1985-01-28

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, January 24, consideration of the motion of Mr. Stevens that Bill C-15, and Act respecting investment in Canada, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Regional Development.
Mrs. Monique Tardif (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, the Bill now before the House is a major piece of legislation. It provides the cornerstone for a very substantial part of our economy. Bill C-15 should be seen as a dynamic measure to promote and welcome the positive contribution that can be made by foreign investment, since the specific mandate of Investment Canada is to encourage investment in order to promote growth and increase employment. By being positive with investors and providing them with a good environment, not only will Canadian businesses remain in business, they will expand and hire more employees. However, to make this happen, it must be made clear that Canada is open for business. That is what Investment Canada wants to do, and it is vital to our economy.
In fact, I know very few business people who would want to invest in a plant that is apparently closing down. We must make it abundantly clear that we are in business for good and that investment is welcome. That is how we intend to keep Canada, this beautiful country of ours, from being sold for a song to foreign interests.
Mr. Speaker, people buy an old warehouse to tear it down, but they invest their money in a business that is doing well. We must revamp our economic image for the rest of the world. We must do what too many years of Liberal neglect have left undone, and that is exactly what this Bill intends to do.
Mr. Speaker, it is most unfortunate that despite the very real importance of the Bill now before the House, the quality of the debate on this legislation should be so poor. Up to now, more than fourteen hours of debate have been spent on Bill C-15. Thirty-one Liberals, 25 New Democratic Party Members and 13 of my own colleagues have taken the floor. Mr. Speaker, my point is that at this stage, the debate is lagging and languishing. The Opposition is repeating the same arguments over and over again. They are saying we want to sell out Canada at any price and that our country is going to become the fifty-first State. We have explained very clearly that the Bill contains the necessary guarantees that it will welcome foreign investors and stimulate Canadian investment while at the same time preserving our national identity.
They say it will create unemployment at a later stage. We have described the positive impact of the creation of new jobs and reduction of unemployment in the short term. I would think jobs are what Canada really needs now.
On the issue of research and development, they complain that Canada will not have its share. We have answered time and time again that although the legislation is not directly concerned with promoting research and development-the Government has other policies to that effect-the direct impact of clauses 5 and 20(c) will be to promote research and development in Canada.
The Liberals accuse us of breaking with a tradition established by Sir John A. Macdonald, a tradition that supported protectionism, especially where the United States was concerned. I would say that the Official Opposition, which today is taking an anti-American protectionist line, is the one that is breaking with a traditional position of its Party, a tradition adhered to more specifically by one of their leaders, Mackenzie King, who was Prime Minister in the 20th century, not the 19th century. Times have changed, Mr. Speaker, though not everyone seems to realize it.
Finally, and this was a real stroke of genius, they accused us last week of breaking our election promises and refusing to listen to the outcome of the consultations on this Bill. Mr. Speaker, there has been considerable proof to the contrary. First of all, from what we have been able to gather in our ridings and from letters from constituents, we can conclude, and they know it, that the majority of Canadians are in favour of the measures proposed in Bill C-15. In fact, I think the best way to prove this would be to immediately refer the Bill to committee where witnesses and intervenors can be heard.
Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that the Liberal and New Democratic Party Members will support this motion if they are truly concerned, as they claimed last week they were, about helping us fulfil our election promises.
As one of their own, the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme) said, the real work on a Bill does not take place

January 28, 1985
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in the House. Let us therefore proceed and go to committee right away.
Mr. Speaker, at this stage in the debate, the Opposition has exhausted its arguments but continues to take the floor, one Member after another. It is clear from the repetitiveness of the Opposition's arguments and the fact that they have nothing more to say about the Bill. I may refer to the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate (Mr. Baker), who, quite candidly, set the tone for the debate as the first Member to take the floor when the House reconvened last Monday. In concluding his speech, he said, and I quote:
1 have not even been able to address the Bill since I began speaking at eleven o'clock.
That says it all, Mr. Speaker. Especially since we have had 56 speeches from the Opposition's 70 Members. It seems to me they cannot complain we are preventing them from speaking to this Bill.
Instead of wasting our allotted time, I suggest that we proceed immediately with the next stage. Canadians will thank us for doing so. If we do not know how to manage our time, how can we manage the country?
Mr. Speaker, I therefore move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Levis (Mr. Fontaine):
That the question now be put.


Mr. Deans:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It may well be that I have misunderstood the rules and perhaps you could help me in this regard. However, it was my understanding that it required a Minister of the Crown to move such a motion. Perhaps you could clarify that for me, Mr. Speaker. I seem to recall that as being the case.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the Hon. Member would like to find the rule in the Standing Orders that makes such a stipulation. All I find is Standing Order 56 which simply indicates that once the motion is put, it precludes all other amendments. That is all Standing Order 56 indicates. I am prepared to hear argument on the matter if the Hon. Member has some argument to make. However, I know of no such argument that would have its foundation in our Standing Orders.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, quite frankly, I was caught a little by surprise by the putting of the motion. I would have anticipated its having been put by a Minister. I assume you would allow me to make some argument on the matter after Question Period today in the event I am able between now and then to come up with what I believe to be the situation, which is that it would require a Minister to move such a motion. I would simply ask that you allow me the latitude of making such argument should I wish to after Question Period today.


Mr. Axworthy:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. The step taken by the Hon. Member is one that comes
with some surprise and disappointment to members of that caucus because, as we all know, this Bill is a centrepiece of the entire economic strategy of the Government. Therefore, one would have thought that a member of the Ministry would have been responsible for the drastic action that has now been proposed. As a result, I think the motion should be held in abeyance until such time as we can marshal those arguments, because I think it is a very curious, strange and somewhat unorthodox move to have a Member of the Commons move this motion and to have Ministers of the Crown absolve themselves of all responsibility for such a diabolical and difficult initiative which closes off debate on such an important Bill.


Mr. Speaker:: I am in some difficulty. I must say to Hon. Members that I cannot reserve on this matter. As a matter of public record, the last time this motion was moved was under the previous Government and it was moved by a Private Member on the back-bench. There is a clear procedural paper out on this matter for all Members to follow and there is no question in my mind from reading the rules that there is no restriction on the moving of this motion in terms of whether it be by a Minister of the Crown, a Parliamentary Secretary, or a Private Member.
In fact, as Hon. Members may know, the motion is usable during Private Members' Hour, which means by definition that it must be moveable by a Private Member. Therefore, I find that I have no reason to reserve and that the motion is properly before the House. For the record, as I am reminded, the motion is, of course, debatable. Debate.


Mr. George Baker (Gander-Twillingate):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak on the motion which was moved by the Hon. Member for Charlesbourg (Mrs. Tardif). I suppose it is only fitting that I speak to the motion, as the Hon. Member referred to me as having spoken for 20 minutes in the previous debate and remarked that at the end of that time I had not dealt with the subject matter of the Bill. In getting myself out of that quandary, I checked and discovered that the actual motion which we were debating was a motion for a six-month hoist. The reason for that motion was that the Government had not displayed in its policy, and had not shown in its legislation, that it was consistent with its stated purpose in bringing in the legislation.
The Hon. Member stated that all of the arguments had been presented, that the Opposition was holding up the Bill, and that there was nothing new to say on the subject. I am sure all Hon. Members of this House read Hansard. We can review Hansard to see some of the excellent speeches which were given, for example the speech which was given by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy). That was one of the best speeches given this session on the Bill. One of the worst speeches was the speech of the Minister when he introduced the legislation. A very interesting speech was given by a member of the New Democratic Party; however he was continually interrupted by the Minister during his address.
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In reaching my point, I would like to read into the record what the Minister said during his address to the House. He said:
I remind him that when FIRA was put in place unemployment in the country was slightly over 5 per cent. Today it is over 11 per cent.
The Minister made these remarks on December 11, 1984. He went on to say, as reported at page 1094 of Hansard:
That did not regain what we lost in 1981 and 1982. What about the money that left?
Presumably, the Minister was talking about the money which left the country. Later on in the debate the Minister disbelieved the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Lang-don) when the Member pointed out that direct foreign investment in Canada was not as the Minister claimed, and that it had actually increased over the years since FIRA had been established. The Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor stated at page 1100 of Hansard:
From a negative balance of S4.4 billion in 1981 we had a negative $900 million in 1982. In 1983 we were up to a positive $200 million and so far in 1984 we were up to a positive $1.3 billion.
Another Hon. Member in the House then asked: "What is your source?" The Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor said that his source was Statistics Canada. Of course, the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor was absolutely correct in the figures which he read into the record. What has been missed in the debate up to this point was why there was such an outflow of capital from Canada into the United States in 1981 and 1982. Was it really an outflow of cash?
If we look at the gross inflows of capital into Canada from the United States, we see that since FIRA was established in 1974 the gross inflows of capital from the United States had actually increased. The figure increased and reached its maximum in 1981. If we examine the gross outflows of investment capital from Canada into the United States, we find that that figure also peaked in 1981.
If we were to use the logic of the Minister in making the statements he did in his speech, as well as the logic used by Hon. Members in being questioned after their speeches, we could say that FIRA itself, since it was created, actually brought investment capital into Canada from the United States the like of which had never been seen before 1974. But that would be a bit dishonest. We could say as well, as the Minister claimed, that the gross outflow of capital from Canada into the United States which peaked in 1981 and 1982 was a loss to Canada, that we lost jobs in Canada because that money flowed into the United States. But the point of my argument, Mr. Speaker, is that when we examine cash outflows from any country, we have to look in effect at where that money went and for what purpose.
The fact is that Statistics Canada makes no distinction in their figures. When we examine the record and other figures we discover that that large investment in 1981 and 1982 went into buying branch plants in Canada which were owned by
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Americans. So the statistics showed really a net outflow from Canada for the years 1981 and 1982.
When we examine the figures for the United States, we would say that there was an incredible increase in the actual gross inflows into Canada from the United States from the point at which FIRA came into operation until 1981 and it still maintained a high level up to 1984. But we would also have to ask ourselves the question: What is the net U.S. direct investment? The Minister, when introducing the legislation, was very quick to point out that in 1981 and 1982 the net U.S. direct investment was a negative figure.
However, he failed to point out that there are two distinctions. The first is where that capital went. That capital went to buy branch plants located in Canada. The investment was made by Canadians but the money went to the United States. The Minister also did not point out that the largest growth in investment capital inflows into Canada from the United States happened since FIRA came into operation in 1974.
It is also interesting to note, Mr. Speaker, that in introducing her motion the Hon. Member claimed that the Progressive Conservative Government was on the way and that jobs were already created in the private sector. That, Mr. Speaker, is like the argument used by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and by the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Miss MacDonald). But when did the greatest increase in private sector jobs happen? The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that it works out that in the three and a half months under this Government, 27,000 jobs per month were created. During the last three months of the Trudeau administration, 32,000 jobs a month were created in the private sector. During the Turner administration, 33,000 jobs per month were created in the private sector. No one, Mr. Speaker, goes back to find out how many jobs were created in the past. They use the figures with some kind of twisted logic to make it seem as if the Government is actually doing something.
By the same token, if we examine foreign investment in Canada from the United States and we match up the gross inflows with the gross outflows and come up with the net U.S. direct investment, we find that the largest amount of net investment which has come into Canada was during the first nine months of 1984. If you break it down further, by the month, you discover the greatest U.S. net direct investment came during the administration of the Turner Government. But to say that that was because of the actions of a government is really stretching the truth.
There were a lot of things missed in the debate so far on this particular legislation, Mr. Speaker, which should be brought before this House. For example, there was no comparison made of the impact of this legislation. There is a question to be asked-is my time running out, Mr. Speaker?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It has just about run out.

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George Baker: I have not even gotten to the argument I wanted to present. However, I am sure there will be another opportunity to do that later in this session.


Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, the Government did not accept the opportunity put before it to take another six months and look at this whole area of foreign investment. This morning the Government effectively put closure on debate. That, I guess, is an indication of the kind of democracy we can expect from the 211 members of the Conservative Party who are Members of the House of Commons. They will not accept the idea of democracy being an opportunity for the Opposition to put all of its arguments before the House, as well as an opportunity for the people of Canada to see what their position is and where they are going. What the Government is now doing is limiting the amount of information which will go out to the people. It therefore becomes our responsibility to do it more directly.
One of the things which has not been brought before this House is the alternative the Government has in this whole area of foreign investment. There is no shortage of investment capital in Canada. In 1974 10 per cent of the country's gross income was put into savings. Between 1974 and 1982 it went from 10 per cent to almost 14 per cent, and it is my understanding that in 1984 and 1985 it increased further. As I said, there is lots of investment capital in Canada and we do not need to bring in foreign capital with no strings attached. The problem is an unwillingness on the part of business to invest in Canada. In light of that, the Government should be attempting to stimulate the economy so Canadians will invest. That should be the first step.
How can the Government do that? First of all, a point which has been made several times in this debate is that takeover investment is not good investment for Canada. We know foreign investment is not good investment for Canada and takeover investment has a tendency to eliminate jobs. Buying a new firm with available money does not create jobs because those jobs are already there. That is just using available capital to increase the portfolio of a particular company. Foreign capital is always suspect because it may help Canada in the beginning but at some time in the future that money is going to go back to its parent company and will not help Canada.
In some ways FIRA was not a very good operation. It did not work particularly well, but at least it was in place to define the parameters under which foreign investment could enter Canada. This Bill is attempting to take away those parameters which foreign corporations investing in Canada had to consider. Instead of allowing foreign capital to come in with no strings attached, we should be establishing criteria for the investment that is coming into Canada. After those criteria have been established, we should set up a monitoring agency. That is what FIRA was supposed to do. It did not do that well but it was there. We should be strengthening the monitoring
powers of the corporation rather than eliminating them entirely.
What should the criteria for Canadian investment be? Since our biggest problem is unemployment, investment should be aimed at that. Takeover investment should be eliminated. The impact on the local community should be included in the criteria. The amount of effective development of skills which will make long-term jobs worthwhile and increase the standard of living of the affected people should be considered. The impact of investments on the balance of payments of the country should be controlled. The eventual impact of foreign investment is to increase the flow of money out of Canada. This adversely affects our balance of payments and forces us to increase interest rates to keep the money in Canada. The criteria should also take into consideration the social impact of the investment on the community and the country.
After establishing the criteria we should establish the objectives of investment. If the Government is going to have an effect on investment and the economy, part of its expenditures must be aimed at stimulating the economy. If business is unwilling and incapable of expanding, as seems to have happened in the last few years, both federal and provincial Governments should inject investment money into the economy to stimulate it. I could name a dozen or so areas that they should be investing in. We have plenty of resources and two million unemployed. We have a great need for housing. We have lots of lumber and other products necessary for the construction industry. We have many unemployed construction workers. Therefore, the Government should stimulate housing programs to help the economy.
Public expenditures in public transit, medical care facilities and education would help stimulate the economy. I find it very disturbing that in communities with several thousand people unemployed every teacher is teaching 30, 40 or even 50 students.
The tragedy of this closure motion to limit debate is that all of these points should be put before the people of Canada as well as the Government. We should eliminate cuts in public spending which affect people directly. We should lower interest rates. All of these are good ways to stimulate the economy which have not been put before the Government. We have not asked the Government to reply to those kinds of alternatives. Instead of that, closure has been moved in order to limit this debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret that the Hon. Member's time has expired.


Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I regret very much having to rise to speak on the motion which has just been put which will prevent the House from giving this very important legislation the amount of consideration which it requires. Perhaps I could take a moment to deal with the procedural aspects of the motion.
By moving the motion which has just been put, the Government is attempting to prevent members of the Opposition from moving any other substantive motions that are appropriate at
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the time of second reading. Since the size of the Opposition is much smaller now than it was in some past Parliaments, this means that Parliament will be forced to vote on this legislation very shortly for the purpose of sending it on through the parliamentary process. That is an unprecedented activity and gesture by the Government in relation to the importance of these issues and the limited amount of time that has already been spent on this subject.
This legislation has only been before us since December. It has not been debated for very long in this House. It has not received too much attention in the country. Its name suggests that it does deal in one way or another with foreign investment. Foreign investment is one of the historically significant issues in Canadian public policy formation. The Government should not be attempting to get this Bill through before it comes to the attention of the vast majority of the Canadian people. The Government is attempting to prevent the Canadian public from finding out that very important changes are being made in the fundamental laws that protect the Canadian economy from the negative effects of foreign investment.
When I heard the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) announce that Canada was open for business, I was worried. It concerned me that by that he must have meant that the foreign investment rules in the country were going to be changed in some significant ways. I am not fully certain, and I do not think anyone who has studied the legislation is, what kind of basis there will be in the future, if any, for protecting Canada from the negative impact of foreign investment.
It is important to note that under the existing legislation which was introduced by the former Liberal Government, with which we have lived since the early 1970s, there was some basis, not for excluding foreign investment from Canada because that was never the goal of the former Government and is not the wish of the Canadian people, but for assuring that foreign investment coming into our country enters on the best possible terms for Canadian interests.
It is wrong to assume that foreign investment or any investment will be good investment. Those of us who practise law and have advised foreign interests from time to time are aware that they like to preserve a certain flexibility and not be bound to the commitment of creating jobs, providing research and development, investing a certain amount of capital and to assuring that the local service sector and its related professions will be used rather than the corresponding industries in the home country of their head office. They would prefer to be completely unfettered and be taken at good faith that they will operate in the Canadian interest. While many foreign investors intend and want to do so, unless we obtain the assurance that they will make their good faith concrete, it is possible that the maximum Canadian benefit will not be attained by that foreign investor in Canada. Therefore, the process that the foreign investment review legislation contemplated was very valuable to the enhancement and development of the Canadian economy and Canadian interests.
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I am sure that all of us, even those who oppose any government role in relation to foreign investment, would like to see a Canadian economy that operates fully in the Canadian interest and that is autonomous and indigenous to the Canadian people. Although FIRA has been in effect for approximately a decade, our present economy is far from autonomous because when we First introduced policies to deal with foreign investment in Canada our economy was very much foreign controlled and foreign owned.
The very important Watkins report which was commissioned and delivered to my colleague, the Member for Windsor West (Mr. Gray), when he was the Minister responsible, revealed the tremendous extent to which we were not in charge of our own economy. While we were achieving considerable benefits from foreign investment, we were also subject to considerable disadvantages which that foreign investment implied.
The question was how we should go about making our economy more autonomous and encouraging the Canadianiza-tion of it in a way that would continue to allow foreign investment to come and stay in Canada. At the same time that policy would have to assure that our Canadian economy would be Canadian-managed, owned and directed to the maximum extent possible.
At the time I recall spending much of my energy Fighting for this legislation and explaining it to those who believe that the least government is the best government. I know there are still many members of the Conservative caucus and Cabinet who retain that unreconstructed Conservative attitude that does not recognize that government be a positive player and that the whole history of developing the Canadian economy has been one of using government to achieve objectives that cannot or have not been achieved otherwise.
I am not saying that in any way to criticize capitalism. I believe that Canadian or foreign entrepreneurs who can be encouraged to operate businesses in areas where profits can be earned can greatly serve the public interest by doing so. However, those entrepreneurs cannot be expected to take account of many of the objectives which are not those of free enterprise as such but very much objectives that it would be in our interest to have built into our economy. The creation of jobs itself is not a direct goal of free enterprise. The direct goal of free enterprise is to create proFits, and if this can be done by reducing employment then it can be understood that businessmen will try to replace workers with machines that produce more efFiciently.
Therefore, one must ask how that concern for employment in the economy is registered and by whom. Such reflection of the goals of business and the goals of Canadians in their economy show that there is much room for government to be active and to develop policies which do not deter the expansion of businesses but encourage and require them to take account of some of the other goals that Canadians expect their economy to deliver for them.
I am certainly prepared to concede that the foreign Investment Review Agency received bad reviews and was criticized

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in some places around the world. One reason for that is that it is a very up-front type of restraint. Although many countries have constraints on foreign investment, in most cases those constraints are less obvious. Even in the United States a foreign investor must actually visit the country and begin asking questions before discovering that there are a great many restrictions on free access by foreign businesses to the American market-place, which is perhaps the most free enterprise economy in the world.
I have seen the studies that were done for Watkins and more contemporary studies that show literally dozens of constraints in the United States. For example, there are restraints under the Jones Act, the regulations of vessels in domestic commerce, the Fishing Fleet Improvement Act and the Merchant Marine Act.
I see that my time has expired. I believe I have said enough to show that there needs to be more concern than is shown by this legislation for the negative side of foreign investment.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


Mr. Cyril Keeper (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, the House certainly is not ready for the question.


Mr. Nickerson:: Yes it is.


Cyril Keeper: Perhaps Hon. Members on that side of the House are ready for the question. It is sad that they should seek to limit debate in the House so early in their career as a government. We are learning that the Conservative Party operates differently in government from when it was in opposition. When in opposition, that Party espoused respect for parliamentary democracy, wanted to reform the House of Commons to give more authority to Private Members and make this place responsible for the public purse. Now that they are in office they limit debate.
This is travesty of the political process. During the election the Conservatives promised more open government. It is now closing the door on more information to Canadians with regard to investment policy. It is a sad moment for Canadians that the Government which promised so much is delivering so little.
The purpose of the Bill that the Government is supporting and at this time attempting to push down the throats of Canadians is to deregulate foreign investment. Deregulation represents the Holy Grail to the Government, a magic formula that is supposed to bring about a rejuvenation of the Canadian economy. It is an empty promise of prosperity for all. The Government has made many promises and has broken them. When it comes before the House with a piece of legislation which once again makes further promises, we have to look behind those promises. We have to ask ourselves what the Government is doing and why it is in such a hurry to push through this piece of legislation.
The aim of this legislation is to deregulate foreign investment and to give it a free hand. Another of its aims is to allow multinational companies to come into the country and do whatever they want without the representatives of the public being able to examine whether their actions are to the benefit of Canadians.
From past experience would we have any reason to want to examine what foreign investment does in Canada? Has foreign investment in the past always been so beneficial that we can assume that it would be done in the interests of Canadians? I should like to raise a couple of questions about the impact of foreign investment in Canada, questions which I think will lead to the conclusion that it is necessary to have some reasonable regulation of foreign investment.
Foreign investment has led to a Canadian economy which is largely dependent upon branch plants in the manufacturing area of the economy, like young children of parent companies in other countries. The branch plant economy in Canada is largely dependent upon its parent companies in the United States.
What happens with a branch plant economy? We are just coming out of the last recession. It is a recession in which we have not recovered from the loss of employment which Canadians are still suffering. There were massive losses of employment during that recession. One of the reasons we lost many jobs was that our economy was vulnerable to the downturn in international economic activity because of our branch plant economy. With the downturn in the economy, the branch plants returned jobs to their parent plants, largely in the United States. They let jobs go in Canada to preserve employment in the United States. It was not only a matter of individual decisions by individual companies; it was a matter of public policy in the United States. Obviously it is in the interests of the American Government to protect as much as possible the employment of its own people. How could one criticize a government which took action to protect the employment of its people?
The Government of Canada, and particularly the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), is a great admirer of the American Government and the American President. I wish the Prime Minister would learn from what that President has done in the area of investment. He has protected employment for his own people over employment in other countries. We need to learn from those actions rather than from the rhetoric of the American President. We need to understand that if we want to protect employment for Canadians, we must have appropriate government policy. We not only need activity in the private sector, we not only need entrepreneurs in Canada who have the courage to create investment and jobs; we also need appropriate government policy in order to ensure that we protect the jobs we already have and the Canadian economy. When the economy turns down and we are still based upon a branch plant economy, we tend to lose more jobs than we would lose if our economy was largely based upon Canadian enterprises.
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Even when the economy picks up, as it is beginning to do now, one problem with an economy largely based upon foreign investment and therefore upon branch plants is that we do not receive the full benefit of investments or economic activity in the country. If a company produces a particular product here which can be sold in the Canadian market and buys the materials it needs to produce the product, it tends to buy the goods from its parent company in the United States. Therefore local Canadian firms, particularly small businesses, lose the market because of the way in which the economy is structured. That is crucial to employment for Canadians. We all know- even the Government knows from time to time-that the part of the economy which produces the most employment is small business. We should be doing everything we can to support small business in Canada.
I see Mr. Speaker indicating that I have only a couple of minutes remaining. One way to support small business in the country is to have an economy based upon Canadian enterprises more than branch plant enterprises, because those enterprises tend to buy more locally and support small business, which in turn creates the most employment possible.
In summary, it is sad and tragic that the Government has moved at this moment to limit debate on a Bill which seeks to deregulate foreign investment. It is a tragedy because it is important for Canadians to examine fully the impact of foreign investment in Canada. We need investment to create jobs, but we need investment which will be responsible. It is incumbent upon the Government to put in place the necessary policies to ensure responsible behaviour by investors in the country so that Canadians have secure jobs.
I ask the Government to open up debate on this question rather than close it down. I ask it to run an open government and make its first concern Canadians and their employment rather than some ideological notion that if it simply deregulates foreign investment, the economy in Canada will automatically improve. We need a serious examination of this legislation. I ask the Government to open up debate rather than close it down.
[ Translation]


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Papineau):: Mr. Speaker, it is regrettable that one of the first initiatives of the new Member for Charlesbourg (Mrs. Tardif)-who has changed her seat but who is in this House where I am much more at ease to speak to her-What I want to say is that it is regrettable that the new Member for Charlesbourg has decided to impose closure on such an important debate in the House. I expected a more constructive approach on the part of the Hon. Member. Her constituents will surely be quite surprised to see her impatience, I would even say her arrogance and certainly, at the very least, her lack of democratic spirit. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, one has to read Standing Order 56 to appreciate the seriousness of the initiative taken by the Member for Charlesbourg., Here is Standing Order 56:
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The previous question, until it is decided, shall preclude all amendments of the main question, and shall be in the following words, "That this question be now put".
And here is Standing Order 56(2) which I quote for the benefit of new Members in this House, especially some of the new Progressive Conservative Members who may not have had an opportunity to read and fully understand the Standing Orders:
If the previous question be resolved in the affirmative, the original question is to be put forthwith without any amendment or debate.
Well, Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Charlesbourg has just moved closure this morning, nothing more, nothing less. With such an overwhelming majority, I would have thought that this government would have been very careful not to show exactly where it stands so early in this new Parliament, because what this means is that Members of the Opposition, Liberals and New Democrats alike, will no longer be able to debate this issue which, to my mind, underlies the Canadian economy. Why-and I am asking the question seriously-why did a Progressive Conservative Minister not have enough courage to do that dirty work himself? Why did they ask a backbencher to do what I call the dirty job of gagging the Opposition in the House of Commons?
I find that regrettable and unfortunate because the new younger Member seems to be quite charming, but someone has taken advantage of her naivete or perhaps her lack of parliamentary experience, and I think it must have been the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens). Where is that Minister?
Incidentally, Mr. Speaker, I would point out to you that since December 11, the day he introduced this Bill, the Minister responsible for this measure has seldom been seen in the House. You used to sit with him in the Opposition and you recall how the Minister, who was then on this side of the House, would take the government and Liberal Ministers to task for showing disrespect for the Canadian Parliament. Mr. Speaker, the current Minister would never have allowed consideration of such an important piece of legislation to proceed without the regular attendance of the Minister responsible. He did show up for a few minutes in this debate, but most of the time the Minister has been away from the House, as he is now.
The Progressive Conservatives have 40 ministers, but right now I can see only two of them in the House.


Mrs. Mailly:: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. The Hon. Member for Gatineau (Mrs. Mailly) on a point of order.


Claudy Mailly: Mr. Speaker, I believe the Hon. Member has just referred to another Member being absent from the House, and it seems to me that it is contrary to our Standing Orders to comment on the absence or presence of a Member.

January 28, 1985
Investment Canada Act


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: This is not a point of order. The Hon. Member should not reflect on who is in the House and who is not. I am sure the Hon. Member knows that.


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I think the Canadian public should be told that the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens), who is responsible for this legislation, is not here this morning and that he has taken virtually no part in this most important debate that can substantially alter Canada's economic outlook.
Why do we Liberals so strongly oppose this Bill? Because it is our fundamental belief that in our Canadian context we should control our economy. With this legislation, the Tories are ready to sell out at any price, to anybody, at any time, and in this debate we will fight to the limit, even though with her underhand practices this morning the Hon. Member for Char-lesbourg (Mrs. Tardif) is attempting to muzzle us. The amazing part of it is that Bill C-15 would have us approve post haste a new concept for our Canadian economy. The legislation is presented by the Tory government as a means to create new jobs. We say outright, Mr. Speaker, that this legislation is wrong, and that far from creating new jobs, it will probably mean the loss of their jobs to hundreds of Canadians.
I am pleased to note the presence in the House of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. C6te), who is responsible for competition in Canada. Since he has already been doing his homework, he is aware of the extent of large business concentration in Canada, he knows that in most major sectors of the Canadian economy there are only two or three corporations that control the Canadian economic market. Competition is exceedingly difficult to exercise in Canada, and the Canadian consumers are at the constant mercy of a few big corporations.
The first thing the Conservative Government did when coming to power was to bow to the big multinational oil corporations. We wanted to Canadianize the oil industry. We passed legislation to allow for and promote the Canadianiza-tion of that important industry, and we created Petro-Canada. But the Conservatives never accepted that. They always wanted to support the multinational corporations, those foreign corporations which control the Canadian oil industry and rip off the Canadian consumers.
I therefore say that Bill C-15 is a bad bill, because it will allow the big and the strong to meddle with the international economy and bully our small businessmen in Canada, because the Tory legislation now under consideration no longer contains the same requirements, the same important criteria as were provided in the measure we introduced in 1974, and under which the Foreign Investment Review Agency could prevail on new Canadian investors to give guarantees, not only
to create new jobs, but at least to guarantee existing jobs, and especially to promote economic growth. This legislation would allow investors a free hand. Anybody may now invest in Canada without constraints, without any obligation to Canadians. This is what we are fighting against. It is not good enough and we are sorry that the Hon. Member for Charlesbourg (Mrs. Tardif) should be attempting to use the guillotine so early in her political career. This is a bad omen indeed.


Mr. Derek Blackburn (Brant):: Mr. Speaker, I am very interested in contributing to this debate this morning, even though our time is limited to 10 minutes.
Before getting into the substance of my remarks, I wish to remind the House, particularly new Members, that for many years we fought very hard in this country to develop a national economy. In the 1950s this country was virtually owned by foreigners, both our natural resource industry and our manufacturing industry. When I was a younger man, and well into the 1960s, there was a great wave of nationalism spreading across the country. It was not a particularly healthy kind of nationalism. It was born out of a normal and understandable resentment which had developed, based largely on the fact that there was not only the impression in the country but the facts to back up that impression that successive Governments, particularly Liberal Governments, were selling out our country to foreign interests. That was happening in mining, smelting, the newsprint industry, the forest products industry and metal mining. It was happening in financial institutions and, primarily, in manufacturing. It created a very negative kind of thinking throughout the country. That was not healthy.
If we go ahead with Bill C-15 and set up Investment Canada, I suggest that not tomorrow or next year but in five or 10 years that unhealthy, negative nationalism will return as we see the manufacturing and resource sectors of our economy once again slipping out of our hands. I can recall a time when about 80 per cent of our natural resource industry in the country was either directly or indirectly controlled or owned outright by foreign interests. Not many years ago I can recall a time when about 60 per cent of the manufacturing sector was controlled or owned outright by foreign interests. It was not healthy.
I would like to impress upon Government Members as others already have that it is not always of benefit to sell out to a foreign company. It is not always a good thing for an American firm to buy out a Canadian firm. In fact, very often quite the opposite eventually happens. It may not happen overnight, in a few weeks or a few months, but eventually it does happen. Some of our Canadian industries become nothing more than warehouses or distribution points for goods manufactured offshore.
Foreign firms are not the best of employers. Although I do not have time in a ten-minute speech to go into it in detail, the record shows that this is so. We all know that the first companies to lay off employees in an economic recession are
January 28, 1985

the foreign-owned ones. Obviously they want to look after their own employees at their own head offices wherever those head offices may be, whether in Des Moines, Iowa, West Germany, Sweden, or Japan.
In terms of research and development, the record speaks for itself. The plants with the best record in research and development in this country are Canadian-owned plants. Yet this Bill would put heavy competitive pressure on our Canadian-owned industries and would dampen that enthusiasm and desire to do research and development here in Canada because foreign-owned companies almost always do most of their R and D offshore. These days they do it in the countries with the best tax system, the lowest tax system, usually Third World countries. Of course, there is a dog's breakfast looming on the horizon there to which we will all have to face up very quickly. If they do not do their R and D in the Third World, they do it at the parent plant which is usually in the United States. As well, large percentages of profits, bonuses, dividends and the like are sucked back into the United States by American corporations, and again this puts some downward pressure on our dollar.
I admit that not all foreign companies in this country are operated as branch plants, but many of them are. Those that are operated as branch plants are very restricted in what they can do in terms of marketing. For example, they cannot compete with the mother industry back home so they tend to have very restricted markets. They sell only to the Canadian market. After all, the reason they came here in the first place was to jump the tariff barrier. They came to Canada to get over the tariff barrier by establishing a small plant in Canada to serve a limited Canadian market.
If a foreign-owned plant is operated as a branch plant, as many of them if not the majority of them are, then it has a very restricted market. In the domestic market it is restricted to Canadian sales but it is also restricted in terms of foreign sales. Again, in many cases these firms are told not in writing but by telephone at ten o'clock every morning where they can sell, how much they can sell, and what the price will be here in Canada. They are told not to compete with the mother company overseas because the mother company already has that market nicely sewn up.
I have spoken to a few managers of branch plants in my time. They will admit, if I promise never to quote them or name their companies, that they are frustrated with their lack of manoeuverability and lack of ability to apply creative talents to improving the industry. They are always being held back by their bosses offshore wherever the parent plant happens to be.
I would like to remind members of the Conservative Government to keep something in mind when trying to sell Canada to foreign corporations and particularly to American-owned corporations. I wonder what the reaction would be in the United States if the average American who had no interest whatsoever in the economy, big business or international trade and finance was on his way to a football game and was told that that country to the north called Canada controlled over half of all
Investment Canada Act
American manufacturing and perhaps 60 per cent of its natural resource industry. The Americans are great ones for saying that they want Japanese, British, French and Canadian capital in their country. However, how many people on the other side realize what the total picture is?
Less than 3 per cent of non-financial privately-owned commercial enterprise in the United States is actually controlled or owned outright by foreigners. Here we are in Canada desperately trying to hold on to a Canadian national economy, to compete in an international market-place as freely and unfettered as possible, and this Government wants to destroy the only instrument we had to reasonably and rationally control foreign investment in the country, the Foreign Investment Review Agency, an agency which the NDP forced the Liberals to bring in under a minority government.
Those people opposite want to destroy FIRA. They are not saying "Canada is open for business"; they are saying "Canada is open for exploitation, come up here and rape us". That is what those Members are saying to the big interests in the United States, Europe and throughout the world. I think that is a shame. If we lose our national economy, we will lose our national character, ethos and culture. Those too will go down the tubes and we will simply be a white mass sitting on top of the United States.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question? Debate.


Mr. Jacques Guilbault (Saint-Jacques):: Mr. Speaker, I had intended to speak on Bill C-15 this morning, but I was certainly not expecting such a surprise move. I would never have thought that the new Member for Charlesbourg (Mrs. Tardif) would come in and propose a form of closure to bring to an end this debate as quickly as possible, in spite of its importance for the economic future of Canada.
My colleague, the Hon. Member for Papineau (Mr. Ouel-let), said a while ago that the Progressive Conservative Government had called on a newly elected Member to do its dirty work and impose closure. However, I think that he made a mistake in saying that this new Member is simply a private Member, because, if I am not mistaken, she is Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens). The motion is therefore an official proposal of the Progressive Conservative Party. It is not simply a case of a backbencher making a mistake and thinking it would be a good idea to put an end to this debate. On the contrary! The Parliamentary Secretary represents her Minister quite well, and in fact, she really needs to do it because the Minister is never here during the debate. She has become the spokesperson of her party in proposing this despicable motion which reflects a Government decision and which is, I repeat, an obvious abuse, this early in this Parliament, of the enormous

January 28, 1985
Investment Canada Act
majority of 211 seats held by the Progressive Conservative Party.
The Government felt the need to impose closure to a very minimal opposition consisting of only 40 Liberals and 30 NDP Members. However, I am certain that the voters realize what is going on and that the Opposition will not be this weak for long. The voters will not let a government in whom they have put their confidence shabbily treat the minority in the House of Commons especially in view of the staggering majority won by the party opposite after making all kinds of promises which are quickly being broken one after the other. One of the promises which is being forgotten the most often was to have a continuous process of consultation. Here we now have a perfect example of a Government taking action in an important sector, that of foreign investment, without having consulted anyone.
The only one to speak on behalf of the Progressive Conservative Party this morning, the same Parliamentary Secretary to whom I referred earlier, said that the Government did consult. "Every weekend, we go home to our constituencies, we meet our voters. We receive letters." This is the easy way out.
I am well aware that when Members go back to their constituencies during the weekend, they see a few voters, not necessarily to speak about this matter but rather to solve particular problems and to discuss many other issues where the Progressive Conservative Government is having trouble. For instance, what are the Progressive Conservatives doing to help Quebec pork producers? I am certain that all PC Members who visited their constituencies and met with farmers did not discuss foreign investment and Bill C-15. What they heard was: "When are you going to give us the $13 millions you had promised" This is what the voters were saying last weekend and this is what we can read in the newspapers.
Therefore, there will not be any consultation. Let us put an end to the debate as soon as possible. The only consultation to have taken place is the debate we have been having in this House where Members can rise and say what they think about Bill C-15, an Act respecting foreign investment.
According to the rhetoric of the Progressive Conservative Party, the purpose of Bill C-15 is to attract foreign investment while protecting our national identity. I would like to spend a few minutes speaking about this aspect of the bill. In this regard, the Progressive Conservative Party is trying to step into the shoes of the Liberal Party. During the last few years, which party has attempted, while allowing foreign investment, to provide some protection to several sectors of the Canadian industry if not the Liberal Party? It was a Liberal policy which led to the creation of the Foreign Investment Review Agency better known as FIRA. And whatever the opinion of my NDP colleague who took the floor just before me, he may try to make us believe that it was the New Democratic Party that forced the Liberals to introduce legislation to establish FIRA, but anybody who has followed Canadian politics knows
that the idea sprang from a Liberal convention held in Toronto inl972 when people in attendance, members of the Liberal Party of Canada, recommended to the then federal Liberal Government to create an agency so as to make sure that foreign investments would really benefit the Canadian economy and not jeopardize certain sectors of our economy.
Who decided to impose restrictions on foreign investments in specific sectors such as culture and finance, if not the Liberal Government, the previous administration of the country?
Who decided to approach the European Economic Community in an attempt to diversify the source of foreign investments, if not the Right Hon. Pierre Elliott Trudeau himself when he was Canada's Prime Minister, because one of the great dangers we are facing is to have foreign investments coming mostly from a single source? That is how we can fall directly under legislation adopted by our neighbours to the south and likely to disrupt our economy.
Those protective measures against foreign investments have been implemented by the Liberals and I object to the fact that Progressive Conservative Party representatives now try to argue that the Progressive Conservative Government wants to attract foreign investors, while at the same time safeguarding our national identity. Their defensive approach with respect to our national identity is sheer nonsense, that is not what they are trying to do.
The major argument of the Progressive Conservatives with respect to job creation is now, and was during the election campaign: Let us allow capital to create jobs. That argument has continued to be translated into specific measures. Since business has resumed in the House of Commons, we have heard the Progressive Conservative Government endlessly repeating that we have to let private capital create jobs, and we have also seen that same Government shirk its major responsibility, and that is to create jobs.
We have seen this Government cancel job creation programs, although it keeps saying that creating jobs is its priority. A good example is the elimination of the Summer Canada Program: $75 million that was supposed to create jobs for young Canadians next summer. They have been saying: Let capital create jobs. The new 1985 rhetoric, however, is: Let foreign capital create jobs. An interesting but dangerous shift in Conservative rhetoric. The Government has abdicated its job creating function. It has said: Let Canadian capital create jobs. Now it is saying: Let foreign investment create jobs. This is one way for the Party in power to sympathize with people who are looking for jobs and give the impression that the Government is concerned about creating jobs. However, they are really showing they want to leave it up to foreign capital to create jobs in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, you know as well as I do that the danger here is that foreign companies setting up branches in Canada do so in their own interest. When they come to Canada to buy an
January 28, 1985

existing company, this does not create new employment. What it does create is a situation in which existing jobs, under the new company, are controlled from outside Canada.
When times are hard and the company's market starts to shrink, what is it going to do? Is it going to shut down its Canadian branch and with it the jobs they are promising us today when they say: "Let foreign capital create jobs"? These are temporary jobs, Mr. Speaker. These jobs are liable to vanish into thin air, depending on the international economic situation and international markets.
The Progressive Conservative Party would do well to allow more time for debate in the House on Bill C-15, an Act respecting investment in Canada. We agree to letting foreign capital come into this country. However, as the Liberal Party of Canada, we want substantial guarantees that any foreign investment will be in the interests of Canadians, that it will create long-term and not temporary employment and that the most sensitive sectors of our economy will not be adversely affected.
That is what we are trying to do, Mr. Speaker, while we are considering Bill C-15. We are not trying to prolong debate unnecessarily, but we are trying to obtain a fair deal for Canadians who want to invest and for Canadians who are looking for jobs and are unable to find any.


Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, it is striking, so quickly after the House has returned from the Christmas recess, that the Government is anxious to close debate on this extremely crucial subject. One would think that the debate had been dragging on for weeks. In fact, the Minister brought the Bill before the House before Christmas and there was a limited period of time in which to debate it. It seems a long time since the Bill was introduced, but that is because the Christmas recess was so long. Since the House reconvened a week ago, there have been two Opposition days and there has not been a great focus on the subject matter of the Bill.
I think the reason the closure motion has been brought before the House is that there was a certain amount of momentum, criticism and thrust to the debate which we in this Party and members of the Liberal Party managed to gain in the period before Christmas. The Government, frankly, is fearful that it will again be possible for us to build up this momentum and to develop a sense of critical analysis of this faulty piece of legislation before us.
I have a sense, and I believe perhaps the Government has as well-which is why it has moved this closure motion so quickly-that throughout this country there is now a growing sense of awareness that something is happening here in Ottawa which is dangerous to the future of the country and to our sense of independence. This is an unfortunate effort to ram something through the House which has not been subject to
Investment Canada Act
the kind of scrutiny and careful attention which something of such major importance should receive. We are after all, Mr. Speaker, dealing with something which has been at the heart of economic development concerns in Canada for well over 100 years.
I mentioned in past debate that it was in the 1870s that the first subsidiaries came to Canada. Since that period we have seen a careful and gradual development of public policy with respect to branch plants. Back in the 1870s and 1880s we believed, as this Government seems now to believe, that foreign investment of any kind would be good for the country. But, Mr. Speaker, we have come a long way since 1880. We have learned a great deal since those days. We have seen the problems which can develop in an economy when there is no sense of strategy vis-a-vis foreign investment. That is why we on this side of the House have been so concerned about the abdication of strategy and the absence of policy direction which this new Bill represents.
It is not just those of us who are critical of foreign investment who recognize the problem. Let me indicate to Hon. Members on the government side some of the recognition which is there from those who actually run foreign firms here in this country. For instance, the President of the Sarnia based Dow Chemical of Canada Limited, spoke to the press about drawing some Canadian capital, some Canadian shareholders, into his subsidiary. He said he was concerned about this because "we are the Canadian subsidiary of a multinational. We do not necessarily always operate to do the best we can for our local books. We are attempting to optimize the parent company's books".
What that means, Mr. Speaker, is that the concern with profitability and investment which can benefit this country is not at the heart of the business operations of that subsidiary. Instead, its first priority is to benefit the parent company. I quote the words of David Clark, the President of Campbell Soup Company Ltd., another major subsidiary which operates in southwestern Ontario. He said: "There is the danger of falling into the funny money syndrome of corporate management", the possibility of shifting money out of the country through transactions with the parent company.
For that reason, he and his company welcomed the possibility of having Canadian shareholders in his firm. That brings, as he puts it, "a heightened sense of Financial responsibility. It brings you one step closer to reality". That is the kind of flimflam, the kind of internal corporate shifting of resources, which can take place if we have an economy which is dominated by foreign investment. That is why we need a sense of strategy, a sense of direction and the capacity to review and control the extremely large sector of our country which is controlled by foreign firms.
It is a source of particular concern to me, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister is moving, through his Parliamentary Secretary, for closure of this debate before he has presented to the House hiw own sense of direction with respect to a key part of Bill C-15, that is the part of the Bill which outlines a concern with key cultural parts of our economy.

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Investment Canada Act
The Minister indicated in his press conference when he introduced this Bill that he would clarify the kinds of sectors with which he expected that part of the Bill to deal and the mechanisms he would use to give the Bill that sense of specific impact. He has not come before the House to provide that sense of direction despite the fact that the Association of Canadian Publishers has gone before the Minister and told him that we need this sense of direction, not just because of a general concern but because of the very specific problem of the takeover of Prentice-Hall in the United States by Gulf and Western. Prentice-Hall is an extremely large American company with a great deal of investment in our cultural sector.
We believe, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister should present us with some sense of how he intends to proceed on this part of his Bill before the Bill receives approval to go to committee. The Association of Canadian Publishers has been very detailed in its comments on Prentice-Hall. It has indicated that there are Canadian buyers who are willing and able to make a purchase of the Canadian subsidiary of Prentice-Hall but the Minister has not provided direction as to how this is going to be possible under the new Bill.
For this reason, Mr. Speaker, this motion is a premature move which we will oppose. We hope the Government will reconsider and withdraw this closure motion at this stage and allow full debate on this Bill.


Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, I know Hon. Members of this House would not want to see this Tory closure motion imposed on the House today. It is obvious why the Government is moving closure today. It is because it knows that there is a very great unease in this country about the way in which the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) is handling the whole question of foreign ownership. He hies himself off to New York and essentially says to the economic community in New York: "Come and take whatever you want. It is up there. There are just no questions asked". There is a great deal of unease about that.
Clearly the Canadian people are concerned about jobs and they want to see Canadian industries prosper and move forward just as much as foreign companies. I believe that is why this Bill should be thoroughly discussed here today. I asked the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens) last week how many applications had actually been received under FIRA since the Prime Minister went down to New York and told them to come and buy out whatever they want in Canada, no questions asked. He went into a great deal of flimflam and breast beating and all the rest of it, but he never did indicate the number of applications there have been since this Bill was introduced into the House and since the Cabinet said, to all intents and purposes, "You just have to apply to take over any Canadian company; there will be no questions asked". So I think there is a great deal of unease in the country regarding the Government's intentions.
We believe, Mr. Speaker, that businessmen from western Europe, Japan and the U.S. will invest in Canada when there
is an opportunity. We believe we should welcome that investment provided it is beneficial to our country in terms of job creation, research and development and export development. There is no problem with that. That is why we think the existing rules and regulations of FIRA are desirable.
Some 97 per cent of foreign investment has been approved in the last couple of years, but that does not indicate how many companies were encouraged to do their R and D here or to dedicate a portion of their Canadian production capacity to the international market. Look at the tremendous spurt there has been to the Ontario economy this year. It has grown at a rate of 5 per cent, slightly higher than the national average. In fact, it pushed the national average up by perhaps 1 per cent. Most of that was due to the production of two vehicles, a Chevrolet automobile and a Chrysler mini-van. Some $8 billion worth of autos were produced last year and we will produce some $13 billion worth this year. That has been a tremendous spurt to automobile manufacturing, so to then give away our ability to negotiate with American or other foreign companies just does not seem very wise.
The other thing Tories are very concerned about in having this Bill debated for any length of time is that the Canadian people generally are going to become more familiar with the amount of progress we have made in Canadian ownership. The figures indicate that in mining and smelting Canadian ownership has risen from some 30 per cent in 1970 to something like 52 per cent in 1980. Pretty impressive figures. In 1975 research and development in this country amounted to something like $1 billion. In 1984 it was $5.3 billion. A lot of this is due to the fact we were able to negotiate with foreign investors the amount of research and development they would do.
The Tories are also concerned with the results of our effort to increase Canadian ownership in the oil and gas industry. During the first three years of the National Energy Program Canadian ownership in that industry has risen from 28 per cent to 40 per cent. Oil exploration has increased by 53 per cent from 1980 to 1984. Reserves of natural gas have risen to a record high of some 33 years' supply. The Department of Energy, Mines and Resources projects that we will be self-sufficient in oil on a net basis right through to the end of the century. When the NEP was proposed to Parliament we had dared hope that we would be self-sufficient by 1990. Here we are only three years later and we are up to self-sufficiency on a net basis to the year 2000. So naturally the Tories want to bring in a motion to cut off debate because they are very concerned about people becoming knowledgeable about the Prime Minister's attitude towards foreign investment.
It is also very interesting to see how the Government co-ordinates its policies with those of the Ontario Government. The Premier of Ontario, who has just retired, brought in a 20 per cent land transfer tax many years ago which applied to the sale of land to non-residents. Of course, that completely destroyed part of the business of northern Ontario realtors who were selling cottage lots. Now that we have a Tory Government in Ottawa it will be interesting to see whether there will
January 28, 1985

be negotiations with the provincial government to encourage that kind of investment in the country.
It is also interesting to note a headline in the Toronto Star of January 19 which indicated that the Nissan Corporation of Japan was not planning to make any further investment in Canada in spite of what the Prime Minister is doing with this Investment Canada legislation. He said these companies would be crawling all over themselves to invest in Canada. If we compare the lack of success of the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens) this fall with the Nissan Corporation, which incidentally is going to be investing in Great Britain, China, South East Asia and other countries, with the success of Mr. Lumley, the former Minister, last spring, then we see he is not being very successful. Over the course of a three or four month period Mr. Lumley was able to announce a $100 million Honda plant in Ontario resulting in some 350 jobs. He negotiated a new AMC/Renault plant, some $700 million and 7,000 jobs. There were two other GM plants involving 1,100 jobs and a capital investment of over $1.25 billion. If we compare the two, we see Mr. Lumley comes out looking very well because he got $2.1 billion of investment and 10,000 jobs. Obviously the present Government's policies are not working, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-Walkerville):: Mr. Speaker, an awful lot of people in the country must be sharing my disappointment. During the election campaign the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and his Party indicated that once accorded the robes of power they would look to a new Canadian agenda. The smiling, confidence-building visage from which such promising words issued must have filled the hearts of many Canadians with the idea that they would share in determining the destiny of this country in accord with the high-sounding phrases heard during the election. We heard then and have heard since that the process of government would change from one of confrontation to one of consultation. In particular it was said that the Opposition would be consulted on all matters to ensure that the House acted in the interests of the people of the country.
We expected that these pronouncements would reflect new year's resolutions for 1985. As one of the first acts of the Government we are faced with a motion to close debate on something of such fundamental importance to the Canadian people as this legislation called Investment Canada. It must be a rather strange spectacle to almost all people of the world to see a Canadian Prime Minister going to New York to announce that Canada's destiny will be built there.
Only a few days ago I spoke in London, Ontario and there encountered immigrants from Argentina and Chile. They said to me that it is too bad that the Canadian people are not as aware as they should be of the debate going on in the House of Commons these days. I wish it were possible for the Canadian people to understand the implications of the legislation before the House in terms of the experience of the people of South America. If we want to have control over our Government,
Investment Canada Act
economy and future, we must be careful to learn the lessons of South and Central America well. We know what kind of contribution unencumbered American investment and input will have on those three facets of our existence.
If it were not so serious, it would almost be laughable to recount the purposes outlined for Investment Canada. In the background is the assumption that Canadians, by wanting to control their own economy, are somehow a little perverted, that we are and have been discouraging investment through FIRA, and that if we eliminate FIRA the whole world is going to come in with truck loads of dollars to help us out. In fact there is every evidence in the world that foreign investment, and particularly American investment, has not been materially affected during the course of FIRA given the competition that we face from other potential sources for great profits for American investors.
No matter what analysis one may apply to the evidence for that statement, there is no indication that the adoption of Investment Canada is going to mean the great surge of investment from the United States that the Government would have us hope for. Even if it does occur, we are told quite clearly by the Americans that the only lucrative area for investment for them is in our primary resources. You can bet that that will not be on the basis of generating jobs for Canadians in Canada. Such investment will not be based on Canadian priorities.
Let us review this piece of legislation which the Government does not want to have debated in too much detail because the Canadian people may find out too much about it and the repercussions it has for Canada. If this motion were defeated and the debate allowed to continue, a level of duplicity that would astound Canadians would be revealed in terms of what this Bill says it is going to do and what it actually proposes to do.
It proposes to create more jobs but one can look at every detail and word in legislation and find not a single provision which would ensure new Canadian jobs. It proposes that it will increase exports for Canada. However, there is not a line or word in this legislation which would provide for increased exports. The Bill suggests that there will be increased research and development in Canada. One can study every line and detail an find no provision for increased research and development in Canada.
The Government says that by virtue of this legislation there will be increased technological diffusion. That is nonsensical, as indicated by the fact that no attempt has been made to provide for it in the legislation. A sorry piece of nonsense has been presented to the Canadian people and the House. I can understand that the Government wants to close debate as quickly as possible before the Canadian people discover what it is all about.
We do not want Canada to be sold to others. If one goes anywhere in Canada where there is forestry, mining, fishing or agriculture and asks the ordinary people who are not going to be blessed with the huge profits which come from productivity and innovation how they feel about selling Canada's future

January 28, 1985
overseas, one soon learns that they are tired of losing control of their futures and their jobs and the resources that they would like to own in order to create jobs for themselves.
We must not doubt that the Americans are interested in their own priorities. Over the past weekend it was reported in newspapers across the country that two of the leading think tanks in the United States recommend against any action on the issue of acid rain. They recommend that the issue of acid rain be put on the backburner because there is only one reason for giving it priority; that is that it would be primarily in the interests of Canada and Canadians. That is a clear indication of the kind of judgments and priorities that would be applied in foreign lands with respect to our future.
We have made progress with respect to Canadian ownership. We have made progress with respect to controlling our own destinies. We have made progress with respect to making it possible for the creative Canadian population to have an opportunity to make this country one which can be a symbol to the entire world of what prosperity, based on social justice and peace, can accomplish. I we fail-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret that the Hon. Member's time has expired.
It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock p.m.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard-Anjou):: Mr. Speaker, the government is taking credit for unemployment reduction but conveniently disregards an unusual reduction of activity in labour force participation, an indication that a great number of unemployed have lost all hope of finding a job and think that the promises of the Progressive Conservative Party are always without any substance.
After the Cabinet was sworn in, the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Mrs. MacDonald), Minister of Employment and Immigration, tried to explain the increase in unemployment by suggesting that more Canadians wanted to work because a Progressive Conservative government had been elected.
The Progressive Conservative should now be held responsible for the 105,000 unemployed who have lost all confidence in the government and have given up looking for a job as well as for the 81,000 jobs lost in November and December. The government should ask the unemployed what they think of those budgetary cuts!



PROVINCIAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, Ontario's longstanding tradition of selecting superb Premiers has continued, in spades. It gives me the utmost pleasure to tell the House that Frank Miller, my provincial counterpart from Muskoka, is the province's new Premier designate.
I believe that the choice made by delegates on Saturday night shows insight and political savvy. Despite the strong opposition mounted by other candidates, Mr. Miller won the confidence of the Party.
He has gained a reputation for fairness and hard work as a Cabinet Minister in Ontario, with four different portfolios.
ISJr. Miller was offered widespread support from the people who know him best, the folks from Parry Sound-Muskoka. He secured the confidence of all sectors of society throughout his political career.
With these congratulations to Frank Miller today, I must also express the Province of Ontario's indebtedness to Premier Bill Davis. The people of Ontario are indeed fortunate to have men such as these aspire to hold the position of Premier.
I declare without hesitation that I am most anxious to be a part of Miller's Ontario in the years to come. We have been ably led in Ontario's past, and now we may look forward to a bright and shining future. It's Miller time.



DISASTERS


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, the news this morning carried a story of yet another major economic blow being struck against Glace Bay in Cape Breton. A fire has destroyed a fish processing plant which was the last major employer in a community already suffering more than 50 per cent unemployment. Only last year the fire in No. 26 Colliery threw 1,200 people out of work.
While Glace Bay is a tragic example, it is only one example of the kind of unemployment facing people throughout Cape Breton. Unfortunately the new Conservative Government has reacted by cutting programs which would have reduced this unemployment. One of the first Conservative measures was to
January 28, 1985

eliminate the transfer of its Income Security Branch from Halifax to Sydney.
The federal Government must involve itself in a program to deal with the tragic unemployment in Cape Breton. Sydney Steel's business plan must be implemented in consultation with the workers in order to guarantee that economic benefits are passed on to the people of that hard hit area. The situation is now critical, and we desperately require some tangible solutions.



NORTHERN CANADA POWER COMMISSION


Dave Nickerson: Mr. Speaker, with the exception of the Senate there is probably no other part or agency of Government that has been subjected to so many studies ad infinitum as has the Northern Canada Power Commission.
The previous Liberal Government always set up yet more studies instead of addressing the many real and outstanding problems. Northerners expect the new Government to take positive action. The principal recommendations of the Penner Report on NCPC should be implemented forthwith.
Jurisdiction over power supply in the Territories should be devolved from the federal to the territorial Governments. The territorial public utility boards should become the regulatory agencies rather than the National Energy Board favoured by the previous administration. Provision must be made for tying in the southern Territories to the existing Alberta power grid. The questions of rate rationalization and subsidization in remote diesel supplied areas must be properly resolved.
Yes, it is expected of the new Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Crombie) that he take action and not just avoid and set aside the problems as did his predecessor.



EMPLOYMENT


Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Mr. Speaker, last Monday the Minister of State for Youth (Mrs. Champagne) made some lofty pronouncements in connection with the beginning of International Youth Year. While 1985 will be important in terms of highlighting youth concerns, what young people in Canada want more than anything else is work and not words.
Some 80,000 young people who had jobs last summer under the Summer Canada Program have been left dangling while the Government fiddles, frets, and fools with the program that was working perfectly well.
One part of the Summer Canada Program that has been left high and dry by the cuts made by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) is the Cadet Summer Camp Program which was cut by nearly $1 million.
Working with Summer Canada funding, the Navy, Army and Air Cadets, in conjunction with the Department of National Defence, put together an extremely valuable and worthwhile endeavour for our youth. Cadet summer camps gave young people a better understanding of what it means to be a Canadian. It helped them develop their qualities of self reliance and leadership, and gave them the opportunity to meet other young Canadians from other parts of Canada. Cutting $85 million from Summer Canada without announcing a substitute program was un unusual, cruel, and insensitive move even for this Government.
I call on the Government to ensure that whatever new program is announced, the Cadet Summer Program will not be affected.



INCOME TAX ACT


Mr. Geoff Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Creek):: Mr. Speaker, significant numbers of Canadians attend courses at accredited universities in the United States. To accommodate working adults who cannot afford the luxury of taking off work for extended periods of time, some universities condense an entire semester of studies into a few short but very intensive weeks.
One of my constituents was able to complete the equivalent of one full semester in seven weeks of summer study at an American university. The tuition was some $2,000.
My constituent, Mr. Snell, was surprised to learn that these tuition fees were not income tax deductible because the classes attended in the United States were not of at least 13 weeks' duration.
In searching for the rationale behind such a restriction, one can only assume concerns on the part of Government that the taxpayers of Canada might be partially financing summer vacations outside the country. Such an assumption does a disservice to those Canadians who would wish to pursue their education legitimately and who, plainly and simply, cannot afford to leave their employment for 13 or more weeks.
I suggest changes to Section 60, the tuition fee deductibility provisions of the Income Tax Act to accommodate those Canadians attending legitimate credit courses of any duration at accredited educational institutions, whether these institutions be inside Canada our outside Canada.

January 28, 1985
S.O.	21 FISHERIES



WEST COAST VESSEL BUY-BACK PROPOSALS

Mr. Ray Skelly (Comox-Powell River):: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Fraser) will be meeting with his ministerial advisory committee tomorrow in Vancouver to discuss a West Coast salmon vessel buy-back program.
It is my understanding that this will be involving the federal Government in a $100 million buy-back program for West Coast salmon fishing vessels. The federal Government expects to recover $40 million through the sale of these vessels. In addition, the federal Government intends to extract $200 million from West Coast salmon fishermen over the next 10 years by imposing a landing tax which could be as high as 13.5 per cent of the landed value of the catch.
Further, it is my understanding that in the final analysis the buy-back of vessels will be paid for by Pacific Coast salmon fishermen. Over all the federal Government, through the landing tax on fishing vessels, will earn a profit of $150 million from the program over 10 years. The real beneficiaries of this program will be the banks which are being bailed out. Fishermen will pay over $200 million in landing tax costs, and many thousands of British Columbians will lose their jobs as a result of the Government's buy-back program.
It would be useful if the Minister would confirm that he is meeting with his ministerial advisory committee this week, that he is discussing the proposals for the buy-back, and that he would, unlike the fishing treaty, provide Hon. Members of the House and of the standing committee with the documents related to the proposals for a buy-back program.



INDUSTRY


Mr. Ken James (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, as spokesman for 6,000 or more people who are directly employed by the petrochemical industries in Sarnia-Lambton, and the
12,000	who indirectly owe their livelihood to the chemical valley, I should like to say that there is a positive attitude toward the Government's attention to the hydrocarbon energy sector.
However, there exists a disparity which requires our immediate action. Our major oil-based petrochemical companies, in direct competition with the American Gulf Coast concerns, have been hit hard by the recent drop in the price of west Texas crude oil, a feedstock which compares with our Canadian light crude. This drop in the American price has altered the framework of petrochemical pricing. This has our Canadian companies operating at a distinct disadvantage. While dialogue is ongoing between the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Miss Carney), the provinces, and the
private sector, on establishing a new oil energy policy, something toward an interim arrangement for the oil dependent petrochemical industry is imperative.



ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS


Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, last December the Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Greni-er) told the people of Canada, particularly people in the area of Hamilton, that she would be reinstating the Herring Gull program in view of the environmental cuts which had been made. I indicated in the House last Tuesday that the program had in fact not been reinstated and that of the original six, including two biologists and a chemist who were working on the program, only one had been reinstated with instructions simply to collect the eggs, not to do any analysis of the gull deformities which were beginning to show up in terms of the testing.
In telling Canadians that she reinstated the program following pressure from this side of the House, as well as from environmentalists across Canada, the Minister has misled them. Not only has she misled Canadians, but when I raised the issue with her almost a week ago in the House of Commons, I received from her office a form letter which was sent out to Canadians inquiring about the seagull program that dealt with the issue of seagulls and their problems with airplanes.
The Minister has shown the people of Canada, as well as the House of Commons, that she is prepared to distort the truth in her own political interests. The only solution, in view not only of her refusal to reinstate the program in full but her misleading of Canadian people, is for the Minister to resign.



PRICE OF GASOLINE

Mr. Carlo Rossi (Bourassa):: Mr. Speaker, the Tories are not what they used to be!
Actually, when the Conservative Government brought in that huge increase in the price of gas with their tax last fall, not one Progressive Conservative Member rose to oppose it, indeed, not even the Hon. Member for Duvernay (Mr. Della Noce). When they were the Opposition, the Conservative Party never let a day pass without clamouring for a lowering of the gasoline tax.
Recently, the oil corporations, so close to the heart of those same Progressive Conservatives, increased their prices, and to my great surprise the Conservative Members for Duvernay and Champlain (Mr. Della Noce and Mr. Champagne), who
January 28, 1985

until then had never uttered a word, opposed that new price increase.
Surely, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) will call those new Members to order, because attacking the oil multinationals is tantamount to attacking the Progressive Conservative Party itself. Moreover, Mr. Speaker, in order to help the press gallery discharge their duties, would the Hon. Member for Champlain rise and make himself known to all?



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion I will direct my question to the Prime Minister. The President of the Canadian Development Investment Corporation is reported to have said recently, in respect of the fire sale which he has been charged with conducting on behalf of the Government of Crown corporations within his mandate, that prospective purchasers of Canadair, de Havilland, Eldorado Nuclear, and Teleglobe are not required to give job guarantees.
Obviously no instructions have been given to Mr. Marshall as to the terms of reference under which he conducts the sale. Would the Prime Minister inform the House whether or not the jobs in question, the jobs of workers of these four federal Crown corporations, are being placed in jeopardy during the course of these negotiations?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I don't believe anything has been placed in jeopardy. The Minister, in co-operation with the President of the Treasury Board, has been trying to establish objective criteria which, if met, would allow the Government to consider dispossessing itself of some of the assets which it presently holds, in some cases where, for example, the Crown is in direct competition with the private sector. Because of statements my right hon. friend has made, I know he finds that concept as odious as I do. If objective criteria can be agreed upon, they will follow normally.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the big question would be whether or not employees are going to be advised of what the Government has in store for them. My question is as follows: If in the course of negotiations, the Minister should agree to release the jobs of the employees of these four companies, can the Minister at least inform these employees of what is going to happen to them?
Oral Questions


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my right hon. colleague is right. I agree that involving the unions and individual employees is a very important consideration. Indeed, as soon as any offers are received, this will be a major factor in the Government's considerations.
I can assure the Hon. Member that as far as we, the Minister and myself, are concerned, both union and individual involvement will be respected.


CONTROL OF CANADAIR AND DE HAVILLAND
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Prime Minister and the Minister could at least inform Mr. Marshall as to the terms of reference of the sale. Mr. Marshall was also quoted to have said, to use his words: "We haven't discussed the foreign ownership thing". The Prime Minister knows that Canadian control of our aerospace industry is important to the country. Could he instruct his Minister to put some limitation on the terms of sale, particularly of Canadair and de Havilland, to ensure that the control of these two companies will remain in Canada for the protection of Canadian technology, and particularly the jobs which I mentioned in the first part of my exchange with him this afternoon?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I don't think I have to instruct the Minister. He is well aware of the importance of this fact and these factors. To the extent humanly possible, as he has already indicated in the House, he will attempt to accommodate them.


FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL AGREEMENTS ON OIL AND GAS
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, I will direct my question to the Prime Minister. The Government has bragged about creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and making the energy sector an engine of the economy. As a result of the postponement over the weekend of an agreement on natural gas until the summer, and of the postponement of an agreement with the provinces on oil for two months, I am interested in knowing whether they will result in a postponement of the spring Budget beyond the April date, or whether the Government will go ahead with the Budget without having an energy agreement with the provinces, as it did in 1979.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we are hopeful of getting that kind of arrangement. I know my hon. friend will be pleased with the progress pursuant to meetings held on Sunday with the western producing provinces by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. The signals that came out indicate that substantial progress is being made

January 28, 1985
Oral Questions
on a very complex and difficult dossier. Hopefully when the Minister returns to the House she will be able to fill the Hon. Member in on more of the details. I am satisfied that we are working toward an effective resolution of a difficult issue. I think that is good for western Canada and for all Canadians.


FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S SHARE OF REVENUES
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister talked about an engine of growth. We thought in this spirit of Tory sweetness and light between the federal and provincial Governments that we would have had an agreement much sooner. How many postponements will there be until this energy engine of growth gets started? In the agreement that is being negotiated with the provinces, will the same proportion of about 17 per cent of the petroleum revenues which the Government got in 1984 be maintained, or will the federal Government's share be reduced in order to provide more incentive and create the hundreds of thousands of jobs which the Minister has bragged she will create in the energy sector? Will the Government be reducing that proportion of revenues below what the federal Government received in 1984?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I do not think the Minister has been doing any bragging. She has been going about her challenging job and working very hard at it. 1 think she is meeting some strong indications of success both on the East Coast with Newfoundland and Labrador, and in western Canada. The object of the exercise is to pick up the private sector and the energy sector in western Canada which was left crippled, wounded, and bleeding to death by the Liberals. That is exactly what we are trying to do.


EMPLOYMENT
Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration who, for weeks, has been promising a vastly improved program for summer employment for young people to replace Canada Works. I have a document which describes a program called SELF, which is ideologically appropriate, to which the Minister has agreed. Does she deny that this program will create fewer jobs and involve less funds for student employment this summer than was supplied by Canada Works last summer?


Hon. Flora MacDonald (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I told the House last week, and I do not think the Hon. Member was present at the time, that I would be in a position to announce new summer programs within a two week period. I can assure him that that will be done.


ALLOCATION OF FUNDS
Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, does the Minister of Employment and Immigration deny that a document has been agreed to, that instead of allocating $200 million, $140 million will be allocated which will provide
65,000	rather than 85,000 jobs, as were supplied last year by Summer Canada Works?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the Hon. Member that when programs are agreed to and announced, he will see that this Government has the concerns of young people at heart.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


GOVERNMENT CONSULTATION
Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, the Minister avoided answering my question. Perhaps she will answer this direct question. It is a matter of great interest to the students of this country. Does she deny that she refused to meet with the largest student and youth organization in the country before looking at this program and agreeing to it?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, one thing that has characterized what the Government has been doing is its willingness to meet the people all across the country to determine what programs should be developed. I know that we have been under criticism from members of the opposition Parties for our willingness to consult, but that is the way that this Government will proceed. I believe the Canadian people will be satisfied as a result of that.


NORTH AMERICAN AIR DEFENCE
Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Last Friday in this House the Minister of National Defence was quite adamant that there are absolutely no negotiations going on with the United States concerning anything to do with a new air defence system in North America and that all we are talking about, purely and simply, are radar systems. Over the weekend the Minister indicated the need for new consultations. Perhaps he can be more forthcoming with this House and explain to us the contradictions to the statement of the Minister of National Defence and the statement of U.S. Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger, who said that with the development of a new star wars system there will have to be a new North American defence system which could cost $50 billion a year.
Can the Minister also explain why he is contradicted by the major change going on in the role that NORAD is playing, so
January 28, 1985

that NORAD is now becoming the source and responsibility for the antitracking satellite and the aerospace warfare system? Surely the Minister can explain why those changes are going on and why they are not being shared with the Canadian public. Will he also tell us why we would go ahead and sign an agreement with the Americans before we have an opportunity to debate it in this House?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, there are no contradictions to explain except perhaps those that are entirely internal to the Hon. Member. If he has a question, let him put it.


CANADA-UNITED STATES DISCUSSIONS
Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I did not believe that this Minister could be even more evasive than the Minister of National Defence. My questions are the following. The United States is planning major changes in the North American defence system. Are we discussing those changes with the United States? Is the Government prepared to share those changes with a parliamentary committee so that we may know what the changes are? Also, will he refuse to sign any agreement with the United States until the Canadian public and this Parliament have had an opportunity to know what those changes are, and to discuss and debate whether they are in the best interests of Canada?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I guess it is sometimes important in this House of Commons to call the bluff of Hon. Members opposite. Let me make the point and remind the Hon. Member of some recent history. The question of the adequacy of the Pine Tree, DEW Line, and other radar warning systems in the north has been under discussion between Canada and the United States since at least the mid-1970s. The Hon. Member was a Minister of the Government of Canada during part of that time. He should not pretend that there is something new or surprising that is happening. What may be new and would not be surprising is that these discussions may now lead to some agreement that would be in the interests of Canada, in the interests of the United States, and in the interests of our common defence.


EMPLOYMENT
Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. A few minutes ago my colleague from Windsor-Walkerville revealed the Government's Summer Canada student employment program. He asked the Minister whether the students were being put on ice with the incentives to career employment program and $140 million rather than the $200 million provided last year, and whether that will result in a reduction to
65,000	jobs. Is the Minister saying that my colleague is wrong,
Oral Questions
or is she simply refusing to come clean and answer the question?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Windsor-Walkerville asked me about consultations. I can advise both Members that we have indeed carried out a considerable number of consultations and have had the benefit, I may tell the Hon. Member, of receiving proposals from a great many people, not only from individuals and organizations, but from other Departments of Government. They will result in the decisions that we finally announce.


PROGRAM FUNDING
John R. Rodriguez: Could the Minister answer the question? Will the funding for the program be reduced from $200 million to $140 million-yes or no?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, the decision as to what will happen with the Summer Canada program will be announced in due course. I advise the Hon. Member-


John R. Rodriguez: But it's here!


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Rather than expiring in frustration at the moment, I would advise him to await the announcement.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Hon. Chas L. Caccia (Davenport):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of the Environment. Last December in a press release, the Minister announced that the detection and monitoring of toxic substances in the Great Lakes, an issue which could affect the health of millions of Canadians, would be maintained. Today we learn from the newspapers that the work that has so far been done by six people will be carried out by only one scientist. How does the Minister find the audacity to claim that this program has been reinstated when only one out of six scientists in charge of the program will now carry out this very important initiative?


Hon. Suzanne Blais-Grenier (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I have said it before, and I say it again, that all research connected with monitoring the water quality of the Great Lakes will continue, and I am thinking more specifically of the work done by the National Water Research Institute in Burlington. All necessary research will continue to be done at this center, including, if necessary, the research on gull eggs samples of which are still being collected.

January 28, 1985
Oral Questions


MINISTER'S POSITION
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, I wonder who the Minister is trying to fool. It is simply common sense to realize that when the manpower of a program is reduced from six to one, the substance of the program is endangered. Again,
I would ask the Minister how she can claim that she is reinstating this program that was implemented for the sake of the health of millions of Canadians and Americans who live around the Great Lakes, if only one person is expected to do the job of six?


Suzanne Blais-Grenier: Mr. Speaker, I think our procedures are more effective than those of the previous Government.


ATOMIC ENERGY OF CANADA LIMITED
Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. I believe the Minister knows that Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and the Department of National Defence are presently negotiating with the Reagan administration to install 39 new technology nuclear reactors in the Canadian Arctic for the operation of the northern warning system. Is the Minister aware that the Circumpolar Inuit Conference is on record as opposing the introduction of any of these nuclear technologies into the Arctic and, if so, does he intend to solicit or take into account its views in this matter?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I should first clarify, to correct misleading news reports of this morning, that very tentative discussions between AECL and the United States Department of Energy are occurring now. These discussions are very much at the exploratory stage and are aimed at looking at the possibility of joint development of a nuclear power source for a range of needs. That is all that is being discussed. It is a highly technical discussion and one that is not likely to yield any results for a long time.
The Hon. Member's question dealt with consultation. I was not aware of that particular resolution. I give the Hon. Member my commitment that there will be consultation with that group before matters reach a point of decision.


ARCTIC NUCLEAR FREE ZONE PROPOSAL
James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, this morning I had discussions with the President of AECL, Mr. Donnelly, and he confirms that the technical discussions are somewhat further evolved than the Minister might be aware, and in fact he
thinks that the technology could be introduced by 1988. My supplementary question refers back to the Circumpolar Inuit Conference which is presently lobbying the United Nations to try to declare the Arctic around the world a nuclear technology free zone. Does the Secretary of State for External Affairs and the Government support keeping the Canadian High Arctic nuclear free?


Charles Joseph Clark: 
FISHERIES
Mr. William C. Winegard (Guelph):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. [English]
Concern has been expressed to me that the Department will soon charge university researchers for ship time. I have two questions, Sir.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


William C. Winegard: Is this true?


Hon. John A. Fraser (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, I await with some anticipation the second question. The answer to the first question is yes, that is true, and discussions will be proceeding between the Department and the universities to see exactly how that will impact against them.


PRESENCE IN THE GALLERY OF ULF ADELSOHN, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN SWEDEN
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House of the presence today in our gallery of Mr. Ulf Adelsohn, Leader of the Opposition in Sweden, and Leader of the Swedish Modera-ta Samlingspartiet.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


CULTURAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Marcel Prud'homme (Saint-Denis):: Mr. Speaker, in Halifax yesterday, I had the honour of attending a gathering of over 1,000 highly concerned Canadians attending the Nova Scotia Coalition on Federal Cultural Policy. The Minister of Communications did not attend and therefore missed a golden opportunity to hear directly from writers, film makers, and musicians from the culturally rich Atlantic region. All those present are very concerned about the cuts announced.
[ Translation]
My question is directed to the Minister of Communications. Can the Minister tell the House why he has rejected the commitments which were announced by his Party during the election campaign and which can be found in the September-October 1984 issue of the arts conference bulletin?


Hon. Marcel Masse (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, I would have been pleased indeed to attend the weekend meeting in Halifax, but earlier commitments in my electoral riding prevented me from going to that meeting. The next time I meet with my provincial colleague, the Minister of Cultural Affairs of Nova Scotia, I will have an opportunity to meet with the representatives of the group involved and to discuss those questions.
Second, the Government did not repudiate its election commitments. On the contrary, the moment the new government team took over, particularly through closer cooperation with the provinces and through sounder interdepartmental sharing of Canada's cultural funds, we can assure the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis that the Government will honour most of the election commitments made to the Canadian people.


REQUEST FOR MEASURES TO PROVIDE JOBS
Marcel Prud'homme: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister tell the House what he intends to do to find jobs for those thousands of people who have been or will be laid off as a result of those cutbacks made without consultation, as promised during the last election campaign?


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member had not written down his supplementary question in advance, he might have paid more attention to my reply.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marcel Masse: In my explanation, Mr. Speaker, I said that the government, anxious to earmark additional funds for our cultural industries in general and the art world in particular, is in consultation with the provinces and government depart-
Oral Questions
ments as a whole with a view to increasing those budgets through better coordination. In addition, the economic measures implemented by the Minister of Finance will enable us to improve Canada's economic situation. The budgets of the Government as a whole will be larger and, in that sense, we will live up to our commitments.


EMPLOYMENT
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Does the Minister deny that the Director of Summer Canada, having sent out a document to the various managers and territorial directors, has indicated that the Minister has seen and approved the Summer Experience and Learning Fund program and that that program will result in a net reduction of funds available for summer programs directly from the Government, and in the reduction of the number of summer jobs for students?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I do deny that.


DEPARTMENTAL MEMORANDUM
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister to check the files of Employment and Immigration Canada and read the memo dated January 9, which indicates that she has seen and agreed to one of the papers which is entitled Summer Experience and Learning Fund which will dramatically reduce the number of jobs that will be made available this summer through direct government funding to students in Canada?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, there have been a number of proposals made to the Government by a variety of individuals, organizations, and Departments. I can assure the Hon. member that no amount of loud speaking, yelling, or expressing his exasperation about this matter will make that decision come one minute sooner.


DISASTERS
Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. As the Prime Minister will know, there has been another tragic fire in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, which has added another 350 people to the 1,200 people who lost their jobs less than a year ago in a Fire at No. 26 Colliery. What is

January 28, 1985
Oral Questions
the Government going to do to create jobs for the unemployed miners and the people at the Highland Fisheries in Glace Bay? What will the Government do to rebuild the economic base of this town?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, the community of Glace Bay has suffered a series of devastating blows to its economy, the latest being the fire which destroyed the fish plant over the weekend.
I would advise the Hon. Member, and indeed the House, that I have spoken with Mayor Clark of Glace Bay this morning and assured him of the federal Government's willingness to be of whatever assistance possible. For instance, we have intimated to the Mayor and to the people of Glace Bay, should it be decided that the fish plant will be rebuilt, that the federal Government could provide assistance. There are other proposals which are being put forward by the Community Economic Council that are being considered at the present time.


GOVERNMENT PLANS
Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleague, the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-East Richmond, who is meeting with town officials today, I would ask the Minister of Employment and Immigration, who is also from Cape Breton and knows the situation, please not to underestimate the crisis which exists. When will the Government come forward with a pre-retirement leave for older miners, and when it will come forward with a plan for the development of new coal resources in the town of Glace Bay?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, it is because I am originally from Cape Breton that I do not underestimate the difficulties which the community of Glace Bay is going through at the present time. I want to assure the Hon. Member that the Government is looking, from the point of view of regional economic expansion and from the point of view of other ministries, into all possible solutions which may by arrived at to assist that community.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Vic Althouse (Humboldt-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. On January 16 of this year the Minister wrote to me stating that the issue surrounding hog stabilization payments had been reviewed by him and that he was prepared to continue the 1983-84 policy which was established by the Liberals. Given the Government's acceptance of the Liberal way of doing things, how was it possible for the Conservative Lieutenant in Quebec, who is the current Minister of Public Works, to promise Quebec hog producers $13 million in stabilization payments?


Hon. John Wise (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member really understood the very serious situation in the hog industry, and particularly the investigation which is presently in progress with reference to Canadian hogs moving into the U.S., he would realize that it is a very inappropriate time to raise a question on stabilization.


ELECTION CAMPAIGN STATEMENT
Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct my supplementary question to the Prime Minister. Since it is clearly not the intention or policy of his Party to make the payments which were promised by his deputy in Quebec, the current Minister of Public Works, will he have that Minister issue an apology to the Quebec farmers for having so deliberately misled them during the federal election campaign?


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, I have heard many comments which have been made, but I have not had an opportunity to examine the remarks of my colleague, the Minister of Public Works, on that issue.


CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD
Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, my question deals with the Western Grain Stabilization Fund and I would like to direct it to the Minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board. In view of the serious difficulties in which western farmers find themselves, and since it is obvious that there will be a pay-out under the fund this coming year, is it the intention of the Minister to introduce enabling legislation in order that an early pay-out can be made to western producers?


Hon. Charles Mayer (Minister of State (Canadian Wheat Board)):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for his question. Certainly there is a very serious cash situation on the Prairies, particularly in the area which he represents, and that of the southern Prairies. We intend to introduce legislation very shortly which will amend the Act to allow for an interim payment. Might I also say that I appreciate the co-operation which has been indicated to me from both opposition Parties, that when the amendment is brought forward it will receive swift passage so that there will be an interim payment in producers' hands prior to spring seeding.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!

[ Translation]


AGRICULTURE
Hon. Jean Lapierre (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the "sub-minister" of Agriculture.
On August 22, 1984, his colleague for Joliette made a formal commitment on behalf of his Party. He went as far as signing a token cheque for $13 million in favour of Quebec's pork producers, members of the Federation.
Is the Minister suggesting in his last answer that the commitment and the signature given by his colleague for Joliette no longer hold, and that he now intends to dump the latter's promise and signature given to Quebec's pork producers?


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, I must caution my hon. colleagues opposite of the danger in carrying out a discussion of this kind which makes reference to the negotiations that are ongoing between the U.S. and Canada, particularly on that issue.
I have been in the Province of Quebec, and on many occasions I have spoken with hog producers and the UPA. Indeed, those discussions are continuing. I was not there when an alleged symbolic cheque was presented. As I have indicated, I have held many conversations with many people in Quebec, and indeed with people in the industry. I cannot respond directly as to whether my hon. colleague responded in any way, shape, or form.


Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Prime Minister. On August 22, the Hon. Member for Joliette assured the producers in attendance that he had his Leader's support in doing that. Does the Prime Minister intend to endorse the rubber cheque made by his colleague for Joliette, or simply dump that commitment also?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, this much I can say: in the area of unfulfilled promises, Quebecers will recognize the Liberals as the greatest all-time experts. It is because of the Liberal Party's broken promises that we are in the process of solving, thanks to UPA's help and the usual straightforward statements of my friend for Joliette, that we are in the process of slowly arriving at a solution in favour of Quebec's pork producers, rather than against them as has been the case under the Liberal Party.


CONSUMER AFFAIRS
Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Consumer
Oral Questions
and Corporate Affairs. He will know that there has been a dramatic increase in the activities of cheque cashing companies. Just before Christmas one of the companies in Winnipeg, Money Mart, was cashing post-dated welfare cheques and charging up to 21 per cent interest. Can the Minister tell the House whether the Government is investigating this type of activity, since the rake-off which is charged amounts to an annual interest rate of more than 2,500 per cent and it is a criminal offence to charge more than 60 per cent?


Hon. Michel Cote (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to reassure the Hon. Member and say that we are closely monitoring the situation. There is no law forbidding such uses and we shall bring in appropriate solutions in due time.


REQUEST FOR INVESTIGATION
David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, as a supplementary question I would ask the Minister if he is prepared to investigate the many cheque cashing and tax discounting operations in Canada which are flourishing despite recent legislation? When the Minister is investigating these things, would he ensure that the laws are being observed? And if the laws are not meeting the problems, will he consider whether the laws need to be revised and tightened?


Michel Côté: Mr. Speaker, once more, I want to reassure my hon. colleague and tell him that we are responsible for guaranteeing the enforcement of our laws and for protecting the interests of consumers and it is in this spirit that we shall continue to operate.


GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister, in the absence of the Minister of Finance. It concerns certain trips made by his six colleagues on board the sacred instruments of travel.
[ Translation]
Can the Right Hon. Prime Minister tell the House the reason why he and his colleague, the Minister of Finance, sent six back-benchers of his party, I could call them postmen, to deliver some parcels to the ten Premiers, at a cost of $23,850, when these same parcels could have been delivered by Air
1730

January 28, 1985
Oral Questions
Express at a cost of $105, which would have saved the Canadian taxpayers over $23,000?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we thought it was making good use of a government plane if the Premiers could have in their hands some important material which might have an impact on their province, at the very moment when the Minister of Finance was about to rise in this House to read a national document of great importance.
I can tell you that we are very cautious in this regard. However, I think that even if we tried we could never beat the record set by the Liberal Government, which used government planes as mere taxis.


TRANSMITTAL OF DOCUMENTS BY MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT
Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister in his reply stated that he wanted the provincial Premiers, of course, to have knowledge of these documents at the same time as the House of Commons. Can the Prime Minister then inform this House why it is that the six back-benchers of his Party, two of whom are not Parliamentary Secretaries, had these documents well ahead of this House? It is not an insult to this House that budgetary documents and motions affecting Ways and Means of this House were in fact given to people without them having sworn the traditional oath of secrecy?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the answer is that the documents were sealed, just like the Hon. Member's mind.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


OIL INDUSTRY PROFIT LEVELS
Mr. Ian Waddell (Vancouver-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a question to the Prime Minister and I am sure he will open up his mind in answering it. The Prime Minister must know that two of his own Conservative Members of Parliament have now said, with some courage, that his Government is acting like it is in the pockets of the oil industry.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An Hon. Member:: Who said?


Ian Gardiner Waddell: They said. I ask the Prime Minister if he is aware that the Government's own petroleum monitoring agency has said that the profits of the oil industry are up 40 per cent for the first six months of 1984, and in fact, the industry is back to the levels of 1979. If the Prime Minister is
aware of that, why, then, does he propose to give the industry more money at the expense of the Canadian consumer?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I think we are all aware of the fact that, given the alliance between the NDP and the Liberals, the oil and gas sector in this country was crippled for five years. We are trying to introduce policies and new attitudes in co-operation with the producing provinces which will permit the creation of a climate where that vital energy sector can flourish as an instrument of economic growth and national unity, and create jobs for all Canadians. That is what we are trying to do.


PETROLEUM COMPENSATION ACCOUNT DEFICIT
Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I know the Prime Minister travels in a limousine and he does not have to fill it up with gas, but maybe he should think about that before he gives us that stuff.


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: Look who is full of gas.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Would the Prime Minister be prepared, given his great rhetoric on behalf of the industry, to give the Canadian consumer this one thing, for example, a commitment that he will not make the Canadian consumer at the pump pay for the $1 billion deficit which there is now in the petroleum compensation fund? Will he be prepared to give the House that commitment and follow the line which is quite properly taken, I think, by two of his Quebec members?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I suppose the Hon. Member is right. I do have a limousine. It is not as new as the limousine of the Leader of the New Democratic Party.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ian Deans: That's not fair, you know.


Martin Brian Mulroney: I can tell my hon. friend, as he knows, with regard to that charge and that account, we were left with a terrible financial burden because of the inaction of the previous Government which refused to take steps which ought to have been taken prior to the election, and this anomaly, which costs a lot of money, must be corrected. This is what we are trying to do in a spirit of fairness, recognizing at all times the importance of the consumer in this equation. We are trying to be fair.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, my question is once again directed to the Minister of Environment.
January 28, 1985

The Minister will not tell the truth to the Canadian people and to the House of Commons and utter confusion prevails.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Environment has just stated to our Environment critic that the program implemented with the Canada Centre for Inland Waters will carry on with the collection of gull eggs. We know quite well... Can she confirm that two technicians, a chemist and two biologists are no longer working on the program due to her budgetary cuts?


Suzanne Blais-Grenier: Mr. Speaker, in the first place, with respect to that study on gull eggs, several series of data have been compiled, and we will now continue to monitor the presence of various substances in gull eggs. That is all that can be said. If my colleague does not understand, I do not know how I could express my position in a different way.


MINISTER'S STATEMENT
Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, the Minister's colleague does comprehend that the Minister has in fact confused and misled the Canadian people-


Charles Joseph Clark: Order.


Sheila Maureen Copps: -by telling them that this program was to be reinstated. I would like to quote the Minister from her press release of December 12-


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Question, please.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Does the Minister stand by her statement that the program has been reinstated in full as stated in her press release on December 12, 1984, or is she further misleading the Canadian people?


Charles Joseph Clark: Order.


Some Hon. Members:: Answer.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Suzanne Blais-Grenier: Mr. Speaker, I have assured the House that the program as it is now meets our bilateral commitments with the United States. That is all I can say.


RAILWAYS
Mr. Alan Redway (York East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. Would the Minister tell
Petitions
us if the new regulations announced by himself on Friday which, I assume, flow directly from the Mississauga train derailment disaster of a few years ago, impose lower speed limits on freight trains carrying dangerous goods through urban areas? And will they require the freight cars on such trains to be clearly identified when they are carrying such dangerous goods?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, the regulations as announced will not apply to the regulation of speed. That is a matter which is regulated by the Canadian Transport Commission. With respect to the markings provision, the answer is yes, the regulations do require certain markings and symbols to be attached to tanks and carriers which carry dangerous goods. That particular aspect of the regulations will become effective July 1.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 48(2), I am pleased to table in both official languages copies of the Government's consultation paper on child and elderly benefits.


PETITIONS
Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of presenting to the House a petition on behalf of the residents of the village of Hopewell Hill in my constituency who are expressing a great deal of concern and frustration that the post office has moved unilaterally to cut the hours of service in rural Atlantic Canada. They petition myself and this House to have the Government reconsider this position and I look forward to the Government's movement in that direction.


Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition bearing the signature of 504 residents of the Nolalu and South Gillies region of northwestern Ontario. They request that they, too, be able to receive the signal of CBC radio station CBQ, northwestern Ontario's flagship voice of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

January 28, 1985
Order Paper Questions


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Paul Dick (Parliamentary Secretary to Government House Leader):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 65, 156 and 190.


Mr. Nunziata: 1.	Will the Department of Finance reintroduce the tax expenditure account to enable the public to determine how much of the benefit of a particular tax break went to individuals and to corporations and, if not, for what reason?
2.	Will the Department of Revenue release the names of all the corporations receiving over $25,000 in tax breaks and incentives and the amounts involved?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: I am informed by the Departments of Finance and National Revenue as follows:
1.	The first Government of Canada Tax Expenditure Account was released in 1979 under the Conservative Government. An update was provided in 1980. A new tax expenditure account is presently under development and analysis. It is important that the account accurately reflect benefits provided by the tax system, and so a number of issues are being reviewed. It is hoped that the Tax Expenditure Account will be completed and released in the near future.
2.	No. Section 241 of the Income Tax Act prohibits communication of this information.


Mr. Orlikow: Has the Department of Forestry cut any projects in its science and technology programs in order to absorb the reduction in its expenditures required by the economic statement made by the Minister of Finance in the House on November 8, 1984 and, if so, what are they and what are the projected costs?


Hon. Gerald S. Merrithew (Minister of State (Forestry)):: No.


Mr. Stackhouse: What is the percentage of female employees in the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service and what percentage are employed in middle and upper management?


Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Solicitor General of Canada):: The female employees in the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service account for 33.5 per cent of the total. There are no female employees in upper management categories, and 4 per cent of the total female employees is in middle management positions.


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


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, as a courtesy to my colleagues, with respect to the business for tomorrow it is my intention to have the House consider the same business we are considering today. If we make progress I will be consulting with my colleagues concerning the opportunity to consider additional items of legislation, provided we get through Bill C-15 today or tomorrow.


Ian Deans: It is our intention to do the same thing.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Stevens that Bill C-15, an Act respecting investment in Canada, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Regional Development; and on the motion of Mrs. Tardif (Charlesbourg) (p. 1708).
Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, I find it regrettable that we should start this week in Parliament with a motion of closure for a debate as important as Bill C-15, legislation that may affect the very existence of a number of small Canadian businesses.
Mr. Speaker, opinion polls have indicated that 70 per cent of Canadians believe that our economic potential is severely threatened by this kind of foreign control.
After a consensus was reached on the need for ensuring that foreign investment would have a positive impact on the Canadian economy, the Liberal Government at the time created FIRA in the early seventies. As the Gray Report mentioned in 1972, when considering foreign investment one should bear in mind three potential dangers. First, distortion of
January 28, 1985

the international market as a result of other governments intervening to serve their own interests. Second, the fact that multinational corporations are liable to ignore local interests and decide on the location of functions such as research and development and advanced processing without considering national economic objectives. Third, Mr. Speaker, the existence of a few international corporations that largely dominate certain sectors and do not react to market forces in the same way as much smaller businesses.
Investment Canada will have only 75 days to approve investment requests submitted for analysis. After 75 days approval is automatic. The Canadian Government is either being incredibly naive or has some perverse desire to sabotage its own program. Anyone who is remotly familiar with the ramifications of multinationals knows that it is impossible to finalize, with in so short a time, the kind of analysis required to approve an investment project. This Government wants to make Investment Canada a paper tiger with no efficiency whatsoever.
Another point is that where up to now, persons applying for foreign investment had to prove that the investment would be of significant benefit to Canada, from now on they merely have to prove that the investment will result in a net benefit. The Canadian Government is putting the financial wellbeing of thousands of small Canadian businesses in jeopardy. This policy of the Progressive Conservatives will considerably diminish the Government's ability to ensure that foreign investment is of benefit not only to the investors but also to the Canadian economy. Foreign investors tend to invest mainly in the small- and medium-sized business sector. In 1980, 40 per cent of investments went to the manufacturing sector, 12.7 per cent to the financial sector and 7.6 per cent to the retail industry. Investors are of course mainly interested in the most profitable sectors and those that rely on advanced technology. Does "Canada is open for business" mean to the Progressive Conservative Party that-

Our industries have to close their door to any hope of development?

Does that slogan mean: For the sake of a few tax dollars, let us stamp out the future of our small businesses, let us destroy the growth potential of our international markets, and let us set up a colonial system?
An area like that of high technology, generally consisting of small companies, could soon wind up in foreign hands. With the multinational corporations' policy of restricted mandates, our industries would be totally paralyzed with respect to advanced technology development. What would prevent a foreign corporation first from taking over a Canadian competitor, then from striking off its research and development budget, and restricting its export potential to promote the sale of the parent company's products on the international market?
Investment Canada Act
The Progressive Conservative Government knows very well, Mr. Speaker, that the policy of restricted mandates is widespread and always kept secret by the corporation. Small and medium-sized businesses are the spearheads of our Canadian economy. They have generated 70 percent of all new private sector jobs during the last decade. The Progressive Conservative Government, which has always boasted about being the advocate of free enterprise, will in fact surrender our small businesses to investors whose prime interest often will be to prevent them from competing with the parent company's products.
Mr. Speaker, this House should take the time needed to debate this foreign investment issue, because the future of our small businesses, which are responsible for creating most jobs, could be endangered. They could fall into the hands of foreign investors.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I thank you for recognizing me. I am sorry you were not in the chair when I was wearing my kilt on Robbie Burns day. I know you would have had some brief comment on that. Perhaps it is better that you were not in the chair, now that I think about it.
I would like to speak on this motion. I have spoken on the previous amendment to this Bill and I would draw Your Honour's attention to the speech I made at that time. I would like to add a few things today. I understand that we are debating a motion of closure. Isn't it amazing, Mr. Speaker, how soon this Conservative Government has fallen into the pattern of the previous Liberal Government? This is an important matter which deals with the future of Canada, investment in Canada, the economic policy of Canada, and maybe even the independence of Canada. Yet we find that the Government wants to close off debate on this issue very quickly.
I can remember the days when the Conservatives on this side of the House stood up, one after the other, and spoke against closure. Right away we have a closure motion. There is an expression, "Plus qa change, plus c'est pared". It means the more things change the more they stay the same. The same words were used in a letter by one of the Conservative Members complaining to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) about the Conservatives being in the lap of the oil industry and not having much of a policy for the consumer. He used those same words, as I do in this particular debate.
In my previous speech on this matter I pointed out that we should not be afraid of FIRA. All FIRA did was to apply a number of tests. Did this foreign investment mean that there were going to be Canadian jobs? Did it mean that the company was going to invest and buy in Canada? Did it mean that the company was going to do its research in Canada? Did it mean that there would be adequate opportunities for jobs for Canadians? It was in fact very practical legislation. If I do have any criticism of FIRA, it would be that it could have

January 28, 1985
Investment Canada Act
been administered better. The proceedings could have taken place more quickly for the businesses involved. However, you do not throw the baby out with the bath water; you reform F1RA. Instead we have Investment Canada.
In the very effective speech of the Member who spoke just before me, he said that Canada was open for business now under this new test. What does that mean? When Canada was open for business in the past our oil industry was suddenly taken over and controlled by foreigners. These foreign-con-trolled companies tended to do their research and development in their home country, mainly the United States. The dividends went out of our country and back to the parent country. Materials were bought from parent companies in another country. Canadians lost in research and development, in money flowing out of the country, and in jobs. We created a branch plant economy.
I grew up in Etobicoke, which I do not admit very often since I represent a riding in Vancouver. However, the truth is that I grew up in Etobicoke. I remember that the branch plant economy brought us prosperity for a number of years. However, there were problems with that kind of economy and when the recession came we began to suffer more than the United States. In times of financial difficulty the branch plants' production would simply go back to their head offices and the head offices would do all of the business rather than the branch plants.
I see a Member from Toronto on the other side who is one of the more attentive Members of the House. I know that he would be interested in this. The key debate in this country, other than on universality which is going on behind the scenes, will be on free trade in the future. The worst of all possible worlds that we could have in Canada is to have free trade with a branch plant economy. We could be in real trouble as an independent country.
That is why I object to this Investment Canada Bill. I believe it indicates that we have given up the attempt to have an independent Canadian industry. The New Democratic Party will not give that up in Canada. In the last few years the oil industry has moved from being 28 per cent Canadian controlled to being 40 per cent Canadian controlled. That is the type of thing we like to see. It does not have to be all public. It can be a mixture of public and private. That is the way we are doing things in Canada these days. We should not give up that thrust because it is the key to an independent country.
I would like to discuss an issue about which people probably do not know much. It has to do with the oil industry. Chevron or Standard Oil of California took over Gulf in the United States. There are companies in Canada called Gulf Canada and Chevron Canada. In fact, Chevron owns Gulf. Under the old legislation, which I believe still applies, Chevron will have to apply to FIRA, as I believe it has, to deal with the situation in Canada since there has been a takeover in the United States. I predict that we may see a reverse takeover. We may see Gulf taking over Chevron.
This is a very strange situation but it gives us a great opportunity. We should use the opportunity, as should the Government, to encourage Canadian individuals, co-operatives or governments to buy Gulf. In this way we could get much more Canadianization. However, the trend is all the other way. This is an opportunity to get Canadian entrepreneurs or the public sector to take over Gulf because of what has happened as a result of takeovers in the United States. Takeovers in the United States affect Canada. Remember that Gulf is involved in Hibernia on the East Coast, in the Beaufort Sea in the north, and vast land tracts and service stations throughout Canada. These issues have not been debated in Canada but should be.
When FIRA was set up its purpose was not to say no to foreign capital but to screen it and make it work for Canadians. Every country does that. It is not as though Canada is the odd person out. They have FIRA in the United States but they call it the American Congress. Takeovers in the United States are investigated by the American Congress, as are changes in taxation laws and so on. Right now in the American Congress a congressional committee is investigating the fact that Canadians own over 6 per cent of the natural gas industry. The Americans are concerned about that for the same reasons that we were concerned when we set up FIRA. They want to ensure that American interests are protected. When Norway or Germany consider these matters it is to ensure that their own interests are protected.
We have an open world. I am a westerner now and I have the religion. I believe in open trade. We need open trade and investment. We are going to get a lot of investment from South East Asia. It is already coming into my province of British Columbia. We must ensure that that investment is used for jobs for Canadians. It must not just come in, take over things and repatriate profits. It must not be allowed to do all its research and development and buying elsewhere. That will not develop our country or reduce our persistently high level of unemployment.
I am a Scot who came over to Canada at the age of five. That is the same age Sir John A. Macdonald was when he came over. I have always been a great fan of Sir John A. Macdonald. I think Sir John A. Macdonald would not think very much of this legislation. The more traditional Conservative policy was to try to develop an independent Canada in which we would rely on each other, our home investment and home markets, as much as possible. While it over-simplifies the situation somewhat, it would have been Sir John A. Macdonald's position.
Bill C-15 is a departure from the traditional Conservative policy. I have real fears that the passage of this Bill will jeopardize the future independence of our country. We will be a branch plant economy controlled by outsiders and we will have even less control over our economy than we have now.


Mr. Keith Penner (Cochrane-Superior):: Mr. Speaker, let me say that 1 consider this policy issue contained in Bill C-15
January 28, 1985

to be much too important to have closure imposed upon it so soon. The debate surrounding Bill C-15 is not whether there should or should not be a review process or whether there should be a means or method of reviewing foreign investment. The question is, will the remaining process after Bill C-15 goes into effect continue to be effective and be at all adequate in serving the national interest?
In introducing this Bill, the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens) said that we will retain a review process and a review of foreign investment. Strangely enough, he went on to say that by exempting new business and limiting review to larger acquisitions only, we will reduce by 90 per cent the number of transactions now subject to review. The Minister then argues that we must have a review mechanism and proceeds significantly to reduce even the little effectiveness which FIRA had.
In 1973 when the FIRA legislation was being debated in the House, I described it as being a cautious Bill. I looked back to those debates and I noticed that the Hon. Member for York-Simcoe at that time, the present Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion, followed me in debate and agreed with me that it was indeed cautious. Everyone knows that FIRA rarely blocked any investment. In fact, between 1974 when the Bill came into effect and 1984, 92 per cent of all cases which needed a decision were allowed. We can conclude very quickly that foreign investors had nothing to fear from FIRA.
Why, then, did foreign investors object to FIRA? Why did they put pressure on the Conservative Party to do away with FIRA if they formed the Government? I think it is very simple. Foreign investors can sometimes be even more secretive than governments. A review process helps us know what foreign investors are doing and what they will do with the money they bring into Canada. Now, 90 per cent of all of the screening of FIRA will be eliminated by Bill C-15. More often than not, foreign investment means quite simply foreign ownership and control.
When the FIRA legislation was introduced in the late 1970's, Canadians knew that foreign ownership and control had a significant impact in all areas of our life, politically, economically and culturally. Much of that impact is negative.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) recently said that under this legislation Canada is now open for business again. That called for the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) to say, quite correctly, that we have always been open for business. Everyone knows that we have always been open for business. The real question is whether we are now going to be up for sale.
Let me refer Hon. Members to a very important report that was produced by the External Affairs Committee during that same period just prior to the FIRA legislation. It is known as the Wahn report named after Mr. Ian Wahn, who was a Member at that time. That report clearly pointed out a main thesis, that if we get ourselves into a position of economic dependency we lose our freedom to decide on political questions in our interest. That is what worries me so much about
Investment Canada Act
unlimited, uncontrolled and unreviewed foreign investment such as we will have with Bill C-15.


Paul Wyatt Dick: That is not true.


B. Keith Penner: It is true and I will demonstrate why it is true. When we speak of foreign investment, we talk about foreign ownership and control. That must concern us.
We are not talking about the importation of capital. We are not talking about floating bond issues outside the country. That never was a matter of concern to FIRA and it is not a matter of concern now. We are talking about ownership and control of industries, resources and businesses in Canada. The existence of a foreign investment review business in this country simply means that we can weigh the negative and positive impacts against the national interest. The national interest includes jobs. Will there be jobs? Will there be new technology? Will some of the disadvantaged regions of this country experience more rapid development? I urge Members on the Government side carefully to consider the argument that the review process should not be weakened at this time in our history. This is the time to strengthen it.
Let us consider what is taking place in Australia. The Austrialians welcome foreign investment just as we do. However, they have a policy which seeks to ensure that there is Australian participation and control in industries and resources to an appropriate extent in each particular case. That is the function of their review process.
Bill C-15 goes in the opposite direction. It means, in answer to my hon. friend opposite, that the Canadian interest can be totally disregarded in 90 per cent of all cases. That is what the legislation says. If the Hon. Member can argue contrary to that, I am prepared to sit down and listen to those arguments. This is not a valid, enlightened or acceptable public policy position. Bill C-15 takes a modest, non-threatening review process and replaces it with a carte blanche. In 1977 and 1982 the Liberal Government made some moves to reduce the power of FIRA. Investment ceilings were raised so that there could be a shorter procedure rather than going through the full review process. I would have argued against that had I been in the Government, but the times seemed to dictate that that was the way we should proceed.
It is important to remember that the review process remained intact. I am not concerned about the Government changing the name. It can call it Investment Canada rather than FIRA; that is not relevant. However, there must be a mechanism in place by which we can review foreign investment. It is irresponsible not to have such a mechanism.
The Minister's statement on Bill C-15 is terribly misleading. He said: "We believe that Canada requires a means to safeguard its national interests". He goes on to say that there must be a review process and then, in another statement in the same document, he says that they will exempt new investment and anything except large acquisitions. This means that 90 per cent of foreign investment will not be reviewed at all. It means that the Government is doing away with the review process, so

January 28, 1985
Investment Canada Act
there is a clear contradiction in the Minister's own statement. He cannot have it both ways.
The doors of Canada are being thrown wide open. My concern is that we will not get the benefit that we expect. I do not believe that we will get the jobs and the new technologies that are referred to in the Minister's statement. We will not get the regional economic expansion and development. What will be the Government's next step when it comes to realize that? What further steps will it take to entice the flow of foreign investment into this country for more ownership and control? In the 1970s Canadians were deeply concerned about this question. At that time the Gallup polls indicated that there was concern about foreign economic domination of Canada. They said that the Government had done too little before the FIRA legislation was brought in and that more action was required. FIRA was part of that response, and I want to tell the House that it has worked. The percentage of foreign ownership in Canada has been reduced significantly.
Today the concern about foreign ownership and control is blunted. It is less of a concern to Canadians because their preoccupation, quite rightly so, is with high rates of unemployment. Surely the Government is not saying to Canadians today that Bill C-15 is their answer to the problem of unemployment. If so, they will be sadly disappointed. Bill C-15 will not create jobs. As 90 per cent of all foreign investment will not be reviewed, Canadians will be in the dark about whether the national interest will be served as a result of such investment, or whether there will be benefits to our country. When the dawn breaks we may realize that the price we paid has been too high and our independence may have been reduced to puppetry.
Economic nationalism does not mean being insular or defensive; it means taking positive steps to strengthen Canada's position at home and abroad. A foreign investment review process does that, but Bill C-15 does not. In its wild charge in its effort to shoot down Liberal policies of the past, I am afraid the Government is shooting itself in the foot.


Mr. Ernie Epp (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, this is a sad day for the Canadian nation. Today the House of Commons debates, under the compulsion of not being able to place any more amendments on the resolution before it, a Bill in which the principles of building up the country so that it will be under our own control, as my colleagues in both caucuses have said, are being sacrificed. Indeed, this is a sad day for the Conservative Party. Over many years that Party, more often than not, has had a sense of national development. As the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) pointed out so well, under its first Leader under Confederation it worked toward national development with a variety of national policies. Much more recently and under the leadership of the late Right Hon. Member for Prince Albert, it attempted to develop policies of national development which gave nothing to the desire of others, whether they be in the United States or in Great Britain, to control the economic
development of this country. Having introduced that heritage in our midst, I wonder how the Hon. Member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton) feels as the House of Commons debates these measures.
The sense of a development of our resources and our economy in the interests of Canadians and the sense of a process which will be under the control of Canadian people have been abandoned. Instead we have a Party which is clearly dominated by the principles of neo-classic economics that were powerful in the post-war era, principles which in earlier years its members had the good sense to criticize, if not to reject. Those principles are now triumphant. In the Party which governs this country now, we have a Party of neo-colonialism. As is well understood in many parts of the world, it is a Party which does not think the economy, resources and opportunities of this country can be developed by Canadians in the interests of Canadians. Rather, it is a Party which thinks that this has to be done by others, and that it is all important to obtain, somehow or other, the capital which will make it possible for some people to find employment in the country. Given that conviction, it thinks that the only possibility of greater prosperity is to turn its back on the traditions of the past and throw the door wide open to capitalists from wherever to let them do what they will in this country. That kind of neo-classic economic thinking for many years has been regarded as being powerful in the Liberal Party. Today, incredibly, it is the policy of the Conservative Party of Canada.
Former colleagues of mine in the academic community have devoted a good deal of attention to the question of where these ideas were stronger. Given the inspiration of the late Professor Donald Creighton, those ideas were strong in the Liberal Party, and the Liberal Party sold out the country. The curious point about that notion as it was being developed in the seventies, according to the writings of John Hutcheson, was that the Liberal Party was moving very slowly and tentatively from one study and one report to another study and another report. Eventually it was recognized, albeit with the help of the New Democratic Party during those minority government days from 1972 to 1974, that some sort of control on foreign investment was essential. In those days the Liberal Government established the Foreign Review Investment Agency.
If one wondered whether by their actions they were belying the reputation which others had assigned to them, that it was the Conservative Party which actually deserved to be seen as the Party of international liberalism without any regard for national development being in our own hands, these days it becomes clear, as the Liberals stand with us in defending FIRA, that the Conservative Government, in pursuing its own misguided convictions, is setting out to sell out the country.
As a result, what are the prospects? We have a Government which is desperately convinced in its own mind that it is only the decisions of those with money or with capital to invest which hold out any hope for us. However, as those who have travelled to Wall Street in the last weeks have told us clearly, to change the Canadian law will not be enough. Capitalists
January 28, 1985

will not be interested in us unless they see some really good opportunity from which to profit.
How will that happen? I suppose that one way to make Canada attractive would be to have wage levels which would undercut those of others. However, in a world in which Asian countries in particular are powerful competitors and in which the wage rates of many countries run lower than ours, is that the prospect which the Government holds out, that we drive down wages by one means or another until the country becomes tempting on the wage rate level? What other factors which might produce costs will we have to abandon? Will occupational health and safety go by the boards? Will the labour relations laws be dropped? These are the kinds of questions upon which my colleagues have focused. They have asked about the development of free economic zones in this country. They are immediately relevant. How, in fact, will we get back foreign capital to Canada which is supposed to provide employment? Surely it is by contemplating dire fates of that sort that we find any reason at all to think that it might arrive.
The prospect of investment in order to supply the Canadian market, particularly at the same time as the Government considers reductions in tariffs and freer and freer trade arrangements, seems to be very limited. It is particularly limited when we have a Government which does not have a wise sense of the need to build demand in Canada. It does not deal with the deficit by reducing tax expenditures which we considered last week in the House, tax expenditures which may well amount to more than the amount by which the budget is in deficit. If that were to be the case, it would be obvious that individual Canadian taxpayers would be grossly overtaxed. That would be one good reason, the soundest reason, for knowing that the Canadian market and the Canadian consumers do not have the means to sustain the demand which the country needs.
We can see on these matters of the economic situation in Canada that there is little reason to hope that the establishment of Investment Canada will solve our economic difficulties. We will end up with the same situation we experienced before. Capital may come in. The inevitable accompaniment of that is the increased technology of other people, reduced opportunity for research and development in this country, and less employment for engineers and scientists.
We will see less opportunity for employment of managers. There will be no possibility of rising to the top of these companies within the Canadian context. We will see particular distortions of trade patterns, excessive imports of manufactured goods, and buying from the parent rather than from Canadian manufacturers and other Canadian industries. There will be increased exports of raw materials without their being worked up in Canada. On both counts there will be less employment in this country. There will be capital outflows.
If there is no close consideration of the benefits to flow from foreign investment, why in God's name do we want to have the
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stuff? If we are going to let other people profit from it with very little spinoff for us, we face every possibility that the investment could take the form of buying out companies in this country, taking control of them and shutting them down. That could follow directly from the results of this Government's policies.
How can anyone regard what the Conservative Government has put before us in Bill C-15 as being conducive to the economic development of this country? The legislation is a disaster. It is to be profoundly regretted in the national interests that the Government faces us today with the closure of debate on this second reading.


Miss Aideen Nicholson (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) told a New York audience that Canada was open for business, some of us were greatly surprised. We wondered what on earth he could mean, because Canada had always been open for business.
The Bill before us contains a lot of puffery and a lot of general stuff. The only significant part seems to be that the name of the foreign investment agency is going to be changed. A large proportion of potential foreign investment in Canada will now be free of the necessity of any review. It is perhaps this that leads one to wonder what indeed is the hidden agenda of the Government, because there is no independent sovereign state that I know of that does not have some limitations or some screening of foreign investment to ensure that it meets national goals.
The much criticized Foreign Investment Review Agency allowed about 90 per cent of the applications. It was receptive to foreign investment in Canada as long as that investment was shown to be in the national interest. The language in the FIRA Bill was "of significant benefit to Canada". The Bill before us will require that the investment be of net benefit to Canada. We have not yet had a clear explanation of the reason for changing those words.
There are many issues of key importance in this legislation and that are worthy of serious discussion at second reading stage. I deplore the Government's decision to introduce closure at this stage. When the Opposition is so small in numbers, surely the Government could have refrained from using its massive majority and allowed these serious matters to be discussed in some depth.
High levels of foreign investment will certainly be crucial to Canada during the next few years. A Conference Board of Canada study highlighted that. It is something we all know. There is no evidence whatever that the Bill before us will attract new investment. With the current massive U.S. trade deficit and the great difficulties which many sectors in the U.S. economy face in modernizing their economy, there is no reason to think that we can expect a large flow of American capital here in the next few years. At best or at worst, depending on your point of view, we may find that some American investors will park their money here in a short-term way while looking for the best long term investment in their home country. This is being made very easy by this legislation

January 28, 1985
Investment Canada Act
which has no requirements, or at least a minimum of them, for the benefit of Canada. Certainly new investment is being excluded from screening, except in certain cases to which I will return.
The Conservative Party has always detested FIRA. However, let me give one example of a case where FIRA would have saved much heartache. A couple of years ago a proud man was in my office in tears. The firm for which he worked had been established in Canada prior to FIRA. It was an American branch plant. It suddenly closed its doors. When he went to work on a Monday, the firm had disappeared. It was a branch plant operation that we saw before FIRA where there was no R and D done in Canada, no attempt to upgrade the skills of employees, and marketing decisions were made in the United States.
When this firm decided it would be in its interests to move to one of the southern States where there are no unions and they could pay minimum wages, all they had to do was to close the doors and move everything out over a weekend. After 20 years, this man, with no marketable skills, found himself unemployed.
That kind of human tragedy was being repeated all across Ontario. It is the kind of thing that FIRA was meant to avoid. With FIRA there was a requirement and an insistence that the investor provide some research and development in Canada and create a situation where, if the firm left, the workers would have some skills and assets.
Another concern about this proposed Bill, which will take off most requirements for review, is the degree of autonomy in decision-making within subsidiaries. This question of absentee decision-making has been raised often in this House. I have given one example of it. There are many cases where decisions being made about the Canadian workplace by people outside Canada is fraught with potential difficulties.
FIRA approved 90 per cent of the applications before it. However, what went on before the approval was a negotiation process aimed at getting the best deal for Canada. The bottom line in this is still, where is the pay-off for Canadians? Is it consistent with Canada's long-term interests to open the door wide to investment without any requirement that that investment be in Canadian interests? The Bill does allow for review in certain cases, but these cases have not been sufficiently clarified in this very brief second reading debate. In my view, they should be clarified even before the matter goes to committee.
The Bill does allow for review when the investment affects Canada's cultural heritage and national identity, but that statement makes a very broad sweep. What issues does the Government propose to include in this and what control by regulation will exist? Will it include oil, gas, mining, and uranium? How often and in which situations will the Government use its reserved power?
What about the review process? As the Bill is written, it looks as though all power rests in the Minister's hands. Is this
desirable? Should there not be other methods of review? These are questions to which our Party will be looking for very clear answers in committee and in the House when the Bill returns at report stage.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question? Debate.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, we are not quite ready for the question yet. It may well be that at some point we will be ready for the question but we will certainly let you know when that is so, Sir.
I just finished having a conversation with certain people in the lobby. I had a chat with one of the pages, in fact, and I said to her: "You have listened to this debate at some length. Is there anything you think I might raise on your behalf as you are one of the young people affected by the inadequate policies of the previous Government and equally or even more detrimentally affected by the inadequate policies of this Government?"
I found her response to be very interesting. She said that this was an important debate and that young people recognized the importance of this debate but that what they really wanted to know was where they were going to find summer jobs this year. They wanted to know where they were going to find employment for this coming summer that would enable them to continue at school as we would wish them to do. I thought that the relevance of that comment was clear. She was really saying, "Why are we doing this right now? Why are we not dealing with what is no doubt the major issue before the country? Why are we not dealing with the question of where the people who are now unemployed might find employment at this point in time?"
It makes absolutely no difference to the current status of the 1.5 million people who are now unemployed whether the Government does or does not have this legislation passed in this current session. I took from the comment of the page that while she could see the value of the debate on foreign investment and, in fact, encouraged further discussion and a more careful analysis of it, she was asking me if it were not possible to move on and deal with matters of immediate relevance. Do you know something, Mr. Speaker? There is a lot to be said for that point of view.
I believe you, Mr. Speaker, and most Members here have travelled in their constituencies recently and have found as I did that the single question that is uppermost in the minds of the overwhelming majority of the people with whom I spoke, and I suspect with whom other Members spoke as well, was the state of the unemployed. They wanted to know whether they would Find jobs. If I understand the economic processes and the social programs of this country correctly, and I think I do, this legislation, important though the Minister in charge of it may think it is and relevant though the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) may feel it to be, does not begin to deal with what the Government identified as its main objective and thrust, jobs, jobs, and more jobs.
January 28, 1985

In fact, let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, why this legislation runs counter to the avowed intents of the Government. It runs counter-


Paul Wyatt Dick: In your mind.


Ian Deans: No, not in my mind but in point of fact. It runs counter to what the Government has said.
You remember as I remember, Sir, that when the Prime Minister was first seeking the leadership of his Party and subsequently when he was seeking the office of the Prime Minister, he identified, quite justifiably and rightly so, that the main problem facing the country was jobs, jobs, and more jobs. I am not even paraphrasing him but am quoting him verbatim.
Let me draw to your attention, Sir, a situation that has arisen in the City of Hamilton that directly touches upon this legislation. I am sure all Hon. Members are familiar with the corporation known as United Technologies. United Technologies has a very bad habit which it developed over many years in many parts of the world. United Technologies acquires companies, then systematically moves to reduce their effectiveness and ultimately closes those companies. I am sure that my colleague, the Hon. Member for Hamilton East (Ms. Copps) is familiar with what I am about to say.
Some years ago, United Technologies was able to purchase Otis Elevator. As a result of its program of closure, it has effectively reduced the opportunity for many hundreds of people from the City of Hamilton to hold down viable occupations.
Every day I come across people who are in their late forties and early fifties, and I am sure my colleague from Hamilton East does as well, who have worked all or most of their adult lives for Otis Elevator. These people did not want United Technologies to take them over. They did not expect that as a result of United Technologies having made substantial commitments, it would move to close the plant and disburse its operations around the world. They did not expect that it would undermine their security and ability to provide for their families. Yet that is exactly what happened.
This is an example of a major corporation moving into Canada with money to invest, purchasing a viable enterprise and then deciding to close it. This operation was closed not because it was not a working operation, not because it did not produce high technology products, not because the product was not recognized as a world leader in its field, but because that particular company decided, for whatever balance sheet reasons it may have had, that it would rather produce some if not all of its products either in the United States or in West Germany.
Is that the kind of investment Tory Members want? Is that what we are about to encourage? Is that an example of what we anticipate will be the great benefit we will derive from the investment that will flow into Canada when we eliminate the review process? If it is, I can cite chapter and verse of other similar situations that have arisen over the course of the last
Adjournment Motion
five or six years. These situations have occurred in spite of the review process.
I say that during its lifetime the review process was inadequate. Instead of eliminating it, we should be strengthening it. The review process should have required that certain commitments, once made, were lived up to. The review process should have required that if a corporation were allowed to take over a major part of Canada's economy, then the very least we could expect in return is that people in Canada would receive jobs. However, that did not happen.
Given that years ago this country was an open field in which one could buy whatever was desired with whatever currency from wherever one came and given that we found over a long period of time that that worked to our detriment and that we needed a process for protecting ourselves against unfair purchasing and closures of our major operations, I would have anticipated that this Government would have recognized that the road to prosperity lay not in returning to those days which resulted in FIR A but rather in looking at the FIR A operation, streamlining it in those areas which required streamlining and toughening its provisions in those areas which required toughening.
The Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) knows, as I know, that over the years, in spite of extracting promises from the majority of those who took over major operations in Canada, we were never able or willing to follow up and require that they performed according to how they said they would in their promises. That was the weakness of FIRA. That is where the process should have been changed.
As a young friend said to me, perhaps it would be more advantageous if we addressed ourselves to the question which is uppermost in the minds of 1.5 million or two million Canadians, that is, where they will find work this year, not five years or ten years from now. This Government certainly is not moving to provide any answer to that question.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 45, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy)-Research-Cancellation of proposed Winnipeg Manufacturing Research Centre, (b) Government policy on consultation; the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate (Mr. Baker)-Environmental Affairs-Proposed weather service information charge, (b) Method of implementation; the Hon.

January 28, 1985
Investment Canada Act
Member for Hamilton East (Ms. Copps)-Status of Women-Government's position, (b) Election campaign statement.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Stevens that Bill C-15, an Act respecting investment in Canada, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Regional Development; and on the motion of Mrs. Tardif (Charlesbourg) (p. 1708).
Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I would like to join in the comments made not only by my colleagues of the Liberal Party, but also by the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans).
After a few days of absence to attend the Ontario Progressive Conservative Leadership Convention, the result of which has made me extremely happy, I was surpprised to find out upon my return that this Government has introduced some kind of closure in a debate on a tremendously significant issue for the Canadian people.
Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my party, I must say that I am extremely surprised that this Government, which, last September 4, succeeded in electing an unprecedented 211 Members to Parliament, cannot find in its ranks anyone ready to speak on foreign investments in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, it is true the Liberal Party has been decimated. We now have 40 Members in this House and the NDP has 30. Nevertheless, to meet the needs of our constituents, Members of both parties have addressed the problems raised by the legislation introduced by this Government. As for the Government majority, its Members sit in silence.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to know whether the Conservatives have taken position for or against anything? They certainly have not taken position on the Bill respecting investment which was introduced by this Government.
Mr. Speaker, 1 am surprised that the Conservative Members from my region of Hamilton are not rising to speak about foreign investment in Canada. We all know that, in Hamilton, the iron ore industry as represented by the Steel Company and Dofasco is at the forefront of Canadian industries, which shows the Canadian people that we can be a world leader when we want.
Mr. Speaker, putting aside the question of foreign investment for a while, we can see that this Bill does not mention investments by Canadians. In this case, how can we help businesses like the Steel Company, how can we help Dominion Foundries so that everyone can benefit from their investments? Let us speak about investments by Canadians. We can compete with anyone. This is already happening in the steel
industry. We know that we Canadians are the best in the world. This is why the Americans would like to freeze iron imports to the United States. Mr. Speaker, I really cannot understand why the Conservative Members of Parliament are not interested either in foreign investment in Canada or in Canadian investment abroad.
Mr. Speaker, we have at least four years before us in view of the unprecedented majority of the Government. Therefore, how can we consider too long two or three weeks of debate for a bill which the Government knows to be this important? I would have thought that every member of each party would rise to speak either to support, to defend or to oppose this legislation. But I see that they are not interested in investments and do not see it as the key which can open not only the doors of our Canadian economy, but also international markets for Canadians. Mr. Speaker, this is the question that this Parliament, this Government and this Minister should ask if they want new markets for Canadians, because it is certain that it is not by looking only at investments in Canada that we can improve our economy for Canadians. It is obvious that our main task is to increase Canadian markets abroad. Mr. Speaker, in this type of closure, and in this-

We have seen a cloak and closure operation with respect to the Investment Canada Bill. I wonder why we have not heard from government Members. I invite government Members from the Hamilton area to stand in the House and indicate if they are in favour of the Bill.
There are 40 Liberal Members. We sit on numerous committees. We are here to defend not only the rights of our constituents, but the rights of all Canadians on the major issues of the day. There were 211 Conservatives elected in an unprecedented majority last September, but the Government cannot muster the manpower to speak to a Bill which will affect the livelihoods, the jobs and the future of all Canadians.


Mr. Blenkarn:: We have already spoken on that.


Sheila Maureen Copps: The Hon. Member for Mississauga South says that Conservatives have already spoken on it. I would suggest that there has not been a Conservative in the Hamilton area who has spoken to this issue. I invite them to put their positions on the record. A closure motion introduced in the early stages of a Parliament-


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Let's vote.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that the Hon. Member's eye is not the only thing that is closed today. The issue is not only one of a full and open discussion, including amendments to this Bill which I have named "Abandon Canada'', but it is also one that requires the contribution of all Members of the House. An extremely dangerous precedent has been set by the Parliamentary Secretary who introduced a motion which effectively muzzles the few representatives which we have in Opposition preventing them from putting outlining,
January 28, 1985

underlining and promoting the concerns and interests of Canadians.
I would have thought that with 211 government Members- many of whom are seeking opportunities to do something because they do not have a defined job in the Government as a Parliamentary Secretary or Minister-they would have looked for opportunities to defend the interests of their constituents. Elowever, not only do governdment Members stand by, muzzled and mum, when they have the opportunity to speak on the issue of Investment Canada, but the Government, through the auspices of the Parliamentary Secretary, who presumably is acting with the full consent of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, brings closure to a motion at the very earliest stage of this session of Parliament. That is a very dangerous precedent and one about which I should think the Canadian people must be concerned and, indeed, outraged.
We do not have great numbers here on the opposition side of the House. We know that with only 40 Hon. Members, we must cover committees and Private Members' Business and we must speak on a number of issues. But it seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that given the small numbers on the opposition side of the House, and given the Government's large majority mandate, this Government does not need closure. It should give Hon. Members an opportunity to exercise their mental acuity and allow them to get up to speak to the people of Canada about what they think this Bill is going to do for the Canadian people. Putting their words on the record will hold those same Hon. Members accountable.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: What about jobs for people, for a change?


Sheila Maureen Copps: The Hon. Member for Mississauga South asks about jobs. As a matter of fact, if the pretended Minister, the Hon. Member for Mississauga South, had his ears and eyes open, he would know that one of the glaring omissions in this particular Bill is the fact that there is nothing which addresses the issue of Canadian investment in the international market. It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that we have to open our eyes to the world and to the fact that the Canadian economy, in order to compete on an international basis, will have to take a lesson from the steel industry of Canada. That industry has competed all over the world and deserves not our derision, not our laughs and jokes in the House of Commons, but our full support in the way of legislation and the expansion of a Bill which would allow Canadians to compete in the international marketplace. We do not have to play second fiddle or take second place to the Americans, Mr. Speaker. We can compete and we will compete. It is about time the Government took the lid off this closure motion, allowed Hon. Members in the Opposition to make some amendments which would improve this Bill, and let the Canadian people, for once, flex their muscles in the economic market.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, it is with a sad heart that I stand to speak on the amendment which was introduced by an Hon. Member for whom I have had
Investment Canada Act
some respect since I have returned to this House, namely, the Hon. Member for Charlesbourg (Mrs. Tardif).
I have spent eight years here in the House of Commons, from 1972 to 1980, and when the Liberals were in government, there were many occasions on which they tried to muzzle the Opposition. At that time the Conservatives were sitting as the Official Opposition, and I can remember the cries of anger and pain and the accusations that the Government was attempting to muzzle Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Lo and behold, Mr. Speaker, now that those Hon. Members are sitting on the government side of the House, they are performing in exactly the same arrogant and fatuous manner as the Liberals did when they sat on the government side.
This amendment, which in effect closes off debate on this very important national issue of foreign investment, is certainly illogical. When I was speaking with the Hon. Member for Charlesbourg earlier, she asked me what exactly it is that the Opposition is opposed to. She said, "I would like to know what it is you oppose in Bill C-15".
Well, Mr. Speaker, what is the argument which the Government has put forward in defence of this Bill? The basic argument which the one-eyed Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn), the cyclops of Mississauga South, has been braying about in the House, is jobs. In fact, Mr. Speaker, there is no evidence to show that in fact jobs would be created by eliminating any kind of review of foreign investment in Canada. Indeed, following the obeisance of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) in New York to the Wall Street barons, kissing their rings, their toes and any other part of their anatomy he could find, following that absolutely pornographic performance in New York, the bankers themselves said that they saw no capital for Canada, and I quote from an article in The Globe and Mail issue of December 20, 1984. In fact, those bankers said that people in Canada are going to have to be very patient, that investments will go up but not necessarily enough to do anything about unemployment. Those are the bankers themselves saying to Canadians, "Look, this is all smoke and mirrors". It is the same thing that Hon. Members opposite have been so famous for saying. It's all a sham. It's all a scam. In fact, there are no jobs going to be created by this haste to ensure that there are foreign investors. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, the Minister himself said, in a statement on December 7 when he introduced this Bill in the House, that "perceptions play a vital role in the world of investment". That is the same sort of thing that the old shyster at the fair used to do with the pea under the shell. This Government is attempting to pull a scam on the Canadian people.
There are some jobs which have been created, and I found them.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Here it comes.


John R. Rodriguez: I want to quote the Prime Minister as reported in an article in The Toronto Star on December 15 for those of us who have been opposing Bill C-15. The headline reads, "The Prime Minister Scorns Nationalists Who Fear Foreign Money". The article goes on to quote the Prime

January 28, 1985
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Minister, "I come from a town, Baie Comeau, Quebec, where the paper mill was built by The Chicago Tribune. Thank God for the fire". The article continues, and this is important because we hear about the jobs, "Had it not been for that investment, I and all of my friends would not have had the opportunities that we have had". But we know, Mr. Speaker, that in fact the Prime Minister himself is a prime example of the kind of deletorious effect which foreign investment can have on the Canadian economy. One of the little strategies is always to employ a local manager. That is exactly what Hanna Mining Company did. It hired a local boy from Baie Comeau and made him President of the IronOre Company of Canada. We know what happened. As soon as the going got rough, IronOre simply closed up shop in Schefferville, picked up its marbles and ran away. The same thing happened to Hanna Mining in Capreol the little town I come from. As soon as the going got rough, the IronOre mine was closed up and they packed up and went to Minnesota.
When Canadian immigrants come to Canada, Mr. Speaker, we always ask, "How is your presence going to benefit Canada?", and I believe the same question can be asked of foreign investors. We certainly do not allow people to come in who the Government does not believe will make a contribution to Canada. I recall the last time I spoke on this Bill. I said how proud we Canadians were when we brought back our Constitution to Canada. In fact, we can amend our Constitution here in Canada and we do not have to depend on the Parliament of a foreign country to make those amendments for us. The only thing to extrapolate from that, Mr. Speaker, is that we should do exactly the same thing with our economy. There is a need to repatriate our economy. There is a need for those who are elected to govern this country to determine where the investment would go and the kind of employment to be created. Indeed, there is talk from the other side of the House, too, that foreign companies bring money to invest in Canada. Well, I recall there was a U.S. Senate hearing on foreign investment in the United States. One of the interesting facts which came out of that hearing was that the majority of companies who come in to Canada take over Canadian companies with Canadian money. In other words, they get a foot in the door, borrow from Canadian banks, Canadian savings, and buy out Canadian companies.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Buying us out with our own money.


John R. Rodriguez: The Hon. Member for Windsor-Walkerville (Mr. McCurdy) quite correctly says they are buying us with our own money. And this Government is saying: We love it, do it some more.
Well, Mr. Speaker, there is no way that the New Democratic Party can accept Bill C-15. We argued that FIRA was a roaring rabbit. It did not have the teeth it should have and we complained about that. One only has to look at the economic climate in Canada before FIRA came into being. Why did it come into being? It was a response to a real problem. Foreign investors came into this country, raped the country, and when
the going got tough, they pulled out. Often times they forced their subsidiaries in Canada not to compete fairly with the parent companies' products in the world. The record is clear that they often enforced their own parent companies' countries' laws on the subsidiary even though it was on Canadian soil.
The last time I spoke I mentioned two examples. One was the forcing of Robin Hood not to sell flour to China back in the 1960s, and the other was not allowing Ford to sell cars to Cuba. No country worth its salt, no sovereign country, one which is master of its own economic destiny, would ever allow a foreign country to determine the direction in which it will develop. I think if the Tories would stop this businesses of getting into bed with foreign tycoons, Mr. Speaker, we would be much further ahead.
[ Translation]


Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this further opportunity to discuss Bill C-15 now before the House, although I resent closure. This is in fact the first exercise in tyranny by the majority, Mr. Speaker. We find that a government with 211 members, historically the largest majority, when confronted with a hard-pressed Opposition, must now resort to a backbencher, what the Hon. Member for Champlain (Mr. Champagne) could call a "deuce", to do its dirty work.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister responsible for the legislation did not even have the courage to be in the House to listen to the legitimate concerns of Members on this side of the House. Unfortunately, he cannot get very much advice from Government Members, because they have all been muzzled, Mr. Speaker. We have come to realize over the last few days, even the last few weeks, that this Bill gets no attention whatsoever from the Government. Following the example of the Minister responsible, they have suddenly lost all imagination, they have lost their right to speak, since we know they were warned not to speak in this debate. So we Find ourselves in a situation where the Opposition is forced to use all available means at its disposal to try and put something into the Minister's head. It is not easy. I would almost say: mission impossible. We shall see after the committee reports back to the House, but I think, Mr. Speaker, you will agree that making use of a motion of closure at this stage is at the very least premature.
In a situation where the sovereignty of our Canadian economy is at stake, I find it appalling that just to do the Americans a favour, anyone should want to go over the head of the Parliament of Canada and report to President Reagan as if to say: We will go down our knees if we have to. The Prime Minister is using the Member for Charlesbourg (Mrs. Tardif) to stop a debate that is vital to the future of our country. Mr. Speaker, I thought that with all these new Members we have in Parliament, the Prime Minister would make good use of these people who have a lot of imagination and a thorough knowledge of their constituencies, and I am sure that the
January 28, 1985

Member for Charlesbourg is acquainted with the problems of a foreign-controlled economy. I am sure she is concerned that our oil and gas industry is 49 per cent controlled by foreign interests, and I am sure she is pleased with our national energy policy, which over the last decade, from 1971 to 1981, managed to bring foreign control down from 90 per cent to 49 per cent. But this is still not enough, Mr. Speaker. We want the Members opposite to be as concerned as we are about Canadian ownership and less about selling their souls to the Americans and other foreign interests.
That is more or less the message we want to give them. We agree that Canada needs jobs, we agree that we need new investment, but they are the Government and they must realize that if a foreign company that intends to set up business in Canada is unable to prove to the Foreign Investment Review Agency that it intends to create jobs in Canada, it is not necessarily a good investment, Mr. Speaker.
If we are to have the assurance that jobs will be created, we must demand proof before the Agency. We know that regions like Trois-Rivieres and other regions as well will need new investment. And I should say at this point that one thing they forgot to promote in the legislation now before the House is investment by Canadians. Why should we assume that capital has to come from outside Canada, Mr. Speaker, when we know that in Canada the level of savings is twice as high as it is in the United States. There is capital available across this country. There are people ready to invest and to purchase shares in Canadian companies. What does the Bill do for these people, Mr. Speaker? What does the Bill before the House do to create what is referred to in the Bill as Investment Canada? What does it do to help Canadians who want to invest? I wonder why the new Members from Quebec, who are familiar with the provincial program for investment in Quebec and Canadian companies, are not rising in the House today, to request amendments to the Bill to enable Canadians to invest in their own economy and in job creation, Mr. Speaker?
Those are the kinds of measures we in the Liberal Party are looking for, not just a smokescreen to please our American friends and the former bosses of the Prime Minister. Not necessarily former, some people might say. What we want to do, Mr. Speaker, is to ensure that a Bill like Investment Canada is not just for foreign investors. We would like the Progressive Conservatives to have enough faith in the ability of Canadians to assume control over their economy but, Mr. Speaker, we look upon this Bill C-15 as an open admission of failure on the part of the government. They had been talking about rebuilding a climate of confidence, but instead of trying to do just that in Canada, they would rather do so beyond our own borders. That is altogether unacceptable, and we have seen how this attempt has been unsuccessful.
The Member who spoke before me mentioned, among other things, the fact that American bankers who saw through this scheme have openly been laughing at the government and
Investment Canada Act
saying: It is not because you are planning to change the name that money will be flowing into Canada. Yet, during the election campaign, the Prime Minister kept saying: The day after I take office, money will indeed flow right into Canada. Mr. Speaker, tens of thousands of jobs were to be created in Canada. Well now, we have yet to see any evidence of that and there are no statistics to prove that investments have gone up. We still have one and a half million unemployed. That is why I am concerned when I see that Members opposite are not worried about the current situation in the transport industry, for instance, which happens to be 69 per cent under foreign control. Nothing here deals with Canadian ownership. What do they think about Canada's chemical industry, 75 per cent of which is dominated by foreign interests?
I think that this government, anxious to have something in the legislative mill, quite simply introduced this measure through the back door to please the Americans, without any concern about Canadian control of investments in Canada. That is why we intend to fight this Bill every inch of the way.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, during the election campaign the people of Canada were told by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), then the Leader of the Official Opposition, that the main issue facing the Canadian people was jobs, jobs, jobs. We were told that if we elected a Progressive Conservative Government, hundreds of thousands of jobs would appear on the scene almost immediately.
The Prime Minister was correct that jobs were the main concern of the Canadian people. A Gallup poll published just a couple of days ago showed that the main concern of well over 50 per cent of the people was jobs and unemployment. The jobs are not there, Mr. Speaker. All of the organizations, both public and private, which do research in the field of economics and study the probabilities with regard to employment, have agreed that for the foreseeable future there will not be a real reduction in the number of unemployed. There will continue to be close to 1.5 million unemployed, and the present 11 per cent unemployment rate is not likely to drop to less than 10 per cent in the next number of years.
That situation is even more grim and desperate for our young people. The rate of unemployment among young people is almost 20 per cent. I am sure there is not a Member of Parliament who, during the recent campaign, or in his office in recent weeks has not been visited by very well educated young people who have not been able to get a job in the field in which they have been educated. During the recent election campaign while I was canvassing I called on a house where there was a young man who had graduated from engineering more than two years ago. He had been able to find some temporary work, but has not had a single job, either temporary or permanent, which had any relationship to the field in which he had spent several years getting an education.

January 28, 1985
Investment Canada Act
We are now meeting people who had stable jobs for 10, 15 or 20 years and the campanies for which they worked are now closing up. A recent illustration of that is the Wabasso Company which operated in the textile industry in Ontario or Quebec. It employed 1,200 people and now is closing down. Over the weekend there was an announcement in my own city that Rayovac batteries, which has been in operation for 20 or 25 years in Winnipeg and employed 65 people, is closing down. I am speaking of people in their forties or fifties who have worked at the same job for many years and are now being thrown on the unemployment scrap heap. Where are the jobs for people in their forties and fifties? There simply are not any.
This is the situation, Mr. Speaker. The Government is telling us that we need only pass this legislation to get rid of big, bad FIRA and money will pour into Canada. It took years to get the former Liberal Government to pass the legislation establishing the Foreign Investment Review Agency. Under that legislation, well over 90 per cent of applications were approved. Agencies such as Statistics Canada which did studies indicated that FIRA had virtually no effect in creating disincentives for foreign capital to come into the country.
A number of non-partisan newspapers and magazines have looked into this question. I would like to quote a few sentences from a lengthy article which appeared in The Globe and Mail on December 20, 1984 written by Thomas Walkom, who is certainly not a flaming radical. Mr. Walkom said in part as follows:
Brian Mulroney's new love affair with U.S. investors may be fine as far as it goes, but those waiting for job-producing foreign money to flood into Canada should not hold their breath.
This is the message from the handful of people who exert considerable control over billions of dollars of U.S. capital-New York's investment bankers.
He goes on to say that this program can do nothing about the fundamental problems facing the country. He then gives the reasons. This article goes on:
They point out, however, that foreign investors are a hard-nosed lot interested in making money. In Canada, that means mainly resource industries, and with the exception of oil and gas, resources are not considered good investments.
If the resource industries in which we have been so involved and which have employed so many hundreds of thousands of Canadian citizens are not considered good investments by U.S. bankers, where is the money which is going to flow into this country?
Another one of Mr. Walkom's bankers said:
"Natural resources are under the gun worldwide," says another. "I don't know what's going to turn it around and I feel very sorry for Canada because it has built its whole existence on natural resources."
Another banker says, "FIRA itself was not the bogeyman that kept away foreign investment..", and "The NEP was a hell of a whipping horse," says another. "Canada would not have been in much different shape today if the NEP hadn't happened, in my mind. The real problem was world oil prices".
In the 1970s when we were talking about a major expansion in the production of new energy in Canada and about the use of the tar sands, it was assumed by the federal and provincial Governments that the price of oil would rise 15 per cent annually. This meant that when the tar sands plants came on stream, the world price of oil would be approximately $70 a barrel. This meant that it made sense to try to get the tar sands operational.
That did not happen. We know that the price of oil is going down rather than up. Therefore, to depend on that kind of program would not have produced the jobs and it will not produce the jobs now.
The traditional sectors in which Canadians have worked are forestry, mining, agriculture and fishery. All of these sectors are now depressed because of the world recession, increased competition from Third World countries, increased automation, computerization and increased efficiency. All of these sectors employ fever people than they did years ago, and to expect new foreign investment to flow in to these fields is to count on the impossible. That is why we oppose this Bill.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I cannot but take the opportunity given me today to speak briefly on the motion now under consideration. I believe, indeed I am convinced, that the Hon. Member for Argenteuil-Papineau (Mrs. Bourgault) who is sitting opposite would have blamed me for not doing so. I also invite her, Mr. Speaker, to take part in this very important debate because I know that her constituents want industries that are Canadian and want us to be masters in our own house. That is what her constituents and mine want for Canada.
Today, Mr. Speaker, the government has decided to close the debate on this bill. We wonder why-

Why does the Government decide to place this guillotine motion at this time? Presumably it is because it believes that this issue has been debated sufficiently.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: It has.


Don Boudria: I am glad to hear the Hon. Member across the way believe that we have. Perhaps the reason is that the Government has a very long legislative agenda. Let us review the legislative agenda.
We will recall that during the election campaign the Government set forth a rather extensive legislative program for the people of this country. It had many commitments, as the Conservatives called them. I call them empty promises; 338 promises.

-all kinds of promises to Canadians. This is what the Government has done. Let me refer to a few-
January 28, 1985



We must close the debate immediately because, according to the Government, there is so much for us to do. This is what the Conservatives promised. They had 113 promises to spend more money and five promises to spend less. There were two promises to increase revenues and 26 promises to reduce revenues. There were 139 proposed actions to increase the deficit and seven actions to lower the deficit. These are promises which the Party opposite made during the campaign.
Let me cite a few specific promises, which presumably the Conservatives want us to discuss as soon as the closure motion is completed. According to its promises, the Government wanted to adopt a positive approach to productivity management through the development of incentives to meet objectives specified in any program placed before Cabinet or Parliament. However, what is the agenda? Although the Government was elected almost six months ago, it only has eight Bills on its agenda. It is now invoking closure because of the necessity to attend to other urgent business. There is nothing on the agenda, and we are told that the cupboard is bare. It is the Government's legislative and imaginative cupboard that is bare. It has nothing to propose to the people. If the Government had many promises to offer months ago, why is it not fulfilling some of those promises now?
With respect to private Members, it is interesting to note that there are only 14 private Members' motions coming from 211 Conservative Members. Indeed, the cupboard is bare. Less than 10 per cent of the government Members can provide the House of Commons with their input in terms of the legislative agenda. That is what they have to offer.
Let me give further examples of election promises the Government wants to implement now which have resulted in the closure debate today. It will ensure that Parliament performs a stronger role. How can Parliament do so when the Government invokes closure? This would not be the first time the Government has contradicted itself.
The Government talks about saving money, yet it spends $24,000 to deliver ten packages of mail across the country and spends $500,000 in one month to provide jet travel for Cabinet Ministers.
The Government is not delivering on its promises. In one of its promises, the Government said that it wants to reaffirm and strengthen the mandate of Treasury Board as over-all managers of Government resources. How does that promise conform with the Government's advertising contracts being given without tender?


Paul Wyatt Dick: Where is the Bill?


Don Boudria: We are not discussing the Bill, we are discussing the closure motion at this time. In case the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader (Mr. Dick) is unaware of what we are doing in the House at this time, perhaps I could bring that to his attention.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Talk about the Bill.
Investment Canada Act


Don Boudria: He may talk about the Bill; I am talking about the closure motion.


Paul Wyatt Dick: It is not closure. That is Standing Order 37.


Don Boudria: One form of guillotine or another, it is still the same. The Government is cutting off the due process for debating issues in this Parliament so it can move on to other pressing business. However, the Government has no other pressing business because it is not doing its job. It is not proceeding with the legislative program which it promised the people during the election campaign. It has had ample time to do so. If in six months it cannot come up with a legislative program, its Members will find themselves turfed out after the next election. They will be back on this side of the House from where they came. That is what will happen to the Conservative Party if it does not wake up and provide Canada with the leadership it promised.
I did not make 338 promises during my election campaign. Like you, Mr. Speaker, I put up with those promises. I listened to them in disbelief, thinking that it was impossible to deliver them. I was right, it was not possible to deliver those promises.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Let us get on to other things.


Don Boudria: The Government is not even trying. I hear the Hon. Member across the way. I ask him, what other things? There are only eight items on the legislative agenda of the Government.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: That is eight of them.


Don Boudria: If the Government is so concerned about providing us with what we need, let it introduce the youth employment programs we need right now. If the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Miss MacDonald) came into the House right now to announce a good youth employment program, I am sure there would be unanimous consent on the part of all Hon. Members to listen to an important announcement which would provide the young people of our country who do not have employment with at least some hope that what they voted for on September 4 had at least some semblance of reality.
We will not hear that from the Government this afternoon. The Minister of Employment and Immigration will not be here to make that statement because she does not have a program ready. Why does the Government not have a program ready? The answer to that question is simple.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Talk about this Bill.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Talk about the Bill.


Don Boudria: I am talking about the decision of the Government to cut off debate. If Hon. Members opposite want to contribute to this particular debate, all of us would be most interested in hearing from them. They should tell us why they

January 28, 1985
Investment Canada Act
feel that this Investment Canada Bill is so necessary at this time.
I should like to refer to an article which appeared in The Globe and Mail on December 20. It was a very meaningful article written by Mr. Thomas Walkom. As my time is coming to a close, I will just refer to it very briefly. It indicated that Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Conservatives had blamed FIRA and the NEP for scaring away foreign and direct investment and that they had attempted to bolster their point by pointing to Statistics Canada figures on net U.S. direct investment in Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member but his time has expired.


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Mr. Speaker, I think one ought to be cautious in exhorting the Government to keep its promises. The Conservative Party made many promises during the election campaign which I hope it does not keep. There are some which I hope it does keep. This Bill happens to be the keeping of a promise to dismantle FIRA. To that extent the Conservative Party is being faithful to its political and ideological agenda. That is why we are opposing it.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: At least on this issue, if not on others, the Conservatives have the courage of their convictions.
I realize that we are speaking to a motion which is a very mild form of time allocation or closure. It is not the more drastic measures which could be taken. I might have a word to say about that in a minute. However, I think we need to see this Bill in context, as part of a general erosion of Canadian independence which has taken place since the Government took office. I am thinking of how this jibes with what is happening with respect to foreign policy and the easy acquiescence which we see on the part of the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) when it comes to American policy on star wars, nuclear arms talks, et cetera. We have to see this Bill as part of a larger package being introduced over time by the Progressive Conservative Government in which I believe there is a serious erosion of Canadian independence.
Also it concerns the total economic package by which the Government is trying to create what it calls a good investment climate and what I call not competition, but capitulation to factors against which we ought to be struggling instead of giving into. We have to see this move in terms of foreign investment as one of four or five measures which I regret.
First, we have the opening of the country to foreign investment without any meaningful criteria as to whether or not that investment ought to benefit Canadians. We need to see this along with changes in respect of environmental policy where the Government has declared, in the interests of bettering the investment climate and reducing the deficit, that it will not be as concerned as it used to be about what factories, plants and various other forms of economic activity are putting into our
lakes, rivers, air, soil or whatever. This is another signal to the investment community that Canada is a good place in which to invest because it does not care as much about the environment as it used to.
Another signal concerns working conditions and labour. By postponing amendments to Part IV of the Canada Labour Code, they are sending out a message that we now have a Government which is not as concerned about working people as may have been the case before. There is one signal on foreign investment, one on the environment and one on labour. Another signal-and they all go together-is that the Government is more prepared to tinker with the social programs of the country than to embark upon serious tax reform. It is another signal to the investment community-"Don't worry about us, guys; if we have fiscal problems, we would much rather tamper with social programs than make you pay your share". They are being asked to come and invest here and are being told that they can count on us. We will be patsies, like the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Miss Carney) is a patsy for the oil companies. These are the kinds of signals which are being sent out. They are unfortunate.
It is a tragedy because I think many of these changes are well meant. They are part of an internally coherent package, but I say to all Members of the House of Commons that we will regret collectively as a nation the kinds of steps the Government is taking today and will take in days ahead in its naive attempt to create what it calls a good investment climate and what I call capitulation. It is all part of making Canada the banana republic which it has the possibility of becoming if we embark fully upon the kinds of views advocated by Progressive Conservatives in opposition and now in government.
With respect to the motion, as I said earlier it is a form of time allocation. I should like to take this opportunity to say to the Government that this raises the whole question of parliamentary reform and the allocation of parliamentary time. The House has before it the recommendations of the special task force on parliamentary reform which were recommended unanimously by two committees in a row. If Conservatives are half as serious about parliamentary reform as they constantly said they were in opposition, they had better take some action with respect to those recommendations. They now have the opportunity to make good on decades of rhetoric about parliamentary reform. If that committee is to continue doing its work, and if Members of Parliament are to feel that any kind of momentum is to be maintained coming out of the reforms made in the last Parliament, we had better see some action soon.
[Translation\


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order please. It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.
January 28, 1985



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-MOTIONS

["Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) for the concern that he has expressed about the entrenchment of property rights in the Constitution. This is a matter in which many Canadians are interested. It is for that reason, however, that I must agree that Private Members' Hour is not the appropriate forum for resolving this matter.\nI, no less than my colleagues, am sympathetic in principle to the entrenchment of property rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These rights are deserving of the protection they can be afforded by entrenchment in the Constitution. By entrenching property rights in the Constitution we would do two things. First, we would be making a statement about the importance of property rights and the value they hold for ordinary Canadians. Second, we would at the same time be providing Canadians with legal rights enforceable in our courts of law. Because the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the supreme law of the land, these rights will prevail over laws enacted by Government where these laws infringe upon the enjoyment of the rights. The importance of these rights should therefore not be underestimated.\nWe in the Progressive Conservative Party do not underestimate the importance of entrenching property rights. Hon. Members have heard my colleagues speak of the continuing support of the Progressive Conservative Party for the entrenchment of property rights. This support was reiterated during the recent election campaign. During the campaign, in response to questions about this matter, the Conservative Party provided the following answer:\nA Progressive Conservative Government will consult with the provinces with a view to amending the constitution to recognize property rights in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, while ensuring that any such amendment does not adversely affect other bona fide rights of individuals (for example, in family law). We believe that the exercise of this right has been instrumental in the building of Canada and is a principle valued by the great majority of Canadians. As you know, the right to enjoyment of property is recognized in the Canadian Bill of Rights. We believe it should be part of our constitution.\nI think this statement is a good indication of the depth of our commitment to the entrenchment of property rights.", 'January 28, 1985\nAdjournment Debate\nThe historical importance of property rights in our society is clear. It can be traced back as far as the Magna Carta in 1215. The development of property rights is linked with the development of our democratic institutions. This link was noted by the Hon. Member for Richmond-South Delta, (Mr. Siddon), who is now the Minister of State for Science and Technology, on the occasion of a motion to entrench property rights in the Constitution which was brought forward by the Progressive Conservative Party in 1983. The Hon. Member said, as reported at page 24,999 of Hansard for April 29, 1983.\nIf we go back in history we find that not only the right to own and enjoy property is fundamental to Canadian history. As the Hon. Member for Pro-vencher pointed out, it goes back to the time of King John, the Magna Carta and the constant struggle through history, which went hand in hand with the evolution of the parliamentary system and with the evolution of property rights and individual rights as a means of escape from monarchism, feudalism and the baronial entitlements, previous systems under which some citizens had many more rights, powers and privileges than others.']
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Shall all orders and notices preceding No. 150 stand by unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, December 6, 1984, consideration of the motion of Mr. Blenkarn:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should amend the Constitution Act 1982, to include property rights and, that the Governor General issue a Proclamation under the Great Seal of Canada to amend section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights so that it reads as follows:
"7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty, security of the person and
enjoyment of property, and the right not to be deprived thereof except in
accordance with the principles of fundamental justice."
Mr. Brian White (Dauphin-Swan River):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to say first that I appreciate the commitment which the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) has to the entrenchment of property rights in our Constitution. At the same time, I would argue strenuously that Private Members' Hour is not an appropriate forum for resolving matters of such constitutional, economic and social significance. We simply lack the time and the collective capacity to assess and deal with complex constitutional initiatives in the span of time available to us. Our debate does, however, enable us to touch on some of the issues and to get a better idea of what may be involved in entrenching property rights in the Constitution.
I would like to express my personal support in principle for the entrenchment of protection for property rights in the Constitution. Property rights are, in my opinion, fundamental to our way of life. Property rights are basic civil rights that enable us to carry on our lives without having to depend on the state for sustenance. They are the basis of our right to carry on and profit from business activities. They allow us to acquire all those things we need and want in our daily lives. The point of property rights, as with the other rights and freedoms which have received constitutional protection, is to afford us a measure of independence from government; some degree of protection against well-meant, but perhaps unnecessary, state interference.
The entrenchment of property rights in the Constitution would be a symbol to ordinary Canadians of the enduring importance of such rights in Canada. It would also be a symbol of their right to own and enjoy property without arbitrary or ill-considered interference by government. The importance of such symbols should not be underestimated. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in addition to providing legal remedies for the violation of the rights and
Constitution Act, 1982
freedoms set out in the Charter, is a symbolic document. It is a symbol to Canadians, and it is a symbol that we can hold out to the world, especially to countries where these rights and freedoms and, in particular, property rights do not exist.
Many Canadians left their homes in other countries so that they could enjoy the rights and freedoms which we take for granted in Canada. They are vigilant about maintaining these rights and freedoms. They have worked hard to build families, homes and businesses, and to contribute to the development of Canada, and they rightfully expect that the things they have worked so hard for will be protected. They recognize that an important way of securing this protection is by entrenching property rights in the Constitution.
At the same time, I wish to acknowledge that there are important societal interests which require governments to enact laws that affect property rights. These interests must be taken into account. The provinces have acted to protect the interests of women arising out of family relationships. In recognition of the contribution of women in the family relationship, important family law reforms have been made to provide for the division of family assets, regardless of the apparent legal title, upon mariage breakdown.
The Supreme Court of Canada has, within the last few days, agreed to consider the rights of common law spouses, on the termination of a long-standing spousal relationship, in the Sorochan case. What would the entrenchment of property rights in the Constitution portend for the evolution of such a re-evaluation of common law property tenets by reference to changed societal standards? We simply do not know, and an abstract and unqualified entrenchment of property rights does not permit us to predict the outcome of this balancing of important societal values.
More generally, societal interests are reflected in the multitude of laws which in one way or another affect property rights. The provinces have sought assurances that their right to enact such laws will not be unreasonably restricted. We should note that only two provinces have passed resolutions supporting the entrenchment of property rights. No other provinces have passed such resolutions. They are concerned about the effect that constitutional protection for the enjoyment of property rights might have on their authority to enact a wide variety of regulatory laws. Provincial laws affecting property rights include such basic incidents of an orderly society as land use planning and municipal laws, laws concerning the acquisition and disposition of real and personal property, construction lien laws, environmental laws, and expropriation laws. This is by no means an exhaustive list. When one considers the scope and extent of existing provincial regulation of property, one can understand something of the apprehension which the provinces have with respect to entrenching the enjoyment of property rights.
The concerns of the provinces are reflected in a unanimous resolution of the Council of the Canadian Bar Association of Ontario. That resolution, as it was reported at page 1 of the June 1984 edition of "Briefly Speaking", the monthly newslet-

January 28, 1985
Constitution Act, 1982
ter of the Canadian Bar Association-Ontario, reads as follows:
Various provincial governments have indicated their intentions to seek entrenchment of property rights in the Constitution;
1 take it that the authors of this resolution are referring to the resolutions of the Legislatures of British Columbia and New Brunswick in support of the entrenchment of property rights. The resolution continues:
And whereas property rights entrenchment may affect environmental, resource, land use planning, municipal and real property laws; And Whereas very limited study of how entrenchment may affect these laws has occurred; And whereas the federal Minister of Environment and Ontario Minister of the Environment have both requested that the CBA/CBAO undertake such a study; now therefore be it resolved that CBAO strike a committee to study how property rights entrenchment may affect matters including environmental, resource, land use planning, municipal and real property laws for a report to Council-
It is evident that the provinces have sincere concerns about the entrenchment of property rights. These concerns cannot be ignored, and it is clear that the substantive resolution of these issues is essential to the extension of constitutional protection for property rights.
The legitimacy of provincial concern is underlined by the fact that the Constitution gives the provinces a primary role in making laws in relation to property. Section 92(13) of the Constitution Act, 1867 provides that each province may exclusively make laws with respect to "Property and Civil Rights in the province". Other provisions of Section 92 further extend the powers of the provinces to enact laws affecting property rights. In the exercise of these powers the provinces have made laws which, as I noted earlier, affect property rights in many respects. The provinces have also, as they are entitled to do, delegated to municipal bodies the power to make such laws.
In the interests of community planning, and public health and safety, the provinces have enacted land use planning laws and have enabled municipalities to pass zoning laws, building codes and health and safety regulations. Land use planning and zoning laws may regulate or restrict the development and use of land to ensure that these serve the community interest. For example, residential areas may be protected from industries incompatible with residential use. Building codes ensure that our homes and offices are built to meet proper and safe engineering and design standards. Safety regulations ensure that buildings are adequately designed and equipped to allow us to deal with emergencies such as fire. Health regulations ensure that our public facilities are sanitary and ensure that public health conditions are consistent with human habitation.
Provincial laws have been enacted to protect the environment. They control industrial land uses which might create pollution through industrial wastes and emissions. Provincial laws protect our cultural heritage as well as our natural heritage. They do so by preserving historic sites and other precious assets of our cultural heritage.
In addition to regulating the use of property, the provinces also regulate the process of acquisition and disposition of real property such as land and personal property such as automobiles. In any given property, there may be several interests held
by different people. For instance, with respect to a given piece of real estate there may be, for example, the interests of the registered owner, a first mortgagee and subsequent mortgagees and the holder of an easement. In addition, it is possible for creditors to obtain a lien against the land or to register a judgment against the land. The provinces have created laws for the orderly creation, transfer and disposition of these interests. These laws govern the interaction of all these interests and establish priorities. They also ensure that persons dealing with real property can ensure that they are getting that for which they contracted. Similar laws apply to personal property.
It is sometimes necessary when it is in the public interest to expropriate property for important public purposes. The law allows for the expropriation of land for public highways or public utilities with reasonable compensation to the landowners affected. The federal government, as much as the provinces, needs to preserve this power while recognizing the need for adequate safeguards for property owners.
As you can see by my examples, Mr. Speaker, there are a wide range of areas in which the provinces have made laws affecting property or the enjoyment of property. In these are reflected a variety of vital societal interests which the provinces protect in the public interest. They are concerned, however, that provincial laws will be vunerable to attack if property rights are entrenched in the Constitution. It is not that the provinces wish to insulate their legislation from standards of fairness, far from it.
The provinces have attempted to balance societal interests against individual property rights by providing built in protections for property rights. Many provincial laws which purport to affect some sort of property right provide procedural as well as substantive protections for such rights. In many cases, citizens have a right to a fair hearing, a right to present their side of the case, and a right to appeal. Many of these procedural protections are also provided at common law by the rules of natural justice. Substantive protections also exist in provincial laws. For example, expropriation laws generally allow the expropriation of property only for important public purposes where no alternative course is available and only with reasonable compensation.
The provinces do not appear to be concerned so much about the entrenchment of procedural protections for property rights as they are about any action which might allow the courts to become arbiters of what is or is not acceptable government policy for laws affecting property rights. The provinces wish to have the assurance that property rights guarantees will not be used to strike down laws protecting important societal interests.
It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that we should be taking steps to allay as much as possible the concerns of the provinces and to seek a consensus, if possible, on the entrenchment of property rights. Our efforts would, of course, be premised on our support in principle for the entrenchment of property
January 28, 1985

rights, subject to our commitment made during the election campaign that this could only be accomplished without prejudice to women's interests.
The provinces and other interested parties should be given a reasonable opportunity to give this matter their fullest consideration and to voice their views. A co-operative approach with respect to the entrenchment of property rights will avoid unnecessary obstacles and will smooth the road to constitutional change. Constitutional change is not a unilateral process. It requires, in this case, the support of at least seven provinces.
While I have so far focused on the concerns of the provinces, a property rights amendment would also have ramifications for the federal Government. The federal Government has also passed a multitude of laws affecting property rights. These include, for example, copyright laws, environmental laws, land use laws, and laws dealing with the exploitation of our natural resources. These laws, no less than provincial laws, serve important societal interests. We should be clear about the effect that the entrenchment of property rights would have on these laws.
Like most Canadians, I recognize that the pressing issues of the day are economic. The Government is committed to restoring the economy, to encouraging business and to putting Canadians back to work. These are, for Canadians, the top priorities. We understand that the process of constitutional change takes time and work but we know it will receive due consideration.
Our support for the entrenchment of property rights is no less firm for wanting to ensure that any constitutional amendment would not be prejudicial to the interests of women and to other important societal interests. The amendment of the Constitution, however, is not a matter that should be taken lightly. The potential consequences of an amendment must be carefully assessed because undesirable consequences cannot be easily remedied once the amendment has been made. For that reason, Mr. Speaker, the entrenchment of property rights deserves our careful and considered analysis.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question? Debate.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to this motion today on behalf of the New Democratic Party. Any time that there is a motion to create our first amendment to the Constitution, it is a very serious business. The Government is being told that it would be a good idea to introduce an amendment to the Constitution. As has been stated by the Hon. Member who just spoke, a process for doing so is now in place and it is very straightforward. It simply requires the approval of seven provinces and the Government of Canada to make such a constitutional change which would in effect transfer the jurisdiction over the rights of property and their enforcement from the provincial to the federal level.
I realize that there is a Progressive Conservative Government at the federal level and that there are at least seven provinces in this country that are also run by Progressive
Constitution Act, 1982
Conservative Governments. I believe, therefore, that any such process would move along quickly and smoothly and that we would see a motion for such constitutional amendment before the House very soon.
As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, the provinces and the federal Government must hold discussions to bring about such an agreement. They would make proposals to make constitutional change which, upon the agreement of the seven provinces and the federal Government, would then be presented to the House of Commons for discussion and debate. The whole process would then be transferred to a committee, at which time ordinary Canadians could have input. At that time, the provinces and the federal Government would already have had their discussions.
As I understand it, this matter did come up during the election and was apparently one of the planks of the Conservative Party platform. I am a little confused as to why it is necessary to keep reminding the Government of one of its promises by putting this motion before it.
Before we get too far into this process for change, I believe there are a number of questions that should be asked and a number of answers that should be provided. First, I would argue that property rights have been well taken care of within the provincial sphere, with perhaps a few exceptions which could be considered minor within the scheme of things. When I ask myself when property rights have been abused or not properly upheld on the part of Canadians, not very many instances come to mind. That is one of the first questions I ask myself when I talk about a constitutional amendment. I can think of a few examples of such abuse, one being the confiscation of the property of Japanese-Canadians during the last war. At about the same time, the padlock laws were instituted in Quebec and the Jehovah's Witnesses were not granted the right to use their halls and churches. However, I would point out that even with the Constitution and with the right of property being moved from federal to provincial jurisdiction, both of those circumstances would probably have occurred whether or not there were property rights in the federal Constitution. I contend that what we had in the case of Japanese-Canadians was a very emotionally charged period of time. We were at war with another racial group. What happened to the Japanese-Canadians had nothing to do with property, but probably had everything to do with the racial attitude toward those people at that time. I am from a Germanic background and our property was not confiscated during the First or Second World Wars. My grandparents, who were Canadian citizens, well before the First World War, went to visit their parents inthe United States and were prohibited from returning in the fall of 1914 because of the outbreak of war. However, their property was not seized. They had to spend the next 4.5 years in the United States because the Canadian Government would not permit them to return, even though they were citizens. But their property was not seized. Therefore, I contend that the Japanese-Canadian situation would probably have happened whether or not there had been a guarantee of property rights.

Constitution Act, 1982
Similarly but for different reasons, the Jehovah's Witnesses were locked out of their properties, essentially for religious reasons. Both racial and religious discrimination are now prohibited under the Constitution, but we have yet to discover whether that constitutional strength would be adequate to stop such things happening in the future. Perhaps we would be well advised not to rush into changing the constitutional responsibility from provincial to federal jurisdiction until it is discovered whether in fact the federal jurisdiction could be effective in dealing with these very real problems of racial and religious discrimination which occurred in the past.
There is some indication from the provinces that they are not in a hurry to make that change. The Province of Alberta has a property rights contract with its citizens, but it is still possible in Alberta, if the property is on the route to a pipeline, power line or telephone line, that the property can be just as easily seized as a right of way for public use, as it is in provinces which do not have guaranteed property rights. On the surface it is difficult to find an advantage in that particular province which has property rights. I would also remind the House that Alberta is one province which has been very vociferous in opposing any move to change property rights from provincial to federal jurisdiction. It would be an important necessity for that province to go along with such a change as it is one of the seven provinces which would be required to agree to such a constitutional change. Being from the same political stripe as the federal Government, one would think that Alberta would be among the first on the bandwagon to go along with this proposal.
There is some question as to the kind of rights which will be guaranteed. It is generally agreed by all that property is land. However, when we get beyond houses, factories, businesses, barns and that sort of thing, we get into a fuzzy area as to what is property. I believe there is general agreement that bonds and mortgages are forms of property, but the question arises in the case of a mortgage as to which property interest takes precedence. Will that be spelled out in the Constitution? If there is a disagreement as to whether the terms of a mortgage are being met, does the bank get precedence over the man or woman who is trying to make the payments?
We could look at contracts. Is an insurance policy property? If it is, is a labour contract not also a form of property? If that is the case, is it then possible for workers who have a labour contract with a factory to be put out of the factory either in the form of lock-out or lay-off? How many rights are included in the contract, if it is indeed property?
Whose property takes precedence? For example, we could talk about environmental concerns. Do we shrug off the pollution which our own generation is creating because it will not hurt us, but will put into jeopardy future generations by creating acid rain which kills our lakes, trees and soil? Does a property resolution change any of those questions? How would having property rights written into the Constitution provide guarantees for future generations for a usable environment, for land which will grow crops, for land which will produce trees
and for lakes which will produce fish? I doubt if it makes any difference. I believe the inclusion of property rights in the Constitution makes no difference to the groups of people which I have mentioned.
We must recognize that the property rights which we have in Canada have come down to us through British common law and that those of us who have property hold it in right of fee simple from the Crown. The rights which we have are clearly stated in the title, as to the minerals above and below the ground, whether we must grant access to public utilities, or whether we must provide a road crossing in the property. The title also describes the liens and mortgages which exist against the property. However, the title also bears some responsibility. We must pay the taxes, and often it requires us to keep the property in good order, depending on the community in which it is found. If the property is in a farming community, the owner must guard against noxious weeds. The owner could be obligated to keep a building from going into disrepair. Factories cannot be built in residential areas. There are numerous things an owner cannot do with property because of community requirements. The rights which the owner has are only those rights which are allowed after consideration of the community and consideration of the requirements of the Crown.
We have got along with this system, Mr. Speaker, for quite a few hundred years. I have not heard anyone previously in this debate outline any large shortcomings in this system. So I ask Hon. Members of the House very simply and clearly, if there are no problems with the existing system, why should we change it? Why take the right of property away from the provinces and enshrine it under federal jurisdiction? Particularly when there are so many different kinds of interests at stake in different parts of the country, does it make sense to centralize this particular right? What does it do for the right of Prince Edward Island to decide that it should not have a large influx of foreign ownership of its prime recreation land? Is it so wrong that Prince Edward Island should make certain that people who have access to its lovely beaches are Islanders, or at least Canadians? Is that not infringing upon the right of the person, who has the money to pay for such a beach, to own it, whether he lives in Hong Kong or in Bonn? Those are some questions which have been dealt with in that particular province and it has said, "No, we have first right to those beaches".
Similarly, in British Columbia there is a question of what sort of policy should apply to the ownership of the very limited amount of farm land there. That province has determined that there should be some restrictions on who owns farm land. Only farmers may own farm land, and it must be used for agricultural purposes. If we had a guarantee of property rights in the Constitution, would British Columbia still have that right or would whoever had the money to buy that farm land be permitted to do whatever he chose with it? What would be the implications to future generations of British Columbians who were looking for agricultural production and found that they were not able to provide a lot of their own food themselves?
January 28, 1985

What about the land of the Indian and the Inuit in this kind of constitution amendment? As you know, Mr. Speaker, the Crown, on behalf of Canada, took over those lands through treaty. The Indians were not really aware of that fact but that is what the Crown did. Then, as I interpret it, the Crown transferred a great many of the rights to resources and jurisdiction over the property to the provinces, and now the Indian and Inuit are attempting to negotiate with the federal Government to make certain that with respect to the treaties, and in those areas where there are still no treaties, there is an understanding that there are some rights that the original people have, which are retained rights, even though a treaty has been signed. And we get into the question of whether game is property for the Inuit and the Indians. It is a very contentious question which has not been properly dealt with. Certainly, it has not been adequately answered by deciding to change property rights from provincial back to federal jurisdiction.
In closing, I would like to point out once again that the process is quite clear now that we have an amending formula for the Constitution. The Government in this case, if it is interested in initiating such a discussion, can and should initiate such a discussion with the provinces, then the words which have been agreed to can be brought to this House. We will then look at that agreement and decide whether to accept it or oppose it. It will go to the committee where all Canadians can have a chance to decide whether it is good or bad for them as Canadians. If the resolution passes, the amendment to the Constitution, some of the provinces would still have the option of opting out at five-year intervals. So we may see the very real possibility that even with an amendment, a great many if not all of the provinces would find themselves opting out.
My main point, Mr. Speaker, is that I have great difficulty in seeing an advantage to a radical change to the Constitution when there have been no reasons set forth as to what advantage there will be for us as Canadians. I have not seen any of that in this debate thus far. I hope that future speakers will point those things out, if they are really serious about amending the Constitution in such a manner.


Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock-North Delta):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin my remarks by complimenting the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) for taking the initiative to put forward this motion which would urge the Government to protect property rights by a revision of the Constitution. As the Hon. Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse) said, it would go through a constitutional convention where seven out of the ten provinces would have to agree, as long as they comprised 50 per cent of the population. The Hon. Member asks why change something if there are no problems with the existing system-I think I quote him if not accurately, at least fairly-to which I would simply reply that we are in a transitional period. We are creatures who are accustomed to 200 years of common law, a system which has been very well entrenched. We are now moving into a different mode of constitutional law with the inclusion of a Charter of Rights.
Constitution Act, 1982
I might add that the Hon. Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre in his speech-and I listened very carefully and enjoyed what he had to say-raised some very pertinent questions with respect to the definition of property and all of those factors. However, his entire speech caused me to remember most of the constitutional debate, and I took careful note at that time to attend as much of the House proceedings as I could. I recall very clearly the process which was going on in the committee stage when the committee was meeting over in Room 200. I recall very graphically that one Thursday evening the Conservative Party had been pressing the Government for an addition or amendmment to the charter which would include the entrenchment of property rights. It so happened that the then Minister of Justice, the Hon. Member for Saint-Maurice (Mr. Chretien), did agree to that amendment to include property rights in the Constitution. Members of the New Democratic Party went home over the weekend and conferred with their colleagues, particularly those in the Province of Saskatchewan. Those Hon. Members came back after the weekend and said, "Look, if you entrench property rights in the Constitution, we will withdraw our support for the entire package". Considering the cozy arrangement which existed between the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party at that time, and more or less exists yet perhaps, and that it was very important to the Liberal Government of that day to have the support of the New Democratic Party, the former Minister of Justice withdrew his commitment to have property rights included in the Constitution.
So you have to ask yourself, why would the New Democratic Party, or any Party in the House, be opposed to property rights in the Constitution? The answer comes back very quickly. It is because of its attitude to property in the first place, its notion of the state and its ability to get into central planning and national goals, to all of which property rights are very important. In the socialist way of thinking you really cannot come to grips with national goals, national planning, a totally planned economy, if you do not own all the ingredients.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: In that case we would be in favour of putting it in the federal sphere.


Benno Friesen: So that becomes very important to the socialist scheme of things. I do not fault them; at least they are consistent about that. But he hearkened back to why people are so concerned about it. I can tell you that there are at least two reasons why people are concerned about it. Since I come from British Columbia I can state the B.C. experience.
In the fall of 1972, the people of British Columbia elected a socialist Government under the leadership of Premier Dave Barrett. Now I think that, all in all, there are some things which Mr. Barrett did that were all right. But the single move he made during his regime which probably hurt him and the whole NDP concept in British Columbia most was that of freezing all property sales in B.C. I think the Hon. Member is correct that one of the problems we face in that province is the very restricted access we have to good agricultural land. Since

January 28, 1985
Constitution Act, 1982
95 per cent of the province is mountainous, prime agricultural land is at a premium. We have a right to be very worried about how much of that is going to be destroyed by industrialization or poor planning. In that sense I do not fault Mr. Barrett for making that move. But he did what is intuitive to the socialist frame of mind. He did not simply freeze the sale of farm land, he froze every square inch of property in the entire province of British Columbia.


Mr. Scott (Hamilton-Wentworth):: Now he works for the CBC.


Benno Friesen: You see, it was not necessary to freeze someone's 33-foot lot in the heart of Vancouver. It was not necessary to freeze the industrial-commercial sections of any city. If he wanted to attack the problem, he could have done that very easily by addressing himself to a background study of what prime agricultural land we need to preserve if we are to provide an inheritance for our children. That was a legitimate concern on his part, and if he wanted to do that, he could have done it. But rather than that, he did the instinctive thing and moved in on the entire province.
What were the consequences, Mr. Speaker? Instead of preserving the land for our children, it had the effect of robbing the children of that inheritance. As soon as he froze land sales, it made land an item in short supply and in great demand. Overnight, property values mushroomed in value. Our children who wanted to buy property in the next few years could not afford it.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: In 1974 they mushroomed all over.


Benno Friesen: So in a matter of years there was a shortage of land which could be developed because it was not properly planned, and the very people Mr. Barrett wanted to protect were robbed of that protection. So I say that the people of British Columbia have very good reason for wanting to see some kind of protection for their property rights in the Constitution.
It may well be, Mr. Speaker, that the nature of property has to be defined. There has to be a lot more thought given to it, as the Hon. Member suggests. It may be true that the definition of property rights should go far beyond the amount of land you may own. But the fact is that the people have a need for a sense of security, and if they feel that any government or corporation, but particularly government, can move in, then they have a feeling of insecurity, and that hurts the country.
The second experience we should draw on is that of the Member's own province. I cannot say that Mr. Blakeney's Government moved in the same way that Mr. Barrett's Government did. It took a different approach. It simply bought up the land. By the time he was moved out of office a couple of years ago, I believe the NDP Government of Saskatchewan had bought something like one million acres of land.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Should they not have that right?


Benno Friesen: Well, do they not have that right? You see-


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Should they not?


Benno Friesen: When you are getting into people-


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Rights for whom?


Benno Friesen: It is a matter of rights, but it is also a matter of power. The fellow who owns two quarter sections of land which he values very much has a hard time resisting an offer from a government which has a seemingly endless supply of money and can overprice the land and buy the property. The Government has power which citizens cannot always resist.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Virtually all the government-bought land was below market.


Benno Friesen: I am not saying that the Blakeney Government did anything illegal or wrong in a legal sense. All I am saying is that there is a nervousness among people who are accustomed to and feel the need to own property for an enduring sense of security when big government can, willy-nilly, move in and take over their property. I recall a statement by an eastern European living in Saskatchewan. He took part in some kind of an interview in that election campaign and he said, "look, when I came to Canada I didn't come because the Government promised me that it would provide land for me; I came because I could come here and make it". You see, it is the freedom of opportunity that is at stake.
The Hon. Member goes on to say that the one area of confiscation that stands out in the memories of all of us is the experience of the Japanese-Canadians. I would remind him that, as far as I know, and I stand to be corrected, but I do not think I need to be, those Japanese who lived beyond 100 miles from the coast did not lose their property. It was only those Japanese who lived along the coastal areas, if I am right, who lost their property. So it was a matter of security arrangements, right or wrong, that were made at the time. I think it was wrong the way they were treated and I am not absolving the Government of the day or any of the people involved. The point is that they did lose their property. The Hon. Member said that the German people did not. Well, not all the Japanese did either, I believe, Mr. Speaker. I want to point out to him that, according to testimony given before the Constitution Committee several years ago, the urgency behind the move to relocate those Japanese resulted from a request of the American Government. The American Government urged and pressured the Canadian Government to relocate those Japanese. That is why it was done. That makes me agree in part with the Hon. Member and makes me wonder why he should have supported the Constitution in the first place.
I think the Hon. Member has a point. The Charter of Rights in times of extreme emotion is not necessarily a guarantee that our rights are going to be protected. I would much rather have seen a Constitution that did nor have a Charter. I think we would have been much better protected under parliamentary common law and tradition than we are under a Charter which has enumerated rights. This is so for several reasons, one of which is that you never get to the end of the enumeration.
January 28, 1985

There is always another right which has to be added to the list. You never run out. The only people who profit as a result of that are lawyers. We are going to become a nation of litigants as a result of the Charter of Rights, and that is a tragedy. All of my lawyer friends, who used to be my friends, are reacting to what I say. We used to be able to solve a lot of our people problems through discussion, election campaigns, and mediation. Now we go to court and are protaganists. That is not a healthy sign for us. The list is going to grow. Every year there will be another right that people will want to have entrenched. They believe, falsely, that that will protect them.
The other reason that I think the Charter is not a protection is that it is written the wrong way. It is written from the wrong perspective. At least the U.S. Bill of Rights is written from the perspective of people limiting the power of government. The Canadian Charter of Rights is the government extending a list of rights to the people. That is wrong. It is an underlying weakness of our Charter.
I am saying to the Hon. Member that there are problems and that a charter is not necessarily going to protect us. Even though we include this in the Charter it will not necessarily protect us. However, we do have the Charter and we have to live with it. Therefore, let us take those realistic items that the Canadian people believe ought to be included and list them in that Charter. The Member says that there are no problems with the existing system. I have said already that the existing system is not the one we are accustomed to. We are in a transitional period from common law to constitutional law. We are moving into a new regime. We are in kind of amorphous state at this point.
We have historically been an agrarian nation with fairly small government. In the last couple of decades we have become more populated and certainly more cosmopolitan. We now have a Government that is growing and has grown for the last couple of decades. In my view the purpose of the Charter ought not to be so much to protect us from each other, but to protect us from the Government. That was the entire purpose of the U.S. Bill of Rights; to protect people from an ominous, overriding and bullying government. If the Charter is going to function in any logical and responsible way, that is what it ought to do for us. The Canadian Government is growing year by year. It certainly has done so in the last two decades. Canadian citizens need to feel that there is a limitation upon Government, that it cannot willy-nilly encroach upon the rights of citizens.
I think it is important that in the historical experience of western countries the freedom and right to own property is integrally involved with political freedom. It is not that way around the world. I know there are regimes where that is not the case. In Africa, for example, there is a communal system. In western countries it is pretty well unanimously true that when you have the right to own property you also have political freedom because you can always be independent and make it on your own. In those countries where property has
Constitution Act, 1982
been taken away from the people, there is no political freedom. That is a fairly uniform experience in western countries.
The way to make people insecure is to take away their ability to look after themselves. They have no guarantee of being able to look after themselves if they do not have their own property. That is certainly the case in the eastern European countries.
It is important that we urge the Government that the inalienable and undeniable right to own property be entrenched, not to protect us from each other, but to protect us from a Government that becomes insensitive, loses its touch with people, and thinks it has its own reason for being. I commend the Member for Mississauga South for bringing this motion forward. I hope that we will soon see the day when these rights will be entrenched in our Constitution.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


Mr. Murray Cardiff (Huron-Bruce):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) for the concern that he has expressed about the entrenchment of property rights in the Constitution. This is a matter in which many Canadians are interested. It is for that reason, however, that I must agree that Private Members' Hour is not the appropriate forum for resolving this matter.
I, no less than my colleagues, am sympathetic in principle to the entrenchment of property rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These rights are deserving of the protection they can be afforded by entrenchment in the Constitution. By entrenching property rights in the Constitution we would do two things. First, we would be making a statement about the importance of property rights and the value they hold for ordinary Canadians. Second, we would at the same time be providing Canadians with legal rights enforceable in our courts of law. Because the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the supreme law of the land, these rights will prevail over laws enacted by Government where these laws infringe upon the enjoyment of the rights. The importance of these rights should therefore not be underestimated.
We in the Progressive Conservative Party do not underestimate the importance of entrenching property rights. Hon. Members have heard my colleagues speak of the continuing support of the Progressive Conservative Party for the entrenchment of property rights. This support was reiterated during the recent election campaign. During the campaign, in response to questions about this matter, the Conservative Party provided the following answer:
A Progressive Conservative Government will consult with the provinces with a view to amending the constitution to recognize property rights in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, while ensuring that any such amendment does not adversely affect other bona fide rights of individuals (for example, in family law). We believe that the exercise of this right has been instrumental in the building of Canada and is a principle valued by the great majority of Canadians. As you know, the right to enjoyment of property is recognized in the Canadian Bill of Rights. We believe it should be part of our constitution.
I think this statement is a good indication of the depth of our commitment to the entrenchment of property rights.

January 28, 1985
Adjournment Debate
The historical importance of property rights in our society is clear. It can be traced back as far as the Magna Carta in 1215. The development of property rights is linked with the development of our democratic institutions. This link was noted by the Hon. Member for Richmond-South Delta, (Mr. Siddon), who is now the Minister of State for Science and Technology, on the occasion of a motion to entrench property rights in the Constitution which was brought forward by the Progressive Conservative Party in 1983. The Hon. Member said, as reported at page 24,999 of Hansard for April 29, 1983.
If we go back in history we find that not only the right to own and enjoy property is fundamental to Canadian history. As the Hon. Member for Pro-vencher pointed out, it goes back to the time of King John, the Magna Carta and the constant struggle through history, which went hand in hand with the evolution of the parliamentary system and with the evolution of property rights and individual rights as a means of escape from monarchism, feudalism and the baronial entitlements, previous systems under which some citizens had many more rights, powers and privileges than others.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak on the adjournment motion with respect to a question I raised in the House on November 14, but which has a currency that surpasses the elapse of time because it is a matter that is still of very important consequences for the economic development of this country and the economic growth of my own region of Manitoba.
Last week I had the opportunity to present a petition in the House which was signed by over 1,000 residents of the City of Winnipeg asking the federal Government once again to reconsider its decision to close and cut back the major development of the National Research Industrial Technology Laboratory in Winnipeg. I think that by this time the reasons for that are well known, but what is not so clear is the fact that this particular development met every single criteria that was put forward in the statement by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson).
What I could not determine during the Question Period is why a project that met the test of consultation, met the test of research and development, that met the test of new economic
growth and development in fact was rejected by the Tory Government.
A brief history might just recall to members' minds what took place. The NRC laboratory was based upon consultation that had gone on for over four years between business, labour, universities, the provincial Government and the federal Government. The objective of that centre was to establish in western Canada an industrial technology laboratory that would provide a stimulus for new manufacturing technology for all of Canada. It would give us the capacity and ability to compete internationally to sell our products abroad and help in particular our small business people to develop new industrial techniques to meet overseas competition.
Furthermore, it was located in a western Canadian city to make sure that the benefits of high technology were not concentrated in just one or two regions of Canada, but in fact shared and distributed equally across Canada.
Furthermore, it was part and parcel of the major downtown development program that would bring new workers into that downtown area and therefore enhance the over-all economic growth of that region. The building was already under construction. The research people had been hired. They were already in Winnipeg undertaking research at the university.
What is more important, over four major companies, some of which were from California in the United States and other places, had decided to locate brand new manufacturing facilities in Winnipeg as a result of the decision, to locate the laboratory in that city. This would have provided new jobs for Canada. It would have provided new manufacturing technology for Canada and would have provided a major stimulus for the growth of Manitoba. It would have given hope to young people coming out of our universities and training colleges that there was a place to go. Instead, the Government cancelled the project.
To the credit of people in Manitoba, they have not given up on that. They have not accepted that decision. A number of organizations, the university, the Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of citizens continue to make representations. As their Member of Parliament, I am here once again to make that representation and have the Government once again rethink the project, come to its senses and recognize that the cancellation of that project did nothing but hurt Manitoba, Winnipeg and the country.
I would suggest to members, as I have tried during Question Period, that, if the Government is so wedded to its notion that the federal Government should not be totally committed to paying for the National Research centre, it should at least accept the proposal that we establish research co-op. I suggest that we work out an arrangement whereby the universities, the business community and the governments would share responsibility for that lab and its development and projection and share responsibilty for developing an economic plan for that region growing out of the institute's research facility. On the basis of the Government's own argument for consultation and co-operation, surely it could at least accept the proposal which
January 28, 1985

is being made by the broad community of the Province of Manitoba representing all sectors.
Time is of essence. The longer the Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Siddon) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) drag out the decision and the longer they keep things hanging, the more we will lose those businesses which were planning to locate there, the more we will lose the scientists and engineers who came to Winnipeg to work in that laboratory, and the more we will lose the opportunity for young people to plan their careers in relation to the facilities which the laboratory would have stimulated.
Not only is my intervention at this time a plea for the Government to respond to the proposals for a research co-op, but to respond with a degree of clarity and quickness. If it simply holds out and continues with no answer to the requests and entreaties of members of that community, many of the benefits will be lost and the opportunity for the Province of Manitoba to meet and plan for a new economic future will also be lost. My intervention this evening is simply to say to the representative of the Minister that it is time to take some action and to make some decisions so that Manitoba can go ahead and do some decent planning for the future of its people.


Mr. Bernard Valcourt (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, the decision to end the ongoing funding of the Institute for Manufacturing Technology in Manitoba was not an easy one for the Government to take. As with many of the difficult decisions announced on November 8, the Government was merely confronting the unpleasant fact that in the presence of the growing national debt we cannot afford to do everything we would like to do.
The ongoing operating costs associated with the Institute of Manufacturing Technology would have been in excess of $20 million per year. It is clear that the previous Government had not adequately considered this expense when it approved the capital project.
Last November 14, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy) asked about the impact of the decision affecting the institute. In response I would point out that it would be difficult for anyone to ascribe credibly a specific impact to the decision. I say this because those involved with the project are still struggling to define the type of research and the kinds of equipment the institute would have. As the Hon. Member will know, the previous Government was criticized by the Wright Task Force, the CMA, the Senate Committee on National Finance and others, for its policies with respect to technology centres, and IMT was often cited specifically as a concern.
It was in this context that the November 8 decision was taken. Nevertheless, the federal Government recognizes the importance of manufacturing technology. It acknowledges the efforts of many well-meaning people associated with IMT.
Adjournment Debate
Thus the Minister is pursuing a number of initiatives aimed at keeping manufacturing technology expertise at NRC.
In addition, construction contracts associated with the project will be honoured, and this will see the building substantially completed. As the Minister said in Winnipeg last November, the building offers considerable potential and the Government is determined to see it put to productive use, notwithstanding the financial constraints facing the country. In this regard the Minister has invited the private sector and the provincial Government to participate in the staffing and the operation of the facility.
This proposal holds tremendous promise. As I mentioned before, the task force on federal policies and programs for technology development, the Senate Committee on Science and Technology and other bodies have stressed the need to increase the linkage between government in-house research activity and the private sector applications of the fruits of this research. The Government believes that the private sector is more likely to take an interest in research and use it if it has a financial interest in the activity. It is for this reason that we are optimistic about the Minister's initiative in relation to the Winnipeg institute.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member but his time has expired.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS-PROPOSED WEATHER SERVICE INFORMATION CHARGE. (B) METHOD OF IMPLEMENTATION
George Baker: Mr. Speaker, my reasons for requesting clarification of a question I asked in the House some time ago of the Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier) are quite simple. I blamed the cuts on the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), but the Minister of the Environment was good enough to stand up in the House last week and say that it was not the Minister of Finance, but she who cut the programs in her Department. Therefore the Minister of the Environment is solely responsible for those cuts that did not make any sense at all.
The Minister announced that she was going to charge Canadians for picking up the telephone and dialing atmospheric environment; charge people for dialing the weather office. She announced at the same time that she would do away with guided tours in national parks. There are going to be self-guided tours, whatever they may be.
When I asked the Minister whether she was going to charge people for telephoning the weather office, she verified that. I then asked about the changing weather patterns in this country, and how they affect the farmers of western Canada, fishermen in eastern Canada, the travelling public on our highways in the north and in other parts of Canada. With our ever changing weather conditions they need frequent updates other than just those available from the media. The Minister said in cases of health and safety they will not be charged. In response to a direct question her words were that fishermen would not be charged.

January 28, 1985
Adjournment Debate
The Minister was really on the spot then. How do you determine who is to be charged, and who will make that judgment? Bell Canada will not be a collection agency for the Government of Canada, collecting money for telephone calls, using some kind of a means test. Obviously the employees in the weather office cannot question every caller. If they did it would take time, and even then how could they verify the information. What is a legitimate call? Will they check the social insurance number of every caller to determine whether he is a fisherman, farmer of someone travelling on the highway? How can that be verified?
In announcing these ill-advised cuts the Minister reversed some of her decisions. For example, she reversed the decision on the study of the effect of toxic substances on Herring-gull eggs. That and various other programs in that area will now be continued. I do not want the Minister to reverse this decision the way she reversed that decision. She re-instituted a one person year to carry out the program of all of these people who were cut in the Canadian Wildlife Service. Let the Minister try and deny that. She cannot.
The Minister made a statement to the media today that she would phase in the program on the herring-gull eggs on April 1. That is rather confusing because the cuts were not supposed to take effect until April 1. I do not want the Minister to state here today that she is going to reverse the decision to charge people for telephoning the weather office in the way she made the reversals on the other cuts that she announced. That does not mean anything.
1 want the Minister to explain how she will carry out this policy of charging Canadians for phoning the local weather office. How will the interpretation process of whether health and safety is involved be handled? I feel quite confident that she will stand and say they are really not going to charge for that, or that everybody who phones the weather office will be charged, thereby going back on the statement she made in the House during Question Period. It has to be one way or the other. It cannot be as she stated publicly in this House because that is unworkable. I am very interested to hear what the Minister has to say, and I am very pleased that she attends the late show. I look forward to her retracting that charge on the Canadian public.


Suzanne Blais-Grenier: Mr. Speaker, I thank my obliging colleague for giving me this opportunity to outline in this House the measures we will be taking to get the funds that will help us complement our weather services. You have noticed that my colleague, who had very kind remarks for me before Christmas, has been all smiles when asking his question, even though his tone of voice was outrageously shocked. I remember only the smile.
Mr. Speaker, weather information provided to the general public and to special user groups such as farmers and fishermen is already available through the media, and especially the
electronic press, that is radio, TV and cable television. Maritime weather forecasts for instance, including warnings, are available through the Canadian Coast Guard's marine bands which continuously broadcast them. Thus are categorized the various user groups.
Environment Canada has established radio stations which broadcast weather information 24 hours a day over a special frequency from the 13 most important centres in this country. In the four Atlantic Provinces, provincial governments cooperate financially with us in making this service available to a greater number of users through automatic answering service. This is to reassure my colleague and suggest to him that general weather information is available, through one or the other of those means, to the vast majority of Canadians.
But there are also people who sometimes want additional information, for instance statistics on past weather conditions, weather conditions in other areas of the country or abroad, more specific details on forecasts, or who simply find it more convenient to get such information over the telephone. Because of their limited or specialized scope, such services should not be paid by all Canadians, because they are now paid for out of public funds. People requesting such additional services from now on will have to pay a small fee to get them. This is only fair in my view. For the first year starting in 1985, we expect to collect $1.3 million in this way.
A task force has been set up within the Department to decide on program conditions and determine the services the Government will continue to provide to the media for distribution to the public, as has been done during the past 100 years. Special attention will be paid to maintaining the quality of the weather information services and the implementation of a system of fees that will be realistic, efficient and compensatory-


STATUS OF WOMEN-GOVERNMENT POSITION (B) ELECTION CAMPAIGN STATEMENT
Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, if we are to believe the Minister of Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier), the government's financial burden has hit Canada's environment the hardest. How incredible!
Mr. Speaker, I think I will go on to another issue and a question which I raised with the Prime Minister (Mr. Mul-roney) almost two months ago. Hon. Members and Canadians generally are well aware of the promises made by our Prime Minister during the historic debate on women's issue which was seen by TV viewers in Quebec and in the rest of Canada, in fact all Canadian saw it. In the course of that debate with the three party leaders, our Prime Minister made some promises to Canadian women, promises which indeed had to do with the question of equal pay for equal work, and yet this Government, which has now been in office for about five months, has not done anything for Canadian women-all we
January 28, 1985

have heard so far were the empty words uttered by the Prime Minister. He fancies himself as an actor or a comedian, a kind of Johnny Carson who does not really want to respond to the Canadian people, especially not to the women of Canada whose economic needs are so real.
When the issue of equal pay for equal work is raised, Mr. Speaker, one thinks immediately in terms of the 10 per cent of the Canadian labour force which comes under federal jurisdiction. A simple glance at the Canadian banking scene reveals that women workers, particularly at the federal and provincial levels, earn roughly 60 cents for every $1 earned by male workers.
The Government, the Minister and the Prime Minister did promise Canadian women that, the minute they got elected, they would do something right then and there to settle that problem.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) made promises to the women of Canada promises upon which the election campaign was built. He told the women of Canada that the moment he was elected tens upon thousands of jobs would be created for Canadians and that the women of Canada would see not only a fair application of equal pay for work of equal value, but that they would also see contract compliance at the federal level, and that people who wanted to do business with the Government would have to toe the line. During the debate last August he said, "J'irai plus loin".
We can see-as we saw in the white paper tabled today which considers the removal of universality of benefits to families who earn $28,000 or more a year-that it is just another shallow promise by a shallow Prime Minister and a shallow Government which have no intention of delivering on the promises made to the women of Canada.
All partisan politics aside, the women of Canada showed during the constitutional debate in 1982 that they would not take a second stage or a second seat to anyone. The women rallied on all political sides-Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats and non-partisans-to ensure that the women of Canada were given equal rights under the Constitution, against the thrashings, groanings and moanings of the premiers of the Progressive Conservative persuasion in Canada. The women of Canada will not be silent. They are looking at this Government. They are judging the Prime Minister, not on the basis of his verbiage, of which there is plenty, but on the basis of his action.
If we look at the economic results which have occurred since September 4, the political results, and the unfulfilled promises made to the women of Canada, it is clear that this is a Government with a Prime Minister who had no intention of
Adjournment Debate
keeping the promises, who did not deserve the trust of Canadian women or the vote of the Canadian people, and who will be roundly chastised by the voters when they have an opportunity to return a Liberal Government. A Liberal Government will deliver on its promises in a way which the Conservatives have shown they are unable and unwilling to do. The women of Canada will wait four years and will continue to fight for the equality which has been denied them by the Government and the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister has not even bothered to show up in the House for this very important issue.


Mrs. Gabrielle Bertrand (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the question raised today by the Hon. Member for Hamilton East (Ms. Copps) is of critical importance, but I really wish she could raise it more calmly and less aggressively. If she did, we women could perhaps get better results.
It is a fact that the principle of equal pay for work of equal value is essential for women to gain economic equality. As the Hon. Member is aware, two departments and one agency-


Sheila Maureen Copps: I did not need to read my statement.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please.


Gabrielle Bertrand: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member should know, two departments and one government agency are responsible for applying the principle of equal pay for work of equal value within the Public Service. First of all, as the employer for the whole Public Service, the Treasury Board has the overall responsibility of determining rates of pay. The Department of Labour keeps employers informed about government policies and encourages them to recognize the problems which can exist in the workplace and to find mutually agreeable solutions. Finally, the Canadian Human Rights Commission receives the complaints lodged by employees coming under federal jurisdiction who were unable to obtain satisfaction from their employers.
I wish to emphasize that, to this date, four types of complaints laid by members of the Public Service have been settled to their satisfaction. The employees involved were able to obtain a satisfactory settlement in every case. It is only recently that one case had to be referred to a panel of the Human Rights Commission.
Legislation guaranteeing equal pay for work of equal value has existed since 1977. However, these measures by themselves are not enough. They have to be applied efficiently. In the Speech from the Throne we find a commitment by the new Government guaranteeing compliance with the principle or equal pay in all sectors under federal jurisdiction. The Minis-

January 28, 1985
Adjournment Debate
ter responsible for the Status of Women has already written to his colleagues, the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) and the Minister of Labour (Mr. McKnight), with a view to initiating discussions to ensure that Canadian women will achieve economic equality in the workplace. This will happen eventually and as soon as possible.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at eleven o'clock a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).
At 6.26 p.m., the House adjourned.

Tuesday, January 29, 1985