Liberals twice as often. It did not even hang onto its pyjama bottoms.


Royce Herbert Frith: Were they wearing kilts?


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: They were not wearing kilts either.
The Hon. Member tried to be sarcastic. He said that at the present time we do not have any members of our caucus from Atlantic Canada. That kind of attitude cost the Liberals the last election. After several years, Canadians assumed they were insensitive to parts of Canada, that they were getting smug with Canadians. For reasons like that, they were thrown out of office. I am sure the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillin-gate (Mr. Baker) will agree that this is a fairly objective analysis.
I say to the Member opposite that we may not have any federal representation at the present time, but since September 4 we won our first ever provincial by-election in Newfoundland. We won a by-election in Saint John as a result of a seat that was vacated by the Minister of Forestry. That riding had been held by the Conservatives since Confederation. We tripled the size of our caucus in the Nova Scotia election on November 6. Therefore, our Party is on the march in Atlantic Canada. If the Government is not more sensitive to the problems of this country, it will go the same way the Liberal Party went on September 4. We are not a country that can be governed centrally in terms of great monolithic plans. We must have a great deal of flexibility in the way we approach matters. We are a diverse country and I hope the Member opposite realizes that.


Mr. Baker:: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the Hon. Member on his speech. Following the remarks of the Conservative Member, I want to point out a couple of matters to the Hon. Member who made the speech. First, the reason why there are no daycare centres throughout Newfoundland is that that province never had an agreement with the federal Government for cost sharing under the Canada Pension Plan for a daycare centre network. There are two provinces in Canada which do not have agreements. The provincial Government there, which happens to be Tory, does not consider it a high enough priority to establish daycare centres in Newfoundland.
The intervention by the government Member was very interesting. In the New Direction for Canada, which was presented to the House by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), he puts forward a very novel way of solving the problem of our primary industry in Newfoundland. He says there must be a rationalization of fish plants and workers will have to be relocated to other parts of Canada or into other occupations. In other words, he suggests closing down the very nature of the workforce.
January 25, 1985

A policy statement was forwarded by the Newfoundland Government to the new Conservative Government in Ottawa. Interestingly enough, it is entitled Discussion Paper on Major Bilateral Issues between Canada and Newfoundland. I do not see too much wrong with requests made by the Newfoundland Government for increases in amounts of money which go to the province for infrastructure. There are incredible infrastructure requests.
What I find interesting is the philosophy of the typical ultra-Conservative where the document states: "Productivity improvement universally recognized as an objective for the Newfoundland economy must also preoccupy our public and private discussions". Another part refers to Newfoundland's productivity problems. There are references to that throughout the document.
The point is that the primary resources are the principal employer in the Newfoundland economy. You cannot compare the productivity of a fish plant worker in a fish plant that makes fish into a frozen cod block to be exported to Massachusetts where it will be made into a final product with the productivity of the fish plant worker in Massachusetts. You cannot compare the productivity of both those fish plant workers, which is what every economist has done for the Newfoundland Government and the federal Government for as long as I can remember. This reflection in a document by the Tory Newfoundland Government is insulting, to say the least.
That is basically what is wrong with the Newfoundland economy. The document complains that the previous Government was preoccupied with secondary manufacturing and, therefore, there should not be grants for secondary manufacturing. The whole thing is out of kilter. It is unfortunate that there is not a discussion between Newfoundland and the new federal Government to tackle seriously the problem of having practically no final production in a primary industry.
It is unfortunate that that is not an issue in this document on bilateral issues. They say our productivity is low. They should ask why it is low. It is low because there is nothing for them to do but to export a raw product to another country to be made into a finished product. We would not have a person unemployed in Newfoundland today if that problem were seriously tackled. Not a person in Newfoundland would be unemployed today if the Government had any thought for the people and about what is being done in the primary industry in our province. Tory philosophy will not help either the provincial Government or the federal Government which stated in its "Future for Canada" that it will have to relocate people to jobs in other parts of Canada.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Hon. Member. He made an excellent speech and a very fruitful tour of eastern Canada. During his tour of eastern Canada, he must have met a lot of young people who are very concerned about summer employment. I am specifically referring to postsecondary students. He must have encountered concern being expressed by groups and individual students. Will the Hon. Member comment on the questions raised and concerns encountered?
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: I respectfully remind the Hon. Member that he has less than one minute remaining.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, we probably have more concern about youth unemployment than anything else. There are over 700,000 young people officially unemployed. It was raised time and again that these are the official figures but the real figures are probably much higher, particularly in places like Newfoundland where there are many people unemployed.
There was a great deal of concern about the cut-backs announced by the federal Government in November. There were cut-backs in government services, on the First Chance program, Summer Canada, programs that put young people to work. One concern with respect to Summer Canada was not just the fact that students would not have work this summer, but the effect this would have on the community.
Some of that money was used to organize day camps for young children. This not only affects the students who work on that program but the young children and the handicapped involved in that program. What will happen to them in July and August? These are some of the concerns we heard about.
Time and again we heard that the Atlantic Provinces do not have a big sector in terms of large companies. There was concern about the line of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Minister of Finance that the private sector would rescue us and it would be the generator of wealth and jobs in Canada. When they talk about the private sector, they talk about the large corporations, and yet we were told time and again that there are not many large private corporations in Atlantic Canada. What happens to them under this new philosophy? That is why we must move toward smaller scale and more appropriate development and toward more self-reliance. We must move toward co-operation, working together and building a new Canada in which everyone participates, not only the powerful and the rich.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: The time is now over for questions and comments. Resuming debate.


Mr. Fred McCain (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to join with others who have given members of the NDP credit for their trip to Atlantic Canada. I think it is a worth-while exercise, as our Party found during its terms in Opposition. However, I think the next step is the proper interpretation of the requirements and an understanding of what has been done and what is planned to be done.
Let us take a look at some of the items which have been considered by this Government to date which were not considered by the Government which preceded us. I can list some of the agreements which have been signed, and they include the Canada-Prince Edward Island Subsidiary Agreement on Tourism, the New Brunswick Tourism Development Agreement, and the agreement with the Province of Newfoundland, which took place in spite of the fact that, according to the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate (Mr. Baker), Newfoundland has received nothing. There is in fact an agreement

January 25, 1985
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with respect to pulp and paper modernization within that province. The list includes the Fisheries Subsidiary Agreement in the Province of Nova Scotia and the Canada-Nova Scotia Tourism Subsidiary Agreement. The first meeting of all the Ministers interested in the development of tourism was held in Moncton, New Brunswick. There was an awarding of a contract to Internav in Cape Breton regarding the frigate program. And the list goes on.
The Government's program is one of consultation and consideration. This program will continue, will be constructive and will produce results. However, let us not debate this motion as if the Government had been in power for 21 years like the preceding Government. Let us not land all the criticism and blame for all the problems which exist on the present Minister who spoke earlier this morning. That man needs time. Most of the criticism which has been directed at the present Government rests entirely and properly with the opposition Party on your left, Mr. Speaker.
We accept proper and constructive recommendations but we bemoan the fact that all these recommendations are made in criticism of this Government without any reflection upon the inheritance the Government has been handed by the electorate. It is an inheritance which we are quite prepared to accept, with which we are prepared to deal and which we must, in the long term, be held responsible for correcting. However, we must not be held accountable to criticism at this point in time.
For instance, I believe it was the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Dingwall) or the Hon. Member for Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe (Mr. Tobin) who spoke about freight rates and their negative influence upon the economy of Atlantic Canada. I shall tell you, Mr. Speaker, about the freight rates on one agricultural processed product that apply today when it is shipped from a shipping point in Ontario. If one were to ship a case of 12-ounce cans of kernel corn from Ontario to New York City, it would cost 27 cents. If it were to be shipped to Newfoundland, it would cost $1.22. I say to those two gentlemen whom I mentioned earlier that that is what the Government inherited from the Liberal Government, yet those Members held seats in that Government and were silent on that subject.
If one were to ship a case of corn to Hamburg, Germany, it would cost 76 cents, but if it were to be shipped to Newfoundland, it would cost $1.22. We inherited a negligent system of Government by a Party now led by the Right Hon. Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Turner). That corn could be shipped to Japan for 14 cents more than it costs to ship it to Newfoundland. That is what we inherited.
Those Hon. Members who are from British Columbia should be concerned about the fact that while a case of corn shipped to Japan costs $1.36 and probably goes through a western port, it costs $1.63 to ship it to Vancouver. Please note that it costs $1.36 to ship it to Japan and $1.63 to ship it to Vancouver.
I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that any criticism of the transportation policy or freight rates coming from members of the Liberal Opposition in this House is a criticism of their own
behaviour. It explains the position in which we now find ourselves of trying to distribute Canadian products within Canada when it costs more to ship something to Vancouver than to Japan and more to ship something to Newfoundland than to Hamburg, Germany. That is not very fair treatment to Canadians and that is what we inherited.
In this debate, I have not heard members of any Party, except perhaps the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate, place any emphasis on the fishery. I would like to tell Hon. Members that there is forestry, agriculture and research; there is education, industry and health programs, all of which are being addressed in the consultative process which the former Liberal Government ignored, with the support of members of the NDP.
It is all right to complain about any reductions which may have been made without mentioning all of the agreements which have been signed to which I referred earlier. It is not proper or ethical let alone fair to sit on that side of the House and suggest to the nation that this Government is reneging on its responsibility when both Parties supported the health Bill introduced by the former Minister of Health who is now long gone which reduced in real dollars the amount of money going to Atlantic Canada for health and social welfare purposes. I am speaking of real dollars, not counted dollars. That Bill had the support of members of the NDP, unless my memory fails me completely. They are now being critical of any changes related to Atlantic Canada which they discern in the budget.
I would ask the public to judge. I will not use the adjectives which are applicable under these circumstances because they would not be polite. I will try to practise good manners. However, I have very great difficulty in keeping my thoughts innermost when it comes to this situation.
That is sort of like the question regarding the fishery which was raised in the House earlier today. The negotiations for the fisheries agreement as it relates to both the Atlantic Coast and the Pacific Coast were undertaken in total secret. There was no opportunity whatsoever for fishermen, processors or others involved in the industry on either coast to have meaningful input into those negotiations. The agreement has never been made available to the Fisheries Committee at any time, as you know, Mr. Speaker. We are speaking of the secrecy with which the last agreement was negotiated on the West Coast at a time when the fishermen and processors were present at the negotiations. They were part of the total structure, as pointed out by the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Fraser) today, somewhat to the consternation of the Member who was questioning him. The Government is being open, consultative and is working in the interests of the whole of Canada as well as of Atlantic Canada. There has been a great deal of progress made in the understanding of the problems of Atlantic Canada.
How about the additional grant which was made to the Research and Productivity Council of New Brunswick? As we are being critical of the fisheries situation, how about the fact that the former Minister of Fisheries would not and did not sign a fisheries development agreement with the Province of New Brunswick? We could expand on that. However, I do not
January 25, 1985

have the time to go into the rhetoric which would be required to detail the reasons why this occurred.
We cannot be expected nor can anyone be expected to have done in less than five months enough to correct all of the damage that was done since 1963 under Liberal management with the co-operation of the NDP. It cannot be done. It is my hope that we do not direct ourselves to the use of the public purse at large for all of the problems which exist in Canada, including Atlantic Canada. We must first create the economic climate which will encourage people to invest in Canada, including Atlantic Canada. If people cannot lift themselves by their own bootstraps, they must lift themselves by their own energies and resources. That is the goal we have established.
I would have to say to you, Mr. Speaker, that if some of the systems practised by this Government are as bad as they have been criticized in today's debate, why were they not changed? I ask the Hon. Member for Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe, the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate and the Hon. Member from Cape Breton, why were those things not changed? Why are they an inheritance? The great bulk of the criticism of this Government is in fact a criticism of the Government of which those Hon. Members were back-benchers some time ago, and things have not had time to change.


Royce Herbert Frith: How has Mr. Hatfield been doing?


Fred Alward McCain: I beg your pardon?


Royce Herbert Frith: How has Mr. Hatfield been doing in New Brunswick?


Fred Alward McCain: You know, Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are always looking for some devious way to distract and deflect from the issue, to pull red herrings across the trail. Let us keep it in the House of Commons where it belongs and let us not go boot licking and muckraking.
The frigate program was mentioned earlier today. I would like to say to the House that the frigate program was awarded to a firm in Saint John to the great consternation of other parts of Canada. It then became necessary to negotiate how much of that contract would be spun off to the rest of Canada. It took months of consultation and consideration to deflect that work from New Brunswick, but they did it pretty well, Mr. Speaker. The primary contractor is in the Province of New Brunswick, and it ended up that the Province of Quebec got 50 per cent more benefit than did the Province of New Brunswick.


Mr. Rossi:: What have you got against Quebec?


Fred Alward McCain: I have nothing against Quebec. I am against robbery from New Brunswick.


Carlo Rossi: What have you got against Quebec?


Fred Alward McCain: I answered you. Pipe down, small change, before you get spent. I would have to say, Mr. Speaker, that
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fortunately most of the Hon. Members from Quebec have better manners than the Hon. Member who is interjecting at the moment.
Mr. Speaker, there has been some criticism of the program of this Government as it relates to Devco. Also, the difficulties in Stellarton, New Glasgow, Amherst and other places in Atlantic Canada were mentioned. Let us get down to that. When Devco became a public operation, financed federally and provincially, it became a subject matter for study, for procrastination, delay and underfinancing. A steel mill that was in a reasonable condition to produce when it became a public entity was underfinanced until it collapsed and became virtually incompetent in the world of steel today. Whether or not it can be resurrected, I do not know, but let us move now-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Fred Alward McCain: Did I once interject during the remarks of any speaker in this House today? And I have been here all day. I only ask for the good manners which an Hon. Member should have in this House.


An Hon. Member:: Hear, hear!


Fred Alward McCain: There was a business in Stellarton in the Pictou-New Glasgow area-


Carlo Rossi: Don't touch Quebec.


Fred Alward McCain: -which was involved in the building of railroad rolling stock. It was sophisticated to the point that red hot ingots were moved from the steel mill in Cape Breton to the construction forging industry in the New Glasgow-Pictou-Stellarton area. At that time that was a very prosperous town, but I want to draw to your attention, Mr. Speaker, the differences in policy. The last order which was publicized by CNR for rolling stock was, as I understood it, from the press, by government edict prior to September 4, to be distributed in a threefold way among other parts of Canada to the detriment of Devco and New Glasgow-Stellarton-Pictou. And why is the Hon. Member from Cape Breton, who is a member of the Party which did that to Nova Scotia, now complaining? Is that not rather inconsistent? Another example is the very important budding industry in the aeronautics field in the town of Amherst, the home of the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Coates). It had great promise at the end of World War II. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to question the Liberal Members as to why that industry is not thriving today. It is because it was government policy that virtually every aeronautical order should be deflected to other parts of Canada, and so the industry no longer has the significance which it might well have had.
These are policies which we have inherited, along with the poverty which goes with them, and it cannot be corrected overnight. As the Hon. Member for Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe was so kind as to point out, I have worked for improvement and I will continue to work for it, as will this Government. We are not going to say to any part of Atlantic Canada, as did Ministers of the previous Government, supported by the

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New Democratic Party, "We won't sign a fisheries development agreement with the Province of New Brunswick unless it all goes our way". It was a prejudicial, political patronage proposition-not patronage to the individual but patronage to the Liberal system-which has put Atlantic Canada into the position in which it now finds itself.
Chatham was also mentioned and the unemployment in the Northumberland-Miramichi area, but, Mr. Speaker, we are not the ones who removed the major part of the Air Force activity in Chatham. We are the ones who put it back. And it will take time to overcome the damage which was done to the employment situation in the Northumberland-Miramichi. The intelligent voters of that constituency got on the right track. They elected a different person. I must say that that particular Liberal candidate was thrown to the wolves almost deliberately by the Liberal Party. I feel sort of sorry, although I know a politician has to run the risk of defeat, but that man was abused by his own Party to a degree which just shows the character of the Liberal Party and its occasional lack of loyalty to some people who were trying hard to serve their area.
I sincerely hope, Mr. Speaker, that with a combination of leadership, consultation and co-operation between Government, management and labour and between the Government of Canada, the provincial Governments and the municipalities, this Government can in fact stimulate-and I am confident it will in fact stimulate-a climate in all of Canada, including Atlantic Canada, which will be better. I am sure that that will in part at least, and automatically, address the problem of the unemployed and disadvantaged people of this land. It is difficult enough to find employment for the healthy, competent, capable and undisadvantaged people of this land. Certainly, as the whole problem is addressed, the problem of the disadvantaged will be addressed automatically. Emphasis is placed on the idea that everyone should, and we hope will, have an opportunity to work. That certainly is absolutely necessary.
I just want to say in closing, Mr. Speaker, that no group of people anywhere in the world has the capability in just over four months to turn around the mess and to correct the damage which has been done to an economy which should have suffered a much better fate since 1963 when it fell into bad hands on a persistent and continuing basis. The concern which is now expressed today in this debate contradicts, I believe, the sincerity of the same people when they were Hon. Members of this House and of the Government. The Hon. Member can shake his head in contradiction of that, but the fact remains that there was no forest ministry to look after the industry and had there been, it might not have been necessary in Newfoundland today for the Government of Canada and for Newfoundland to subsidize the modernization of the industry. There might not have been any need for that. There would have been planning in a major way which would have provided better leadership than we have experienced. I think these problems are being seriously addressed, and the benefits will soon begin to show themselves more obviously than we now see
in the figures from StatsCan which indicate that unemployment in Canada is falling, that incomes-


Carlo Rossi: Who said?


Fred Alward McCain: StatsCan. No one else.


Carlo Rossi: That is not true. Those people are back on welfare.


Fred Alward McCain: StatsCan is back on welfare?


Carlo Rossi: No, the people on the unemployment-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Order.


Fred Alward McCain: Your manners are not improving as the day grows longer. You are getting more testy.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I must say I am particularly intrigued to hear the suggestion that unemployment, according to StatsCan, is getting better in Atlantic Canada. I have in front of me the December labour force survey which indicates very clearly, on an adjusted or unadjusted basis, that in Atlantic Canada unemployment is significantly worse than it was a year ago.
My questions, however, are to the Hon. Member as a senior member of his caucus and a representative from New Brunswick who, I assume, is just as concerned as I was to hear about some of the realities in parts of his own province. I quoted earlier today some of the statistics from Miramichi which suggested that the real unemployment rate there was well over 50 per cent. Would the Member be prepared to make a commitment to the House and to the people of New Brunswick to take up some of the concerns expressed to our action group sitting in Moncton, as it met with people from across the province? One concern is the CBC cut-backs which have hit Moncton. This service is important for the francophone community in New Brunswick. Second, there is the concern of the New Brunswick Federation of Woodlot Owners. They indicated that six weeks ago they spoke with the Minister of State for Forestry (Mr. Merrithew) and asked for a fair allocation of the money available for reforestation which they feel would give them 350 extra jobs. Let me assure you, Mr. Speaker, and the House that this is not some kind of partisan exercise on our part. The goal is to give to groups who do not have powerful voices the chance to have input in what is taking place in our country.
Would the Hon. Member be prepared to follow up many of the questions raised with us about the negotiation process between Noranda and New Brunswick with respect to the zinc refinery in the province? A great deal of money was committed by the province, and yet Noranda failed to follow through. Finally, would he take up as well the concern expressed to us by the Newcastle and Chatham District Labour Council concerning UIC cuts planned by the Minister to start taking away at the beginning of April the ability of workers to receive severance pay and vacation pay without their being taken into
January 25, 1985

account in calculating their UIC entitlement? I referred earlier today to the problem of early retirement.
As a senior member of his Party's caucus would he see to it that his Government responds to the serious concerns in New Brunswick of which we were informed when we were in Moncton?


Fred Alward McCain: Mr. Speaker, the people of my constituency are extremely concerned about the fact that it takes almost $1 billion to run the CBC. In my constituency where American stations can be received directly, approximately 95 per cent of the viewing time is spent on American programming, directly or indirectly, or programs from Australia or England. People are not watching the programs produced by the CBC. Therefore they are somewhat critical of the CBC, and until such a time as the CBC justifies its mandate, in their opinion, well, I would then perhaps support a correction of that situation. But as long as 95 per cent of the television viewing is of programming other than the CBC, there is no support in my constituency for CBC and its productions. I think that addresses that question.
The next question concerned the Federation of Woodlot Owners. I think our policy will provide at least some of what the federation is asking for. I am quite confident that when the budget and the final plan for the new Ministry is in place, the Hon. Member will have a satisfactory answer or something approaching a satisfactory answer to that question. It was a very proper representation and I appreciate it.
There is one thing that neither you nor I can do, Mr. Speaker, and that is, to correct the world market for metals and minerals. Until such time as world prices have improved, I see very little likelihood that it is viable for New Brunswick, Noranda or the Government of Canada to proceed very much further with an expansion of that industry. Yes, I understand the hardship of unemployment. I have run around this world in my life with very empty pockets in my time. I understand that. Nevertheless, we on this side of the House or you on that side of the House cannot correct world prices for the products we produce. Unfortunately, that is the way it is.
Again, I urge the gentleman to await the budget. I think at that time both he and I will be in a better position to appraise those matters he has raised other than the three I answered directly. I want to wait and see the budget. I do not know what is in it any more than do Members to the left of the Speaker, and I shall not know until it is on the table. Then some of these things can be addressed directly and definitively.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, I simply want to say to the hon. gentleman opposite that as strongly as I disagree with a number of the observations he has made, I assure him that this Member, still with much to learn having been here not quite five years, holds him in the highest regard.
I want to say to him that to suggest that the current freight rate controversy occurring in Atlantic Canada is the result of the previous Government's policy is inaccurate, untrue, and I know it must have been an inadvertent comment on his part. He knows that the CTC has just ordered Terra-Transport to
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raise its rates by up to 39 per cent on 127 items, and the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) has refused to intervene. I have a letter from a very large wholesale business in my riding in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. The gentleman said that in western Newfoundland they are currently getting the best service they have ever had. He strongly suggests that I intervene to see that they are not penalized merely to satisfy the desires of a company to make more money. That is a decision which has now been taken by this administration, one about which this Transport Minister has refused to intervene.
I have another telex from another large company operating in my riding. It says that rates presently being charged by Terra-Transport are consistent with inflationary trends going back over the years. This is again protesting the new rates that have been brought in under this administration. The hon. gentleman knows that the 15 to 20 per cent increase on CN Marine charges are-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: I am sorry. I regret that the 10 minute period is now over. We will resume debate.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon) for bringing this motion before the House today. I feel it is a very important and urgent question. I congratulate him for taking the initiative to bring this as an NDP opposition motion. I would particularly like to say how much I agree with his opening statement. He said that the House should recognize the extreme urgency of the unemployment crisis in Atlantic Canada. The Hon. Member toured Atlantic Canada for three days with other members of his Party. I also congratulate him for the initiative he took in that regard. I do not downplay the fact that he did not spend a longer period of time there. I realize the time constraints which he has as a Member of Parliament which did not make it possible for him to spend a great deal of time there.
As a Member of Parliament from that region I would like to say that what he saw and heard is only a small part of the depth and concern that exists in that part of Canada. We have all spoken in the House about how marginal are the pensions for senior citizens. I can tell Members of the House that I constantly meet with constituents who are living with three or four of their brothers or sisters or offspring as well as their parents. Three generations are living together. The income which is keeping that family alive is the pension or pensions of the grandparents or parents. That is the only income in that family, and that is not an exception. It is a very serious situation.
Although I do not disagree with the four points which the Hon. Member makes, I would not want the House to believe that these four points will put us well on the way to correcting the unemployment situation and the problem of regional disparity in our area, because they will not. As accurate as they are, they do not go nearly far enough to correct the situation. He says that we need proper resource management to rebuild
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the forestry, fishing and coal industries. There are other industries which are in dire straits, such as the agricultural and manufacturing industries. He says that we need self-directed community programs to expand permanent jobs through co-operatives and small business. This is very important. However, if you ask the employers in these communities, they will tell you that that in itself will not be enough. Co-operatives need direction, assistance, planning and financial infrastructure to work with them.
The greatest problem of small businesses is where to get capital. Who will invest in a business in a depressed area of high unemployment and regional disparity? Yet the Government is practically encouraging the Federal Business Development Bank to be a profitable corporation. Is that agency there to help areas of high unemployment with regional disparity, or is it there to make a profit? The Government must decide that.
In Sydney, Nova Scotia, whether or not you give a personal guarantee, you cannot get a commercial mortgage from a bank or a finance company. How can you have small business if the normal channels of commerce will not help you? The Government says that it can be done through the private sector. Mr. Speaker, the private sector has been tried and found wanting. What is going to be done?
The problem begins with the Government. You have only to look at the economic and fiscal statement to see which area of Canada was most affected. The Government has said that the Atlantic region is expendable in the next election if it cannot please all areas. You do not need it written out for you; you need only read the economic and fiscal statement.
Look at the attitude of the Minister. Members in his Party cannot tell me that the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens) is sympathetic to regional development. No one who has spoken to the Minister will have heard any indication that this is a concern of his. I am not saying this to be critical. I wish he were in the House now so that I could tell him this. The Minister is from Toronto and he may not have a feeling for it. I honestly hope that I am wrong or that he can develop that feeling for it. However, at the present time I sincerely do not think he has a feeling for regional development.
This is a serious matter because, as the Minister said this morning, he is also chairman of the caucus committee on economic and regional development in the Government. That is a tremendously important position. As he said, he co-ordinates all the Departments. Regional development is the coordination of the activity, finance and input of all Departments. Regional development is made up of transportation, trade and commerce, training and grants. It is all-encompassing. There is a total lack of understanding in this very important area.
The Member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez) asked what the Liberal Government had done. I agree that the Liberal Government has not provided all the answers. In fact, I still say that one of the worst mistakes it made was to disband DREE. I agree completely. The reason disbanding DREE was such a mistake is not the obvious one. It is because we brought
DREE and Industry, Trade and Commerce together. The people in IT and C, who are not at all concerned with regional development, were able to overshadow and smother the voices of reason which existed within DREE. The thinking of IT and C completely took over and smothered the concept of regional development.
When this Government came to power there was one little problem which remained. In the areas of Canada where regional development was a major question and IT and C and DREE had joined, DREE was a larger agency, so its thinking was able to predominate. The Minister ignored them completely. If you went to the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion now and asked a question, they would not answer, as was the case with the previous Liberal Government. They would not say that they were not allowed to comment because it had not been approved or passed. The Department will not tell you that. People there will say, "We don't know. We do not know what is going on. We are not involved in this". What you have, Mr. Speaker, in areas in this country are trained professionals in regional expansion and regional development who have absolutely no input into areas for which they are supposed to be responsible.
Let me come to the recent announcement about Pratt and Whitney, on which I congratulate the Government. It is an excellent decision and it will be good for Nova Scotia. I have one concern. I could not find out in Halifax, in Moncton, the regional office, nor in Ottawa what the federal input was. Nobody knew. I know that the Province of Nova Scotia is not going to finance the whole amount. I do not care whether the money comes from the federal Government or the provincial Government. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Speaker. My concern, and I said this to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), is the precedent that Members of Parliament, people and concerned individuals will not be able to find out exactly what is transpiring in the Province of Nova Scotia, in other provinces and in regions of this country in which they have a vested interest. My goodness, people who live in areas of regional disparity have more of a vested interest in their area than people in economically successful areas. They have been deprived. They lack things that people in other areas take for granted. They really have paid the price to be able to know what is going on.
I say again to the Minister of Defence (Mr. Coates) that the same thing is now going on with regard to the Sydney Steel Corporation. There is no written formal request from the Province of Nova Scotia to the federal Government requesting funding for the second phase of the Sydney Steel Corporation. There is no question about that. I know that the Minister, the Solicitor General (Mr. MacKay), the Premier and the Minister for Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens) have had meetings. But there has been no formal request from the province, yet this is a provincial Crown corporation. Is it not reasonable to expect the Province of Nova Scotia to write formally to the federal Government and tell the federal Government what it wants? What is going on here? What kind of a shell game is this where the whole thing is shuffled, money
January 25, 1985

will be doled out, but no one will know on what basis? No one will know the business plan used for the first stage or the funding on which the first phase was based. Was it based on the business plan that we requested? We wanted to make sure that the funding was going to be used in the interests and for the success of the industry and ultimately the success of the region. If we do not know on what it was based, we will not know whether it was applied properly. This is improper. This is not only bad government, but it is completely betraying the trust of the people whom this Government says it wants to benefit. This is incredible, Mr. Speaker.
This Government has said that Devco, the Cape Breton Development Corporation, had losses. Sure Devco had losses. But what has the Government done? It has gone to the other extreme completely. There is no knowledge of what is going on. The Minister says he is going to make important announcements, but nobody knows what those announcements are going to be. No one knows on what basis they are going to be made. The corporation has completely strangled all activity. It has two divisions, a coal division and an industrial development division. Nothing is being allowed to go on. At the first of last year a firm of consultants did a study as to what changes should be made in the corporation. The draft of that study was ready in August, but it has still not been released. People wonder where their jobs are. They cannot operate efficiently under a situation like that. It is very serious.
The Minister said this morning that money was just put away and thrown out. Every time people from Atlantic Canada say they are not getting anything, they are told they are making a political football of the area. There are people with no incomes other than pensions. Families consisting of four and five people are living on that. I am supposed to be afraid to comment on that because I would be making a political football out of it. What kind of callousness and inconsideration is that?
The Minister gave a speech this morning. It was uninformative and condescending. It just made a joke out of this very important question. It is not a joke. It is an extremely serious situation. I do not have to limit these comments to Altantic Canada. This Government is blind to a very real problem in the country. What is developing in this country is not only developing in Altantic Canada but, unfortunately, this is the only sector on which we have taken the lead.
In Toronto you see hopelessness. People have no hope for the future in this technological age. There is no way of being retrained. The Government does not want to retrain them. The most precious thing in this country is the life of each individual. This Government says that there is no hope for fulfillment or a chance to live this life to the fullest. What is developing? I cannot overemphasize that what is developing is a society within a society. The society we see officially is the upwardly mobile society with education and aspirations. What the Government wants to suppress is the society without hope, without jobs and incomes. But they want to be able to eat and live and to have things even in a small way that ordinary Canadians take for granted. I see people like that in my constituency. I
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see them all the time; included are young people who went to school and finished school. Many of them have one or two college degrees but they have nothing to look forward to. Yet when the jobs become available there will be a group who will graduate behind them and you will hear, "These students and young people have been unemployed for three years. Obviously they do not want to work". This is callousness of the highest order. It just will not wash.
The Government says it wants to develop regional development. But it does not know what regional development means. The Government says, and the Minister of National Defence can substantiate that, it that has allocated $8 million for the City of Sydney in a subsidiary agreement with the Province of Nova Scotia, which the province did not go into. That $8 million was passed by the Cabinet of the former Liberal Government and passed by Treasury Board. The subsidiary agreement was brought up, but where is the $8 million? If the Government is so concerned with regional disparity, why does it not at least put money that has been passed to work?
What about the income security office that was cancelled as a result of the economic and fiscal statement on November 8? This office was supposed to decentralize 85 jobs from Halifax to Sydney. The federal Government had already spent $1 million on decentralization. People had been trained. Perhaps they had opportunities for other jobs. Others had given up jobs in the hope they could have one of the positions in Sydney. But the Government cancelled the decentralization. Where did the $1 million go? This was a $2.1 million saving. One million dollars was wasted, of which $400,000 was to renovate a building that still stands unoccupied. This was an industry with a potential for employment. It had a potential for spinoffs that could develop with immunity and provide economic stimulation for an area that badly needed it.
If we are going to create regional development we have to do something with the communities. What if an oil company says it wants to locate in a certain place? Is the Government going to say that because it is going to give the company such and such a percentage of financing the company has to go to such and such a place? The oil company people will laugh. The oil company will go where it wants to. The oil industry and any industry will say to the Government, "We will go there, or we will go somewhere else, or we will not go at all". If Pratt and Whitney had said, "We are going to Halifax and that is it," what would the Government have said? Would the Government have said, "No, Pratt and Whitney, you are going somewhere else"? It is not that Pratt and Whitney would have said that, I am just using Pratt and Whitney as an example. This is a serious situation. It is not a situation that can be dealt with in simplicity. It takes work, but it also takes compassion and interest toward the people affected.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Are there any questions or comments? If not, we will resume debate.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, I join with other Hon. Members of the House of Commons in thanking

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the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon) who introduced the motion today. 1 was not a member of the task force which visited Atlantic Canada on behalf of the New Democratic Party. However, I have travelled there in the past as the co-ordinator of Atlantic issues in our caucus. As a result, I have had an opportunity to visit many of the communities visited by the task force over the last little while as well as some other communities. I am glad to see the Hon. Member for Annapoplis Valley-Hants (Mr. Nowlan) present in the House for the short time he has been with us today. I congratulate him upon having an NDP MLA elected in his riding. That will be of long-term benefit to the people of that riding.
Seriously speaking, the people of the Atlantic region have some very peculiar and special problems which have not been addressed by government over the last many years. Certainly Governments, both Conservatives and Liberal, both provincial and federal, have thrown money at various problems. Money has been thrown at Sysco. Money has been spent on Devco. Money has been spent on the fishing industry and on the forest industry. Money has been spent to keep this plant and that plant going. However, there has never been any concrete economic planning done with the people of the regions.
In travelling through that region I learned that basically governments do not listen to the people of the region. In the briefs which our force received over the last week in Atlantic Canada there were a number of different ideas presented by co-ops, unions, social action committees, community development associations and others concerned about what was happening in their community. I discovered that time after time local people were not listened to and that the people who worked in Sysco and in Devco were not listened to. For example, the people working in Sysco can tell us that the coke oven is falling apart or that some things have not been rehabilitated for 30 years or 40 years. They can tell us where the bottlenecks in the plant are. However, when decisions are made, they tend to be made by government officials or by company officials who have really not taken the time to understand the problems of the plant. Quite often that is more true when a government is running the operation. The reason I say this, although I am a socialist, is that because governments running operations, whether they be at Sysco or Devco, do not really believe that they can do a good job at managing the operations. It is not a priority of the Government of Nova Scotia to ensure that Sysco is doing well. It was not a priority of the previous federal Liberal Government to ensure that Devco was running well. That is the problem. If we do not have a commitment to make something work it will not work.
I listened to the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys (Mr. MacLellan) talk about how sad he was to see that the Department of Regional Economic Expansion was closed down and became incorporated as part of the new DRIE. He explained that obviously the people in Regional Economic Expansion lost influence, that they had less to do with actual decision making within the new Department and that the people running the new Department, including the Minister,
were really not listening to the people in charge of Regional Economic Expansion. That is something which I said as former spokesman for the NDP caucus on regional economic expansion. I said that we needed a separate organization within government concerned about regional economic expansion out there working with the people and the companies to ensure that economic expansion was taking place within the regions. Unfortunately, Industry, Trade and Commerce has different priorities. In its plannings it reacts and acts upon its own priorities.
I believe that things can be done for Atlantic Canada. As was indicated in the motion, we can build our industries upon the resources of forestry, fishing and coal. We can listen to the people and work through community programs. We can have affirmative action to help women in high unemployment regions of the country. We can develop the steel industry through Crown corporations. However, we can only do that if the people in planning in government listen to the people affected and make the development of Crown corporations, community-based programs and businesses a strong priority.
The problem in part faced by Devco, Sysco and the fishing industry has been the lack of a real commitment by government or by the senior bureaucrats who advise government. The responsibility cannot rest only with senior advisers to government. Responsibility in a parliamentary democracy must rest with Cabinet Ministers. They are the ones who must ensure that their own advisers are working full out and giving direction to their own workforces to ensure, for example, that a roof at Sysco is not caving in. When I visited the Sysco operation three years ago, that was literally the case. As we walked through its plant we noticed that parts of the roof were slowly falling to the ground. That had been the case for years, and nothing was done about it. It was the same at Devco. More development had to take place there. No one was doing anything about it. The Cabinet Ministers of the Liberal Government at that time were not making anything happen. They were not ensuring that Departments were active or that the Cape Breton Development Corporation was developing the mine to its best capabilities.
I realize I do not have much time to speak on this motion. However, I should like to point out that when we listen to the people, we hear suggestions and ideas which will make a big difference. In the brief submitted to the task force by local 1064 of the United Steelworkers of America in Cape Breton, there were a number of suggestions about the development of Sydney Steel. They talked about the need to finish products in that operation. They pointed out that in the history of the Sysco operation at one time it was part of an integrated system for the development and finishing of steel. However, when Hawker Siddeley pulled out of Cape Breton, it left only part of an operation which was not integrated with the other aspects of the steel industry. Right from the beginning we had a Crown corporation which did not meet the needs of a modern integrated steel industry. Ever since that time, even though a lot of money was poured into Sydney Steel, there was never a
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development plan which would produce the finished products that Sydney Steel needed.
I do not have time to read it all, but it is interesting to read how the steel workers presented a number of suggestions in terms of developing wire rod products, light structural steel, by-products from coke. They went through the different means of modernizing the Sydney Steel plant which is so important to the community.
It was interesting listening to the spokesmen from the co-operative movements. The Cape Breton Co-Operative Council made a presentation to the task force. M. N. Cote, a great leader of the co-operative movement, was quoted. He talked about the necessity of having an attitude whereby we and others who are concerned can develop our ideas not just about profits and dividends, but about developing our community and having a different feeling about what it means to be in business. To be in business is not just to take money from the community. It must be a part of your whole self. You are part of the community, part of the greater world.
What was the basis of the strength of the co-operative movement in Cape Breton? That ideal is something that Government must consider more. It must consider the development of community businesses. They are not there just to make the dollar. There is nothing wrong with making a dollar. Obviously people are in business for a purpose, the same as people take a job for a purpose, but there has to be more to it than that.
A major problem is that federal and provincial Governments tend to look at the megaprojects. When I was spokesman for regional economic expansion, one year I received figures on what was happening with some DREE programs. It was interesting to note that when you broke down the money for industrial incentives, in one particular year $75 million went to what were considered large corporations. They produced 4,691 jobs. That same year, $25 million in federal government money went to small corporations and small operations, and they produced 4,681 jobs. The Government gave the large corporations an extra $50 million, three times as much as it gave to the small corporations, and they produced only 10 more jobs. It will be interesting to know how many of those large operations are in business today and producing the products which the federal Government paid to be produced.
That proves the bias that exists in too many government programs. The money is given to the large operators but they do not necessarily produce that many jobs. Many small manufacturing companies and industries produce long-term jobs in a particular community. The whole approach of Government in underdeveloped areas, such as Atlantic Canada with a number of small and medium sized communities with high unemployment rates, should be to look at the small fish plants, small lightbulk factories and other small operations which remain in a community and produce jobs for people in that area. It is important that the woodlot owners be considered in any forest
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industry program. That is something that the Government obviously is not doing.
I recognize that my time is almost up and that others wish to speak, so I will conclude with a few short words. I hope that in the next little while this House again develops the ability to look at expansion on a regional basis. The debate today, which basically focused on Atlantic Canada, has given us that opportunity. It was nice to hear a Liberal back-bencher who was previously the Parliament Secretary to Minister of Regional Economic Expansion, the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys, admit that a mistake was made. I hope the new Government will bring back the Department of Regional Economic Expansion so that there is a Department specifically working for development of the regions and sub-regions of this country. This is important and necessary. Under DRIE or the other Departments, the underdeveloped regions of this country will never be developed. The people in those regions will not be listened to and they will not know who is making the decisions that affect their lives.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Questions or comments?


Mr. Gerald Comeau (South West Nova):: Mr. Speaker, not having the oratorical skills of the Hon. Member for Carleton-Charlotte (Mr. McCain), I will keep my comments brief. I draw the attention of the House to the part of the motion before us which reads "proper resource management to rebuild the forestry, fishing and coal industries". I was pleased to hear the New Democratic Party finally concede that the problems it helped create together with the Liberals leaves the rebuilding of our vital sectors to us, the only true national Party with the courage and the will to tackle the problems of Canada head on.
Had the New Democratic Party not cosied up to the Liberals throughout the years and had it shown some courage, we might not have inherited such grave problems from the previous Government. I point out that the people of Atlantic Canada twice made a decision in the past few months, on September 4 and again on November 6 in Nova Scotia, sending a message loud and clear throughout all of Canada.
The Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon) indicated that for too long short-term make-work programs have been the way to do things. I agree with the Hon. Member. I ask the Hon. Member to drop the Party's traditional ties with the Liberal Party and join us in solving the problems that face Atlantic Canada.
I was pleased to hear the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Dingwall) chide the NDP for professing its new-found knowledge of the plight of Atlantic Canada. I would suggest they make a few more trips to Atlantic Canada before becoming the spokespersons for the people in that area. I invite them to spend more than three days in Atlantic Canada. As one Member said, we need the tourist dollars.
The Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor talked about a student at the University of Moncton who did not have a job.

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[ Translation]
I hope he does not have a job right now because he is supposed to be taking his courses.

I say to the Hon. Member that these students are unemployed at the moment because they are in university. There might be another way at this time to help create job prospects in Nova Scotia.
I would like to draw attention to an article that appeared recently in the Chronicle-Herald of Nova Scotia. In that article, the Leader of the provincial New Democratic Party spoke after an announcement made by the Minister of Development in Nova Scotia of the first phase of the Pratt and Whitney proposal to build an aerotech business park in Nova Scotia. The article reads in part as follows:
The first phase will cost $ 124-million and employ 275 people when fully operational; the second and third phases, which are conditional on the first phase's success, are expected to create 1,000 jobs.
What does the Leader of the New Democratic Party in Nova Scotia have to say about this? She is skeptical about Pratt and Whitney and feels that it deserves opposition attention. According to the article, she said:
"I think it's our responsibility as an informed opposition party to really subject that job creation proposal to the closest of public scrutiny and analyze it in terms of our costs and benefits," she said.
I would suggest that the Party across the aisle might ask the Leader of the New Democratic Party in Nova Scotia to welcome this type of investment. I certainly welcome it. I do not believe that the people of Nova Scotia are against the creation of a thousand new jobs.
Before resuming my seat, I would like to comment on the suggestion of the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-East Richmond that the private sector cannot take up the slack of creating jobs. I shall quote from a recent article in The Globe and Mail which reads as follows:
But few businessmen are complaining about the Conservative Government so far.
"A lot of the responsibility now will rely on people like ourselves who are running companies and employing people to generate work,"-
This was said by Mr. Rowe, the President of both IMP Group Ltd. of Halifax and the Halifax Board of Trade. He went on to say:
"Jobs may come particularly in the export fields, but it's up to the private sector to create those jobs ... working closely with government."
I would like to relate a little conversation I had with a businessman from Halifax while on the airplane from Nova Scotia last week. This businessman said: "Thank God, Mr. Comeau, that you form the Government. We were starting to lose hope and confidence, and it was about time you people went in and started doing the kind of confidence building that you have been doing over the past few months. Keep up the good work, and if you want any further comments like this one, I will be glad to get many more business people to pass these kinds of comments on".
In closing, I would invite the Hon. Member for Essex-Wind-sor to return to Atlantic Canada at any time in order to see what is happening down there. I think he will find that there are a lot of people with optimism who are happy about the way things are going. In echoing some of the comments made by the Hon. Member from Moncton earlier this afternoon, I would say, let us not create patchwork programs. Let us get on and rebuild all of the regions of Canada. Let us rebuild not only Atlantic Canada but Quebec, central Canada and the West as well. Let us bring it all in under one truly national Party.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Questions or comments? Resuming debate.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take up this debate from the point at which it was left by the Hon. Member for South West Nova (Mr. Comeau). I certainly appreciate his contribution to the debate. As he was concluding he said that he had been speaking with some business people from the Atlantic Provinces who said that they were beginning to lose hope and confidence and that that was why they were happy to see a change in government. While I was happy to see a change in government, I think that the Hon. Member for South West Nova and members of his Party should realize that there are a lot of unemployed Canadians in Atlantic Canada and across the country who have been losing hope and confidence because of the situation they face. They cannot see light at the end of the tunnel. They recognize now that it may be a fact that a recovery which does the private sector good may not in fact be a recovery that puts them back to work.
There have been two years of economic recovery in this country and yet the unemployment rate is still approaching 11 per cent. That is a modest improvement from a few months ago; nonetheless, it is a level of unemployment which would have been intolerable just a few short years ago.
When our task force on jobs went to Atlantic Canada, met with people and began to look at alternative policies, it began to recognize that Atlantic Canada has some particular problems caused by its dependence on resource-based industries and the fact that most parts of Atlantic Canada are distant from the major markets of Canada which are in Montreal, the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario and the West. Therefore, it faces heavy transportation costs and difficulties in terms of access to other parts of the domestic market here in Canada.
Atlantic Canada faces real problems, and one of the problems is that the private sector has shown a willingness to overlook Atlantic Canada in a pretty consistent fashion over the course of the last few years. Where the private sector has been prepared to come into Atlantic Canada, the conditions that multinational enterprises have set have been conditions that I for one and my Party in general find very difficult to tolerate.
I can recall, for example, the anti-labour bias of the Miche-lin Corporation which led to its having the Nova Scotia Government pass specific legislation that effectively gutted the
January 25, 1985

labour laws of that province at a time when the workers of the two tire plants run by Michelin were on the verge of getting certification for their trade union. I can recall similarly the Newfoundland Government snapping to attention when it was asked to implement anti-labour legislation in connection with the pulp and paper mill in Corner Brook in the very recent past.
That kind of behaviour is what leads people in my Party to feel that a reliance on the private sector alone will not be enough to bring Atlantic Canadians back to a level of employment, prosperity and hope for the future that we believe they deserve. That is why we began this task force on jobs by going to Atlantic Canada, and why we will now continue looking at some of the same issues in other parts of the country in addition to returning to Atlantic Canada later on in the tour.
I recall that during the election campaign, members of the Progressive Conservative Party said that their platform was jobs, jobs, jobs. We found out on November 8 that that priority had changed and that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) had decided that the priority was to overcome the deficit and, once the deficit had been overcome, then perhaps enough confidence would be reinstated in the private sector to somehow begin to create a resurgence of economic activity in the country.
My colleagues from British Columbia can tell the House that the resurgence of confidence in the business sector, if it has occurred, has certainly not had an impact on that province. If anything, the situation in that province is worse than it was just a few short months ago. There has not been a resurgence there and that province has had the dubious benefit of two and a half years of cuts and reductions in government spending and of the other kinds of nostrums or remedies which the Minister of Finance wishes to impose upon the country as a whole. If those remedies are imposed on the country as a whole, then I regret to say that we may see the consequences in Atlantic Canada which we are now seeing in British Columbia of a further increase in unemployment and less confidence and hope for the future than that which exists today.
My colleagues on the task force who visited Atlantic Canada, as was faithfully and warmly mirrored in the speeches made by the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor and the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom), found that despite all the adversity and problems, there is still a great deal of courage and hope for the future among the ordinary Canadians who came individually and in groups to speak to the task force in Nova Scotia and in Newfoundland. They found that people were prepared to seize opportunities but that they were looking for partnership, for open doors and for ways that they could rebuild and re-base the economy of Atlantic Canada using new techniques and alternatives.
One of the reasons why we have the task force to which the New Democratic Party has committed so many resources is our sense that it is time for all of us in this country and all of us in this Parliament from whatever Party not to look back in
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the past to the days of Adam Smith, as the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens) seems to want to do. We should not be looking backwards to what happened in 1979 or 1980, as so many of the Conservatives seem to want to do when they rise and talk about our Party. We should not be looking backwards to some golden age of capitalism and free enterprise, but we should be looking forward with an appreciation of the economic problems and opportunities which we in this country face over the course of the next decade or two. I believe we must do this with a sense of urgency. That urgency is certainly reflected in the wording of the motion which was put forward by the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon). The fact is that 13 per cent or 14 per cent of the population of Atlantic Canada is unemployed now, and there are many more people in Atlantic Canada who have become so discouraged that they are not looking for a job at all. Among young people in Newfoundland the unemployment rate exceeds 20 per cent, and all that the Conservatives in Newfoundland can offer their Government is the fact that after six years in power a royal commission has been set up to see whether there are solutions which could be found. That is an answer, Mr. Speaker, which I certainly believe is totally inadequate.
When I say we must start to look for alternative solutions, I think, among other things, that this House and the Government of Canada should be aware of the kind of ferment which is taking place around us, both in Canada and in other countries around the world. I was struck when I was in England two years ago at the birth and growth of the co-operative enterprise there which has been created by trades people, young workers and other people because of the economic disaster which has been brought on by the Government of Margaret Thatcher. There are new kinds of enterprises which are growing there, Mr. Speaker, not to overcome the problems but at least as a response to the problems. Despite the adversity of the economic climate in Britain, some new things are happening in that country.
I was struck when I was in Minneapolis about three years ago that in that State there was a far more diverse range of different responses to economic problems than I had expected to find in my preconceived notion. There were all kinds of mixed enterprises and joint task forces and so on providing community services and community economic development. We have seen that in this country as well, Mr. Speaker. We have seen the growth of alternative industries and the birth and creation of new ways of doing work and organizing enterprises in the private sector, the co-operative sector and through joint operations in which perhaps provincial Governments, perhaps municipal Governments and private individuals have become involved. Those kinds of alternatives, it seems to be, should be encouraged and not discouraged.
That is one of the reasons I am disappointed in some of the early signs of a new Government which promised change when it came to power on September 4. The signs are that this Government does not appear to understand that at all. Just around Christmas, the Minister responsible for housing, his

January 25, 1985
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Department and the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation took away 500 units of grants from co-operative and non-profit housing corporations and gave them to developers in the private sector. Perhaps that could be seen as a small step, Mr. Speaker, but it was a brutal blow to an important part of the housing industry and a part of the housing industry which I believe ought to be allowed to grow and not to die. One of the consequences of the November 8 cuts was that there was a cut of $16 million on an annual basis in the federal Government's program through the National Research Council of support for research and development in the alternative energy industries, including solar, wind, peat, hydrogen and conservation energy, a whole range of technologies which were being developed by a rapidly growing and very important new industry. This is an industry which I believe should be particularly important to Atlantic Canada because of its dependence right now on petroleum based energy. The fact is that until today there has not been the success we all had hoped to see in terms of actually delivering the petroleum and natural gas resources which appear to lie offshore in Atlantic Canada. Even when those petroleum resources are developed, Mr. Speaker, there will be important markets for them in the United States and in the rest of Canada. Conservation and alternative energies form an opportunity for new industries in the private sector in Atlantic Canada and for ways in which Atlantic Canada can overcome its chronic and long-standing energy deficits.
This resolution speaks about a revitalization of the coal industry in Cape Breton, which is another way of overcoming the region's energy related deficit. What is happening, Mr. Speaker, in that particular area, is that the National Research Council's division of energy has pulled the rug out from under a lot of the companies which were pioneering in this particular area just at a time when those technologies were becoming competitive with traditional forms of energy. I cite that as example because it seems to me that the new Government should be encouraging alternatives, new ideas and new approaches to doing things. That is what we are trying to do through the means of our task force. One of the things that we can do as an opposition Party is to go out and listen to Canadians.
The Hon. Member for Moncton (Mr. Cochrane), I believe, started to attack this Party for having a task force at all, apparently having forgotten the degree to which those task forces were used by his Party when those Hon. Members were sitting on this side of the House of Commons. I make no apology for this approach at all. It seems to me that that is one of the vital functions which we in an opposition Party can perform. But we need to do more than to listen to Canadians. We need action as well. That is why our task force is going to devote itself to finding plans for action and alternatives which can be practically implemented in order to ensure that jobs will be created for the people of Atlantic Canada and for the people in the rest of Canada as well.
One of the criticisms which is beginning to emerge of the desire for consultation on the part of the new Government is the fact that it seems to want to listen forever but does not do
anything. It seems to have forgotten about the need to produce some of its plans in the form of white papers which would result in a more constructive form of consultation. There are some very serious problems there, Mr. Speaker, in terms of the fact that the Government does not understand that when one consults, one has to be committed to action as well, and that action is not forthcoming.
[ Translation]
Mr. Speaker, in listening to his comments, I noticed that the Hon. Member for Moncton (Mr. Cochrane) said the proposals made by the New Democratic Party were not far-reaching enough to respond to the economic crisis in the Atlantic provinces. I agree that the motion presented by the Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon) could have been a bit longer and more detailed, but nevertheless, we tried to concentrate on the most important factors that would at least start the process of rebuilding the economy in the Atlantic provinces.
We, on our side, Mr. Speaker, are engaged in a participatory process consisting of discussions and meetings with people from the Maritimes and also from Quebec, Ontario and the Western provinces.
At this point, I would like to say a few words about the situation in the province of Quebec. I noticed that in his speech, the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens) made no reference to the situation in the St. Maurice area which is now suffering the effects of shutdowns at the Wabasso and Melchers plants.
Here we have an example of problems created by the private sector for which the private sector has no solution. A comprehensive policy requires a commitment on the part of the Government, not just speeches in praise of the private sector. It requires specific practical measures, measures that must relate to the skills of people, of small businesses and businessmen in the regions, if they are to create jobs.
Up to now, Mr. Speaker, we have seen that this Government has tended to go on about the importance of the private sector, while ignoring the problems facing Canadians in all regions of this country, a country where we unfortunately still have an unemployment rate of over 11 per cent, and now 12 per cent in the province of Quebec.

I want to conclude, Mr. Speaker, by saying that I am proud of the work our task force on jobs is doing. I intend to be with the task force when we visit Quebec, Chicoutimi, and the Lac Saint Jean area in the course of the next week or so. I hope and believe very strongly that we will have constructive alternatives to put forward over the life of this task force which will have real meaning to the people of Canada and which we expect to see acted upon by the Government if it is really
January 25, 1985

committed to the change it promised during the election campaign.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Order, please. It being five o'clock p.m., it is my duty to inform the House that
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proceedings on motion are expired in accordance with Standing Order 62(11).
Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until Monday at eleven o'clock a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).
At 5 p.m. the House adjourned.

Monday, January 28, 1985