1985-06-19

Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, today, in Toronto, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture is meeting to prepare an action plan in response to the Mulroney-Wilson Budget which has betrayed Canadian farmers. In a statement made on June 6, the OFA said:
The Government has not only ignored its own promises, it has ignored the legitimate needs of our farmers.
Ontario farmers are angry because the Budget did nothing to ease the debt burden hanging over many farmers which, in counties like Bruce, has reached epidemic proportions so that one in three farmers is in serious financial difficulty.
At the same time the Government is increasing farm input costs. For example, it will impose a nine-cent per gallon excise tax on farm fuels on the first of September, just in time for the fall harvest. Imagine a Government so arrogant, so insensitive, so uncaring of the plight of farmers, that it imposes a harvest tax on Canadian agriculture.
In January the Government will impose an additional 1 per cent sales tax on all farm input costs of equipment and supplies. It will also reduce Department of Agriculture programs by $50 million a year.
No wonder the OFA is considering plans today for drastic action, like mass demonstrations, withholding FCC payments, and rotating food strikes. Only strong measures such as these will make the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) understand the serious plight of Canadian farmers.


DISASTERS
Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, on June 20, 1984, a rockburst occurred at the No. 5 shaft of the Falconbridge mine. This rockburst cost four men-Sulo Korpela, Daniel Lavalle, Wayne St. Michel, and Richard Chenier- their lives, and was the largest mining disaster in Sudbury's recent history. These workers were members of Local 598 of the Mine Mill and Smelter Workers' Union.
I am informing the House that tomorrow, June 20, is the first Workers' Memorial Day, organized by the trade union movement in the Sudbury Basin. It is being held one year to the day after the tragic rockburst which claimed the lives of these four miners. However, this Memorial Day goes beyond that tragic incident and remembers all workers in Canada who have lost their lives on the job. Moreover, tomorrow's remembrance is a tribute to workers everywhere who are the foundation upon which our society is built.
Statistics show that one Canadian worker is injured on the job every 16 seconds, and that occupational accidents and diseases are the third leading cause of death. Indeed, workplace and work related diseases kill more than 900 Canadian workers every year.
It is time to pause and reflect upon the valued contribution workers make to our society. We must never forget the risks inherent in this contribution.


PROVINCIAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Rob Nicholson (Niagara Falls):: Mr. Speaker, June 18, 1985, will always be remembered as a sad day in the history of Ontario. That is the day when one of the finest Governments in the western world was brought to an end by the socialists and their Liberal friends.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Rob Nicholson: To suggest, as has Mr. Rae, that Ontario has not had good government for the past 42 years is an insult to two generations of Ontario voters. Under the Conservatives we have seen a health care program second to none, one of the world's finest educational systems, a superb transportation network, and compassionate social programs combined with sound fiscal management.
Mark my words, Bob Rae and the socialists will live to regret their mistake of yesterday, because they will go the same route as the Social Credit Party which voted against the Conservatives in 1963 and 1979. However, that will be a good thing for Ontario, and a good thing for Canada.

June 19, 1985


POLITICAL PARTIES
Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, during the last two weeks the Liberal Party and the NDP have been acting out a political farce on the floor of the House of Commons. That would be bad enough at any time, but these two Parties have made the old age pensioners of Canada the goats in their performance, and that is inexcusable.
It is fair ball to argue facts, but opposition Members have been using their imagination in arriving at figures far into the future which are actually ridiculous, as well as words that are false. Day after day they have been asking the Government to restore and reinstate the indexing of old age pensions. They know that we cannot restore something that has not been taken away. Then, to frighten the aged further, they move their strawman calculations into the nineties, and weep crocodile tears over the millions which they kid themselves will be taken from the pockets of pensioners in 1991.
There is no Bill before the House to take away any of the indexing from pensioners. There has not been one cent taken off their cheques or their pensions.
Why are the socialists and their spouse, the Liberals, acting like intoxicated drug addicts? I will tell the House why. The Liberal Party and the NDP do not like the proper plan of the Government to remove the indexing from the pay-cheques of MPs and Senators, and they are using the pensioners as a back-door way to save their own indexing. Worse than that, the Liberal Party and the NDP are trying to build their political machines on the backs of the aged, and I say: "Shame".

[ Translation]


OLD AGE SECURITY
Mr. Jean-Claude Malepart (Montreal-Sainte-Marie):: Last week and again yesterday, Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Shefford (Mr. Lapierre) and I toured Quebec ridings represented by Progressive Conservative Members to find out whether there is any truth in what the Prime Minister and his colleagues have been saying. As you may recall, they claim that senior citizens are quite prepared to make sacrifices and make do with 3 per cent less.
Mr. Speaker, I want to report to the House that in the regions of Quebec City and Sherbrooke, on the Island of Montreal and in the beautiful riding of Baie-Comeau where the Prime Minister, now a lifetime citizen of Westmount, was born, 2,000 people signed a petition against the Prime Minister's decision. In the riding of the Prime Minister, in the City of Baie-Comeau, the Prime Minister's Office tried to influence people but could not prevent 200 elderly residents of Baie-
Comeau from defending their rights and signing the petition. The executive of the Baie-Comeau Golden Age Club spoke up in defence of the rights of their 500 members, again in spite of underhanded pressure from PMO officials. All those people urged me to tell the Progressive Conservative Members to stand up on their own two feet and respect the Prime Minister's pledges to maintain full old age pension indexation.


THE ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina West):: Mr. Speaker, very recently the mother of the Chief of Staff for the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada (Mr. Crosbie) was appointed to the Saint John's Harbour Commission, which led me to conclude that this would be a method of helping a lot of mothers in Canada, including mine. I understand that these appointments are made on the recommendation of the local Member of Parliament.
I will not complain about the appointment of the mother of the Chief of Staff for the Minister of Justice, but since the Minister is not here I will ask the Parliamentary Secretary to advise me later this day whom I should get to recommend my mother for an appointment to any board or commission, so she can make a few extra dollars to cover her loss in income because of the deindexation of her old age pension.
With all the boards and commissions that we have in Canada, how many thousands more mothers who receive the Old Age Security pension could get appointed to a board or a commission? I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will advise me as to whom I should get to recommend these mothers for these appointments.


CANADIAN EGG MARKETING AGENCY DENIAL OF PRODUCTION QUOTA TO NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency is best known to Canadians as that organization which has destroyed millions of eggs in order to keep consumer prices high. Now CEMA has hit a new low. It has denied the Northwest Territories access and a requested minimum quota of 200,000 layers.
Apparently the colonialist mentality of CEMA is such that it would oblige the Territories to import vast quantities of food from the south, but will not allow them to export one of the few agricultural commodities which might be competitively produced in the north, in return. At the same time as it sanctions the importation of millions of dollars worth of eggs into Canada from the United States, CEMA refuses the
June 19, 1985

creation of jobs in the Northwest Territories and the employment of Canadians to produce eggs needed by Canadian families.
If this is to be the attitude of CEMA, then I say let us get rid of it and let us have a fair, open, and competitive marketplace from which both producers and consumers can benefit.


SMALL BUSINESS
Mr. Ken James (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, for those of us who have been small-businessmen, and those of us who are concerned with such entrepreneurs, we recognize full well the onerous regulations and paper burdens which in the past have been placed on our small-businessmen. These burdens have not been without cost to a large number of small businesses which are struggling to develop a lucrative Canadian business.
I am pleased to see that this problem has been recognized and corrective measures have been initiated with the Intergovernmental Position Paper on The Principles and Framework for Regional Economic Development. This document, which was fully endorsed by all Governments, reflects a commitment to develop more effective policies for small and medium sized businesses. A reduction in the regulatory and paper burdens placed on small businesses is a positive step which will undoubtedly benefit all of the 750,000 Canadian small businesses.


PENSIONS
Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, I want to tell the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) about a constituent from Scarborough Centre. She is a widow. In August she will be 75 years old. She is a Canadian by choice, and fiercely proud of it. During the Depression she and her husband worked to build a life. He went to war and was severely wounded, and she still receives a small pension from the Department of Veterans Affairs. They worked hard to obtain their dream, a home. However, in 1967 her husband died suddenly. Working as a mail clerk she paid off her small mortgage, and continued to do volunteer work in the community.
This 74-year old lady pays for food for herself and her two companions, cats. She pays property taxes, electricity and water bills, and telephone bills.
The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) talks about deficits. Yet he gives billions of dollars to rich investors, speculators,
Oral Questions
and oil companies. The 74-year old lady in Scarborough Centre talks about nickels and dimes and how the deindexation of her pension will hurt. The deindexation of her basic pension will mean the difference between macaroni and bologna. I ask the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) to prevail upon the Minister of Finance and ask him to rise today to admit that he has made a mistake, and that he will reintroduce in the Chamber today full pensions for all senior citizens from coast to coast.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a few questions for the Prime Minister on behalf of our senior citizens, but first of all, I would like to congratulate our fellow citizens for standing up for their rights, and I want to greet their representatives who came to Ottawa today to protect those basic rights.
Mr. Speaker, yesterday and the day before, the Prime Minister was in Manicouagan. Last week 1 was in Vancouver Quadra, and I am sure we both listened to what pensioners had to say. My question to the Prime Minister is therefore as follows: Is he finally going to let himself be swayed by public opinion and reinstate full indexation of Old Age Security benefits? Is he going to do so right now, not later on, not after the House adjourns but now?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I also wish to congratulate the leaders of senior citizens' groups, who, as always, are behaving with great dignity and for whom we have nothing but admiration. I have met with representatives of senior citizens, both in the riding of Manicouagan and today on Parliament Hill. There are a number of differences of opinion, but there are two elements that keeping coming back. First of all, a serious concern about the future of social programs as a result of our national debt. Senior citizens are aware that social programs could be seriously affected by this appalling situation. Second, there is a particular emphasis on the circumstances of senior citizens who are among the neediest in our society. I have noted their comments and suggestions, and as I said before, we will be making a statement at the appropriate time.


ELECTION CAMPAIGN STATEMENT
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, in recent remarks that the Prime Minister has made,

June 19, 1985
Oral Questions
both in the House and outside the House, he has virtually diluted the Budget of the Minister of Finance into a series of proposals. We all know that he is going to reverse this measure. We all know that he feels that we cannot control the public debt of the country on the backs of those who can no longer protect themselves, the senior citizens.
The Prime Minister used the French word "inquietude", which means anxiety. There is a lot of anxiety out there and, more than that, the word of the Prime Minister is on the line. Will he fulfil the promise he made to the people of Canada while he was in Sherbrooke last July, by restoring the full protection against inflation that indexation brings? Will he do that now?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
[Translation)


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I think the problem we inherited was very well described yesterday by one of the great Ministers of Finance this country has known, the Hon. Jacques Parizeau, who does not share my political views but is a most distinguished and competent gentleman. This is what he said: "In my view, the first federal Budget shows remarkable wisdom in its approach to the Budget deficit. The point is made that the cost of servicing the national debt is gradually eliminating the Government's room to manoeuver and forcing it to cut the costs of other programs and finally eliminate some programs altogether."
That, Mr. Speaker, is the tragic legacy we have inherited here in Canada.
Like Mr. Parizeau, senior citizens realize that the national debt and interest payments on the debt are causing people to doubt this country's ability to support social programs. We will not renege on our responsibilities at the national level nor on our responsibility to senior citizens. We are going to rebuild a strong and prosperous economy in Canada, and that is how we will be able to maintain social programs in this country.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has brought into his camp a former Minister of Finance from Quebec.
I want to remind him, and the House, that 1 had the honour, as Minister of Finance, to bring indexation into the House of Commons.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: I did it with the support of Mr. Stanfield and the entire Conservative Party. The House of Commons agreed that it was the only way to protect our senior citizens against the ravages of inflation.
Why will the Prime Minister not admit that he cannot control the public debt on the backs of those who cannot protect themselves? The only way which our senior citizens have of protecting themselves is through the full indexation of their pensions.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition has, indeed, given us half the story. He brought in indexation, but he also brought in deficit financing which has crippled the country and crippled its ability to maintain social programs.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: That's what you did. That is exactly what the Leader of the Opposition did. He inherited a country which was debt free. He inherited a financial statement which was balanced. He transformed that into a great deficit which has crippled the nation and has now placed in peril our obligation to senior citizens.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: You should be ashamed of what you did. You have sown the seeds for the destruction of social programs. We are going to correct it, and maintain those social programs for our senior citizens.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


INQUIRY WHY GOVERNMENT USES ELDERLY TO REDUCE DEFICIT
Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the Prime Minister that the people of Baie-Comeau were expecting a better performance today. Yesterday I was in Baie-Comeau and he was here, and you know Mr. Lord, the President of the Baie-Comeau Senior Citizens' Club. Today, these people from Baie-Comeau and Mr. Lord, the president who represents 500 residents of Baie-Comeau, want to know why the Prime Minister is using the elderly, the neediest in our society, to reduce the deficit, and they have asked me to ask the Prime Minister: Why didn't you pick on the rich to reduce the deficit?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Yes, I was in Baie-Comeau, and I heard about the Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie. They told me: Mr. Muironey, this is the same guy who made a six percent cut in our pensions two years ago. The Liberal Government. . . they made such an impression, there were ten of them in a senior citizens' home, two Members, eight Liberal organizers and eleven residents. People on the North Shore are sick and tired of hearing you trumpet these half-truths among the senior citizens here.
June 19, 1985


Jean-Claude Malépart: I am sure the people from Baie-Comeau, who said they would be listening to question period yesterday and told me that they were starting to feel disappointed, must feel really disappointed today after hearing the Prime Minister's answer. Yesterday, the Prime Minister ... his office tried to manipulate senior citizens in his riding to keep us from meeting them, and you know what his office said? The Prime Minister is against de-indexation but his caucus made him do it, Mr. Speaker. That is the kind of manipulation we are getting from the Prime Minister's Office.


INQUIRY WHY PRIME MINISTER DOES NOT MAKE ANNOUNCEMENT TODAY
Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary. It does not do any good to keep playing games. Pretty soon you are going to say you made a mistake. Why not do the gentlemanly thing while the senior citizens who built this country are here? Why not tell them today, right now, that you are going to protect their Old Age Security pensions? Why not tell them now?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, there are senior citizens, here in the House of Commons, as there were in Baie-Comeau and Sept-Iles the day before yesterday, when the only question they kept asking and which concerned not the New Democrats but the Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie, was: How come a Liberal Member who cut 6 per cent from our pensions has the guts to visit us here on the North Shore? You got a cold reception because the people on the North Shore know what you are like and are sick and tired of you and your half-truths about this issue.


Mr. Speaker:: May I remind Hon. Members that any reference to anyone in the gallery, by any Hon. Member of the House, is out of order.


REQUEST FOR INDEXATION AND DECISION BEFORE SUMMER
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: My question is directed to the Right Hon. Prime Minister. In Sherbrooke, during the election campaign, the Prime Minister promised to index all pensions. Today, outside Parliament, the very same Quebecers and other Canadians discussed the situation once again. They simply want two things: first, indexation of all pensions and second, a decision before the summer.
My question to the Prime Minister is very simple. Do you agree, and if not, why not?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, at this very moment, there is not a single elderly person in Quebec or Canada who has suffered the slightest reduction in benefits, not one. In the months to come, the only thing that
Oral Questions
will happen is that benefits for the elderly will be increased, and that is a fact. There is not a single person in Canada who has suffered any reduction in benefits whatsoever, and that is the truth.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Second, in the Budget we made a commitment to monitor the situation very closely, while at the same time trying to create new wealth in Canada and thus be able to help the elderly even more. We have made a commitment to monitor the situation and to improve our assistance to the elderly as soon as feasible.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I say quite simply to the Prime Minister that it is quite true that no pensions have yet been reduced-


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: -but it is also true, Mr. Speaker, that no one on this side of the House has said as of this moment that pensions are reduced.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Edward Broadbent: We have said what the pensioners understand, that it is in the Prime Minister's Budget that pensions will be cut if the Government doesn't change its policy. That's for sure.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Edward Broadbent: A reduction in an increase is a cut, and pensioners understand that very well.


ANXIETY OF PENSIONERS
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has noted that pensioners are in a state of anxiety. He observed that himself, and Members on all sides of the House are aware of that. Why is it too much for the Prime Minister, before Parliament recesses, to reduce that anxiety by clarifying the situation and stating that, yes, indexed pensions will be fully restored, and to do it before the end of this month?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member has just made an important statement, and if he wants to be fair, he will acknowledge first of all that there has been no reduction of any kind in the pension system. Second, the measure in question will not become effective until next January, so we have six or seven months to monitor the situation, as indicated in the Budget, and to take appropriate action as soon as feasible.

June 19, 1985
Oral Questions
I think the Hon. Member, who shares at least the economic philosophy of Mr. Parizeau, would have no objection to my quoting Mr. Parizeau: "The point is that the cost of servicing the national debt is gradually eliminating the Government's room to manoeuvre, thus obliging it to reduce the cost of other programs and finally eliminate programs altogether."
We want equity and justice for the elderly, and the best guarantee that this will be achieved is to have a growing economy, to have a solid basis on which the economy can be rebuilt.


REQUEST FOR EARLY ANNOUNCEMENT
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister says he has six months to monitor the situation. We on this side of the House do not believe we should put our pensioners through six months of continuing anxiety. That is the difference.


Mr. Dick:: You are the cause of the anxiety.


John Edward Broadbent: The Prime Minister made the promise in Sherbrooke in July. His Minister of Health made it at the end of January when the Government knew the debt situation. We learned this morning that the Parliamentary Secretary to that Minister made a public commitment on April 23 that there would be no cut in pensions, no removal in indexation. Considering all that, why does the Prime Minister not do the decent thing, live up to his promise, give back their indexation to the pensioners, and do it this week?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we have indicated quite clearly in the Budget Papers our concern about this particular provision, especially as it applies to the elderly poor. That is why we specifically indicated that we would be monitoring the matter very, very carefully so at the earliest possible moment we would be able to take appropriate and helpful action for the senior citizens.
1 think it must be mentioned again, in fairness to everyone, that not a single senior citizen has had a benefit cut in any way, nor shall there be. We are in the process of giving ourselves the time to take a look at it, and, as soon as we can, we will take remedial action.


REQUEST BY PENSIONERS
Hon. Douglas C. Frith (Sudbury):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. I might say that seniors understand they are going to lose 20 per cent of their purchasing power if his Government's plans are adopted. That is the point.
Every senior citizen whom I have talked to in the last two weeks has asked me to ask the Prime Minister this question. Canadian seniors have suffered through wars and an economic depression and, I suppose, through the betrayal and lies of the Conservatives in last summer's election campaign. What more
do they have to do to convince him and his Government that they have no support for deindexation? Their Budget is not viewed as fair by any one of those senior citizens, and all they ask is: will the Government restore full indexation now?


Martin Brian Mulroney: First of all my hon. friend, for whom 1 have a great regard, has made a profoundly inaccurate statement that there will be a reduction of 20 per cent in their purchasing power. That is absolutely untrue. I know him to be an honourable man and he will want to withdraw that forthwith.
Without any hesitation, Mr. Speaker, I readily acknowledge that this country owes so much to its senior citizens. It strikes me that we owe them, most of all, an economy which will guarantee these programs can be maintained. They know that you cannot borrow, and borrow, and borrow, and spend borrowed money, because that will result in the breakdown of the social programs to which they are entitled. That is why we are trying to be prudent, and realistic, and fair, by rebuilding the economy so we can give more to the senior citizens.


REQUEST FOR COMMITMENT
Douglas Cockburn Frith: Mr. Speaker, what the Prime Minister owes the elderly in our society is a Government which will not lay the burden of deficit reduction on the backs of the poor. I ask him again, does every senior citizen have to go through another six months of worrying about whether or not they should renew leases-believe me, there is confusion and apprehension in this land-


Mr. Andre:: Spread by your Party.


Paul Wyatt Dick: You distort the truth.


Douglas Cockburn Frith: It is being spread by this Government's indecision.


Harvie Andre: Tell the truth and they won't worry.


Douglas Cockburn Frith: All they ask is one simple thing. Please, before this House rises for the summer break, make the commitment to restore full indexation?


Martin Brian Mulroney: I do not say
this about the NDP, but I say to my Liberal friends, having proceeded to cut old age pensions by 6 per cent in 1982, you now have the temerity to go around the country trying to frighten senior citizens. Well, they have got your number. They had your number on September 4. They tossed you out, and they are going to keep you out because of that attitude.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


PRIME MINISTER'S ELECTION STATEMENT
Mr. Neil Young (Beaches):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Seniors across Canada have never asked for much.
June 19, 1985


Sheila Maureen Copps: Some honesty from the Prime Minister.


Mr. Nystrom:: Shut up, Sheila.


Neil Young: My question is directed to the Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker. Seniors across Canada are saying to me they have never demanded much of Canada. They are not demanding very much of Canada now. They are simply saying that they expect the Prime Minister to implement fully the promise he made to them during the last election campaign. Will he not now stand in his place and give the assurance, not only to the House but to the seniors of Canada, that that commitment will be carried through by the end of next week?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, as he has throughout this debate, my hon. friend again puts forward a thoughtful point of view. He raises the question of demands. I believe that what the senior citizens of this country are entitled to demand of Canada is a degree of sagacity in the administration of public finances so that their pensions are not gravely and irretrievably imperilled. What we are trying to do is restore a degree of sanity to the public finances so that we can do more for the senior citizens of this country. What they need most of all, in my judgment, is a sound and growing economy so we can do precisely that, a lot more for senior citizens.


REQUEST FOR CONTINUANCE OF FULL INDEXATION
Neil Young: Mr. Speaker, I simply ask the Prime Minister how many sacrifices does he expect the seniors to make? Does he not think they made enough, because they feel they have? Again, will he not stand in his place and do the honourable thing, and tell the seniors of this country that he intends to follow through on the promise he made to them in the election campaign, and continue to index old age pensions fully?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, no senior citizen has been cut in any way at any time. All senior citizens are going to get more, rather than less, from the Government.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: That is the truth. As we have indicated, and I know my hon. friend understands this, as soon as we a can we will be making an announcement which I hope will be appropriate and helpful in the long term.


STATEMENT ATTRIBUTED TO CONSTITUENCY OFFICIAL
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg-Fort Garry):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In the June 17 edition of the Winnipeg Free Press Mr. Frank Klassen, a staff member of the Minister's constituency office, is quoted as saying:
I think most people don't quite understand how little it is in dollar terms.
Oral Questions
He is speaking about the money the Government is taking through its deindexation program. He continued:
It means three packs of cigarettes a month that I shouldn't smoke anyway, or half a bottle of liquor that 1 shouldn't drink.
So where's the hardship?
That is one of the most appallingly insensitive statements made by a member of the Minister's staff, relating to the condition of senior citizens.
Does this statement by a member of the Minister's staff reflect the view of the Minister? Does he believe that there is no hardship to be experienced by tens of thousands of senior citizens, or does he agree with the National Advisory Council on Aging, which should know its business, and counters the silly propositions of the Prime Minister? It says that there will be a major loss of income and a deterioration of the social and economic condition of seniors. If he agrees with that, will he tell the Prime Minister that now is the appropriate time to make a change in the pension program for senior citizens?


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, it is statements such as the one made by the member for Sudbury, in which he indicated that 20 per cent of the purchasing power of senior citizens will be eroded, which he knows is not the case, that create the fear that the Opposition accuses the Government of creating. They have done that for many reasons, one of which is political. 1 remind the Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry of the words he used in the House on June 29, 1982. He said:
They are saying we are changing the tax system, that we are deindexing down to 5 per cent or 6 per cent for certain tax brackets and changing the pensions and some of the allowances. Yes, we are doing that. We are doing it because we believe there are enough Canadians who feel compassion and concern for their fellow Canadians who are out of work.
I could continue the quotation. That is what the Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry said. He can say what he wants.
The point of the matter is that we are trying to protect senior citizens, but, as we have said many times, we can only do that if we get the economy turned around.


EFFECT OF PARTIAL DEINDEXATION
Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Minister persists in developing the myth that there was a cut-back in the pensions of senior citizens under the Liberal Government. Seniors did not lose one cent because we double indexed the GIS, which this Government refuses to do. We protected the senior citizens.
I am not talking about history; 1 am talking about the present. Does the Minister repudiate the statement of his staff member, or does the Minister of National Health and Welfare believe that no hardship will be inflicted upon senior citizens, even though his own advisory council, which is not a political body, repudiates that?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry does not want to talk about the past, and does not

June 19, 1985
Oral Questions
want to admit that there was a cut for senior citizens for those two years. He will not admit that. I think he should admit what in fact happened.
I met with representatives of senior citizens today. They put their case forward very forcefully, decently, and properly. I have listened and conveyed that to the Prime Minister, as is my job. We will take our counsel from that.
[ Translation]


FULL INDEXATION OF PENSIONS-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Mr. Mike Cassidy (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Right Hon. the Prime Minister since the credibility and the value of the word of a Prime Minister are at stake with respect to senior citizens.
During the election campaign, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised full indexation of old age pensions, he repeated the same promise in January, and again in April the promise was echoed before senior citizens by the Hon. Member for Brome-Missisquoi, who happens to be the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
Will the Prime Minister keep his word before the adjournment of the House next week, yes or no? Will the full indexation promise made by the Prime Minister be honoured before the end of next week?


Martin Brian Mulroney: You are still trying to confuse elderly people over this issue. There has not been any cut-back whatsoever and the next pension cheque sent to senior citizens will be bigger than the last one. And again the following cheque will be bigger than the previous one. So there is no reason to panic and be worried. Elderly Canadians readily understand that we cannot send them rubber cheques. Those cheques must be drawn on a solvent account, which is why we are trying to bolster the economy and made that one of the Budget's feature. I know it has been accepted, I know there is a problem.


Jean-Claude Malépart: You are paid to solve problems!


Martin Brian Mulroney: We want to be fair and equitable. We want to be fair and equitable, particularly to our senior citizens. We have always been and will continue to be fair.
concerning the full indexation of old age security pensions, and will that be announced before the end of next week when the House will adjourn?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I have answered that question from my friend and his colleagues at least half a dozen times here in the House. It has been indicated quite clearly in the Budget that we will monitor the evolution of this case. We are fully aware of our commitments to the senior citizens in our society.


Michael Morris Cassidy: You ignore them!


Martin Brian Mulroney: We know we have commitments to those people throughout the country. Indeed one of the leaders of the elderly told me at 11.30 this morning: We know that a cheque from Ottawa is of no use if there are not sufficient funds. That is why the Canadian people want to help us and support our economic recovery programs.


STATUS OF WOMEN
Mr. Jim Jepson (London East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State of Canada. REAL Women is an organization that represents over 20,000 women of Canada. Like other women's groups, it has requested funding to promote its feelings on women's rights in Canada.
When can REAL Women expect funding for what many feel is every bit as legitimate a request as that of the National Action Committee and the Advisory Council on Status of Women?


Hon. Walter McLean (Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, 1 wish to thank the Hon. Member for giving me notice of his question. I have met with representatives of REAL Women who have been seeking assistance through the women's program in the Department of the Secretary of State. In the process of discussing with them their application for funds and why that application was refused in the first instance, they indicated that the statements in their own presentation were not according to their principles. I have, therefore, asked them to meet with my officials to clarify their own documents, and have indicated that I will meet with them again.


INQUIRY IF GOVERNMENT WILL RESPECT ITS PROMISE ON FULL INDEXATION OF PENSIONS
Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, the pensioners who came from Quebec and who are here on Parliament Hill today did not hesitate to say that the only was the Government can be fair to the elderly is to honour its election campaign promises and others made since then. Again I repeat my question: Will the Government keep its word


PENSIONS
Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has said repeatedly today that there is not a senior citizen in the country who has yet suffered
June 19, 1985

from deindexation. That kind of defence is like the hangman telling the condemned that he should not complain until after he has been hanged.
The Prime Minister should know, if he had the temerity- one of his favourite words-to go out to the lawn in front of Parliament Hill, that senior citizens will not go quietly to the noose. They want some action.
There seems to be some confusion. Everyone else in the country has a clear understanding of what the Prime Minister promised senior citizens last summer during an election campaign when he was looking for votes. We are not so sure that the Prime Minister knows what he promised. Will the Prime Minister tell the House what commitment he made in Sherbrooke last July to the senior citizens of Canada? Tell us now, because we are not sure you understand any more.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member wonders whether I had the temerity to go on to the lawn of Parliament to meet the senior citizens. That is exactly where I was, and I did not see the Hon. Member there.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jean-Claude Malépart: No.


Mr. Rossi:: We were there. You weren't there.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Wrong again.


Martin Brian Mulroney: I acknowledge that I may have missed the Member. He may have been hiding behind the Member for Sainte-Marie.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Or any other Hon. Member.
Our obligation to the senior citizens is one that we take very seriously. We owe them a great deal. Most of all, we owe them a sound and growing economy so we can ensure that these cheques do not bounce on them in the future.
When the senior citizens see 10 per cent, 20 per cent, 40 per cent and 50 per cent of our national income going to pay the interest on the debt, as Mr. Parizeau said yesterday it places in peril the capacity of the country to send these cheques. We have an obligation to make sure that the cheques of the Government of Canada to our senior citizens don't bounce, and that is what would have resulted from the policy of the Liberal Party.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Brian Vincent Tobin: The Prime Minister's sarcasm and smart-alec tone, and slick answers, in referring to a Member who has won a place of distinction in the hearts of senior citizens of Quebec and of Canada in general really shows that this man is not in touch. He has been spending his time with pollsters and not on the front lawn. I was there. You drove by in your car and ran through the door.
Oral Questions CONTENT OF BUDGET


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, how does the Prime Minister expect us to believe his poor mouth story that pensions for senior citizens are being deindexed in order to salvage the program for the future, when in the same Budget he is giving away billions in capital gains, and billions-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Brian Vincent Tobin: -back to the multinational oil companies? If you are really worried about preserving the economy and social programs, take back the $125,000 gift you have given in capital gains and give senior citizens what they are due, that is, old age security, not insecurity, or anxiety, and not anger that the Prime Minister has lied.


Some Hon. Members:: Out! Out!


An Hon. Member:: Throw him out.


Mr. Speaker:: I invite the Hon. Member to please do what he knows he must, and withdraw that phrase, without explanation. 1 invite the Hon. Member simply to withdraw the phrase.


Some Hon. Members:: Withdraw!


Brian Vincent Tobin: Shut up.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I invite the Hon. Member to withdraw the phrase.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, I assume the words of senior citizens of this country are not appropriate in this House. That is what you are telling me, because those are the words they used on the front lawn.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member knows that certain things may not be said in this House and may not be said indirectly either. The Hon. Member knows that.
It is being a difficult day. 1 simply ask the Member to withdraw his statement.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, in the interest of allowing my colleagues who have very good questions a chance to ask them, I withdraw the word for now.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh! Out.


Mr. Speaker:: For the last time, 1 ask the Member to please withdraw the phrase unreservedly and simply.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, I would abandon the senior citizens, as the Prime Minister has, if I withdrew that word. They asked me this morning to fight for them.


Some Hon. Members:: Out! Out!


Mr. Speaker:: In the interest of order, I will ask the Member one last time-

June 19, 1985
Oral Questions


Some Hon. Members:: No.
Messrs.


Mr. Speaker:: 1 will. It is being a difficult day, and for one last time I will ask the Hon. Member to rise in his place and unreservedly withdraw the phrase.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, 2.5 million people will not allow me to unreservedly withdraw the truth.


Mr. Speaker:: I am given no option but to name the Member for disregarding a request from the Chair-


Mr. Nunziata:: For telling the truth.


An Hon. Member:: Kick him out too.


John V. Nunziata: Throw me out too. He is a liar. He lied to the senior citizens.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: I must indicate to the House that I must name the Hon. Member for Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe for refusing to obey a request from the Chair to come to order.


Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn (President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, it is with some deep sense of regret, because of the respect that most Members have for this institution of the House of Commons, that I must move the following motion:
That the Hon. Member for Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe be suspended from the service of this House for the balance of this day.


Mr. Speaker:: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.
Browes (Mrs.)
Caldwell
Champagne
(Champlain)
Charesl Collins (Mrs.)
Cornea u
Cook
Cooper
Corbett
Cote
(Lac-Saint-Jean) Cote
(Langelier)
Crofton
Crombie
Crosbie
(St. John's West) Crosby
(Halifax West) Crouse Danis Darling Daubney de Cotret Della Noce Desjardins Do mm Dor in Duguay Duplessis
(Mrs.)
Epp
(Provencher)
Fennell
Ferland
For restall
Fretz
Friesen
Gormley
Gottselig
Graham
Gray
(Bonaven ture- i les-de-la- Madeleine) Greenaway
Grise
Guilbault
(Drummond)
Gurbin
Hamelin
Hardey
Harvey
Hawkes
Hicks
Hnatyshyn
Holtmann
Horner
Howie
James
Jardine
Jelinek
Jepson
Johnson
(Bonavista-Trinity-
Conception)
Joncas
Jourdenais
Kempling
King
Landry (Mrs.)
Lanthier
Lawrence
Layton
Leblanc
Lopez
MacDonald (Miss) (Kingston and the Islands) MacKay Malone Mantha Marin
Martin (Mrs.)
Masse
Mayer
Mazankowski
McCain
McKnight
McLean
Minaker
Mitges
Murta Nicholson (Niagara Falls)
N ickerson
Nielsen
O'Neil
Oostrom
Peterson
Pietz
Plamondon Ravis Reid Reimer St. Germain St-Julien Schellenberg (Nanaimo-Alberni) Scott
(Victoria-Haliburton)
Scowen
Siddon
Sparrow
(Mrs.)
Stevens

Tardif (Mrs.)
(Charles bourg)
Taylor Thacker Towers Tremblay (Quebec-Est) Tremblay (Lotbiniere)
Tupper
Turner
(Ottawa-Carleton) Valcourt Vankoughnet Vezina (Mrs.)
Vincent
Weiner
White
Wilson
(Etobicoke Centre) Witer-129.
++NAYS
Messrs.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


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


Mr. Speaker:: Call in the Members.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion carried. I must ask the Hon. Member to withdraw.
++YEAS
Andre
Attewell
Beatty
Belsher
Bertrand (Mrs.)
Messrs.
Binns Blackburn (Jonqui&re) Blenkarn Blouin (Mrs.)
Bouchard
Boyer
Bradley
Brightwell
Brisco
And Mr. Tobin having withdrawn:


Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Regrettably, perhaps in the heat of what went on at an earlier stage, another Hon. Member, the Hon. Member for York South-Weston (Mr. Nunziata), said very clearly in this House that a

June 19, 1985

person was a liar. I think he should have the opportunity of withdrawing.


An Hon. Member:: Check the "blues".


Mr. Speaker:: An Hon. Member is indicating I should check the "blues". Unfortunately, I have the "blues". I am afraid the point the Parliamentary Secretary is making is correct. I must therefore ask the Hon. Member for York South-Weston (Mr. Nunziata) to withdraw his intervention.


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe (Mr. Tobin) was repeating what a senior citizen said earlier today and what a lot of Canadians are saying from coast to coast. My sentiments-


Some Hon. Members:: Out!


John V. Nunziata: My sentiments are known to you and to each and every Member of this House. But for the sake of getting on with the debate on the borrowing authority Bill, I withdraw my comments.


CLERK OF PETITIONS' REPORTS
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the petitions, with the exception of three, presented by Hon. Members on Tuesday, June 18, 1985, meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.
Certain petitions presented by the Hon. Member for Megantic-Compton-Stanstead (Mr. Gerin), the Hon. Member for Bourassa (Mr. Rossi), and one petition presented by the Hon. Member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez), do not meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, once again 1 have the honour to submit a group of petitions from citizens who live on Dufferin Street, Earlscourt Avenue, Bristol Avenue, Davenport Road, Pelham Park, Roncessvales Road, Runnymede Road, Bloor Street West, Islington Avenue, Martin Grove Road, Royal York Road, in Weston, Islington, the City of York and the City of Toronto. They all request that the Government maintain full indexation for old age pensions.
Petitions


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have the pleasure and the honour to present on behalf of my constituents of Ottawa-Vanier a petition signed by many residents of my riding asking the Government and the Prime Minister to keep the promise and the commitment made during the electoral campaign in the summer of 1984 to maintain full indexation of old age security pensions.

I also have a petition from constituents of the riding of Ottawa-Vanier once more asking the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) to keep his word and respect his commitment in the 1984 election campaign to maintain full indexation for old age pensions.


Mr. Vic Althouse (Humboldt-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have several petitions from the community of Hendon and the Nokomis area from senior citizens protesting deindexation of their old age pensions. They petition the House of Commons to reinstate full indexation of Old Age Security programs in Canada.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and duty to present a petition signed by a number of citizens of Canada who reside in the City of Regina. They, as well as many Members of this House, humbly pray and call upon the House of Commons to reinstate full indexation of the Old Age Security program.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, 1 have the honour to present a petition from many, many constituents in the Town of Espanola, pointing out that the Government is planning to reduce the purchasing power of old age pensions by $100 per person next year up to almost $600 by 1990. They point out that pensioners should not be unfairly penalized in order to benefit large multinational oil companies and high-income groups. They call upon the Government to reinstate full indexation of old age pensions.


Mr. Roland de Corneille (Eglinton-Lawrence):: Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to present a petition on behalf of senior citizens in my riding at the Marjory Carton Centre and other places. These senior citizens numbering nearly 100 petition this House regarding their concerns about the loss of purchasing power and the dangers which will encompass them in the future.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, since 1 recall that in 1981 the Conservatives in Ontario campaigned on the slogan "Help Keep the Promise", I have the honour to present a petition which calls on the Government of Canada to keep the promise it made during the 1984 election campaign and reinstate full indexation of the Old Age Security Program in Canada.

June 19, 1985
Petitions
May I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that while you have my best personal regards, it is a happy day for Ontario with the demise of the Conservative Government.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Mr. Cyril Keeper (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from some people in Winnipeg who want the Government to re-establish the full indexation of pensions immediately.


Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to present a petition from citizens in British Columbia regarding the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental Test Range at Nanoose Bay. They are concerned that it contributes to the nuclear arms race and militarism in general. They are concerned about environmental damage to Nanoose Bay and its economic value, and they urge the House not to renew the agreement between Canada and the U.S. and to bring to an end all weapons testing at the range and convert it to peaceful purposes.


Mr. Dan Heap (Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and duty to present a petition from a number of residents of Spadina and nearby ridings. They are concerned that the Government proposes to cut the Old Age Security pension next year by $100, and $100 more each year thereafter. They are concerned that a PC Government would once more index the OAS pension to the cost of living on a quarterly basis as promised by the Prime Minister. They ask this Parliament to reinstate the principle of full indexation of the OAS Program in Canada.


Neil Young: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by several hundred constituents of Beaches who say they do not agree with what the Government is doing in deindexing old age pensions, and they petition the Government to live up to the promise it made during the last election campaign that it would fully index old age pensions to the cost of living.


Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege and honour to present a petition calling on the Government of Canada to live up to its election promise to continue to index the old age pension to the actual cost of living on a quarterly basis. This petition is signed by residents of Geraldton, Emo, Atikokan, Dryden and the great community of Kashabowie, Ontario.
I have another petition signed by residents of two senior citizens' apartment buildings in my riding who also call upon
the Government of Canada to live up to its commitments to senior citizens.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, 1 have a petition bearing well over 200 names of citizens from right across the great riding of Thunder Bay-Atikokan who object to the Budget this Government brought in. They call on the Government to continue to index pensions fully.


Mr. Ernie Epp (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present petitions from constituents of my riding who protest that the May 23 Budget imposes undue and unfair hardship on pensioners by deindexing the Old Age Security Program. These cuts fly in the face of PC campaign promises that a PC Government would once more index OAS pensions to the actual cost of living on a quarterly basis. They pray that the House of Commons will reinstate full indexation of this program in Canada.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-Walkerville):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have the honour to table a petition signed by another 2,000 citizens living in Windsor, Ontario, who present the immorality of promises unkept, and who demand that the proposal to deindex pensions in 1986 be revoked, and that there be a declaration made that the promises of the Conservative Party during and after the election be kept.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to rise on behalf of 4,000 residents of the Province of Manitoba. There are 200 signatures from the constituency of Portage-Marquette, 180 signatures from the constituency of Winnipeg-St. James, 50 signatures from Swan River, another 200 signatures from the constituency of Brandon Souris, 160 signatures from the constituency of Provench-er, 170 signatures from the constituency of Selkirk-lnterlake, and 3,000 signatures from the City of Winnipeg. All these residents of that province say that the deindexation of old Age Security benefits by the Conservative Government places a cruel and unfair burden on senior citizens and that the Prime Minister has totally reneged on his election promise to retain full indexation.
Wherefore, the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House of Commons to withdraw this unfair measure from the Budget and restore the full indexation of the Old Age Security benefit to all senior citizens. I am pleased to present this petition on behalf of 4,000 Manitobans from all constituencies.


Hon. Flora MacDonald (Minister of Employment and Immigration) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-55, an Act to amend the Immigration Act, 1976.
June 19, 1985


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the Hon. Minister have leave to introduce the Bill?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


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

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, question No. 340 will be answered today.


Mr. Skelly: 1.	Did the Minister of Employment and Immigration approve a grant under the Manpower Industrial Labour Adjustment Program to assist those persons who have suffered from changes in the West Coast Fishing industry and, if so (a) on what date (b) in what amount (c) how much of the grant is available for administration purposes?
2.	Who were the persons responsible for the implementation of the program?
3.	Did the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans approve of the program and, if so, what input did the Minister provide concerning (a) the program development (b) the amount of money involved (c) the recommendations regarding the persons to be responsible for the program?
4.	Did the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans make such recommendations in writing to the Minister of Employment and Immigration and, if so, will the Minister of Employment and Immigration Table these recommendations in the House?
5.	(a) Who are the members of the MILAP Administration Committee (b) what qualifications do the members have to administer the program?
6.	What total moneys per day are paid for (a) wages (6) honoraria to these members?
7.	Does the program (a) provide for per diem expenses (b) require a limit for per diem expenses?
8.	How much money (a) per day is available to these members (6) has been claimed to date by the members for (i) wages (ii) honoraria (iii) expenses?
9.	Is Mr. Thor Peterson permitted to use the MILAP grant money to rent office space and, if so, has any space been rented which he (a) owns (b) has an interest in?
10.	What members of the committee are entitled to use program money to rent office space?
11.	What West Coast area (a) municipal councils (b) Indian bands (c) elected regional boards (*/) economic development commissions were consulted about (i) MILAP (ii) the appointments of those chosen to administer the program?
12.	Will the Minister of Employment and Immigration Table in the House her objectives for the Program in this area?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: 1. The West Coast fishery designation under MILAP was made by the federal Cabinet: (a) June 21, 1984 for two years; (b) $5 million federal allocation for Canada Employment and Immigration Commission (CEIC) programs; (c) Community Adjustment Committee administration-currently $150,000 with provision not to exceed $200,000 max-
Order Paper Questions
imum; Other CEIC administration-currently estimated at $154,000.
2.	Canada Employment and Immigration Commission/ Department (CEIC/D).
3.	(a) Program approved by Cabinet on June 21, 1984; (b) same as (a); (c) same as (a).
4.	Yes. No documents will be tabled.
5.	(a) Thor T. Peterson-central committee chairperson; J. M. Lornie-regional subcommittee chairperson, North Vancouver Island; S. B. Hagen-regional subcommittee chairperson, West Vancouver Island; F. Husoy-regional subcommittee chairperson, North Coast; D. Isner-regional subcommittee chairperson, Central Coast; E. Standish- Canada Employment and Immigration Commission; D. Deans-Fisheries and Oceans; W. Stokes-Regional and Industrial Expansion; L. Munaweera-Indian and Northern Affairs; R. Thomas-B.C. Ministry of Environment.
Subcommittee membership includes representation from commercial fishing, sports fishing, fish processing, forestry, union, and native interest groups.
(b) Community Adjustment Committee members are all selected to represent the private business sector, labour, local community interest groups, and federal and provincial departments and agencies.
6.	(a) and (b) Central committee chairperson-$35 per hour up to $250 per diem; subcommittee chairperson-$18 per hour up to $150 per diem; other members are compensated for salaries and wages lost while on committee work and all committee members may be reimbursed for travel and out-ofpocket expenses.
7.	(a) Yes, for chairpersons and travel and other out-ofpocket expenses; (b) yes.
8.	(a) $250 per day for the central committee chairperson fees; $150 per day for the subcommittee chairpersons' fees; also travel and out-of-pocket expenses in accordance with Treasury Board guidelines.
(b) As at May 1, 1985: (i) Nil; (ii) $8,125; and (iii) $3,291.
9.	No. The committee is permitted to use funds to rent office space, (a) no; (b) yes.
10.	Committee and subcommittee executive groups.
11.	(a) (i) None; (ii) Mayor of Campbell River and Councillors; Mayor of Port McNeil and Councillors; and Union of B.C. Municipalities.
(b)	(i) None; (ii) Central Coast Tribal Council and North Island Tribal Council. Local Indian bands were consulted by subcommittee chairpersons and are represented on each of the four regional subcommittees.
(c)	(i) None; (ii) Same as (a) (ii) above, because of dual representation by individuals.
(d)	(i) None; (ii) None. Fishing, fish processing, mining and forestry sector company officials were consulted, B.C. provincial Government (Department of the Environment and the Office of the Premier) and federal Government (Department

June 19, 1985
Borrowing Authority Act
of Fisheries and Oceans, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion) officials were also consulted.
12.	Yes. The objectives of MILAP are to facilitate the adjustment process and alleviate hardship for permanently displaced workers in communities suffering from major, serious and recent orosion or dislocation of their employment base.
MILAP helps communities and workers adjust by providing additional funds for increased training, increased mobility assistance, wage subsidies for laid-off older workers, increased job creation, and the establishment of a Community Adjustment Committee for each designated area to provide a coordinating mechanism for local participation in the adjustment process and in program delivery. In some cases, laid-off older workers may be assisted by the Labour Canada Labour Adjustment Benefits program.


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


Mr. Speaker:: The question mentioned by the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary has been answered. Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all notices of motions for the production of papers be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall all notices of motions for the production of papers be allowed to stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration in committee of Bill C-51, an Act to provide borrowing authority-Miss MacDonald (for the Minister of State (Finance))-Mr. Danis in the chair.
The Chairman:: When the committee adjourned at nine o'clock p.m. yesterday, Clause 2 of the Bill and the amendment of the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate (Mr. Baker) were under consideration.


Mr. Baker:: Mr. Chairman, the subject matter of the amendment before the House today has been the subject matter of Question Period for some time now. That subject matter today prompted an Hon. Member to say words, the saying of which caused him to be removed from the House of Commons. The main reason that this subject matter has been before the House for some time and the main reason for the events of today is that Members find it very difficult to understand the reasoning of a Government that promised one thing, reiterated that promise in December, and then reneged on that promise in the Budget.
We have listened to Cabinet Ministers and to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance try to rationalize the cut in the projected increase of old age pensions which is due to take effect on January 1. Today we listened to the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister try to prove that the disposable income of senior citizens will not be affected by all that much. I presume the Parliamentary Secretary, the Prime Minister, and the Minister of Finance were relying on expert advice received from various quarters.
I found it very difficult to understand what the spokesman for the Government was talking about last evening in this Chamber. He said that there was not really a 3 per cent cut. In fact, he said that the disposable income of seniors was only down by 1.5 percentage points. Then, not satisfied with that, he went even further to say that the cut is really only one half of 1.5 per cent. He then tried to justify that by saying that senior citizens could adjust by buying different products or changing their style of living to accommodate the .75 per cent cut.
I am sure that people who were listening to that argument were racking their brains trying to determine what kind of economic reasoning he was using. Perhaps the hon. gentleman was taking advice from experts who were schooled in the days when economics was called political economy. In those days, one observed the fact and then imagined some other facts in order to come to a conclusion which could only be verified over the long term. However, in those days of Plato and Aristotle, ethics was an issue. After that time, the Romans at least talked about the gods as being the final determining point.
What reasoning can be used for this? We can talk about the law of supply and demand, but if the price of coffee goes up too much, people will turn to tea, postum, or hot chocolate. If there were not enough coffee beans in Brazil, we would substitute. But Mr. Chairman, how can that same reasoning be used with regard to the cut of senior citizens' pensions? What kind of substitution is available with regard to flour, one of their basic commodities? If there were any difference between Red Rose flour and Cream of the West flour, it would only be a couple of cents. You cannot go to a different oil company and pay less money for home heating oil. You can change the name of the supplier, but you do not get it any cheaper. You cannot go to another telephone company to get a cheaper telephone or to a different electric company to get
June 19, 1985

cheaper electricity. Contrary to what the Government of Canada is telling senior citizens, they cannot substitute to make up for this particular cut.
The Government says that it received its advice from experts. When the Prime Minister went to his riding to speak last evening, many people believed that he was going to announce that the Government was reversing its position on old age pensions. I believed that if he was going to his riding to make an announcement, it would be that he was finally digging in his heels on behalf of 700 workers in his riding and was going to negotiate with the United States the removal of the incredibly bad tariff on saltfish that affects his riding.
However, neither of those matters were discussed. The Prime Minister announced that the Government of Canada was going to build a maximum security prison in his riding to provide jobs for the people of his riding. Presumably that was also on the advice of the so-called experts, who advise politicians but who do not know reality in the ridings.
1 suppose one could go to any Member's riding and announce the construction of a maximum security prison. I suggest half the constituents would agree and half would not. However, that was the advice of the experts, just as they advised that this measure was not a 3 per cent cut but a cut of 1.5 per cent because senior citizens can adjust, buy cheaper products and change their lifestyle. How can senior citizens change their lifestyle when they must meet mortgages or rent payments, light payments, telephone payments and food payments? It cannot be done.
That is the reason for the motion before the House today. I introduced the motion on the basis that the borrowing authority for which the Government of Canada was asking was not clear in any event. The explanations given by the Minister of State for Finance were inadequate. She did not know what Cabinet Ministers said in response to the President of the Treasury Board since the time that the announced cuts were made in November and one-third of those particular measures taken by the Government were reversed. The Minister of State for Finance could not respond to that question when the Bill was first introduced. Perhaps if she had been able to respond at that time, we would have been able to deal with this Bill much more quickly. However, she could not do so.
Serious questions arise when one examines this borrowing authority Bill in more detail with respect to each Department. These concerns relate to definite figures that were listed by the President of the Treasury Board as savings to the Government of Canada or as revenue from increased fees for the use of federal facilities.
Let me talk about the $200 million that would be saved through extra monitoring regarding the Department of Employment and Immigration and the Unemployment Insurance Commission. I suggest to the Minister of Employment and Immigration that that figure cannot be realistically achieved. She can only reach that goal by introducing many measures that affect many poor people. One step which the
Borrowing Authority Act
Minister probably wants to take is to remove people from unemployment insurance by bringing them into the employment offices. Another probable plan of the Minister is to give these people jobs from government programs that are outlined in the Budget in which funds are allocated to Employment and Immigration for programs under Section 38 or programs being devised together with the provinces. However, there is a danger with respect to direct employment programs under Section 38. A person drawing unemployment insurance who takes a job under the Minister's direct employment program under Section 38 will be taking employment that is not insurable. It is possible that someone entering employment under the Canada Works Program could have his or her payments drop from $260 a week to $200 a week. That would be an injustice to that individual. However, they are mechanisms for lowering the amounts paid out under the unemployment insurance benefits in order to save $200 million.
What are the effects of such action? When the Department of Employment and Immigration announces a work program or an initiative for employment in those parts of Canada with high unemployment, the biggest issue is discrimination. Through its measures, the Government has attempted to put people into existing jobs and take them off unemployment insurance in order to save on unemployment insurance benefits. However, it can only do so if it changes the hiring criteria.
The Government has developed two criteria for employment. Only those drawing unemployment insurance and those who have run out of unemployment insurance benefits can go to work. However, as a result of that action, it is impossible for someone who has never drawn unemployment insurance to get a job under a direct job creation program. In other words, all the young people cannot even get a referral.
The biggest issue facing the Government in areas of high unemployment are these announcements which it makes. Similarly, the Minister of Employment and Immigration stands in the House to talk about the Government's new initiative with respect to the student employment program. While I do not see anything wrong with these jobs going out to private enterprise for the first time, I am concerned when fast food chains in Canada can take advantage of the program. When they would normally hire 30 young people, under this program they will hire 30 young people but have some of their wages subsidized. I am also concerned about these firms hiring people to replace others who would normally take those jobs.
However, let us look at the hiring criteria for this program. First, a candidate must have attended a full time course of instruction during the previous year and must be going to another full time course of instruction. This issue was raised with the Minister some time ago in committee and she said that it would be changed this year. However, it was never changed. Today, there is discrimination in that someone who had not attended a full time course of instruction the previous year, but attended part time instruction and needs that summer job as much as anyone else, is not allowed to get a referral. Someone who only had to complete a few courses is

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not allowed to be referred to this summer student employment program.
We come back to the question of experts advising Ministers on hiring criteria. Second, you have experts advising the Ministers on the direction in which the funds will go, and, third, you have experts advising the Ministers on absolute figures relating to cuts that will be included in the Budget and in the financial statement.
I suppose it was the experts who advised the Minister of the Environment to cut out the activities of the Canadian Wildlife Service, Mr. Chairman. I suppose it was the experts who advised the Minister of the Environment that she can charge for every telephone call to the weather office or that she can cut out her guided tours in the national parks this year. I suppose they were the same experts who advised the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans on how to do away with the fishing vessel insurance scheme. All of these things have been cancelled as government policy since the financial statement came out in November.
While I am on the subject of employment and immigration, I would like to tell the Minister that in the November financial statement and what is included in the Budget for her Department this year, in the section headed Mobility Grants, there is a cut of about $2.2 million. What happened when that was cut? When that was cut, the Minister of Employment and Immigration, through her officials, had to come out with new guidelines about who qualifies and who does not qualify for mobility grants. What do we see now? In order to get from point A to point B for a person normally qualified for mobility assistance by the Government of Canada, what must happen now? The person has to have a letter saying the job is permanent for over a year. That person also must allow the closest Manpower office to advertise the job for a reasonable period of time. All kinds of restrictions have been imposed. I say to the Minister of Employment and Immigration that she is not only going to save $2.2 million, she is going to save the whole kitty. Nobody will be able to qualify. It will be the exception and not the rule that somebody will receive assistance under that program.
I see, Mr. Chairman, that you are indicating I have only two minutes left and that I have spoken for 18 minutes.


Marcel Danis: Yes.


George Baker: I want to get on to a very important subject. The reason for my rising today is that the subject relates to the Department of Transport. The Minister of Transport is here in his seat. But I have only one and a half minutes left, is that correct, Mr. Chairman?


Marcel Danis: Yes, that is correct.


George Baker: Would the Minister of Transport undertake to get a copy of the proceedings later on in the day, because I want to speak for at least 20 minutes, probably 40 or 60 minutes, on a subject relating to his Department? It is a very
important subject. It also relates to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Since I have only one minute left, let me tell the Ministers that my subject relates to safety measures in transportation and energy that were not included in the Budget but were supposed to be included in it on which the Minister of Energy had a study done. This was never included in the Budget presented to this House and is not included in the Estimates of the Department. It is another subject of great importance to many people in Canada.
Let me conclude by saying that I hope all Members will participate in this debate as it relates to the senior citizens and the trick played on them by this new Government of Canada. Unless this Government reverses itself, it will see a considerable drop in support in the polls in the next election which will be attributable to the senior citizens.
[ Translation]


Mr. Gagliano:: Mr. Chairman, I wish to take part in this debate on Bill C-51 in Committee of the Whole to denounce this Government, which wants to govern by attacking the weakest among us, by taking no action and by increasing the tax burden of low income taxpayers and reducing the income of senior citizens.
On April 2, Mr. Chairman, the Canadian Press reported the following comments taken from a study sponsored by the Canada Union of Public Employees, and I quote:

The Conservative Government is deepening an already serious moral disorder in society by popularizing the philosophy of business first. The law of survival of the fittest threatens to reverse the progress that has been made toward a more caring and equitable society.
[ Translation]
Mr. Chairman, the Budget brought down on May 23 lends support to this analysis and also proves that the Mulroney-Wilson alliance has no idea of the real needs of the Canadian economy.

First, by increasing taxes, the Mulroney Government dug deep into the pockets of the ordinary Canadian taxpayer. A married person, earning $20,000 a year, with a spouse and two children, will pay an extra $300 a year as a result of the new Budget. If the same individual earned $30,000 a year, the Budget's bite will be even bigger, in the range of about $400. Second, the temporary surtax on high-income individuals is structured in such a way that it will not hit some of the earners at the higher reaches of the income scale. In fact, since the surtax is based on the tax paid instead of the income itself, it will only hit those Canadians who are unable to reduce their taxable income through special tax deductions. Most high-income individuals will continue to pay little or no tax, but the average Canadian will have to pay much more. Third, the Budget eliminates the full indexation of personal exemptions and tax brackets.
This measure raises taxes for all income groups, but the increase is proportionally larger as a percentage of income for
June 19, 1985

low-income individuals. This change amounts to a tax increase, since it means that as a person's income rises, he or she is pushed into a higher tax bracket and pays more taxes.
[ Translation]
In addition to all these unacceptable measures, the Conservative Government is directly hitting the elderly by reducing the value of Old Age Security Benefits in real dollars. All Canadian men and women over 65 will lose 3 per cent of the value of their pension income this year, if we compare what they will be receiving under the Budget with the amount allocated under the former Liberal Government.
In fact, Mr. Chairman, since the benefits will be indexed only to that part of the cost-of-living increase that is in excess of 3 per cent, in ten years the elderly will lose about 30 per cent of the expected income they would otherwise have had.
For eight weeks last summer during the election campaign, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) travelled across the country promising "jobs, jobs, jobs." Today, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) should be shouting "taxes, taxes, taxes."
Unlike the legendary Robin Hood, they are stealing from the poor to give to the rich.
Spending on agriculture has been cut back $15 million annually.
There will be a new federal tax of 11 per cent on health and beauty aids, including soap, toothpaste and so forth.
After dropping its energy conversion programs, the Government has added a new 11 per cent tax on materials used to increase energy effectiveness.
Mr. Speaker, I have been trying to understand how, a Government could bring down a Budget that is so thoroughly unbalanced, and why.
1 have been trying to understand, and so have most of my constituents, who are typical of the middle class that is the backbone of our country.
Unfortunately, the answer is only too obvious.
The biggest hand-out authorized by the Minister of Finance goes to the oil and gas corporations. The corporation hand-out will cost the Treasury $902 million in forgone revenue for the year 1986-87 alone, as a result of eliminating the tax on oil and gas revenue: $902 million in one fiscal year!
Furthermore, the so-called temporary 5 per cent surtax applying to large corporations, a tax the Minister of Finance is very fond of mentioning, will raise $175 million this year and $285 million in 1986-87.
Considering the annual present of $902 million to the oil companies, there is another $440 million that will have to come out of the taxpayers' pockets. How easy it is to increase
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the gasoline tax by 2 cents a litre, reduce old age security benefits, and cut back job creation programs to recuperate that money. But the Minister of Finance will probably say that Canada's economic recovery will be initiated by the private sector, particularly by small and medium-sized businesses.
Indeed, Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Finance stated in his Budget speech that Canada's small and medium-sized businesses have become the driving force of the Canadian economy. Unfortunately the May 23 Budget does very little to promote that sector of activities and in fact puts our small and medium-sized businesses in a state of stagnation.
Let us review those measures concerning the private sector, beginning with the capital gains tax exemption. Although very few Canadians will be eligible, that kind of measure would have helped small and medium-sized companies if the Government, through carelessness, had not forgotten that the exemption ought to be turned into an investment. As a result of that negligence, very few investors will be attracted by small and medium-sized companies. Since investment in such companies does not provide tax incentives, nobody will want to invest in venture undertakings. Not only will this measure not necessarily create jobs, but it will promote a climate of excessive speculation. The investor will be satisfied since he can sell out to buy a condominium in Florida, but that kind of deal does not create a single job.
Secondly, investment of funds from pension plans and other retirement income schemes in small businesses. This program is regulated through a series of cumbersome and complicated provisions and prevents owners from investing in their own companies.
Like most small business owners, the Liberal Party would have been in favour of investment provisions similar to those now applicable to self-managed retirement saving plans. In that case the owner and his family could have invested in the company thanks to flexible regulations geared to the needs of small investors. The Conservative Government chose to restrict the program to organizations with huge assets, though it knew that generally speaking those organizations stear clear of risky investments. The employees who contribute to this fund to provide for their retirement years will certainly not want huge amounts to be invested in high risk ventures.
Third, we have the issue of research and development. The Budget proposes that the credit acquired by private companies for their current research and development expenditures be 100 per cent refundable. These companies were already able to obtain a refund equal to 40 per cent of their expenditures the first year and to write off the rest of their expenditures over a maximum of seven years.
We believe that, instead of helping the entire job creating sector of small businesses, this proposal will provoke the appearance of companies which will operate only for a short term and be used as a screen for speculators.

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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party of Canada considers it essential to create programs to help young Canadians between 18 and 35 to start their own businesses. In addition, our Party finds it just as important to help Canadian unemployed workers aged between 36 and 55 to use their acquired experience to start their own small businesses.
On the other hand, capital losses should be 100 per cent deductible. We should also promote pension funds specifically aimed at small businessmen. Regulations should be made more flexible and the tax burden of smaller businesses should be reduced.
New means of financing should be created and new markets have to be developed. We believe that it would be possible thus to maintain the rate of growth of smaller businesses and to promote the creation of new job producing businesses, but 1 realize, Mr. Chairman, that the Progressive Conservative Government has decided to reward its closest friends rather than concern itself with creating the jobs which are so badly needed to reduce unemployment.
Mr. Chairman, I should remind you that last month, after eight months of a Progressive Conservative Government, Statistics Canada reported that 10.9 per cent of Canadians were unemployed and that the rate of unemployment for young people under 24 was as high as 17 per cent. Job creation should be a priority for any responsible Government, but the Mulroney-Wilson tandem has found nothing better to do than to increase by about $400 the costs of the average Canadian family.
Instead of "jobs, jobs, jobs", Prime Minister Mulroney should have said during the electoral campaign: "Get ready to be bled white to help fill the pockets of my closest allies!"


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, today in Question Period, I directed a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare concerning statements made by a member of the Minister's constituency staff in Provencher, as reported in the Winnipeg Free Press. That staff member commented upon the reaction, interest and controversy generated by the Government's move to deindexation by saying:
I think most people don't quite understand how little it is in dollar terms. It means three packs of cigarettes a month that I shouldn't smoke anyway, or half a bottle of liquor that I shouldn't drink.
So where's the hardship?
I asked the Minister twice to repudiate that statement. The Minister of National Health and Welfare is supposed to be the spokesperson in Cabinet who represents the interests of senior citizens, but he refused to comment. He refused to say that his staff member was misquoted. He refused to say that he was wrong. He refused to say that he disagreed with those comments. In other words, he was tacitly agreeing to the comments of his staff member, that there is no hardship, that it means only a half bottle of booze or something. That is the way a member of the Minister's staff is treating the plaintive appeal and cry of hundreds of senior citizens about the hardship which they will have to face. This tells us an awful lot about the Government and its attitude toward this issue, that if it can pawn it off or deny the truth, it will get away with it.
In the same June 17 article, a number of Conservative Members of Parliament are quoted as saying: "It is not an issue in my riding", "I have only had one or two calls", "people don't care", "people are not interested", or "it is simply something which is being hoked up by the Opposition".
Today I presented 4,000 names of residents of the Province of Manitoba. Those were the petitions I received last week. They included close to 2,000 names of residents of Conservative ridings in that province. They were not people who were simply making up things. I see the Hon. Member for St. Boniface in his seat. He said that he had only about 15 calls from his constituents. I have several hundreds of names of constituents from his riding who signed the petition. Something is wrong. Either these constituents are not prepared to tell their Conservative Members of Parliament because they are afraid of them or they know they will not listen, or else Conservative MPs have taken their telephones off the hook. Perhaps the newspapers are simply not telling it as it is.
There is no question that there is a large-scale, incredible demand across this country for a change in this program. What we have instead is a Minister of National Health and Welfare who refuses to even acknowledge that there is a hardship. At the same time, we have a letter from the National Advisory Council on Aging, not a partisan group, not a political group, but made up of representatives of different senior citizens' organizations and social agencies across the country, to advise the Government on its policies. What do they have to say in their statement and in the letter that they wrote to the Minister himself? I would like to quote the following from their letter, which states that, according to the Council:
... "it will provide a short term saving in exchange for a long-term loss". "The stress associated with a tighter and tighter budget will take its toll. More and more senior Canadians will find it difficult to cope with a deteriorating physical, mental and social condition. In time, expenditures for other types of care will limit the savings due to de-indexing".
We have a Minister of National Health and Welfare who denies the evidence, facts and proposals put forward by his own advisory council. He does not even care about them. Instead, he apparently agrees with the staff member who says there is no hardship. That is the problem that we are facing and why this debate is going on. Somehow we have to find a way to penetrate into the conscience of the members of this Conservative caucus and make them understand that this is an issue that cuts to the very heart of this country, that we are talking about something that will substantially alter the social structure of Canada, that we will, for the first time in years, make a deliberate policy choice to force more people into poverty.
Statistics Canada has been reporting, I think, for something like two to three decades. It said in every one of those years that there was a slight improvement, sometimes higher some-
June 19, 1985

times lower, in the number of people coming off the poverty line. It was not always as great as we would have liked, but we have been making steady progress for two decades. It now reports that, for the first time in 20 years, because of this Government's Budget, there will be more Canadians going back below the poverty line, and 250,000 of those will be senior citizens. That is a Statistics Canada report, it is not from a political partisan group. It is reaching a point where we can no longer comprehend what is going on in the inner circles and inner discussions of members of this Conservative caucus when fact after fact is laid on the table that the results of their actions will be to push more people into poverty, it will make it harder for older people in particular to purchase their goods and services . . .


Harvie Andre: Blush when you say that.


Lloyd Axworthy: I don't blush at all, Mr. Chairman. I just gave the figures, and this Minister is like his colleague, the Minister of National Health and Welfare. He is beyond comprehension; he is beyond conscience, he is beyond understanding. He does not understand that for 20 years we have had progress and improvement, and because of the actions of his Government, of which he is a part, we are now going to take a step backwards. That, Mr. Chairman, is a clear sign of the kind of Government we have. It is a Government without a conscience, without understanding, without comprehension.


Mr. Riis:: I don't think they care.


Lloyd Axworthy: It is even beyond not caring. You have to wonder about a Government that deliberately, consciously, takes a decision to put more people into poverty, and then has the Prime Minister stand up day after day, along with the Minister of National Health and Welfare, and deny it.
Is it any wonder that the group of senior citizens who mobilized on the front lawn of this Parliament today said, and 1 won't use an unparliamentary expression, that they don't trust this Government anymore, that they don't believe what it says, that they have lost all sense of confidence in anything it stands for? It would be somewhat understandable if it had made a mistake in the Budget. It is a new Government, there are a bunch of rookies in Cabinet, it would be understandable if, maybe in their rush, they went ahead and did things of which they did not perceive the consequences. That is possible. But we had the Minister of National Health and Welfare today in the House standing up and acknowledging, by his approval of the statements of his own staff member, that there will be no hardship. I wonder what kind of reports he is reading. What kind of funny books, what kind of fantasyland is he existing in? It is time for that Minister to be shifted. It is time to try to find somebody in that 211-member caucus who understands the issues. Can you possibly have a Minister of National Health and Welfare who is so incapable, so absolutely obdurate and indifferent to the plight of his constituents that he is not even prepared to say that he was wrong or that his staff member was wrong and, yes, there will be hardships? Mr. Chairman, the evidence is so clear, and it is so obvious.
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We are here to say that we have time and time again asked members of this caucus to talk to their Minister, say to him, for goodness' sake there is nothing wrong with acknowledging a mistake. Goodness knows, Mr. Chairman, enough mistakes have been made by the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister to fill history books. Why are they so reluctant on this on issue not to concede that a serious and unpardonable action has been taken and that it is creating the kind of reaction across this country that is seriously undermining the confidence, security and well-being of hundreds of thousands of Canadians?
I proffer another piece of evidence which I think is in its own way significant. Last weekend, the combined posts of the Canadian Legion from Manitoba and northwestern Ontario, some 51 Legion posts-and there are many Conservative Members from Manitoba I know who are members of those posts-stood up and, in an unanimous standing vote, recommended that Government restore indexation. The reason I say it is important is that these are people who have had their veterans' pensions protected, and you would think they would say, okay, we are protected, we are secure. Instead, they have the willingness and the courage to stand up, on behalf of other Canadians less fortunate than they, to make a case. Fifty thousand Legion members from the Province of Manitoba and northwestern Ontario are now united against this Government's action. Once again, they stand up and say, we don't know what is going on.
We had the Prime Minister again in one of his incredible performances of dissembling in this House this afternoon saying that somehow by reducing people's income by $1,200, by introducing a regressive sales tax that will reduce their purchasing power for basic staple goods, this is adding to their security. What kind of incredible, convoluted reasoning is that? Then they fall back on the defence that somehow we must all sacrifice to get the deficit down, but the Budget does not ask all Canadians to sacrifice. There are a number of Canadians who are getting major benefits under this Budget. The common stock of Canada is held by 11 per cent of Canadians, and a capital gains tax has just been brought in that will benefit by hundreds of millions of dollars a very privileged, wealthy group of Canadians.
When the Minister of Finance got up in the House yesterday and asked, well, what would the Opposition do? My colleague, the Hon. Member for Laval-des-Rapides, said," I will tell you what do do, cut the capital gains benefit at least in half and that would pay to restore the indexation. That is a fairly simple solution. You want an answer; you got an answer."
Time and time again the economic evidence is becoming clear that the capital gains tax exemption will do nothing to stimulate growth in this economy. It would be different, and we would certainly adhere, if it were going directly into stimulating investment in productive Canadian enterprise. If the capital gains tax were targeted so that the money would go to investors who are adding to the productive capacity of Canada, then we would say that the Government has a case.

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Instead, the capital gains exemption will, in a large part, be used by people who will invest in the United States and buy land in Florida. The article in The Wall Street Journal said it all: Yes, the capital gains exemption in the Canadian Budget will help stimulate the economy, it will help stimulate the United States economy. That was in The Wall Street Journal. That newspaper was thanking us very much for being a good neighbour once again.
In terms of actually adding to the productive enterprises of Canada, every economic analyst has said that there are some real questions to be answered. Look at the exemption that exists on real estate. What does a number of transactions and speculation in the real estate market do to build a new factory or to provide for a new productive capacity to produce new goods and services? Not very much, Mr. Chairman. We are going to get a lot of speculators rich. Those speculators are laughing at the Conservative Government right now. They are really finding this whole exercise to be humorous because the Government has given them everything for which they asked while they are giving nothing in return.
Look at the statistics that came out yesterday. The so-called economic miracle about which the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance talked has created not 1 per cent of an increase in capital investment in this country in the nine months the Conservatives have been in Government. The Government was supposed to be building the base for a new Canadian economic industrial structure, but there has been no increase in capital investment. I can tell you why this is so, Mr. Chairman. If I were thinking of investing in a new plant expansion, I would ask myself where the market would be and who would buy the new product or service. The Budget is pulling $37 billion worth of consumer demand out of the economy. It hits most heavily on the low and modest-income Canadians.


Paul Wyatt Dick: How many years?


Lloyd Axworthy: Over the next five years. The great economic analyst, the Member from Mitel, makes a comment.
The Budget hits hardest on families that are making $20,000 or $30,000 per year. The purchasing power of those families will be reduced by 20 per cent or 30 per cent. The man or woman who makes $200,000 will be hit with a decrease of only 4 per cent in his or her purchasing power. That is the kind of economic miracle we are being asked to support and that the Prime Minister has told us the senior citizens support.
No senior citizen and no Canadian would support the kind of economic policy that is purely and simply designed to aid those with major advantages while allowing for no major benefits for the other 24.5 million Canadians. Therefore, that is what we are debating. We are debating the fundamental unfairness of the deindexation of senior citizens' pensions which will not in any way, shape or form help stimulate the
economy. In fact, it will only help pay for the members of the Prime Minister's club. That is where the money is going.
I shall return to the point. Surely it is time for the Government to reconsider its position. Surely it is time for it to do some new calculations and substantially reduce the major windfalls that it has given to oil companies, capital gains speculators and a number of other wealthy Canadians in order to restore the deindexation.
Let us make no mistake. We are not talking about restoring indexation on only the GIS, we are talking about restoring it on the Old Age Security which benefits all senior citizens. As well, we are not only talking about those who are already senior citizens, we are talking about the 1.1 million Canadians who are now at the age of 60 and must plan their retirement and look forward in the next five years to the kind of income security they will receive. They also know that their incomes have been substantially reduced, that their purchasing power has been taken away and that their ability to plan for their future will be substantially eroded. On top of the people who are presently being affected, there are another 1.1 million Canadians who will become senior citizens and will no longer be able to deal with their income security problem.
We are talking about a lot of people whose problems could be easily fixed through some reorientation on the part of the Government. We recognize that it is difficult to swallow having the Minister of Finance totally embarrassed. All Canadians know that it was an incredibly bad Budget, but Conservative Members have to live with it. Surely they should have enough wit and common sense, though, to understand that it needs to be fixed because we cannot allow millions of Canadians to pay for those kinds of benefits that are unacceptable-


The Acting Chairman (Mr. Penner):: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member, but the time allotted to him has now expired.


Mr. Blaikie:: Mr. Chairman, I have a few comments to make following up something raised by the Hon. Member for Win-nipeg-Fort Garry about the comments made by the staff member of the office of the Minister of National Health and Welfare. I want to take this opportunity to make an unsolicited correction to a remark I made in the House the other day during Question Period about the same Minister's office. At that time, I said that my office kept getting calls from constituents of the Minister claiming that they were being put on hold when they called the Minister's office. I had an opportunity to check with my office later that evening and found that I should not have said that we kept getting those calls. We were getting those kind of calls, but we are not getting them any longer. To be fair to the Minister, I wanted to put that on the record.
The kind of calls that we are getting are calls from constituents of Progressive Conservative Members like the Minister of National Health and Welfare, people who do not have access to the petitions that are being circulated which they would like to sign in order to register their protest against the Govern-

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ment's plan to partially deindex pensions. These people are having to phone my office to see if petitions can be sent to them. I am sure others have phoned the offices of other Members of Parliament who are actively opposing the deindexation proposal here in the House of Commons. I hope that these people will continue to do so, although I wonder at what point everyone who could possibly have signed a petition will have signed one. Then we will have the case of a Government which has rightfully made much of the need to operate with a consensus finding itself in the position of opposing a consensus that is one of the most air-tight ones to which we have come in a long time. Business, labour, senior citizens, opposition Members of Parliament and government back-benchers have all come to the same consensus. If the Prime Minister ever wanted to show that he has the respect for consensus that he has claimed, this is the opportunity for him to show that he means it.
I know that sometimes during the rhetoric of Question Period, the Prime Minister is asked to do things that of course he will never do within that context. He is asked to admit that he has made a mistake. I do not ask the Government to admit that it has made a mistake. All I ask it to do is to respect the consensus. 1 ask government Members to do what they said they were going to do if they formed a Government, which was to respect the consensus that has developed.
We will not ask for any more of a miracle than for the Prime Minister to rise to say, "I notice that there is a consensus in the country against this measure and out of respect for that consensus, I would like to announce on behalf of my colleagues that we are going to withdraw this particular measure". No more need be said. There need be no selfdeprecating remarks. In fact, I think the Prime Minister probably has enough talent for rhetoric to use that as an opportunity for self-praise. We would even put up with that. We would put up with whatever we need to in order to bring the Government around on this issue, preferably before the end of June.
Without exaggerating the extent to which seniors all over the country are lying awake nights worrying about whether or not the Government-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I said without exaggerating because I think that that kind of rhetoric is not helpful. The fact remains that there is uncertainty and I think that it ought to be cleared up as soon as possible.
I wonder what the Government has in mind when it talks about monitoring the situation. Clearly it can only monitor the effects of a proposal after it has been implemented. If the Government is thinking about changing its mind, then it must be for a reason other than the effects which it is monitoring. Clearly, the Government cannot monitor the effects of the Budget in the short term. Budgets take a long time to have any effect on the economy. The Government must be monitoring
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political circumstances and public opinion. If it is monitoring that, then surely it is finding that there is a consensus against this particular measure. I hope that a respect for that consensus will soon be forthcoming.


Mr. Henderson:: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a few comments on the motion which was presented by my colleague from Gander-Twillingate. The purpose of the motion is to cut the borrowing authority which is requested by 3 per cent. Basically it is a symbolic gesture. However, I think it is a very significant gesture.
The Government has presented a proposal. 1 have been in the House for a number of years and in the provincial legislature before that. Usually when budgets are brought down they are not proposals. They show what are the intentions of the Government and the direction of the Government's program for the year in which the Budget will apply. When the Budget was brought down, I felt there were a lot of pitfalls which related to poor Canadians, average Canadians and, certainly, senior citizens.
Coming from a riding in Atlantic Canada, I think it is fair to say that we might be the first to recognize what is happening. We have a very high percentage of senior citizens in Atlantic Canada. Indeed, Prince Edward Island has the highest per capita rate of senior citizens of any province or region of the country. It was obvious on budget night in which direction the Government was moving. When I looked at the cuts which were projected in the Budget, it was quite easy to realize that consumer spending was being cut and, in some cases, drastically reduced.
We went to Atlantic Canada two weeks after the Budget had been brought down. A number of groups came before us in my province and in my riding of Egmont, in the town of Summerside. After those people had had the opportunity to study the Budget for two weeks, they told us what they believed would be the real impact.
During the hearings in Summerside, we heard disturbing evidence. An elderly gentleman, 82 years of age, told me that his wife had passed away a few years ago and that he had been living with his brother-in-law, who had recently passed away. He told me about the circumstances in which he found himself. He is paying $280 a month for rent on a small two-bedroom home which he has in Wilmot. I know the rents in that area, and that is certainly not classed as above average accommodation. It would be categorized as a modest type of accommodation. In total, the man was paying $3,360 a year for rent. In addition, he told me that he was paying $1,800 a year for light, heat and water. He said that he was burning oil. I can understand that as most people in the area, and certainly a person of that age, would not have access to wood. Fuel oil in Atlantic Canada is very expensive. P.E.I. has the highest energy costs in the country, next to the Northwest Territories. In most cases, the rates are twice as high as in other provinces.
In my home, I have a propane stove, a freezer, a refrigerator, a washer, a dryer, a television and a few lights. My light bill is approximately $78 a month. I consider that to be
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expensive. I have an apartment in Ottawa with an electric stove and all the facilities which I have in my home in P.E.I., with the exception of a freezer. However, I pay approximately $18 a month in Ottawa for the same services. My wife lives in the home by herself during the week, as our family has grown up and moved away. Therefore, the use of electricity in my home is about the same as it would be in my apartment in Ottawa.
I would like to return to the situation of the gentleman whom I was talking about earlier. He is left with $200 a month for food, clothing and transportation. Could any Member in the House today live on that kind of money? If the gentleman had to take a taxi to the doctor or the store, the minimum charge would be from $3.50 to $5. The gentleman told me that he had approximately $3,000 in savings. He told me that his wife had been ill before she died and that her medical expenses had cut into any savings which they had. He told me that he would like to save the $3,000 for burial purposes.
The gentleman also told me that his only son had been killed in the Second World War and that he did not have any real relatives. The gentleman was in a deficit position of $310 a year. As of January 1, 1986, that gentleman will lose 3 per cent of his OAS. That is very sad. He will have to make other arrangements. However, I cannot find a senior citizen's unit which would be any less expensive than his present accommodation.
Canadians in that age group are finding themselves in a very difficult situation. The Government has picked on the weakest people in our society. Those people are unable to fend for themselves. I think that is desperately wrong.
During the meeting of the Maritime Premiers in my province, they stated that it was totally unacceptable to deindex the Old Age Security as far as the Maritime provinces were concerned. I can sympathize not only with the seniors but with the Premiers to a degree because this is making it very difficult for them. I believe we should look at the proper consultation method we heard so much about during and since the election campaign. We were going to have a great consultative process, certainly with the provinces. The consultative process I envisaged taking place was a meaningful one. Indeed, when the Premiers of the provinces of this country made their feelings known to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Finance, and the provincial Ministers of Finance made their views known to their counterpart, the federal Minister of Finance, they assumed that they would not only be heard but their suggestions would be acted upon. I understand that the Premiers did make their position known before the Budget. If they did do so, certainly it fell on deaf ears.
We met with agricultural groups when we were in Prince Edward Island and Atlantic Canada, and we know that farmers are extremely hard hit by this Budget. Inspection fees were part of the statement of the Minister of Finance in November. Both farm organizations and farmers and those of us in the Opposition Party were able to mount enough of an attack that
we did get it across to the Government that it could not do what it announced in the first place. However, the Government did not back down as it should have. It was a very ill conceived plan to put an inspection fee, for instance, on potatoes and red meat because, as I have said before in the House, it is a protection for the consumer and it should come out of general revenue and not from the hard pressed farmers of this country. I would like to quote from The Guardian of June 6, 1985:
Federation President Ray O'Brien told the Atlantic Liberal task force the recent federal Budget has all people in Atlantic Canada, not just farmers, concerned the federal Government has "totally abandoned" any notion of special consideration or assistance because of geographical position.
"Prince Edward Island and Atlantic Canada agriculture and business alike will die a natural death unless we can change the philosophy of our federal politicians and bureaucrats", Mr. O'Brien said.
He went on to say, and I quote:
A major disappointment in the federal Budget cited by the federation was the absence of provisions to help farmers in severe financial trouble because of high inflation, high interest rates, energy costs and all other farm inputs.
He continues, and I quote:
The new Budget lowers the gasoline and diesel oil rebate for farmers, and coupled with the additon of 2 cents per litre which will be added to farm fuel costs, Mr. O'Brien said the rebate will be "almost nullified".
I was at an all-candidates committee meeting during the election campaign. We met with the National Farmers Union. The Conservative candidates had a wonderful program for the farmers. One thing they were going to do was take off the excise tax on gasoline and diesel fuel. All the farmers in my province thought it was going to stay off for the next 100 years, but what did the Government do after being elected with this massive majority? It took off roughly 3 cents a litre according to the November statement of the Minister of Finance, but it was to take effect January 1, 1985 which is this January past. It was to have a sunset clause of January 1, 1987. That sounds like three years, and 1 don't like to use the word "deception", but that sort of wording is very deceptive.
Many people, without really thinking it through, would believe it was for three years. However, the Conservatives promised that tax would come off, period. There was no sunset clause mentioned when we met during the election campaign. There was nothing like that mentioned by the candidates, the Hon. Member for Malpeque, the Hon. Member for Cardigan, along with candidates from the New Democratic and Liberal Parties. I do not believe the Hon. Member for Hillsborough was there. This was a bit of trickery, and I think it has to be pointed out that it did sort of trick the people when the Conservatives indicated to them that it was coming off carte blanche, would never be put on again, and then just giving them two years.
On top of that, there is the addition of two cents per litre added added to farm fuel costs. As the Federation of Agriculture points out so clearly, the rebate is almost nullified and, of course, on January 1, 1987, they will be in a minus position again with two cents per litre more.
We also heard from our seniors. Mr. Robert Betton Senior who represented the Federal Superannuates' National Asso-
June 19, 1985

ciation was very vocal. I would like to quote from an article by Andy Walker:
He also made a case for old age pensioners, calling the budget "despicable". Betton explained many seniors live below the poverty line, seniors housing is scarce and the cost of living is high.
We also heard basically the same thing from the National Farmers Union that we were told by the Federation of Agriculture. We heard how the New Brunswick seniors felt. There were many things that crept in during the November financial statement of the Minister of Finance and this Budget. I have a letter here from Mr. Theriault the Tignish Fire Department. He said he was talking to Mr. McGuire on the telephone today who suggested Mr. Theriault put in writing their concerns regarding the federal Department of Radio Communications. He says their licence fee has double from last year, from $52.50 to $118. They added a pager system on the same frequency and the cost per year for the licence is $236.
He called the office in Charlottetown, believing there was a mistake somewhere, but he was assured that was the proper amount and everyone operating a VHF radio communications system has to pay the increase. He said they do not mind some increases in order to reduce the national debt, but why pick on volunteer fire departments who raise most of their money from card games, bingos, donations and so on? Obviously volunteer fire departments all across the country use VHF and pager systems, and their costs have been doubled. These people do a tremendous service to every town, village and rural area right across this country. We should support them. The hon. gentleman opposite shakes his head. If he wants to answer this letter, I will send him a copy.


Mr. McDermid:: I will be happy to.


George Roland Henderson: It's from Donald Theriault, President of the Tignish Fire Department. I have his phone number here. I will certainly make sure that the Hon. Member gets a copy of it if he would like to reply to it. I would be pleased if he would reply to it and justify those costs.
We met with fishermen's organizations and looked at the budget of the Department involved. There was a projection of a $40 million reduction for 1985, and another $25 million reduction for 1986. I am glad the President of the Treasury Board is here. I hope he understands that his colleague, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, needs an awful lot more money. The ports and harbours of this country are begining to get in very bad shape. I am told by departmental officials in Prince Edward Island that they cannot even do minor maintenance. The Government is being penny wise and pound foolish. If a port project costs $50,000 this year, given another winter and damage by ice and one thing and another, it will cost $200,000 or $300,000 next year. There is no way the Minister should come into this House unless he has a Budget of $150 million for all of Canada. Then we have the recreational harbours to look after. I am on the committee concerned and I
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can tell the Minister that his colleagues in that committee are pretty angry about the amount of money-


B. Keith Penner: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member, but the time allotted to him has expired.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Chairman, I had hoped that it would not come to the point where we would still be speaking about this issue at this point. We had been assured that pensions, health care and all those things we have taken to be part of our social fabric in this country would be well protected under a Progressive Conservative Government. We were assured by the Prime Minister on numerous occasions that those programs were a sacred trust. He reiterated that from one end of the country to the next. Prior to Christmas we saw some messages from the front bench that the sacred trust was beginning to break down. The opposition and others interested in health care pursued the Government at that time and it appeared there was no problem. If you could take the Prime Minister and his front benchers at their word, indeed those programs would be well protected.
However, when we get to May 23 and see the Budget, we see that the Government is proposing to save some money by reducing the amount of increase in OAS payments to the point where its purchasing power will be eroded by 3 per cent per year over the next number of years. There is no limit. The Government has simply announced in its Budget that this will begin on January 1, 1986.
Since the Budget was announced, my Party has been raising questions in the House on this issue, urging the Prime Minister and other Ministers to rethink this proposition and admit that senior citizens do not deserve this kind of treatment. They cannot protect themselves against inflation. A good many of these senior citizens disposed of their assets after they reached 65 and no longer have anything to provide an additional income for their old age.


John Horton McDermid: What did they do with it?


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: They sold it off and turned to cash and gradually spent the cash to stay alive. There are hundreds of people like that in my riding.


John Horton McDermid: Farmers?


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Farmers, too.


John Horton McDermid: They were taxed on capital gains, weren't they?


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Some of them sold even before the capital gains tax came in, my friend, and they are in great difficulty trying to find enough money to live on right now. I can take you to any number of farmers who sold out 10 or 15 years ago, before the capital gains tax came in, at a price which was perhaps one quarter to even a tenth of what that same land might be worth today. They are almost destitute. They require

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the 3 per cent increase to keep up with inflation because inflation has not slowed down for these people.


John Horton McDermid: Are they on the GIS?


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Yes, some of them aTe on the GIS. They are not going to be able to get the 3 per cent on the OAS under the proposal in the Budget. At the end of next year they will have lost approximately $100 in buying power. At the end of 1987 they will have lost $305 in buying power, and so it goes. By the time they get to 1991, it will be something in the order of $2,284 per annum of lost buying power, simply because they are not getting enough money to keep up with inflation. The laws of Canada have always supplied that protection except for a brief period when the Liberal Government brought in the six and five program.


Paul Wyatt Dick: It started in 1974.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: They are now going to lose 3 per cent per year. Inflation has not stopped. If we look at the Consumer Price Index, we see that the cost of food increased this year by an amount in excess of 3 per cent. All items excluding food are up more than 4 per cent. Coming as I do from a prairie community where the cost of energy represents a large expense for senior citizens, we should also look at the effect of inflation there. The aggregate increase in the cost of energy is 7.3 per cent. Transportation costs, which is also of great importance to people who live in small towns and villages and find it necessary to travel to larger centres to visit doctors and obtain health services, have increased more than 5 per cent.
Our senior citizens will face all of these cost increases but their cheques, instead of going up by 3.9 per cent, the full rate of inflation at the moment, will only go up by .9 per cent. Yes, the Government is correct, the cheques will continue to be slightly larger, but they will not buy as much.
I think this issue might have been made more clear if, on the presentation of the Budget, it had been described as a head tax or poll tax. In effect, that is what it is. Seniors are being asked to bear an additional 3 per cent tax per year. If this were billed as a poll tax, the response would have been much more immediate. As it was, seniors waited to look at the Budget themselves and saw that it said "will take place effective January, 1986". They saw those words and understood what they meant. They began sending petitions to their Members of Parliament and we have been presenting those petitions. They have now begun sending delegations to Ottawa, one of which arrived here today.
I would like to spend a few minutes reviewing a few of the things the members of that delegation told us. They spoke very clearly and succinctly. I should explain to the front-benchers opposite some of the values held by our senior citizens. These values are held by all citizens in certain parts of the country, but when I watch the activities of certain Members on the front bench opposite, I see very little evidence of them.
Mrs. Fraser, a retired health services worker from Halifax, told us that there are people in her city suffering stress related diseases which were triggered by worrying about their financial circumstances. Their budgets are very restricted now and they know that their expenses will continue to increase while their Old Age Security pensions will be cut by 3 per cent.
Mrs. Fraser cited three examples, one of a high blood pressure case, one of a heart attack, and another of a problem brought on by intense feelings of insecurity due to worrying about the future. To many younger people, that may not seem possible. However, many older people, who have only their futures to prepare for, take this very seriously. Some of them do not have enough social activities to keep them occupied and worrying becomes an obsession.
Having grown up in the time in which they did, they feel betrayed. During the election campaign they were promised that deindexation would not be pursued by the new Government. Page 60 of the Progressive Conservative Handbook says, "A PC Government would once more index the old age pension to the actual cost of living on a quarterly basis". That is what the seniors expected. On page 11 of the Consultation Paper on Child and Elderly Benefits it says, "In the Government's view no change is required in the OAS-GIS payments system".
Everyone thought that meant that there would be no change, that we would continue to have the automatic indexing of the consumer price index on a quarterly basis, and that pensioners would have that to rely upon. However, that has not happened. That which was portrayed as a sacred trust was only an election platform. It was only meant to sooth anxieties caused prior to Christmas when some front-benchers started to make noises about deindexation and changing social programs. With the presentation of the Budget, we learned that sacred trusts and questions of confidence were no longer that important.
The Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance forget that our senior citizens were raised to believe that a man's word was the most treasured commodity in existence. They saw those words, that trust, and that confidence broken. Their old fashioned values are now very much in question. Senior citizens want to know their pensions are being discounted by 3 per cent annually starting in 1986. They have had no answers. There have been no excuses other than some vague murmur-ings that the country cannot afford it.
The motion which is before the Committee presently proposes the reduction of the borrowing authority by 3 per cent. The Government is asking for $18.2 billion of borrowing authority. Three per cent of that would be approximately $560 million. That is the amount of money that we are asking seniors to give up by the end of 1987. This borrowing authority is over and above that which the Government will collect from Canadians through taxes. This borrowing authority will basically go to increase the deficit. This motion proposes to reduce the borrowing authority by $550 million and to put the onus on the whole country to provide the money that the Govern-
June 19, 1985

ment has asked senior citizens to provide over the next two years.
That is a very simple proposition. I think the Government and the country can accomplish this. We should not burden our senior citizens, many of whom have spent a lot of the money they saved for retirement, perhaps because they lived longer than they expected or because inflation ate it up faster than they expected it would. They have little choice now but to rely on the OAS and the GIS. I think it is grossly unfair for the country to expect them to take up part of the burden through this deindexation. I hope that the whole House will see the errors of the Budget and will continue to put pressure on the Minister of Finance, the Prime Minister, and the entire front bench to withdraw this onerous proposition.


Mr. Lapierre:: Mr. Chairman, I welcome this opportunity to take part in a debate that is very important to all Canadians and especially to the elderly. In fact, the scope of this debate goes beyond the economic needs of the elderly. Mr. Chairman, this debate is about the integrity of politicians generally and the integrity of one person in particular, and I am referring to the person who holds the highest public position in this country after the Governor General. Mr. Chairman, I am referring to the Right Hon. Prime Minister. In recent weeks, since the Budget was brought down, we have seen how surprised and disappointed Canadians were at the cavalier, underhanded and insidious way the Prime Minister and his Government accomplices have been trying to conceal tax increases telling the elderly: "Now, we are all friends and we are all one happy family", and then cutting 3 per cent off their pensions while using a lot of complicated words to confuse the issue.
I see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lanthier) is here, and I am happy to see him, Mr. Speaker. The Parliamentary Secretary is a most intelligent man, and I am sure that if he were not anxious to keep his position as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, he would have publicly refused to defend a Budget that cannot be called faire and equitable. I know he is smart enough to realize that the word "fair" just cannot apply to a Budget like this one, when we see what it holds in store for the elderly, for families, for the average Canadian, and that at the same time, it contains measures that make the oil multinationals riches and give capital gains tax exemptions to the wealthy. This Budget is a typical example of a double standard.
The President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret), who ought to be good at arithmetic, will not have to do a lot of figuring to conclude that the presents he is giving to the rich in this country, the tax exemption on capital gains which will apply mainly to 4 per cent of the population, are going to come straight from the pockets or purses of the elderly. The President of the Treasury Board should climb down from his ivory tower and look around in the real world.
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Recently, my colleague, the Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart) and I were able to meet with senior citizens in the Quebec City area, the Eastern Townships and even in Baie-Comeau. These meetings not "packaged" meetings like some Conservative Members tried to arrange, not meetings of the party faithful but meetings with real people, whatever their political colour or affiliation. I can say we had no hesitation in visiting ridings represented by Conservative Members. The first question we asked people was: Do you know who your Member is? That was the first question and the hardest. In Louis-Hebert, for instance, where I visited two senior citizens' homes, only one person out of 40 people I met was able to name the Member for the riding. In Montmorency-Orleans, the results were the same. But in the Eastern Townships, Mr. Chairman, I found that the people knew who the Member for Brome-Missisquoi (Mrs. Bertrand) was. She has no problem. People know her. The senior citizens we met told us what they had to say, and they are asking the Conservative Members to come home, to come back to their ridings and listen to them. They will realize that the Prime Minister is on the wrong track. They will realize that slavishly applauding what the Minister of Finance has to say is not getting results. They will realize they are betraying their constituents and failing to meet their commitment to defend their interests.
Mr. Chairman, these Members who are supposed to represent Quebec have now become Ottawa representatives in Quebec. This is not why you were elected, dear friends. When I hear the Member over there from the Chambly area who speaks only from the safety of his seat, I wish he would rise to speak once in a while. His constituents have also complained of never hearing him speak. They have told me, Mr. Chairman, that they saw him during the campaign, but that, since then, all he does is to parade a little and he never goes to listen to them. I think that it would be in his own interest to go back to his riding because, if he does not remember his constituents, I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, that his constituents remember him.


Mr. Grise:: Quite right! And they will vote the same way again.


Jean-C. Lapierre: I am speaking about the Chambly riding, Mr. Chairman, and the people there remember him quite well.


An Hon. Member:: He will not be there after the next election.


Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Speaker, I would like to give a few examples of comments we heard during our trip. 1 can tell you that, in Louis-Hebert, many senior citizens do not want to sign their lease even though it is due on July 1 because of the uncertainty caused by the indecision of the Government. It is one step forward and two steps back. The senior citizens no longer know where the Prime Minister is going, and in fact,

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the Prime Minister does not know himself. Senior citizens are saying: We worked all our lives, we deserve a safe retirement after so many efforts. We believed the Prime Minister on July 26, in Sherbrooke, when he said in his honeyed tone that he would index fully the pensions of senior citizens. What has he done since then? He has betrayed them completely. And he has his bunch of people of no account behind him who agree with all this. They really have a short memory, Mr. Speaker. They were all there in Sherbrooke on July 26. They came to our area pretexting a caucus meeting while the whole time they were there for a course on the behavior of an ideal candidate and especially on what not to say. They were told: What the Prime Minister, at that time the Party Leader, says, you should repeat word for word. Since then, Mr. Chairman, they have learned their lesson too well. They have not even been able to change the vocabulary. They have continued to repeat the line of the Prime Minister. Wake up, for heaven's sake. The people of your constituencies, the people of the Montmorency-Orleans riding have said: We would like to see our Member of Parliament, we would like to know how she is doing. They want to tell her about their concerns. They told us: Tell her to get out of Ottawa or wherever she is. They said: perhaps Mr. Mulroney is sending her on a lot of trips, but she should travel less and protect our pensions. This was the reaction in the Montmorency-Orleans riding. Afterwards, in the Eastern Townships, Mr. Chairman, we called a meeting of 75 representatives of senior citizens' groups and we had 250 participants with two day's notice.


An Hon. Member:: We should not forget the Hon. Member for Champlain; he is here.


Jean-C. Lapierre: We have not come to Champlain yet, but we are getting there, Mr. Chairman. These 250 representatives of senior citizens' groups all went back home with piles of petitions for people to sign. They will make sure that they awaken this bunch of deaf-mutes. The problem is not only that these people need their 3 per cent. It is that they are very disappointed to see that their new Members of Parliament, who were supposed to represent their regions, are too deaf to hear anything. They do not hear the cries for help, the appeals for justice of senior citizens, which is incredible. As for the Hon. Member for Portneuf (Mr. Ferland), instead of clowning in the House, he should rise to defend the senior citizens of his constituency. They are not wealthier than those of my own riding, and 1 do not understand how he can laugh at their problems.
Mr. Chairman, I am very happy to support the amendment now under consideration. It would give the Government some time to reflect on its decision. They say: We are going to tighten the belts of seniors by 3 per cent. And as somebody told me in Quebec City the day before yesterday: Mr. Mulroney may very well ask us to tighten our belts, but the problem is, there is not a hole left. So this is what they are
demanding. What appreciation do they have of the work, of the hard work done by the people who came before them?
I for one, Mr. Chairman, will not accept that the people who built this country be penalized. And if they do not have that sensitivity ... You know we went to Baie-Comeau also, and in Baie-Comeau, the supposedly true blue Conservative fief, the leader's hometown, imagine, Mr. Chairman, the Baie-Comeau Senior Citizens' Club, all of its executive signed the petition asking the Prime Minister to back out. The Prime Minister was referring to his great friends in Baie-Comeau, the people who are so close to his heart. The Prime Minister no doubt recalls his aunt Jeanne, who changed his diapers when he was younger. Aunt Jeanne told me: "Tell Brian", and 1 am quoting her, Mr. Chairman, she told me: "Tell Brian he has no right to do that to me. Tell Brian he has no right to touch senior citizens, because he promised the opposite." This is what his aunt Jeanne asked me to tell him.
And the Prime Minister, rather than listening to his Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) who comes from Bay Street, should go back and see his aunt Jeanne in Baie-Comeau. He should go back to Maison Pere Methot in Baie-Comeau and listen to real people talking, those people who say: Not only he wants to reduce our income by 3 per cent, but in the meantime he is pushing prices up. One lady told me: Listen, not only did he add another tax on cigarettes and I had to stop smoking, but he had the gall to put a tax on soap, on shampoo, and on toothpaste. Is the Prime Minister asking me to stop washing myself? This is what that person told us. Because this has come to be a luxury under this Government.
And everything went along the same line, and it was unanimous. I will tell you another one, Mr. Chairman. The famous Taverne des Amis in Baie-Comeau, the Prime Minister's friends' Tavern. I was there also, and each and everyone signed a petition, except a couple of organizers who told us: Listen, you know, Brian is not for that. He is for giving full pension to seniors, but his caucus is against it. Do not worry, he is on our side, but his caucus, that gang of dinosaurs he has around him, are forcing him to do it. Those were notes they had received from Mrs. Savard, the Prime Minister's assistant in Baie-Comeau. They even tried to manipulate seniors before we arrived, Mr. Chairman.
This goes to show the intellectual honesty of that gang. How come they have so short memories? So, if you think you are going to get yourself out of that, you are in for a surprise!
Senior citizens will not be had. And if the Minister of Finance thought that because seniors are retired they cannot defend themselves, he is in for a surprise, because the older people we met on our mission will not be screwed. They are determined and they want to give the Prime Minister a lesson in honesty. And that lesson he will get it, he got it today. One lady told him the truth right to his face, what everyone is thinking in Canada. You will see it on the newscast. That lady told the truth to the Prime Minister. My colleague Tobin also
June 19, 1985

told the truth to the Prime Minister, except that there are different rules inside and outside the House-


An Hon. Member:: Disgusting!


Jean-C. Lapierre: And talking about that, the Hon. Member over there said "disgusting".
What you are doing is disgusting.


John Horton McDermid: Nonsense.


Jean-C. Lapierre: You cannot even fulfil your promises. Your leader in my area, in Sherbrooke, on July 26 said that he was going to fully index the old age pensions. What are you doing today? You are trying to put the old people into poverty.


John Horton McDermid: Nonsense.


Jean-C. Lapierre: That is what you are doing. I have a letter here dated June 6, from one of my constituents who writes:
Surely we all realize that the elderly have paid their dues and that we all owe them respect, our gratitude, and peace of mind during the "autumn" of their lives. The cumulative loss of revenue over the years that this "government" is inflicting on this group of people is surely not going to help this country's economy.
With a fixed income and prices of every commodity rising each year the ''government" undoubtedly has as one of its objectives to bestow on this group of people the ultimate degradation of mankind: poverty of mind, spirit and body which is nothing less than throwing away this land's only resource worth measuring: its human beings.
This letter written by Mr. van Doom continues:
This is the first letter I have ever written to protest or approve any Government's decision. This letter has no other intent than to cast a vote. I am pleased that I did take the time to voice my opinion. 1 feel it is time that imaginative measures are taken in Parliament and shed the old practices of burdening the people with ever higher demands on target groups. It is true that justice for all is a myth but it remains nevertheless an honourable goal to strive for.
Since Jake Epp and the entire Conservative "Caucus" had not yet received any nay votes on this subject yet I have taken the liberty of sending a copy of this letter to Minister Epp.


John Horton McDermid: Send a copy of your reply.


Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. van Doom concludes by saying:
In God we trust, in the government we despair!
Mr. van Doom is from Granby, Quebec.


John Horton McDermid: Send a copy of your reply.


Jean-C. Lapierre: My reply is pretty simple. He is right on. He touched the fundamental values of this whole exercise. It is a question of respect for the elderly. It is a question of equity and justice. If you guys cannot accept the fact that those people have already paid their dues, that's too bad. [Translation]
If you cannot accept the fact that those senior citizens have already paid their debt to society, that they have gone through the worst years, the war years, the depression years and that
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you are again asking them to make sacrifices, Mr. Chairman, it is simply not good enough. And we will fight like mad to make sure that this will not go through. We fight to catch out the Hon. Member for Brome-Missisquoi who said that he did not have to keep his commitments. You will not get away with it. And I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, that an increasing number of senior citizens will come here, that your constituency offices will be flooded with calls, with pleas for justice and equity. Mr. Chairman, this is the first stretch part of a long fight if you will not change your mind. You are duly warned because it is unacceptable that after giving his word, the Prime Minister is trying to find a means of escape and to lie bluntly to the Canadian people.
Mr. Speaker, 1 must conclude my comments now because, unfortunately, I am only allowed 20 minutes. I could speak for hours on end of the gratitude we should feel towards older persons. I know that senior citizens in many constituencies share my opinion and that is why nothing can stop us. If we have to filibuster, we will do it, if we have to go in every constituency to stir you up, we will do it. But we will not let the matter rest there.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Chairman, I have a few comments for the record today. I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary a question regarding one of the concerns people have with our present tax system. Our tax system is unjust and biased in all kinds of ways. The Parliamentary Secretary is well aware of the tax system and appreciates the point I am making.
Perhaps to make the point a little more clearly, let me say that in 1981, 239 individuals had an average income of $615,000 a year and paid no tax at all. That is a familiar situation we have talked about for some time.
If we look at the tax regulations presently in place we find that in 1985 a married taxpayer under the age of 65 years whose only source of income is dividends from taxable Canadian corporations will be able to receive $51,206 in dividends without paying any federal or provincial income tax. That is at the moment; it does not include the capital gains exemption which has been brought in, and so on.
I should like to indicate to the Parliamentary Secretary that this has driven a lot of the economy underground. Many transactions go on unrecorded and consequently untaxed. Does the Parliamentary Secretary have a ballpark figure which the Department might use to describe the size of that underground economy in Canada?
[ Translation]


The Assistant Deputy Chairman:: The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lanthier).


Mr. Lanthier:: I would like to reply, Mr. Chairman. We have just launched a far-reaching economic program. First, no one should put words in my mouth, for I am not convinced

June 19, 1985
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that the Budget is not fair, that it is inequitable. I repeat that, in my opinion, the Budget is fair and equitable.
Second, Mr. Chairman, there was a reference to people who do not pay income tax. A moment ago, we heard that we are a bunch of rookies, and that came from the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy). It is true that we are new Members, but still the Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry has been in Government for 20 years. We were businessmen and we did bring that experience with us in the Government. From what we have learned in the business community, we know that the only way to avoid paying taxes is not to make any money in the first place.


An Hon. Member:: There are other ways.


Claude Lanthier: That is the basic principle in accounting and if you consult an accountant he will tell you that the only way to avoid taxes is not to make any money. One can have an income and deductions, and still earn an income from capital. That is what Governments have been doing for 20 years and God knows how heavily indebted Canada is. Those two parties seemed to have the same Whip a moment ago, as if this were Queen's Park. In any event I think that people do not pay any income tax because they have legitimate and quite legal deductions. We will eventually change some of them in a Budget.
Besides, some of those people made contributions and were entitled to deductions. I know that I contributed to MURBs and invested in films and have earned income since then. But those schemes turned into losses.
However the obvious inequities ought to be eliminated and, since I come from capitalist circles, I have already heard those expressions from people with socialist leanings. I have heard those objections before and I can assure the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) that, in my opinion, most people who earn large incomes generally pay taxes. Rather than talking in general terms, I would like to see the personal income tax returns of people who earn $600,000 a year, if I heard correctly, and do not pay taxes. They may have some kind of income, but if the income comes directly from their own capital, if they gave themselves salaries which were not real salaries, that is something else again. I would have liked to hear about specific cases before discussing the general issue. In any event the new Budget has closed the loophole through a minimum tax which will be levied. The tax is in the budget and will eventually be levied. I think that a correction has been made, but I wonder if you are satisfied with my answer. However, I do not have any data and the Department has no data about the so-called underground economy. However, we know that it exists, barter exists.
Listen: An accountant who has his lawn mown and keeps the books of the mower is nothing new. It is perhaps new to you, but when you said a while ago that you were real people, if you had lived in the real world instead of going around with
your eyes closed, you would be aware of that. Now, in the real world, barter exists. It is unfortunate, but we will deal with it, and I think that the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Beatty) as well as the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) are trying to step up investigations in that area of human activity which has always existed but which is hard to monitor, 1 agree. According to my advisers here, I am told that we do not know much about the underground economy in Canada.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Chairman, it was interesting to listen to the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary. He indicated that I could relax, that I did not have to worry any longer about all these folk who do not pay any income tax, because the Government is committed to bringing in a minimum tax, and it says so in the Budget. However, also in the Budget it says that the Minister of Finance will bring in deindexation of the pensions of senior citizens, and we are told that that is not really in there, that it is just a proposal. We are told that deindexation is just a proposal, but that the minimum tax is a commitment. When the Minister of Finance brings in his minimum tax Bill, I will be the most surprised person in the world. I do not think we will ever see a minimum tax.


John Horton McDermid: Will you support it?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Certainly I will be supportive of a minimum tax, if it is a reasonable one.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Nelson Andrew Riis: Quite frankly, I think it is another proposal.


Mr. Gormley:: What is reasonable for the NDP?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Fairness, justice and equality. I do not want to get side-traced by my colleagues.
One of the reasons we have not been enthusiastic about endorsing this $18.2 billion borrowing authority is that we have many questions about what the Government says it will do or has already done and what the facts actually tell us. Hon. Members opposite say that because the new Government has been in place for over nine months, because it has an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons, because of the new Cabinet, the new thrust, the new era and the new Budget, all sorts of new investment will take place and that, therefore, economic expansion will occur, jobs will be created and the unemployment rolls will be eliminated. This is what we have been told day after day. I see some Hon. Members nodding in agreement.
Today is Wednesday, June 19, and I looked at the business section of The Globe and Mail which contained an article headlined: "Expected investment does not materialize". This article was written by Bruce Little, a very credible economic reporter. It goes on to explain in some detail-actually, too much detail, and I do not think it is necessary for me to repeat all of it-the various areas of investment which have simply failed to materialize, for obvious reasons. For example, it
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indicates that new orders expanded by an anaemic 0.7 per cent in the first three months of the new year.


John Horton McDermid: When did the Budget come in?


Nelson Andrew Riis: It came in in May, but I remember the Prime Minister saying that virtually the day after the election, thousands and thousands of jobs would be created. However, how many were lost?


Mr. Blenkarn:: On July 5 we will see how many more jobs we have.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I do not believe that.


An Hon. Member:: You don't believe anything.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I believe the facts before us which indicate that the expected investment has not materialized. Once again, Mr. Chairman, we find that the Prime Minister and his colleagues say it has happened; they say it has already happened. The Hon. Member in the back there says that investment is flowing into the country. Because of the dismantling of FIRA all of this foreign money is coming into the country in bucketfulls. Have you noticed what the figures are in terms of investment coming into Canada? Is there a mounting tidal wave of capital moving up over the southern border? Absolutely not. It is not taking place.
I am pleased to see the chairman of the finance committee here as well, because he will remember a few months ago when the foreign bankers were making a presentation and-of course, they are well aware of how the community outside of Canada feels about Canada in terms of its investment potential-the question was put, once this Investment Canada Bill is put into place, can we expect a significant increase in foreign investment in Canada? Their response was, Mr. Chairman, no, there will not be any significant increase; there might not even be any noticeable increase at all. Those were foreign bankers who, 1 suspect, talk with some sophistication about how the outside world plans to view Canada in terms of investment potential. They said dismantling FIRA and instituting Investment Canada will result in no particular change in foreign investment.
We keep hearing on the one hand that there is more investment. The Globe and Mail says it is not taking place. We find that it says-


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Then why did you not oppose the Bill?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Why did we not oppose the Bill? We oppose the Bill, Mr. Chairman, to point out the hypocrisy and the naivety of the business minds of the Members who sit across in the opposite benches, these people who tell us about their business sophistication. They say that investment will take place; it is not taking place. They say that foreign investment will roll into Canada; it is not coming into Canada.
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Then I guess the crowning glory of it all was when they said, listen, we have a great idea on how to expand business. We will take a lot more taxes from the people of Canada so they will have their disposable incomes reduced so they cannot buy as much, and that is going to assist business to expand. The economic logic of that escapes me. I just cannot believe that these people have the courage to say that a great idea is to take disposable income away from people, that is how they will be encouraged to go out and buy. Then they say, oh, no, we have a better idea, a better incentive. A better incentive is to provide a capital gains exemption and then all those hundreds of thousands of Canadians will-


Steve Eugene Paproski: Order, order.


An Hon. Member:: The Hon. Member forgets, Mr. Chairman.


Nelson Andrew Riis: They have forgotten however, on the whole aspect of having no capital gains tax, that only 4 per cent of all of the people in Canada who file taxes file capital gains. That means 96 per cent of Canadians are not even touched by this prospect. Ninety-six per cent are not going to fall over themselves because of this windfall profit of capital gains. There it is, the nub of it all.
Who are those 4 per cent? Are they your average Canadian citizens? Are they ordinary Canadians or are they, for example, the president and chief executive officer of Bow Valley Industries-I have just had a report passed over my desk today which indicates that Mr. Gerald Inair, who is the president and chief executive officer and whose cash compensation for the year was only $408,000 plus, was given a little over $2 million in interest-free loans. I am not saying anything nasty about this individual. He is a chief executive officer and presumbably his board of directors feel that that is what he is worth. The point is that he is the kind of person we are talking about, Mr. Chairman. We are not talking about Mr. and Mrs. Average Joe citizen in Canada. We are talking about Gerald Inair, the half a million dollars per year income type person.
Again to reiterate, we are less than enthusiastic about endorsing this $18.2 billion borrowing authority because it reflects so much hypocrisy. It reflects, if you like, almost a dishonesty on the part of the Government by saying these things will happen when the facts have demonstrated that they have not happened, and that quite the contrary has taken place. I just wanted to have an opportunity to put that concept on the record. Thank you very much.


Steve Eugene Paproski: The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lanthier). I remind him that about four minutes of the 20-minute period remain.


Claude Lanthier: Mr. Chairman, I shall be brief, since 1 do not intend to be trapped into extending the debate. When I use the word "deindexing", I always do so against my better judgment, for it is a pure invention of what I call the Queen's Park odd couple. It is nowhere to be found in the Budget Speech.

June 19, 1985
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Opposition members are trying to scare Canadian pensioners with that word. What we find in the Budget Speech is the Government's assurance to fully compensate any increase in inflation above 3 per cent. So, opposition members should stop telling us that it was used in the Budget Speech, for it is nowhere to be found.
Yesterday, we were challenged right and left with all sorts of figures which I think I have laid to rest. Today, I should like to challenge hon. members of the NDP who support this amendment and oppose this bill. I should like them to try to prove that the Prime Minister was wrong when he stated that 271,000 had been created since September 1984, that 159,000 jobs were created in April and May, the greatest number for a two month period in 12 years, not to mention the fact that unemployment in May had dropped from 10.9 per cent to 10.5 per cent, that most of these new jobs have been permanent ones, and that the greater increase have been in youth employment. 1 challenge them to prove these figures wrong. It is not enough for them to say they do not believe them, they should quote figures of their own.
Hon. Members opposite claim that only 4 per cent of Canadians will benefit from the capital gains tax exemption. I cannot question this figure, for it is true. But even so, an analysis of Canadian taxpayers who declared capital gains on their Income Tax returns, shows that 55 per cent of them are families earning less than $40,000 a year. These are no millionaires and we are not doing them any favour. First of all, they are not millionaires, for no family earning less than $40,000 a year can be considered rich nowadays. They are just ordinary people. Second, capital gains are not outright gifts, as we keep repeating, they are investment oriented. Yesterday, I quoted a few examples from my own riding, indicating exactly where these job-creating investments would take place.


Mrs. Kiilens:: Mr. Chairman, I welcome this opportunity to speak on behalf of the elderly in my riding. There are 12 senior citizens' homes in my riding, and residents have asked me to take a message to the Prime Minister. The motion to amend Bill C-51 before the House today asks the Government to reduce its borrowing authority by 3 per cent, because we in the Liberal Party believe that the Government should not apply a double standard. If the elderly must tighten their belts and suffer a 3 per cent cut in pension benefits, it is only fair and equitable that the Government should do the same. For two days I have been watching the situation in the House and listening to speeches, and when I look at the Conservatives opposite, I get the impression that many of them are delighted to see the Opposition fight the battle for them. I think if they were really honest with themselves they would come out and say so. I understand the situation. I had the same thing happen to me when we were in power, and I realize that they may not be in a position at this time to rise in the House to voice their objections. However, their constituents will tell them they are disappointed in their behaviour in the House.
In presenting this motion, the Liberal Party is acting on behalf of thousands of elderly Canadians across the country. This was demonstrated on Parliament Hill today, where we saw Canadian flags from all over the province. They came in large numbers. Since they are not particularly wealthy, Quebec senior citizens all chipped in to rent buses and come to Ottawa to tell the Prime Minister they do not want a cut in their pensions.
I went to meet them. You know what they are afraid of? They are afraid because they think this is only the first of a series of cuts. They told me: This is only the beginning. And believe me, they are right!
Senior citizens have been calling my office in Montreal to protest. They are also calling to congratulate the Liberals and their Members for defending them and their rights. They ask me where to go to sign petitions. Like everyone else, I have received hundreds and hundreds of them. And this is only the beginning. They feel they have been deceived and betrayed by this Government. They are anxious and concerned. They know they cannot afford to cut back any more on what they spend.
I have here a letter from one of my constituents who is single and retired, and who sent me this little budget, a personal budget. I will take the time to read it to you to show the kind of impact that a 3 per cent cut can have on the budget of a single individual.
Income including pension benefits and supplement totals $606.20. Expenses: rent is $240. Hydro: $21.47. Heating: $57. All this is monthly. Telephone: $17. Life insurance and insurance against fire and theft: $20.83. Water taxes: $5. Monthly food bill: $216.50. This adds up to $577.80, leaving $27.40 per month.
This single person has exactly $27.40 to pay for the following: clothing, any medical drugs that are not covered by the card, dental care, glasses, cigarettes, house cleaning supplies, appliance repairs, transportation, newspapers, recreation and personal care (toothpaste, soap, hairdresser, cosmetics, and so forth). Twenty-seven dollars and forty cents a month to pay for all that!
On page 84 of the Budget Papers, under Item 6, the following terms were used to announce that the Budget is increasing the price of personal care products by 11 per cent. It says, and I quote:
The exemption from sales tax applying to a range of consumer goods is being ended, effective July 1, 1985.
This government has re-examined a number of these tax exemptions, as has the Ministerial Task Force on Program Review (headed by the Deputy Prime Minister) which has recommended a repeal of several of them. These exemptions have resulted in a significant erosion of the federal sales tax base.
June 19, 1985

In response to these concerns and to spread the burden of deficit reduction over a wider range of consumer goods, the budget proposes the repeal of the federal sales tax exemption for the following: candy and confectionery; pet food; soft drinks, including carbonated beverages, non-carbonated fruit-flavoured beverages containing less than 25 per cent natural fruit juice, and concentrates for making such beverages; health goods such as medicated creams, lotions, shampoos, soaps, and bandages.
This is a hidden tax, Mr. Chairman, because it is applicable at the manufacturer and group level. But again I say that for a retired person living alone, with the kind of budget I have just described and who has only $27.40 a month to pay for clothing, transportation, shampoo, soap and what have you, it is catastrophic. We Liberals have been accused of spreading fear among senior citizens. We in the Opposition did not spread fear, it is page 16 of the Budget which has created such anxiety among elderly Canadians. It is a bad decision and an error in judgment on the part of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), it is a political error on the part of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney). The Government ought to admit its mistake and should have the courage to reconsider its decision.

I have here a letter dated June 7 which came to my office in the morning mail today. It is from the Federation of New Brunswick Senior Citizens which met in New Brunswick on May 27 and 28. This is what the letter has to say:
The following statement was announced Tuesday in Moncton at a Media Conference by the President: "N.B. Senior Citizens have once again been disturbed in their quality of life. Their internal peace and tranquility is most important at this stage of their lives."
The recent announcements violate a sacred trust, and to Canadian Seniors many things and principles are still sacred.
Tampering with old age security (already inadequate) is immoral, indecent and dishonest.
You can consider this letter as coming from the 76,500 N.B. residents aged 65 and over, seventy-three percent of them below the poverty level, eighty percent of these single ladies and or widows.
Yes we are for measures for reducing deficits-Yes we have paid all of our lives-Yes we are still paying like everyone else-Yes we want a strong Canada-very very few of you are listening to what Senior Citizens are saying. At this time enough is enough!
Fifty-eight percent of Canada's Seniors are below the poverty level. That is a National disgrace!
We will not allow you to legislate our peace of mind, quality of life and the eroding of our mental and physical health under the guise of saving a few dollars.
The letter is signed by Mrs. Edna Bourque, President, and Mr. Bernard Richard, Executive Director.

Mr. Chairman, I have here figures which show the injustice perpetrated on our senior citizens. According to an independent study, over 750,000 Canadian men and women will have fallen under the poverty line by 1990 because of the last Budget. Of all these Canadians, 200,000 will be senior citizens. The Budget of the Progressive Conservative Government contains nothing to improve the situation of the 4.1 Canadians, or 20 per cent of the population, who are already living in unacceptable conditions. On the contrary, the Wilson Budget will increase the financial distress of the poorest members of
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our society. The deindexation of old age security pensions will affect senior citizens. By 1990, this will mean a loss of about $1,200 in real income for a couple and $560 a year for someone living alone. What we must remember is that the Government will take away $1.6 million from pensioners before 1990. These figures have human faces, Mr. Chairman. This is why I do not understand why the Government has not decided to reconsider, to reassess the situation and to reinstate full indexation for all senior citizens.
The National Advisory Council on Aging sent me a communique requesting the reinstatement of indexation. Here are a few passages from this communique:
"It is the first time we see such conviction and cohesion among older Canadians", write Mrs. Yhetta Gold, Chairman of the National Advisory Council on Aging in a letter adressed to the Honourable Minister of National Health and Welfare. "The Budget of May 23 ... has incited older Canadians to rally to put pressure on the Government and to defend their own interests. Senior citizens are telling the Government: Now listen here!"
Deindexation has not only united older Canadians, but it has brought together many other Canadians, including young people and business groups."
The letter to the Minister of Health also mentions other effects of deindexation. According to the Council, "it is a short-term saving in exchange for a long term loss".
What they say is rather interesting. They continue:
"The stress caused by an increasingly tight budget will have harmful effects-
-on senior citizens.
More and more Canadians will find it difficult to adjust to their physical, mental or social condition, which will then deteriorate. In time, the cost incurred for all kinds of care will limit the savings brought about by deindexation."
Mrs. Gold seems to be talking about the higher cost of health care, which will result from the stress caused by the reduced purchasing power of our senior citizens.
The National Advisory Council on Aging also believes that people on the eve of retirement, those aged from 60 to 64, of whom there are 1.1 million in Canada, whose income is lower than $17,000 a year will be badly hit by deindexation. "A great number will have to change their retirement plans and try to save more to compensate for their loss of income, or else they will have to postpone their retirement. The first option will reduce economic growth and the second will increase competition on the labour market."
The communique concludes as follows:
Let us not forget that older Canadians, in addition to their political influence and their strength at the polls, also have a substantial purchasing power.
The Government had a social contract with Canadian pensioners and this contract has been broken. During the election campaign, the Government had promised to provide more protection against inflation for pensions. This promise has also been broken. Senior citizens could not believe that the Government would reduce their pensions. They were expecting instead additional protection. I repeat that the Government had promised to provide more protection against inflation for pensions. The reason why my colleague was thrown out of the House this afternoon goes to prove the quotation I just made; every-

June 19, 1985
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thing goes to prove why my colleague was expelled this afternoon.
Mr. Chairman, full inflation protection that is basic to every pension plan: a pension that is reasonable at age 65 becomes inadequate at age 75 if that protection against inflation is not guaranteed.
The poor are asked to tighten their belts in order to make a $5.6 billion gift to the affluent. This budget is unfair to the poor. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) said that he kept his mind open on the budget, and that he would be willing to make changes if needed.
On behalf of the senior citizens and the poor, Mr. Chairman, I ask him not to delay his decision. Every day counts for our seniors. They are all anxious, they are going to fight to the finish.


Claude Lanthier: Mr. Chairman, it is my duty to point out some inaccuracies that crept up hopefully by mistake. Earlier, it was suggested that a person living alone wouuld lose, and I said "would lose", I am quoting in order not to be myself quoted out of context, "would lose" $560 a year. Therefore, if that is the kind of statement that is made to the public at large, it comes as no surprise that they should be anxious. I would therefore like to put the record straight about those $560: this would be an overall amount over the forthcoming five years, under all the provisions that are of course already referred to in the budget.
Second, on these cuts, again that term should not be used the way it is being used by Opposition Members. There is no cut. Nobody is losing money with that. Understand? People will still be increased until December 31, and after December 31 we have options which are very well outlined in the budget. So there is no cut.
Second, when there is reference to, rhetoric, semantics like "reverse", "backtrack", "recognize the error", all that points to the basic goal of this debate. It is purely of a political nature, and it is a shame that senior citizens, should be used, while taking advantage not of their credulity but of their sensitivity, to such vile purposes as the political aims as are now pursued.
I do not believe they have had the honesty to tell senior citizens that everything is provided for in the budget in order that, when the Government feels it is in a position to help them without digging into the old earnings, as I have been told in my constituency, when it becomes sure that the cheque we will then be giving them will not bounce, as hinted today by the Prime Minister, the whole measure will be reviewed. And as the economic situation evolves, as the measures we have been taking to create more wealth produce their benefits, as job creation becomes obvious, as order is restored in the affairs of the state, and as the national debt is checked and the deficit controlled in the first place.
Second, I would also like to put the record straight on the matter of deindexing. There has been references to some promises we made, suggestions that we promised protection. This is basically what we promised, and this is basically what has been achieved. Referring to the budget speech itself, or rather the document that goes with it, it is clearly stated, and I quote: "Recipients of these transfers will be protected from rapid increases in inflation but will no longer receive compensation for inflation as measured by the CPI below 3 per cent a year." etc.
This is on Page 14 of the document The Fiscal Plan.
In effect, this is protection. The difference between the protection we are offering and the protection that was offered by the previous government is this: the present government, or rather the previous government had established a floor, saying we will protect you from 6 per cent and up to 100 per cent, and senior citizens were to make do with that. We, on the other hand, are establishing a ceiling, that is, up to 3 per cent, senior citizens are asked to contribute. Above 3 per cent, the government will step in. I believe that this will enable older people to do some long term planning, sparing them the fear of having to face spiralling inflation such as we have experienced in recent years. I believe they will be spared the fear of having their income eroded by this evil of modern society which is called inflation.
Obviously, I deeply regret the statement that was made a moment ago by the Hon. Member for Saint-Michel-Ahuntsic (Mrs. Killens) when she mentioned and tried to ennoble the sad incident that happened today during question period. 1 am sorry to say that the person who was expelled from the House deserved it, and I regret even more deeply to see such a behaviour being supported by a party for which 1 once had some respect. That party was badly shaken today. I was the first today to applaud when someone withdrew a statement. In my view, an honest person is not one who never makes any mistakes but one who know how to correct them. So I must say that the hon. member disappointed me in that regard.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Order! The Hon. Member for Bourrassa (Mr. Rossi) on a point of order.


Carlo Rossi: Mr. Chairman, I suggest what the Hon. Member has just said concerning an Hon. Member being expelled from the House was not relevant to the topic being debated at this time.


Claude Lanthier: Mr. Chairman-


Steve Eugene Paproski: I am sorry. No, we will not pursue this any further, even on a point of order. It is not a point of order, to start with.
The 20 minute period has now expired. Resuming debate.
June 19, 1985


Mr. Caccia:: Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure in this debate to follow my colleague, the Hon. Member for Saint-Michel-Ahuntsic, and expand on her very fine presentation. I will start by first dealing with the rather skillful intervention by the Parliamentary Secretary on the government side who, despite his attempt to discredit the credibility of my colleague, cannot deny that we are talking here about a Budget. That is a document which spells very clearly the intention of the Government to deindex pensions above 3 per cent.
A Budget is not, as the Parliamentary Secretary would like us to believe, a White Paper, something which says we "might" do certain things or we may not. The Budget spells out its intentions and its will by the use of words such as "we will" deindex. Therefore, the Parliamentary Secretary fails in his intervention to establish credibility. He fails to deal with the fact that the fear of deindexation has been introduced by the words of the Budget. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I cannot accept his criticism of my colleague, the Hon. Member for Saint-Michel-Ahuntsic, because she quite rightly was speaking on what is written in the Budget. The Parliamentary Secretary cannot wipe out her words by stating that the Government "may" do certain things during the next few months, until the words of the Budget are modified.
I am very honoured to take part following the fine speech by my colleague, because for me as well it is important to speak on behalf of the senior citizens in my riding. In the last few days I have seen the spontaneous arrival of petitions to my office in a surge the like of which I have not seen in the last 17 years. It is a new experience for me. It tells me that our amendment today reflects a profound sense of preoccupation based on fear with respect to the proposed deindexation in the Budget of this Tory Government. We are proposing with our amendment a certain measure because we want to put pressure on the Government. We want to bring this Government to its senses and we want to make sure that the Government, as a result of the efforts of the Official Opposition, understands that there is a widespread preoccupation with deindexation in the country. By our amendment, we are speaking on behalf of the senior citizens of Canada in every riding.
I could not believe my ears when in the last few days I heard the Minister of National Health and Welfare using the argument that deindexation is intended to create jobs. That linkage, Mr. Chairman, is absurd, and it is understandable that senior citizens in the country have started to come forward to stress this absurdity. It is not by diminishing the purchasing power of pensioners, or by threatening to do so at the beginning of January next year, that you create jobs.
There is a contradiction on the part of the Government itself when it proudly states in the House that in the month of May it has created so many jobs-.55 per cent of the labour force. We are glad to hear that jobs are being created, but in the corresponding month of May, 1984, jobs were created at the rate of .5 per cent instead of .55 per cent of the labour force. Therefore, it is incredible that the Minister of National Health and Welfare would have us believe that the proposed deindex-
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ation will be a means which will achieve job creation. That is absolutely absurd and almost counterproductive. No one in his or her right mind would buy that argument.
There is another red herring which is coming up in debate, and in Question Period in particular. That is, the Prime Minister and others are saying they will monitor the situation between now and the end of the year to see whether or not this will become a reality. Keep in mind that the measure in the Budget says it "will" become a reality. The word "will" in English is used, not "may", and that is important to remember. I ask you, what will you monitor in the next six months since, by your own text, the measure will come into effect on January 1, 1986? What is there to monitor, or is that a code word for conducting Gallup polls?
Perhaps this notion of monitoring is another way of saying "we will reconsider". Well then, we on this side of the House, and 1 am sure many back-benchers on the other side, wonder why it is necessary to keep the seniors in a state of anxiety for six months. Why not accept the fact that a mistake was made in the Budget? Why not pursue the matter to the ultimate conclusion and announce any day before the end of this month the decision that this idea of deindexation is going to be removed once and for all?
There are good reasons for doing that. You do not reduce the purchasing power of senior citizens because that means you weaken their economic condition at a time when, if anything, they need to be strengthened. You reduce the money going into the economy, you reduce retail sales, and basically and fundamentally you weaken the social security thrust which has been developed in this country over the last few decades and given Canada one of the most outstanding security systems in the world. If you do anything, you build on it. You strengthen it.
I was very impressed by what we were told this morning by senior citizens who came to the Liberal caucus to speak to us. They made the point that they should not be penalized because they are over the age of 65 and did not have the opportunity to receive an income based on a full-time activity. They should not be penalized because there were perceived as perhaps being politically disorganized. Why should they all of a sudden be asked in the name of an absurd notion of creating jobs to accept an erosion of their income of 3 per cent per year, because that is what deindexation is all about.
Over the next five years that will mean the average senior in your riding and mine, Mr. Chairman, will lose several hundred dollars of purchasing power. I ask you, is that the yardstick by which the Progressive Conservative Government of Canada wants to be measured? Evidently it is not, otherwise we would not have a picture of discomfort on the faces of PC backbenchers during Question Period each day.


John Horton McDermid: You are dreaming.

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Charles L. Caccia: There is already a gap between the position being taken by the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister.


John Horton McDermid: No, they are absolutely consistent.


Charles L. Caccia: Yes, there is, because the Budget document spells out the determination of introducing deindexation in no uncertain terms. The word is "will", not "may". The Prime Minister has indicated on a number of occasions that he is listening, that there may be an announcement, the position is not firm, and he considers that the Budget statement is not a Budget statement as far as deindexation is concerned, but rather a White Paper or trial balloon. It is something to be used to see whether the action is acceptable or not. That is a rather shaky way of going about the business of the nation.
We want to be reasonable on this. We are saying, as we have been saying all the time, let us recognize the mistake, but let us do it quickly and remove the anxiety. The Parliamentary Secretary was quite right when he got up and said we cannot say the measure is in place. He is right, the measure is not in place, but there is the threat and the threat causes the fear.


John Horton McDermid: No, the opposition causes the fear.


Charles L. Caccia: The Parliamentary Secretary is not sitting in his seat and I cannot remember his riding as well as I should be able to, but he says that we are causing the anxiety. We are saying to him-


John Horton McDermid: You should know better. How many years have you been around here?


Charles L. Caccia: -people read the Budget and they know what words mean. When the word "will" is in the Budget, that means a determination to do something and that is what senior citizens across the nation are telling us. Yesterday a delegation of senior citizens came into my office and brought to my attention a proposal to amend the Excise Tax Act which was in the Budget. They brought to my attention something I had not noticed before and about which they are very concerned and distressed. It has to do with the taxation of health goods for the first time. The items affected by the new taxation coming into effect on July 1, are items such as aspirin, acne and wart treatment products, and bandaging materials.
The Hon. Member is saying a lot of seniors are using that. I will challenge him to say that senior citizens do not use contact lens solutions. In fact, they are increasingly used as one gets older and relies on them.


John Horton McDermid: I wasn't even referring to what you are talking about. You are so arrogant you think everybody is listening to you.


Charles L. Caccia: The Hon. Member should resume his seat and speak from there if he wants to intervene in the debate. He should know procedure of the House.


John Horton McDermid: We are in Committee of the Whole. We can speak from anywhere.


Mr. Deans:: Why are you so mean?


Charles L. Caccia: No, that is normal stuff, nothing unusual. The list goes on beyond contact lens solutions. It includes diagnostic materials, dietary supplements, decongestants, skin remedies, eczema, psoriasis, and dermatitis treatments, hair and scalp medications, laxatives and liniments, muscle strain and ache remedies, ointments, podiatry care products, salves, sinus treatments, sore back treatments, and tonics. I cannot believe that the Government would focus on our elderly citizens by imposing a tax on health goods to come into effect on July 1.
The amendment which we have put foward is intended to put pressure on the Government to realize that it has made the wrong decision and that there is no point in trying to fool the Canadian public into believeing that there may be a monetary necessity for this. It should not attempt to fool the Canadian public by saying that jobs will be created through this measure. It should do the decent thing and announce that deindexation is out once and for all. It should make this announcement before the summer to remove the anxiety of senior citizens across the country.


Ian Deans: Mr. Chairman, I sat up last evening thinking at great length about the impact of the Budget. In defence of the Budget over the last two or three weeks, the Government has raised a number of factors about which I have serious doubt. I was not clear on where it was deriving its information. Much of the debate during the last week or so has been on the subject of deindexation of pensions, and quite justifiably so, because I think that is the hardest of the measures incorporated in what I consider will no doubt be an ill-fated document.
Even during the Budget debate itself I felt that not enough thought had gone into the critical analysis of what the Budget contained. We were justifiably preoccupied with the pensin issue. We must remain totally preoccupied with that issue until the Government recognizes that it has moved in a way which the majority of Canadians find unacceptable and is prepared to back away from that provision. To back away from that provision will be no sin. There will be momentary derision, no doubt, but in the long run the majority of Canadians will applaud when the Government finally announces that it is going to change its attitude.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: I know I certainly will.


Ian Deans: My colleague from Windsor-Walkerville says that he will applaud, and I know that my colleague from Thunder Bay-Atikokan will applaud as well. That is to be expected. More importantly, many of the elderly people who came here today to represent, to the Government and Opposition Parties, the concerns of senior citizens across the country will applaud as well.
It may well be true that on this day in 1985 a number of elderly citizens, if asked, may say that they would no longer
June 19, 1985

support the Conservative Party. I have no doubt that if the Government backs away from this measure, many of those people will rethink their position and return to the Conservative Party. Those people are by tradition and background Conservative.


John Horton McDermid: None of them left.


Ian Deans: I am talking about those who have. I am not suggesting that they have all left. The Government should not get the idea that it must put its head down and bull its way through in order to achieve its purpose. There is nothing wrong with the Government admitting that it made a miscalculation and that its view of how this measure would be accepted was a little tainted by opinion given by those who did not understand. There is nothing wrong with saying that the Minister of Finance attempted, to the best of his ability, to do what was right but failed to hit the mark and will therefore move away from that position.
Within two or three months, those who write about the Government on this issue will write with more favour than they are writing today. They will recognize that it takes strength to admit that you are wrong. It takes strength to admit that something has been done inappropriately. That is an evidence of strength rather than weakness. Weakness is when you hold on to something which you have long since believed is no longer appropriate. It is weakness when one looks at the facts and circumstances, clearly seeing the conclusion, but failing to accept it. The Government must recognize the difference.
This is a new Government and I can well understand that it does not have the experience of many long years of fighting. I say with great respect that it has not developed the necessary skills to be able to back away. The Prime Minister has taken some steps to move away from this unacceptable policy of partially deindexing the pensions for retired Canadians. He said that the Government has changed it from a policy to a position to be considered, monitored, analysed and ultimately changed. The Government has yet to come to the point of determining how and when this change should take place.
Some of my colleagues in this Party and others in the House have made what I believe is a reasonable analysis of the impact of this measure. We have also made an analysis of the financial impact of the deindexing provision. I am prepared to concede that our analysis is open to question, as are all analyses. However, our analysis of the financial impact is as good and supportable as any other at this point.
The one thing that we know for sure is that if inflation continues-there is no reason to doubt that it will not- pensioners will fall behind in their purchasing power. The real problem at the moment which is yet to be confronted is the impact on those pensioners now as a result of their having to concern themselves about their financial future. That is the impact which the Government seems to fail to address.
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Let me suggest that the Government would do well to listen rather than talk. It has indicated from the start of its mandate that it will be a consultative Government. Let me suggest to Members who care to listen that consultation is a two-way street. It is not simply meeting with someone so you can tell them the realities. It is letting them explain their view of a problem and then coming to a consensus on the issue. That two-way consultative process continues to be lacking in this issue.
I believe it was a White Paper published by the Minister of National Health and Welfare in which the Government determined that there was no need to consult on the matter of pensions because the Government did not intend to change it. With that in mind, it is clear that the Minister of Finance, the Minister of National Health and Welfare and the Prime Minister himself did not embark on any discussion of the necessity for or desirability of change.
That is not only the position stated in the White Paper by the Minister of National Health and Welfare. It was clearly the position of the Department of Health, as stated by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister when he travelled to Toronto, I believe, in April to meet with a group of seniors when he indicated that there would be no change in the old age pension. Therefore, those who represent the pensioners did not feel the urge or the necessity to indulge in any discussion about indexing or the basic pension that was then available to pensioners.
In those circumstances, it was a shock to pensioners- particularly those who were at the meeting-to discover that the Government had changed its mind without even giving them a hint, asking for their reaction or suggesting to them that their view would be appreciated. Within one month of assuring that no change would take place, the Government simply changed its mind. Is it any wonder that seniors are angry? Is it any wonder that they are confused and do not quite know whether they can trust those who speak on behalf of the Conservative Government?
I say to the Government that on statistical grounds alone, with a financial base as the bottom line, it is not unreasonable to suggest that we can afford to index pensions as they have been indexed in the past. On numerous occasions our Party has offered ways to raise the necessary capital to offset what would be lost by continuing the indexing provision.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader is coming over to read what is on my button. It says, "Don't blame me, I didn't vote for him". It is a picture of the Prime Minister. This is what senior citizens wore today as they sat outside on what was not a particularly pleasant day.
From a purely financial point of view, I do not think it is unreasonable to believe that we can afford to index pensions for senior citizens in Canada. Therefore, how should the Government change its position and when? I believe that one should not inflict on those people the kind of mental torture that goes with worrying about whether or not one's income next year will be sufficient to meet one's requirements. Therefore, the change should be made now. That would begin to

June 19, 1985
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address what has become quite justifiably the preoccupation of Members on this side and many people across Canada. However, that is not all that is wrong with the Budget. There is much more wrong with the Budget than meets the eye.
We asked that the Government table its borrowing Bill within a matter of days of the introduction of its Budget in order that we could clearly see the entire picture of what the Government intended to spend in its estimates, how it intended to raise revenues and what the Government required by way of borrowing. I commend the Government for doing that. It is appropriate for us to look at the entire package now in this, the last of the three very closely related matters dealing with the fiscal and financial policy of Canada.
Let me turn to a Toronto Star editorial. I believe it states quite well what many of us have been concerned about. The headline states "What About those Jobs?" It says:
Talk about the luck of the Irish. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's budget may escape the scrutiny it deserves just because it is so badly flawed. The budget does nothing for jobs. The budget has weakened the prospects for growth. The budget will shift income from working Canadians to the rich. But all that seems to have been lost in the shuffle.
Do those words sound familiar? It seems to me that we have been saying that since the moment the Budget was brought down. Let me continue:
When Mulroney launched his assault on the elderly, he struck an exposed Canadian nerve; Canadians from all walks of life have coalesced around the elderly, and in their outrage they have temporarily overlooked the rest of the budget's inadequacies.
Had the Mulroney budget not taken aim at the elderly, more Canadians would be asking how massive new tax hikes are going to foster job creation and increased economic growth. They would be wondering how a $500,000 tax break for the wealthy is supposed to reduce unemployment. They would be questioning how a $2 billion cut in transfer payments to the provinces is going to promote better education and training for Canada's youth. They would wonder why wealthy Canadians need more government assistance to prepare for their retirement. And they would be asking how Canadian pension funds invested abroad will strengthen domestic industry.
The Mulroney budget is not a blueprint for tomorrow. It is a leap of faith to the right. If full indexation for the elderly were restored without delay, we might see the broader debate that the budget deserves.
This Prime Minister and government were elected on the promise of "jobs, jobs, jobs". The budget needs to be measured against that promise to 1.3 million unemployed Canadians.


Paul Wyatt Dick: You said 1.8 million yesterday.


Ian Deans: I will come to that in a moment. This is understated.


John Horton McDermid: You are always overstating.


Ian Deans: The article continues:
The Budget also needs to be measured against its own stated goal: Deficit reduction. Since most of our post-1980 deficit-


Paul Wyatt Dick: Are you saying the story is wrong?


Ian Deans: I would like to say something if people on the other side could keep quiet for a moment. It is not often I am attacked by the jawbone of an ass.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Ian Deans: The article continues:
Since most of our post-1980 deficit growth has arisen because of the recession and its attendant high unemployment, it's only reasonable to alssume that little progress can be made in trimming the deficit until more people are back at work. Where are the programs in this budget to do that?
These questions put the government on the spot. Answering them, in the context of the budget, may prove impossible. Yet if the Mulroney government has a vision of where it wants to take the country, that vision is embodied in the budget. Answer those questions the government must.
I want to stop at that point. That is an analysis done by the editorial board of The Toronto Star. While we may not all agree with everything that is in The Toronto Star, I think it is fair to say that its analysis is not an unreasonable one. In fact, there is an element of truth in it. That element of truth is borne out by reports today in The Globe and Mail. In The Globe and Mail today we find this headline "Expected investment does not materialize". The article reads:
The waiting game for signs of new business investment in Canada is beginning to get a little frustrating.
I will not read the whole article, but it goes on-are you telling me, Mr. Chairman, that I have but one minute?


Steve Eugene Paproski: Time flies, yes.


Ian Deans: Let me take a few little pieces out of this article. The reporter goes through an analysis of figures produced by Stats Canada of Canada's performance in the first quarter of this year over last year, an analysis which shows that in almost every single category to be measured there has been a lag in the economic growth that must take place, an analysis which shows that in durable goods there is a drop this month over what had taken place in January, an analysis which shows in orders for hard goods there is a drop, in new orders there is a drop and in the backlog of unfilled orders there is a drop. Production by manufacturers was at a level of only 76 per cent of their capacity-


Steve Eugene Paproski: Order, please. 1 am very sorry to interrupt the Hon. Member.


Ian Deans: There was a drop in the first quarter-


Steve Eugene Paproski: I regretfully must interrupt because we have already exceeded the 10 minute period. I am very sorry. There may be other opportunities for the Hon. Member for Hamilton.


Ian Deans: Let me finish my two minutes because I have 20 minutes later.


Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Chairman, I welcome this opportunity to rise in the House and remind the Hon. Member for LaSalle (Mr. Lanthier) that I will not be asking him any questions since most of the time, all he does is read texts prepared by public servants. I will tell him about the messages I received
June 19, 1985

from senior citizens on the trip I made with the Hon. Member for Shefford (Mr. Lapierre) to Quebec City, which is represented by Conservative Members, the City of Sherbrooke, the Eastern Townships, Montreal in the ridings of Rosemont and Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, and Baie-Comeau.
Mr. Chairman, everywhere, senior citizens expressed the same views as the person who spoke to the Prime Minister this morning outside the House of Commons and who everybody saw on television. I will not repeat what the person said, because they are not parliamentary, but they were an expression of how all senior citizens feel about the Prime Minister, not only because of the official commitment he made in Sherbrooke on July 26 about reinstating full indexation of Old Age Security pensions, but also because of the paper tabled in the House by the Minister now popularly referred to as the Minister of Social Injustice Canada, the Minister who in January tabled a paper in the House of Commons where it says that any discussion on restructuring and improving social programs will not be used to reduce the deficit. This was in the paper, and when you get to the part about senior citizens, there was a section on families with children, family allowances, and so forth, and a section on senior citizens, where it said that in our opinion, Old Age Security benefits and the Guaranteed Income Supplement should not be changed.
Not only is the Prime Minister not meeting the commitments he made during the election campaign, he is also reneging on statements made here in the House of Commons, but in the Standing Committee on Health ... I must admit I had my doubts, since I remembered what happened to Bill C-26 and did not trust the Minister of Social Injustice or the Prime Minister, but I took the trouble to ask the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) the following question: Can we start discussions in committee with the assurance that there will be no changes with respect to senior citizens? The Minister solemnly gave us that assurance. At the time, 92 groups representing Canadians came here at taxpayers expense to express-since September 4, the Prime Minister has been bragging about being the one who consults the people-they came to express their views in the sincere and profound belief that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Social Injustice Canada would keep their word. And the discussions were strictly about improving the family allowance.
Ninety-two groups from all over the country, and what they got from this Budget brought down by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) was a deep sense of disappointment and betrayal. We had an economic summit with groups representing business, labour and social agencies, to name a few. This little demonstration cost one million dollars or $1,000 a minute. None of the groups at the meeting, neither business, nor labour, nor consumer groups, suggested to the Prime Minister who was acting as master of ceremonies, that he should reduce the indexing of old age security pensions, family allowances, and what is even more serious, the child tax credit. No one
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suggested such a thing, Mr. Chairman. We saw what the Prime Minister was really like when the budget was brought down.
This afternoon, the Prime Minister attempted to ridicule me because of my waistline. It is a fact that his waistline is smaller than mine, but the real difference between the two of us is that I have my heart in the right place and he does not. 1 am intellectually honest and sincere and he is not. I simply wonder whether the Prime Minister and the Progressive Conservative Party will give back the $1 million of the taxpayers' money wasted just for marketing, just to advertise the pleasant smile of Little Brian from Baie-Comeau, who is a citizen for life of Westmount.
This $1 million was wasted to do the opposite of what people had suggested at that meeting. Among those present at the economic summit, name just one organization or individual who suggested partial deindexation of the old age security pension.
If the Hon. Member for LaSalle (Mr. Lanthier) knows one, he can rise and say so. It was not the organization of employers. It was not the Chamber of Commerce. It was not the labour federations. It was not the consumer associations. It was not the senior citizens' groups nor the community organizations of Canada.


An Hon. Member:: It was Brian's Club!


Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Chairman, people will long remember this Prime Minister. John Diefenbaker would never have dared to do such a thing! Mr. Clark would never have dared to take such action and to spend $1 million of the taxpayers' money just for his own publicity. I simply hope that the Progressive Conservatives will repay this money.
I spoke this afternoon of the consultation held in Baie-Comeau and of the fact, that in spite of the tricks used by the Prime Minister's Office to try to manipulate them, senior citizens held their ground. They deserve our congratulations.
There is one thing that the Conservative Party has forgotten. It is not because senior citizens have reached age 65, 75 or 90 that they no longer have the intelligence they had when they were 40. And there is another thing the Conservative Party, and the Prime Minister have forgotten. It is not because those people have reached age 75 that they do not have the energy they used to have when they were 50. And a third thing the Conservative Members and the Prime Minister in particular have forgotten. It is not because those people are 75 or 90 that they no longer have their mind set to work as they did when they were 40. They were senior citizens in the first place, and 1 am proud that it all started in Quebec, in Montreal, at the Velodrome, they were senior citizens aged 70, 85, 90, who volunteered every day at the booth where unfortunately the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mrs. Bretrand) would not meet them. They

June 19, 1985
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stood up as volunteers. You saw some of them here on Parliament Hill, Mr. Chairman. Those are not 40 year old people. They are not people who have been sitting on the benches at some university. They are people who at age 16, 14, or 12 started raising kids. They are people who entered the labour market, who worked 60, 70 hours a week, with no labour unions, no fringe benefits, and who put out their own money to have their children educated. They are here now. They paid with their own money to get health care for their children. They had no health insurance. And now there are Members here who have the gall, the nerve, and the cowardice to ask those people.
The people from Baie-Comeau said: What does the Prime Minister have against senior citizens? Since the beginning, you saw it in Bill C-26, and I understand that it hurts you but get used to it; when we tell you the truth you are shocked, but I am here to get elected. Mr. Chairman, the estimates.. . Instead of borrowing money to increase the Defence budget by $ 1.32 billion, if those people on the other side had a heart, they would have protected the old age security pensions. In the budget, instead of trying to save on the backs of senior citizens-$250 million next year-they would have chosen to save senior citizens rather than enhancing the image of the Prime Minister, rather than wasting $56 million to change the colour of army uniforms. They would have chosen to save senior citizens in each and every constituency, but instead all the Conservative Members chose to hurt senior citizens as far as their pension cheques are concerned, in 1986, to spend $400 million to send, 1,000 additional soldiers to Europe.


Mr. Robichaud:: And the ministers' offices.


Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Chairman, my colleague reminds me of the ministers' offices, of the Prime Minister's office: $1 million just for the charade the Prime Minister went through at the Economic Summit, the failure of the so-called outstanding mediator; it has been nothing but failure since the beginning and even in Ontario, with Miller who was defeated, Mr. Chairman. In Baie-Comeau, those people were disappointed by their boy.


An Hon. Member:: The boy from Baie-Comeau.


Jean-Claude Malépart: To thank those people, those senior citizens who made sacrifices to enable their boy to get an education and to reach the position of Prime Minister, they take 3 percent from them and say: what's a few bucks. To an Hon. Member who gets the old age security pension, it is not serious to lose a few bucks but if you get only the old age security pension and have only $27 a month left for clothing and to have your appliances repaired, for your leisure activities, you do not have enough already, and you need every cent.
In Montreal,... not only the people from Sainte-Marie but also those from Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, and I want to congratulate my neighbour, the Hon. Member for Hochelaga-
Maisonneuve (Mr. Desrosiers) who was courageous; he knew he was here to defend his constituents' interests and not to sell them the stories of the Minister of Finance. When he met with senior citizens, he signed the petition and said: I was elected to stand up for you and I will do so, but there are not many from Quebec. I would like to name them one by one.
I should like to tell you what older citizens think of the former president of Iron Ore. I have the impression that in four years from now, he will find it hard to get a job at the Manpower Centre. They gave me the cartoon-


Steve Eugene Paproski: Order! The Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart) knows quite well that this is not allowed in this House-


Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Chairman, if I cannot show it, I will describe it. The constituents of Hochelaga have given me their cartoon of the Prime Minister where he is shown as the new Robin Hood, but a Robin Hood in reverse. The new Robin Hood takes $5 from the pockets of older people and hands it to the rich. That is the truth, that is how the senior citizens visualize the Prime Minister, this government and the Budget.
However, there is another very important matter that we must keep in mind, Mr. Chairman. You know that very soon it will be July 1, Canada Day, and it will be the first time that our little new Robin Hood will act as our Prime Minister on Canada Day, but our bright boy from Baie-Comeau is not devoid of imagination, Mr. Chairman. He would very much like all Canadians to remember him. Did the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lanthier), who is an expert in high finance, advise the Minister of Finance to take the decision which I will now make known? Is it the Prime Minister or "little Michael" from Toronto? Not too many Conservative Members bragged about the fact that as of July 1, every man, woman and child of this country will receive a gift and know that the Prime Minister of Canada will be with him, always, from then on, wherever he goes. I do not know whether that brilliant idea came from the Prime Minister, our "brilliant" little boy from Baie-Comeau, lifetime citizen of Westmount, or from "little Michael"-


Steve Eugene Paproski: A point of order.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Chairman, I rise on a point of order. The Hon. Member has referred to two Members of the House of Commons, Members of Cabinet, by their first names without referring to them as Hon. Members or the Right Hon. Prime Minister or the Hon. Minister of Finance, or their ridings. He is doing it in a ridiculing manner which I think is really not fitting for the House. I would ask the Chair to rule and bring the Hon. Member to order for referring to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance by their first names.
June 19, 1985


Carlo Rossi: On the same point of order, Mr. Chairman.


Steve Eugene Paproski: The Hon. Member for Bourassa (Mr. Rossi) on the same point of order.


Carlo Rossi: The Member opposite should understand that the French term "brillant", or brilliant, is not synonymous with Brian Mulroney. The Member used the term to indicate somebody bright up here. It is not the same thing.


An Hon. Member:: Mr. Chairman-


Steve Eugene Paproski: Allow me, before I rule, to offer some advice.


Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Chairman-


Steve Eugene Paproski: No, no. I should like to draw to the attention of the Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart) that indeed Hon. Members should refer to each other Members by the name of their riding or their title in cabinet.


Jean-Claude Malépart: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe everyone is anxious to know what the gift will be and where the presence of the Prime Minister and Conservative Members will be felt. Starting July 1, they will all be there. Do not forget-and perhaps the Hon. Member for LaSalle (Mr. Lanthier) can tell us who thought of putting a-


Claude Lanthier: That is offensive.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Order.


John Horton McDermid: Point of order.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Will the Parliamentary Secretary resume his seat.

So it is the same point of order as earlier. The Hon. Member for Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart) knows perfectly well, besides he was reminded of the fact a few minutes ago, that such exhibits are not allowed in the House of Commons.


Jean-Claude Malépart: I wanted to make this little demonstration. I understand, Mr. Chairman-


Claude Lanthier: That is ridiculous.


Some Hon. Members:: Point of order.


Steve Eugene Paproski: No, order. Hon. Members know they are not allowed to show exhibits, and I ask them to be patient and, please, not to arouse the wrath of-
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Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Chairman, I can understand the frustration felt by both Conservative members, because they would prefer the public not to know that starting July 1, the bar of soap will be taxed 10 per cent, that starting July 1, toothpaste will be taxed 10 per cent, that starting July 1, shampoo will be taxed 10 per cent. I understand their frustration. I would be ashamed if I were them. I would like to know who among them had this bright idea. When we see that they are cutting 3 per cent from senior citizens, these are basic necessities. Who in heaven has decided to include soap? Do you know what 1 was told by a senior citizen who had just learned about this? I appreciate that the Hon. Member for LaSalle would prefer to hide the facts. I appreciate that he is ashamed, Mr. Chairman. He did not speak up on this issue. That person told me: Mr. Malepart, I have quit smoking because of this government. But will I have to quit washing because of this 10 per cent tax?
I think, Mr. Chairman, that ridicule never killed anyone, and they haven't left it at that.


An Hon. Member:: He says that it will smell "blue".


Jean-Claude Malépart: Even kids' candies are being taxed, Mr. Chairman.
I am aware that I am not allowed to... and 1 know that none of the Conservative members wants the truth to come out. It is rather humiliating and embarrassing. But is anyone of them aware that, effective July 1, consumer prices will rise at the expense of our senior citizens, Mr. Chairman? Not satisfied with that, the government states that it will pocket the first 3 per cent in inflation. Conservative members must be very disappointed, Mr. Chairman and I can understand why they do not want me to disclose the exact content of the Budget.
But I should like to return to the subject of poor families with children. I know about the Child Tax Credit, but does my hon. friend who does not know the difference between brilliant and Brilcream realize that family allowances will be reduced by 3 per cent? But poor families will face a cut of 3 per cent as well under the child tax credit. In his budget, the poor are losing 6 per cent. Whose idea is that? And then, those people will be upset when Canadian men and women of all ages, throughout the country, describe the Prime Minister as a new-fangled Robin Hood who takes from the poor to give to the rich.
I would like to know why the Child Tax Credit has not been fully indexed, as it was under the Liberal government in 1982. Why are you going to cut, for the poorest family of all, 3 per cent of family allowances and another 3 per cent on the tax credit? It amounts to a net loss of 6 per cent.
I do hope that the aspiring minister, the Hon. Member for LaSalle (Mr. Lanthier), will give me an answer.


An Hon. Member:: He will expire.

June 19, 1985
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Jean-Claude Malépart: I do hope that the aspiring Minister will tell me who is the genius who decided to impose a 10 per cent tax on soap, which is not considered an important item, and toothpaste, shampoo, and ladies, who are listening to us, lipstick as well will be taxed. Gentlemen, you are going to pay for it.
Because this budget raises many questions, and if my time has expired, Mr. Speaker . . . Has my time expired? I am sure that all Members will be prepared to listen to me as I disclose the positive aspects of this Budget. Thus, if Hon. Members agree, I have one more point to make regarding housing.


An Hon. Member:: Right on!


Jean-Claude Malépart: My colleague-


Steve Eugene Paproski: Order! The Hon. Member's time has expired. Is the Hon. Member asking for unanimous consent?
Is there unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Some Hon. Members:: Yes.


Steve Eugene Paproski: I regret but there is no unanimous consent.
The 20 minutes allowed have expired.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Chairman, I was not going to stand and participate in this debate, and I know that Members on the other side would rather that I not say what I am going to say, but I got provoked into coming down and participating because rarely have I seen and heard such hypocrisy as I have over this amendment. Rarely have I seen and heard such hypocrisy on this particular issue.
The previous speaker said, where did the Government get this idea of deindexing up to 3 per cent. Where did they get it? Of course they got it from the Liberals. I want to tell them that the senior folks in this country watching on TV do not have short memories; they have long memories. They remember that it was the Liberal Party that brought in the six and five program, the program that started the whole deindexation process. In fact, the Liberals deindexed to six and five when the inflation rate was up around 11 per cent. A whole 5 per cent was taken from seniors' pensions because inflation could not be controlled. The Liberal Government had to fight the deficit on the backs of the seniors.
Now these sheep in sheep's clothing have come to power and they are pretending that they are the greatest defenders of old age pensioners. I am sure they also remember, as the senior folks who are watching tonight will remember, that the only reason we got indexation of old age pensions, family allowances and personal income taxes was because there was a
minority Government which needed the support of the NDP. In 1972 to 1974, the Government was brought dragging and screaming into the 20th century with indexed pensions. Have they forgotten that? I doubt that the senior folk who are watching today have forgotten that. I have never before heard from more "hypo-Grits" than I have in the last few weeks.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John R. Rodriguez: Now Liberal Members are acting like the pot calling the kettle black. On the other side there is a group of Members who got elected under false pretences. Others have used harsher language in describing them. I am just putting before the people of Canada the facts as they exist.
There is no doubt that during the election campaign the Prime Minister promised that he would restore full indexation to pensions, and said that the social programs of this country were a sacred trust not to be tampered with. Then the heat was put on when the Government wanted to break up universality, something which it fought against when the previous Government talked about attacking universality. In fact, at that time, Monique Begin had to practically threaten to resign before the Liberals backed off.
Back in November the Prime Minister said that any savings from social programs would never be applied to the deficit. Then we heard a statement from the Minister of National Health and Welfare who promised that no moves would be made to tamper with the old age pension program. We need only listen to what government Members say and then transpose that to what they actually do.
It is not for me to call government Members names. It is not for me to say that they have been uttering terminological inexactitudes. They have been condemned by their own actions as compared to their own promises.
What is a promise? What is a commitment? Is it any wonder that young people across the country think so poorly of politicians? Is it any wonder that the credibility of politicians has been undermined by the actions of so-called responsible individuals who have presented themselves before Parliament? How can they break trust on such fundamental promises as those that were made during the election campaign?
I have received letters from groups representing senior citizens and I want to read some of them for the record. The senior citizens of the community of Skead wrote me a letter, a copy of which was sent to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance. The letter reads as follows:
Honourable Sir,
The motion passed at an Emergency Meeting of the Skead Senior Citizens Club is quite plain. The "Seniors" would like to make it clear that our time of restraint has been a continuous one, having experienced the rationing of World War I, the depression years and the lean times to bring World War II to an end and the present depression. The budget has hit the wrong end of the spectrum in its projected fairness.
Seniors, although well trained in restraint, rationing have an understanding of your problems, but feel that their share in this regard has been fulfilled.
An early move to delete this part of the budget would be just and fair.

We of the Skead Senior Citizens Club are pleased to be able to present their views to you, Sir, and feel that our position is well founded.
Yours truly,
Steve Popowich
President Skead Senior Citizens Club 2 Silver Birch Cr,
Skead, Ontario POM 2Y0
How could the Government betray the trust that these people put in it? How could it betray the trust of those who have helped to build and make this country the great country it is? There are people in this country who, when they worked, had no pension plan. The great free enterprise system never saw fit to supply pension plans, so many of those workers who are retired today live strictly on the old age pension.


John Horton McDermid: That's why we have the supplement.


John R. Rodriguez: They have to apply for the supplement. They have to bare their souls to a Department of bureaucrats. Is this the thanks they get? The Parliamentary Secretary said that they get the supplement. Is that not fine? They can get the supplement. That's the thanks that this Conservative Government is prepared to extend to those who have made their contribution toward building this country. The Parliamentary Secretary can just sit there and make snide remarks.
I have another letter here and it is from the President of the United INCO Pensioners. The letter is addressed to the Prime Minister and reads as follows:
The many thousands of pensioners, their spouses and widows in our region were shocked on learning of government plans to de-index their pensions. We deplore the unprecedented action of government in gouging the elderly after promising before the election they would not do so.
The recent consultation paper on Child & Elderly Benefits states, "In the government's view no change is required in the Old Age Security/Guaranteed Income Supplement payments system". This statement has led pensioners to believe their status quo would be retained while the deficit would be taken care of by reducing unnecessary spending in so many other areas.
In view of the above we feel justified in demanding that election promises be kept, the Consultation Paper be adhered to and most importantly, that all plans to reduce indexing of pension payments be cancelled now.
Yours Very Truly
Stan Racicot, President United Inco Pensioners,
P.O. Box 1115 Copper Cliff, Ontario POM 1N0
The Government prided itself on consultation. It said that it would consult and seek consensus. None of these pensioners' groups were consulted with respect to something that was so fundamental to their wellbeing and standard of living as the deindexation of old age pensions.
The Government talks about consultation. However, it implements a change and is now creating a great furore across the country. Over the last couple of months, senior citizens have had to organize themselves, travel to Ottawa, and put themselves through a great deal of stress, when at this stage in their lives we should not be putting them through all that. And
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the Government has the gall to say that it will monitor. Monitor what?
I know that Friday is coming. On Friday I would not be at all surprised if the Minister of Finance stood in the House, when the press have all gone to bed for the weekend, and announced that the Government will not proceed with the change. I would not be surprised if that is the strategy. If it is the strategy of the Government, then I think it should do it. It should stick to the plan and do it this Friday.
I think it is extremely cruel what this Government is doing to senior folk. In their retirement years they should be sitting back and enjoying the rest of their lives. They should not have to live for the next three or four months with this sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. That is not the Canadian way.
We were very critical of the arrogance of Pierre Elliot Trudeau and his Liberal Government. Quite rightly so. A more arrogant Government one never saw. Now we have got the son of the Trudeau Government. Trudeau II lives and breathes! It is sitting over there. The arrogance of that Government! What was announced in the Budget is really not a budget item. Night is day; winter is summer. It is the old double-speak. 1984 has come and gone.


Mr. Belsher:: Where would you have announced it?


John R. Rodriguez: Where would I have announced what? We in this Party would not have announced any deindexation of old age pensions.
The other anomaly at which senior citizens are looking is not only that their pensions have been deindexed, but they are also being told that they must again make a sacrifice so that their grandchildren can get jobs and the Government can bring down the deficit. That in itself is questionable. However, those people are reading, hearing and seeing that wealthy Canadians are being allowed better breaks. I am speaking specifically of the capital gains exemption.
Canada now has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the industrialized western world which does not tax capital gains. Even the people in the Department of Finance argued against that move. On budget night I was watching the stockbrokers on Bay Street. When it was announced that up to half a million dollars of capital gains would not be taxed, they all threw their paper and pencils in the air. One shouted: "Happy days are here again!" Of course happy days are here again. The Budget is a rich man's budget. Senior citizens in the country have quickly recognized that what the Government is taking from them by deindexation it is putting into the pockets of the wealthy. It is highway robbery. The Government should be charged with grand larceny. It is theft.
To rub salt into the wounds, we have this unbelievable mistiming by the Minister of Finance. It was not bad enough that he deindexed old age pensions, he started travelling the country to defend the Budget. Some of the most incredible

June 19, 1985
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statements came from the Minister of Finance. In Montreal he said that the problem in Canada is that it has too few rich people. The problem is not that we have too few rich people, it is that we have too many poor people. That is the problem. It has been reported that his comment of having too few rich people created a lot of "suppressed guffaws". The Minister of Finance said:
But that brings us face to face with another one of those sobering realities ... No matter how we define the term, Canada has an acute shortage of rich people.
I think we have a surfeit of Tories, not a shortage of rich people.
While the Government was constructing the Budget, it held the national economic conference in Ottawa. That conference was to be part of the consultation process. At no point in that process did the question of the deindexation of pensions arise. At no point did the Government raise the question. There was no proper consultation process. The Government decided that it needed $1.6 billion from senior citizens, so it cut their pensions by 3 per cent.
Mr. Chairman, I see you are giving me the signal that my time has expired.


Some Hon. Members:: No, continue.


John R. Rodriguez: My colleagues on my right said that I should continue. I would only continue if 1 had the unanimous consent of the House.


John Horton McDermid: I am sorry, I cannot give that.


John R. Rodriguez: That does not surprise me.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Order, please. The Hon. Member asked for unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Steve Eugene Paproski: After a great deal of deliberation, there is not unanimous consent.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Chairman, I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on Bill C-51. I am interested in finding out exactly why the Government will not back down on the issue of senior citizens' pensions. Surely the Government has heard enough arguments. Hundreds of senior citizens visited Parliament Hill today calling for this scurrilous tax to be removed. The Government is not satisfied simply to increase the tax on low and middle-income families, it wants to put more people below the poverty line. Some 750,000 people will be placed below the poverty line over the next five years.
The Tories are determined to tax low-income people, to cut down on the indexation of their old age pensions. They are tearing apart the very social fabric of our country by increasing the exemptions for high income groups and increasing the
taxes for low income groups. That has to be the most treacherous act which has ever been perpetrated on the Canadian people. It is not only politically stupid-with which I am sure every single back-bencher will agree-but it has to be a political disaster. The counterpart of the Hon. Member for Brampton-Georgetown was roundly defeated by some 5,000 votes in the last Provincial election and if the Government hangs a few hookers, or whatever, around the necks of these Tory back-benchers, he will lose by 5,000 votes in the next election.


John Horton McDermid: Are you referring to my constituents as "hookers"?


Maurice Brydon Foster: No, I am talking about this Budget as being a millstone around your neck. If you want, you can call it a "hooker", but I can tell you that the senior citizens out in the lawn today were calling it worse than that. 1 don't know if there is anyone else other than the Prime Minister who makes any decisions, but if the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance hangs this millstone around the necks of Hon. Members opposite for the summer, the Hon. Member for Brampton-Georgetown will be facing as damaging an election situation in Brampton-Georgetown in three years as his counterpart faced in this last election.
The Premier of Ontario in 1981 was elected, I believe, by
15,000	votes. In this election, the Tory candidate, the chosen, the anointed one in that riding, lost by some 5,000 votes. It is rather interesting to note that every one of the seats which were held by former Tory premiers in Ontario, whether in Lindsay-or in London are now represented by a Liberal. I am just trying to point out, Madam Chairman, to the Tory back-benchers that they are facing incredible political problems.


Paul Wyatt Dick: What has that to do with the borrowing authority?


Maurice Brydon Foster: It is not only politically stupid, but I think the Government has totally lost its credibility with this Budget. It is typical Tory gall to impose a loss of some $400 or $500 on the average middle or low-income family and at the same time give high-income families, those earning over $50,000, relief from capital gains.


John Horton McDermid: You asked for that.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


The Acting Chairman (Mrs. Martin):: Order.


John Horton McDermid: You asked for that.


Mr. Prud'homme:: Madam Chairman, 1 rise on a point of order. First, I would like to congratulate you for being our Chairman tonight.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
June 19, 1985


George Albert Proud: I am sure Hon. Members on both sides of the House will give a chance to the Hon. Member to speak. I cannot hear what he is saying at all. I think we should show more discretion. I am sure you, Madam Chairman, would like to rule very firmly the first time you occupy that very dignified position.


Shirley Martin: I was attempting to call the House to order. I think that is a very good point. Would Hon. Members please be quiet so we can hear the speaker?


Maurice Brydon Foster: I was just pointing out to Hon. Members opposite, who are really getting nervous, that they all went into that caucus meeting last weekend with high expectations, and then Monday morning they came out with long faces because the Prime Minister said, "Boys, we're going to hang tough". And all those Hon. Members, including the Hon. Member for Brampton-Georgetown, got the word that they were going to hang tough and they said, "Oh, brother. Last summer was a hot summer but it will be hotter this summer if we have to defend that deindexation of the old age pension". I just think. Madam Chairman, that we have a Tory Party which is very concerned.
It is incredible that by this Budget the Government will take away up to $1500 from a senior citizen couple over the next four years while exempting $500,000 capital gains from tax. It is not just keeping the promise it made to farmers because of the real problem in transferring family farms, and so on, it is giving to all of the friends of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and the President of the Treasury Board on Bay Street and St. James Street.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Jean Chretien works on Bay Street, doesn't he?


Maurice Brydon Foster: Those are the guys who own condos in Florida. They've got all kinds of capital gains sitting around and all they have to do is cash them in and take their $125,000, at the same time preying on the senior citizens of this country who were out in front of this place today calling upon the Prime Minister to keep his promise.
I have hundreds of signatures calling on the Government to back down on the deindexation of the old age pension. We are seeing the true blue colours of the Minister of Finance, and I am told he is blue right down to his underwear. His Budget takes away from the old age pension by deindexation year after year, grinding the pensioners down each year. That is why the senior citizens are upset and why they are sending hundreds of petitions to Hon. Members on this side of the House. They are also sending them to the other side of the House. There have been a couple of Hon. Members over there who rose and said they did not support this deindexation. The Hon. Member for Western Arctic the other day presented a petition calling upon the Government to back down.
The Government really has no credibility, because it is not only preying on the senior citizens of this country but is preying on the low-income families with very little means. I have an article here from Macleans magazine of just last
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week. Maclean's magazine called upon a very reputable company to do an examination of the impact of the Budget. It is a very objective neutral analysis by Clarkson Gordon Company of the impact on a working family with three children. The husband is a lawyer who earns $20,000 a year. The spouse is a nurse who earns $18,000 a year. Clarkson Gordon said this family will have imposed on it an income tax increase of some $205 a year. This is a family renting a house and driving a 1973 automobile. The parents are both professional people in the middle income area.


John Horton McDermid: A lawyer making $20,000. 1 sure would not go to that lawyer if that is all he is making.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Unless the Tories are earning $100,000 of $150,000 a year, where they can take advantage of a $500,000 tax-free capital gain, they do not want to talk to them.


John Horton McDermid: That from a doctor of veterinarian medicine, and you know how much they make.


Maurice Brydon Foster: The Hon. Member is going to find out that these people vote and they will all be voting in 1988.
It was a brilliant move by the Minister of Finance, Mr. Speaker. He held off imposing the 9 cent a gallon gasoline tax until the tourist season was over, but where was the Minister of Agriculture? In September, when this tax goes into effect, we are just getting into the heavy part of the harvest. Do you know what they call that tax, which farmers are not exempt from, out west? They call it the Tory harvest tax. That is the way this Government works. The Minister of Finance made a big thing of taking the excise tax off of gasoline for farmers last fall, but he did not say anything about putting it back on.


John Horton McDermid: Whatever you had for dinner, I want some.


Maurice Brydon Foster: A lot of the focus has been on the deindexation of old age pensions, and rightly so, because these people do not have much opportunity to earn extra money. But clearly the people in the middle and low income tax brackets are really being hurt by this Budget. I predict that by the time the crescendo of this Budget really hits, by mid-summer or fall, we will be hearing just as loud a scream from those people as we are hearing from the senior citizens.
Then we have the deindexation of personal income tax exemptions, which adds an extra $95 of taxes to this working family I have been talking about. These things are adding up one another, and not just for one year. The deindexation of the personal tax exemption increases year after year. If we look at the modification to the indexation of personal income tax rates we see it is only $80 million this fiscal year, although that is a lot of money. But in 1990 it is $4.36 billion. We can see that the screams of the low and middle income families are going to get louder and louder.
The estimate of what it will cost this particular family as a result of the tax increases on things such as cigarettes, pet foods and other items is $100. The Minister of Finance

June 19, 1985
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thought he was being cute. There were a few taxes which apply right away, then there are taxes which will apply July 1, September 1 and January 1. But people are not stupid. They know what he is doing. All we have to do is pick up Maclean's Magazine of June 3 to see what the average family will pay as a result of this Budget. As we see here, this Budget will mean $970 in increased taxes in the first calendar year.
It is a vicious Budget, Mr. Chairman, one that typifies our Prime Minister. He does not care about the poor and middle income or the old age pensioners. He cares about his rich friends on Bay Street. He is looking after them and the big multinational oil companies. I really think he should be ashamed of himself and back off on this move as soon as possible.
[ Translation]


Steve Eugene Paproski: The Hon. Member for Outremont, I believe.


Some Hon. Members:: No, no, no!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mrs. Pepin:: Today hundreds of elderly people-


An Hon. Member:: Thousands!


Lucie Pépin: -came here to voice their opposition to the deindexation of old age security pensions. Their point of view is as logical as it is evident. Why should the Government give a gift to the wealthiest people in our society through a $500,000 capital gains tax exemption, whereas senior citizens will see their purchasing power decrease year after year? Within five years each senior citizen will lose $1,800 in pension benefits, leaving $4.5 billion more in the federal treasury. Meanwhile the surtax on corporations and individuals who earn more than $40,000 a year will last only 18 months. Mr. Chairman, the Mulroney Government expects sacrifices from the generation of Canadians who lived through the crisis of the 30s and World War II, who raised large families and were on the labour market when there were no retirement plans. It is unacceptable! The principles of social justice from which the Mulroney Government draws inspiration are warped.
The Progressive Conservative Party is forcing the elderly to live through a nightmare and its Members ought to be ashamed. Most Canadian men and women have lost faith in the Government because of the way it treats senior citizens. They are worried, and rightly so.
Mr. Chairman, they are also worried about unemployment. Newspaper headlines were rather eloquent on that issue after the Budget presentation. One could read: "Wilson Budget Hard on Individuals, Soft on Businesses", Minister of Finance Slashes and Hits", "Middle-class Bears Budget Brunt", "Less State and More Taxes", "Wilson Cozies up to Oil and Gas Companies".
"Jobs, jobs, jobs" cry becomes "tax, tax, tax".

What is particularly insidious about this Budget is the somewhat sneaky way in which an increased tax burden is added to low- and middle-income Canadians. The deindexation of social programs will not be felt immediately, but from year to year, low-income groups will lose more and more of their purchasing power.
Last week, in answer to a question about what senior citizens would think of this drop in their purchasing power, which is already not very large, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) stated that senior citizens realized that their grandchildren should not be asked to shoulder the deficit alone. Unfortunately, that answer goes to prove that a Progressive Conservative Government is unaware that older people who live on government benefits often find themselves below the poverty line.
On the subject of poverty, I would like to deal briefly with employment and women. It should be noted that staff cuts in the Public Service will affect mostly the lower salary levels, namely women. With respect to on-the-job training, the Progressive Conservative Government had pledged to support the introduction of effective programs to help women prepare for technological change and new careers. During the election campaign last summer, a combination of tax incentives and grants was considered among other things for that purpose. Now, the Progressive Conservative Government is going to cut back training programs by $78 million this year. This means that about one sixth of the spending cuts of the Progressive Conservative Government will be at the expense of working men and women who need to improve their skills. There is nothing in the Budget to help women face the technological change. Since the Progressive Conservative Government is eager to reduce the Government's involvement in the economy and hand it over to the open market, women will have to fall back on their own resources to adapt to technological change.
With respect to equal employment, the Human Rights Commission had been entrusted with the necessary enforcement measures. Now, with the real cuts in departmental budgets, that is with deindexation, it is more doubtful than ever if the Commission will ever dispose of enough human and financial resources to perform its role, and this, Mr. Speaker, does not include the cuts to be brought in by Mr. Nielsen's group as of September and February next. Employment equity, to say the least, does not seem to be a priority for the Progressive Conservative government, which greatly concerns me for the future.
In this Budget, the Progressive Conservative government has completely ignored part-time workers men and women. Thirty per cent of them would rather hold a full time job. The
June 19, 1985

occurrence of poverty in families where the head of the household works part time is five times greater than in those where the bread-winner works full time. When we consider that 72 p. 100 of part-time workers are women, their anger is easy to understand. It shows total lacks of interest on the part of the Prime Minister towards the specific problems women are up against, in the labour market. Because of a complete lack of strategy on the part of the Government with regard to the labour market, women holding part-time jobs will still have to face a series of problems that seem insignificant to hon. Members opposite, for instance lack of access to social benefits and pensions, a low rate of pay, a high number of women in ghettos, a minimal number of unionized workers, a lack of opportunities for promotion or retraining, no security of employment and inadequate day-care services.
Mr. Chairman, with regard to the impact of the Budget on immigration, two things should be remebered, the de-indexation of department funds will mean gradual reduction in the amounts allocated to the immigration program. That was to be expected on the basis of the estimates. The Consultative Council on the Status of Refugees appropriations remain the same, however the funds allocated to the Immigration Appeal Board have been reduced by $2.5 million, inflation factor included. Today, the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Miss MacDonald) introduced a special bill to increase the number of members on the Immigration Appeal Board from 16 to 50. I hope that I will have an opportunity to discuss this bill and explain that the new procedure of reducing the quorum from three to one is unacceptable for refugees.
We have yet to see which changes the government intends to make in the way refugee status is granted. The fact that the immigration program budget will be reduced in real terms is not a good omen, especially since the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration is considering a raise in the immigration level from 90,000 to 200,000 this year. It would seem ridiculous to cut services for immigrants when we are planning to double their number.
The first victims of those cuts will be the immigrants themselves. But in the long run, all Canadian men and women will suffer from this conservative immigration policy. Without the benefit of those services, immigrants will be more vulnerable to economic vagaries and they will be more dependent on welfare and unemployment insurance.
I referred earlier to the bet taken up by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) concerning employment as related to immigration. The Conservative Government is taking up another bet, i.e. to offer quality services to immigrants by having them provided by humanitarian organizations and this of course without granting the latter any funds.
That tallies with the Progressive Conservative Government's philosophy: privatize some activities and commit others to outside organizations. Already the lease the Government had signed with the Avion Hotel in Toronto for people claiming
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refugee status has been brought to an end. The Government expects charitable organizations to provide services to immigrants. When we know that in times of economic recession those organizations have to cope with reduced funds, we realize that the Progressive Conservative Government intends to have the quality of services to immigrants subjected to economic circumstances. It is a mean thing to do, to say the least. This is another way to penalize the neediest for the sake of deficit reduction.
In concluding, Mr. Chairman, I want to point out that whenever budget cuts are being dealt with, the Progressive Conservative Government equates them with increased government efficiency. For instance, the Government will state that in order to improve the efficiency of its manpower adjustment programs, it has decided in 1985-86 to cut by $78 million the funds allotted for General Industrial Training and for Critical Trade Skills Training. However, management efficiency has no relation whatsoever with the decrease or increase in program costs. A better management efficiency simply means a different work organization, or improved working methods.
So I call upon the Government to tell Canadian men and women about its new magical management methods for improving government efficiency with less money. If they do not tell them, people will simply fear, and rightly so, a reduction of services combined with a reduction of costs.


Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to be recognized to take part once more in this debate. I know that our colleagues opposite have not had much to say yet today.


An Hon. Member:: They are quiet people!


Jean-C. Lapierre: As the Hon. Member says, they are quiet people.
Mr. Chairman, I have just been made aware of another serious repercussion of the Budget. My colleague from Mont-real-Ste Marie (Mr. Malepart) has just told me that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has announced today that it would eliminate 16 jobs at its regional office in Sherbrooke. I have just been told that in Trois-Rivieres, 10 jobs . .. and in Laval they will make the decision for the Trois-Rivieres area.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lanthier) has been trying since this morning to have us believe that the Budget is just and fair. I wonder how the Hon. Member can say something like that. Is it fair that remote areas should be faced with administrative decisions taken in Longueuil or in Laval because of unilateral action by this Government.

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John Horton McDermid: Tell them about complaining to me about deindexing the Members' pensions, like you were the other day. Tell them about that.
t Translation]


M. Lapierre:: Mr. Chairman, I am . . . The Hon. Member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid) says: Just like they did with the provinces. He has the audacity to say that now, when they have announced a $2 billion cut in transfer payments to the provinces. What does that mean, Mr. Chairman? It means access to universities will be limited to children of the rich. Even access to medical care will be reduced ... We know this is part of the Hon. Member's philosophy, we know that access to medical care could hinge on the ability to pay user fees.
The Hon. Member for Brampton-Georgetown is trying to be cheap, something which is natural to him. But I can tell him that I am willing to make a number of sacrifices rather than ask my grandparents to make any. I am not willing to let my grandmother-


Steve Eugene Paproski: Order.


Mr. Cook:: Mr. Chairman, I rise on a point of order. I have listened to speeches that bore little relevance to a borrowing bill and the fact that the Official Opposition wants to cut it by 3 per cent. I have heard the beginning of a third speech which has no relevance to this at all. I respectfully submit to the Chair that the Chair pay attention and enforce the rule of relevancy in this debate.


George Albert Proud: Mr. Chairman, I rise on the same point of order. Knowing the Chief Government Whip, I am absolutely sure that what he just said when he asked the Chair to pay attention was not exactly what he wanted to say. I have been watching the Chair since the beginning and the Chair has been very much following the debate. It is very difficult for the Chair to render judgments on everything that is going on.
I am positive that no one would argument that the Chief Government Whip wanted to say that the Chair was not paying attention to the debate. It is absolutely impossible.


Steve Eugene Paproski: The Hon. Member for North Vancouver-Burnaby, I presume on the same point of order.


Charles Henry (Chuck) Cook: Mr. Chairman, I will accept what the Hon. Member said. I did not mean to state that perhaps you were not paying attention. Obviously I would not attempt to embarrass the Chair in any way, nor do I intend to. However, I would suggest that perhaps a little more relevance might be in order in this debate. I have yet to see it and I would like to see it.


Steve Eugene Paproski: For the benefit of all Members, I would like to remind Members what the debate is about. We are on an amendment suggested by the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate that Clause 2 of Bill C-51 be
amended by deleting the words "Eighteen billion, two hundred million" and substituting therefore the words "seventeen billion, six hundred, fifty-four million". The debate is on the amendment.
[ Translation]


Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Chairman, that is precisely the point 1 was making but if the Hon. Member fails to recognize that those $18.2 billion are part of transfer payments to the provinces, if he does not pay enough attention to what is being said in this place to realize that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation falls under government's jurisdiction, I cannot accept his judgment.
Mr. Chairman, I would ask you to excuse the Hon. Member since I referred only to the main elements of those $18.2 billion and to the amendment. Why do we want to cut the government borrowing authority by 3 per cent? Because it has been so insensitive to the plea of older people that it did not realize what a 3 per cent reduction meant for them. So, we thought we could make the government aware of the importance of such a reduction if it had itself to do with revenues cut by 3 per cent until the end of the year. The amendment would force the government to reflect on the situation older people will go through once they have paid their housing, food and other bills. I hope the Hon. Member will think about it before he goes to bed tonight, that he will reflect upon the impact of a 3 per cent cut for a widow or an older citizen who lives in an apartment or a home with only $27 left for personal expenses at the end of the month. If the Hon. Member finds such action too complicated, I suggest he speak to his neighbours who live on old age pension and he will know what a 3 per cent cut means.
Unfortunately, the Hon. Member is the living example of the government opposite, Mr. Chairman. They do not know what a 3 per cent reduction means for some people when it is often the difference between luxury and basic essentials. I know a lady from Baie-Comeau who told me that she had to travel by taxi to Haute-Rive twice a month at $12 a trip. That means she has to pay $24 each month to get medical care and if the government goes ahead with this bill, she might be forced to cancel her treatment. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will feel responsible every time an older person goes to the grocery store to buy the cheapest stale bread because it never occurred to him that his own parents could have lived through that sort of hardship. If that is his way of showing his appreciation for the work of our seniors, Mr. Speaker, I will not have it. I do not accept that our senior citizens, who have built this country, be treated in such a way, and if the Government hopes to convince Members from this side of the House to cut the income of senior citizens, and to make us believe this is right, it is mistaken. Senior citizens and average Canadians will not accept that.


An Hon. Member:: They should!
June 19, 1985


Jean-C. Lapierre: The Hon. Member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid), instead of talking while seated, should at times stand up for the poor people in his riding, rather than protect only the rich! I want to tell the Hon. Member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid) that if he has no compassion for the poor, I think it is selfish and unacceptable and I hope his colleagues-


Steve Eugene Paproski: Order! The Hon. Member for Bonaventure-iles-de-la-Madeleine (Mr. Gray) on a point of order.


Mr. Gray (Bonaventure-Iles-de-la-Madeleine):: Mr. Chairman, 1 rise on a point of order. I want to say, in conjunction with my colleague's point of order, that if we are going to talk about the borrowing Bill perhaps the supposed Official Oppo-
Borrowing Authority Act
sition would say how many tax dollars it is costing us to have this shenanigan in the House this evening, and perhaps they could explain to the people that we want to get on with the business of the Government. They should recognize that.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Steve Eugene Paproski: Order. After great deliberation, the Chair has come to the conclusion that it is nine o'clock. Shall I rise, report progress and request leave to sit again at the next sitting of the House?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Progress reported.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: It being nine o'clock, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at eleven o'clock a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 9.02 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Thursday, June 20, 1985