1985-11-28

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, November 27, consideration of the motion of Mrs. McDougall, (for the Minister of Finance), that Bill C-84, an Act to amend the Income Tax Act and related statutes and to amend the Canada Pension Plan, the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, the Financial Administration Act and the Petroleum and Gas Revenue Tax Act, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Mr. Speaker:: At the time of adjournment last night there were six minutes remaining in the question and comment period following the speech of the Hon. Member for York East (Mr Redway). The Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart) had the floor and had finished a comment. Therefore, I recognize the Hon. Member for York East in response.


Mr. Redway:: Mr. Speaker, at yesterday's adjournment the Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart) had put to me two questions, one concerning the deficit and one concerning the possible reduction in social expenditures. 1 would like to start off by commenting with respect to his question concerning the deficit.
He raised a number of issues with respect to the deficit, including the banks, the remission of taxes for Dome, the question of uniforms for the Armed Forces, the question of additional funds for our NATO forces in Europe, and the question of the Olympia & York-Gulf Oil transaction. The Opposition cannot have it both ways on the question of the deficit, but unfortunately it seems to want to have it both ways. Concerning the bank situation, the Hon. Member is aware that not only were there funds from large corporations and banks in the CCB and Northland Banks, but there were also millions and millions of dollars on deposit from pension funds such as the Canadian National Railways pension fund and the Air Canada pension fund. Money belonging to credit unions, charities and trade unions, with which the Hon. Member has been associated in the past, were and are also on deposit in the two banks concerned. Had the Government
failed to come to the assistance of these depositors we would have heard from the Hon. Member and his associates a great clamour that the Government was completely unsympathetic and lacking in compassion, that it was abandoning poor depositors and pensioners and workers who had their life savings tied up in these banks. It is in this respect that the Opposition has been trying to have it both ways.
As far as the question of uniforms is concerned, the uniforms of the Armed Forces have to be replaced in any event, so it is clear that there would be expenditures in this regard one way or another as long as we have Armed Forces. Sometimes one wonders if the Opposition, when it was the Government, wanted to have any Armed Forces at all in this country. So far as the additional expenditures on our forces in NATO are concerned, that of course is in connection with an international commitment which Canada made to the other NATO countries. This Government has been living up to that when the former Government did not.
As far as the question of tax remissions is concerned, that of course was done in conjunction with commitments made by the Hon. Member's Party when it was the Government of this country. As far as any interpretation of the Income Tax Act in connection with the Reichmann and Gulf deal is concerned, that, too, is as a result of the laws with respect to the Income Tax Act which were put in place by the former Government.
In all of these cases it seems to me that the Opposition is trying to have it both ways. It is trying to blame the Government for all of these things, but if the Government had taken exactly the opposite position, the Opposition would still be blaming the Government, only for different reasons. We would still be hearing long and loud complaints.
With regard to the issue of income support for families, the Hon. Member is well aware that the combination of these amendments to the Income Tax Act and the amendments which were made to the Family Allowances Act is increasing benefits for lower income families and decreasing benefits for higher income families.
With regard to over-all expenditures, the Hon. Member is well aware that total expenditures in the social spending envelope for family allowances, child tax credits, pensions, the Guaranteed Income Supplement and spouse's allowances is going up and will continue to go up. In fact, more money is being spent this year than has been spent in the past in the social spending envelope and that trend will continue.
The Hon. Member is well aware that since the Government took office in September of 1984 the programs in this area have been increased. In fact, we introduced the spouse's allow-
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ance. My friend was very critical of the spouse's allowance because it did not go far enough. He cannot have it both ways, Mr. Speaker. The Government is acting responsibly in light of the Budget to help lower income families in the country and to ensure that our income tax laws are fairer for all.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will allow the Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart) to make a short reply.
[ Translation]


Mr. Malepart:: Just a short question, Mr. Speaker. The Hon. Member says we cannot have it both ways, but neither can he. He referred to legislation that allowed the Reichmann brothers to have their $800 million, but it was his Government that promised changes would be made. Why does it respect a previous commitment by the Liberals which gives the rich .. . and why does it ignore legislation passed by the Liberals that gave poor and low and middle income families .. .
1 think the Hon. Member will have to admit there is a contradiction here. And what about our commitments to NATO? This Government made commitments to Canadians, and it would have been better if the Government had met those commitments first, and then, when the economy improves, consider meeting its commitments to NATO.


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member well knows, that is exactly what the Bill is doing. It is helping lower income Canadians.


Mr. Gauthier:: I have a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order. The Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) on a point of order.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, 1 do not like to intervene, but there were six minutes left in the Member's time for questions and comments. You told the Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart) that he could only make a short response because of the shortness of time. You cannot now allow the Member for York East (Mr. Redway) to ask other questions or make other comments.


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, in the preamble to his comments the Hon. Member indicated that he wanted to ask me a further question and I was responding to that question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order. We are starting a wonderful day here, this Thursday, November 28. I appreciate what the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier has said. We started this day with six minutes remaining in the time of the Hon. Member for questions and comments.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: It's over now.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for York East did continue a little longer than I had expected him to, but I always feel that there should be a rebuttal by the Hon. Member. 1 do not intend to allow the Hon. Member for York East to carry on. I am sure that we can now say that questions and comments are terminated. 1 will recognize the next speaker, the Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie.


Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, I must admit I am very disappointed, and 1 am sure all Members of this House who speak to this Bill have the same feeling.
This Bill follows a series of other Bills presented by the Government which clearly shows that the Budget brought down by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) is aimed at helping rich families in Canada, at reducing the incomes of middle and low income families and at doing nothing at all for the poorest families.
1 see the Minister of State for Youth (Mrs. Champagne), a Minister without portfolio, who is reacting-


Mr. Desrosiers:: More insults-


Jean-Claude Malépart: -and my hon. friend from Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (Mr. Desrosiers) who also has a few comments to make. Mr. Speaker, if they would take the trouble to look at the consequences of the proposed changes to the tax system for the child tax credit and the tax advantages provided to the rich under this legislation, they might change their tune, and rise in the House to-I am not saying to criticize the Government, I would not go that far-but to ask their Government to make certain improvements and thus truly defend the interests of their constituents.
Mr. Speaker, we remember the commitments the Prime Minister made in Quebec during the election campaign. In Sherbrooke it seems the Prime Minister made more promises he did not intend to keep than anywhere else. Remember his promise to senior citizens about de-indexation, his promise to reinstate full indexation of Old Age Security pensions. Remember what was said by the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister and all Progressive Conservative Members here in the House, when the Minister decided to de-index Old Age Security pensions. All Conservative Members in the House said it was a good decision. And remember their about-face!
1 see the Hon. Member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, who wants me to mention the fact that he disagreed with his Government on this decision, and the Hon. Member for Abiti-bi, not the one here in the House but the other one, the really good Member from that area, also stood up for the interests of senior citizens at the time, and the Prime Minister was obliged to admit he had made a very serious mistake. The words Mrs.
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Solange Denis spoke to the Prime Minister will go down in history: "You cheated us, Charlie Brown!"
Mr. Speaker, that was the first blunder by this Prime Minister and this Government.
The next attack came in another Bill related to the one now before the House. It was when the Government decided to take advantage of the illnesses of Canadians to reduce its deficit and levied a 10 per cent tax on 5,000 types of medication,
5,000	products that are not luxury items but essential to the survival of many Canadians and to help alleviate pain.
Here again, Mr. Speaker, as was the case with our senior citizens, the Liberals got to work. The Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Turner) asked his team to join patients' rights associations in putting pressure on the Government, on the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister, in the absence of such pressure or action on the part of the Progressive Conservative Members, to make the Government backtrack on this decision and at least consider . . . and withdraw its 10 per cent tax in the case of the seriously ill, those suffering from diabetes and heart or respiratory disease.
At the time we also made representations on behalf of people suffering from arthritis-related illnesses and other conditions. Mr. Speaker, all the Government Members were saying: Everybody agrees this Budget is perfect. Again they lost face when the Minister of Finance, since this time the Prime Minister was too ashamed to admit he had been wrong, the Minister of Finance,-before the House resumed sitting because he knew perfectly well what he could expect if he did not backtrack in the case of diabetics,-again admitted it was a mistake, and that unfortunately Government Members were not defending the interests of the general public. Mr. Speaker, they are entitled to defend the interests of the wealthy. It is their right. This is what they have decided to do; they have made their choice. As for us, Liberals, we have decided to defend the rights of all Canadians, as the Leader of the Official Opposition and his Liberal team have clearly shown. The Minister of Finance had to admit that he was reversing his stand on this issue also. When all the Conservative Members had stated in their newsletters that senior citizens accepted deindexation and that the sick were willing to pay a 10 per cent tax and when these mailers had been distributed in Quebec constituencies, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance suddenly backed down.
Mr. Speaker, the other Member for Abitibi has defended senior citizens. He is the one Conservative who does represent the region well and we should pay tribute to him.
As concerns the 10 per cent tax, the Prime Minister and the Government have backed down on about 20 products out of a total of 5,000. People with arthritis have to pay an additional 10 per cent in Canada. At this time of year, people have colds, and most of you here have had young children and know that
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children get frostbite. You need ointments to relieve the pain, but the Government has decided to impose a 10 per cent tax on these items. The colder it gets, the more Canadian men and women will get colds. The Government will collect 10 per cent on all cold remedies, and will then say that it is a humane government. As for me, Mr. Speaker, I say what the Canadian public as a whole thinks it is a heartless Government.
Mr. Speaker, this Bill is really the limit. It takes the cake. The concept of giving everything to the wealthy is now sanctioned. Let us look at the capital gains tax exemption. What does this mean, Mr. Speaker? We all know from experience that people who are eligible for the capital gains tax exemption already have assets and money to buy something. Obviously, the 1.5 million unemployed Canadians will not be the ones to have access to the capital gains tax exemption. Neither will the millions of senior citizens who receive the Old Age Security pension. They will be entitled to it, but they do not have the money. Low and middle income families who are entitled to the tax credit will not use the capital gains tax exemption either. This provision will help a small gang of Conservatives. Just imagine, Mr. Speaker. The Government says that this will create jobs. Nonsense! What this means is that a wealthy Canadian who bought, supposedly as a business expense which would be tax deductible, a cottage in the Eastern Townships, where the Prime Minister made his many promises and misled the population, which cottage was worth $50,000 five years ago and is now worth $100,000, now decides to retire and to sell this cottage for $100,000. He will make a substantial profit. He then takes this money, since he has retired, and buys a condominium in Florida. With the blessing of this Conservative government and thanks to taxpayers' money, Mr. Speaker, this Canadian will have saved enormous amounts to retire in Florida, and he will spend his money and create jobs in Florida, without creating a single job in Quebec and in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, if the Government had implemented this capital gains tax exemption for our farmers, or for those who sell something and buy back something else to create jobs in Canada, I would have applauded its action. It would have been a good decision. The Conservatives said: We are for freedom, we are for the freedom of businessmen; businessmen should be able to do what they want.
However, when it comes to the social programs aimed at families, namely the child tax credit and family allowances, the Government says that families are getting too much.
The Conservative Member who spoke before me said so. It is a fact that there have been cutbacks. He cannot deny it as these are the Department's own figures which were quoted in committee. It is true that an amount of $15 million has been cut from family allowances. This has been established. It is also true that, next year, the cuts will amount to $80 million and that they will have reached $140 million in 1987-88, and so on up to $1 billion, just for family allowances.

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Mr. Speaker, the small cheque that Canadian mothers receive every month is very much needed, even in well off families. The husband can be rich, but so conservative and so much the ruler of the household that he keeps all the money and goes out on his own, while his wife must make do with a very small budget and the family allowances to clothe the children. This happens in Canada, we should not be afraid to say it. We should not be ashamed of the truth.
Some say: "These people are getting too much, we should lower their benefits", or "This is not going to create employment, we should not give money to these people". It is better to give to the rich. True enough, conservatives have the right to defend the rich. It is their right. However, come the next elections, voters will remember it. 1 don't think that there is a single riding where rich people outnumber middle income Canadians, and these are the ones who will remember.
I already experienced a Government which had a tremendous majority, similar to your 211 seats. It was not long before that party moved to the other side of the House.
Mr. Speaker, let us go back to the child tax credit. Here is another initiative for the rich. The conservatives say: "We have to let them plan for a better retirement by giving them some tax breaks immediately. If we want the guy who makes $100,000 or $150,000 a year to prepare for a comfortable retirement, we have to raise the ceiling on contributions so that he can invest for his old age. Conservatives have to plan ahead, because someone who is used to live in luxury must, when he or she retires, be able to continue to afford a yatch, a cottage, trips to Florida or California, that is to say keep his or her status, to quote the Minister of State for Transport (Mrs. Blais-Grenier). For these people, status is very important, and it has to be planned for. That is why we give them more tax breaks.
Naturally, these breaks are given to everybody, but when you have to pay the rent, buy the food, educate the children, and so on, on $20,000 a year, even if the Government lets you save for your retirement, you have nothing left to save at the end of the month. Consequently, you cannot plan your retirement.
But that is nothing to worry about as far as the Conservatives are concerned. Perhaps a good many Conservative Members do not have any idea what the family income tax credit is all about, but it relates to the income of two people, say two people each earning $15,000 a year, which amounts to $30,000 all told. Anyone earning $15,000 a year is not wealthy. It has to be the employee and not the boss, and more often than not he is being exploited.
Mr. Speaker, the Government realizes that a man and his wife who each get $15,000 a year are left with $26,000 after taxes. Well, $26,000 a year is a lot of money, too much money: how can lowly workers possibly earn that much in a year? It is dangerous because they might end up having tastes similar to those of rich people.
The Liberal Government used to allow tax credits on incomes up to $26,000, but the Conservatives think it is way too much, a real scandal, so they plan to cut it down because workers might begin to behave as if they were the employer. So they reduce the limit to $23,000 a year.
The result of all this, Mr. Speaker, is that a family whose income was $26,000 last year and was entitled to the full child tax credit will now get $125 less for each child. The Conservative Government, with the unflinching support of all its members, has decided that any worker who earns $26,000 a year is rich enough. He does not have to worry about capital gains, he is not in that league. He is told the exemption is for him, but there is nothing he can do, there is no way he can save that much to plan for retirement. So there is no problem.
Mr. Speaker, that is the kind of impact this Bill will have. One has to look at it objectively and carefully. That is what we find, the consequences of the whole Conservative philosophy.
Mr. Speaker, there is another question we have to ask ourselves, and it may have to do with the misjudgement of all Governments, no matter what their political persuasion is. Is that a normal situation? Well, the Progressive Conservatives begin to panic. Obviously the Canadian Chamber of Commerce has to be in on this: it is not about to champion the cause of poor Canadians. No, Sir! Those people are paid by the rich, so they make a flat statement: Unemployment insurance is costing a bundle, Mr. Speaker, it does not make sense!
Mr. Speaker, we have to put up with the kind of Prime Minister we have-thank God, he is not my Prime Minister, I never voted for that man-a Prime Minister who has fooled the people and said in his wisdom that indeed jobless Canadians draw $162 a week in unemployment benefits, what a scandal, perhaps that is too much, let us appoint a committee. We will appoint a chairman at $1,000 a day and a few members at $500 a day each to find out whether $162 unemployment insurance benefits might not be too much.
They are prepared to pay someone $1,000 a day to study the situation, no sweat. An economist to boot, a fortune teller, no less. Well now, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Forget, the man who was appointed, may be a close friend, but it is the same thing in every field. What the Conservatives are doing is beyond the limits of common sense. Does it make any sense that somebody should be paid $1,000 a day to find out whether $162 weekly unemployment insurance benefits might be overly generous? And now they are going to push this through with their Conservative majority. Well, Mr. Speaker, we will have something to say about that. Then there will be someone to say: Why not round off the figure taking off $2-imagine the saving, $2 multiplied by so much-and come with a nice round figure of $160. That is still more than enough. Mr. Speaker, this is the kind of impact this budget has.
Let's talk about the deficit. The Hon. Member is blaming everything on us. He seems to forget that the election is over, that people do not want to hear about what happened in the
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past. Instead, they want to assess what the Conservatives are doing right now because they made so many great promises they did not keep. No wonder the Prime Minister is losing all credibility according to the opinion polls. This Government has lost all credibility. Mr. Speaker, hang in a little bit more. We still have three more years to go. We don't want to have an election right away, we would win. Patience! We want people to see the true colours of this Government.
About the deficit, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and all the Conservative members say that it's outrageous. However, the first thing they do, their first commitment, the first promise they keep, is to spend $56 million to change the colour of army uniforms. Not because soldiers needed new pants, Mr. Speaker, they had some of a different colour. It's only because the Prime Minister wanted to see the army in blue. All soldiers were already issued uniforms. What they wanted was a pay increase, Mr. Speaker, not blue pants. In Quebec, we already had the story of Vautrin's pants. Now, Mulroney will be tagged with the blue pants for the Army. This will go down in history.


Ms. Copps:: He's got no pants himself.


Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, 1 did not say "Mulroney". I said "le gouvernement "mal runne"".


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member has been here for a few years. He must realize that it is the Right Hon. Prime Minister and not Mr. "Whoever".


Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a distinction. 1 often say in French that the Government is "mal runne". It does not mean "Mulroney" but "badly run". Right. I simply wanted to make the point that in English, "mal runne" means "badly run". That is the French equivalent.
To return to the deficit, Mr. Speaker, the Government. .. Mr. Speaker, the Progressive Conservative Members are starting to wake up. It took a little time, but they are starting to wake up. There, the Hon. Member for Portneuf (Mr. Ferland) is waking up. In any case-
As 1 was saying, Mr. Speaker, the deficit is a very serious matter and the Canadian people . . . First of all, the Government spent $56 million to provide the military with uniforms of a different color.
And second, because he is a proud man, the Prime Minister had to spend $400 million more to send 1,000 more soldiers to Europe. Our soldiers are going to spend their pay in Germany. We know that there are various establishments over there where they can spend their money. So they will help strenght-en the German economy. They are certainly not going to help
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the Quebec or Canadian economy where they used to be stationed.
Again, Mr. Speaker, the Government is saying: 1 have to fulfill my commitments. But its commitments to the Canadian people, do they not count? It could have waited until the economy had improved before sending them over. There is not going to be a war tomorrow. Although the Russians and the Americans are getting along fine, we are sending 1,000 soldiers more-
As I see that my time is about to expire, Mr. Speaker, 1 will conclude on this.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The debate is over. Questions and comments. The Hon. Member for Hamilton East (Ms. Copps) has the floor.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member has made a very good speech and dealt with all the problems, but there is another phenomenon of the budget which I should like to address. A few days or weeks ago, a Deputy Minister of Finance had a private meeting with business people of the Progressive Conservative persuasion who paid $1,000 each-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Would the Hon. Member please address the Chair?


Sheila Maureen Copps: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Hon. Member if he could enlighten us about this double standard of the Government, because the Deputy Prime Minister stated yesterday in the House that he did not see anything wrong with a Deputy Minister of Finance meeting business people of the Progressive Conservative persuasion who had paid $1,000 to discuss budgetary issues, although he was not willing to meet mothers and heads of single families, nor groups of workers from Quebec. He was not willing to meet them-


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance (Mr. Vincent) rises on a point of order.


Pierre H. Vincent: Mr. Speaker, 1 do not think that the point which the Hon. Member is trying to make is in any way connected to the remarks which the Hon. Member for Mont-real-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart) has made. I therefore question its relevancy.


Sheila Maureen Copps: On this point of order, Mr. Speaker. The point of the matter is to ask-

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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Perhaps the Hon. Member for Hamilton East (Ms. Copps) will let me recognize her. I am trying to get the relevancy here myself. I would ask the Hon. Member again to address the Chair please and I would ask her to make a simple comment and then ask a simple question so that there can be time for two or three other people to ask questions.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, does the Member not believe it is an absolute double standard, absolute hypocrisy, on the part of this Government to be prepared to turn a blind eye to a Deputy Minister of Finance having a private meeting with business people of the Progessive Conservative persuasion who paid $1,000 to the Progressive Conservative Party? Why will he have a meeting with them and not have a meeting with the workers from the east end of Montreal who are losing their jobs by the thousands? Does he not believe that that is hypocrisy?


Mr. Beatty:: That is a tough and searching question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: A short reply, please.


Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, 1 think that the question is perfectly relevant, because I have established in my remarks that ... and i blame neither the Progressive Conservative Party Members nor the Prime Minister for deciding to defend the wealthy, but the demonstration was made in Montreal ... it was a meeting of privileged people who could pay $1,000 and 1 am sure that the representations which the Minister of Finance and his Deputy Minister have heard came from a group of people who are able to give $1,000 to the electoral fund of their party. However, they refuse, as they did before in the case of the budget, to meet all these Quebecers who have joined forces to fight against the Government's decision to deindex family allowances.
Once again, Mr. Speaker, the Progressive Conservative Party or rather the Prime Minister has decided, as he has every right to, to protect wealthy Canadians, and this was made clear at the Montreal meeting, but the important thing is to let the population know where the real concerns of those people lie so it can make its own judgment.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments. The Hon. Member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (Mr. Desrosiers).


Édouard Desrosiers: Mr. Speaker, I just have one comment to make about unemployment insurance for the benefit of our friend the Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart). He referred earlier to Mr. Forget who is reviewing the whole unemployment system. I think he was being unfair when he said that we were questioning the payments of a meagre $167 a month to young people.
You must know that Mr. Forget was at one time a Minister in a Quebec Liberal government. So I think you should have a little more faith in him. As you can see, we did not appoint a Conservative. We appointed in Mr. Forget a competent man, and I suggest you should have a little more faith in his work.
For your information, a preliminary inquiry was conducted last September into unemployment insurance, and Canadians who are listening will be interested to learn the results from one Montreal office out of 26. There is evidence that the Canadian Government is being cheated out of $8 million dollars a year. Facts such as those get uncovered now that Conservatives are in office. The Liberals who held power for a hundred years never did anything to protect the unfortunate who needed greater unemployment allowances. We, on the contrary, are now revising the present system so as to allow more money to the needy and prevent those cheaters from appropriating Canadian taxpayers' money.
1 have something else to tell my friend the Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie, about military uniforms, that our listeners should know. The uniforms had to be ordered anyway. Members of the army, navy or air force must get new uniforms sooner or later. Whatever the Government decided about the colour did not make any difference, because the uniforms cost the same whether they are blue, white or khaki. We have seen demagoguery in action this morning, Mr. Speaker.
Members of the Opposition were the first to criticize the success the Canadian Government had in bringing Hyundai to Quebec. They should be ashamed of themselves!


Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, I should like in the first place to comment on the three points raised by my colleague and neighbour from Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (Mr. Desrosiers). Firstly, I should like to plead the falsity of what he said. He surely tripped over something as it happens sometimes when discussing the new colour of our soldiers' pants. They were all khaki for all of them. Secondly, as far as Mr. Claude Forget is concerned, as I said, he is a personal friend, but it is the policy of all governments to pay comparable salaries whenm appointing someone to consider a special issue. Thirdly, what annoys me about my friend from Hochelaga-Maisonneuve-and this goes to show that he has become a diehard Tory-is that he finds it shameful that $8 million should be stolen from the Unemployment Insurance Commission. However, he fails to find it disgraceful when he sees the rich cheating with the income tax. When the rich are concerned, there is nothing disgraceful. But when people who are starving or are needy . .. they have to eat, and raise their families .. . those Tories, and he is one of them, have the gall to rise and say: The poor families, the young people who get only $156, it is a shame. These people have to steal to eat. Governments are to blame for that. However, when a rich man or a multinational corpo-


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ration is guilty of tax evasion, when a dealer is guilty of false advertising, nothing is said. The Tories remain silent.


Mr. Boudria:: Mr. Speaker, I would also like to make a short comment and put a question to my colleague. Firstly, 1 would like to congratulate him for his excellent speech today. I would also like to ask him whether he is aware that the Tory Government spent public funds twice since last week, at least that is what we have been told. Firstly, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) spent money asking the Canadian people what he was supposed to do as Minister of Finance and, secondly, the Government also asked-at a cost of $50,000-about Crest toothpaste. Does the Hon. Member think that this is the way the Tory Government should spend public funds?


Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, my colleague clearly indicates once again how stupidly the Government spends public funds. Whether the Conservative Party or the Liberal Party is in power, it is still money contributed by the taxpayers.
There is another matter which my colleague should remember. It cost the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) $1,000 per minute to ask Canadians to do the opposite and to have his picture on television.
Moreover, Mr. Speaker, we should not forget the $1 billion spent to save rich people when banks we know about went bankrupt. Those who had invested $60,000 and over in those banks were aware of the rules. And when we are told: Well, there were companies and pension funds .. . However, the Caisse de depots et placements had purchased some shares with funds belonging to Quebec pensioners. The Conservative Members do not care about that and these pensioners will not get their money back.
I note that the time allotted to me has come to an end, Mr. Speaker. This only shows that the Tory Members are looking after the rich people, and they have the right to do so. However, we are going to defend the interests of all low and medium income earners.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The period for questions and comments is now terminated. We shall resume debate.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, if Canadians want to know what the Government of Canada proposes to do for them in the way of providing necessary services, they have to look at the Estimates tabled by the Government. If they want to see how the Government proposes to raise the money to pay for these services, they will have to look at the various tax which the Government imposes such as income taxes, corporation taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, and so on. We have seen for the past 25 or more years a desire, first on the part of Liberal Governments and now on that of the Conservative Government, to change the system we had in the 1940s and 1950s in which corporation taxes provided about the same amount of revenue to the Government as did person-
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al income taxes. The percentage which corporations pay now, as compared to the percentage paid on personal income tax, is very small and I will put some figures on the record in a few moments. Changes in our Income Tax Act have permitted a very substantial number of individual Canadians and corporations in the highest income brackets to pay less and less and, in thousands of cases, no income tax at all.
it is not surprising that when groups and individuals look at the proposals contained in the Budget Speech last May by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), they react from their own point of view. So does the Canadian Chamber of Commerce which represents most large business organizations. It is on the whole very favourably impressed with the proposals made by the Minister of Finance. In fact, its criticism of the Minister's proposals is that they do not go far enough. The Chamber of Commerce has called for a major assault on budget deficits, and reducing the budget deficit is one of the major concerns of this Conservative Government of ours. The Chamber of Commerce said that the federal Government must launch a major assault on budget deficits and do so now or the Canadian economy will fall short of realizing its potential. Then the brief listed several options for government spending cuts-putting the review of social programs back on the front burner, including consideration of greater selectivity in income support programs; implementing savings identified by the Nielsen task force; a renewed commitment to privatizing Crown corporations and selling other Crown assets; and an end to bail-outs of private corporations.
They talk about the bail-out of private corporations. They certainly do not talk about the tremendous tax breaks given to corporations, some of which I will put on the record in a few moments.
On the other hand, there was another reaction in the same week. In a press release issued on November 27 by the Canadian Health Coalition, an organization which represents more than 2.5 million Canadians, including representatives of health, education, co-operative groups, churches, consumers, senior citizens, women, social development, agricultural and environmental groups, a contrary view of the Budget expressed about the proposal of the Minister of Finance to cut $2 billion in federal-provincial transfer payments. It indicated that cutbacks in funding to the provinces through a renegotiation of the Established Programs Financing Act were also proposed by the Minister of Finance, and that federal funding cut-backs would allow the provincial Governments to undermine the continued viability of their medicare plans and post-secondary education. Also it argued that we should not allow these cuts to occur and went on to point out that federal funding in recent years had decreased as a percentage of total health care spending.
I have illustrated two different and opposing approaches to the Budget. The Government has continued the policies, followed by the former Liberal Government with regard to

November 28, 1985
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taxation, which benefit to the greatest extent corporations and people in the highest income brackets.
Let me illustrate what I mean by putting on the record what has happened. If we look at the corporate and individual shares of income tax in the 1950s, we see that corporations paid 50 per cent and that individuals paid 50 per cent of the total received. However, the estimate for 1986-87 is that corporations will pay only 25 per cent while individuals will pay 75 per cent. If we look at corporate and personal taxes received by the Government as a percentage of the federal budgetary revenues, we see that in 1975 corporation taxes brought in 17.5 per cent of the revenues while personal income taxes brought in 42.5 per cent. However, by 1985, corporate taxes will bring in only 12.1 per cent while personal income taxes will bring in 47.1 per cent. We see a continuing decline in the amount received from corporation taxes and a substantial increase in the amount received from personal income taxes.
It is not difficult to see how this has happened. Let us look at a few recent examples of the kinds of tax measures implemented by the former Liberal Government and continued and exacerbated by the present Conservative Government. A measure was brought forward in the last Budget of the Liberal Government by the then Minister of Finance, Mr. Lalonde, which was supposed to encourage investment in scientific research by permitting a tax credit for money invested in that area. It was estimated to cost the Treasury $100 million or $200 million. In fact, it was used by corporations on the advice of their tax lawyers and chartered accountants so that it did not cost the people of Canada a couple of hundred million dollars but something between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion. We could accept that if the money had really gone into scientific research, but of course it did not.
A few days ago there was a report in The Globe and Mail which indicated that the Genstar Financial Corporation, through the establishment of non-taxable preferred shares, had found a way in which investors could save substantial amounts of money by avoiding payment of income taxes. Indeed, the report indicated that the big loser would be the federal Treasury. If the new type of preferred share catches on, it could cost the federal Government hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tax revenue. If it works for Genstar, others will be quick to pick up the same idea.
Also we had the purchase of Gulf Oil by Olympia & York. It used what was called the "Little Egypt Bump" to re-evaluate the assets of the corporation in such a way that it saved hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes which it was not required to pay.
In a similar way. Dome Petroleum some time ago was able to save up to $1 billion per year. When corporations can make those kinds of savings, when corporations can avoid paying the taxes which ordinary citizens and small businesses have to pay-and some of the largest corporations in Canada for many years paid no taxes at all-it is not surprising that ordinary Canadians have to pay more to make up the difference.
Let us look at the situation with regard to income taxes paid by Canadians. A recent article which appeared in The Toronto Star indicated the following:
The number of high-income Canadians who paid no income tax rose sharply in 1983, tax department figures show.
Some 1,120 people earned $100,000 or more in 1983 and paid no income tax, 33 per cent more than in 1982,-
The figures also show that no income tax was paid by 6,662 people who earned between $50,000 and $99,999, up from 4,679 in 1982, and by 6,760 people who earned $40,000 to $49,999, up from 5,201.
We in the New Democratic Party have brought the attention of Governments-first the Liberal Government and now the Conservative Government-to the fact that there are thousands of people in the highest income brackets who have been able to avoid paying any income tax at all. We have been promised that at some point-and I suppose it will be in the next Budget-the Government will bring forward provisions so that every Canadian will have to pay at least a minimum income tax.


Mr. McDermid:: Before the next Budget.


David Orlikow: I hear the Hon. Member, but I am sure it will apply only to next year's income tax.


John Horton McDermid: Do you mean that we should apply income tax retroactively?


David Orlikow: I want to say to the Hon. Member that we are very suspicious of what the Government will bring forward. Just as there have been loopholes for corporations and the wealthiest individuals in the past so that they have not been required to pay any income tax at all, let alone pay their fair share, we believe that anything the Government brings forward will permit many people to pay little, if anything, in the way of their fair share of taxes.
1 want to talk for a few moments about the tax proposals of the Minister of Finance and what they will do for ordinary Canadians. We have calculated that, as a result of the proposals of the Minister last May, the average family, a family with two dependent children, will face a tax increase of $500. I would like to indicate how we arrived at that figure. The elimination of the federal tax reduction will cost $100. The modification to the indexing of income tax will cost the ordinary family $115. The cut in family allowance payments will cost $22.50. The increase with respect to the tax on cigarettes and alcohol will cost $75. The 1 per cent increase in sales tax will cost $150 and the increase in the tax on gasoline will cost $50. This gives a grand total of $512.50. All this at a time when the increase in the incomes of most families is running at less than the increase in the cost of living.
Let us consider how the Budget affects family benefits. We believe the Budget attacks the family benefits of the ordinary Canadian family because, in addition to the increased taxes in the Budget, it reduces the amount of money going to families with children. In 1986 the reduced child benefit will save the federal Government $130 million. By 1990 it will save the

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federal Government $600 million. Where is the Government's commitment to the family? Why does the Government give wealthy investors and banks priority? The child benefit tax package in the Budget will provide no real gains for anyone by 1990, including the very poor.
I would like to remind Hon. Members that the number of people living in poverty in Canada is a disgrace. It has been estimated that one person in six is now living in poverty. One can visit any city in the country from Newfoundland to British Columbia and find a straggeringly increasing number of voluntary organizations providing food hampers, clothing or meals to people who just cannot make it because they are unemployed and because their welfare cheques do not meet the minimum requirements which they have.
We maintain that the tax increases proposed and being implemented in the Budget hit the poor people the hardest. The National Anti-Poverty Organization has estimated that as a percentage of income the new taxes will amount to an increase of .69 per cent for families with an average annual income in excess of $50,000. By contrast, families with incomes of less than $10,000 will pay for the increase in federal taxes at a rate of 1.39 per cent as a percentage of income. In other words, those families which have incomes of less than $10,000 will pay twice as much as those families with incomes over $50,000 as a percentage of their income. In effect, what we are saying is that the Government's proposals in the Budget benefit those who need it the least and cost those who need help the most more than it costs others.
That view has been supported by the National Anti-Poverty Organization and by the Consumers' Association of Canada, which is not a particularly radical or aggressive organization. In a press release which the Consumers' Association issued last May in reaction to the budget proposals the President stated:
We're told to tighten our belts, while at the same time being encouraged to spend more to help rescue the economy ... Yet business, with a clear green light from the government, has failed to lead a strong economic recovery.
The promised wave of new business investment has not materialized, and it is not likely to as long as there is low consumer demand, excess production capacity and high inventories in many sectors, especially manufacturing-
We have sent a clear message to the government that consumers need more disposable income, not more lectures about belt-tightening-
The views of the Consumers' Association were not given much attention at all by the Government. It is obvious that if we are to see any improvement, we have to have more purchasing power placed in the hands of the bulk of Canadians. We are not seeing anything like that.
I would like to conclude my remarks by saying that the Minister of Finance knew what would happen because documents provided to him, as reported in an article in The Globe and Mail, showed that he was provided with figures indicating that the benefits of the tax exemption on capital gains will go largely to the wealthy and cut incomes of low-income groups. They indicated that those earning between $10,000 and $20,000 will pay an extra $300 a year in income tax by 1990. Those with incomes above $200,000 will see their tax bill increase by an average of $1,500. This would amount to a tax
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increase of about 2 per cent for the low-income group and about .6 per cent for the high-income group.
I think I have conclusively demonstrated that the thrust of the Budget is to help those who need help the least and to place an increasing burden upon people in the low and middle-income brackets. We think that that is the wrong way to go, which is why we oppose these proposals.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Are there questions or comments?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I have been a Member of the House for almost seven years. I have listened to speeches from my hon. friend frequently. As a matter of fact, we spent some time on the road on a committee which travelled. I continue to hear the term "ordinary Canadian". We are told that we are being unfair to the ordinary Canadian. I have never heard anyone define the term. Does the Hon. Member define an ordinary Canadian by the amount of money that person makes? Does the Hon. Member define an ordinary Canadian by the position which that person holds in society? Is a school teacher who earns $40,000 a year an ordinary Canadian in the eyes of members of the New Democratic Party or is he making too much money? Will the Hon. Member take a run at his definition, or perhaps his Party's definition, of the term "ordinary Canadian", a term which he throws around loosely in every speech he makes?


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member knows what we mean when we talk about the ordinary Canadian.


John Horton McDermid: No, I do not.


David Orlikow: When we talk about an ordinary Canadian we are talking about people in the low and midddle-income brackets. What we say is that if one looks at the income distribution in the country over a period of 25 to 40 years, and despite the fact that we have made major improvements in the services which we provide to the people of Canada, one will see that the percentage of the Gross national Product which goes to the people in the lowest fifth of income earners has stayed at around 4 per cent. The improvements about which I speak are improvements which have been supported if not initially when brought in then certainly after they were in operation for some time. I am talking about improvements to old age security benefits and about the establishment of the Canada Pension Plan. I am talking about the hospital insurance plan and the medical insurance plan, which is universal in the country. These plans have eliminated the fear of people not just in low-income groups but people in middle-income groups with respect to a major illness destroying their financial security. Despite everything that has been done, if one looks at the figures provided annually by Statistics Canada, one will see that the percentage of the Gross National Product which goes to the people in the lowest fifth of income earners in the country has stayed at around 4 per cent. We say that that is much too low. The percentage of the income which goes to the top 20 per cent has hovered at around 40 per cent or more. We say that that disparity is much too large. It is unacceptable

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that several million people are living in poverty in a country as wealthy as Canada.
The Hon. Member asked who I was talking about when I talked about ordinary Canadians. I am talking about the vast majority of people who are in the low or middle-income brackets.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, let me get this straight. When 1 was working as a radio announcer earning $50 per week, which in those days was not much money, I was an ordinary Canadian. Now that I am earning the salary that is paid to a Member of Parliament, some $54,000 per year, I am no longer an ordinary Canadian. Once a Canadian is no longer in the middle-income bracket, does he all of a sudden become an "unordinary" Canadian or something different from an ordinary Canadian? I do not understand the Hon. Member's definition of an ordinary Canadian.
What happens when a Canadian does well all of a sudden? What happens when someone who is poor opens a business which does well, starts to earn money and goes into the upper-income bracket? How does this person go from an ordinary Canadian to an "unordinary" Canadian? 1 believe members of the New Democratic Party throw the term "ordinary Canadian" around pretty loosely and do not know what the hell they are talking about.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, all the people who live in Canada are Canadians and if they are not Canadian citizens, they are landed immigrants. Ordinary Canadians are the majority of Canadians who are in the lower and middle-income brackets. The Hon. Member asked me about Members of Parliament. We are not ordinary Canadians because we are probably in the top 5 per cent of income earners. We are not ordinary Canadians and neither is the President of the CPR, the President of Olympia & York or the presidents of any of the large corporations. They are extraordinary Canadians and form a small minority of the Canadian people.


Mr. Parry:: Mr. Speaker, first I would like to congratulate my hon. colleague for his very meticulous and detailed analysis of the way in which the total tax burden on Canadians has shifted from corporations and the wealthy to the backs of ordinary Canadians. Perhaps I could pose that difficult concept once more. I would like the Hon. Member to comment on the continuity demonstrated by the ideology of the Liberal Party and the ideology of the self-styled Progressive Conservative Party in continuing the shift of the tax burden.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, in the time I had available to me, I tried to show that a shift has occurred over a long period of time. It began shortly after World War II and has been continued under Liberal Governments and exacerbated by the present Conservative Government. There has been a shift in the acquisition of the money required by the federal Government to meet the costs of services it provides from income taxes paid by individuals to income taxes paid by large corporations. In the 1950s, both individuals and corporations paid about the same amount in taxes. This has now shifted so that the percentage of income collected through taxes from corporations has dropped and the percentage of income collected through personal taxes has risen. According to statements made by the present Minister of Finance, the percentage of corporate taxes will continue to drop.
This has happened because of the very complicated provisions in the hundreds of pages of the Income Tax Act which permits corporations to find quite legal ways to pay no taxes. There are many people and corporations which do not pay taxes in ways which are illegal and some of them get caught and pay the penalty. However, what has been encouraged by Liberal Governments and now by the Conservative Government is legal ways of simply not paying taxes. That is continuing at an accelerated rate.


Mr. Reg Stackhouse (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to deliver part of my speech in French. Please excuse my grammar and my faulty pronunciation.
Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to take part in the debate on Bill C-84.
It is a statement on the economic philosophy of the Progressive Conservative Party which the Canadian people elected last year, and it is now the basis of the policy advocated by the Government of Canada.

In my remarks, I would like to expand upon the way in which that economic philosophy is fundamental to the legislation which we are debating today and to the series of financial and economic measures which have been and are to be debated by the House as emanating from the Budget of last spring. As well, I would like to indicate the ways in which those financial measures will achieve the objectives of the Budget and the objectives for which the Government was elected by the majority of Canadians, ordinary as well as extraordinary.
When this Government took office, it inherited a heritage of doubt. Doubt was a new sentiment in the hearts of Canadians, who had characteristically been a confident people but who, under the depressing impact of the economic policies of the previous regime, had come to feel in large part that the future of Canada might just be behind us.
The American economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, had once written that a modern industrial state had to choose between inflation and unemployment. Throughout the 1970s and into the first years of this decade, there were many in Canada who thought that the then Liberal Government had solved the dilemma by choosing both at once and by adding to them the problem of an escalating deficit, which was spiralling to such an extent that many came to believe that high technology had been invented simply to give the Government a way of accounting for the spiralling of the public debt. That was the mood of the people before September 1984.
November 28, 1985

What is now the outlook of the people of Canada as we approach the end of 1985? David Slater, the former chairman of the Economic Council of Canada, in the annual report of that respected body, predicted much better prospects for the economy of Canada, and hence for its people, during the next five years of this decade and that it will be even better as we go into the 1990s. It is a prediction which is supported by statistics. For example, it is predicted that our Gross National Product will increase by 5 per cent and will rise by an average of 3.5 per cent for at least 10 years. Inflation is now reduced to 4 per cent and will possibly be less in the 1990s. Unemployment, which just in the months before this Government took office was thought to be a permanent affliction on the social body of this country, has fallen from 11.4 per cent to 10.3 per cent. This was after it was submitted to the Canadian people that we must accept permanent unemployment levels perhaps reaching 15 per cent. However, the Economic Council of Canada now visualizes that by 1990, unemployment may be reduced to 8.1 per cent.
Reference has been made to the deficit by previous speakers. The deficit this country now suffers is about 7 per cent of the Gross National Product. But it is anticipated that by 1990, it will have reduced to just 4 per cent of the GNP. We may note that this is not only a prediction. In August of this year, for the first time in many years, the deficit began to fall.
In addition to the statistics we can draw from the report of the Economic Council of Canada, I submit some significant economic indicators. Employment has expanded. The labour force of this country has grown by 330,000 persons since this Government took office. There were 37,000 jobs added to the labour force in the month of October, 1985 alone. New orders for manufacturing are up 14 per cent since September, 1984. Building permits have increased by 20 per cent during the first eight months of 1985. Housing starts alone are up a full 54 per cent. We all recognize that housing starts are the most significant factor in an economy's prosperity because of the great spinoff from the housing industry. Bankruptcies are down significantly by 12 per cent.
All of this is referred to because of the way in which Government policy since September of 1984 has been one of the significant factors in the turn-around of the economic direction of Canada. It has been one of the significant shaping elements in renewing the economy. This upturn is, to a great extent, the result of the financial and economic policies such as those expressed in the legislation now before us. An economy can be renewed, can advance, can create employment and can create income for people, chiefly when there is investment and that investment results from incentive and confidence.
That is really what we are debating, in part, with Bill C-84. It is the philosophy which offers people incentive to invest, to take risks, to expand and to be creative. Since the Budget was announced declaring the philosophy to reward success, we have been told over and over again, for example, that the capital gains exemption is a give-away. No one who has ever
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attempted to make a capital gain would look upon a capital gains tax exemption as a give-away. There has to be effort and risk and, very frequently, there is to loss. What we are trying to do through this legislation is provide potential investors with the kind of incentive which will encourage them to move into the market-place, to take chances, to be creative, to be expansive, not only bringing rewards to themselves but bringing opportunity, employment and income to ordinary Canadians. I submit that this is the best way a Government can deal with the needs and aspirations of ordinary Canadians.
Historically we have been a nation of risk takers, all myths to the contrary. This country was built upon the vision and commitment of people to come to grips with an environment which challenged them day by day and which often demanded a risk of life itself. Confederation has been the success story it is because of those persons who gathered around a leader such as Sir John A. Macdonald and who were prepared to link one coast with the other through the construction of the CPR. That was a construction project which at one time prompted the then Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Liberal Party at that time, to say that the Government of the day was taking the resources of eastern Canada and pouring them down the gorges of British Columbia. That was the kind of risk which Sir John A. Macdonald, his Government and those who worked with him, had to be willing to take. It was that kind of risk which made this country a political and economic possibility.
It has been said by the Canadian historian, Desmond Morton, that the people of Canada have met the challenge of the unfriendliest environment in the world. How have we done that and achieved the standard of living which Canadians enjoy? Part of the answer comes from the willingness of Canadians to take that kind of risk. We are known, and rightfully so, as a quiet and peaceable people, but we have demonstrated that we are also adventurous and courageous. That testimony comes from the 117,000 Canadians who occupy military graves in 74 countries around this world. More important, we have demonstrated our willingness to be adventurous and courageous in coping with this harsh and challenging environment which we have transformed into one of the great industrial states of the world. This has been due chiefly to adequate incentives through the years being given to those people who were willing to be enterprising.
Basically, the legislation before us is offering this kind of tax incentive as a way of renewing the entrepreneurial spirit. That spirit is not only to be found among the high income earners and the rich, of whom frequent mention is made by the Opposition. I want to share with you, Mr. Speaker, two stories from a riding which surely contains many ordinary Canadians, namely, the riding I am honoured to represent. A few weeks ago during the recess, I spoke in one of our high schools. I addressed a class of students in economics. During the discussion which followed the address, a question was raised by a young man, a teenager, who obviously did not belong to the WASP community, which is what the sociologist John Porter has called the "charter group of Confederation". Obviously, he

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did not belong to that group. Clearly, he came from a background that in my own youth would have been called "the working class". I suppose that was before someone conceived of the euphenism "ordinary Canadians". The question asked of me by the student was not how he could get more welfare, how he could get a grant or what kind of give-away he could get. The question he put to me was: "What are the steps I could take to buy some property and become an investor?" That is not an extraordinary story. Some years ago 1 addressed a week-end camp of young Canadians from the city of Scarborough. The camp was called "Camp Enterprise" and it was sponsored by the Rotary Club. It was filled with young people with a desire to become entrepreneurs-and that is not only the characteristic of the young people of this country, most of whom voted for this Government as ordinary Canadians, and we must give back to them an extraordinary chance to develop themselves. This is the aspiration of many senior citizens as well. I can take you to two senior citizens who have approached me for information on how they can look for financing so as to undertake an enterprise of their own. Whether young or not so young, the opportunity is in front of Canadians. Once again Canada has a Government providing incentives to and stimulation of the resources in the hearts and minds of our people, the greatest resource this country possesses.
Bill C-84 offers incentives and opportunity particularly for small businesses. We are giving them access to resources which in the past have not been available for the creative expansion desires of small enterprises. For example, there is access to the capital available in retirement savings and pension plans. All of these are ways in which people can do what? Perhaps they can buy an additional truck. That is the aspiration of an ordinary Canadian in my constituency. He is a one-truck operator and he wants to double his ressources. He now has an opportunity to seek capital where he did not before. This is the kind of thing which is turning this country around and producing the kinds of statistics to which I referred earlier.
Bill C-84 also deals significantly with another dimension of the tax system which is basic to incentive, namely, ensuring that it is fair. One of the ways in which we are endeavouring as Parliament and Government to add fairness to the tax system is by amending the Income Tax Act to eliminate abuses by tax collectors as under previous regimes. A lack of fairness can be a disincentive to enterprise and the new measures defining powers of search and seizure and restricting them within the parameters of fairness and justice will add to the quality of our tax system and to the spirit of enterprise in our country. I find it a considerable privilege to participate in this debate because the legislation we are dealing with will continue to add to the economic advancement of this country.
As well as improving the fairness and effectiveness of the tax system in ways designed to prevent taxpayers from using the rules in unintended and inappropriate ways to avoid taxation, we have heard reference made this morning to the Government's commitment to introduce a minimum tax measure in the very near future. Another measure which the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) has referred to and which illustrates the general thrust of our legislation is the amendment regarding certain investment trusts so that they cannot be abused in ways that were never intended by the legislation.
The stock market, it is said, is often a herald of our economic future. If that is so, we can certainly share with many the confidence that a market such as the Toronto Stock Exchange is showing now. The way ahead is clear and promising and we should ask ourselves what it is that gives investors the kind of confidence which makes them as bullish as so many of them have been in recent months. It is the confidence that we have a Government which wants to meet our social problems in the private enterprise way. It wants to meet the legitimate aspirations of people in the way which has been so long the character and tradition of this country.
I share with many people on the opposite side of the House the social objectives they have, their desire to help all Canadians regardless of background to meet their human needs. I know that this feeling is held by all Member on this side. However, 1 point out that while we have the same objectives, what divides us is the method we use. The method they favour so much is one which has shown its failure for the last 15 years. After 15 years of combatting poverty their way, we have more poor people than ever. However, we now have a new economic policy which will offer new promise and new opportunity to all Canadians, ordinary and otherwise.


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


Mr. Johnston:: Mr. Speaker, 1 must say I am somewhat disappointed in the speech of the Hon. Member for Scarborough West (Mr. Stackhouse). I expected a bit more from him. Yesterday, during my own comments, 1 exhorted Members to get away from partisan drivel and start to deal with some of the issues in this Budget which he apparently embraces 100 per cent as being a wonderful document. I know enough about the Hon. Member to believe that he sees the warts and flaws which are so apparent to everyone except, apparently, Members in the Conservative Party. He began by telling us that Canada is a country of risk takers. I must say that I suppose they proved that last September 4 when they voted for the Conservative Government in such massive numbers. Perhaps they will be less willing to take risks like that in the future because of the results.
That being said, let me ask the Hon. Member a very specific question. He makes much of the strength of the Canadian economy and the report of the Economic Council of Canada. I have read that report and there are a few comments which would suggest that there has been some improvement as a result of certain relatively minor initiatives taken by this Government. However, I see no great endorsement of anything the Conservative Government has done. In fact, I find in the opening line, regarding the medium-term outlook, these words: "The Canadian economy has made impressive gains in real terms over the past two years which have also witnessed a
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slowing down in inflation. Moreover, these gains were more broadly based in 1984 than in 1983".
Is the Hon. Member telling the House and Canadians that it is the Conservative Budget which is responsible for the strong growth in 1983 and 1984, the reduction in inflation, and the consequential fall in interest rates? Is that what he is trying to tell us?


Reginald Francis Stackhouse: Mr. Speaker, having listened to utterances such as that over the past 14 months, I have considerable experience in listening to partisan drivel.
To focus directly on the question he put, I would remind him that if he had listened carefully, had indeed stayed for my entire remarks, he would have heard me say that the policies of this Government were one of these elements. He has acknowledged that the report to which he has made reference and which he is supposed to have read acknowledges that one of the elements has been the kind of policy this Government has enunciated. We know what Canada was like before the election of this Government. We know that that was one of the reasons why this Government was elected. We now have statistical and other evidence to indicate the merits of the policies to which the Government has committed itself since the election, which have already begun to show the kind of results which I would have thought a man with his capacity for understanding would have welcomed in the interest of all Canadians.


Donald James Johnston: Without any preamble I will ask the Member a very specific question. Is he saying that the economic growth in 1983 and 1984, the fall in inflation, which was at around 4 per cent when the Conservatives assumed power in 1984, and the consequential reduction in interest rates, are the results of Conservative policies? That seems to be the impression which he is trying to leave.


Reginald Francis Stackhouse: Mr. Speaker, we can see, from an objective and fair examination of the history to interest rates since the Government took office, that there has been a steady decline in interest rates during this regime with minor statistical hiccups from month to month. We now have a bank rate which is three points below that which we inherited from the Government of which he was a member.


Mr. Riis:: Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the Hon. Member on his thoughtful presentation. Would he comment on the process in which we are participating today? A very far-reaching Bill on taxation was introduced in the House. The explanations, which are quite technical, were introduced in the House a day before the debate began. There has been virtually no discussion, consultation or whatever about the implications. Yet, it is expected that this Bill will be passed within the next few days. Does the Member have some observations about that process?
I will pick up on my colleague's latest question with regard to interest rates. If the Member is indicating that the down-
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ward trend in interest rates is due, to a certain extent, to the policies of the Government, would he agree that if there were to be an upward trend in interest rates that, too, would be a reflection on the policies of the Government?


Reginald Francis Stackhouse: Mr. Speaker, 1 will answer the first question first. I am sure that with the Hon. Member's seniority in the House he is aware that when this legislation passes this stage in the House of Commons it will go to committee for a very thorough study in which I hope the members of his Party will participate. 1 am also aware that day after day, when the Opposition does not focus its attention on matters less important than the economy and the Budget, there is opportunity for face to face encounters with the financial Ministers of the Government to debate and examine critically the implications of the legislation before us. The debate in which we are now engaged is certainly not the last opportunity for critical assessment of this legislation, as the Member knows.
With regard to interest rates, if the Hon. Member is suggesting that the Government bears any responsibility for an increase in the interest rates which so affects businesses throughout the country, including many within the Member's own constituency which I have reason to know about, I hope that he will also be willing to give credit to the Government at this time for the achievement that we and all Canadians enjoy, namely, the significant reduction in interest rates.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I am not trying to catch the Hon. Member or anything.


Reginald Francis Stackhouse: I would never have thought that.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I appreciate that there may be some reason to think that. I am questioning this process. We are at second reading stage and after this debate the Bill will go to a legislative committee where a handful of witnesses will be heard. At that time it will come back for debate on third reading and it will be wrapped up. Is the Member really saying that that is an adequate process for a Bill which will touch the lives of every Canadian for decades to come? Does he really believe that that is an appropriate process?


Reginald Francis Stackhouse: Mr. Speaker, I am certainly not trying to catch my hon. friend when 1 say that I hope he does not approve a process which 1 have seen in full measure in the House, namely, one whereby 70 opposition Members debate, one after another, day after day, and make speeches which simply repeat what has been said on the days before, putting forward an amendment, and starting all over again. I hope the process which he would welcome would not include that kind of obstructionism.
I hope that he would recognize as well that the process of the legislative committees examining Bills is a new one which was adopted after a recommendation by an all-Party committee in an effort to enhance the participation by Members of the House in the active examination of legislation with the assistance of expert witnesses. I have heard from some of the chairmen of the legislative committees which have been exam-

November 28, 1985
Income Tax Act
ining Bills that so many witnesses are called that they cannot keep up with the task before them. Therefore, I am really not pessimistic about the possible effectiveness of the legislative committees.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The period for questions and comments is now terminated.


Mr. Raymond Garneau (Laval-des-Rapides):: Mr. Speaker, we are considering Bill C-84, a very complex piece of legislation which contains hundreds of pages and any number of clauses dealing with practically every aspect of personal income tax and corporate tax, and I think we all realize that especially during the debate on second reading, it would be very difficult to consider all the issues raised by this kind of legislation. Furthermore, at the second reading stage, we are supposed to restrict our comments to the principles contained in the Bill. In fact, the legislation deals with a number of items such as capital gains tax, which will no longer apply to the first $500,000 in capital gains acquired during the taxpayer's life, and there are other aspects such as the personal deduction for dependent children, changes in the child tax credit, where the maximum income level eligible for the child tax credit will be lowered from $26,000 to $23,000, and as 1 said before, elimination of the exemption for dependent children.
There are also a number of other changes that affect the Canadian taxpayer by eliminating the Registered Home Ownership Savings Plan, which was very popular with young couples.
There are the surtaxes that will be introduced on individuals who will be paying a certain amount more if they are paying between $6,000 and $15,000 in income tax and there will be an additional tax for those paying over $15,000 in taxes.
There is of course the surtax on corporations. There are special taxes on banks. In fact, there are all kind of taxes, and as I said last May when the Budget was brought down, this Budget was bringing in an avalanche of taxes that will be affecting Canadian taxpayers very directly, either through their income tax or, as we have seen in a Bill considered previously, which deals with sales tax, excise tax-
On the whole, there has been general agreement with the position taken by the Hon. Member for Scarborough West (Mr. Stackhouse) who introduced the Bill, when he said it should be seen as part of the Conservative philosophy. And what conclusions are we to draw from this Conservative philosophy? The conclusion must be that between now and 1990, nearly $37 billion in additional taxes will be collected, thus bleeding the purchasing power of the Canadian taxpayer to support this Conservative philosophy.
I will elaborate on this later on, if I may, and I would now like to start my comment, since I only have twenty minutes, and try to consider Bill C-84 in the context of the Budget brought down on May 23 and also in the light of what was said
by Government Members before the Budget was brought down.
Mr. Speaker, what were we told before May 23? What were we told during the election campaign, and what have they delivered today? Before the Budget the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and all Progressive Conservatives sang the same tune-the deficit had to be reduced.
Mr. Speaker, 1 have no objection, quite the contrary, because it is imperative that special measures be taken to cut down the Canadian Government deficit which now amounts to some $30 billion, a long-term mortgage to be carried by all Canadians. But the way this Government has attempted to honour its election promise to lower the deficit is enough to drive all Canadian citizens to despair. When the Government tells us that the deficit is its first priority, and warns the people that the huge deficit will lead to serious economic problems in the future, I should think that the Government's first move would be to clamp down on expenditures. Above all, that it would refrain from giving hand-outs to a select group of Canadians.
What do we find when we take a close look at the Budget context which explains the Conservative approach mentioned by the Hon. Member for Scarborough West? The first thing we find is the suggestion that wealthy taxpayers must be given tax exemptions so they will be able to spur the economy, which in turn will help those who stand on the lower rungs of the country's economic ladder. My colleague from Saint-Henri-Westmount (Mr. Johnston) had already drawn an analogy about the horse and the sparrow. If the horse gets enough to eat it will grow fat and leave droppings in the street to enable the sparrow to feed itself. That is the Conservative philosophy, as explained by the Hon. Member for Scarborough West. Let us give to the rich so that, hopefully, they will be able to fuel the economy and create jobs for other less fortunate Canadians.
The least we can say, Mr. Speaker, is that it is a rather strange way to proceed in a democratic society which, true to its own democratic goals, would seek to make sure that all Canadians who belong to that democratic community can derive specific benefits from their membership in that society. Personally, I believe that if there are more people in the middle-income range, we shall have more economic activity and a better distribution of wealth instead of providing every benefit for the wealthiest taxpayers that they alone might create the economic activity we want. This Conservative philosophy is reflected in the budgetary measures of the Minister of Finance. First, he will let over $8 billion, or $8.4 or $8.5 billion, go to a small number of oil companies before the end of the decade. Oil multinationals have obtained substantial benefits, and according to the data provided by the Depart-
November 28, 1985

merit of Finance, while this was not the intention at the start, it was found to be in order later on. This tax benefit given to a few companies will amount to $8.5 billion by 1990-91.
Some will say that it will be only $124 million this year, but it will be nearly $1 billion in 1986-87, nearly $1.4 billion in 1987-88, $1.6 billion in 1988-89, around $2 billion in 1989-90, and about $2.5 billion a year after that.
This coincides with the Conservative philosophy reflected in the budget. The Government started by foregoing revenue. Our friends opposite often compare themselves with the Reagan Government in the United States. However, when their American model came to power, he provided exemptions to just about everyone, while the Conservatives in Canada began by giving $8.5 billion by the end of the decade to a small number of oil multinationals. What did they do afterwards? They introduced another measure in Bill C-84, about which 1 shall speak further later on, to provide a capital gains tax exemption. How much will this cost in lost revenue to the Public Treasury, which is supposed to show a deficit? We are told that, this year, in 1985-86, this tax expenditure will cost $300 million. In 1986-87, it will cost $600 million. In 1987-88, the loss will amount to $750 million. In 1988-89, it will be about $900 million. In 1989-90, it will be $1 billion, and in 1990-91, it will be $1.2 billion, for a total of $4.8 billion. If we add the two figures, we find that there is over $13 billion in two taxation measures which, according to the Hon. Member for Scarborough West (Mr. Stackhouse), reflect the Conservative policy. New tax benefits of $13 billion are being given to a very select group of Canadians.
You can imagine that after giving up $13 billion in revenues, Mr. Speaker, and because it still wanted to reduce the deficit, the Government had no choice but to increase taxes. And yet, in a public statement a few weeks before his budget, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) told Canadians that tax increases at this stage of our economic life would be counterproductive, because they would reduce consumer spending and take away the purchasing power which made it possible for businesses to sell their goods and services and, thereby, to create new jobs.
If we look at the general philosophy which is reflected in Bill C-84, a Bill which is about an inch thick, and if we consider it in conjunction with the excise tax bill which we dealt with recently and the Bill to abolish the petroleum and gas revenue tax, we soon realize that these three Bills together will cost Canadian taxpayers billions of dollars in lost revenues. The whole Conservative philosophy makes it possible for us to see the whole picture of the tax provisions in Bill C-84. By the end of this decade, the tax increases resulting from Bill C-84 and Bill C-80 will amount to nearly $37 billion in purchasing power which will be taken away from Canadian taxpayers to help fulfill the purpose of the Conservative philosophy that was described earlier by the Hon. Member for Scarborough West.
They will affect a whole lot of people. We know that personal tax exemptions and tax brackets will be partly de-indexed.
You know what, Mr. Speaker? Do you know that by the end of this decade, this little piece of legislation alone will increase the amount paid in taxes by Canadian taxpayers by as much as $11 billion? That is $11 billion more to help this Government achieve its aim, that is, to make the rich richer, in order that they might create jobs. But to do this the Government will have to collect more taxes from ordinary taxpayers who will have to foot the bill, not only to cover the fiscal benefits granted to the wealthy and the multinationals, but also to reduce the deficit.
The Government has also deprived ordinary people of the $50 federal tax credit. It has also amended the whole child exemption and family allowance scheme.
But when we look at the impact of these changes which will result mostly from Bill C-84 in conjunction with a recently adopted bill, we realize that by the end of this decade-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. When Orders of the Day are called this afternoon, the Hon. Member will have six minutes remaining in his speech, plus ten minutes for questions and comments.
It being one o'clock I do now leave the Chair until two o'clock this day.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the House that, after the unacceptable, inhuman and stupid decision of this Conservative Government, and contrary to the promise made in Sherbrooke by the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mulroney), to abolish quotas, the Official Opposition, particularly the Members from Quebec and Ontario, have decided to set up a special committee to help men and women who work in shoe factories.
This morning, three of my colleagues who belong to this Quebec committee, the Hon. Member for Richmond-Wolfe (Mr. Tardif), the Hon. Member for Saint-Leonard-Anjou (Mr. Gagliano) and the Hon. Member for Saint-Maurice (Mr. Chretien), met with the workers of Montreal East factories.

November 28, 1985
Earlier today they told me what the owners and workers in that industry have to say about the current situation.
For openers, the owner of a Montreal East company would like to know why the Prime Minister and the Minister who is supposed to look after the unemployed have decided to force him to shut down and throw 240 workers out on the street.
Another lady, age 53, would like to know what the Prime Minister has to offer in terms of retraining programs. Where will she go? Will he retrain her in aeronautics? What other job will the Government find for her? This lady wants to work, not live off unemployment insurance benefits.
Mr. Speaker, 1 think the Quebec Conservative Members ought to wake up. And as was pointed out-


Mr. Speaker:: I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member but his time has expired.



MEDICAL CARE


Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, it is with mixed feelings of pride and disappointment that I rise today to comment on Ontario's new program to subsidize medically necessary travel for northerners. Pride, because after many years of persistent lobbying, northerners have finally had their legitimate concern recognized by Government. Disappointment because, as usual, the Government's response is inadequate.
Thirteen years ago my provincial colleague, Jim Foulds, began the fight for equal access to medical care for all citizens, regardless of where they live.
When 1 was elected to the provincial Legislature in 1975, I joined that fight, and we have carried it on ever since. We were ignored by the previous Conservative Government of Ontario and the federal Liberals. We were also ignored by the current federal Government.
However, we were able to make it a key item in the political agenda of the last provincial election when the Liberals, and at the last minute the Conservatives, realized-I suppose through their polling-that the people of northern Ontario were determined in their demand for this program and they both came on side.
The program was included in the accord signed between the Ontario Government and the provincial New Democrats and finally, after all these years, we have a program.
The program is not perfect, Mr. Speaker. The limit of 300 kilometres is too great to help many people who must travel within the north for even basic care, and the program does not allow for adequate companion travel or accommodation.
However, it is a glorious start. The onus is now on the federal Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) to
ensure that similar programs are extended across the country so that-


Mr. Speaker:: I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member but his time has expired.



PRICE OF NATURAL GAS IN OTTAWA REGION-REDUCED FUEL COSTS

Mr. Bill Tupper (Nepean-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, on October 30 the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Miss Carney) announced a new natural gas agreement, thus completing the process begun in the Western Accord of replacing prices set by Government with prices set by the market.
The Minister indicated that consumers will pay lower gas prices this winter than last as a result of the agreement.
In 1982 a natural gas trunkline was constructed through my riding of Nepean-Carleton. Tapping into this line is in progress, and other initiatives by local gas distributors are making natural gas available throughout the Ottawa Valley.
Yesterday the Ottawa Gas Company carried a one-third page ad in the local newspaper outlining how consumers would benefit from the natural gas agreement. A portion of the ad reads:
The Government is on your side too.
Ottawa Gas also indicated to new customers that it is now able to guarantee savings in annual fuel costs.
This is further evidence of how the nation is benefiting from deregulation. It is in addition to the fact that oil and gas exploration in western Canada is at its highest level in history, and oil and gas investment intentions are up by about $2 billion. All of this provides energy security, lower costs, economic benefits, and jobs right across Canada.



CRIMINAL CODE


Reginald Francis Stackhouse: Mr. Speaker, I rise to commend the Government for initiatives which it has taken to prevent future offences in the administration of cheese import permits. One initiative has been the actions it has taken since assuming office to deal with the apparent theft of permit forms. Within weeks of taking office, it initiated a police investigation. It made the missing forms invalid and unusable. It prepared new forms. It increased the care taken by Customs inspectors. It seized quantities of cheese believed to have been admitted under missing permits. A second initiative has been to take steps which will lead to a basic revision of the system for distributing new permits.
November 28, 1985

In the Metro Toronto area there is reason to believe that for several years there has been a black market in quotas. Dealers without quotas large enough to meet consumer demand are said to have bought permits from permit holders more interested in trafficking in quotas than in selling cheese. So common has it been that many in the industry accept it as a fact of life and ask: "What is the harm?" The harm is that such trafficking breaks down respect for the law. The Government has done right to initiate steps which will lead to a system for distributing permits that will be fair to legitimate dealers and maintain the rule of law.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mrs. Lucie Pepin (Outremont):: Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, your Government made public its decision to resume deporting Indians to their country of origin because it felt that the situation in Punjab had returned to normal. This decision will affect some 2,800 people. Well, yesterday, in India, someone tried to murder the moderate Sikh leader who had signed the agreement between Punjab and Mr. Gandhi a month ago. It is clear that peace has not really returned to that province.
During last September's election campaign, 1,000 people were arrested and, on election day, two persons died. A moderate party has come to power, which does not necessarily mean that social problems have miraculously disappeared. The social, economic and political contradictions are so blatant that one must have lost contact entirely with reality to believe that all problems have now been settled in India.
Mr. Speaker, I feel that we should up-date our investigatory methods in order to know what is actually happening abroad. Allow me to be somewhat skeptical about the political reports received from Canadians in India. Suffice it to say that even if the situation in Punjab had improved to some extent since the election date of September 25, the Government could have waited a little longer than a month before deciding that all social turmoil in that province has truly ended.
I think that three or four months from now, we will know definitely. In the meantime, a decision like yesterday's is premature indeed.



FILM INDUSTRY


Ms. Lynn McDonald (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, with a Government known for its secrecy, we have sometimes to depend upon top-notch journalists for the news, and Sid Adilman of The Toronto Star may just have done it again.
His report on the government task force on films contains good news indeed.
Apparently the task force is to recommend that licensing rights to all movies and video cassettes distributed in Canada be held by majority Canadian owned and controlled companies. This will more than break the stranglehold American distributors have had in Canada. It would mean that producers would have some clout in bargaining with American distributors-"we'll show your films if you show ours".
Apparently the report also recommends a $50 million feature film fund, to be managed by Telefilm Canada, for made-for-cinema movies.
The trouble is that the Americans will not like these vigorous proposals. They have already said that movies are business, not culture, and it is a business which they do not want disturbed. Although every other country in the world supports its film industry and regulates distribution, the Americans do not want us to do so.
Will the Government listen to the American Ambassador or to our own arts community which is telling us to repatriate our own culture as we have done with the Constitution? The proposals of the task force on films as reported would go a long way to doing that. Is the Government listening, and will it act for Canadians?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL RELATIONS PARTICIPATION OF QUEBEC GOVERNMENT IN FRANCOPHON1E SUMMIT IN PARIS IN 1986

Mrs. Suzanne Duplessis (Louis-Hebert):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister of Canada and the Premier of Quebec confirmed on November 8 last the conclusion of a Quebec-Ottawa agreement on the participation of the Quebec Government in a summit of francophone countries to be held in Paris in early 1986.
At that summit, the Prime Minister of Canada and the Quebec Premier will be sitting side to side with the Fleur-de-lys and the Maple Leaf. Quebec will be identified as Canada-Quebec.
The summit will involve two separate sessions. At the first one, political and economic conditions around the world will be discussed and the Prime Minister of Canada will be the one and only spokesman to deal with the Canadian positions on those issues.
With respect to matters concerning Quebec, after consultation and agreement with the Prime Minister of Canada, the Quebec Premier will deal with them.

November 28, 1985
At the second session co-operation and development will be considered. The Quebec government will then act as a full-fledged participant in the proceedings, in accordance with the terms and practices used by the Agence de cooperation cultu-relle et technique.
We can only be pleased with the agreement concluded in the mutual respect of rights and aspirations of both parties.
This agreement shows that the Government wants to secure our national reconciliation. It puts an end to a flag war between Ottawa and Quebec which lasted for about twenty years.



AGRICULTURE


Mr. Geoff Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Creek):: Mr. Speaker, as a prairie Member I rise to congratulate the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) on his announcement yesterday of a SI 50 million Crop Disaster Assistance Program for farmers in western Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Geoff Wilson: Some 30,000 farmers will be eligible and payments will be based on yield deficiencies.
The Minister further indicated his intention to work with the provinces to revise the crop insurance programs to allow for additional disaster assistance coverage in the future.
Farmers are the backbone of the country and this announcement is further evidence to them that the Government is committed to agriculture.
Last year the Government participated in crop insurance payments in the amount of $530 million, and over $600 million this year. This spring we amended the Western Grain Stabilization Act to provide a timely interim payment of $450 million, and a further final payment of $72 million is in the mail. We provided a $30 million contribution to help livestock producers maintain their breeding herds over last winter, and a further $48 million this summer for livestock drought assistance. We have reduced the price of farm fuels by more than 20 cents a gallon. We have implemented an immediate $500,000 lifetime capital gains exemption on sales of qualifying farm land.
This Government cares about and has done more for agriculture in 14 months than the previous Government ever did or thought to do.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



LOUIS RIEL


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, we are now in November and one hundred years have gone by since the hanging of Louis Riel. I now ask that this Conservative Government exonerate the victim of the conspiracy of another Conservative Government.

For 100 years politicians and historians have shown that the Government purposely misrepresented the events known today as the Riel Rebellion. Letters and diaries of the participants and observers indicate unethical tactics to obtain political benefits from the rebellion. In a letter from the Marquis of Landsdowne to Prime Minister Macdonald on August 18, 1885, the Marquis wrote:
You regard the recent outbreak in the Northwest as merely "domestic trouble" which should not be elevated to the rank of a rebellion. I am afraid we have all of us been doing what we could to elevate it to the rank of a rebellion and with so much success that we cannot now reduce it to the rank of a common riot.
The reason for the Macdonald Government's promotion of a common riot to a full blown rebellion was to win additional funding for the near bankrupt Canadian Pacific Railway. While the CPR benefited from the events of the summer of 1885, a Metis leader was hanged. Louis Riel, who died unnecessarily, deserves to be exonerated by the Government and recognized as a victim of wrongdoing.



CANADA-UNITED STATES NEGOTIATIONS-IMPORTANCE OF ECONOMIC RELATIONSHIP

Mr. Gerry St. Germain (Mission-Port Moody):: Mr. Speaker, as the First Ministers meet in Halifax today a major item for discussion is the issue of trade enhancement with our largest trading partner, the United States of America.
As we enter trade negotiations there is some concern in both our countries about the challenge that faces us. I wish to address the people of both the United States and Canada as many of our American friends watch this session on the special C-SPAN broadcast today.
Canada and the United States cannot afford not to work together to enhance our trading relationship. We are each other's largest customer, best friend, and most loyal ally. The unique breadth and depth of our economic relationship offers unprecedented challenges and special opportunities. Protectionist measures implemented in the past have had disastrous effects on both sides of the border. The protectionist mentality is slowly re-emerging amid a world of change, and together we must combat this mentality in all of its forms.
November 28, 1985

The underlying reasons for seeking a new trading relationship are clear. We have both been struck close to home by the harsh realities of unemployment and the social waste that it brings. It is in this sense that economic renewal is not only a compelling objective shared by our two Governments but a national responsibility to all.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: I think the understanding is clear that, by special agreement, the period allowed for statements will now be extended a few moments for a special tribute.



THE LATE MAX SALTSMAN


Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, a month ago almost to the day, Max Saltsman held a press conference to announce that he was dying of cancer. When he was asked about his reason for making the announcement, he said he was surprised by the national coverage and the attention he received. He went on to say: "What the hell, they are my people and they deserve to know the truth". Today Max Saltsman passed away.
Max came to Ottawa as a result of a by-election victory in 1964. He came from a business background and he explained his NDP association in these words:
Businessmen can only prosper when people have enough money to buy their goods and services. The economic policies of our Party are designed to produce full employment and higher wages, eliminate poverty, increase assistance to older people, and generally to stimulate purchasing power. Since businessmen depend on the purchasing power of their customers, they stand to gain as much, or more, from NDP policies as everyone else.
As many Hon. Members know, Max Saltsman was a nonconformist. He always had a dream. Whether it was his fight for the under-privileged, or his relentless pursuit of a Caribbean island in order that people from Canada could go south to Canada, he was never without a cause.
We in this Party, and 1 am sure everyone in the House of Commons who knew Max Saltsman would want to join with us, extend our sympathy to his family and his friends. We say to them, as I am sure they know, that his commitment and influence on Parliament and our country will keep him always in our hearts.


Mr. Chris Speyer (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, I too rise today in sorrow to mourn the passing of a very fine man. Max Saltsman, and I would like to associate myself and my Party with the very eloquent tribute that was just paid by the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans). Max Saltsman was a friend of mine. He had many sterling characteristics. He was a man of new ideas and old ideals. He was a man of reason, and he was a reasonable man. He was a man whom I respected most for his sense of
The Late Max Saltsman
generosity and that essential streak of decency which impressed so many of us who knew him.
I was fortunate enough that I myself never had to campaign against Max Saltsman. However, I can say from my experience in the community of Cambridge that he was an enormously popular man. He was a man who always made himself available to people. He cared about people to an extent that 1 cannot exaggerate. Therefore, today, on behalf of my Party and my community, 1 say that we are saddened by his loss.


Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, the late Max Saltsman was a person of great ability and integrity. This was certainly recognized by his constituents who sent him to Ottawa election after election, from a riding which would not ordinarily be considered one from which a member of the New Democratic Party could be elected.
Max Saltsman was an independent minded person. He was a person who was willing to take a stand even if it was in the face of a different position taken by his own Party. The Right Hon. Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Turner) recalls that the late Max Saltsman took a position generally in favour of that of the Government during the controversial period of the War Measures Act in 1970.
Max Saltsman was also an original thinker. Nowhere was this better demonstrated than in his long campaign to make the Turks and Caicos Islands part of Canada. Max Saltsman believed deeply in Canada and in its democratic parliamentary system. He delighted in the opportunities he had to lecture at universities about our country and its system of government.
Max was gifted with a gentle and subtle sense of humour which helped to make his many interventions in debate extremely effective and heard. Max was a strong, outspoken and courageous Canadian nationalist. Above all, he was a person of courage and this was nowhere better demonstrated than the way in which he faced his last and greatest battle.
On behalf of the Official Opposition, and on behalf of all those who knew and worked with him, I would like to extend our deepest sympathy to Max's family, and friends. We mourn his loss but certainly his example and his contribution will long live in the memories of the people in this House, and in the memories of all Canadians.


Mr. Speaker:: Would the House care to join me in a moment of tribute, of memory, and of sympathy?
[Whereupon the House stood in silence.]


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Question Period will take its normal 45 minutes.

November 28, 1985
Oral Questions



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. The Southwest Drought Saskatchewan Committee, in response to the so-called relief given yesterday by the Government, called for the resignation of the Member of Parliament who was responsible for the committee reviewing that drought, and quite rightly so.
The Government is spending billions of dollars to rescue uninsured, nameless, wealthy depositors in banks, yet can find only a fraction of that amount to relieve western farmers who have suffered from the worst drought in memory. Why did the Government not give the same degree of relief as in the case of the bank depositors-100 per cent-to western farmers who have been inflicted by the worst drought in living memory in Saskatchewan, southern parts of Manitoba, and Alberta?


Hon. Charles Mayer (Minister of State (Canadian Wheat Board)):: Mr. Speaker, the Right Hon. Member should know that the Hon. Member for Assiniboia did an extremely good job and was very conscientious.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles James Mayer: He happens to be a farmer, as I happen to be, and I do not think we need to be lectured by the Right Hon. Member on what is going on, on the farm.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles James Mayer: Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, what this Government has done On behalf of western farmers. When you add it up, it comes very close to SI billion. When you add the drought assistance for the livestock industry to what was announced yesterday by the Minister of Agriculture, it comes to $200 million. The federal Government's share of the Western Grain Stabilization Act is approximately $350 million. The federal Government's share of crop insurance is something like $250 million. If you add in some of the other programs which everybody takes for granted, it comes close to $1 billion, to say nothing of the money provided through the Western Grain Transportation Act to assist producers in getting their crops to market.
Sure, everyone would like to have more, but let us put it into the context of what this Government has done and is doing for that area of the country.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I do not think the farmers are going to be impressed by that rhetoric. The Minister knows that for farmers suffering from drought the money was too little, too late, certainly in comparison with the relief given to the banks.


TIMING OF PAYMENTS
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Agriculture promised the farmers that they would receive this relief before Christmas. We learned this morning from the senior Assistant Deputy Minister of Agriculture that it would take until after Christmas to prepare the forms, negotiate the payments, and the money would not be in the farmers' hands until seeding time in March.


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: No, wrong.


John Napier Turner: That is what was said this morning in committee. Will the Minister explain how the farmers who have been wiped out by the drought will be able to survive over Christmas and the winter until they receive the payments?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, with regard to the comment about being too little, too late, let me tell you what another Turner, this one happens to be the president of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, had to say about what the federal Government is doing. He said: "Saskatchewan farmers would have suffered a net loss of $450 million this year had they not been given government money." That tells you what another Turner is saying about what the Government has been doing on behalf of producers.
Let me assure the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition that the forms will be available very quickly. That program will be administered by the PFRA, a well recognized and honourable institution in western Canada. The cheques will be in the mail just as quickly as we possibly can and I hope that, as quick as the farmers apply for it, they will have their money.


John Napier Turner: The president of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool also called for $50 per seeded acre and the Government has awarded somewhere between $5 and $10 per seeded acre. That is what the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool thinks of this particular offer.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


AMOUNT OF ACREAGE PAYMENT
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, in the face of the drought and grasshopper infestation this summer, in face of the fact that many farmers in southern Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta have suffered five, six and seven successive crop failures-


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: What country are we talking about?


John Napier Turner: -why would the Government grant an acreage payment insufficient to cover the spraying of their fields for grasshoppers?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, the Right Hon. Member should know
November 28, 1985
that this Government takes what it is doing on behalf of Canadian agriculture very, very seriously. What we are attempting to do is address some of the very severe problems caused by the fiscal irresponsibility of the previous Government which saw interest rates go as high as 22 per cent.


Mr. Guilbault (Saint-Jacques):: We also caused the drought!


Charles James Mayer: We are attempting to deal with the wrongheadedness and neglect which the previous Government showed toward agriculture. When the Hon. Member talks about the cost of spray he demonstrates, as far as a lot of farmers are concerned, that he does not know the difference between a pig's burp and an elevator.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Algoma.	.


Mr. Foster:: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture.


An Hon. Member:: What's a pig's burp?


Mr. Keeper:: What's the difference?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Order!


John Napier Turner: Here is another guy who needs a lesson.


ALLEGED THEFT OF CHEESE IMPORT PERMIT FORMS-COST TO DAIRY PRODUCERS
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture and is with regard to the stolen import certificates for cheese which have cost Canadian dairy producers $5.6 million in extra levies charged by the Canadian Dairy Commission. The Minister suggested on Tuesday that he just learned of this last week, yet in fact the Federation of Agriculture made a presentation to the Tory caucus on this over six months ago to demand action. Is the Government taking action to secure restitution from the firms which have illegally imported this cheese with these stolen certificates?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member asks a very serious question on a very serious matter. I think he would agree that it is probably not appropriate to comment on it at much length except to say that it is under investigation by the RCMP. We view it as a very serious situation. As the Minister for International Trade said yesterday, as soon as the details are made known the appropriate action will be taken as long as we can ascertain where the blame lies. However, it is a very serious situation and I think we are all concerned about the length of time which is being taken to deal with it.
Oral Questions


REQUEST FOR REIMBURSEMENT
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I am not asking about the police investigation. I am simply asking if the Government is prepared to reimburse the dairy farmers immediately for the $5.6 million of extra levies which have been placed on them this year by the Canadian Dairy Commission, and to seek restitution from the importing firms later. Is the Government willing to do that on behalf of the dairy producers who have suffered because of this incident?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member asks a fair question. As soon as we are made aware of all the details and facts involved in this unfortunate situation, I think the intent of the Government will be to ensure that no producer is wrongly or unfairly injured as a result of what, so far, appears to be a very unfortunate and, hopefully, isolated case.


ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS
Mr. Vic Althouse (Humboldt-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister and is with regard to Government policy. There is great confusion today among prairie farmers as to their importance in the Government's listing of priorities. Depositors in the Canadian Commercial Bank can get 100 cents on the dollar when they get in trouble. Why is it that when farmers get in trouble they are only offered 10 cents on the dollar?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I wish the Opposition would get it through their heads that the depositors include municipal governments, credit unions, labour unions, religious, charitable and ethnic organizations, and many other individual Canadians as well as individual Canadian companies.


John Napier Turner: Give us the names.


Charles James Mayer: Ordinary people are getting their deposits back.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Ordinary millionaires.


Charles James Mayer: We are very concerned about them as we are about Canadian agriculture. If one looks at what has been contributed by the federal Government on behalf of western agriculture this year, it is very close to $1 billion.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, the Minister has very kindly given us a list of some people who are on the 100 per cent priority list. Can he explain why farmers are on the 10 per cent priority list?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Your premise is wrong.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, the premise of the question is absolute-



November 28, 1985
Oral Questions
ly wrong. To the extent that there were farmers who were depositors in some of those banks, they would be getting back 100 per cent on their deposits the same as anybody else.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Ian Deans: Sit down.


Charles James Mayer: They laugh. There are a lot of farmers who are involved in credit unions. Members should know that credit unions are a very big factor in financial institutions in western Canada. I believe we have accepted our responsibility. As I said, everyone would like to do more, but if we start to do more interest rates will go up.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles James Mayer: For a farmer in western Canada, the 3 per cent reduction in interest rates as a result of the Government's policies will mean a reduction of $3,000 for every $100,000 of indebtedness. That is a significant benefit to western farmers as well.


Some Hon. Members:: Elear, hear!


John Napier Turner: This arrogance is contagious.


FARMERS' LOSSES
Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, perhaps if I put the question another way the Minister will comprehend it a little better. Does he not see that keeping farmers viable will prevent the kinds of problems we had with the Northland and Canadian Commercial Bank! Does he not see that that is the reason for some of these bank failures? Why not attack the problem at its root? Why give only 10 cents on the dollar to farmers? We must head off these problems instead of waiting until it is no longer possible to save the economy. Why does the Government give 100 cents on the dollar to credit unions and banks while ignoring the needs of the workers and producers in the country?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I would be very surprised if the Hon. Member would call the $450 million interim payment made last spring under the Western Grain Stabilization Act ignoring farmers.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Did they not pay for it?


Charles James Mayer: The Hon. Member tells me that we should be attacking the root causes of the concerns of western banks.


Mr. Benjamin:: No, western farmers.


Charles James Mayer: That is exactly what the Government has done with its energy policy. That is the kind of thing that we will continue to do. To the extent that farmers are businessmen,
which they are, as there are reductions in interest rates they will all benefit from the policies of the Government.


FINANCE
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. In the "policy guidelines for public servants". Communications with the Public, issued by the Prime Minister on November 23 it is stated: "Off-the-record background briefings will only be permitted in exceptional circumstances and must have prior ministerial approval".
With regard to the dinner organized by the chief Tory fundraiser, David Angus, at which there was a briefing of businessmen by the Deputy Minister of Finance, when and how did the Minister of finance give his approval for such a briefing, and what were the exceptional circumstances that justified it?


Maurice Brydon Foster: A thousand dollars each.


Hon. Erik Nielsen (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, the question gives me the opportunity to refer to yesterday's question of the Member for Saint-Henri-Westmount in which he made allegations that all of those in attendance were members of and contributors to the Five Hundred Club. That statement, Sir, was absolutely false. It goes to show-


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Answer my question.


Erik Nielsen: -the extent to which they are prepared to go to try to erect a straw man out of absolutely nothing.


Ian Deans: Maybe he will answer your question tomorrow.


John Napier Turner: Give us the list.


Erik Nielsen: The hon gentleman's question was answered yesterday.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: No it wasn't.


Erik Nielsen: It was answered last week. If he persists, I will read the answer to him again. It was a perfectly legitimate meeting for perfectly legitimate purposes. Such meetings will be repeated in the search for consultation and advice from all parts of the country.


APPLICATION OF GUIDELINES
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, 1 must repeat my question. Exactly when and how did the Minister of Finance give the approval required by the Prime Minister's own guidelines to the special briefing given by the Deputy
November 28, 1985

Minister of Finance at the dinner organized by David Angus, and what were the exceptional circumstances? If he does not give a straight answer to that question, we will know what he is hiding.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Erik Nielsen: There is nothing, Sir, being hidden whatsoever.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Tune in tomorrow.


Erik Nielsen: The Hon. Member is trying to link guidelines to press briefings which have no connection whatsoever. The fact is that a dinner was held for the purpose-


Sheila Maureen Copps: Publish the list.


Erik Nielsen: -of consulting business persons and soliciting information, views, and opinions from the private sector. What is so wrong with talking to the people?


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Publish the list.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board and is with regard to the drought assistance plan. As the Minister knows, the farmers asked for $50 an acre and are only getting about $5 per acre. I have had calls from farmers this morning who want to know how the Government is going to make the pay-out under this new program. Will it be based, as the Minister suggested, on a three-year average which, in the rural municipality of Bengough, comes to about 13 bushels per acre, or on a more accurate ten-year average which comes to around 23 bushels an acre? Which will it be, a ten-year average or a three-year average? If it is three years, the farmer will be short changed.


Charles James Mayer: First, Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member should know that under the formula to be used it is my understanding that the maximum payment in the most severely affected areas could be as high as $15.
He should also know that we are sensitive to the types of questions he has raised. For instance, if it is necessary to use crop insurance figures and they are based on previous production, it becomes very difficult to qualify. These things will be taken into consideration so that the people who have suffered the most from drought over a number of years will not be penalized. We will treat them as fairly as we possibly can, relative to others who have only had one or two crop failures.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: The Minister has not answered the question.
Oral Questions GOVERNMENT POSITION


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, why are the farmers being short changed? They asked for $50 an acre and they are getting about $5. The banks were not short changed; neither was Syncrude nor Dome. Why were the farmers short changed? Was it "Erik the Axe" cutting back the budget again?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, when the Hon. Member talks about Dome Petroleum I assume that he is talking about some alleged tax breaks. He should also know that Canadian farmers have an opportunity on an ongoing basis to defer grain sales in order to assist them in taxation matters. He should know that at the end of most calendar years there is as much as a billion dollars in grain sales deferred in order to assist farmers in their tax planning. He should know that this action is taken on behalf of farmers to assist them with their taxation problems.
Perhaps he wants to consider the amount of money that is being put in by the provincial Governments that are co-operating with us, especially Alberta and Saskatchewan. Unfortunately, 1 cannot say as much for my own Province of Manitoba. However, when you consider the money being put in by the federal Government and the two provincial Governments, it comes very close to covering the $2.5 billion loss that is estimated on the Prairies as a result of the drought this summer.


CROWN CORPORATIONS
Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, we are hearing from the Minister that Liberal tax policy toward farmers was pretty good.
In the absence of the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion I will direct my question to the Deputy Prime Minister. It concerns the rumours about the future of de Havilland that are now being reported in some detail in the media.
Will he bring the House up to date and indicate whether an agreement is in the works to sell de Havilland Aircraft Corporation so that it will become a wholly owned branch plant of Boeing in Seattle? Will he also confirm that a Canadian group, the Rimgate Group, which wanted to put in a bid, has not been given a fair opportunity to do so and has not been given the details that were given to Boeing to permit it to do so?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman would not expect me to answer in any other way than to say that any announcement with respect to de Havilland will be made in appropriate terms at the appropriate time.

November 28, 1985
Oral Questions


REQUEST FOR PARLIAMENTARY EXAMINATION
Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, if there is to be a sale of de Havilland, will Parliament be given an opportunity to examine that sale before it takes place? Will it also be able to examine the alleged multimillion dollar finder's fee which is to be paid to Burns Fry in connection with that transaction?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, quite apart from the hypothetical nature of the question, I will not add any fuel to the vivid imagination of the hon. gentleman and the speculation which he has propagated.


REFUGEES
Mr. Dan Heap (Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of State for Immigration, my question is directed to the Minister of Labour who, I understand, is taking those questions which I have discussed with the officials of the Department this morning.
On April 4 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that everyone in Canada who claims refugee status, including Sikhs and Tamils, has the right to an oral hearing before those who will make the decision which, if it is mistaken, could send him or her to imprisonment or death.
Will the Minister assure the House today that his Government will not remove from Canada those Sikhs or any other persons who have made refugee claims and who have not had their oral hearings, regardless of whether they have completed all other legal procedures?


Hon. Bill McKnight (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, as a result of the actions taken by the Minister responsible, the processing of those who have claimed refugee status in Canada is now the same as for all nationals who have sought refuge in Canada. The process being used for the Indian nationals whom the Hon. Member mentioned is the same process that is used for other nationals.


SITUATION OF TAMILS IN CANADA
Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, the Minister has not answered my question but has chosen a different question that I did not ask. Let me be more specific. While the Tamils are being killed by Sinhalese troops in Sri Lanka, it is reliably reported that the Government of Canada has agreed with the Governments of France, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Switzerland to begin in December removing Tamils from Canada and sending them back to Sri Lanka.
Will the Minister assure us that no Tamil who has claimed refugee status in Canada will be removed from Canada without an oral hearing?


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, I can only repeat my answer to the Hon. Member. The process that is being used for those nationals who have sought refuge in Canada is the process that is available to all who seek refuge in Canada. That is the policy that has been enunciated by the Government, and it will continue to be the policy.


INDUSTRY
Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Minister for International Trade. This week, Susan Shoes Industries, makers of Cougar shoes, sold its Oakville plant and shelved plans for Hamilton expansion as a direct result of the Government's decision to abandon the Canadian shoe industry. What can the Minister say to Joan Malcom of Burlington who not only lost her job but saw two of her daughters lose their jobs as a direct result of the Government's announcement last week?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, I can only repeat what the Minister for International Trade said in the House very often. The tribunal studying shoe quotas reported to the Government and we have acted on increasing protection for Canadian consumers. We are only protecting that part of the industry that we believe cannot compete, while the rest of the industry can. We will be making appropriate policies for people in the event that they are displaced.


GOVERNMENT POLICY
Sheila Maureen Copps: The Minister knows that for every dime saved a dollar will be spent in added costs of unemployment insurance and other lost revenues to the Government.
Sixty-five per cent of the workers in the footwear industry are women. How can the Minister justify annihilating an estimated 20,000 Canadian jobs so that some Canadians can wear cheaper Guccis?


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, this tribunal was set up by the former Government and we have acted responsibly in response to its results. I think it is time that the Hon. Members opposite recognize this.
November 28, 1985


CANADA-UNITED STATES NEGOTIATIONS-IMPACT ON WOMEN
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, first, may I welcome back to the front benches the Hon. Member for Frontenac.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Steven W. Langdon: I trust that his contribution to the free trade debate will help us.
Conspicuous by its absence from the list of Government free trade studies was any analysis of the impact of these negotiations on women in the economy, despite the strongly expressed fears of the National Action Committee on this issue. Will the Deputy Prime Minister explain why the Government has not commissioned studies to examine how women may be hurt by free trade and why it has not formally consulted with the National Action Committee about this issue?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, 1 do not accept the preamble to that question or the allegations contained in it. 1 believe that the Hon. Member was here yesterday when the Secretary of State for External Affairs completely and fully answered questions with respect to studies undertaken by the Government.


Steven W. Langdon: I think that we may have listened more carefully to his answers than you did because they did not deal with the question of studies of the impact on women.


NATIONAL ACTION COMMITTEE
Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I ask my question quite specifically because the National Action Committee has told us this. Why has there been absolutely no discussion with NAC, the umbrella group for women, about the free trade impact on them? Why is the Government ignoring a key part of our economy?


Erik Nielsen: I do not accept that premise, Mr. Speaker. 1 have said once before that the answers of the Secretary of State for External Affairs did not preclude the possibility that that kind of paper exists. In any event, the method of consultation adopted by the Government includes very much an ongoing process, and does not mean the end of the consultation process with one study.
Oral Questions


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of the Environment, my question is for the Parliamentary Secretary.
An announcement was made this week regarding the Hyde Park chemical waste dump located in New York State. Can the Parliamentary Secretary advise the House whether the Government is satisfied that this clean-up program will solve the problem, bearing in mind that seepage from this dump is contaminating Lake Ontario and endangering the drinking water of the four million Canadians who draw their water from Lake Ontario?


Mr. G. M. Gurbin (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of the Environment has initiated an assessment of the proposed settlement agreement. This agreement is now a public document for a period of 60 days before a court in the United States will consider it and allow it to be passed.
On the positive side of the proposal is the fact that after six years of delay we now have a containment proposal, and a proposal that will see elimination and destruction of some of the chemicals that would have seeped into the river and into the lake.
Our response will be seeking assurance that the techniques suggested will be effective in relieving the pressures, and in keeping with our position that we must see complete removal and destruction of the chemicals seeping into the river.


FOOTWEAR INDUSTRY
Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, 1 would also like to welcome back the Hon. Member for Frontenac, and 1 am convinced that, after living through the stress of knowing that he could lose his job, he will vigorously defend the men and women who work in the footwear industry.
My question is for the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs. This morning, my colleagues for Richmond, Ville d'Anjou and Saint-Maurice met with representatives of the footwear industry and some of its employees, and a management representative whom we met on this occasion would like to know why the Government has condemned his industry to death, causing the loss of 240 jobs.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, there is no question of this industry dying off. I

November 28, 1985
Oral Questions
think the kind of fear and panic that is being spread by the Hon. Member is not helpful to a discussion of the issue.


INQUIRY WHERE 53-YEAR-OLD LAID-OFF EMPLOYEE WILL BE RE-EMPLOYED
Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, if the Minister were willing to get down from her ivory tower and to meet real people, she would see that this is not simply panic.
My supplementary is for the same Minister. A 53-year-old footwear worker who will lose her job would like the Minister to tell her in what occupation she will be retrained and where another job will be found for her.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the Minister for International Trade, has indicated to this House before that, in the event of any disruption within the industry, the Government will be looking at active policies to help people.


Sheila Maureen Copps: People are losing their jobs.


Barbara Jean McDougall: It is important for all Canadians, Mr. Speaker, that we have a realistic and competitive industry. Where people are hurt, this Government has already made a commitment that it will look after them.


ATOMIC ENERGY OF CANADA LIMITED
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have a question for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. The Minister will probably know of the concern expressed by many residents of Manitoba about the latest application by Atomic Energy of Canada to acquire more Crown land near its Lac du Bonnet site for hydrogeological research with respect to disposal of radioactive waste.
Given that the concerns of many of those residents have to do with whether or not Manitoba may become an eventual site for a radioactive garbage dump, can the Minister now assuage those fears by ruling out, once and for all, the possibility of Manitoba becoming the final site for radioactive waste disposal?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: You already have Howard Pawley.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Hon. Pat Carney (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that the Member's question is hypothetical. AECL, which is the agency involved, has already said that it has no plans to use these sites in
Manitoba for the nuclear waste disposal which the Hon. Member discusses.


REQUEST FOR MINISTERIAL ASSURANCE
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I want to hear it from the Minister, I want to hear it from the Government, that Manitoba has been ruled out for a radioactive garbage dump. I do not want to hear it from AECL, which has a habit of lying through its teeth anyway.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I want to hear from the Minister, from the federal Government, not that there are no plans at this time nor any of that double-talk. I want to know that Manitoba has been ruled out completely.


Pat Carney: Mr. Speaker, there are no plans, there are no applications, there is no movement in this direction, so my answer to the first question will stands. It is a hypothetical question.


YOUNG OFFENDERS ACT
Mr. Bill Attewell (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General and it concerns the Young Offenders Act. I wish to applaud the Solicitor General for his prompt and sensitive response to the concerns expressed by many Canadians, including police forces and other people.
Since the Solicitor General wisely arranged to hold public hearings across the country, would he share with us some of his preliminary views about the Young Offenders Act? What changes might be made and when may they occur?


Sheila Maureen Copps: Where is your apple?


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, I will be pleased to do that. We have had a series of consultations in various centres across the country. There is another scheduled for Moncton on Monday.
As a result of these consultations it has been made clear to us that there are deficiencies in the Act as it relates, in some cases, to records provisions, and in other cases relating to open and closed custody and various other administrative issues. I think the goal of all of those involved is to ensure that the philosophy espoused by Parliament, that young people should be held accountable for their actions, is made to work well and work wisely, and that is our intention.
November 28, 1985


VISIBLE MINORITIES
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Multiculturalism. Last December the Government, in a press release, announced two very important steps with regard to Japanese Canadian redress, first, that it would enter into negotiations regarding compensation with the community, second, that it would negotiate with and through the National Association of Japanese Canadians.
Since it appears this week that those promises have fallen by the wayside, can the Minister reassure this House and the Japanese Canadian community that the Government will maintain its promise to enter into official negotiations with the National Association? Is the Minister prepared to give us this guarantee?


Hon. Otto Jelinek (Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport) and Minister of State (Multiculturalism)):: Mr. Speaker, I can see that the Hon. Member is grandstanding again, because he asked the exact question in committee two days ago. I answered it in detail then, but I will be happy to answer again.
Our Government-unlike the Liberal Government-


John Napier Turner: Outrageous arrogance.


Otto John Jelinek: -the previous Government, which said it would never apologize to the Japanese community-will, in fact, be making a statement of apology. We will be putting together a redress package on behalf of the Japanese Canadians who experienced the atrocities some 43 years ago.
It is my view that I have to get as broad a spectrum of input into my deliberations before making recommendations to Cabinet. I made that clear to the National Association of Japanese Canadians in several discussions with them. They understood. I am getting that input from the provinces and other interested parties-


Mr. Caccia:: This is a speech.


Otto John Jelinek: This is not just a Japanese-Canadian problem, Mr. Speaker. It is a Canadian problem and it will be dealt with accordingly.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


NEGOTIATIONS INQUIRY
Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, every problem that we treat in this House is a Canadian problem and it is shared by everybody.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Sergio Marchi: I would like to ask a supplementary question. This Minister is misleading the House-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
Oral Questions


Sergio Marchi: -when he said that the Japanese community is understanding of his position. His Prime Minister and his Government-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Please put the question.


Sergio Marchi: Will the Government maintain its commitment to negotiate officially and not discuss the issue in airport lobbies? Will he tell us whether he is going to negotiate with the National Association as he said he would, or is this simply another broken promise by the Tory regime?


Otto John Jelinek: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to see that the Hon. Member who represents a Party which has said that it would never even discuss the issue, let alone apologize, has so much interest in this matter.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Answer the question.


Otto John Jelinek: The Prime Minister of Canada, when he was Leader of the Opposition, made a commitment. That commitment still stands. However, it would be irresponsible of me, as the Minister responsible, to discuss these matters with Canadians and to make a decision before I have had input from the broadest cross-section of Canadians as is possible, which includes the National Association of Japanese Canadians. If the Hon. Member has a suggestion, I would be glad to listen to him.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Minister of Agriculture. Irrespective of whatever police investigation is taking place into the stolen import certificates, can the Minister give B.C. cheese producers a guarantee that any losses which they may have experienced as a result of stolen import certificates will be covered, either by the Government or by the importers of the illegal cheese?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member asks a fair question. I do not think he would expect a total guarantee to be given in this kind of setting. However, 1 have said that the Government is willing to look at it and try to do the best it can, to see that no one is taken advantage of financially for a circumstance over which they had no control. We are sensitive to the concern. We will take everyone's concern, including that of the Hon. Member on behalf of B.C. cheese producers, into account. I might mention that the same concerns have been raised by our own Members from British Columbia as well.

November 28, 1985
Oral Questions


LOSSES SUFFERED BY PRODUCERS
John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, in light of the sensitivity which the Minister declares and the concern which he says his caucus expresses, does he think that it is fair for the innocent parties in this scam to bear the loss of $4 million to $6 million because of this illegal importation of cheese?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, before we move along the lines of giving guarantees, 1 think it is very important that the total situation be understood and that the total facts be known. Referring to the import of his question as to whether it is fair, certainly all of us sympathize with that and do the best we can to address the situation so that, I say again, people who lose financially through no fault of their own are not unduly disadvantaged. We are sensitive to that and will do the best we can in that circumstance.


CUSTOMS AND EXCISE
Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister responsible for Customs and Excise. It concerns the December issue of the American Hustler magazine which was allowed into Canada by his officials. This particular issue depicts and describes sex in a manner which is violent, degrading and dehumanizing to women. It contains scenes of bondage, sex with urination, sex with violence, sex with an apparent child, and extreme racism. Its entry into Canada is in clear violation of Section 159 of the Criminal Code and the Customs Tariff. In view of the fact that the magazine is illegal, how and why was a magazine which is offensive and degrading to women allowed into Canada?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for bringing this matter to my attention. The Minister is not in the House today because he is at the First Ministers' Conference. I will raise it with him and with his officials and get back to the House as soon as possible.


John V. Nunziata: The fact remains that the magazine was allowed into Canada. Someone fell asleep at the switch.


REQUEST THAT MAGAZINE BE REMOVED FROM STORE SHELVES
John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Acting Minister of Justice. Will he immediately instruct provincial Attorneys General to remove the offensive magazine from the shelves and to prosecute distributors and retailers who refuse to do so?


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Justice I will gladly take notice of that question.


CANADA-UNITED STATES NEGOTIATIONS-LUMBER EXPORTS
Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister and it concerns a matter of government policy. Various U.S. spokesmen, including Clayton Yeutter and key Congressmen, have urged Canada to accept voluntary export restraints on lumber sales to the United States. Will the Government, now that it has accepted talks with the U.S. on this issue, state clearly and without equivocation that Canada will not accept such voluntary restraints?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, that question was answered yesterday, in a similar question, by the Secretary of State for External Affairs.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Napier Turner: It was asked, not answered.


Erik Nielsen: 1 hear groans. If my hon. colleagues in the House would like me to read those answers into the record again, I will willingly take up the time of the House to do that. He was here; he heard the answer.


John Napier Turner: It was a non answer.


NATURE OF TALKS
Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, yes, I was here and I did hear the answer, and I did not hear it today, the one 1 am looking for.


An Hon. Member:: Ask the right question.


Iain Francis Angus: The Government of Canada will have talks with the United States on lumber. If the question of voluntary restraints is not on the table in those talks, then what will they be discussing?


Erik Nielsen: Trade issues, Sir.
November 28, 1985


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of the Environment I will direct my question to his Parliamentary Secretary. It has now been six weeks since the Minister of the Environment received a very specific proposal from his American counterpart on how to clean up the dump sites along the Niagara River. There has been silence ever since. When will this veil of silence be lifted so that Canadians will know how their health and their water will be protected by the Government?


Gary Michael Gurbin: Mr. Speaker, the working group, which includes representatives of the Province of Ontario and members of the federal department of the Environment, has been working ever since the time of the first meeting with Mr. Thomas and the Minister some six weeks ago. Its members are now down to a point where they are considering in detail four or five specific proposals, which I understand can in fact be agreed upon. We hope to be able to release those by the beginning of the year.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, can the Parliamentary Secretary assure the House that the final package will be in keeping with the commitment and promise made last May to the predecessor of the present Minister of the Environment?


Gary Michael Gurbin: Mr. Speaker, not being entirely clear on the exact premise of the question, I do not think 1 can give the Hon. Member that complete assurance. I can tell him that we will be acting on behalf of the Canadian people who will be required to use that water in the future. We will be doing our best, in co-operation with the Province of Ontario, to ensure that the standards which we all want are met.
v *	*


CLERK OF PETITIONS' REPORTS
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the petitions, with the exception of one, presented by Hon. Members on November 27, 1985, meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.
The petition presented by the Hon. Member for Victoria-Haliburton (Mr. Scott) does not meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.
I am in receipt of a notice of a desire to raise a point of order by the Hon. Member for Windsor West (Mr. Gray).
Business of the House POINT OF ORDER


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, 1 want to raise a point of order with respect to today's Question Period. When I asked a question of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Nielsen) with regard to the policy guidelines for public servants in communications with the public, issued by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) on November 23, 1984, the Deputy Prime Minister said that my question had already been asked and answered.
I carefully checked Hansard, and I found nowhere a question pertaining to these guidelines, and nowhere an answer as to whether or not the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) specifically gave the permission required by the guidelines and demonstrated exceptional circumstances. These guidelines, by the way, apply not only to dealings with the press but to dealings with the public generally. I feel this must be noted in terms of the proper order and conduct of the Question Period.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member knows that I must say that that is not in fact a point of order. I invite him to use the late show procedure if he wishes to pursue the matter further.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Scott Fennell (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have the honour to table the thirteenth report of the Striking Committee, in both official languages.


AGRICULTURE-THIRD REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Mr. Lee Clark (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the third report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture, in both official languages.
[Editor's Note: For above Reports see today's Votes and Proceedings.]


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Government House Leader the customary question as to the business of the House which he proposes for the coming week.

November 28, 1985
Petitions


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member knows, the House Leaders will be meeting immediately after Routine Proceedings and I intend to discuss the business of the House of next week with them. I will come back to the House and seek the indulgence of Hon. Members to announce the business after that meeting.


PETITIONS
[Stage Direction]
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine
East): Mr. Speaker, i have a number of petitions from Ville Saint-Pierre in my constituency. In these petitions the petitioners ask that the Government of Canada abandon its regressive decision to deindex family allowances. This decision, if implemented, would further reduce the buying power of the truly needy in Canada.
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition on behalf of a number of my constituents who ask the Government to rescind the policy with respect to the calculation of retirement benefits and the availability of unemployment insurance payments.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I have a number of petitions. The first is from petitioners in my constituency. I have another two petitions from Wascana Hospital in Regina signed by 37 people. I have a further 19 petitions from citizens of the City of Regina. All petitioners in these 22 petitions pray and call upon the House to maintain full indexation of universal family allowances and to rescind unfair tax increases, for which they, and I, will forever pray.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, 1 have a petition from a number of western Canadians who are concerned about the Government's cut-back in the cost of living increase to family allowances and who are asking the Government to reinstate the full indexation of the universal family allowance. They also ask the Government to rescind a number of unfair tax increases which were introduced in the last Budget and which are presently before the House.


Mr. Allan Pietz (Welland):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have the honour to present a petition today on behalf of 600 residents of my riding and other areas in the Niagara Peninsula. They call upon Parliament to look closely at the potential which exists in the Niagara Peninsula and, more particularly, on the Welland
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Canal lands and recreational waterway for attracting more tourism to Canada and to develop lands toward that end.


Mr. Guy Ricard (Laval):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table a petition from people in my constituency about family allowances.


Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have a number of petitions on two particular topics. The first group are petitioners who request that the Government investigate their concerns about the test range at Nanoose Bay before further negotiations are proceeded with.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: The second group of petitions are from citizens of the Prince Albert district who are concerned about the deindexation of universal family allowances. They call upon the House of Commons to reinstate full indexation of the family allowance and to rescind unfair tax increases.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, 1 have a number of petitions from residents of Winnipeg, in particular-people in my riding, who take note of the fact that the deindexation of family allowances will not be offset by the child tax credit and that even the poorest of families will be worse off by the year 1990. These citizens call upon the Government to rescind its efforts to deindex the family allowance.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, l have the honour to present today a petition from the Casselman area which was given to me by Mrs. Nicole Leduc of that community.
The petition asks the Government of Canada to reverse its decision about deindexing family allowances.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, 1 have petitions from residents of my constituency in the Towns of Lanigan, Humboldt, Drake, Meacharn, Plunkett and Colon-say who point out that in their opinion deindexation of the universal family allowance and the massive cut-backs in the public commitment to child benefits are an unfair tax on women and families with children. They call upon the House of Commons to reinstate full indexation of universal family allowance and to rescind the unfair tax increases.
November 28, 1985


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and responsibility to present several petitions dealing with a common subject. The first is from Local 6500 of the United Steelworkers of America. It has some 85 signatures.
The next petition is from bank clerks of quebec which contains some 75 signatures, 37 of them collected by Mr. John R. Syme of North Bay.
The next petition contains 30 signatures from the Ontario Retail Council of Ontario. The next petition is from the Lethbridge City Fire Fighters' Union with 40 signatures.
All of these individuals deplore the fact that the Government intends to change the Unemployment Insurance Act effective January 1, 1986, whereby pension income will be considered earned income for unemployment insurance purposes. They call upon the Government to rescind this particular provision.



PETROLEUM INCENTIVES PROGRAM ACT


Pat Carney: for leave to introduce Bill C-85, an Act to amend the Petroleum Incentives Program Act.


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.

Mr. Doug Lewis (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all the questions on the Order Paper be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall all questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Income Tax Act



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mrs. McDougall that Bill C-84, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act and related statutes and to amend the Canada Pension Plan, the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, the Financial Administration Act and the Petroleum and Gas Revenue Tax Act, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Raymond Garneau: Mr. Speaker, when the debate was adjourned before lunch, I was trying to demonstrate that the philosophy on which the Budget was based, which we find again in Bill C-84, consists in giving tax benefits to large corporations, to the wealthy, and in significantly increasing the tax burden on middle income taxpayers.
I also touched on the child tax credit issue, and I wanted to point out that the combined effect of Bill C-84 and the legislation on partial deindexation of family allowances would be that Canadian families would lose altogether $1,210,000 between now and the end of this decade. In other words, the child tax credit will provide certain benefits for families, but the reduction in tax exemptions and deindexation of family allowances will represent more than twice the amount of those benefits. If total benefits amount of $1,100,000, there will be a $2,300,000 drop in income as a result of the combined effect of reducing and deindexing the exemption and deindexing family allowances.
Mr. Speaker, if I may refer to the debate in committee on Bill C-70, we must consider the fact that the provinces, with the exception of Quebec, will also have a $100,000 increase per year in revenue at the expense of middle income families. These figures were taken from the debate in committee on November 19, 1985, and were given by the Deputy Minister for Health. Therefore, the real loss for Canadian families will be enormous.
Mr. Speaker, finally, in the few minutes I have left I would like to comment on the provisions of Bill C-84 dealing with the capital gains tax exemption. We have often said in the House, and I have maintained this outside the House as well, that in this legislation the very principle of the capital gains tax exemption is unfair and that the legislation fails to meet the objectives laid down by the Government in its Budget policy.
Among the measures proposed by the Government, the $500,000 exemption will give the wealthiest in our society tax benefits totalling $4.5 billion between now and the end of this decade. The exemption is unconditional, and so we have no

November 28, 1985
Income Tax Act
assurance that the tax benefits thus enjoyed by our wealthiest taxpayers will go to finance new investment.
Last night, for example, 1 watched television and listened to my friend the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) referring to tax statistics. He said it is not true that rich people would benefit most from this measure.
Mr. Speaker, I would refer all Hon. Members of the House to page 277 of the 1985 edition of documents on tax statistics. One can see how tax benefits are shared and who are the people who will benefit most. They show as well in which sector of activities the benefits will be most generous. There is no doubt that people who deal in real estate stand to gain most and, as it happens, real estate transactions are the source of huge capital gains. That was the point raised by my colleague from Saint-Henri-Westmount (Mr. Johnston). 1 think the Hon. Member for Mississauga would be well advised to re-read those statistics very carefully before making the kind of statement we heard from him last night.
Besides, Mr. Speaker, we are not the only ones to speak against this unfair and unequitable measure to average income taxpayers. On May 31, not long after the Budget, the Globe and Mail reported the comments made by academics, tax experts and accountants who said that this measure was inappropriate under the circumstances and that it would not deliver the expected benefits.
More recently the Financial Post, definitely not a leftist publication, gave a very detailed report on the remarks made by tax experts attending a Canadian Tax Foundation meeting. Here is what those people said: Despite the fact that those consultants . . . Perhaps I should quote the Financial Post in English:

They will earn hefty fees from the fancy tax planning the exemption will spawn. But even so, many of the 1,500 accountants and lawyers attending last week's Canadian Tax Foundation conference here criticized the proposal as ill-conceived and poorly designed.
They now think it likely to spawn dozens of new tax avoidance schemes that could lead to pressure for big modifications to the exemption, or some sort of substitute.
Further on, the article reads:
However, after studying the proposal in more detail, the experts say it is badly flawed-
The exemption has been criticized in some circles as a gift to the wealthy. But that's not the primary concern of the tax technicians. They're alarmed that the proposal will create additional avenues for nonproductive tax abuse, and will foster more complexity in the tax system.

Mr. Speaker, I could go on quoting experts who state outright that the Conservative Government's proposal to exempt from taxation up to $500,000 in capital gains is not only unfair politically and philosophically, but also technically unapplicable.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments. Debate. The Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry) has the floor.


John Edmund Parry: Mr. Speaker, again it is my duty to rise to speak to the measures the Government has put before us today in the form of Bill C-84. This Bill enshrines the Government's present intentions regarding the tax system and the fiscal situation and it brings into concrete form many of the measures which I and my Party criticized and will continue to criticize.
Many of the measures that were announced in the May, 1985, Budget we saw as being regressive and retrograde in terms of economic opportunity and equality for Canadians. We saw them as being essentially ill conceived and only attacking the deficit, something we all acknowledge is a problem, from the single angle of adjusting the tax system. We also saw these measures as ignoring much of the revenue potential that exists in very real form in the Canadian economy. As well, we saw them as perpetuating some of the injustices that were instituted by the late unlamented Liberal Government which completely lopped off the upper end of the once progressive income tax system.
In examining these proposed changes, we should examine not only the form but the substance of them. My colleague, the Hon. Member for Laval-des-Rapides (Mr. Garneau), quoted from a report in the The Financial Post on the rather ill-conceived capital gains tax exemption that the Government is proposing. It is very interesting to see, after the way in which members of the Progressive Conservative Party vaunted their ties with the business community and bragged about trumpeted their connections, that they should bring in a proposal which is manifestly generous to the upper-income levels, particularly in that business community, and yet should now be seeing that proposal criticized in a lively and intelligent fashion by the chartered accountants and tax practitioners. It must in some way seem a bitter pill for Government members to swallow when they notice that something that they thought was such a great pay-off for their support bloc is now being looked at in the manner of a gift horse. I think it does great credit to the practitioners who stand to benefit most from this fertile and fecund source of potential new loopholes that they are themselves prepared to criticize them.
I believe my Party could have lived with adjustments for inflation within the capital gains tax system. We all acknowledge that a large part of the capital gains that have been taxed over the past 15 years since capital gains taxes were introduced was due to inflation and was not fair game for tax purposes in the single sense that it simply resulted from a deterioration in the value of money vis-a-vis other commodities, goods and investment vehicles. It did not result from bona fide appreciation or gain that the taxpayer could tangibly use for an investment in a similar vehicle or commodity.
We might even have been persuaded to swallow the idea that capital gains should continue to be taxed at a rate of only 50 per cent. Of course, this is something that flew in the face
November 28, 1985

of the wisdom of the Benson Commission which made the statement, deathless in its wisdom, "a buck is a buck is a buck". I believe we might have stomached that break, and it was a break. It was a break because it only taxed half of the actual income. I know that I could have persuaded members of my Party to approve of something which was one part of the Income Tax Act but was taken out by the Liberal Government, the concept whereby those who realized capital gains were only taxed when the gains were actually received. As we know, of course, the previous Liberal Government decided that that was a little too close to commercial reality to be allowed to persist. It decided that capital gains tax should be paid over three years no matter if the proceeds of the sale were received over 5, 10, 20 or 25 years.
I do not believe it can be said that my Party has in any way taken an unreasonable stance toward capital gains as an income phenomena. I believe, for example, that those inflation adjustment regulations should have been incorporated into the Income Tax Act, that we should have extended the principle which was granted to farm capital gains, that a gain should not be taxable until it was invested in a different medium, until it was realized for the personal consumption of the investor or until it was taken for other purposes by an investing corporation. The gain should remain non-taxable while being reinvested into a similar property as so many of us find in the common practice of trading up on homes. I suppose that exists in other sectors of the economy, for example, trading up in farms or the trading up of hotel and motel owners into properties which require more money to purchase. I think that is something we could have gone along with. However, the Government did not look at any of these intelligent alternatives. It decided it would take a broadaxe approach, that it would take a decisive measure within the capital gains tax system by granting this lifetime exemption. Well, the game is up, Mr. Speaker. This has had some detailed study and has been weighed in balance by those who are probably best capable of doing so, and it was found to be wanting. I, too, would like to quote from The Financial Post report which states:
It (the exemption) is going to be abusive, and there will be many varieties of abuse. These won't be understood for some time because of their complexity.
That I believe is the kernel of this problem. We have seen what happened to the previous Liberal Government with the scientific research tax credits which were granted. Thank heaven, this Government did at least have the sense to put an end to those shenanigans. The way in which those things were being traded around the Canadian economy, we were going to need some form of commodity exchange just to keep track and regulate the trafficking in those research tax credits. It was the same with other little loopholes the Liberal Government chose to introduce. However, in having put an end to one form of folly and one source of exemptions, mostly unearned, and after putting an end to one form of trading in paper and property shuffling, the Government in its wisdom, finite as that wisdom is, decided that it would introduce a lifetime capital gains exemption for people up to the level of $1 million. That really
Income Tax Act
is not going to encourage investment in Canada. We know that this capital gains exemption will apply to an investor's property wherever that property may be. This capital gains tax exemption could be used to cover the profit on land in Llorida, be it swamp or drained land. It could be used to cover the profits on a condominium in Hawaii or a share in a future film being produced in Hollywood, California. I am afraid it is going to be a boondoggle. The people who are examining this have only just plumbed the surface of potential abuse of that tax exemption.
I believe the Government decided it would do something which would be attractive to the constituency which did so much to elect it. I believe it decided that it would introduce a measure which, certainly on the surface, was very simple and understandable. I think we are only just beginning to realize that what may appear clear and straightforward superficially can be a real mine field and fertile ground for the sharp practice of tax avoidance shading into tax evasion.
This much having been said, I do not want any Member of this House to say that I rose to speak without saying something good about the changes enshrined in Bill C-84. I am glad to see the Government has picked up on the idea of the Fonds de solidarity des travailleurs du Quebec and has enshrined a similar measure in Bill C-84. I think that is a socially worthwhile objective. I feel that the opportunity to invest one's wages in labour-sponsored venture capital organizations in one which will increase understanding of the roles of the different players in our economy and I feel that is a worth-while objective in itself. Hopefully, it will also lead those who will be in receipt of the investment funds to understand a little more of the perspective, needs and aspirations of those who will be providing them.
Looking at the RRSP provisions, I believe it is fair to say that some increase in the limits was called for and the best thing would have been for the previous Government, obviously, to have indexed those limits to inflation rather than setting them in dollar terms. What we are looking at now, frankly, is a system which will again provide significant tax sheltering opportunities which will only be available to the upper-income earner. I feel that the limits which are proposed are somewhat excessive in that context.
The investment of pension plans in small businesses I think again has some considerable merit. The concern of the New Democratic Party hinges more on the nature and extent of the opportunity which is being granted than on the basic idea that underlies that opportunity. We see, for example, that a pension fund will be allowed to invest $3 outside of Canada for every $1 it puts into a small business investment corporation. I have to question whether we really want to make that sort of measure, to that degree, available. I think, frankly, that when we see the nature and extent of capital, commodity, and property investment markets in the United States, we can understand that there is a very considerable attraction toward investing in that country. However, I think we also have to bear in mind that it is those same investment opportunities which induce capital flows.
8934

November 28, 1985
Income Tax Act
I believe that we do have a problem in Canada with the extent to which Canadian capital is invested outside of this country and, conversely, the extent to which investment in Canada depends on imported foreign capital. We might be better able to control our own economic destinies if fewer dollars flowed out from Canada and, conversely, fewer dollars flowed in. It seems to me in looking at those ratios that replacing the figure of 10 per cent allowable at the moment with a figure of 75 per cent, it is going to be something like the situation of imports within the Canadian Football League. What is intended as an upper limit becomes transmuted into a de facto standard. I think the lesson which has been learned from the multiple use residential building exemption is also one which should be applied here. It seems to me that in the enthusiasm to take advantage of those tax incentives, several people have got into investments where, perhaps, the underlying values of the investment were not so closely scrutinized as they should be. I am not saying there were major scams involved, 1 am just saying that having that tax incentive available seems to have given some the opportunity to charge a price which the investment would not otherwise commend.
Both I and my Party have stated our opposition to deindexation of personal exemptions and tax brackets. All this is designed to do is to increase tax revenue. It does not accomplish any other useful goal. It is simply a cynical revenue raiser. It will just tick away year after year producing more and more money for the federal treasury and reducing the protection Canadians presently have in the tax system against inflation of their taxes as well as being taxed on inflationary income gains. It is expected to cost Canadians about $650 million over the next two years alone and more after that. Similarly, the elimination of the federal tax reduction is a piece of penny-pinching and cheese paring on the part of the Government which we all know will affect lower and middle-income Canadians to a greater degree than the wealthier.
The temporary surtax on upper-income earners is something this Party supports. Perhaps it would be worth while to again make the point that this would not be necessary but for the 1981 Liberal Budget which removed the progressive rates of taxation from the income tax system.
Turning to the corporate changes, I think it is worth putting on the record some of the problems experienced in small business today as a result of the Government's slowness in bringing forward the extension of the small business bond program. This is something we strongly support, something that should go ahead, but I have to say that over the past week I have heard of several cases where people have been given different information by the banks. It seems they are not able to adequately interpret the legislative program and advise their clients precisely where they are going to stand on January 1, 1986. That is obviously something that could have been and should have been handled rather earlier. My Party also has no quarrel with the temporary tax on larger financial institutions. However, we do feel that the under-contribution by the corporate sector to the coffers of the national exchequer should be
addressed in a more systematic fashion and not by a rather ad hoc looking tax, to use a perhaps pejorative phrase. This does not look at the over-all contribution of the corporate sector to the federal treasury as was outlined so well by my colleague, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow), this morning.
To turn from the sector which is getting off most lightly to that part of society which will feel most the brunt of Bill C-84, we have the changes to child benefits. After those changes are phased in, to quote The May Budget and the Poor, a publication of the National Council on Welfare:
After the various changes are phased in-raising the child tax credit, lowering the turnover point for the child tax credit (the level of net family income above the credit is reduced) reducing the children's exemption to the annual family allowance, and partially de-indexing all child benefits-even the poorest parents will receive less than they would from the existing child benefits scheme.
We in the NDP view that with frustration and sadness and even with disgust. We know how it flies in the face of the concrete promises trumpeted by the Progressive Conservative Party before it became the Government last September. We believe that this is a signal to Canadians that the value of child raising and the value of the family is being depreciated by this Government. I am not going into a rhetorical flight of fancy on this. I am not one to say that the Government is turning families out on their ear or throwing them overboard. However, the fact remains that the assistance given to families, and of course the poorest families, is going to be gradually reduced over the next few years. That is one of the major flaws in this Budget. It seems to continue the Liberal Party emphasis on ensuring that those who have the best ability to pay are those who will not be asked for as full a contribution as they would be under a progressive tax system.


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on second reading of Bill C-84, an Act to amend the Income Tax Act and several related statutes. In September of 1984 this Government was given a mandate by the people of Canada, Canadians who felt a sense of alienation, who were fed up with acrimony and division, weary of high interest rates and sick of record unemployment. Clearly Canadians opted for change and a new direction. The themes of this Government have been and continue to be economic renewal and national reconciliation. That is what the Budget and this Bill are all about.
This Government inherited an extremely serious fiscal situation. Expenditures exceeded revenues by 50 per cent with the result this Government faces annual deficits in the range of $35 billion to $40 billion. The accumulated national debt is close to $200 billion. Interest on the debt consumes one revenue dollar in three or one expenditure dollar in four. Clearly, serious and meaningful action is called for.
The road toward economic renewal began last November with the economic statement which enunciated the obvious. Priority had to be given to the Herculean task of restoring order to the Canadian fiscal house. That statement contained a series of restraint measures which totalled over $4 billion. These included reductions in the level of spending on pro-
November 28, 1985

grams, improved program management, reduced overhead, deferral or cancellation of capital expenditures which were not absolutely necessary, a reduction in the rate of personnel growth and increased revenue generation. The rate of expenditure growth in the Main Estimates in February was the lowest in 17 years. Non-statutory expenditures, those matters of spending to which the Government is not already locked in through existing legislation, are expected to rise negligibly this year. The Nielsen task force has undertaken the massive job of reviewing literally hundreds of Government programs in order to identify further opportunities to reduce the cost and financial burden of Government.
Then came the May 23 Budget which encouraged private initiative, improved Government effectiveness, controlled the national debt, secured economic renewal and created jobs. The underlying message is that meaningful economic growth can occur only by utilizing the dynamism and entrepreneurial spirit of individual Canadians in the private sector. Economic renewal is the objective and it will be achieved first by personally encouraging private initiative. That is the key to productive growth and job creation. Secondly, it will be achieved by providing Government effectiveness, cutting waste and reducing the magnitude of the Public Service. Thirdly, it will be achieved by controlling the national debt because we can have more responsible deficit reduction.
These changes must be effected fairly and realistically. This Bill implements many of the significant measures in this Government's first full Budget. In examining the legislation we must ask some questions about the nature of a budget Bill. Clearly it must implement new taxes and increase others. By way of analogy, 1 compare a budget Bill to the situation of a cancer patient. There is a symptom of pain or malfunction. The patient did not put the malignancy in his body but, nonetheless, he has been diagnosed. He is in deep trouble and corrective surgery is necessary. It is possible that the disease is beyond cure. The patient could lash out a the doctor, the staff or the hospital, but the problem will not go away, it can only get worse. He really has no choice but to have the surgery and pray that it works.
Sad to say, Mr. Speaker, in fiscal terms Canada is a cancer patient. The malignancy is the deficit. The symptom is the pain and misery caused by interest charges on the cumulative national debt. The cancer is there and it will not go away, it can only get worse. The only difference is that we know the cause: 20 years of Liberal Government. Canadians lashed out in anger and got rid of the cause last year. They know that treatment is now necessary. Part of that treatment will be found in Bill C-84 which represents another step in the long and arduous climb back to fiscal responsibility in the country.
This Bill contains a number of measures. The first and foremost is a lifetime $500,000 capital gains exemption for all Canadians. The second is improvements to the rules governing investment in small business by pension and other retirement income plans. The third measure is an expanded definition of
Income Tax Act
disability to benefit some 120,000 Canadians. The fourth is a capital tax on larger financial institutions to ensure that they bear an appropriate part of the tax load at a time when deficit reduction is a high priority. There is a temporary deficit reduction surtax on higher income individuals and large corporations. Individuals are permitted to collapse Registered Home Ownership Savings Plans free of tax. The seventh measure is the implementation of rules to prevent taxpayers from splitting incomes among family members to reduce tax. The eighth measure is the modification of Revenue Canada's power to audit and examine taxpayers' books and records, including its power of search and seizure. The much-abused scientific research tax credit has been eliminated. The rip-off whereby investment tax credits were allowed on third party cash rebates has also been eliminated. A further measure is the modification of indexation of personal exemption and tax brackets to prevent further widening of the gap between revenue shortfall and exemption increases.
The lifetime individual capital gains exemption of $500,000 is the single most important measure. Indeed, I believe it to be the single most significant tax measure to be instituted in the 1980s. Having dealt with farmers, ranchers, small business people and other individuals in southwestern Saskatchewan on a daily basis for the past 20 years, 1 have seen first-hand the stifling effects of a tax regime which gave no incentive and no hope for the entrepreneur. The tax system caused many to opt not to go the extra mile. In that tax system the spectre of capital gains hung like a poisonous cloud, particularly over the farm community.
Agriculture predominates in my constituency. Farmers and ranchers never really have any great amount of cash because they plough their money back into their operations, particularly into their land base. The farmer and rancher often have the fruits of a lifetime of hard work tied up in the ground. That ground has, until now, been subject to a capital gains tax imposed in 1971 by the present Official Opposition. The incidence of that was softened for a while through income averaging annuity contracts which, in turn, were retroactively taken away in the infamous MacEachen Budget. That cruel and unfair tax has penalized initiative and taxed inflation.
Capital gains tax has distorted and impeded the normal flow of farm land transactions for the past 10 years in western Canada. Indeed, even simple parent-child transactions at a reasonable price-less than fair market value but more than the parents' ACB-were obstructed, delayed and even prevented by this odious tax.
The farm community now rejoices in the freedom to move provided by this lifetime capital gains exemption of $500,000 which is available immediately effective January 1, 1985, on qualifying farm properties, that is, land which has been actively farmed by the vendor, vendor's spouse or children for any five years since valuation day. This measure will allow an entire generation of older farmers to retire in dignity while permitting the younger farmers to enter into agriculture without a crushing debt burden.

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Income Tax Act
For Canadians other than farmers the lifetime $500,000 exemption will be phased in over six years with cumulative limits of $20,000 in 1985, $50,000 in 1986, $100,000 in 1987, $200,000 in 1988, $300,000 in 1989, and the full $500,000 in 1990 and subsequent years. This measure, incidentally, will not reduce the present exemption on the sale of a principal residence. This major initiative was designed to encourage risk-taking investment by individual Canadians and small and medium-sized businesses.
Our priority goal is jobs for Canadians. Clearly, job maintenance and job creation requires a strong and healthy business sector. We recognize that some 700,000 small and mediumsized businesses across the country are the most dynamic forces for growth and employment. New ideas are implemented, new activities generated and new jobs created through capital investment. It is the thrust of this Bill and the May Budget that Canadians will respond to the challenge of taking a direct stake in the future if they are encouraged by the Government rather than discouraged.
The Government wants to encourage risk taking, but in a way that lets individual Canadians choose what to do with their own hard-earned money. Government ought not dictate to Canadians where and how to invest. Surely it should be left to the individual to decide as he or she sees best. This exemption will attract new equity investment to business and will improve the financial health of Canadian companies. It will assist small business in raising capital to pursue new ideas and directions. It will help generate funds for research and development.
The bottom line is as stated by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) on May 23. I quote: "This is a broadly based incentive that allows individual Canadians to decide where to put their money and how to create wealth, economic activity and jobs. It is central to our philosophy. The decision should and will be made by individuals across Canada, not by politicians or public servants here in Ottawa. With this measure we are sending a clear signal to Canadians across this country: Invest in Canada's future; help build the strong and prosperous country we all seek; help create those jobs".
Canadians now know that the successes they achieve will be rewarded. This knowledge is a vital element in the rising surge in the level of confidence in the economy of the country; confidence which dates from September 4, 1984. Bill C-84, in recognizing the over-riding importance of small business, contains other innovative measures to enable small business to tap into new sources of equity investment. Thus, it gives small business access to RRSP and pension plan funds and will benefit both the businesses and the administrators of the plans.
Essential to any taxation system is the concept of fairness. To be effective the tax gathering system must not only be fair, it must be seen to be fair. To this end, Bill C-84 introduces several measures I earlier mentioned: prevention of incomesplitting trusts, the elimination of the SRTC, the temporary surtax on high income individuals and corporations, imposition of a capital tax on financial institutions, and elimination of the business investment tax credit on third party cash rebates.
These measures, combined with the introduction of a minimum tax on personal income in 1986, will promote and improve the fairness of the total tax system.
Also included in this Bill are advances in procedural fairness set out in defining Revenue Canada's powers to ensure that administration of tax law complies with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As well, there are specific and complicated rules inserted to prevent the conversion of normal income into capital gains. The capital gains exemption is designed to encourage risk taking and growth, but abuse would diminish the fairness of this system. Therefore, anti-avoidance rules are incorporated regarding business income, corporate capital gains, and the shifting of exempt capital gains between individuals in order to ensure that the exemption fulfils its policy goal while not being subject to abuse.
The Opposition may suggest that some of these measures are unfair and inequitable. I disagree, of course, but we have no choice in any event. We have reached the point of no return in this country. Canadians are caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. The deficit is growing at such a pace that the modest spending cuts and tax increases we make barely take care of the increasing interest charges on the national debt. We must never lose sight of the fact that we were placed in this position by the profligacy of the Liberal Party which wantonly rang up a deficit of historic proportions. We cannot, Mr. Speaker, continue to spend more than we take in. As individuals we cannot, as families we cannot, and collectively as a nation we cannot.
I firmly believe that most Canadians understand the importance of this Budget and the very necessary change of direction manifested in Bill C-84. The thrust of this Bill is economic renewal. The Bill represents another step in the Government's plan to effect that economic renewal. The progression of initiatives since November last are clearly manifesting themselves in concrete positive economic indicators.
Since the election of the Government, employment has risen. Interest rates are down. Investor confidence is strengthening. Consumer spending is rising. Prices are stable. Bankruptcies are declining. The Canadian economy is out performing the American economy.
Our GNP is up over 4 per cent in real terms. Some 330,000 new jobs have been created, 37,000 in the month of October alone. The unemployment rate has fallen from 11.6 per cent to almost 10 per cent. While that is still unacceptable, it is improving. The Bank of Canada rate has fallen 3.5 points. The prime rate is at 10 per cent, the lowest level in seven years. The rate on five-year mortgages has fallen to 11.75 per cent, which is the lowest level in six years.
Capital spending plans are up 55 per cent and business investment intentions are up considerably. Consumer spending is rising and retail sales are up. For instance, motor vehicle sales have risen by 27 per cent and housing starts by 54 per cent. The inflation rate, as evidenced by the Consumer Price
November 28, 1985

Index, remains stable in the 4 per cent range. That is the lowest since 1971.
After a decade of increasing deficits there is finally light at the end of the tunnel. For the first five months of this fiscal year the federal deficit is actually 1.5 per cent less than the same period a year ago. Total revenues increased 12 per cent while spending rose only 7 per cent. If debt charges were excluded, federal spending would have increased by only 2.7 per cent, an increase that is less than the 4 per cent annual rate of inflation. This indicates that the Government is, in real terms, spending less this year than last. These are hard economic facts. It is proof positive that the steps taken by the Government are contributing to a boost in investment and are producing jobs, jobs, jobs.
We are facing up to the fiscal reality. We have to face up to the unfair consequences to all Canadians of taking the easy road. It is that old road so well travelled by our predecessors- the road of writing bad cheques, the road of mortgage tomorrow to pay for today's excesses. We cannot allow the Government's fiscal policy and the economy to deteriorate further. The Government has set a clear goal and all its measures are designed to reach that goal of a healthy economy that provides greater opportunity for all Canadians. Bill C-84 is fair, reasonable and absolutely necessary. I call for speedy passage of these measures.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Hon. Member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. Wilson). He gave us his reasons for supporting the $500,000 exemption on capital gains. I suppose that one could support part of the exemption, particularly with respect to farmers and if one could be convinced that the savings to an individual would be ploughed back into projects that would provide employment for Canadians.
However, let me quote for the Hon. Member the views of William Lawlor as reported in this week's The Financial Post. Mr. Lawlor is national tax partner with Ernst & Whinney and in 1984 was technical adviser to the Conservative Task Force on Revenue Canada. This is what he said in part with respect to the $500,000 capital gains tax exemption:
Its scope is too broad. Although many would support lower taxes from the sale of Canadian common stock, practitioners fail to see how tax-free gains on the disposition of jewellery, summer cottages, or Florida condominiums provide much benefit for the economy.
Then he says:
The exemption destroys the neutrality which has existed between the taxation of dividends and capital gains.
He goes on to say:
Individuals' tax returns will become much more complicated because of Ottawa's need to monitor the extent to which they have used up their lifetime gains exemption.
These are not the views of some wild radical or rabid socialist. These are the views of a chartered accountant and tax expert who is obviously sympathetic to the position taken by the Conservative Party on most issues. However, he is quite critical of this $500,000 lifetime exemption on capital gains.
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Will the Hon. Member comment on this view, which is not mine but that of a man who is an expert in the field and sympathetic to the general philosophies of the Conservative Party?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for his question. 1 am not surprised to notice that it is the same question which he put to one of my colleagues yesterday.


David Orlikow: I did not get an answer yesterday.


Geoff Wilson: I believe that the answer is fairly clear. The essence of this Budget, particularly the capital gains provision, is to try to promote initiative in this country. We must put forward a system of reward for those entrepreneurs who are putting themselves at risk. They are the ones who would employ people. They are the 700,000 small business people in this country who will make things tick and create the jobs.


Sheila Maureen Copps: No women.


Geoff Wilson: Here we go. We talk about civility and decorum. We are into it already. I appreciate the intervention by the Hon. Member for Hamilton East (Ms. Copps) and look forward to receiving some questions from her before we are finished.
In answer to the question with regard to the newspaper article, I dare say it would be possible to find a clipping from any newspaper in the country which would back any particular position. I believe the man is entitled to his opinion. Of course, the Government must look at the total picture. There is a harsh reality which we must face. We are in a catastrophic situation.
When I originally thought of using the analogy between the state of the economy and the cancer patient, I was reluctant to do so. However, upon reflection it seemed to me that perhaps it was appropriate because there is a very serious cancer eating away at this country. It is the deficit-more particularly the carrying charges on the deficit-which truly hamstring the Government in terms of planning and in terms of the future. If some concrete, important and necessary steps are not taken to contain the deficit at this time and stimulate activity to put people back to work in order to contribute to the system, we will be in serious trouble. Clearly, by the 1990s the entire tax revenue generated in this country will have to go to pay the carrying charges on the debt. That would put all Canadians in an untenable situation.
Therefore, I believe that we are in a position of tossing out a life preserver with the hope that people will grasp it so that we may come to the rescue. The course that has been charted over the past 20 years clearly has not worked. The evidence is there for all of us to see. A new direction is necessary and must be regarded as a total package. That is our position in regard to this Budget.

November 28, 1985
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Donald James Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I found that quite a remarkable piece of circumlocution. The question posed by the Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) was very direct. I have sat on committee with the Member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. Wilson) and I am sure that he has his own view to express about this particular provision.
He somehow managed to scramble from the question asked to the issue of the deficit, which is quite unusual given that there is a proposed tax loss here that runs into the billions of dollars by virtue of that capital gains provision. In fact, according to the Department of Finance's own projections, there will be a tax loss of $1.2 billion by the year 1990. I do not know how he squares that with his rhetoric about the problem of the deficit.
Is he prepared to admit that this provision could be improved? Yes or no.


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Hon. Member for Saint-Henri-Westmount (Mr. Johnston) for his questions. I do appreciate them because I have had the opportunity over the past number of months to serve with the Member on the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs. We have had the opportunity to deal with a number of very serious problems relating to deficiencies in the financial system. We have appreciated the benefit of his wisdom and experience, even though it might be said that a goodly amount of trouble relates to items that arose during the course of the Member's administration.
I note also that the Hon. Member for Saint-Henri-West-mount has invented the time-lag theory. Both he and his colleague, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy) have resorted this week, in the face of these overwhelming statistics indicating that the Budget is a success, to the time-lag theory which somehow states that as things get better they relate further back in the past to the goings-on of his administration. Clearly, nothing could be further from the truth, Mr. Speaker.
1 noted in today's Question Period that the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) resorted to quoting one John Wiebe, head of the southwest drought committee as some sort of authority on the funds which farmers in the drought-stricken western prairies should receive. 1 think one should be very careful in terms of expecting a response to particular individuals whether it be Mr. Wiebe of the drought committee or whether it be the particular gentleman referred to in The Financial Post article. I am sure that all of us are quite able to find articles in newspapers from across the country to back up our particular positions.
The Hon. Member quite correctly points out in a theoretical sense the lifetime exemption on capital gains could result in a loss of revenue to the federal treasury. However, it is important to look at the other side of the coin at the expectation that this system of rewarding initiative and risk-taking will produce much greater revenue than the loss the Member could project.
While we are talking about initiatives and attempts to improve the situation, we can never lose sight of the scientific research tax credit, which the Hon. Member's Government put forward, I am sure in good faith, which is projected to result in a loss of some $5 billion to the public treasury. That should put things in perspective, 1 think.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments have now terminated.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 46, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the Hon. Member for York West (Mr. Marchi)-Refugees- Expression of concerns, (b) Backlog of refugee status claims; the Hon. Member for Levis (Mr. Fontaine)-Shipbuilding- Request for clarification of project to build second CN Marine factory; the Hon. Member for Papineau (Mr. Ouellet)-Air Safety-Inquiry into Air India disaster, (b) Airport security measures.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mrs. McDougall (for the Minister of Finance) that Bill C-84, an Act to amend the Income Tax Act and related statutes and to amend the Canada Pension Plan, the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, the Financial Administration Act and the Petroleum and Gas Revenue Tax Act, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that 1 did not have a chance to ask questions of the Hon. Member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. Wilson). His speech has to be about one of the most blatant cases of unadulterated balderdash that I have heard in this House over the last number of months. The Member euphemistically tells the people of Canada that the Government has chosen to allow holders of RHOSPs to fold them over with no taxation for the purposes of collapse. That is a euphemistic way of saying the Government has put the final nail in the coffin of the RHOSP.
November 28, 1985

The Government has ended the RHOSPs. The Government has said to young families and young couples that the Government is not going to give any tax breaks and when the Government forces people to collapse their plans, they will not be taxed. Of course, people could not be taxed on it because the Government has not yet given itself the right to retroactive taxation. When money was put into RHOSPs it was put in in good faith by young couples who believed they would be able to accumulate money for the purchase of a new home at some point in the future.
I cannot believe that the Member for Swift Current-Maple Creek can stand in this House and justify the half a million dollar capital gains write-off in the fight against, what he calls, the cancerous deficit at the same time as his Government is prepared to give out $1 billion in bank bail-outs and pay-offs to anonymous depositors, which include millionaires who themselves were not the risk-takers, who themselves put the money into the Canadian Commercial Bank because they knew they would get a better interest rate than they would in other conventional banking facilities, who took the risk and who knew that the CD1C would insure up to $60,000 and who put more money into that bank out of their own choice.
Now we have the Government and this Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) and this Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) who are prepared to pay out $1 billion to anonymous depositors without even giving the Parliament of Canada a list of the names of the people who put their money into that bank. It is shameful. It is incredible. It is a Conservative job. It is the biggest "con"servative job that we have been in this House in a good many months. At the same time, Mr. Speaker, the Government and its members with their prepared texts have the audacity to tell the families that they will have to pay by a reduction in the increases to the baby bonuses. We hear the Prime Minister say: "Well, the bank presidents should not be able to benefit from baby bonuses". However, Mr. Speaker, if you examine the impact of this Wilson-Mulroney insidious sneaky tax grab Budget, the people who will be the hardest hit are those families earning $10,000, $20,000 and $30,000 a year. The figures will show that a family of four earning $20,000 over the life of this Budget-and these are not Liberal figures, these are figures from social welfare groups who have taken the time to examine the consequences-


An Hon. Member:: The same thing.


Sheila Maureen Copps: The same thing the Member says. I am happy to be allied with the National Council of Welfare. I am happy and proud to be allied with the Canadian Council on Social Development and I am happy and proud to be allied with the social policy reform group who have exposed this Conservative con job for what it truly is. It is a tax grab on the middle-class. It is a tax grab on poor families so that it can give to those people who are the top 4 per cent of the population who can take advantage of capital gains tax with no conditions.
We have heard the cries in this House by an all-Party committee that capital gains should be exempted for farmers. The Government did not choose to make an exemption for
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farmers. It chose to say to any person in Canada "If you want to buy South African diamonds, European art or a condominium in Florida, wite it off at the Canadian taxpayers expense", but it does not say that to a family of four earning $20,000, who are not exactly sitting pretty in the Canadian economy. But then I suppose Conservative Members say those people are not risk takers. Maybe it is just the poor guy working in the steel mill supporting a wife and two children. He is not a risk taker. He risks his life every day on the job in the coke ovens. If you have ever worked in the coke ovens, you will know that it is not an easy job. But he is not moving money around so he is not a risk taker. The Government is going to slap him with a tax grab which will mean that over the life of this Budget that family of four earning $20,000 will lose almost $1,000 as a direct result of the measures we are voting on and discussing in the House today.
A family of four earning $10,000, below the poverty line by any definition of in any part of this country, will lose almost $300 as a direct result of this Budget measure, notwithstanding the capital gains exemption and notwithstanding the other giveaways, and anonymous bank bail-outs. The Government has chosen in its wisdom to favour a certain segment of society, to favour the segment earning $80,000 a year or more. By the calculations, not of the Liberal Party, but of the social policy reform group which it represents, 1 believe people of all political stripes, a family of four earning $80,000 will receive $1,708 more as a direct result of these Budget measures.
That is Tory fairness. That is Tory risk taking. That is the Tory attitude which exposes Canadians to the kind of con job that was done to all of us on September 4, 1984. The Tory con job sees a Member of Parliament standing and reading from a prepared text which tells young families of Canada that they will be allowed to collapse their RHOSPs with no tax disadvantage.
Let us look at the increased costs faced by those same young families, such as the increased cost for guaranteeing mortgages through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Let us also look at the impact of the cut in RHOSPs and at the increase in the cost of building materials. As a direct result of the actions of the Government, the cost of homes across Canada has increased about $1,600 on average. This is a direct result of construction cost increases, as well as other measures which increase the cost of a mortgage guarantee under the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
Let us look at a two-earner family who put $1,000 each into the plan over the life of the plan, that is, 10 years. In fact, such a couple does not represent the many single-parent and economically depressed Canadian families. In any event, if they each had $1,000 per year to put away toward the purchase of a home, the combination of those measures could have allowed them, over the course of a 10-year period, to put together an amount which would equal more than the $40,000 for a down payment on a house.

November 28, 1985
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In one fell swoop, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of State for Finance (Mrs. McDougal!) and the Prime Minister have said no to homeowners. They have said no to young families in the case of deindexation. They have said no to those people who want to get into the housing market with a little direct Government help. Fundamentally, the Government does not believe in any kind of intervention. Fundamentally, it is a free enterprise Government. In the words of the Hon. Member for Swift Current-Maple Creek, it rewards risk takers, people who move money around and stockbrokers who do nothing to create the wealth which is created by people who work with the sweat of their brow. Those are the people who are favoured in the Budget. Those are the people who will take advantage of the $500 million capital gains write-off. Those are the people who are targeted in the kinds of secret meetings like the one that took place recently in Montreal involving the Deputy Minister of Finance.


Mr. Caldwell:: Secret?


Sheila Maureen Copps: It was a secret meeting. Where is the list of the people who attended the meeting? Where is the list of the $1,000 contributors to the Progressive Conservative Party. A list of those who attended that meeting should be tabled in the House.


James Eber Caldwell: Where is David Peterson's list?


Sheila Maureen Copps: David Peterson ran what was advertised as a fund-raising dinner.


James Eber Caldwell: What names were on his list?


Sheila Maureen Copps: David Peterson is an elected politician. Stanley Hartt is a public servant who has no business in the Progressive Conservative back rooms. The Hon. Member should not try to cast aspersions upon politicians who are prepared to stand for what they believe in. Has the Government so coopted the Department of Finance that Stanley Hartt is now running for office? Will Stanley Hartt and the Minister of Finance meet with the steelworkers in my riding?
[ Translation\
Mr. Speaker, I should like to know whether Mr. Stanley Hartt, this so-called Progressive Conservative Member, is prepared to meet with workers from my riding. Is he prepared to meet with workers from the shoe factory which has just been sold in Oakville? Is he prepared to meet the 750 working men and women in the Hamilton area who will lose their jobs as a result of the Government's decision to abolish the quota system for Canadians?
I assume that Stanley Hartt, this so-called Deputy Minister of Finance, is not prepared to meet these people because he will only meet and listen to those who can affort to pay $1,000 to have contacts with higher officials of the Department of Finance.
The response, Mr. Speaker, which was given in the House today, yesterday and the day before by the Deputy Prime Minister who, rising in his place, told the Canadian people that there was really nothing wrong with that, is similar to the response which this Government made following the infamous meeting between the Sollicitor General of Canada and the outgoing Premier of New Brunswick.


An Hon. Member:: He is not out yet!


Sheila Maureen Copps: But he is going to be out very soon, that is for sure.
That, Mr. Speaker, is the policy of the Conservative Government. It is utter rubbish. P.Q. or P.C., what is the difference, Mr. Speaker? We know for instance that in the province of Quebec, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) was at one time in favour of the Hyundai deal. Then he turned against it. At first he was in favour of sending someone to the press conference. Then, he decided not to send anybody. First, he wanted to support the P.Q. Government in the province of Quebec. Now, he no longer supports that Government, because it has no policy except that of surviving and making their rich friends jump for joy.
Mr. Speaker, the Bill before us clearly demonstrates to the Canadian people that when a Government is willing to dump $1 billion on the laps of millionnaire depositors ... It is the Bill that should be dumped, Mr. Speaker. Anyway the Government is ready to give billions of dollars to anonymous depositors who are not prepared to come forward. Who are these million-naires? Who are they? Are they friends of this Progressive Conservative Government? Why is the Government afraid to let the Canadian people know the names of the people who will get these billions of dollars? At the same time, Mr. Speaker, it is about to deprive working men and women of $100, $200, $300 or $500 in family allowances, not to mention $800 in de-indexed taxes.
Mr. Speaker, we in the Liberal Party have always firmly believed that the single person who is well off and is earnings the average wage of $35,000 a year and who has no dependent should pay more taxes than the married man earning $35,000 a year and who has a wife and children or a spouse to support. That is a basic tax principle which was introduced by the Liberals. The fact is that the Government is responsible not only for supporting the have-nots, but also the families.
The Government must always have the family in mind when implementing any taxation policy, income tax credits, family allowances, because that is one way of telling the people: Listen, with the cost of living as it is in Montreal, raising a child until the age of 18 costs over $100,000.


An Hon. Member:: What did you do before?


Sheila Maureen Copps: I did not do anything before. 1 hope to do something soon. Anyway, I am blushing. He caught me there, for the first time.
November 28, 1985

Anyhow, in Montreal it costs $100,000 to raise a child until he is 18 years of age.
That money which is paid for the indexation of taxes cannot be used to raise a child. We know it quite well. Many of our costs will be even higher because the federal Government has decided to reduce transfer payments to the Provinces. The costs of education, health care, social services such as child care will be increased.
If the Government now wants to stop supporting the family, it will do so at its own risks. Canadians who earn $25,000, $30,000, $35,000 and have three or four dependent children at home, actualy need the support of the Government to help them bear the costs of their children's education. So what they are doing now is take that money which, under the previous Liberal policy, was used to help families.


An Hon. Member:: What about the deficit?


Sheila Maureen Copps: He talks about the deficit. He always talks about the deficit. The Progressive Conservatives simply cannot understand why we talk about people, about jobs, about the unemployed; we do not talk about statistics and so-called deficits, we talk about individuals who stand to lose almost $1,000 each. Each Quebec family will lose $1,000 on the average as a result of the Conservative policies which are a betrayal of the promises made by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) when he was in Sherbrooke and everywhere else in Quebec, making all kinds of promises while knowing exactly what the deficit was at the time, $7 billion less than it is now.
Mr. Speaker, they can find $1 billion for the banks, they can find $2 billion for the petrochemical industry, they can find thousands of dollars for handouts to the major petrochemical multinational companies, but they cannot find pennies for families and people who earn less than $20,000 a year. I should think that Canadians, who gave a massive mandate to this Progressive Conservative Government on September 4, 1984, will remember that day in history as the day of betrayal, the day when the supposedly neo-Liberal Mulroney Government promised the people-


Jean-Claude Malépart: "Malrunny"!


Sheila Maureen Copps: "Malrunny"! His policy was to say: "We will not reduce family allowances". He said the same thing in the House in answer to the Hon. Member for Laval-des-Rapides (Mr. Garneau)-and you were all present because you were in the process of reducing the old age security pension benefits. Last December the Prime Minister promised in the House that he would not de-index the child tax credit. He even gave his word to the House. The Prime Minister gave his word. I think it was last December 13 or 17 in answer to a question put by the Hon. Member for Laval-des-Rapides. It is recorded in Hansard. Mr. Speaker, it has been quite some time since the
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word of the Prime Minister in the House meant something, when people believed in him.
When Prime Minister Trudeau made statements in the House, people believed him, because he did what he said. He was a man of his word.
When Mr. Turner became Prime Minister, he told the people what the deficit was. He promised not to spend more than we could afford, but he also promised he would never reduce the deficit at the expense of the workers, at the expense of families, at the expense of single-parent families, which is what this Progressive Conservative Government is doing and what has truly shocked Canadians. They are going to pay for this after the election in-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I am sorry to interrupt the Hon. Member. Questions and comments. The Hon. Member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (Mr. Desrosiers).


Édouard Desrosiers: Mr. Speaker, I certainly feel I should comment on what the Hon. Member just said. We hear all these attacks on the Progressive Conservative Party, but Canadians know what the real situation is today. Our national debt is nearly $224 billion, and this only fifteen years after the Liberals came to power. As for their comments, I find this lack of respect offensive. Puns like "Malrunny" are just not ... In the House of Commons we must have a minimum amount of respect, especially for our men in public office.
We have never attacked Mr. Trudeau, a man who was admired for his previous work in certain areas and certain movements. We respect people and what they represent. And I think that was more or less my comment, Mr. Speaker. Fortunately, the Canadian people know that the Progressive Conservative Party is here to change things.
In fact, we are giving an extraordinary performance and an entirely new direction to Canada's history, and therein lies the true greatness of the Progressive Conservative Party. I am proud to be a member of this party, and 1 am proud of the greatest Prime Minister of all time: the Hon. Brian Mulroney.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Unfortunately, when the Hon. Member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (Mr. Desrosiers) talks about change and about people in Parliament, he tends to forget that sometimes there are women in Parliament. He talks about men only in Parliament as if there were no women here, as was the case in 1867 and 1877. I might remind the Hon. Member that we are here, and that we are here to fight the policies of the Government which are now being used to oppress workers. We in the Liberal Party go and meet union members in our ridings, unlike the Hon. Member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve who refuses to meet union workers from Vickers because he is afraid to tell them his Government's policy is to close shoe factories and textile plants and to let Montreal East go down

November 28, 1985
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the drain. Ele is the one who isn't looking after these issues, his riding and the union employees at Vickers. I think he would be much better off looking after his own work instead of calling people names in the House of Commons.


Édouard Desrosiers: Mr. Speaker, I am willing to hear all kinds of things, but not that I am not working on the Vickers problem. I find this terribly offensive. However, nothing should surprise us coming from the Liberal Party. We have known them for a long time. I wanted to tell the pretty Hon. Member that I do work on the Vickers problem and that I am always available. We are going to have good news later on and this will certainly please you. You may not be happy to learn these good news, but we are going to help the people at Vickers, and you will then see that I have taken the time to work on the Versatile Vickers problem. The Canadian public will then realize, dear lady, the terrible things that you are saying today. You are admittedly quite young and new to this great career, but you are in the wrong party. You may eventually understand the truth, as many Canadians have done already.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, if we look at Parliamentary records, they show that 1 have been in politics about seven years longer than the Hon. Member. If he wants to speak about inexperience, I would point out that he should look at the Conservative Members. In addition, Mr. Speaker, when I spoke about his lack of involvement and lack of concern about Vickers, these were not the words of the Hon. Member for Hamilton East, but those of the union president, who is in a position to know who has been working on the Vickers issue. It was the Liberal team that got involved. It was the Liberal team that forced the Government to recognize what was happening in Montreal East and at Vickers. As for the Conservatives, for the silent Members from Quebec, they stay in their seat and never say a word, even when textile and footwear plants are closing everywhere. We have heard nothing from them because they are so afraid to speak that they stay in their seat, like movie extras, sheep or followers, and they do not get involved in Quebec politics. The Liberal Party is the one to urge the Government to do something, even if it is very little.


Édouard Desrosiers: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (Mr. Desrosiers) on a point of order.


Édouard Desrosiers: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order because I believe that what the Hon. Member has just said is completely inaccurate. The situation in Montreal East has existed since 1974.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. Would Hon. Members please be seated. Would all Hon. Members
please be seated. Please speak one at a time. I will recognize this point of order and then I will recognize the Hon. Member for another point of order.


Édouard Desrosiers: Mr. Speaker, I cannot leave such a statement unchallenged. What has just been said is quite inaccurate. The situation-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is not a point of order. The Hon. Member simply does not agree with the other Hon. Member.


Mr. Rossi:: Mr. Speaker, the point of order was ... first of all, it was not a point of order, and second, you have recognized the Hon. Member for Sainte-Marie.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Just so that we all agree, that is fine.


Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, you have no doubt added the time wasted on the point of order. I think that the Hon. Member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, who is my neighbour, should be careful before suggesting that what my colleague said is not true, because I am weil aware the facts and what my colleague repeated we have proof of because the newspapers reported it
However, I will not carry on with this matter and I do not think that we could settle those issues.
I should like my colleague to comment on the report of the Canadian Health and Welfare Council which clearly indicates ... It is a neutral and non partisan organization which has definite proof that families with a yearly income of $15,000 or less stand to lose $1,879 under that budget. Families with an income of $35,000 will only lose $3,452.
I would like my colleague to comment on the matter, namely that it is a budget for the rich people.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, there is worse that that, for even if we accept the statistics of the Canadian Health and Welfare Council, it may also be proven that people earning over $80,000 will not be losing a cent. They will be gaining if we include the half billion dollars in capital gains which will not be taxable.
On the whole, we can see that families with a yearly income of over $80,000 will be richer, and this because of the Wilson budget, while the lower income families, that is those with a yearly income of less than $ 15,000, will lose close to $2,000.
Such is the fairness of the Conservative Government, Mr. Speaker.
November 28, 1985


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


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in this debate on the Income Tax Act and related statutes.
Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by listing some of the legislative provisions we support, in part. I know that Members on the other side have long been under the impression that the Opposition often makes negative criticism.


An Hon. Member:: It is true.


Cyril Keeper: It is true that we make negative criticism, but we are justified. That is why 1 want to begin today by mentioning the provisions we approve in these acts.
For instance, Mr. Speaker, the House was considering today a measure which would grant a $700 tax credit to an individual who invests in a capital fund to which workers can contribute. Reference to this fund in the measure can be found on the first page of the Bill because of the FTQ. The FTQ is the Fonds de solidarity des travailleurs du Quebec. That is the union to which my colleague belongs. It is a good measure and, because of that, it has our support.


Mr. Tremblay (Lotbiniere):: It is not the right reason though.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, the Bill contains other measures we like. For instance, there is a measure under which pension funds will be invested in small businesses. That is another very good provision and we support it. That is why I commend the Government for taking those measures.


Maurice Tremblay: Excellent!


Cyril Keeper: But there are some weaknesses, Mr. Speaker. For example, the definition of small businesses includes those worth up to $35 million. In my riding, however, any company worth $30 million or $35 million is not a small business by any means. That is a weakness in an otherwise good measure, Mr. Speaker.
There is another danger in this otherwise good measure, because this Bill allows more investments outside of Canada. There is a danger that investment funds which are so badly needed in Canada might leave our country.
Mr. Speaker, there is another provision in this Bill that I will support. It is the 5 per cent surtax on upper-income earners, and it has a lot of merit. Although we support this measure, we know it is a temporary one. Why? If it is a good measure, why not make it permanent?
Income Tax Act


Maurice Tremblay: We might raise it to 10 per
cent; we shall see!


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, although 1 cannot give this Bill my full support because of some weaknesses, 1 think that the Government should be praised when it deserves it, but also criticized. I will first deal with criticism, Mr. Speaker.
Criticism is necessary. The most unfair feature of this Bill is the changes made to the capital gain exemptions. It is a gift to the wealthy. It makes the income tax system even more unfair. It will benefit people earning more than $500,000 a year.
Mr. Speaker, it will cost the ordinary Canadians nearly one billion dollars, over the next two years-one billion dollars given away to the rich. While the rates for ordinary Canadians will increase, the wealthy will be handed a present. It is an unfair measure and the Government must reconsider and withdraw it.
It is also unfair because it allows investors through this legislation to invest outside of the country which will not spur the recovery of our Canadian economy, but will promote activities in countries outside of Canada. It is unfair.
I would like to point out another weakness in this Bill, and it concerns pensions. An increase in "The Registered Retirement Savings Plan" will benefit upper-income earners; for example, people earning $80,000 and more will save more than $2,500 with this measure, while people earning $20,000 will not benefit from it.
Mr. Speaker, a tax bill that gives away $2,500 to people who earn $80,000 a year, while at the same time giving nothing to the ordinary people who earn $20,000 is not fair. It is a Bill that must be withdrawn by the Government.
There are other measures in this Bill to amend the Income Tax Act which are not fair, but I would like to make a more general comment. Because this legislation was initiated in the last Budget I would like to comment on the impact this Budget has had on ordinary people, on ordinary Canadians. The consequence of this Budget is to transfer $4 billion, not $4 million, but 4 billion. This burden is transferred from corporations, from big business, to ordinary people. This $4 billion burden will be transferred from the rich to the poor by 1990.
My party and I think that it is unfair, and yet such is the policy, the philosophy, the approach of the Progressive Conservative Party.
Mr. Speaker, who benefitted from the last Budget? What people in our society got something out of that Budget? I would like to give some examples. A two-income family of two children earning $15,000 lost almost $2,000 per year, exactly $1,884 on account of the last budget.
At the same time, a similar family but whose income is $80,000 did not lose as much. It has lost only $1,000, or half as much as the low income family.

November 28, 1985
Youth Programs
Mr. Speaker, in the case of a two-children family where only one parent works, the $80,000 income family gained $5,000 and the one with an income of $15,000 lost $2,400. It is unfair. It is obviously unfair, and that is why we oppose the provisions now before the House. That is why we think the Conservative government is an unfair government, a government for the wealthy, against the poor people and the middle class.
Mr. Speaker, senior citizens have also lost with the last budget. While they won a great battle against this government and forced it to retreat on the de-indexing of their pension, they stand to lose with the last budget. They will lose because they will have to pay higher sales taxes and because the $5 federal tax cut is eliminated. Because of measures such as those, senior citizens have also lost ground in the last budget.
Mr. Speaker, I want to point out who was favoured in the last budget. Two groups of people were big winners. They are now ahead by $6,350 a year. Independent professionals will improve their situation by $6,000 and investors by as much. They are the ones who benefitted from the last budget. [English]
I would just like to say briefly that while there were some measures in the legislation before us today which we support, by and large, the tax changes in the legislation are totally unjust and uncalled for and hurt ordinary Canadians. They take money out of the pockets of the middle class and the poor people and put it into the bank accounts of the rich. It is because of this that we believe the measures in the legislation before this House should be withdrawn and, in particular, the give-away of capital gain tax which has no conceivable economic benefit for ordinary Canadians. That measure is blatantly unjust and needs to be withdrawn. This Government has to wake up to the fact that Canadians know it is favouring its rich friends, the people who bankroll the Party, and Members opposite should back up and get this measure out of the House.


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


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-MOTIONS   YOUTH ADVISABILITY OF ESTABLISHING PROGRAMS
Jean-Claude Malépart: That, in the opinion of this House, the Government
should consider the advisability of reviewing its policy on youth and establishing programs more adequate to their needs.
He said: Mr. Speaker, before starting my speech I would like to congratulate the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Keeper) on the quality of his French.
Mr. Speaker, I feel that when people work this hard, they should be encouraged, and I would urge the Hon. Member to keep up the good work.
I would now like to get back to the motion I moved today, namely:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of reviewing its policy on youth and establishing programs more adequate to their needs.
Mr. Speaker, I have here the statistics for October 1985, which show that youth unemployment has gone up. I could also quote the headings of newspaper articles describing the problems encountered by young people. In the newspaper Le Droit: "One hundred and seventy thousand unemployed too many. Challenge 1985 a failure." "On campus: Budget cuts for employment centres," "Youth march for jobs gets off to timid start." "Poverty of others no excuse for poverty among young people." "One thousand young people bring up rear of big job march." This last quote was from the newspaper Le Devoir. Again from Le Devoir. "Non-profit agencies deprived of federal summer job grants." "Summer jobs becoming scarce in Quebec City." This from the newspaper Le Soleil. Again in Le Soleil: "For young people, getting a job has been main concern." In the newspaper Le Droit: "Little change expected for unemployed youth." And again in Le Droit: "Future difficult for young unemployed workers."
Mr. Speaker, I could mention commitments made by the Progressive Conservative Party or the Liberal Party and speeches made by Members of this House, but I am sure all Members will agree that we have not done enough. It is not enough when we consider there are still 1.5 million Canadians unemployed.
Of course we could argue here in the House which of the three parties is better and smarter and more understanding than the other two, but the fact is that we still have more than one million people out of work and that this is discouraging for our young people.
Mr. Speaker, 1 would like to take advantage of this opportunity to set aside all political partisanship and invite my colleagues to pool their experience and try and find a way to deal with the youth unemployment problem once and for all.
I think that all of us here must remember how difficult it was to find a job upon completion of our studies, the representations we had to make, and so on. Nevertheless, we have been luckier than most young people who presently drop out of school or who did so one, two or three years ago, and statistics show that in the Province of Quebec, there is chronic youth unemployment.
November 28, 1985

We can be proud of all the efforts that have been made: the Liberals did one thing and the Conservatives may boast of doing another. But, I humbly believe that this is not good enough, Mr. Speaker. It is not good enough because there are still too many unemployed.
Mr. Speaker, 1 want to make a contribution. I don't pretend to have the miracle solution to the unemployment problem because if I did, I would not run for Prime Minister of Canada but for Prime Minister of the world.
Mr. Speaker, I think we should really set up a committee, some organization including young people, where all parliamentarians would meet regularly to review the whole employment program policy. 1 do not want to blame the Government or anybody else. I think that at present, they are all trying their best but, unfortunately, the end result is always the same: the young are living in harsh conditions.
In my own province, the young are faced with dramatic situations, because at the time when they were job opportunities, the Government decided, believing that youth on welfare were lazy, to cut the income of those under 30 and give them $156. I don't want to argue with the validity of the decision at the time but six months later, Canada, the Province of Quebec and the whole world were going through an economic crisis and there were no more jobs, Mr. Speaker.
The number of young unemployed has increased. Even though they could not find a job, even upon completion of their studies, they were not entitled to unemployment benefits. In Quebec, they had to turn to welfare. I can tell you, and I am convinced that not one single Hon. Member in this House will stand up and say: In my constituency, young people are heartless, they are lazy. It is true that you can find one here and there, Mr. Speaker, but the vast majority of young people are as good and as willing to work as we were when we were young and just out of school.
However, circumstances are such that there are no jobs. The impact of the decision that a young Canadian living in an apartment will have $156 a month because he is under 30-


An Hon. Member:: At the provincial level!


Jean-Claude Malépart: -yes, at the provincial level, Mr. Speaker- For some people, the only way to survive is by stealing, and you know that in those circumstances there is no lack of fences; all kinds of shady people take advantage of those young people because they have to eat, they can get those young people to steal because they have to survive.
Prostitution among young people has become a very serious situation in Montreal, and I am convinced that it is the same in the other provinces, Mr. Speaker.
Others, because of the lack of income, because of the need to survive, are under the same pressure from advertising. Those young people have a right like other people to have ambitions, but nobody can live, have an appartment, eat, buy
Youth Programs
clothes with $156 a month, Mr. Speaker. This is what happened because of economic changes, and I do not want to blame any government that made the decisions at that time.
Mr. Speaker, if we look back on past experience in trying to bring about changes, I think we should keep in mind the mistakes made by previous governments, whatever their colour, so that the people in power will not make the same mistakes over and over again.
Mr. Speaker, there is an important question we should ask: Is it true that the private sector and the public sector can cope with one and a half million people officially unemployed, as well as with all those who are not officially registered? I for one think it is impossible. It is impossible now for the private sector and the public sector, and everyone will agree that the public sector is saturated and outgrown, and the private sector, what with the technological and industrial changes, automation ... In all other areas, businesses have to be competitive and whenever a plant is modernized, whenever a new job is created in a new technological field, whenever a worker with higher skills is hired in one field, whenever a worker with higher skills is hired in one field, there are workers engaged in more manual activities being laid off.
Mr. Speaker, I for one would like the Government to examine-and I made that suggestion when we were in power-consider earnestly whether we should not in the first place reduce retirement age to 60 because at the same time, we have young men and women who are willing to work, who have been taught skills in colleges and universities and who would like to get some practical experience and are willing to be of service. There are thousands of people who are at present employed and who would like to retire simply because they have been working for 25 or 30 years. And there are women who very often have held two jobs as compared with men. Very often, working women, in addition to working normal hours, have also had to have a normal working day at home. And very often, those people who are 55, 57 or 60, are getting tired and are not in very good health . . . and in my opinion, after working in an industry, after serving their country for 30, 35 or 25 years, they should be allowed to retire.
I am told, and the figures are accurate, that the cost of allowing free retirement at 60 might run up to $3 billion. However, the problem with our system, the way our Parliament is run, is that we figure the possible cost to the Department of National Health and Welfare, but no one figures out what the Department of Employment and Immigration would save in unemployment insurance and social welfare.
I believe this is something which should be reviewed by a working committee. Union leaders are advocating a reduction

November 28, 1985
Youth Programs
in the number of working hours. However, the question is this: If working time is reduced, will the workers keep their full present salaries? Would it be the same hourly rate . .. less money at the end of the week? I believe this is an alternative that should be studied. I also believe governments, industry and labour will all have to streamline their positions somehow, because Canada will not be allowed to survive forever when some people have everything while others have nothing. Gradually, we are moving toward retirement and we will be succeeded by a lost generation of disillusioned young people.
No one in this House, I am sure, whatever his or her political stripe, wants this situation to continue. But it will continue if we leave it to the federal administration, because no matter how well intentioned our civil servants are, they are very often in large office buildings, far removed from reality. At least, we in our ridings have more contacts with the real problems and we should say: "Enough is enough. It cannot go on for ever". Some workers are unionized, and with the help of their unions they get better wages while next door, in another company, other workers just as dedicated, do not make the same kind of progress because they have no union, but they do not mind.
If we want to avoid social unrest, if we do not want to disillusion our young people, we will have to create those jobs. We will have to sit together, to agree on something. We will have to forget our political differences and meet some place, maybe outside Parliament, outside the provinces, maybe abroad, with all the participants, not only the federal and provincial governments, but also our municipal governments which are responsible for much job creation. Our school boards and trade unions have a role to play as well. Being a union member myself, I know there are conflicts between different trade unions and that their leaders are politicians just as we are. They have to be elected and therefore must please their electorate. For my part, Mr. Speaker, I am not a trade unionist but a simple unionized worker. I am one of those who pay for the boss, for the trade union president. Thus, my hands are not tied in any way.
Employers should take part too. Seeing the kind of measures the Canadian Board of Trade advocates, they will have to change their attitude and recommend more constructive job creation measures. We will have to invite advocacy organizations or groups that care for ordinary people as a whole, whether they are unionized or not. The National Anti-Poverty Organization, the Canadian Consumers Association have both a vision that differs from that of the Quebec employer's council or of the president of any given trade union. They have their own approach and, as we have seen these past years, an increasing number of organizations, whether at the local, provincial or national levels, have gained much expertise in this area. They are developing a new approach in order to help society as a whole without any consideration of trade category, salary scale, or situation as an employer or manager. They
want to help the Canadian consumer, no matter his trade, profession or earnings. This is what I call a fourth power in our society, Mr. Speaker, and Governments had better consult with it. These past years, Governments have been of all political hues, including the NDP at the provincial level. But we always end up with the same result and the same problem: We have unemployment in Canada, and I am sure no one wants unemployment in this country.
I think if we could change the membership of the usual groups . . . Take the Macdonald Commission, the Commission of Inquiry on Unemployment Insurance. What did they do? They appointed an academic. They got a labour representative and they got a representative from the business world. For years and years, we have always ended up with the same group and the same philosophy. And with the following result: the expert, the academic, the company president, the economist and management submit a report. They agree. The union president has a dissenting opinion, so there is a minority report. Mr. Speaker, we always get the same split along the same lines. It is not a matter of personalities. Put us there, and because of our mandates and our convictions, we would probably end up with the same result.
I think that when the Government appoints new committees, it would be well advised to add members from consumer associations who take a broader view and who could act as mediators. When the union president says: Just a minute, those wages have to be doubled, and when the management representative says: That is too much, no way, the consumer representative would say: Just a minute, this is all very well, and everybody wants to earn as much as they possibly can, but can consumers afford it? We must remember that the consumer is both employee and employer. Mr. Speaker, I think this is a very important point. I am sure all Members of this House would like to see the day when there are no more unemployed in Canada. However, we will have to start designing structures and approaches for a committee to involve the greatest possible number of participants, so that we can find a way to set up a full employment strategy. Establishing a full employment strategy, Mr. Speaker, does not simply mean jobs; it also means preparing young people for the future and giving them practical job experience in addition to formal training. I see that my time has expired, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure all Members will agree with me that we must do something for our unemployed youth.


Mr. Geoff Scott (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Keeper), who made his first speech in French this afternoon. I do not agree with his sentiments, but I do want to congratulate him once again, on his second-third language.
November 28, 1985

Unfortunately, he has left the Chamber. However, 1 do extend to him my congratulations and the congratulations of all of us on this side. Besides, I must do so because my new responsibilities as Parliament Secretary to the Secretary of State include Canada's Official Languages Act. I am glad that I am getting support from the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Keeper).
In rising to speak to the motion proposed by the Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart) it is my pleasure to draw the attention of the House to the themes and programs undertaken in 1985, the International Youth Year. The three themes of the International Youth Year are participation, development and peace.

Participation means that young people take charge of their own affairs and have a say in decisions that affect them.
Development means the individual enrichment of every young person and of youth as a whole. As young people develop their skills and talents, they will increase their influence on the community in which they live.
Peace means mutual respect and understanding among peoples. Personally, I would be delighted if this year brought us a little closer to this objective. I like to think that youth, above all, will be able to help us determine what factors contribute to maintaining peace in our society. We can help young Canadians become interested in youth in other countries, where fighting for peace is a daily struggle.

As the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Communications, I will address these themes in relation to culture and talk about the role of the Minister of State for Youth (Mrs. Champagne).
The mandate of the Minister of State for Youth is to address the needs and aspirations of young people. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) appointed the Minister of State for Youth with the responsibility of co-ordinating the national program of activities for the International Youth Year and to act as the spokesperson within the Government and Cabinet for young people and youth organizations.
To fulfil this role successfully, the Minister is the channel of communications between young people and the Canadian Government. She is listening to young people, learning more about their problems and their achievements. Canadian youth are being shown that they have an advocate in the Minister of State for Youth, who is determined to draw attention to youth in this country and to their concerns.
Over the past year, youth have been participating in a wide range of projects in all facets of society. I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate the involvement of youth in the cultural arena with which I have had some experience.
Youth Programs
A few months ago a national survey was conducted by the Minister of State for Youth to identify projects in which young people took initiatives which affected their own situation and that of their community in an innovative way. The projects did not necessarily have to form a part of the activities for International Youth Year. In fact, some were the work of our precursors, initiatives started by the former Liberal Government. Nor do they need to have received funding.
The research team contacted youth organizations and groups across the country and asked them to name projects which were both innovative and reflected the initiative of the participants. More than 700 such projects were reported.
Youth across this country are participating. In Ontario, for example, a project involved the publication of a weekly newsletter by and for volunteers working in a national park. The project provided work experience for young people interested in pursuing a career in journalism. Believe me, having been young once and having pursued a career in journalism, I can certainly identify with that kind of initiative.
A youth performing arts centre in Manitoba was initiated. The project included a nine-day cabaret in May. On an ongoing basis, this group undertakes a variety of activities aimed at counteracting the negative media attention concerning city youth and to provide entertainment for youth under 18 who are excluded from drinking establishments and need challenging involvement outside of school.
Participants in a Newfoundland town produced a community television program and slide presentation which had the duel benefit of giving the community a positive and optimistic sense of itself, as well as providing the youth involved with a direct experience of working with the audio-visual media.
This provided morale for the rest of the province, an opportunity for young people to be seen engaged in skilful activities which were supportive of the community, and an opportunity for youth across the province to view and understand the difficulties encountered in a one-industry town. These projects are but a few of the initiatives taken by Canadian youth.
During this very special week, there are possibly as many as 23 million Americans-almost the entire population of this country-viewing the proceedings in this Chamber. I hope that our American friends are taking note of some of the important initiatives that we in Canada are taking on behalf of our country's youth. These projects which 1 mentioned are but a few of those initiatives. Such innovations, coupled with the special projects for International Youth Year, serve to emphasize the enthusiasm, commitment and hard work of young people in communities across the country. In April the Minister of State for Youth announced the approval of $630,000 in grants for 78 special projects to mark International Youth Year. Projects range in scope from national to local and include activities such as workshops and conferences on youth issues, cultural projects and leadership development initiatives. These projects are but a part of this Government's commitment to our youth because our youth is our greatest national resource. I am sure that every Member of the House would

November 28, 1985
Youth Programs
agree that in a very real sense our youth is the future of this country.
It is because our youth is our most valuable resource that great emphasis is placed on such programs as Open House Canada. That is an educational exchange program in which groups of young Canadians 14 to 22 years of age make reciprocal visits. The program is designed to expand the knowledge of Canadians of their country. I do not have to remind our American friends that we are a very large country. It is designed to expand Canadians' knowledge especially of regions other than their own and of federal institutions, and to build understanding between communities.
During exchange visits individual members of visiting groups are welcomed into the homes of their hosting "twins". The host groups are responsible for preparing activities that provide their visitors with a complete program of study on the economic, political, cultural, social, historic and geographic aspects of their community. Within six months of the initial visit, members of the first group to travel play host to their "twins" and provide a similar program. Approximately 27,000 young people are expected to participate in 1984-85.
Developing effective means of communication between youth and between youth and Government has been and continues to be a fundamental aspect of the mandate of the Minister of State for Youth. In order to facilitate open lines of communication, an International Youth Year advisory committee has been established. Regional forums have been held. A national forum is in the planning stages and emphasis has been placed on developing links with youth of other countries.
These initiatives are already showing positive results. Early in 1985 the Hon. Minister of State for Youth named 24 young Canadians to serve on the Youth Advisory Committee.
Broadly speaking, the mission of the members of this committee is to make Canadians of all ages more aware of the themes and objectives of International Youth Year. They are encouraging young people to participate in planned activities. They are also advising the Minister of ways to improve the youth program. More specifically, these young men and women representing all regions of the country have been helpful in the planning of the regional forums and will be involved in the upcoming national forum. These forums encourage young people and their partners in the social process to engage in a constructive dialogue, a dialogue that is fundamental to a successful consultative process.
Together, our Government is working together to develop strategies for promoting a better understanding of the position of young people, enriching their development and enhancing their participation in all aspects of society. While links among youth are being strengthened across Canada, international exchange programs are serving as a vehicle through which young people may become acquainted with peers from different countries.
There are many international development programs. Through the Canadian International Development Agency, the
federal Government provides funds to several non-profit, nongovernmental organizations that offer opportunities for Canadian youth to train for, or participate in, international development projects. These organizations include Canada World Youth, Canadian Crossroads International, Canadian University Services Overseas, World University Services of Canada and the International Co-operation Study Centre. For the most part, these programs encourage sensitivity to cultural diversity and an ability to adapt to different cultures.
For those of us who have been involved in these international initiatives through the World University Service and other associations, it meant so much to be able to see another country, to see and talk to people and learn about their regions, their cultures, their politics and their economies. It is an experience that none of us who have ever done it as young people in the 14 to 22 age group and perhaps a few years beyond that, will ever forget.
Cultural exchanges cannot help but foster the building of mutual respect and understanding among people. To quote the Minister of State for Youth:
1 would like to think, with youth leading the way, we may identify factors conducive to a more peaceful society.
Canada, Mr. Speaker, is a proud young country. It is a land where people have fulfilled dreams and it remains a land rich with promise. The fulfilment of this promise rests with our youth.
In that connection, I want to commend the Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie for the spirit of his motion and move an amendment. I move that Motion No. 222 be amended by striking out all the words after the word "should" replacing them with the following words:
Continue reviewing its policy on youth with an aim of further enhancing programs that are adequate to their needs.
The motion would then read:
That, in the opinion of this House, the Government should continue reviewing its policy on youth, with the aim of further enhancing programs that are adequate to their needs.
I submit the amendment. I would ask for any further comments or debate on that amendment.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-Walkerville):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Hon. Member for Mont-real-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart) for having brought before this House the complexity of issues that affect a portion of our population. How our modern society impacts on them has been a matter almost totally disregarded in this House, in so many other sectors of Government at all levels and in so many parts of our community.
I have been engaged for the last six weeks in conversation with young people about their concerns. We have been told repeatedly that young people are apathetic, that they do not care. 1 suppose that the most significant finding that resulted from our encounters with young people in this international youth year is not at all that young people are apathetic. On the contrary, it is their view that we, who have gone beyond the age of youth, are the apathetic ones.
November 28, 1985

When one considers the concerns of the youth all over the world, it is that they are disregarded, certainly in terms of their feelings about issues and in terms of effective action to be taken in response to them.
I want to emphasize that young people are not just concerned about what society does for youth per se. Youth is concerned about the kind of society in which they live, although it is certainly true that they share a complexity of problems which are unique to their age class, and quite different from the experiences we have shared in the past.
I suppose one might get an idea about our attitude toward the young when we hear young people referred to as our richest natural resource. I asked some young people what they thought about that. They said: "Fish are a resource and they get a lot of attention. Forests are a resource and get a lot of attention. Minerals are a resource and get a lot of attention. If it is necessary to dehumanize ourselves to such an extent that we are matched with fish, forest and minerals in order to get that attention, then let us be natural resources."
We have heard a discourse by the Parliamentary Secretary about the involvement in international year of very many of our young people who have had the support of grants and other kinds of support. We got the impression of a creative, innovative energetic, well educated portion of our society. It is certainly true that young people today are much more informed as a class than we were in the past. It is also true that they have contributed much and will still contribute much.
To emphasize, as was done in that intervention, the kinds of activities that the relatively privileged youth in our country indulge in, is to mislead the public, to mislead the House and ignores all too much that which must be dealt with by this House, this Parliament and by other responsible sectors of Canadian society.
It was sad to behold that, although unspoken by virtually every young person to whom we spoke, there resides in the hearts of so many youth around the world a dreadful fear that they will not survive, one young lady said, beyond thirty. It is a fear so deep that it remains unspoken because the fear is too dreadful to utter.
They hear adult politicians talking about peace, about disarmament, about spheres of international influence and about national interests, without realizing that what they say communicates to the youth that the immortality to which youth has normally been heir is dead. We must realize that we are talking to a group within our community which has fears which we never had in our lives.
I ask the House to think of what 1 say. We send young people to war because they have a perception that they will not die, that they are immortal. We know young people tend to be reckless at times, as we were because we had a sense of immortality. Now we find that young people believe that the world will not survive to their adulthood. International Youth Year was not initiated by the United Nations for the purpose
Youth Programs
of celebrating how well off are our young people and how much they have to contribute. It has always been presumed that young people would grow up and replace us, and hopefully do better than we have done. What happened was that the nations of the world began to realize that there was an imminent crisis among young people. In western Europe, they looked to Bristol, Livepool, London, Paris, Berlin and Rome to find disenfranchised youth engaged in violent activity and riots against the system because so alienated were they that they could expect nothing from the system. Therefore, they challenged it just simply out of frustration.
Many young people in the world and in our country are not merely unemployed. Unemployment is an issue which affects many people. Unemployment has occurred in the past, but it has never occurred before where there has been such a total reorganization of our international economic relationships or where there has been such a marked transfer of jobs to machines, to technologies and to robots. I have had young people ask me: "If robots are going to build robots that are going to build cars, what robots are going to buy those cars?" That conjures up a vision. Not only are young people unemployed, but they may never get jobs. Too many of our youth cannot share the assumptions which all of us could, that when we finished school, or even dropped out of school early, we would be almost certain to have a job. We assumed that when we got that job, we would get married, have children and have a house. We assumed that we would share in the benefits of the community and contribute to the community. We assumed that we would live a happy life with family. There are youth all over the country who regard that as a dream shared by their predecessors, not by themselves.
Our youth are living in a world which changes extremely rapidly, a world where information is poured into their ears day by day about issues, conflicts and crises affecting them and others, with which they cannot deal. This produces a far different point of view or perception of reality than we share.
Another aspect of modern society is that the family is far more mobile than it used to be. More parents are unemployed than used to be the case. More families are split by divorce than used to be. People are far more preoccupied with material things than they used to be. Families are less concerned about relating to youth and their problems than they used to be. Huge portions of our population feel that they are ignored in the decision-making processes in which we engage. A large number of young people feel that they can no longer communicate with their families and with other parts of the community which they should be able to expect will serve them but do not.
We hear young people talking about an educational system in which they are not taught but are told what to learn. They talk about an educational system which is difficult for them to relate to the world in which they must live. They talk about an educational system which does not provide any guidance in respect of jobs. They talk about an educational system which denies them the personal relationships and contact with other understanding human beings that helps them to deal with the

November 28, 1985
Youth Programs
problems youth have always had but, more important, with the far more critical problems they have now.
We have a world of young people to whom we have not listened. If it is the intent of the Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie that the House of Commons and other portions of our community with responsibility will begin to listen more to young people, then I support him. Young people are not only saying that they want jobs for themselves. They need those jobs. They need that future. They understand that jobs must mean jobs for everyone. They have a notion of the country which they sometimes think we do not share. They know that jobs cannot be created merely by the production of commodities, by the making of a car, by the cutting of a tree or by the fishing of a fish. They also know, from their own experiences, that there are many needs out there to be met. They know that there are one million Canadians who are illiterate, by any appropriate definition of the term. They know that there are four million Canadians who are functionally illiterate. They know that in the City of Toronto there are
135,000	people, many of whom are on the street, who can barely read or write and need help. They know, as was indicated by the young native lad with whom I talked, that unemployment and violence on native reserves are such that a young person, 18 years old, can tell me that to find a body in a ditch is not a shocking experience any longer. So rampant is unemployment, so rampant is violence as a consequence of frustration, there are young people walking the streets as prostitutes. Our reaction to that is to pass legislation which does not address the problems of those forced into prostitution but infringes upon human rights and pretends, at the same time, that the problem will go away by putting everyone in jail.
They look at the House and they must ask, as they have asked me, serious questions about the directions which we are taking. They look at our post-secondary educational system and find that the whole system is deteriorating to a point where there is an obvious inconsistency with the expressed intent of Government to produce economic growth based upon technological and scientific development, while young people across the land are being denied an opportunity to attend university or college.
It is not only that universities and colleges are being underfunded. It is that we are increasingly creating a system which denies opportunity to many youth who wish that opportunity. We have a situation in which young people, who are not sons and daughters of the rich-those who represent people in our society who have not been in universities or colleges before- must commit themselves to debts totalling from $40,000 to $50,000 to gain access to the opportunities presented in that sector, even before they get their degree. We have a secondary school system which does not respond to the needs of young people. They hear us talking about investments in research. They hear us talking about wage equity. They hear us talking about free trade. They hear us talking about so many things in ways that do not seem to address their needs. I will tell Hon. Members one thing about the young Canadians with whom I have been speaking-they are seriously concerned about the
future and destiny of Canada and what type of nation it will be. They are deeply concerned that being a Canadian will continue to mean something unique in the world. They are deeply suspicious about the potential dangers to our culture, our economy, employment and our unique characteristics presented by free trade. More than any of us here young people regard themselves as Canadians with something significant which they can potentially contribute to the world at large.
However, if there is one message-and it is a positive one- which comes from International Youth Year and the relatively few who benefited from the Government sponsored programs, it is that young people have found that if they are given an opportunity to engage in activities involving their own interests with other young people there is much to do toward solving the problems they share. That means young people, whether in universities, unemployed, as prostitutes on the street, those who have been in jail recently for doing things which unemployment forces them to do, say: "Look. Give us the opportunity not just in International Youth Year but on a continuing basis to engage in the types of activities with other young people which some young people had an opportunity to engage in during International Youth Year". They say: "We can solve some of our own problems but we want you to listen to us".
When the Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie says there should be some type of national committee with a broad representation to address the issues affecting youth, I am concerned that the umbrella will be spread too widely. There are issues which particularly and specifically affect youth which ought to be addressed. One of these issues has to be education. Young people all across the country have said there has to be something done about education at the national level in order to establish some standards based on not only the needs of our economy but on the needs of our young people. They should be involved in this process. It should not involve just adults and those involved in youth serving organizations, but young people must be intimately involved in determining the agenda for education themselves in order to adopt the type of national standards for education which will address all their needs, as the United States has done.
Somehow, we have to bring about not only a more coherent approach to the education and training of young people but, surely, it is obvious that to engage in improvements in our educational system and in our training experiences it is useless if we cannot provide these young people with jobs. We must listen to them. They tell us that there are jobs out there for everyone. Let us get our priorities straight and those young people will be able to fulfil the promise. Perhaps they will create a world and a Canada which is a lot better than that which we seem to be on the way to creating in the absence of having sufficient consideration of the interests and views of young people.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?
November 28, 1985


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Amendment (Mr. Scott, Hamilton-Wentworth) agreed to.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The debate is on the main motion, as amended. The Hon. Member for London-Middlesex (Mr. Clifford).


Mr. Terry Clifford (London-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to speak on the motion which is before us. The people of Canada, particularly the young people, in September of 1984 overwhelmingly showed their support for a new Government. That support has not gone unnoticed. Our Minister of State for Youth (Mrs. Champagne) has taken this matter keenly in her considerations and in her actions. I wish to speak about the Minister's actions because they have been underplayed this afternoon.
The atmosphere which has been created in Canada which the young people have noticed is one of enthusiasm and openness. The economic renewal is something which they voted to see and are now finally seeing. It reminds one of what Voltaire must have seen when he was in Paris in 1789 when he spoke to the young French people and said:
[ Translation]
Young people are lucky, they will do great things.

Our Minister went to the young people of Canada and said: "Give us an advisory council so you can tell the Government what it should know. You cannot just advise, you can tell us the things which should happen." She went from coast to coast speaking to youth forums. I know this because she came to London-Middlesex where she met over 100 young people. They were not the well off; they were the unemployed, the disadvantaged, the young people in the high schools and community colleges and, indeed, in the universities. They came from all walks of life and they had something to tell our Government. Basically, they pointed out six matters to us and to our Minister which make up their main concerns. These are education, employment, their status in our society, socio-economic concerns, peace and the environment. There has been a great deal of action taken with respect to this.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. 1 regret to interrupt the Hon. Member but it is time to put the question.
The question is on the motion, as amended. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion as amended?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Motion, as amended, agreed to.
Adjournment Debate BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


WEEKLY STATEMENT
Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, as promised earlier this afternoon, I have now finished my meeting with the Opposition House Leaders. I would like to take this opportunity to announce the business for next week.
Tomorrow it is my intention to call as the first item of business Bill C-74. The back-up to Bill C-74 will be the Bill which we have been discussing for the last two days. Bill C-84, an Act to amend the Income Tax Act and other Acts. On Monday there will be debate on Bill C-84. 1 would like to designate next Tuesday as an allotted day. 1 believe this will be the fourth allotted day in this supply period.
Wednesday has been designated as a day for the debate on provisions contained in the Western Grain Transportation Act. We have discussed other initiatives which might be considered on Wednesday and Thursday of next week. I hope to make further progress in our discussions with the House Leaders of the Opposition in that regard.
On Thursday we hope that we can make progress on the Bills which are before the House. In this regard 1 have mentioned Bill C-74. There is also Bill C-79 and Bill C-83 on which we might be able to make some progress. As usual, 1 will continue to monitor the progress from time to time and to consult with my colleagues, the opposition House Leaders. If there is to be any change in the order of business, I will report to the House at my earliest convenience.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 46 is deemed to have been moved.

Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, 1 am pleased to participate in the Adjournment Debate to review a question I asked in the House of Commons during Question Period of the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Miss MacDonald) on November 21. Unfortunately, both Ministers responsible for immigration were absent that day so the Minister of Labour (Mr. McKnight) took the question as notice. 1 am very hopeful, as are others, that the Parliamentary Secretary, or perhaps one of the Ministers, will have an opportunity to be somewhat more forthcoming and to offer some substance in response to a very important question.

November 28, 1985
Adjournment Debate
My question concerns the entire issue of refugee status in Canada. As you are well aware, there are some 20,000 refugees waiting for determinations to be settled by the Government. 1 asked the question the day after some 300 refugees from all parts of the country representing eight different countries and some 13 different organizations, gathered on Parliament Hill to bring the message to the Minister and the Government that they are feeling uncomfortable about the situation. The 300 people who were present were representing the 19,700 other individuals who are in the same situation, a situation that is quite painful.
That situation was made evident to me at the meeting 1 attended with the 300 refugees, a meeting that was filled with emotion and despair, despair over the fact that they know that they are here today, but certainly with the fear that tomorrow they will be sent packing to another country and perhaps even to their original homeland. 1 would submit that that is not the best way to live one's life.
At the meeting there was despair in that these people have substandard living conditions and many do not hold full-time jobs. Those who do have full-time jobs certainly do not have the parity in wages that other Canadians in general enjoy. Part of the reason is that employers take advantage of many refugees. The Socal Insurance Numbers given to a great many of these refugees are of a particular series of numbers that identifies them as refugees. Employers have come to know this, and some have to come to this knowledge in an abusive way.
There was also despair because of their inability to provide satisfactory long-term education for their children. There was despair over three important factors, living conditions, employment and educational opportunities, as well as the feelings that come into play when a refugee leaves his homeland; the pain that comes from being separated from one's loved ones.
There is also a second issue at play here. Is it fair that we ask individuals who have been here for three, four and sometimes even five years to once again pack their bags and go back home? There is a terrific example of this in my own riding. One family from Argentina was forced to leave Buenos Aires when the parents were purged by the former military Government. These individuals were first forced to leave because they were school teachers in their home country. The school system was one of the areas on which the military regime cracked down very hard. Therefore, they came to this country and for the last five years have been living in Toronto. Both the mother and father have learned English very well; both have found jobs in the community. They have two daughters, neither of whom speak Spanish, only English. They have tried to become involved with the Toronto community, specifically with the Latin American Community Centre in my riding. This is a perfect example of a family which has set its roots in this country. They have learned our language and our way of life. But for lack of a piece of paper, they are in fact as Canadian as, perhaps, you and I, Mr. Speaker.
The immigration authorities have asked them to return to Argentina because the Government of the day has changed. However, there is no guarantee that the persecution they faced at one time will not occur again. Is it fair to expect these individuals who have contributed to the way of life in my riding of York West and the way of life as we know it in Canada, to be asked to pack their bags and leave once again ?
One aspect of my question revolved around the Gunther Plaut report. We are familiar with his first report submitted on the question of refugee status. But, he submitted a second and confidential report to the Minister of Employment and Immigration dealing solely with the backlog of refugees and the solutions he proposed. Thus far, Mr. Speaker, you and I have no knowledge of what is in that report.
My question was twofold; what is the Government planning to do with the serious backlog of refugee claimants as manifested by the 300 refugees in Ottawa some weeks ago? Second, is the Government prepared to share with us the confidential report by Gunther Plaut on the bottleneck of refugees? That was the essence of my questions in the House of Commons. I look forward to the Parliamentary Secretary providing answers which will be satisfactory to some 20,000 refugees whose future depends strictly on this Government.


Mr. Gerry Weiner (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I share the concerns of the Hon. Member. Fifty per cent of my constituency is made up of visible minorities. Twenty-five per cent of the population of St. Laurent, the largest city in my riding, falls into that category. As the former mayor of my city, I have had constant consultations with those citizens.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond to the questions raised by the Hon. Member. First, 1 would like to remind Hon. Members that Bill C-55 has been reported back to the House and will receive third reading shortly. The primary purpose of the Bill is to increase the personnel of the Immigration Appeal Board and thus enhance its capacity to deal with an increasing case-load of appeals and refugee determination applications.
The Bill will allow for more expeditious oral hearings at the redetermination stage for refugee claimants whose claims have been unsuccessful at the first instance. This can only be good news for bona fide refugee claimants currently caught in the backlog. The group that demonstrated on Parliament Hill on November 20 maintained that Bill C-55 will thwart the Supreme Court decision that guarantees an oral hearing. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the contrary is true.
At the same time, I must emphasize that it has always been the Government's position that Bill C-55 is a limited interim response to the caseload situation at the Immigration Appeal Board and should not be seen as part of the comprehensive refugee legislation reform package now being developed. More comprehensive measures will be introduced into Parliament when we have completed our study of the many complex recommendations contained in Rabbi Plaut's study on refugee
November 28, 1985

determinations in Canada and the public impact that report has attracted.
This brings me to my second point. There is a certain irony in the fact that among those groups demonstrating against a so-called lack of progress in presenting a new system are several respondents who made strong representations to have the consultation period extended. Such persons should realize that they cannot have it both ways. In fact, the consultation period was extended and for good reason. The views of many interested groups and individuals are relevant to the process and are being given serious consideration. If the Government's response to the Plaut report has not been as rapid as some would wish, I suggest it is not because we are insensitive but because we are proceeding with care to avoid the mistakes of the past which have led to this difficult situation.
I am pleased to say that our efforts should bear fruit in a few weeks, but it must be evident to all Hon. Members that even if we can achieve the rapid passage of upcoming legislative amendments, the full implementation of a new system is at least several months away. Therefore, until we have a new framework for a fair and expeditious refugee claims process, the only practical approach is to speed up the existing process, which Bill C-55 will facilitate.
I note as well that the Hon. Member referred on November 21 to a "second and confidential report dealing solely with the refugee backlog that was submitted to the Minister by Rabbi Plaut." I must advise that no such secret report exists. Contrary to the Hon. Member's suggestion that the Government is sitting on a follow-up study by Rabbi Plaut, the full report was released on June 17. If he is sufficiently interested, he may wish to refer to pages 215 through 221 which contain proposals for transitional arrangements which Rabbi Plaut presents as a means to clear the backlog.
In conclusion, I regret the lack of understanding displayed by those who characterize Canada's response to the plight of refugees as insensitive and inhumane. Canada's humanitarian concerns have found repeated expression time and time again in recent years. Canada has a tradition of generosity of which we can be proud, and our current efforts to create a speedy and equitable system are part of that tradition.


SHIPBUILDING-REQUEST FOR CLARIFICATION OF PROJECT TO BUILD SECOND CN MARINE FACTORY
Mr. Gabriel Fontaine (Levis):: Mr. Speaker, on November 22, 1985 I asked the Minister of State for Transport (Mrs. Blais-Grenier) when the Government would make a decision concerning the construction of a second ferry for CN Marine.
Adjournment Debate
As you know, Versatile Davie and the Department of Transport are holding negotiations concerning the construction of this second ferry.
Lauzon's Versatile Davie management have assured us they are prepared to build a second ferry for exactly the same price as the first one, $127 million. A similar ferry is now being tested and just about ready for delivery to the customer, CN Marine.
Mr. Speaker, I would draw to your attention the fact that Versatile Davie's offer is a pretty good indication of the effort made by the company to keep costs from exceeding the tender price.
Versatile Davie workers and all subcontractors within the greater Quebec City region have been asked to co-operate, so the company was able to offer to build a second ferry for the same price as the first one.
We have to keep in mind that the immediate construction of a second ferry at the Versatile shipyards has many advantages.
First of all, it will enable the company to hire 1,500 workers who otherwise will have to make do with unemployment insurance benefits and very soon depend on measly social welfare payments.
Second, if our workers have to spend too much time on unemployment insurance and social welfare, they will lose both their incentive to work and their skills with the result that the Lauzon Versatile Davie shipyards will no longer be very competitive on the market.
Third, CN Marine's responsibility is to run a ferry service and we know that the users have been asking for such services.
Fourth, this project has involved the participation of 19 municipalities in the Quebec City region, not to mention the municipal conference which includes all Levis county municipalities that have given their support to the second ferry construction project. The Quebec Urban Community as well has decided to join the group.
In a telegram sent to the Hon. Michel Cote in early October this year, the economic council of Levis-Lauzon expressed its growing concern about this matter and the employment situation in Levis.
Then, on November 14, 1984, Mr. Mazankowski had this to say concerning the rationalization of ferry services:
-this will have a tremendous impact upon the shipbuilding industry and, therefore, will create jobs.
The day after, November 15, 1985, Mr. Mazankowski said, and 1 quote:
As a matter of fact, we have a number of initiatives to stimulate the shipbuilding industry, and part of the rationalization for the upgrading of the eastern ferry system involves the acquisition of a new vessel. There will be four new vessels coming on stream, one of which is already built. They will, among other things, provide more capacity, faster service, greater flexibility and, equally important, provide the shipyards with some needed activity.

November 28, 1985
Adjournment Debate
In addition, it is imperative that the Government make up its mind quickly, for it would be the logical result of the initiative taken by the Hon. Sinclair Stevens who, on March 15, 1985, announced the acquisition of Davie Shipbuilding by Versatile Davie, with a $15 million grant to the new Versatile Davie Inc. In doing so, the Government was making a formal commitment to the future of the Lauzon shipyards and recognizing the reputation of a company whose experience and know-how are unique in North America.
Considering what we have already accomplished, Mr. Speaker, and also considering our formal commitments, we now have an obligation to proceed quickly in the matter of reaching a decision on the construction of a second ferry.
In concluding, Mr. Speaker, I think we should be very careful about the proposals and reports being submitted by CN Marine concerning certain alternative solutions for the second ferry. In fact, CN Marine is suggesting to the Department of Transport the purchase of a foreign vessel. Does this proposal contain all the elements of a cost-benefit analysis, and not just the capital cost but also operating costs, not only the book cost but also the economic cost? Do these recommendations by CN Marine take into consideration aspects such as jobs, technology, and our reputation and competitive position on international markets?
Has CN Marine given the authorities at the Department of Transport several alternatives or has it presented only one proposal without offering an alternative to the acquisition of a foreign vessel? Has it given no alternative to acquiring a foreign vessel?
Mr. Speaker, I have serious doubts about the quality of the data prepared by CN Marine for the Department of Transport and thus for Parliament. It is in the long term interests of Canadians that we get a quick decision that will preserve jobs and improve our technology.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, first of all I want to thank the Hon. Member for Levis (Mr. Fontaine) for his continued interest in and hard work on an issue that will be of major importance to his constituents. This may be the kind of stimulus we need to get some action as soon as possible.
Hon. Members are aware that one of the elements of the upgrading plan for ferry services which was ratified in 1984, was the delivery by Versatile Davie of Lauzon of the ferry M. V. Caribou, to be put into service early in 1986.
As indicated several times by the Minister, various aspects of the matter are being analyzed, and a study will be submitted to Cabinet within the next few weeks.
The use of new, bigger and more efficient vessels will result in a significant reduction in operating costs and increased
passenger and cargo capacity, thus providing a better service for the people of Newfoundland.
The House will recall that the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) has an obligation to ensure that transportation services are provided safely and efficiently, at the lowest possible cost.
In fact I would like to take this opportunity to express the Minister's thanks for the excellent work done by the Hon. Member for Levis in connection with the report submitted to the Minister on the whole issue of the shipbuilding industry in Canada. Mr. Speaker, if my hon. friend does not mind, I would like to give him a few statistics which I think will convince all Members present of the government's concern for this industry.
Today, 90 per cent of contracts for building ships in our shipyards are Government contracts. In addition, 60 per cent of the work in repair shops is done on government ships. The Canadian Coast Guard's current building program includes eighteen vessels, with contracts totalling over $465.2 million.
Ports Canada and CN Marine contracts for the construction of new vessels will total $143 million.
Furthermore, Transport Canada and several Crown corporations are expected very shortly to allocate $50.7 million for repairs to 21 vessels.
Mr. Speaker, these projects are being directed to shipyards, large and small, across the country.


AIR SAFETY-INQUIRY INTO AIR INDIA DISASTER. (B) AIRPORT SECURITY MEASURES
Hon. Andre Ouellet (Papineau):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday I asked a question of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) prompted by a Canadian Press article which indicated that the lawyer representing the Canadian Government at the New Delhi inquiry into the June 23 crash of an Air India jumbo-jet off Ireland was attempting to make the point that the inquiry should not determine who was responsible for the incident.
The article stated:
At issue was whether the week-old inquiry should decide who was responsible for airport security before the Boeing 747 left Toronto and Montreal for Bombay.
Obviously, the answer will be crucial in civil litigation. As you know, 329 people died in this incident.
The Minister's answer was that he wanted to wait until the inquiry was completed before commenting on the inquiry. However, what is at stake is the conduct and attitude of the lawyer representing the Government in this inquiry. Why was the lawyer trying to prevent this inquiry from getting at the consequence and responsibility of this incident?
I suggest that on the one hand the Canadian authorities do not want anyone to know if they are responsible for the
November 28, 1985

incident. On the other hand, it seems that the Indian authorities do not want anyone to know if Air India was responsible for the incident. Therefore, this inquiry is taking place for no reason than just to find that indeed there was an accident. The exercise in New Delhi seems to be purely unnecessary because the judge has decided that according to the court, all questions of responsibility will be disregarded. I find this absolutely incredible and certainly not in the best interests of our country.
I also pointed out to the Minister in my question that despite the series of measures that had been taken to better protect air passengers at our airports, there are still a number of failures in the system. Last week the Transport Committee heard witnesses on the document "Freedom to Move". At the time of this hearing in Vancouver the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks presented a memorandum to the committee indicating that in fact there have been a number of failures. Let me briefly read into the record some of these failures. This is what the union organization said:
The first is that, despite every intent to adhere to the new policy, the pressure of competition can result in the waiver of rules. Although there is an extensive effort to ensure that all passengers who have checked in, are on board, there has been at least one instance recently when, in the interests of "on-time" departure an international flight left Vancouver airport without reconciliation of passengers on board.
Another problem exists with passengers travelling internationally who must first connect through another city. For example a passenger leaving Calgary for Tokyo, will not have his baggage x-rayed. During the change of plane in Vancouver the passenger is supposed to pick up the luggage and re-check it in order that it may be cleared through security. Often passengers neglect to claim their luggage and the responsibility falls to the airline agent (a BRAC member) who must physically handle the baggage by processing it through the x-ray procedure. This naturally puts the employee in a potentially dangerous situation should an explosive device be contained in the luggage.
A third situation, which is of grave concern, is the through handling of baggage originating outside Canada, destined for another country.
This baggage is not subject to any X-ray check unless the originating country has a procedure in place. For example, baggage originating from South Pacific locations destined for Europe will not go through any security clearance.
I want to submit, Mr. Speaker, that these three cases presented by the union are very important. I appreciate the Minister is doing his best to improve security at airports, but I submit there are still grave problems that have to be corrected. I appreciate that the Parliamentary Secretary will be doing his best here tonight in trying to answer us. I would have preferred to see the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) or the Minister of State for Transport (Mr. Forrestall) handle it. I have confidence that the Parliamentary Secretary will certainly convey to the Minister this great discrepancy in terms of security at airports.
Adjournment Debate


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, in this Parliamentary Secretary you are getting a man who has been marked for life by the going down of Air-lndia's Flight 182. Many of those who died were my constituents. I spent much of the summer in constant consultation with the families. I have been watching this file and the proceedings very carefully. In addition, I lost a personal friend, an outstanding pharmacist, Gaston Beauchesne, a director, a colleague, and a member of the Order of Pharmacists. I too share the concerns, and I am watching the proceedings most carefully.

Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Papineau (Mr. Ouellet) would know indeed that no Minister of the Crown may comment on a judicial inquiry. Even so 1 would like to remind him of the words of Mr. Justice Kirpaul:

What this court has to do is to find the cause and circumstances of the accident and not apportion blame.
[ Translation]
1 believe those remarks were taken from the same report which the Hon. Member must have read on that subject.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) said in the House on several occasions, our airport security has been considerably boosted. We have added $6 million to the $36 million already earmarked for airport security in 1985 and 1986.
Twenty-seven X-ray devices for monitoring checked luggage have been installed; 23 more have been ordered and will be delivered before March 31, 1986; 26 explosive vapour detectors will be installed in international airports by December 15, 1985.
The Prime Minister has set up a special study sponsored by the interdepartmental committee on security and intelligence. The final report has been received by the Minister and the implementation of its recommendations is being considered.
Mr. Speaker, we are trying to reverse the action taken over the past five or six years by the previous Government in which the Hon. Member was involved to reduce security measures and expenses at our various airports.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 3( 1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.28 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, November 29, 1985