1985-04-22

Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: That, in the opinion of this House, the Government has displayed negligence with regard to the protection, maintenance and improvement of the environment as manifested in its ill-advised reduction in services, its complacent attitude toward controlling potential hazards and its complete abdication of any leadership in the protection of the environmental health and safety of Canadians.
He said: Mr. Speaker, you may ask why we have moved this motion today. Our answer to you, of course, is that there is a mounting dissatisfaction on the part of Canadians. What the Tory Government has boasted about achieving during the past six months, Mr. Speaker, was only possible because of the work done by successive Liberal Governments until September, 1984. In other words, the food was ready to be served. What was ready to be put on the table was the agreement with the provinces on acid rain; the provision of funds for the clean-up by way of modernization of the non-ferrous smelter industries, the car pollution controls; the laws and regulations on the transportation of toxic chemicals and the water inquiry. The groundwork was done. The foundation and momentum were provided by successive Liberal Governments. The Tories may not like to hear that but it is a fact.
What must be addressed today is what the Progressive Conservative Government has neglected to do with respect to the environment. That is what we call in our motion "abdication of leadership". It is abdication of leadership, for instance, when the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) in Quebec City fails to impress on President Reagan Canada's 50 per cent reduction program on acid rain; the Prime Minister allows himself to be sidetracked by President Reagan with the appointment of William Davis as the acid rain envoy. It is abdication of leadership when the Government of Canada abandons our international role on acid rain instead of intensifying it this spring in the months leading to the Helsinki agreement which is to be signed by the ECE nations of which Canada is a member, having launched the Ottawa Club in March, 1984. At that time there were ten nations taking part. They have now become 20. It would be extremely important to ensure by international and diplomatic initiatives that we get the United
Kingdom to sign, or to declare itself ready to sign. That would make quite an impact in Washington. It is extremely important also to get Greece, Turkey, Spain and Portugal to join because this is the way in which, hopefully, we can get the United States administration to sign up in Helsinki in July of this year.
With respect to PCBs, Mr, Speaker, the Government failed to recognize immediately the federal role and responsibility both on the question of interprovincial trucking and on the question of controlling air transport of contaminated samples until it was pushed by the Opposition. I must say, Mr. Speaker, it took long and hard work to arrive at the Transportation of Hazardous Goods Act because of its complexity, the regulations and the consultations which were needed with industry.
Now that it is all in place, 1 submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the key word on this is "toughness"; toughness with regulations, penalties and with preventive measures. I say this because we must remember as a basic principle that the health of Canadians is the most important asset we have and we must protect it. The solution to the management of PCBs and, for that matter, other toxic substances is not through transportation arrangements across Canada but through a safe disposal policy, short transportation distances, safe methods of elimination, a well informed public, and provinces which have and must have the political guts fully to discharge their responsibilities, particularly in Ontario and Quebec.
While we are on the subject of transportation, I might ask what leadership is the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs (Mr. Crombie) giving with respect to his responsibility to protect the ecologically fragile north from proposed tanker routes across Lancaster Sound? His silence on this issue as well as on the recommendations contained in the task force on northern conservation published in December of 1984 has been deafening.
Another Minister who seems to be silent on a crucial matter of interest to Canadians, that of pesticides, is the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise). Despite reassurances, he still has yet to move, despite all the work done in 1983 and 1984, on permitting public participation in the registration of pesticides and in arranging for a pesticides management advisory boaid. What we see instead is what I would call negative leadership. Let me explain.
Negative leadership is the ignoring of the plea by thousands and thousands of Canadians who still oppose the wildlife cuts, the amount being saved by that cut representing an infinitesimal fraction of 1 per cent of the deficit, while the social and

April 22, 1985
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economic loss is immeasurable. There is negative leadership in cancelling the Guelph Toxicology Centre, a centre of excellence which would have given Canada a lead role in the world. Would that centre have been cancelled if it had been planned in the Prime Minister's riding? I wonder. There is negative leadership in cancelling renewable energy research at the National Research Centre and the energy saving and conversion programs, while at the same time continuing with a very expensive system of grants to oil companies exploring for conventional energy in the Arctic. That does not make sense.
By looking at this kind of activity, one can also see a failure to confirm the policy in national parks, an established, longterm policy whereby Canadians know that what comes first is the conservation role of national parks and, secondly, tourism. What we see is what I would describe as inaction and wrong decisions. For instance, it was a wrong decision for the Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier) to go to Stockholm instead of attending an international conference on acid rain in Quebec City. That was inaction.
It is inaction when the Minister prefers to sit in her office checking whether she is getting work done by officials instead of getting out into the communities to listen and to learn. For instance, after eight months in office she has not yet visited the Niagara River. She has not given leadership on the recommendations published last October by the Niagara River toxic chemicals committee. It is a situation that cries for attention, action and leadership, but all we get from her are pious press releases. Although in office for eight months, the Minister has not yet met with the EPA on this crucial matter. She has allowed the cancellation of the toxic chemicals management program, a badly needed $2.5 million program to protect the health of Canadians with respect to water in the Great Lakes. Why has she done that, Mr. Speaker?
The Government's obligation of leadership, which is the body and spirit of our motion, is to be found also in fundamental, basic levels of policy-making. There is a failure on the part of this Minister and the Government to recognize that the environment is the foundation of our health. There is a failure to understand and recognize that the environment is the foundation of our economy. Therefore, there is a conceptual incapacity to understand that the environment, health and the economy are one and the same.
MS)
In justification of environmental cuts the Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier) and the Government speak about "getting our economic house in order first". In doing so they abdicate leadership because they fail to recognize the inescapable reality that our health, the economy, and our lifestyle depend on a well managed environment.
Canadians will not be fooled by the false notion that we must look after the economy at the expense of the environment. Canadians are light years ahead of the Government in their view of the importance of the environment. The economic views uttered by the Minister of the Environment are backward, simplistic, and sheer nonsense. Canadians want the close
relationship between the environment and the economy recognized by the Government. They know that neglect or postponement of preventive and clean-up action in the environment inevitably leads to greater costs in the future. That is economics, Mr. Speaker.
The support that the Minister has in this country can perhaps be counted on the fingers of one hand. She has not yet understood what her job is all about. Canadians want her to be an advocate of the environment. They want her to give a sense of direction at the provincial, national and global levels with non-governmental organizations and volunteer groups. They want her to be an impassioned speaker for our right to live in a healthy environment and to preserve it for future generations. They want to see her out of her office fighting for the environment and advocating the protection of our health, our water, our air and our economy in the long term.
In recent days we have heard a lot about the Charter of Rights. It ensures everyone the right to life, liberty, integrity and security of the person. The time has come to enlarge the interpretation of the notion of the security of the person to mean the right to a healthy environment. It should be declared as a constitutional right of every Canadian. To this end we will soon present a Private Member's Bill. The ineptness and lack of action of the Government in a variety of issues related to the environment is jeopardizing the inherent right of Canadians to health and safety as spelled out in our motion today.
It is becoming clear that Canadians have been fooled by this so-called Progressive Conservative Party. That Party, despite its name, is neither for progress of society as a whole, nor for conservation of our natural environment. The Government does not seem to realize that as long as it thinks about the economy as an entity separate from the environment, the economy as well as the environment will be in jeopardy. That is why the Minister of the Environment is on the wrong track when she talks of putting our economic house in order first. What does she mean by that? She does not know what she is talking about. It is such thought that was manifest 50 years ago when we were not facing scarcity and industrial waste at the rate and proportion we are facing today.
[DOT] (M20)
The Minister and the Government seem unaware of this basic, fundamental reality. Human health, the economy and the environment are one and the same. They form a single subject which cannot be separated. I suggest that it is an abdication of leadership not to realize that. Reducing services and eliminating programs is an abdication of leadership. Sitting in an office on the 26th floor of a tower across the river is also an abdication of leadership.
Enough time has elapsed for the Minister to understand the importance of the advocacy role. We all know that in every Government department one must speak for the interests of that department and fight for it. Not performing an advocacy role with passion and commitment at all possible levels is another form of abdication of leadership.
April 22, 1985

We have placed this motion on the Order Paper today with profound regret. We would rather be commending the Government for doing its duty with respect to the environment. We would be glad to applaud the Minister of the Environment and the Prime Minister, but the fact of the matter is that once we remove that for which the Government has been taking credit in the last six months-which is food prepared by the previous Government-one can see a horrendous vacuum.
We can see an intellectual bankruptcy and emotional emptiness. The environment, perhaps more than any other assignment in government and politics, is one that requires passion, commitment and a strong sense of leadership which shows a direction for this nation that will not be deflected by federal-provincial niceties. There is a time when Canada is more than just the sum total of each provincial Government. There is a moment when the health of Canadians is a national concern. That is the theme we are putting before the House and that is why we are so upset about the lack of leadership, indeed the abdication of leadership, on the part of the Government. For those reasons, Canadians are increasingly being turned off by the PC Government. It will not return as the Government, at this rate, come the next election.
[ Translation]


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Questions and comments. The Hon. Member for Saint-Jacques (Mr. Guilbault).


Mr. Guilbault (Saint-Jacques):: Mr. Speaker, during his remarks my colleague referred to the Niagara River toxic pollution problem. He expressed his doubts about the work the Government has done on this particularly tough issue. Would he give us his opinion as to what the Government should do now to improve the situation in the Niagara River?


Mr. Caccia:: Mr. Speaker, the Government should implement the recommendations contained in the report by the Niagara River toxic chemicals committee that was published last October. There are some 26 or 27 recommendations that were jointly arrived at by the Canadian and American sides. However, only two recommendations were on the American side.
It is a very serious departure from past practices. Evidently there is a political message when only two recommendations are put forward by the American side, which are stalling-type recommendations. Evidently, the Minister must meet with the Environmental Protection Agency, speak up on this matter and take action. She must give her officials the courage and inspiration that they need in order to be effective in negotiations south of the border on this matter of toxic chemicals.
I was stunned to learn that as of April 1, 1985 the $2.5 million program for toxic chemical management no longer exists. It is gone. I hope the Minister will address that matter.


Mr. Lewis:: Mr. Speaker, I listened with absolute amazement to the former Minister of the Environment who was an
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acknowleged bankrupt in terms of getting anything done during his term of office. It was acknowledged on all sides of the House that no progress was made during his tenure as Minister of the Environment. It was an acknowledged fact that his Ministry, his Government, could not get along with the provinces and that was the reason there were no agreements signed on the transportation of dangerous goods. It was an acknowledged fact that the Canadian Government, under the Liberal Party, fought with the United States and thumbed its nose at the United States at every opportunity, and that was the reason nothing was done. Perhaps the bureaucrats were working hard, but there was absolutely no political will in the Liberal Party to get along with anybody. The Liberals wasted years of opportunities to do important things about acid rain, the environment and the transportation of PCBs. The House should recognize that the fault lies with the lack of political will by the Party that was intellectually bankrupt when it came to matters concerning the environment.


Mr. Gauthier:: That is distorting the facts.


Charles L. Caccia: Mr. Speaker, I would be glad to set the record straight concerning some of the questions raised by the Hon. Member. First, the Hon. Member for Simcoe North (Mr. Lewis) spoke of no progress having been made. The fact is that on March 6, 1984, in Ottawa, the federal and provincial Ministers of the Environment arrived at a federal-provincial agreement at that time. They decided to go it alone setting themselves the target of a 50 per cent reduction in pollution by 1994.
The Hon. Member spoke about the fact that we could not get along with the provinces. We got along with the provinces famously, Mr. Speaker. The former Minister of the Environment for Ontario and I worked together 100 per cent all the time. He was a great source of strength to me. I want to recognize publicly his immense role in bringing about that understanding on March 6, 1984. Two weeks later we had the "Ottawa club" being formed when nine European nations came to Ottawa and made a commitment to cut acid rain by at least 30 per cent by 1993. Three months later in Munich, on June 19 approximately, those ten nations became 20, nations that say that by 1990 they will cut acid emissions by 30 per cent.
As for the last allegation of the Hon. Member that we fought with the United States, we spoke plainly with our neighbours. We told them that as Canadians we cannot tolerate waste being dumped on our side of the border because we are downwind to the United States. The United States produces 26 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide every year. We had good reason to be legitimately indignant about that. As a good neighbour one does not dump stuff into one's neighbour's back yard; not even the Hon. Member for Simcoe North would advocate that theory. We said to the United States, come and join us, we will work together because we know that we produce this nasty stuff to the extent of one-sixth of what the United States produces. We said since our waste is damaging the United States because the northeast of the United States is

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downwind of Canada, and since Canada is downwind to 26 million tonnes of U.S. waste, let us come to a treaty. This treaty was spelled out as an incipient concept in 1980 when the memorandum of intent was signed between Canada and the U.S. by a Canadian Liberal Government and a U.S. Democrat Government.
It is best to speak plainly with your neighbour, Mr. Speaker, and to put forward Canadian interests instead of crawling on your belly, going down on your knees with ashes on your head. This is what the Prime Minister did in anticipation of the Shamrock meeting when he said: "We are the culprits; please forgive us. Mea culpa". It was nonsense. It gave away our bargaining position. We have a 50 per cent reduction program in place; the Americans have none. We have a commitment to cut by 30 per cent by 1993; the Americans have none. We are delivering the goods; they are not. What is the point of being on our knees when we have a legitimate national, domestic interest?


Mr. Keeper:: Mr. Speaker, could the former Minister of the Environment let us know how we can take seriously his new-found piety in the area of the environment, given the fact that when he was in office he had an opportunity to put in place effective regulations which would deal with the transportation of dangerous goods and would have prevented the PCBs disaster that has just taken place? How can this former Minister stand and talk in a self-righteous manner about the environment?


Charles L. Caccia: Mr. Speaker, I will be glad to answer the question. It comes from someone who has never been in government and will never be in government. He does not know the reality of obtaining support for a very complex piece of legislation and then drafting regulations which will be acceptable to 10 provincial Governments, to the two Territories, and to the industry itself which just last week was still complaining about inadequate consultations. It was a very difficult process. It was under the jurisdiction of one of my colleagues who pushed very hard for it, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy). If the process took a long time, it was because it was a complicated one. However, it was achieved. It was brought to a conclusion. There is no double standard on this. The fact of the matter is that we have the law and the regulations. Now we have to wait for the provinces to catch up with us by July 1.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, the former Minister said that he took action on the environment. Sure, he took action, but that action was ineffective. How could he talk about taking action which allowed for the PCB disaster that we have just experienced? How could he call that action effective?


Charles L. Caccia: The Hon. Member is not listening carefully. The action was effective because it produced a law. The action was effective because it produced a set of federal regulations. The action will be effective once the provinces dovetail their
regulations with ours. The goods have been delivered, although it took a long time.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The period for questions and comments is terminated.

Debate resumed. The Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier).


Hon. Suzanne Blais-Grenier (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I do not think I really have to comment on what the former Minister of the Environment said, since his credibility is not very high as it is and the events are self-explanatory.
Mr. Speaker, the incident at Kenora which resulted in the spilling of PBCs on the highway over more than 70 kilometers, and which involved a number of individuals including a young couple with two young children, was quite dramatic, especially since it could easily have been avoided. There was probably some human error involved, but I like to think that there was no criminal negligence. However, I would not want to anticipate the conclusions of the special investigators or any other authorities who will be asked to give their assessment.
I have already said publicly that within hours of this dramatic incident, I got in touch with my Ontario counterpart, the Hon. Morley Kells, Minister of the Environment. 1 have remained in constant touch with him in order to evaluate on an ongoing basis reports of the various intervenors in this case, although it is mainly a provincial responsibility.
I have also given instructions to my departmental officials to communicate with the principal health officer for the Province of Ontario and offer any assistance my department might be able to add to what is being done by the Government of Ontario, either to the family or to experts already involved in this case or to other individuals who might have come into contact with the PCB's. Later on in my speech I intend to elaborate on the action taken most recently by my department in this case. At this point, Mr. Speaker, I merely wish to say that notwithstanding the claims of the Opposition, this action has been frequent and always in accordance with our specific responsibilities.
In fact, the role and responsibilities of the provinces and the Federal Government in such situations are clearly defined in our emergency procedures, and it is therefore, both desirable and essential that each party act according to these procedures and stick to its assigned role to prevent any confusion in a situation that requires quick, sensible and effective action. The procedures are aimed at keeping the number of individuals on the spot, in case of an emergency, at a minimum, for efficiency's sake. The principal role in this particular situation is played by Ontario, which has acted with the requisite speed and taken charge of the emergency procedures, as was indeed its responsibility.
April 22, 1985

Mr. Speaker, at this point, 1 think a few words are in order about the role played by the Opposition, especially by the Member for Danverport (Mr. Caccia) and by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) in this matter, and 1 would qualify their conduct as shameful. All last week, Mr. Speaker, we have heard a series of charges directed at me and my department, on the action that we should have taken and the action we omitted to take, all of this proferred in the vociferous style adopted by the Opposition since the beginning of the new session, a style that the Hon. Member for Davenport wields so well. These charges, Mr. Speaker, are all preposterous and absurd, even allowing for the fact that the Opposition is trying to score political points. In fact they need to score a couple of points if we look at the polls. In this House we have become accustomed to the kind of absurdities that are being spread around and that are merely fodder for the sensationalist type of press and are not an attempt to inform the public objectively about situations on which it must form an opinion. However, this vociferous style and these erroneous allegations have not had the desired effect on Canadians since September 4.
Mr. Speaker, when the Members of the Opposition, including their party leader, the Leader of the Opposition in the House, play on the sentiments of the Canadian public in order to score political points, and I said it before and I say it again, their conduct is absolutely shameful. Let me give you an example of their behaviour. The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition directed the following question to the Prime Minister on April 16 of this year, and I quote:

Will the Prime Minister consult with the Minister of the Environment to ask her to come before this House and admit that under the Environmental Contaminants Act, a federal Act, she has a primary responsibility, not diluted by provincial jurisdiction, for the prevention and cleanup of spills of dangerous
chemicals?
[ Translation]
Mr. Speaker, is it possible that the Right Hon. Member, the Leader of the Liberal Party and the Leader of the Liberal Opposition in the House, who is himself a member of the legal profession, is it possible that he does not know or understand the scope of the legislation to which he is referring and put his foot in it, all in good faith of course? Can he possibly have acted this way in good faith? Is it possible that a professional lawyer whose own Party was in office when that legislation was adopted-I am referring to the Environmental Contaminants Act-is it possible that a lawyer and Party leader does not know the application and scope of the law? Mr. Speaker, the Right Hon. the Leader of the Opposition refers to the Environmental Contaminants Act and rakes us over the coals for failing to intervene in Kenora pursuant to that Act. Is it possible that the Leader of the Opposition is so badly informed or advised by his environment critic, the Hon. Member for Davenport, that he does not realize that in this specific case,
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the Kenora incident, that Act does not apply? Mr. Speaker, I leave you to draw your own conclusions on the ignorance- obviously crass ignorance in this case-or malicious intent of the Opposition. Mr. Speaker, that is reprehensible behaviour whereby the people are held to ransom instead of being given the information they need to make their own objective judgement on the events in Kenora.
So as to enlighten the Right Hon. the Leader of the Opposition, I will give him a summary of the purpose of the Environmental Contaminants Act to which he erroneously referred in this House on several occasions last week. According to the Act, no person shall, in the course of a commercial, manufacturing or processing activity, wilfully release, or permit the release of a substance specified in the schedule or any substance that is a member of a class of substances specified in the schedule. It does not cover an incident like that in Kenora. It does not cover the use of dangerous substances in business and industry. Therefore, the Act to which the Right Hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred many times does not apply in this case. Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that the Leader of the Opposition and his environment critic go back to the basics for further study and better understanding of the scope of the various pieces of legislation now in force in Canada.
The Act which might have applied in this situation is the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act. Unfortunately, this Act could have been made operative under the former Liberal Government, but it has been lying on the shelf for five years and, owing to the inaction of the former Minister of Environment, the Hon. Member for Davenport, nothing has been done, as the NDP spokesman said earlier. Five years went by without the Liberal Government doing anything to make the Act operative. Having strongly criticized the use of PCBs in 1980, the former Government did not see any point in legislating on their transportation, storage and disposal. Of course, constant bickering between the former administration and the provinces made it impossible to reach the federal-provincial agreement required in this respect. It was the Conservative Government that had to tackle the issue shortly after taking office. It was the Conservative Government that took the initiative of amending the Act in the early days of its mandate and make it operative. Thanks to the intervention of my colleague the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski), Canada's Parliament now has the tools required to control transportation of dangerous substances and to draft the relevant regulations which will be in force as of next July 1. Following the Kenora incident and in view of the urgency of the situation, however, the Hon. Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) availed himself of a specific provision of the Act to implement the regulations on April 19, thereby hastening the coming into force of the legislation scheduled for next July 1. That is the attitude which the opposition is trying to describe as inertia. Well, Mr. Speaker, I suggest Canadians

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have enough facts at their disposal to judge the performance of both the Progressive Conservative government over the past seven months, and the previous Liberal administration which had been in power for 15 years.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I should like to deal with the sharing of responsibilities in Canada. We are living in a Confederation. There is therefore in some areas a double jurisdiction. For the information of the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition who seems quite confused about this matter and in his interpretation of the relevant legislation in this country, I must say that the federal government clearly must assume a general responsibility in the area of the environment, but that it is up to the provinces to implement the legislation, to make the regulations operative by setting up their own legal framework within the confine of their own needs and jurisdiction. Thus, the provinces have the necessary power to administer most natural resources, including non renewable and forest resources, and to decide environmental issues within their own boundaries. And for the information of the former Minister of the Environment who does not seem to understand our Constitution, I suggest he should peruse Sections 91 and 92 of the Constitutional Act, 1867.
Unless the Hon. Leader of the Opposition is dreaming of rewriting the Constitution, Mr. Speaker, this sharing of powers is essentially what determines the interventions of the various jurisdictions. In the case of the Kenora spill, therefore, the Ontario government was the first to take action as it was its duty to do under the Ontario Environmental Act and they take charge of the situation. Hence, my department had only an auxiliary, complementary and supportive role to play.
Mr. Speaker, these provisions are consistent with a certain logic or rationale. When a disaster occurs in a given location, it is clear that a leader must take charge of the situation and coordinate action and thereby avoid total confusion.
Now, concerning the involvement of my Department in this matter, I said earlier that our interventions have been quite numerous and within the limits of our responsibilities.
On April 9, 1985, through its Alberta office, my Department advised the various provincial offices that four trucks operated by the Kinetic company would be carrying PCB wastes from Quebec. A description of the trucks was also provided. On April 1 1, 1985, a description of the PCB waste consignment which the four trucks were to transport was sent by my Departmental office in Edmonton to regional offices of my Department in the various provinces.
My Department's Environmental Protection Service in the Quebec area was notified by the Alberta office and in turn informed the Quebec authorities on April 9 and 11, 1985, so that the latter could enforce the regulations concerning the transportation of dangerous goods which exist already in the Quebec jurisdiction.
April 22, 1985
An inspector for Environment Quebec, Mr. Legault, checked the shipment before the trucks left on April 11 of this year. Kinetic Ecological Resource Group Ltd. also advised Environment Quebec directly, before the goods were shipped, that is, before April 11.
Mr. Speaker, many authorities were involved in acting on this emergency. I shall name only a few. When the incident occurred in Kenora on Saturday, April 13, 1985, it was immediately reported to the Ontario Provincial Police, which got in touch right away with Transport Canada's emergency center. The following parties were then immediately activated to play their specific role. The Kenora police, health officers in the Kenora area, the Emergency Measures Organization in the Kenora area, the Ontario Department of the Environment in Thunder Bay, the Ontario Department of Transport and Communications, the Ontario Department of Northern Affairs, Environment Canada and the Environmental Protection Services' emergency department. In accordance with the agreed plan for intervention in case of disasters, Ontario acted as chief emergency coordinator in the field and obtained advice, services and support from other services including the federal departments concerned. At the present time, we are keeping in close touch with our Ontario colleagues to provide for the transportation of the hazardous materials to their destination and to assess the extent of the contamination that occurred.
Mr. Speaker, I believe it is important that Canadians realize that since this Government was sworn in, there has been a high degree of federal and provincial solidarity and of respect for shared powers and jurisdictions, so that we are able to act quickly in case of a crisis. I submit, with due respect, that we were very quick to act, not only in this particular emergency situation but also to set up effective legislation that will help us protect Canadians when hazardous materials are being shipped. That is more than the previous Liberal Government ever did in the 15 years it was in power.


Charles L. Caccia: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Hon. Minister for devoting half of her speech to my leader and myself. However, she has not answered the question which deals with the cancellation, as of April 1 of this year, of the toxic chemicals management program. That program is vital to the long-term health of Canadians. It is my understanding that as of the first of this month the program no longer exists. If that is correct, I would ask the Minister to give us a thorough explanation as to why that program was cancelled.


Suzanne Blais-Grenier: Mr. Speaker, I must say that the Liberal environment critic has been spreading all kinds of erroneous information around the country. One example is what he said in the House a few minutes ago, namely that I had yet to meet with the representative of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He knows perfectly well that the
April 22, 1985

Agency director's appointment was confirmed at the end of February 1985, and since then, as the Hon. Member ought to know, 1 had an initial meeting with Mr. Lee Thomas of the Agency, the director whose appointment has now been confirmed, on March 18, and with members of his staff.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, it is clear the Minister did not answer the question. In fact she never answers questions. She attacks. She attacks and I do not know why, she is worse than a kid at school.
Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister. She said: 1 am going to deal with the problems that concern Canadians.
Well, we have seen $38 million in budgetary cutbacks. The Toxicology Centre in Guelph has disappeared, the National Research Center . . . The Renewable Resources Research Program has been scrapped, the Wildlife Service-

The Canadian Wildlife Service has been reduced. The toxic chemicals management pgrogram, to which the Hon. Member for Davenport (Mr. Caccia) has just referred, has also been cancelled. That program addressed the question of toxic materials in Canadian drinking water, mostly in the Great Lakes area. The Minister did not answer that question. She did not answer it because no one wrote the answer for her. She reads well, but she can hardly answer a question of such importance which is put to her. 1 want to ask the Minister-
[ Translation]
-the following question concerning PCBs or polychlorinated biphenyls. Here is the question. Access to Alberta's storage facilities is now being denied. We have been told that such toxic substances will fall under provincial jurisdiction. The Minister is undoubtedly aware that the residents of Pointe-Claire in Quebec are up in arms at the prospect of storage facilities being located in their area. What does the federal Minister intend to do to co-ordinate a program for the disposal of these extremely toxic products with the provinces so as to give them the leadership she is talking about? Will she at long last show leadership and urge the provinces to discuss the major issue of water and air pollution? 1 point out to the Minister that it is important. She ought to refrain from making partisan politics as she has been doing for half an hour.


Suzanne Blais-Grenier: Mr. Speaker, I should think that I have no lesson to take from the Opposition on partisan politics, because its performance is indeed far below any level of partisan politics. As to the disposal of PCBs, we will co-operate with the provinces as we have been doing from the beginning instead of berating them as you did during your last five years in office when you could have regulated the transportaiton of PCBs and set up storage facilities but did not.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister a question about the PCB spill in Kenora. In her speech she mentioned that she felt her Department and her role as Minister were auxiliary in this matter and that she was
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satisfied with the performance of the provincial Government. Canadians and the people of Ontario expect leadership from the Government. They do not expect the federal Minister to be auxiliary to the provincial Government, which Government has been ineffective in its actions.
The Minister said that she acted immediately upon the crisis occurring, but in the area of environment protection we need preventive action. We should not have to wait for a crisis for the Government to act. There should be legislation, programs and plans in place to prevent such disasters.
Finally, she said that there was legislation. However, this Government has a very poor record in terms of legislation. It has brought forward very little legislation in the House. There is no excuse for having ineffective legislation to deal with incidents such as the PCB spill in Kenora.
I would like the Minister to tell the House and Canadians why she has not provided adequate leadership with respect to PCBs, why she has not taken preventive action, and why effective legislation is not in place to protect Canadians from PCB spills.


Suzanne Blais-Grenier: When we talk about PCB disposal, Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that we have to find solutions concerning disposal sites. The way things stand now, people do not want to hear anything about PCB disposal sites in their neighbourhood. The matter of finding suitable sites must be settled with the provinces, and that is why I have asked that it be considered as urgent in the next few weeks so that we might for once make decisions about the disposal of this dangerous substance. If every province does not want to have anything to do with PCB burial within its territory, we will simply have to find adequate means to take our PCBs far enough for storage. There are two aspects to this question: either each province agrees to acknowledge its responsibility with respect to disposal sites, or we will have to settle the PCB transportation issue which is now raising so many objections.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, in the short time we have been in office we have reached agreement with the provinces for a 50 per cent reduction in sulphur dioxide emissions; we have announced tougher automobile standards; we have provided an assured budget for the science of monitoring; we have created an acid rain control office; we have appointed an acid rain control diplomat; we have given a budget of $150 million to the smelting industry-which is very important to the Sudbury area-and we have provided a budget of $70,000 for technology in the use of coal. Yet the former Minister of the Environment and the former Government were unable to do any of those things despite four and a half year in office; they were completely bankrupt. They had no ability to get along with anyone or achieve anything-

April 22, 1985
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Cyril Keeper: For 16 years.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: I appreciate my colleague from the New Democratic Party agreeing with me. I am sure that there are some members of the Liberal Party not here today who would also agree that there have been four and a half years of complete inaction by the former Government.
I admit there are things to do in the transportation of PCBs, and when we have a disaster like the recent spill, we have to examine the matter carefully and make decisions as to how we should proceed in the future. And we are all going to work together on that. I would like to ask the Minister how she accounts for the fact that she and her Department, and this Government, have been able to achieve so much when the Liberals, who were in office for four and a half years, were unable to achieve any of those things.


Suzanne Blais-Grenier: Well, Mr. Speaker, I think the Liberals spent all their time arguing with the provinces. They wanted to centralize all responsibilities in Ottawa-and that, of course, flies in the face of Canada's Constitution-whereas we tried to take a different approach by sitting down with the provinces to settle our problems. However, everything cannot be achieved overnight and negotiations do take some time, particularly given the utterly corrupt situation of federal-provincial relations when this Government assumed the leadership of the nation.
The Liberals did not do anything in the environment sector during their last five years at the helm, but now they are telling our Government that all the necessary Acts, provisions and policies were already in place and that we did nothing more than use them. If everything was in place, including the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act and the overall policy on the fight against acid rain, then I am wondering why the Liberals failed to act and come up with the kind of legislative provisions that would probably have prevented the Kenora incident!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Resuming debate.


Mr. Ian Waddell (Vancouver-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the New Democratic Party to say a few words in this debate. As I listened to the Minister give her answer to that relatively tough question, I thought of Dr. David Suzuki, the great scientist, geneticist and television personality from British Columbia, who gave a speech this weekend which was carried in the newspapers. He really communicates about the modern problems of Canadians. Dr. Suzuki gave us heck, if you like, a slap on the wrist, this weekend when he said that parliamentarians, Hon. Members of the House of Commons, are not really understanding when they deal with modern issues.
Part of this debate deals with a very serious spill about which there are allegations of negligence. We still have not got to the bottom of these allegations. We are dealing with
cut-backs in the Minister's Department and in her whole tenure, whether she is going to survive as environmental Minister. But what do we get in answer to the motion? We get: "Blame it on the Liberals". I do not belong to the Liberal Party and, goodness knows-


Mr. Nunziata:: You are welcome to come on over.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: -I stood up and criticized the Liberal Party for five years in this House. I just say to my friends across the way and to the Minister that there comes a time when perhaps they should stop blaming everything on the Liberal Party and the previous Liberal Government and start dealing with the current problems of Canada. I think most Canadians would agree with that. I think that if the honeymoon for this Government is not over, it is going to end very rapidly if the Government keeps addressing every question and problem by saying: "Oh well, it was the bad Liberals for the last 16 years".
Last week there was a serious spill of PCBs and no one has been charged, as far as I know. No one has been put in jail. Governments have been slow to react. But this morning, in what was a cowardly and gutless act, the Government used Gestapo-like tactics to take the peace camp away from the Hill. It took some poor young people-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Ian Gardiner Waddell: My friends are laughing. They think it is very funny that there are young people in jail at this moment-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order.


Some Hon. Members:: Sit down!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please.


Mrs. Mailly:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Gatineau (Mrs. Mailly) on a point of order.


Claudy Mailly: Mr. Speaker, I was wondering how the comments of the Hon. Member could be relevant. 1 thought that we were discussing the environment, but he is talking about a peace camp!


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I am talking about the effects-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Do you wish to speak on the point of order?


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Yes, I wish to speak on the point of order. 1 am speaking in this debate about the effects of pollution on the environment of the country. In fact, what I am comparing is what the Government has done with a bunch of kids in the peace camp, who have camped out for two years in winter and summer, and the kind of action it has taken in terms of justice
April 22, 1985

against the environmental polluters of this country. If that is not relevant, I don't know what this Parliament is for.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Chair will allow the comparison but not a long debate on the issue.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I have made my point, Mr. Speaker. That action was cowardly, gutless and Gestapo-like, and the Government is going to pay for it as some time. This country will not put up with those kinds of tactics. We will raise the matter in Question Period and continue it on in the debate this afternoon. I tell Hon. Members that if I could I would adjourn the House in protest, but I would like to have the opportunity in Question Period to put some questions to the Government on this gutless and arbitrary action.


Mr. Fretz:: For two years they have been there.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Yes, they have been there for two years, my friend, prepared to camp out, which is more than you've been prepared to do for peace.


Claude Girvin (Girve) Fretz: Everybody has a right to speak here but not to camp.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: You are just Ronald Reagan's poodle. You just put your hand up like a dish rag-


Claude Girvin (Girve) Fretz: Talk about the issue.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: -when the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) says "vote, vote, vote". What a bunch of Levesques, dish rags.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please.


Claude Girvin (Girve) Fretz: Why didn't you vote against your Party?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I would ask the Hon. Member to get back to the issue at hand today and I would ask other Hon. Members to listen to the Hon. Member who is speaking.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Get introduced to, not get back to.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I will return to that later in my speech, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, this debate also concerns another matter, but the PCB spill in Kenora on the Trans-Canada Highway-


Claudy Mailly: On the Trans-Canada Highway!


Ian Gardiner Waddell: -on the Trans-Canada Highway, is also related to the problem of liquid waste, and I think that Canadians are fearful and angry following this very serious incident. They are asking that preventive action be taken so that this type of accident, which was preventable, will never happen again. I think that in a Special Committee of this House, perhaps under the new rules, we should look into the transport of toxic and dangerous materials. We should ask what are the long-term effects of these dangerous substances,
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on a six-week fetus, for instance. The federal and provincial Governments have been neglectful, in my opinion. For example, the truck driver told this Red Lake family: "This is only mineral oil, not PCBs." What kind of Government cover-up must we put up with when we are told that this extremely dangerous leak was supposed to be mineral oil? How could this Red Lake family cover up the possibility of physical or mental deformity of their unborn child?
There are some real questions arising out of this spill. Perhaps I can put it in English, which I speak much better. If you look at the facts and the evidence, we have a family from Red Lake, Ontario, a husband, his pregnant wife and two children who followed a truck for 25 kilometres. They pulled the truck over and were told that this substance coming off the truck was only mineral oil to be cleaned off with rags and gasoline. The body of the car, including the windshield, as well as the motor, were covered with PCBs, this very toxic chemical. The family travelled all the way to Winnipeg in a contaminated car but they had to read about it in the Winnipeg Free Press. The car was impounded in Winnipeg. The truck was not carrying any warning signs and it appears, although I am not certain, that the driver was not aware of the dangerous cargo.
We are told that in Quebec, from where the truck came, the Government was led to believe the transformer was drained before shipment. Someone was obviously misleading the Quebec Government. Someone obviously misled the family concerned. The relatives of that family claim that at least six cars were contaminated and they are still driving the streets of Red Lake. The provincial hot line in Kenora as advising that the cars be washed with water and paper towels, and that they be placed in a paper bag and taken to the dump. This despite the fact we know that PCBs break down very slowly in the environment and are carcinogenic; they cause cancer. The RCMP has seized several shipments of improperly labelled and packaged PCB contaminated soil. The Ontario Ministry of the Environment shipped the samples on a commercial airline in violation of the rules.
It seems to me we have some real questions about the negligence, perhaps criminal negligence, of the company. We also have negligence on the part of the Government of Ontario given the way it reacted to the spill and dealt with it, and its lack of laws for dealing with this properly. The Trans-Canada Highway has been reopened even though the Ontario Government thinks entire sections will have to be replaced. The truck is still leaking PCBs one week after the accident. The facts mount up and up and present a case of negligence on the part of a number of people.
The point that I am making is that the Government is quick to put young people who are in favour of peace in jail, but it is very slow to react to the allegations of negligence in this particular case. As a matter of fact, the Minister said they reacted quickly, but where was she? She was not even in the

April 22, 1985
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House to reply. She had to be helped out by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Fraser) and the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski).


Mr. Brisco:: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I believe there is a Standing Order of the House which provides that reference shall not be made to the presence or absence of Members in the House.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member is correct; I am sure the speaker will take note.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I am not making any reference to who was or was not in the House, but one would think that if there had been a major environmental spill which could be a disaster, the Minister of the Environment would be here to answer questions rather than leaving it to other Ministers.


Mr. Dick:: She was there.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: She was not and you know very well she was not around. She is never around. The press wanted to interview her but she said: "Elle met son rouge a Sevres". She had to go put her lipstick on before she could deal with the press. That is what the report was. It just shows you how much the Minister knows about-


Claudy Mailly: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Gatineau on a point of order.


Claudy Mailly: Mr. Speaker, once more, I fail to see the relevance of the Hon. Member's comments. He is now making personal comments about the conduct of a Minister who is here today and who will be able to reply to his questions. I wish the Hon. Member would stick to the subject!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I do not think that is a point of order.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: The Minister can comment after my speech. The story in the press was that when they went to interview her the Minister was putting her lipstick on. I do not know, I am just repeating what was in the press. The Minister can reply. 1 will tell the House another thing about the Minister that we read in the press.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Down to your usual low level.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: No, it is very indicative of what kind of Minister we have. We have an incompetent Minister. She should quit. There are lots of other back-benchers from Quebec or other parts of the country who are probably quite competent and they should become the Minister. The Government should get rid of the Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier) very quickly, and I predict in the next Cabinet shuffle she will be gone to her just rewards in the back benches.


John V. Nunziata: There is nothing wrong with back-benchers.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Her reward is on the back bench, my friend.
The other thing we read about the Minister, and I will give her a chance to reply, is that she shows up at a press conference and instructs her chauffeur to leave her car running. That takes a kind of mind-set which is not an environmental mind-set.


Claudy Mailly: Every car on the Hill is doing that.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: That is absolutely wrong. People who are environmentally conscious-


Jean-Robert Gauthier: The Minister does it.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: The Minister has to lead. Let me deal with a couple of other points the Minister raised in the debate. One is the role of the Minister. I think the Minister has taken a completely wrong role. The Minister should be an advocate for the environment. I do not want to embarrass anyone but the Minister has just looked down to the front bench to see the Minister of the Environment in the Joe Clark Government. He was an excellent Minister and took a role of advocacy, and I refer to the Hon. Member for Vancouver South (Mr. Fraser). He was an advocate for the environment. The Opposition Liberal critic was not the Minister for a long time but he took the role of being an advocate for the environment. You do not push for cuts in your department; you fight the cuts. That is your job. You become an advocate. You are not like the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Beatty) or the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson); you are an advocate for the environment. Canadians demand that.
One of the good things which has happened over the last few months is that when the Minister made those cuts to her Department, there was an outcry. Even some Conservative back-benchers woke up, heard the outcry and asked the Minister about them. That shows some good things about modern Canadian families. They are very environmentally conscious. The battle of the 1970s has been won. There is an acceptance that you do not leave your car's motor running and waste gas because of that.


Claudy Mailly: Tell your leader that.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: You turn lights out in the house, you try and heat your house efficiently. All these little things are part of the new environmental consciousness in Canada, but the Minister does not have that consciousness and it shows in the way she runs her Department. That is why she is not going to be Minister very long.
I would like to return to the issue of jurisdiction. In the Minister's speech she attacked our behaviour as being repre-hensive because we raised this matter with some vigour in the House of Commons. We do not apologize for that. She says it is really a provincial matter. I think that the environment is a shared jurisdiction. It is not exclusively a provincial concern,
April 22, 1985

as the Government indicates, but more of a joint concern in which the federal Government must be involved.
There was not a federal environmental official in northwestern Ontario until three days after the spill. That was negligence on the part of the federal Government. The federal Government did not know how to handle it. The Minister of the Environment did not respond. The Minister of Transport made a shaky response and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans made some responses trying to bail out the present weak Minister. We cannot have that. The environment is too important a matter to have a weak Minister such as we have.
The Minister should take the position that she has a right to be involved in the spill. She should be telling the House today that they will act quickly in the future. In his remarks the Member for Simcoe North (Mr. Lewis) made the point that we should figure out where we are going from here. I agree with that. It is a positive attitude in terms of what will happen with future spills. However, we are not yet finished with this spill.
The Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton) used a word which has been ruled unparliamentary. It starts with "b". He said why don't we put those "blank" in jail. I must admit that I was a little startled when he said that in Question Period. However, you should have seen the reaction in the country. The people said "right on"!


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: What about due process?


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Due process, of course. However, there is no process for environmental polluters. I found out this weekend that there was an incident last winter in the Northwest Territories. The TPL company was building an oil pipeline from Norman Wells. They were looking at the wells with a camera which contains a radioactive element. It was not working so the worker hit it, and so on, and the thing came out on his hands. Later he had black hands but the company never reported it. They did not even have a licence to have radioactive material in the Northwest Territories. The Atomic Energy Control Board was slow to do anything about it. They cannot find the worker as he has gone back to Edmonton.
This is the kind of gross negligence, if not criminal negligence, that is going on in the country in environmental matters. This spill is a perfect example because it is spotlighted. Canadians could actually see what happened. I read the evidence out and it is irrefutable. We know the reaction of the Ontario Government, the way the company conducted itself and the way in which the federal Government conducted itself. We have not heard one Member say that if there is criminal negligence involved, these people will be charged and put in jail and we will never have such an accident again. The only thing we hear is that they are going to put the poor peace camp kids in jail.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
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Ian Gardiner Waddell: Members are laughing. I do not think it is particularly funny. I think this is a tragedy. While I am speaking today-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, order.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: -there are some young people who, instead of just getting drunk and things like that, are prepared to do things-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order please.


Claudy Mailly: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Gatineau (Mrs. Mailly) on a point a order.


Claudy Mailly: Mr. Speaker, I remember you reminding the Hon. Member he should not hark back to that subject. Apparently he has no understanding of the rule of relevance.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Replying to the Hon. Member, I have decided that for today whatever comparisons could be made between the Peace Camp and this Debate here would in fact be relevant. Speaking of comparisons, however, 1 would not want the debate to revolve around the Peace Camp, but if there were any comparisons, they would be allowed.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, the Member is complaining about the actions of our Member. Does the Member know that she should not be questioning a ruling of the Chair?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: There is one minute left in the time of the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell).


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know that the Member is sensitive to the peace camp matter, and she will become more sensitive later.
In summation I would like to say that this is a motion condemning the Government for its work in the environment. We have had a spill which highlighted what is going on. People could see the negligence of the Ontario provincial Government. They saw the slowness with which this Government did anything and the lack of response by this particular Minister. They have seen the past weak action on acid rain when the Government toadied up to President Reagan and appointed an emissary. They have seen the cut-backs in parks, environmental studies and so on. In short, they have seen the beginning of a Government which is very weak in conservation. I could speak about how they have failed in energy conservation but have fallen in line with the oil companies. With regard to the environment they have been weak and are falling into the routine of doing nothing. I think that the Government stands condemned.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the great Russian writer, said that any village greybeard will tell mankind that 12 worms can only grow on one apple for so long. Canadians understand that we
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April 22, 1985
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have a fabulous environment in this country. It is the greatest thing that Canada has. David Suzuki and other Canadians are telling us that we are starting to ruin and waste it in the modern world. We all share that problem and are guilty of it. That is why we speak with some passion, not to attack the Minister personally, but to get the Minister and the Government moving. We want some concrete action on this PCB spill and on protection of the great environment of Canada in the future.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, knowing parliamentary procedure, I of course would not comment on the Member's presence in the House at the start of the Minister's speech. In not saying that, 1 would like to say that it is normal for the Opposition critic to be here for the start of the Minister's speech in response to the motion introduced. Why did the Member not take the opportunity to ask questions at the close of the Minister's speech today?


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I was not here at the beginning of the Minister's speech. I was listening to it outside.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame, shame!


Ian Gardiner Waddell: The Member cannot have it both ways. He cannot attack me for raising it. There are certain matters that arise which require the Minister to be in the House responding in Question Period. When 1 was on holidays in the States a few weeks ago-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: What a confession!


Ian Gardiner Waddell: That was when we had a vacation at Easter. At that time there was a food poisoning scare in Chicago and the medical officer was in Mexico for a few days. He was probably fired. If 1 were the Prime Minister and my Minister of the Environment were not present when an important issue such as this came up, I would fire her. However, that is the way the Government conducts itself.
Did the Member have another question?


Claudy Mailly: Mr. Speaker, I would remind the Hon. Member said that since he was not present he could not have heard the minister's comments and this may explain his misunderstanding of the contents of the debate. In her comments, the Minister made it clear that the statute involved in the Kenora incident is the Hazardous Products Transportation Act rather than the Environment Act, the latter covering toxic products only as far as the manufacturing and processing of certain chemicals are concerned. Had he been in this House, he would have been able to understand the reason why the Minister perhaps was not present on a certain day, when a certain question was addressed to her, because she was working with her provincial counterpart-rather than fighting him as was the practice under the previous administration. The Minister was looking for an agreement on how to solve a problem that
does not now come under the federal statute but that will as of July, when we have new regulations that hopefully will help us prevent tragedies such as the one in Kenora. I simply wanted to stress this fact. The Minister quite clearly said so earlier.
Secondly, there was something else the Minister said while he was not in this House, namely that, contrary to what the Hon. Member for Davenport (Mr. Caccia) has suggested, she met very early with Mr. Thomson, the representative for EPA, the Environment Protection Agency, soon after he was appointed. He was appoitned in February and she met with him in March. This is a record as far as consultation and conciliation are concerned, since the previous Liberal administration not only would not agree with the provincial government but would seem unable to promote any understanding between officials of both governments.
To conclude, I also wish to ask him a question: Does he remember, when the discussion on the question that was very recently settled by the Minister when it was announced that there would be a 50 per cent reduction of carbon monoxide waste, yes, does he remember when the study was launched by the previous Liberal administration? And also, does he remember when the discussion on the control of automobile exhaust gases was initiated at a time when the issue was before the previous Liberal administration? I look forward to hearing his answer, and I would also like him to comment on the fact that the previous Liberal administration gave so little attention to the environment that there was just one Minister in charge of Science, Technology and Environment, while in this Government we have a full-fledged Minister for Environment, and whether in his view it makes a difference to have a full-fledged Minister heading such a department, contrary to the previous administration?


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Yes, 1 remember the car emission issue, because I was a member of the Committee on National Resources and Public Works in 1981. While on this committee, I moved an amendment to a Liberal sponsored bill calling for a tightening up of the car emission standards, and I believe that Conservatives members voted against it. Now, I am glad that emission standards have been tightened up, something for which the government must be praised. However-


Claudy Mailly: Thank you!


Ian Gardiner Waddell: May I remind the House that I proposed it a few years before and it voted against it.
Some action has been taken, such as with the standards and pollution control. However, nothing has really been done with respect to acid rain in the American context. 1 suggest that the appointment of Bill Davis was a cop-out which will only lead to further study.
April 22, 1985

As far as the Government cut-backs are concerned, let me read what Tony Keith, a biologist in the Canadian Wildlife Service, said about that. Incidentally, I have received letters from scientists all over the world who have worked in our Canadian Wildlife Service. They were describing its good work.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Gatineau (Mrs. Mailly) rises on a point of order.


Claudy Mailly: That is not the question which I directed to the hon. member. I did not inquire about the reduction in spending. I only asked him whether he remembered when we started to deal with-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please! That is a debatable question.

It is up to the Member to answer the way he wishes.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I will read this and respond to the last part of her question. The article states:
What Keith is saying is that sooner or later, some prairie slough will fill with the floating carcasses of ducks, killed by untested chemicals from a cropduster that accidentally overflew a field. Anthrax and brucellosis will cause bison to totter and fall to the muskegs of northern Alberta, and there will be no wildlife veterinarian to treat them. National park wardens may even come across the bloodied body of a camper, the victim of a grizzly attack that might have been prevented with another season's research into bears' feeding habits. And the public outcry may then be so loud that the politicians who are today making the cuts will be forced to rehire the very biological expertise they now dismiss as surplus to departmental requirements. Canadians will have learned the hard way about the true costs of casting out decades of accumulated ecological knowledge for the sake of quick-fix adjustments to one year's federal budget.
The Hon. Member asks me if I am aware of the laws. Is the Government telling us that the federal Government does not have any laws in the Criminal Code or under environmental protection to prosecute those people who are responsible for this PCB disaster, but it has laws to put a few kids from the Peace Camp into jail? If she is saying that, I don't believe her.


Robert Hylton Brisco: Mr. Speaker, first let me respond to the comment about the grizzly attack. Whoever wrote that cannot call himself a biologist or an authority. He is out to lunch. I would invite the Hon. Member to join me on a hunt at any time to find out what it is really like.
I do not wish to denigrate the importance of the PCB problem because it is clearly a very serious one. However, I would like to put it into perspective, if I may, by asking the Hon. Member if he could advise the House how many deaths have occurred as a result of exposure to the PCBs and how many cases of cancer have been identified as a result of exposure to PCBs?
Before the Hon. Member launches into a strident response, let me repeat that I am not in any sense of the word downplaying the seriousness of the problem. I would like the Hon. Member to respond to that particular element.
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Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I suggest that the Hon. Member talk to the Departments of Health in the provinces.


Robert Hylton Brisco: Do you know the answer?


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Perhaps the Hon. Member will listen. I treat his question seriously, in the manner he intended. I am told that PCBs are carcinogenic, very serious and so on. If he wishes me to acknowledge that we do not know enough about what PCBs do, I will acknowledge that. I believe our society still has a lot to learn about these chemicals and I agree that we should not panic.
However, that does not excuse us from not taking any action at all. My colleague, the Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton), put a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) in the House the other day asking about a follow-up investigation and having some doctors study this couple who have been affected. I have yet to hear an answer about that from the Government. It could at least make one announcement about something substantial that it has done, whether to study the problem through doctors, as I believe the Member would support, or to prosecute or even have a joint federal-provincial investigation.
Again, I point out that when there is a major environmental problem the federal Government washes its hands of it and indicates it's a provincial responsibility. I suggest that the Province of Ontario has been negligent in its handling of this problem. However, the federal Government sure is quick to put a few kids who support peace into jail. The Government can find the laws and the spirit to put them into jail but when it comes to the environment it does nothing. I do not want to downplay it, as the Member suggests, but the fact is that the Government is prepared to act quickly to put kids in jail and it is prepared to drag its feet and be just as negligent as the Ontario Government in taking action on this PCB spill.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. When the Liberal Member spoke earlier, Liberal Members were able to ask questions and make comments. When the Conservative Member spoke, Conservative Members were able to ask questions and make comments. When the NDP representative spoke there was no provision for NDP Members to rise in the House to ask questions or make comments. Since it was a person from our Party who spoke, Mr. Speaker, my understanding of the rule is that we have a right to have a Member stand up, to ask questions and make statements even when someone from our Party is the main speaker. I would like your guidance on that.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The priority is given to Members from the opposing Parties in the question and comment period. After I have gone through the opposing Parties, then I generally choose someone from the Party of the main speaker.
We shall now resume debate.


Mr. George Baker (Gander-Twillingate):: Mr. Speaker, 1 would like to add a few words to the debate. It was very

April 22, 1985
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interesting to listen to the Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier) and to some of the charges that have been laid against her as far as the PCB spill is concerned and as far as the power that she possesses under the Act, the present legislation, to do something about it.
It is a somewhat confused area. However, it is not good enough for the Minister of the Environment to say that this is provincial jurisdiction. It is not good enough for us to have legislation on the books that we in effect are not using or to refer back to legislation that was formulated at a particular moment in time and to discover that that legislation was perhaps watered down from its original intent.
I would like to make reference to what the Minister of the Environment said by reading from the official record. I would like to read her remarks and her repeated references to provincial jurisdiction and to the suggestion that perhaps we should not be progressing as adamantly as some Members of the Opposition are suggesting.
I would like to read from the House of Commons debates these words:
I said at the outset of my remarks that we approve of the principle of the Bill before us and indeed of its objectives, but I must say that we insist that these objectives be met without imposing excessive costs or hardships, and with the minimum of restraint put upon the operations of the carriers and the shippers.
Then later on this Hon. Member said:
-this Bill is really an extension of the Criminal Code, not merely a transportation law.
Those remarks were made by the present Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) speaking on behalf of the Progressive Conservative Party on February 16, 1979, when a Bill was introduced into the House by the then Liberal Government. The Act was changed. The original Bill presented in February, 1979 was an Act to promote public safety and the protection of the environment in the transportation of dangerous goods. The Bill we have on the books was passed in 1979 by the Government that followed the Liberal Government. The Minister of Transport whose words I quoted a moment ago was the Minister who passed the Bill through this House on behalf of the Government. The Bill was called "An Act to promote public safety in the transportation of dangerous goods".
The Hon. Member for Davenport (Mr. Caccia) made repeated reference in 1979 to why the word "environment" was removed from the title of the Bill and, indeed, from the entire Bill. I think that sets the record straight fairly well, Mr. Speaker. To repeat the words of the present Minister of Transport in introducing this present Bill that is on the books, he said, as reported in Hansard for November 27, 1979:
Those Hon. Members-will note that the Bill currently before the House has been extensively restructured ... This restructuring has been done as a result of lengthy and detailed discussions with representatives of affected industries and of the provinces, as I indicated earlier. However, as time passed, and as it was made clear that the federal Government was seeking co-operation and not confrontation in this enterprise, debates between the parties concerned became increasingly productive.
Increasingly productive, Mr. Speaker, when you do not want to have a confrontationist attitude with the provincial governments and the industries involved. Just imagine, Mr. Speaker,
the position of the Party being that you would not want to impose excessive costs or hardships and with a minimum of restraint put upon the operations of the carriers and the shippers, it is incredible philosophy when you talk about an Act that is supposed to protect the people and the environment of Canada in the transportation of hazardous goods.
I think the important point that should be made is that you simply say this is a problem of the provincial administrations, and that the provincial administrations do not act under their present legislation or they behave like the Ontario Government behaved in 1979 when it passed the Spills Act and never proclaimed it. Right now the Ontario Government has bought chemicals to spray over a million hectares in the Province of Ontario but it cannot be announced until the day after the election. What if you have a Government like the Government of Ontario that has jurisdiction but did absolutely nothing when cancerous tumours were found in fish and you had only the inland waters division of the Minister of the Environment conducting studies through a couple of person-years?
What happens when you have that kind of negligence on the part of a provincial government? What happens when you have the provincial Government of Ontario today with a Spills Act passed by the legislature but which was never proclaimed? What happens when you have a Government that has purchased materials for the biggest chemical air spraying program in Ontario's history, that has the materials in storage, that has consulted with the Canadian Wildlife Service on the actual application dates and then turns around and says "We cannot announce this program until the day after the election"? The Government of Ontario has made decisions on the types of herbicides it will use to kill the hardwoods. The Government does not want to hire people to go into the woods to do it. The Government will spray chemicals to kill the hardwoods in certain parts of Ontario and most of the activity is taking place'in the northern part of Ontario; at least that is what the Government informs me. What happens when you have provincial governments like the Ontario Government that do not follow through with legislation or that play political games when it comes to chemicals?
If you say this is a matter of provincial jurisdiction but you have no action on the part of the provincial jurisdiction, then surely this Government has a duty to act. You will find in a lot of legislation, even in the transportation of dangerous goods and hazardous products legislation that is on the books now, that there is a clause that says after 12 months if a provincial government does not act, the federal Government has the right to impose its own standards. When you are so short-sighted that you do not pay attention to the long-term effects of chemicals on the environment and on people, then you are being absolutely negligent.
We could talk about PCBs or we could talk about fenitroth-ion, which is the chemical that is being used in northern Ontario, the spraying of which is to be announced the day after the election when over one million hectares will be sprayed and about which the Minister of the Environment is aware. We could talk Roundup, a chemical which is used as a
April 22, 1985

herbicide, or we could talk about any chemical. The point is that we have legislation on the books, yet nothing is being done.
We have polychlorinated biphenyls stored throughout the country in various locations. Some of them are safe. Others are in vacated mines on private property. We can go back over the years and look at occurrences. For example, there was a high water situation and the fluid in a transformer spilled into a river. What action was taken right after that occurrence? I recall the situation involving the Exploits River just a couple of years ago. It involved provincial jurisdiction. However, what happened to the studies that were conducted after that incident occurred?
Let us look at the application of chemicals over large territories and at what scientists and environmentalists are recommending. Let us look at amino-carb. The officials of the Minister of the Environment recommended its use to provincial administrations. They recommended it to the Government of Ontario instead of fenitrothion. The Minister of the Environment has the responsibility right now to contact the Government of Ontario and impress upon it the importance of following the advice of the people in her Department. Very shortly, in three weeks' time, in Newfoundland they will be using amino-carb, BT and fenitrothion. In New Brunswick they will be using amino-carb, fenitrothion and BT. In Quebec they will be using BT and a small amount of fenitrothion. In the Province of Ontario, yet to be announced, just before the election, because of the problems with jack pine budworm, anywhere from 800,000 to one million hectares will be sprayed aerially with fenitrothion only.
Let us look at the list of herbicides which will be used. Certain parts of the country still use 2, 4, 5-T which is banned in other parts of the country, or Roundup or Velpar or gavlon. These are toxic chemicals. Of course the question is: How toxic are these chemicals?
A report was completed for the Minister of the Environment on what was the suspected cause of cancerous tumours in fish in Lake Ontario. That was the only place where it was actually investigated to any degree. Now we have to wait until the American Society of Limnologists has its meeting from June 19 to June 21 to find out the results of that particular study.
The point is that we cannot act only in the short term because we do not know what will be the long-term effects. We have to follow through. We cannot have, for example, a team down in Lake Ontario trying to find out what happened to the fish and not follow through on in next year, the year after and the year after that, to find out what is happening in the environment and to the fish. As the Minister of the Environment knows, she cannot cancel programs, as she did. She cannot lay off scientists, as she did, working in western Canada on what was causing the death of ducks as far as the use of a particular chemical was concerned.
There is a lesson to be learned in this debate. The Minister of the Environment, the Minister of Transport and all Cabinet
Supply
Ministers should pay more attention to what is needed in the long term. They should stress the importance of the research being conducted by scientists in the Department of the Environment and in the Department of National Health and Welfare, even to the point of involving the Department of National Health and Welfare in some of the studies being conducted in the Department of the Environment.
In conclusion, in his press release on directions for the transportation of PCBs, the Minister of Transport did not go far enough. Why did he not make it mandatory to have another vehicle travelling behind a truck carrying hazardous materials along the highway? That is an obvious solution. If you move a house down a highway you have a truck in front and one behind. It is that simple. The Minister of Transport has to act under the legislation which exists, legislation which was watered down substantially from that of the previous Liberal administration.


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to speak to the motion of the Official Opposition condemning the Government for its handling of environmental issues. What is at stake here and has been at stake for the last week with respect to the PCB spill in northwestern Ontario is the extent to which the federal Government, and 1 would suggest many provincial Governments, are out of sync with the way ordinary Canadians feel about the need to protect them and their environment from the consequences of introducing, either accidentally or deliberately, the many hazardous substances which are now being introduced into the environment as a result of the way in which we live and as a result of what we tolerate, whether it is the way in which dangerous goods have been transported to date or whether it is many other industrial activities that have been allowed to go on. What is at stake is the extent to which Governments are out of sync with the moral outrage which people feel about these kinds of things.
Having been home this past weekend-and unfortunately I was unable to arrive in time for the beginning of this debate- I discovered that people have a sense of outrage that these things are allowed to go on. Unfortunately their outrage does not last as long as I would like it to last. It flares up around a particular event and then diminishes between accidents. We see people being much more conscious of these things after a Mississauga or a McGregor event or after this last spill. Yet, there is a general level of awareness or a desire on the part of Canadians for Governments to ensure that these kinds of things do not happen and that other things which do not attract the attention of a spill do not happen. That level of awareness is increasing every day. I think it is cause for reflection on our values as a society and upon the values of bureaucracy, administration and politics, for that matter, that we can have so much moral outrage funnelled over the years into various known crimes, that is to say, matters pertaining to the Criminal Code. Whether it is the campaign to return capital punishment or whatever, those kinds of things attract moral outrage, and properly so. I am not saying that they should not attract moral outrage, but it seems to me that the

April 22, 1985
time has come when the actions of companies, the deliberate negligence of companies by which they introduce various kinds of poisons into the environment simply in the interests of their profit strategy, and the negligence of government in allowing them to do that, ought to invoke the same kind of moral outrage. I will have more to say on this matter later.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Ft being one o'clock p.m., 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.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine
East): Mr. Speaker, at 7.30 this morning the Government dismantled and expelled the Peace Camp from Parliament Hill and arrested two of the participants, after those young people had maintained their important vigil and message for over two years through the cold of winter and the heat of summer. This was after the Minister of Public Works (Mr. La Salle) indicated on Friday that they would have another 10 days. So much for the Government's rhetoric in favour of free speech, peace, and youth. What hypocrisy.
The Minister has said the peace campers had two years and that they have made their point. That is absolutely false. If the Government had understood their point it would have opposed the United States star wars proposal, it would have stopped more testing of Cruise missiles, and it would have taken a tougher position on disarmament. This is indeed a black day for peace, freedom, youth, and idealism in this country.

Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I want to share in the comments of the previous Hon. Member. That was a gutless act by the Government. It was cowardly. I applaud the young people who stayed there for two years.
I want to speak on another matter on which I was scheduled to speak. It is an important matter to my riding. I am told by members of the IWA, the Woodworkers' Union, and by company people, that a company called Nova Lumber, a
sawmill which leases water frontage in the Vancouver Port, has had its lease increased by an incredible 35 per cent. There have been no improvements or anything to justify this.
When Ron Huntington was a Member of this House he used to stand up and was very tough on restraint, and very positive about helping small corporations. He is now the head of Ports Canada. I say in good faith that I wish he could take another look at this deal because the lumber market is soft in British Columbia. This mill could go down. Five mills have gone down. If this increase could just be changed, or put off for a while, the mill could survive a short-term period until the market revives.
I could give details about the market, but I will just make my point generally that this is too much of an increase. I would like the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) and the Ports Authority to look into this drastic increase to see whether it can be changed.



MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL


Mrs. Barbara Sparrow (Calgary South):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend our Government, and the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) in particular, for the budget increase of $30.9 million recently given to the Medical Research Council. This raises the 1985-86 MRC budget to $158 million.
Although the previous Government approved a five-year plan in 1983 for the further development of the health research system in Canada, increased funding was granted for only the first two years. Our Cabinet found the base level provided for, in projecting the 1985-86 MRC budget, totally unacceptable. This additional funding will allow MRC to continue its vital work and pursue the implementation of the five-year plan.
Members will be aware that the Medical Research Council funds many research foundations and institutes with a significant portion of their operating support, and they will now be able to continue their established world class research programs.



REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT


Mr. Geoff Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Creek):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to make a report on the continuing emancipation of western Canada after years of Liberal neglect. Last July at Prince Albert the PC caucus gathered to reaffirm its commitment to western Canada. At Prince Albert we undertook to bring western Canadians back to the Cabinet table in positions of importance and influence. The West had one
April 22, 1985

elected Cabinet Minister under the previous administration. By contrast, we now have 12.
The National Energy Policy was the engine of ruin by which the Liberals punished the people of western Canada. The ripple effects of the NEP are still being felt in the recent collapse of several financial institutions.
The PC Party at Prince Albert promised to listen and to act. The result is the Western Accord which lays the foundation for restored prosperity in western Canada. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), in holding the First Ministers' conference in Regina, signalled his recognition of the West. Contrast this to the penultimate Prime Minister who asked the farmers: "Why should I sell your wheat?"
Nothing changes. Only last week, in response to a serious question concerning the grasshopper threat on the Prairies, a Liberal responded: "Spray them with PCBs." Same old Liberals, same old hypocrisy, same old arrogance. We in the PC Party know that a truly prosperous Canada can emerge only from strong, revitalized regions. We in western Canada rejoice at being part of Canada once again.



CANADA POST CORPORATION


Mrs. Therese Killens (Saint-Michel-Ahuntsic):: Mr. Speaker, in a recent Canada Post Corporation release, it was announced that the postal rate for letters would go up by two cents as of next June 24.
This announcement is an insult to my constituents who have now been waiting for over a year to have their mail delivered at home.
On two occasions, Mr. Speaker, I presented petitions signed by hundreds of residents of my riding to urge the Government to make strong representations to the Canada Post Corporation. This community development is located in the centre of the City of Montreal, and it is altogether unacceptable that this service should not yet be provided for my constituents who pay taxes and should have it.
The cost of postal stamps has jumped 88 per cent since 1981, from 17 to 32 cents. Canada is already one of the major western countries where postal rates are among the highest. Should the Government approve this increase, our postal rates will have doubled over the past four years.
On behalf of my constituents who are taxed for services they do not even get, Mr. Speaker, I object to this rate increase.



S.O. 21 PEACE PERMANENCY OF DEMONSTRATION ON PARLIAMENT HILL

Mr. Mike Cassidy (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, at 7:20 a.m., the peace camp tent and information table on Parliament Hill were taken down and removed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and two peace camp members were arrested. This action took place after two years of demonstrations in front of the Parliament Buildings by peace camp volunteers, a group of Canadians for peace and against nuclear destruction. They expressed the concern of millions of Canadians who are for peace and against nuclear war.
Apparently the Government decided to bring charges of trespassing against the peace camp people, whose only crime was their passionate concern for peace. The Conservative Government had a choice of two responses to the presence of these demonstrators, Mr. Speaker: act on their request or remove them from their demonstration site by force. Unfortunately, the new Government has continued the policy of the previous Liberal Government by allowing cruise missile testing, and instead of objecting to the American Star Wars project with its tremendous potential for destabilizing the situation between the superpowers, it is preparing for Canada's participation in this disastrous project.
Mr. Speaker, my party and myself support the presence of the peace camp on Parliament Hill because it is a visible sign of the support of all Canadians for peace.
We deplore the Government's action. We ask the Government to stop harassing these demonstrators. It is not a matter of regulations, Mr. Speaker, nor a matter-


Mr. Speaker:: 1 am sorry to inform the Hon. Member that his time has expired.



CANADA POST CORPORATION


Mr. Bill Gottselig (Moose Jaw):: Mr. Speaker, 1 rise today to voice the concerns of many of my constituents about the operation of the post office. In spite of the fact that the president of the corporation speaks in glowing terms about the efficiency of the operation, the reality of the situation is much different. Postal service has not improved since the formation of Canada Post, and the recent announcement of a proposed hike in postal rates has added more fuel to the fire.
Rural residents, faced with restricted hours of operation and severe increases in rental rates for post office boxes, have expressed concern, and rightly so. On the other hand some rural residents receive daily mail deliveries at no additional cost. Likewise, many city residents receive daily mail delivery

April 22, 1985
at no additional cost. However, city residents in new areas experience great difficulty in getting mail delivery or even having the service provided through a private business outlet.
It is painfully evident to many Canadians that the entire operation of the post office must be reviewed with a view to correcting these discrepancies, as well as improving mail service generally.



POLITICAL PARTIES


Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock-North Delta):: Mr. Speaker, in 1972 the New Democratic Party was elected to office in British Columbia and held that mandate for three years. In those three years it enlarged the Public Service in that province by 8,000 employees. I suppose it is safe to assume that those 8,000 employees were not wild-eyed, blue Tories. I believe it is equally safe to assume that those 8,000 employees were probably people who had worked hard for the New Democratic Party and who believed in its philosophy.
I would suggest that before the New Democratic Party compaigns with saccharine piety on the subject of patronage, it should first think of its record in British Columbia, as well as in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, that it is a participant in the system, and its record is not squeaky clean. Second, it is logical for any political party to appoint people to offices of management who believe in its philosophy. It would be foolhardy and contradictory to do it any other way than to appoint people who believe in what it believes.



ORGAN DONOR AWARENESS WEEK

Hon. Douglas C. Frith (Sudbury):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge the start of Organ Donor Awareness Week. The object of this event is to increase people's awareness of the success of transplantation and the need for donor organs. The Multiple Organ Retrieval and Exchange Program wants to encourage Canadians to sign the back of their driver's licence or an organ donor card. It aspires to making organ donations as natural a concept as donating a pint of blood.
There is a constant need for kidneys, eyes, hearts, livers, and lungs, for transplantation. Kidney patients can be kept alive on dialysis until suitable donors can be found, but for those requiring heart, liver, and lung transplants, there is no other treatment. A transplant is their last hope for survival.
In Ontario there are currently over 300 patients waiting for kidney transplants, and approximately 100 blind individuals waiting to have corneal transplants with hope of regaining their sight.
The best way to give effective consent is to fill in a donor card. People should carry it with them at all times in their purses or wallets. The card is a replica of the form on the back of a driver's licence, which is another way to give consent for donation.
During this week of donor awareness, let us be conscious of the need for organs and let us make our support explicit by giving consent for donation. I would like to tell Hon. Members that the requisite form is on their desks.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, can you believe this? Canada, with millions of tons of recoverable coals of all classifications, imports, on the average, 15 million tonnes of coal every year. Further, to aggravate the matter, the imported coals have sulphur content of 5 per cent, whereas many Canadian coals have a sulphur content of only 0.5 per cent. In other words, the amount of acid rain caused in Ontario by the high sulphur content of imported coals could have been prevented had Canadian coals been utilized.
Ah! But you say the Canadian coals are in the Maritimes and in western Canada and the freight would have cost considerable money. You are right, but even the freight costs would have provided jobs for Canadians. And, hear this! To clean up the acid rain pollution it will cost a minimum of $300 million. Well, you can haul a lot of coal for $300 million.
I brought this matter to the attention of former Liberal Governments for the last 15 years, but nothing was done. Our PC Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier) has already provided $70 million for a start toward a solution. Hasten the day when Canadians will mine Canadian coals that will be hauled by Canadian railroads and Canadian trucks to fuel Canadian industries, preventing acid rain, and providing pay cheques to hundreds of Canadians. Vive le Canada!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



CIRCULATION OF RACIST JOKES-CALL FOR INVESTIGATION

Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, a few months ago so-called ethnic jokes were circulating in the Winnipeg Canada Employment and Immigration Commission. When the 17-page ethnic jokes pamphlet came to the attention of an affirmative action consultant, he was justifiably shocked.
I will give the House an example in order that it can realize the seriousness of the situation. One of the jokes was: What is
April 22, 1985

the difference between a Jew and a potato? The punch line: The potato doesn't scream when it is put in the oven.
Mr. Keisler was justifiably upset and shared the information with a human rights group which was meeting with him. The result was that the information became public. But did the Department investigate the persons who circulated the jokes? Yes, and they were disciplined, but not as severely disciplined as the guy who blew the whistle. Did the Department institute a training program with regard to prejudice and discrimination? No, but it investigated the man who blew the whistle and fired him for abusing his telephone privileges. Did the Department investigate the use of telephone privileges by all employees? We do not know, because the Department will not tell us.
During all of this the Minister has been strangely silent. We would like the Minister to mandate an independent investigation and end her silence.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Apparently a $234,000 advertising contract was awarded to Lawson Murray Ltd. Apparently the firm's President is Mr. Douglas Lawson, who is the Minister's brother-in-law. The Vice-President of the firm is Mr. Douglas Robson, who was, and still is, the President of the Conservative riding association for the Minister.
Did the Minister of Finance, when he became Minister, retain Mr. Douglas Robson to advise him in helping to set up the Department? Was Mr. Robson paid by the Department? Did Mr. Robson have access to departmental papers or to briefings from officials?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, most of what the Leader of the Opposition said is correct. Mr. Robson was asked by me, as someone who had served as my executive assistant in 1979, to help me get my office off and running because of the tremendous pressures which I was under at that time. He did so. We had a verbal understanding that he would be paid, and, in fact, he was not paid. During that time his responsibilities were exclusively on the administrative side and did not involve policy orientation.


CONFLICT OF INTEREST GUIDELINES
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the man whom the Minister asked for advice in setting up the office, and who stayed in the Minister's office,
Oral Questions
presumably had access to papers in the office and happenings within the Department of Finance. The man then left the office and went back to work for Lawson Murray. It is my understanding that he was a member of that firm and sought a leave of absence to come to Ottawa and help the Minister.
Does the Minister believe that under those circumstances the awarding of an advertising contract to that firm was right? Did he discuss with Mr. Robson, if he dealt with him verbally, the guidelines of the Prime Minister relating to conflict of interest? Does he not believe that those guidelines have been broken? Does he believe that this was the correct procedure for himself, and subsequently, Mr. Robson, to adopt?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, 1 would like to make one thing very clear. My Robson was sworn as my executive assistant in 1979. I believe that he was sworn again at this point. 1 should point out that he did not retain his corporate directorships while he was doing work for me. 1 believe that should register on the Leader of the Opposition.
I might also say that the work which he did was of an administrative sort and that it was not of a policy-oriented sort. He knew the way in which 1 operated back in 1979 when he was my executive assistant. He knew the type of operation I wanted to set up, so it was very easy for me to have confidence in him to get on with the job of establishing my office at a very difficult and busy time in my own life.


John Napier Turner: The man, Mr. Robson, left Lawson Murray Limited, came to the Minister to help him, and then went back to Lawson Murray and that firm received a $234,000 advertising contract.


PRIME MINISTER'S POSITION
John Napier Turner: My
supplementary question is directed to the Prime Minister. On July 7, 1984, the Prime Minister said at a public press conference; "Brothers and brothers-in-law are appointed to positions all over the place. It's a real scandal to act with such scorn towards the people of Canada, towards the average Canadian". Does the Prime Minister not feel that this family affair is a real scandal? Does he not feel that in this instance the people of Canada have been treated with scorn? Does the Prime Minister not believe that conflict of interest guidelines which he set up for his Ministers and their staff have been breached?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: The Minister of Supply and Services can, for example, and will-1 am sure my right hon. friend would want to have it-file in the House an indication of the absolute integrity of this firm. For example, having received the contract by independent tender via another Ministry, it then recommended that this work be discontinued, that these practices were wasteful of government money and that $417,000 could be saved in the future. I think

April 22, 1985
Oral Questions
that is an indication of the tremendous integrity, not only of that firm but of the Minister of Finance and the kinds of people with whom he associates.
Let me say this in the larger sphere of events-and I think it raises questions for all of us-I have asked the Hon. Member for St. John's East to set up a panel which I hope will vet the kinds of important nominations. We are reaching agreement on that. It's an important part of parliamentary reform. But 1 ask the right hon. gentleman to reflect on this. For example, one of the most distinguished citizenship court judges ever appointed-


John V. Nunziata: That's not the answer.


Martin Brian Mulroney: -is the sister of the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis. Mrs. Keith Davey is also a very distinguished judge.


John V. Nunziata: That's not the issue, Brian.


Martin Brian Mulroney: The right hon. gentleman's sister, one of the most outstanding women in Canada, was appointed to her position by the previous Government. We would like to reappoint her. What this raises is the following question: are people entitled to lives apart from elected politicians? I say they are entitled to live their own lives as men and women, building businesses and developing their lives in Canada. We respect their privacy and their competence, and we plan and intend to do that.


MR. ROBSON'S SALARY
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance and concerns as well the Lawson Robson affair. Who paid Mr. Robson's salary, if it was not the Government of Canada, while he was in the service of the Minister? What was the period of time in which he was involved with the Minister, in his employ, after the election of last September? And did that period of time in any way overlap the period of time at which either the advertising contract was commenced or entered into by the Government of Canada?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, let me try and answer those three questions. The period during which Mr. Robson was with me was from September 17 to around the end of October, during the time I was establishing my office. During that time I presume he was basically on leave of absence from his firm. I presume that his firm was continuing to pay him, but I don't know that answer. The answer to the third question is that I am advised that the contract was signed between the firm and the Department of Supply and Services at the end of November, November 29, 1 believe.
[ Translation]


ADVERTISING-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Don Boudria: I have a supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Was Mr. Robson involved in any way in preparing the advertising requirements of his department including Canada Savings Bonds or rather the requirements for advertising Canada Savings Bonds? If so, how can the Minister, as an administrator of public funds, tolerate this kind of incestuous relationship within his own department?
[ English]


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of Supply and Services):: Mr. Speaker, I will answer since 1 am the Minister responsible for that contract and it was my Department which selected Lawson Murray, on our own volition, to undertake this contract for the very good reason that it is one of the best financial institution advertising agencies in the country. It represents such clients as Dominion Securities; Pitfield, MacKay, Ross Limited; McLeod, Young, Weir Limited; Wood Gundy and others.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Harvie Andre: As evidence of the value we received from that very intelligent selection of an advertising agency, I have a letter dated February 15, 1985 in which it outlines ways in which the Government can save several hundred thousand dollars, at least $400,000 per year, over the practices undertaken by the previous Government. One sentence states: "While I would regret the end of our association and the loss of revenue to Lawson Murray Limited, I do not feel that we would be responsible were we to advise you differently". Any time we can get a contract with a firm which is going to save that kind of money for the taxpayers of Canada, we're going to do it.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


MINISTER'S CONVERSATION
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance as well, and deals again with the Lawson Robson case. The Minister did admit to the media that he did speak with his brother-in-law about the awarding of this untendered contract to his brother-in-law. In that conversation did he talk about the fact that this could be conceived as improper by the people of this nation?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, we had a discussion subsequent to the awarding of the contract. We discussed the possibility that there could be some questions as to the awarding of the contract, but it is not a clear situation. It is not a clear picture-


Mr. Broadbent:: You are right.
April 22, 1985


Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre):: -as to whether or not there are questions, since, as my colleague has said, the contract is awarded by the Ministry of Supply and Services and the firm was dealing with the Bank of Canada. But, yes, the matter was discussed.


UNTENDERED CONTRACTS-GOVERNMENT GUIDELINES
Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Does he believe that there should be guidelines for executive assistants, party presidents, and relations, when they bid for untendered government contracts? Does he really believe that that should be there to protect the public interest?


Harvie Andre: Yes, indeed, Mr. Speaker, this Government believes there should be guidelines respecting such things as advertising and the like. And, indeed, there is. This contract was let in complete compliance with the then existing Treasury Board guidelines, Chapter 485, if the Hon. Member wants to check. Since then we have introduced new guidelines to improve the situation, to introduce an element of competition which heretofore did not exist.


Rodney Edward Murphy: When?


Harvie Andre: Those guidelines are now in place and Departments of Government are following those guidelines. We commenced the work immediately upon assuming the responsibilities for the Government of Canada, and upon discovering the mess which the previous administration had left for us.


MEMBERSHIP OF COMPANY'S BOARD OF DIRECTORS
John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance and it also concerns the Wilson family compact. The shameless Tory pork-barrelling has now become incestuous. A $234,000 advertising contract is secretly given without tender to members of the Minister of Finance's family and to his riding association president and former employee. Would the Minister confirm, first, that his sister, Wendy Lawson, is on the board of directors of Lawson Murray? And would he confirm as well that he discussed the contract before it was signed with members of Lawson Murray? And if so, why didn't he veto the contract and say no to it?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker-


Jacques Guilbault: Order.


Mr. Lapierre:: Order.
Oral Questions


Harvie Andre: The contract to which the Hon. Member referred as having been handled in a secret way is right here. He can look at a copy of it any time he wants.


Jacques Guilbault: We are asking him if he's got a sister on the board.


Harvie Andre: There is nothing secret about it.


Jacques Guilbault: Have you got a sister on the board,too?


Harvie Andre: One does not need to table these things. They are open. We have nothing to hide. The Hon. Member, in implying that there was something improper or illegal, is engaging in his usual muck-raking. He has implied a sort of guilt when the practices we followed were the same as what were left for us, we inherited from the Liberal Party on September 4. The Hon. Member has the assurance of myself that all of the guidelines of the Treasury Board were followed. He can look at the contract, he can look at the letter to see how much value the taxpayers of Canada have received. I am sorry to have to repeat, but perhaps it is necessary for that Hon. Member, that any time we can save the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, we are going to do it.


CONFLICT OF INTEREST INQUIRY
John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, that is a lot of bunk. My question was to the Minister of Finance and I would appreciate his standing up and answering the question. Was his sister on the board of directors? Did he have an option, a choice? Could he not have said no? Will he not agree that the awarding of the contract to his sister and brother-in-law was nepotism in its worst form, and a blatant and obvious conflict of interest?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member is saying to me now that my sister is on the board of directors of Lawson Murray, it is the first time I heard about it.


Mr. Nielsen:: Character assassination.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: As far as the other questions the Hon. Member has posed are concerned, he should be putting them to the Minister of Supply and Services; it is his contract, not mine. The firm is to deal with the Ministry of Supply and Services, not the Minister of Finance.


CONTENT OF GUIDELINES
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister on the same subject. The Minister of Supply and Services has just told the House that all of the present government guidelines in this situation were

April 22, 1985
Oral Questions
complied with. Presumably that means it is permissible for a relative of a Cabinet Minister to obtain a quarter of a million dollar contract from the Government without being the lowest bid. Will the Prime Minister confirm that the guidelines are so deficient in this respect and, if so, will he undertake that within 24 hours he will change the guidelines to make it impossible for a relative of a Minister of the Crown to get a contract without having even to be the lowest bidder?


Martin Brian Mulroney: I will confirm that the guidelines, the ones we inherited, were that deficient as applied by the Liberals. They have since been very seriously upgraded to accommodate the legitimate concern of my hon. friend. They have been very substantially improved to protect the interests of the Canadian taxpayer, and we will be happy to file them at your earliest convenience.


John Edward Broadbent: I regret to say, as is his wont, he did not answer the question.


Martin Brian Mulroney: I did answer the question.


John Edward Broadbent: No, you did not.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Ask your question.


John Edward Broadbent: 1 will ask the question specifically.


LETTING OF CONTRACTS
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, do the guidelines now in existence, which the Prime Minister brought in, prohibit a relative of a Minister of the Crown from getting a contract without being the lowest bidder? If they do not contain that provision, why does he not make the change and put that in the guidelines?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker-


John Edward Broadbent: I thought you were going to answer.


Harvie Andre: -as I said to Members of the House, and 1 believe to the Leader of the NDP previously this year, advertising is not let by tender anywhere in the world where they have advertising. What we have introduced is a procedure whereby there will be a degree of competition permitted within the practices of this profession by having several agencies, three, four, or five agencies, make a representation to a panel of public servants-a panel of public servants-to select from amongst those agencies that one which will represent that Department in its activities during the course of the year. I do not know what else could be fairer than to have public servants make the selection. This is an innovation which certainly Premier Pawley has not in place, nor did David Barrett, nor any other former or current Premier of whom I am aware.


John Edward Broadbent: I can inform the Minister, in so far as he considers it relevant, that the Government of Manitoba awarded contracts not long ago to two firms which had worked for the previous Tory Government. That has been the practice of Premier Pawley.


GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister, who made such an issue of patronage in the last campaign. There is a role to be played in making a judgment about certain kinds of submissions on advertising contracts which do not necessarily go to the lowest bidder. We agree with that. But would the Prime Minister not agree that there is a distinction between permitting relatives of Ministers of the Crown to get contracts of that kind, which do not go to the lowest bidder, and getting contracts where they have to meet the lowest bid requirement? Surely there is a distinction, and surely it is the Government's responsibility to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. When will the Prime Minister live up to his commitment to make a fundamental change in the whole patronage system of this country?


Martin Brian Mulroney: But we have.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Martin Brian Mulroney: We have.


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: Listen.


Martin Brian Mulroney: If my hon. friend cares to listen-


Mr. Tobin:: Ronald Reagan was an actor who went into politics, and you're a politician who should go into acting. Your nose is growing.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Now we have heard from the latest success story in Newfoundland after that last election. The fact of the matter is that there has been a very serious change made, and 1 think my hon. friend would agree. The manner in which tenders come forward is that they are analysed, the bids are brought forward, proposals are made, and they are left, for the first time, to the ultimate determination and adjudication by a panel not of politicians but of distinguished public servants. I cannot think of what would be fairer or more honourable and consistent with what I know my friend realizes to be an obligation of the Government to proceed in an orderly manner.
My hon. friend phrases questions mixing that practice, which I think is a very healthy administrative change, one that benefits Parliament, with the question of patronage, and criticizes us. I noticed no criticism from him when we appointed distinguished people like Paul David, Dick Doyle, or Sylvia Gold, noted for her association with the NDP. We do not think that disqualifies Ms. Gold from playing a prominent role in
April 22, 1985

the life of Canada. We are trying to be fair with everyone, and I think our appointments reflect that attitude.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF MINISTER OF SUPPLY, OF THE ARAB REPUBLIC OF EGYPT
Mr. Speaker:: May I take this moment to advise Members of the presence in our Gallery of Dr. Mohamed Nagy Shatla, Minister of Supply of the Arab Republic of Egypt.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!

[ Translation]


THE CONSTITUTION
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Right Hon. Prime Minister. During the previous Parliament, all political parties in this House agreed to adopt a constitutional resolution, that is, a joint resolution by all political parties concerning the language rights of Francophones in Manitoba. One of the Anglophone leaders in Manitoba who objected to the resolution was Mr. Bud Sherman, a prominent member of the Progressive Conservative Party, who was subsequently defeated at the polls in the federal election. Mr. Sherman, as Hon. Members are aware, has just been appointed a permanent member of the board of directors of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the CRTC. Could the Prime Minister explain to the House why Mr. Sherman, who objected to the constitutional resolution addressed to Manitoba, was appointed to the CRTC, a national body that oversees both French and English language television and radio? Is this really in the national interest?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, throughout the election campaign, Mr. Sherman defended vigorously and, I think, eloquently, this Parliament's national statement with respect to national bilingualism. This has always been accepted by Mr. Sherman. In fact, my hon. friend is well aware of the personal battle I waged in this area, and in Manitoba, I insisted that every candidate must accept the position I announced here in the House of Commons, and that includes Mr. Sherman. Furthermore, Mr. Sherman is a distinguished Canadian who is extremely competent and has a solid background in the broadcasting field. 1 think everyone would do well to acknowledge that this is an excellent appointment that augurs well for the future.
Oral Questions


GOVERNMENT POLICY
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, putting aside the Prime Minister's love of equivocation, can the Prime Minister at least not show the same integrity as the previous Leader of his Party, and state that the language views of Mr. Sherman are not those of his Government, and that the Prime Minister's promises are not like snow which disappears in the spring? Will he keep his promises to make non partisan appointments based on qualifications, in order to uphold the national unity of the country?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, 1 think my hon. friend does a grave disservice to the cause of bilingualism and the notion of Canada by insisting that all Canadians, at all times, accept holus-bolus, his or my view of what Canada must be. This has always been a sensitive and difficult issue which demands understanding of the other fellow's point of view and persuasion. It demands generosity.
This House, of which I was honoured to be a Member, provided great national leadership at a critical moment. That kind of leadership was endorsed by the people of Canada. I do not say that in a partisan way. Bilingualism is an indispensable concept of this country which will always be maintained by Parliament. The appointee to whom the Hon. Member refers has at no time said anything inconsistent with our desire to maintain that vital national role of bilingualism.


PARLIAMENT HILL
Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Public Works. It is with regard to the forcible eviction of four of my constituents from the lawns of Parliament Hill this morning.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ian Gardiner Waddell: They are applauding. Can you believe it? They are happy.


Michael Morris Cassidy: I represent those people and I am proud of the protest that they have been making in favour of peace on behalf of the people of Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Michael Morris Cassidy: Is the Minister aware that the eviction of the Peace Camp has received widespread publicity across Canada, and now across the world, and that the message that is being conveyed around the world is that the Government of Canada opposes the views of those millions of Canadians who stand for peace?


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!

April 22, 1985
Oral Questions


Some Hon. Members:: Shame!


Michael Morris Cassidy: Why did the Government allow that kind of message to be spread across the world when the alternative would have been to allow those demonstrators to continue their efforts to bring peace into the world and to bring the issue to the attention of Canadians?


Hon. Roch La Salle (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, I suggest the Hon. Member is not altogether honest in his questioning, for he knows perfectly well that the two governments had accepted for the past two years the presence of the so-called official representatives of the international movement for disarmament. For the past three weeks, the Hon. Member and I have been aware that the peace camp people on the Hill have no connection whatever with this movement which we hold in high esteem. I have taken the initiative to personally ask these people to leave, because we have understood the message the Hon. Member would like to deliver to the House today. Under these circumstances, I think that the vast majority of Canadians who are in favour of disarmament and peace no longer need this peace camp on Parliament Hill.


GOVERNMENT OPTION
Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, the Minister obviously does not understand that the peace movement is a coalition. The disarmament coalition in Ottawa is meeting tonight to talk about what action its members will take to support their friends in the Peace Camp. They are certainly not disowning the demonstrators who have been on Parliament Hill.
Is the Minister not aware that there was a choice? He could have kicked out the peace campers, which is what he has done, or taken action to ban Cruise missile testing in Canada and to withdraw Canada from participation in star wars research in the United States. Why did the Minister not take the courageous solution of stopping Canada's participation in star wars rather than the route of kicking the peace campers off the Hill?
[ Translation]


Roch La Salle: Mr. Speaker, I must say that the agreements which Canada might sign with the United States are outside my jurisdiction. I simply want to say that we have been most courteous with these people who do not represent the national movement. Under these circumstances, I can assure the hon. member that we will always accept orderly demonstrations on Parliament Hill and that we will always respect the right way of doing things.
As for camping, Mr. Speaker, I want the whole of Canada to know that Parliament Hill is not a camping ground.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Don Ravis (Saskatoon East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of the Environment and relates to recent concerns over the spill of PCBs on the Trans-Canada Highway and the fact that apparently not enough is known regarding the effect of this toxic substance.
A constituent of mine called me today and advised that 10 gallons of PCBs were spilled just days ago in Saskatoon. This suggests that there is quite a bit of this toxic substance in Canada.
In light of the need to increase toxicological research, and in light of the fact that the University of Saskatchewan has a partial financial commitment to build a toxicology centre to serve western Canada, would the Minister play a major role in expediting a commitment to secure funding for this project and possibly enter into discussions with other federal Ministers as well as the private sector?


Suzanne Blais-Grenier: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I am quite aware of the excellent work done at the University of Saskatchewan under the direction of Dr. Bruno Scheiffer. Any proposal concerning private sector participation in our toxicology research will be carefully and gratefully considered.


GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING
Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, I regret the refusal today of the Minister of Finance to answer many of the questions put to him. Everyone in the House knows that the Minister of Supply and Services is only a purchasing agent in this matter. We know that the Department of Finance determines its advertising needs and instructs the Minister when to make a purchase on its behalf.
I will ask the Minister of Finance again whether Mr. Robson was part of any initiative in his Department for determining the requirements of his Department with respect to advertising needs. More particularly, was he part of the determination for the particular contract that was let one month after Mr. Robson left his office without pay, presumably gratis of Lawson Murray which paid his salary while he worked in that office? Was he part of determining the requirement for that advertising contract?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is quite wrong in his premise. The Department of Finance deals with the over-all need for advertising.
April 22, 1985

The Ministry of Supply and Services decides who should do it. That was the basis on which this contract was awarded.
With regard to the second question, obviously Mr. Robson had nothing to do with the decision on who would be awarded that contract since the contract was awarded by the Ministry of Supply and Services.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, the Department of Supply and Services awards the contract. Someone in the Department of Finance determines what its needs are. Mr. Robson was there for a month before the contract was let.


MINISTER'S KNOWLEDGE
Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of Supply and Services. Was he aware of the family relationship between the Minister of Finance and Lawson Murray? Was he aware of the relationship between Mr. Robson, who worked in his office, and Lawson Murray? On the weekend his press secretary suggested that he was not.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, for many years the Bank of Canada has been running an advertising program for marketable bonds. The Bank approached the Department of Supply and Services for an agency to carry on this activity. My Department selected the agency because, according to one individual who informed me, this is the best advertising agency in Canada for handling financial institutions. They have proven that to us by the way they handled this particular account. They demonstrated that the money spent for years by the Liberals was being wasted. We are going to save $500,000 to $6000,000 a year.
The answer to the question is no, we did not know. We selected Lawson Murray on the basis that it is the best agency for this kind of work. I have here the proof that they in fact did a good job and are saving the taxpayers-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Harvie Andre: Why does the Member object to having someone save the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


AIR TRANSPORT
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. It concerns the bungling by the Ontario Government of the PCB spill.
The Minister will be aware that airport cargo workers want the Ontario Environment Ministry to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for not telling them that they were
Oral Questions
handling deadly PCBs on two passenger flights last week. Given what the Solicitor General said in the House last week, and what the Prime Minister told me on Friday about the Government's willingness to prosecute where violations were found to exist, could the Minister tell us whether any investigation is being made of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment pursuant to dangerous goods legislation, and whether any charges against that Government are being contemplated?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, there is provision in the Aeronautics Act which covers the transportation of dangerous goods. The issue to which the Hon. Member refers is under active consideration by departmental officials.


INVOLVEMENT OF ONTARIO MINISTRY
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, is the Minister saying that the suggestion of laying charges against the Ontario Ministry of the Environment is under active consideration-


Donald Frank Mazankowski: No.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: -because that would certainly be a good idea, given the way it has handled the situation.
I want the Minister to be clear. Is it possible that there is a recourse in federal law for the people of Canada against the negligence of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, or is the only recourse to toss out the Tories next week, when they have the chance?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, unlike the NDP, we try to obtain all the facts before we start engaging in loose rhetoric like the Hon. Member.

[ Translation)


THE ADMINISTRATION
Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Right Hon. the Prime Minister. He told us before that changes had been made in patronage procedures and, sure enough, the Farm Credit Corporation was one of the victims of such changes, since his Government has set up a systematic patronage system concerning notaries handling FCC loans.
As we all know, the Agricultural Producers' Union management spoke out against that procedure last week, going as far as occupying the Farm Credit Corporation office in Sherbrooke. We also know that the Board of Notaries has urged that the procedure be abandoned. Can the Prime Minister tell the House whether he has asked the Minister of Agriculture to

April 22. 1985
Oral Questions
put an end to his systematic patronage with respect to farm loans?


Martin Brian Mulroney: What I do know, Mr. Speaker, is that we have asked that everyone be considered as being qualified in such circumstances, including those who had been systematically turned down for 25 years. That is all. Everybody is on the list, including those who were never given a change in 25 years. Decisions have been made accordingly.


ALLEGED GOVERNMENT NEPOTISM
Jean-C. Lapierre: Well now, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is talking about 132 names out of 3,000 notaries in Quebec. In my opinion, it takes an awful lot of nerve to try to have us swallow such bullshit.
Mr. Speaker, how can the Prime Minister justify a case of nepotism where the two brothers of the Hon. Member for Megantic-Compton-Stanstead had also been left out? How can he justify the case of the brother-in-law of the Minister of Finance, and now the brothers of some Members who are feeding at the pork barrel?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I fail to understand why the Hon. Member would level such serious accusations at me personally. Indeed, I read in today's La Presse that Ontario Liberal Leader David Peterson said that "Mulroney is the most extraordinary man I have ever known". So why is the Hon. Member being so harsh with me?


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of the Environment. On March 13 an announcement was made to the effect that the Prairie Wildlife Interpretation Centre near Webb, Saskatchewan, would carry on, and further that an announcement of the group who would be operating it would be made by the end of March.
In view of the fact that it is now April 22, that the Wildlife Centre generally opens to the public in mid May and a number of school groups are anxious to plan visits, would the Minister indicate to the House who will be operating the centre and when we can expect it to open?
[ Translation]


Suzanne Blais-Grenier: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I wish to advise the House that we have received four offers of people who want to operate the Wildlife Interpretation Centre near Webb. The delay is due to the fact that we received this
morning a fifth offer from the Wildlife Canadian Federation, a provincial group based in Saskatchewan, and we hope to make a decision very shortly.


GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING
Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Earlier in Question Period the Minister of Supply and Services said that as soon as his Party came into government new guidelines were introduced. When the Prime Minister was answering questions from the Opposition, he said that he had been forced to use guidelines from the previous Government and that they are inadequate. Could he tell the House, in terms of the Lawson Murray affair, exactly when he brought in the new guidelines he was referring to in Question Period?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, certainly it was my intention and I believe I did say that we started working on new guidelines. We inherited a set of Treasury Board guidelines with which we complied absolutely, but immediately saw their deficiencies. We started working on new guidelines. A communications committee of Cabinet was established and we have, in effect, put guidelines in place because Ministers have been asked to comply with them, even though they are not as yet printed but within days will be printed and put in the Treasury Board policy manuals. As I have indicated, we are following them now.


TIMING OF INTRODUCTION
James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Prime Minister. Will he clarify exactly what date these new guidelines came into effect? Was it before or after the Wilson affair?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, I believe that this is the third time that I indicated we started working on new guidelines as soon as we came into office and had an opportunity to examine the circumstances.


An Hon. Member:: When did they come into effect?


Harvie Andre: The new guidelines, a couple of months ago, were circulated to Ministers to tell them of their thrust.
I described them orally in the House in January. The direction we were taking is in Hansard, if you want to examine it. The actual material for the Treasury Board policy handbook has yet to receive the last few steps of the administrative process. However, as I described in the House in January, in essence they have been in effect since then.
April 22, 1985


PARLIAMENT HILL
[Stage Direction]
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine
East): Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Earlier in Question Period the Member for Ottawa Centre referred to the fact that at 7.30 this morning the Government of Canada removed the Peace Camp from Parliament Hill and arrested two of its participants. Would he tell the House, and Canadians, the reasons for this removal at this time, two years after the Peace Camp was first installed, and whether this indicates any weakening of the Government's commitment to peace in the world at this time?
Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Roch La Salle: Mr. Speaker, I am flabbergasted that the hon. member should be wondering how we could put an end to a situation which had existed for the past two years and which his own government had tolerated for 18 months. I indicated earlier that a few weeks ago 1 had invited these representatives to go, in view of the fact that Parliament Hill is not a camping ground. They asked me to evict them, assuring me that they were anxious to leave, but that they could leave only if expelled. That is what we did this morning, and 1 repeat that we have as much respect as anybody in the House for the peace movement. We are as much pro-peace as anybody here, but I think that these people's presence had lasted long enough.


GOVERNMENT COMMITMENT TO PEACE
[Stage Direction]
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine
East): Mr. Speaker, my question was on a much broader issue than that dealt with by the Minister of Public Works. That is why I asked it of the Prime Minister. Many nations have taken a message from this story, which has gone throughout the world, that there is a lessening of the commitment to the cause of peace in the world. The Minister said that the Peace Camp made its point. If it did, why is the Government not taking a strong position against star wars development in the United States?
I ask the Prime Minister to assure the House, and Canadians, that the Government is committed to peace and that the action this morning is out of line with that commitment? I think the Prime Minister should recognize that and be concerned about it.
Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the decision this morning was an administrative one which merely concerned making sure that the lawns of Parliament Hill were made available to everybody and not to a group of people, of whatever background, who chose from time to time to live there for given political purposes.
Petitions
I feel that all Members of the House have demonstrated great tolerance, understanding, and sympathy, by watching this in a friendly manner for two years. It was felt that the time had come for some action. Having said that I want to give my hon. friend the assurance that one is an administrative a matter. The other much more important, infinitely more important, is on the political level which deals with all Members of this House and our commitment to securing a durable peace.
I give my hon. friend this assurance, that there is nothing more important to this Government, and I know to the Hon. Member, than the success of the Geneva talks which will make sure that we live in a safer world, that we minimize the risk of nuclear accidents. We are fully committed to that. We believe that is a most honourable goal, and we will pursue it with vigour at all times.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: One question. The Hon. Member for New Westminster-Coquitlam.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Ms. Pauline Jewett (New Westminster-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Since Canada supports and the Prime Minister has frequently referred to the Contadora peace process, and since the efforts of the Contras to overthrow the Government of Nicaragua are major obstacles to that peace process, when does the Canadian Government plan to inform the United States Government, as many others in this hemisphere have done, that we too are opposed to any and all financing of the Contras by the U.S. Government?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada makes its views known in a regular and vigorous way.


Mr. Benjamin:: What about the people of Canada?


Martin Brian Mulroney: I may tell my hon. friend that, pursuant to our policy of trying to be helpful in that area, the Minister of External Relations will be making a very important visit to Central America in the very near future, and we hope that will be helpful to the Contadora process as well.


CLERK OF PETITIONS' REPORTS
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the petition presented by the Hon. Member for Fraser Valley

April 22, 1985
Privilege-Mr. Hawkes
East (Mr. Belsher) on Friday, April 19, 1985 meets the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.
The petition presented by the Hon. Member for Windsor-Walkerville (Mr. McCurdy) does not meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. Speaker:: I am now ready to rule on a question of privilege raised by the Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes) on April 16. I am prepared to give the House a minute to settle down, if the House chooses.
The Hon. Member complained of a premature disclosure of a report of the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration and provided the Chair with two newspaper reports by way of evidence.
Order, please.
The two reports, one from The Toronto Star and the other from The Citizen, clearly indicate that these two newspapers were in possession of the report prior to its tabling in the House of Commons.
The premature disclosure of committee reports and proceedings undoubtedly encroaches upon parliamentary privilege if the traditional criteria are rigidly applied. The Hon. Member quoted relevant citations from Beauchesne in support of his complaint. The Hon. Member for Windsor West (Mr. Gray), in the course of his intervention, indicated that the British practice, which is referred to in Beauchesne, had been altered. In the interest of clarity-
Order. I presume rulings on matters of privilege are of importance to the House.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: My friend is important to me, too.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Apologize.


Mr. Speaker:: No apology is necessary. Order, please. All Members of this House are guilty at some point or other of talking when the Speaker is on his feet. That is an equal problem. 1 have made that point before and I will make it again. It is not for the Chair to have to cope with that matter, I think as all Members know; it is in the interest of those who wish to hear that all Members allow the Chair to be heard.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: In the interest of clarity, I should perhaps indicate the current British practice in this regard as described on pages 716 to 717 in the Twentieth Edition of Erskine May:
Publication of reports of committees.
Any publication of a draft report, which has been submitted to a committee, before such report has been agreed to by the committee and presented to the House, is treated as a breach of privilege; and when the report of a committee.
which had been presented to the House, but was not yet available to Members in printed or photocopied form, was communicated to the press, the Speaker stated that the more regular practice was that the Members of the House should be the first to be put in possession of the results of the deliberations of a select committee. The practice was modified in 1967-68 by terms of Standing Order No. 92 which provides that all select committees should have power to authorize the Clerk of the House to supply copies of their reports to officers of government departments, to such witnesses who have given evidence to committees or their sub-committees as these committees consider appropriate, to lobby journalists and to such other press representatives as the committee thinks fit. Copies arc to be supplied after they have been laid on the Table, but not more than forty-eight hours before the intended time of publication of the report; and they arc to be regarded as strictly confidential until such publication.
In 1980 the British House also relaxed its position-
Order. Fair is fair. Perhaps Members of the Opposition Party would also care to allow me to be heard.
In 1980 the British House also relaxed its position respecting the publication of evidence given by witnesses at public committee hearings before such evidence had been reported to the House. The details may be referred to on pages 704 to 705 of Erskine May's Twentieth edition.
The British practice has therefore, as pointed out by the Hon. Member for Windsor West (Mr. Gray), been changed in recent years. However, the Canadian practice has never been entirely consistent with that of the British House, and in this regard I wish to refer to some important precedents.
On October 29, 1964, a question of privilege was raised complaining that an identified Member of the House had issued a press release concerning the report of the committee considering a national flag prior to the presentation of the report to the House. The Member concerned acknowledged that he had indeed done so. Mr. Speaker, Macnaughton took the position that since the complaint involved an attack on the conduct of a Member, there should be a specific charge by way of a substantive motion on notice, and he quoted from a ruling of Mr. Speaker Michener of June 19, 1959 as follows:
In my view, simple justice requires that no honourable member should have to submit to investigation of his conduct by the House or a committee until he has been charged with an offence.
The matter was not proceeded with.
On October 21, 1975, the Commons chairman of a joint committee raised a question of privilege in which he complained of the unauthorized publication of excerpts from a preliminary draft of the committee's report, each page of which had been clearly stamped "confidential until presented in the House." Mr. Speaker Jerome in his ruling acknowledged that "the publication of such a report would raise the strongest suggestion that some act had taken place which offended the privileges of the House". However, he went on to point out that the complaint was not specific in alleging an act of misconduct on the part of any identified individual or individuals.
Another important precedent concerning the premature disclosure of committee proceedings is to be found in a ruling given by Mr. Speaker Jerome on June 23, 1977. Again, Mr. Speaker acknowledged that the complaint contained the elements of privilege and was supported by clear precedents in the British House of Commons. At the same time he pointed
April 22, 1985

out that our own House had never followed the British practice in this area. He went on to express his concern that, while the complaint appeared to attack the press, it made no criticism of the attitude of Members themselves in respect of confidential documents.
He came to the conclusion that he could not allow such a matter to proceed as a prima facie case of privilege until the problems raised by this kind of case had been further considered by the House or one of its committees.
I fully understand the concern of the Hon. Member for Calgary West that a document, the content of which clearly indicated its confidential nature until tabled in the House, was prematurely released. If the Chair were to be guided exclusively by British practice, it would have to find that there was prima facie evidence of a breach of privilege. Although no evidence has been introduced which might help to place responsibility for the leaking of the document to the press, the press itself must take responsibility for the premature disclosure of a report it knew to be confidential until presented to the House.
This House has a very proud record of concern for the freedom of the press. Our practice has always been to lean toward press freedom rather than apply the test of privilege on every occasion. The rulings I have cited of my predecessors bear this out. Two of these cases involved an even larger question of privilege-the leaking of draft reports prepared before the committee had reached any final conclusions. In the circumstances, 1 feel I should follow these precedents and rule that this matter cannot be accorded precedence over all other business.
Nevertheless, this ruling should not be interpreted as a carte blanche exoneration of the press on any and every occasion that documents known to be confidential are prematurely disclosed.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I just wanted to be on record that I unequivocally apologize for any statement I may have made owing to my enthusiasm to greet back to this House one of our distinguished parliamentarians after a long absence, namely, the Hon. Member for Red Deer (Mr. Towers). We are all glad to see him back.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: No apologies were needed or necessary. Perhaps I could add my personal best wishes to the Hon. Member.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Statement by Minister



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs, in both official languages. The committee has considered Bill C-30 and is reporting it without amendment.
[Editor's Note: For above report, see today's Votes and Proceedings.]


TRANSPORTATION OF DANGEROUS GOODS ACT
Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 46(2), and having regard to the fact that it has been drawn to my attention that there was a typographical error in the French version of the document that I tabled in the House last Friday, I should like to table a new document reflecting the corrected version. It concerns Protective Direction No. 1 under the provisions of Section 28 of the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act.


DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Mr. Chris Speyer (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 46(2), I am pleased to lay upon the Table of this House the 1983-84 Annual Report of the Department of Justice in both official languages, and I ask that it be referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.
# * *


ORGAN DONOR WEEK
Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, there was to be a statement from myself regarding Organ Donor Week. In that it is an Opposition day. I do not want to take too much time of the House, specifically that of the Opposition. However, I take this opportunity to invite all my colleagues to the Commonwealth Room to sign their donor cards, so that we can get on with what I think is a very worth-while project. With regard to what the Right Hon.

April 22, 1985
Order Paper Questions
Member indicated as to what should be donated, I leave that up to him.

[ Translation]


PETITIONS
Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I wish to table a petition signed by a group of Laval University students who urge the government to respect the right of the Auditor General to have access to all the necessary documents he needs to carry out his assignments as an employee of the Parliament of Canada.



FRESHWATER FISH MARKETING ACT


Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-235, an Act to amend the Freshwater Fish Marketing Act.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Dave Nickerson: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this Bill is to revoke the monopoly on the interprovincial and international sales of freshwater fish from western and northern Canada presently enjoyed by the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, thereby allowing fishermen the opportunity to receive more money for their catch.


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

Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, if Question No. 69 could be made an Order for Return, the return would be tabled immediately.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that Question No. 69 be deemed to have been made an Order for Return?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



DEPARTMENT OF THE SOLICITOR GENERAL-HIRING OF OUTSIDE CONSULTANTS

Mr. Nunziata: Since the Solicitor General assumed office, were outside consultants employed by his Department and, if so (a) how many (b) what arc their names and what was the total amount paid to each (c) for what purpose was their service engaged?
Return tabled.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Caccia:
That, in the opinion of this House, the Government has displayed negligence with regard to the protection, maintenance and improvement of the environment as manifested in its ill-advised reduction in services, its complacent attitude toward controlling potential harsards and its complete abdication of any leadership in the protection of the environmental health and safety of Canadians.
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, just before the House rose for the luncheon adjournment I had been referring to the fact that the reaction of the Government to the PCB spill between Kenora and Ignace, and for all we know at many other points along the Trans-Canada Highway, points to the fact that there is a gap between the moral outrage felt by Canadians and the offence taken by Governments. I am not referring to any particular Government but to Governments in general. Often these kinds of incidents arise out of the negligence of either the private sector or respective Government Departments which are responsible for ensuring safe transportation of dangerous substances such as, in this case, PCBs.
One of the oddities of our society and our civilization is that we rightly get ourselves worked up about criminal acts, whether it be murder, theft, or whatever, acts which come under the traditional notion of what it means to act like a criminal. We have not reached the point-and I think we need to reach it very quickly-where we take moral offence at actions by Governments, the private sector or anyone responsible for introducing poisons into the environment with which human and non-human creatures have to live either in the short run or
April 22, 1985

in the long run. We have to come to the point where we take the same moral offence at those kinds of actions as we do at criminal acts of individuals. At some point we cannot just regard it as the price of doing business. We cannot just regard it as the price of a smoothly running economy. At some point we will have to realize that there is too much of a cost to pay, both in the short term and in the long term.
Let us consider the cost to taxpayers of having to rip up whole sections of the Trans-Canada Highway or of having to repair, whenever we get around to it, all the environmental damage which has been done in the name of short-term expediency, of the need of a particular company to be competitive with its competitors or of the need for a Crown corporation to realize a certain profit in order to maintain its credit rating. All these rather abstract economic indicators, I maintain, have been used over the years as grounds for doing things which have real physical consequences for the environment, for people and, as I said before, for non-human creation.
I see the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) in the House. I hope he will be speaking later about how he sees his departmental responsibilities in terms of this particular spill. I hope he will be commenting critically-and I think it would be useful for him to do so-on the role that provincial jurisdiction has played in the matter and the way in which, by giving over too much of the responsibility for these kinds of spills to provinces, the federal Government finds itself in a position which, it either likes or dislikes, but which in any event, is a position in which they have not felt the freedom to be as involved in this event as they should have been and as many other people believed they should have been. We have mixed messages from the Government as to the question of jurisdiction, not only federal and provincial jurisdiction, but as to whom within the federal Government had jurisdiction for these kinds of events.
I look forward to hearing the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) on this subject. If one thing is clear from all this, it is that the Ontario Ministry of the Environment has clearly bungled its responsibility. It did not take it seriously in the first place. It then proceeded to make a number of errors with regard to the information it gave out on the hotline for those who telephoned because they suspected they may have been exposed to the PCBs on the highway, the attitude toward the family who were exposed to the PCBs directly, and the attitude it took toward existing regulations in sending soil samples through Winnipeg to the Department in Ontario that were not clearly marked. We now have air cargo workers quite rightly complaining that they should at least have been told what they were handling. These kinds of things point clearly to the fact that the Ontario Ministry of the Environment was not doing its job.
If there is no legal recourse, as well there may not be, there is at least political recourse. It is time for that political recourse to take effect in Ontario. For five years the Government of Ontario has had a piece of legislation passed by the
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Ontario Legislature waiting to be proclaimed. It would have dealt with the very kind of event we now have in the form of that PCB spill in Kenora. For five years the so-called "Spills Bill" has been waiting to be proclaimed by the Ontario Progressive Conservative Government, and no action. If there was ever an example of rank neglect of the need to proceed with the kind of legislation that everyone thinks is necessary, whether it be the federal Progressive Conservatives, federal Liberals, provincial New Democrats, you could not find anyone other than the Ontario Tories who thought there was any wisdom in not proclaiming that piece of legislation. As I say, it has been around for five years.
1 am really outraged and offended. When I get up to speak about this, I am not putting it on for the cameras or that sort of thing. For years the Ontario Government has demonstrated this kind of attitude toward the environment. Long before I ever ran for office, the Ontario Government deliberately turned a blind eye year after year to the fact that all kinds of people were pointing out that the pulp and paper mill in Dryden was poisoning the English-Wabigoon River system by allowing mercury to enter that system. That was having harmful effects on the fish in that river system and on the native people who made their living off that system.
What did the Ontario Tories do for years and years? The same Tories who are now running for election did absolutely nothing. They waited until that paper mill was taken over by another company. Now there are so many legal hassles as to who is responsible and who is not that there is no chance of anyone being brought to justice with respect to that ecological crime. We are talking about an ecological crime. We need to begin to talk about ecological crimes in this country.
The Ontario Government has been allowed in many cases to perpetrate or to allow those kinds of crimes without having to pay the political price. Who knows whether they will pay it this time around, but some day the political price will be paid. Some day Canadians will arrive at the point where they will not tolerate Governments that are lackadaisical about environmental matters. They will not tolerate Governments that are so short-sighted as to think that the short-term economic consequences of strict environmental regulations are more costly than the long-term consequences of not having those kinds of environmental regulations. I look forward to that day.
I wanted to say what I have had to say because it is important if only for a moment to get above this particular event and think about the over-all political picture and the need for Governments everywhere to be more sensitive to environment issues. If there is one Government that is particularly open to criticism on this in terms of what we have learned from this PCB spill, it is the Ontario Progressive Conservative Government. It has a history of not being sensitive to those kinds of things. It listens to the voice of the corporate ledger instead of the voice of the river, the native people or the fish. It listens to the voices of those who would have Governments think only in the short term and not the long term. That is where we have to go.

April 22, 1985
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With respect to the PCB spill, 1 hope the Minister of Transport will have something to say about why in his protective directive that he issued on Friday, if I understood it correctly, he did not require the kind of convoy that seems to me would be in order.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Convoy? What for?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: So that if something is spilling out, someone would notice. You would not need to have a family of four in a family vehicle to notice it.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Get off it.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: If the Minister thinks that is an unrealistic demand, he is free to get up and say so. That is fair enough. It is an idea that was being thrown around. It is not included. Perhaps the Minister can say why he does not think that is necessary. That would seem to be fair ball. Maybe that is what he will do.
With respect to the regulations, I wonder if the Minister could clarify what the regulations that come into effect on July 1 will be. There has been some misapprehension about what those regulations will do. The other day in committee I asked what the regulations would do. I believe a false impression is being given, perhaps not deliberately, that the regulations which come into effect on July 1 would have dealt with all aspects of this Bill. All they would have dealt with would have been the speed and the accuracy with which people responded to the spill. They would not have had anything to do with preventing the spill.
As I understand, the regulations pertaining to the container itself will not come into effect until long after July 1. That comes with the next set of regulations to come into effect. 1 believe it was 1980 when we passed the transportation of dangerous goods legislation. We look forward to July 1, 1985 when a certain set of regulations will come into effect. Those regulations which would have enabled a comprehensive regulatory response to this event are still yet to come, even after July 1. It makes one wonder how long it takes. The Bill was passed in 1980. In 1985 we still do not have the regulations to deal with the problem.
Perhaps the Minister could comment on that. I know he will want to blame the previous Liberal administration. Maybe that had a lot to do with it. However, there must be some other reason why it is taking so long. I hope the Minister will address, in his new responsibilities as Minister of Transport, how we can decrease the time between legislative action and regulatory action so that we do not find ourselves in the position in which we so often find ourselves of something having happened, we thought we had legislation to deal with it but we did not because the regulations were not yet in place. At least, in this case, with respect to federal legislation, we had the legislation proclaimed and the regulations in process. But the Ontario Government did not have the decency to pass the legislation and get on with the regulations. That is where it stands on the matter. It is something for which I hope it will soon pay a political price.


Mr. Hovdebo:: Mr. Speaker, I want to return to the Hon. Member's remarks just before lunch when he established the basis for a federal Government policy. Could the Member expound on that? As environment seems to be a divided area, what does he feel the federal Goverment's responsibility should be and what direction does he think the policy should take?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I think that the Federal Government ought to feel more responsible, and indeed ought to have more responsibility than it now assumes. From the first time I heard of this, I assumed that the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski), by virtue of the fact that it was a question of interprovincial transport, had a mandate to deal with it. I realize that the responsibility for administering this area has devolved to the provinces, but if we have learned anything from this, it is that if a cargo of dangerous goods must pass through several jurisdictions in order to get from point A to point B, this is not the best way to go about it. We have learned that it provides all kinds of opportunities for error and misrepresentation. If the federal Government is serious, it will have to take a tough look at how the dangerous goods legislation is being administered to see if there is an opportunity for a greater federal role.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a quick comment as to whether the responsibility should be dual or separate.
After the court decision on bus pickups in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia was made, the Hon. Robert Winters, who at that time was Minister of Transport in the Liberal Government, asked all provincial Ministers to a meeting. The provincial Ministers of Highway and of Transport from across the country gathered in Ottawa for that meeting, and 1 was among them. At that time, the Hon. Robert Winters said that while the legislation placed the responsibility on the Minister of Transport, he wanted to delegate it completely to provincial Ministers. I remember one of the provincial Ministers asking him whether, if it was delegated, it would mean that the federal Ministers would interfere after the provinces had started administering the legislation. Mr. Winters said no, that that would definitely not be the case. He said that the full responsibility would be that of the provincial Governments.
I thought that I should outline that event. If Mr. Winters had not said that, the provincial Ministers would not have accepted the responsibility. All the provincial Ministers who were present at that time accepted the responsibility and have been carrying it since. I believe that the comments which have been made by the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) are in line with those which were made by the Hon. Robert Winters.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate knowing what happened previously. The Hon. Member is senior to me and I am fortunate to be able to learn from him. Certainly, it is the practice that if something is delegated, a commitment is made
April 22, 1985

not to interfere. However, the case which I am making is that the delegation of that responsibility should be reviewed.
Obviously, there are elements of the spill to which the federal Government has responded. It has been involved. But it is a question of the timing of that involvement. There was a protective direction issued by the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) last Friday, and the regulations are to come into effect on July 1. They are gazetted and, therefore, public information. Why does he not ask the relevant industries to obey the regulations voluntarily from now until July 1 ? Why must we wait until there is a legal reason to do something? Why can there not be a moral reason for doing things? We heard earlier today, what we heard all the time from Prime Minister Trudeau, when we were told that the Government was not breaking any laws. But we ought not to think only on a legal basis, we ought to think about what is right.
I was disturbed earlier today when I heard the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) argue that the contract had been let to the brother-in-law of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) before the new guidelines had come into effect. If they knew that new and better guidelines were coming into effect, why did they do what they would prohibit two months in the future? That is the same kind of legalistic and rigid thinking which we got so often from the former Prime Minister. I thought we were rid of that, but we got more of it today.
I would like to say to the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor), with respect to his point about delegation, that it is a point which is well taken.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) a question about the action of the former Minister of Transport, Mr. Winters. That decision was made some 23 years ago when there was no concern about the transportation of dangerous goods. We are now in an entirely new regime. Does my colleague not agree that if the provinces want to have reciprocal agreements on load limits, speed limits and the size of vehicles, that that is fair? Does he not also agree that the jurisdiction of the national Government, under the Constitution, with respect to transportation of dangerous goods, both interprovincial and international, should remain the sole responsibility of the federal Minister of Transport and no one else?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) has laid out very clearly the responsibility of the federal Minister of Transport. Since this incident became known to the public, we have been after the Minister of Transport to seize that responsibility. I think he has to agree, but I think he could go further.
As well, I hope that the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) will take this opportunity to do some work in the area of environmental health and safety. He should take up the suggestion which we made last week and implement a medical register. What harm could be done by gathering the names of people who suspect themselves of having been exposed to this chemical and keeping track of them? It is a
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terrible thing to say, but the opportunity does not arise every day for people who may have come into contact with a hazardous substance to be enumerated. I do not know why the Minister of National Health and Welfare did not think that it was a good idea. He should send his officials into that area of the country, gather the names, and keep track of those people for the next 10, 20 or 30 years.
When we are talking about potential carcinogens, we are talking about long lead times. Therefore, when we say that there are no immediate consequences, we do not really know. That is why it is all the more reprehensible that this Government cancelled the research program into the assessment of PCBs. It was short-sighted of the Government to have cancelled four or five of those research programs, particularly the one which was requested by the Government of Ontario. It would seem to me that it was an admission on the part of the Government of Ontario that it did not know enough about this hazardous substance. That study was ongoing, but it was cut on November 8.


Mr. Holtmann:: Mr. Speaker, I could not help but notice that the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) accused the Ontario administration of bungling its responsibility. In fact, he is saying that it is a provincial responsibility in many cases. Just because this particular incident happened during inter-border transportation, he points his finger at the federal Government. I would just like to know if the Hon. Member feels that it was the Province of Ontario which bungled. If so, possibly there should be charges against the Province of Ontario.


John Napier Turner: Hear, hear!


Cyril Keeper: Move a motion.


Felix Holtmann: Possibly there are other things which exist right now. That's a possibility. On the other hand, what about the Province of Manitoba? If you listen to the Canadian Nature Federation, the Province of Manitoba does less than any other Canadian province to protect its environment. What is the Hon. Member's position? Does he really feel that it is a provincial responsibility? Even within the province from time to time, without going across a border, there are dangerous chemicals floating back and forth. What is the Hon. Member's position? Is it a federal responsibility or a provincial responsibility? I would like to know the Hon. Member's opinion on that.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Selkirk-Interlake (Mr. Holtmann) is starting to get the point, that charges ought to be laid against the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. I will talk about Manitoba and I will talk about the survey which was done by the Canadian Nature Federation. If one has a close look at that survey, which I did for obvious reasons, one will find that one of the ways in which it judges provinces is by deciding whether or not there is legislation on the books with respect to various environmental issues,

April 22, 1985
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one being environmental impact assessment, for example. It is a fact that there is no legislation in Manitoba which requires an environmental impact assessment of all projects. It is a policy decision on the part of the existing Government to have it in every case but it is not legislation, although it should be. It should not be left up to the discretion of Government, in my view.
The reason some other provinces received higher points in that particular area-the Ontario Government, for instance- was that they do have legislation. However, the legislation has all kinds of ministerial discretion, so that in Ontario, even though there is legislation, there are fewer environmental impact assessments done because the Ontario Minister of the Environment is constantly saying, "Well, in this case, we won't have one". But when you just have a kind of survey which asks if the provinces have legislation or not-and it is ticked off- then there will be a distorted view of just what kind of priorities exist in various provinces.
So I would recommend to the Hon. Member that he take a good look at the study and ask some questions about what kind of criteria are used in making judgments between provinces.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Resuming debate.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the Minister has disappeared again. I hope she will come back.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: She's not the one we need. Mr. Mazankow-ski is responsible. He's here.


John Napier Turner: The Minister has not been in the House to face the music since the first day we brought this issue up in the House, Mr. Speaker. In its first few months in office, this Government-


Charles L. Caccia: Here she is.


John Napier Turner: That's good.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Having respect for the right hon. gentleman, as I do, and having regard to his long tenure of service in the House of Commons, I think he would want to reconsider his opening comments.


John Napier Turner: I do not at all, Mr. Speaker. Since we have raised this issue, particularly the PCB crisis, the Minister has been in the House once. She said it was a provincial responsibility and she has not returned until today's debate. I am glad to see her in the House to deal with this particular issue. I say that having regard to my old friendship with the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski), and 1 want to record for Hansard the fact that I drew his usual benign smile at the end of my remarks.
In its few short months in office, this Government has turned the clock back on the cause of environmental protection by years and years. It is becoming crystal clear that there is no commitment on the part of this new Conservative Government
for the protection or enhancement of the environment. As I and members of this Party have pointed out to this Minister and this Government on the Opposition Day we sponsored on March 5-this is the second Opposition Day we have chosen to direct to this important environmental question-we saw the first indications of how this Government was going to treat environmental matters in the statement of the Minister of Finance on November 8. Apparently that is just the tip of the iceberg because back-bench Tory Members of Parliament have warned us in the House and outside that if we thought the November cuts in the environmental commitment were drastic, we should wait for the May Budget, there are going to be even more. The list of cuts in that November statement reads like the dictionary of disaster which we recited here in the House on March 5; closing or attempting to privatize wildlife interpretation centres; cutting service in the migratory bird sanctuaries in the west and elsewhere; delaying work on the Fraser River dyking project in British Columbia; and eliminating the toxology centre at Guelph which would have been the first of its kind to monitor and assess the impact of new chemicals.
[ Translation]
And the Environment Secretariat, which was part of the National Research Council and was made up of scientists who could sound the alarm whenever the environment was jeopardized has been eliminated. These scientists used to keep us informed of the hazards associated with asbestos, phosphates, heavy metals, mercury, PCB and other pollutants.
The government has attacked the Canadian Wildlife Service. It has laid off 84 people, which is 25 p. cent of its total staff. Some of the best biologists and environment specialists in the world have been "cut" and are now working elsewhere, in the United States, Australia, Asia and Africa. The minister's response is that, and 1 quote, these cuts will have no negative effect on the survival of the programs. It is like throwing a lead lifebuoy at a person who is about to drown.
The government then turned its attack on our national parks. In order to help Canadians celebrate the 100th anniversary of Parks Canada, it has reduced its services, doubled and tripled the admission fees and reduced the number of its employees. What a way to celebrate the anniversary of Parks Canada, which has a reputation for excellence throughout the world!

The Minister says that the provinces will pick up the slack in these programs which she is abandoning willy-nilly. She says, "Let the provinces do it. Let the private sector do it". All I can say is that it is not likely, especially when we consider that Ontario alone has cut some $29 million out of environmental programs in the past two or three years and the Treasurer of Ontario is campaigning on a promise to cut every Ministry even more. It is also unrealistic to expect private industry to do its own clean-up. The experience of the Hooker
April 22, 1985

Chemicals Ltd., company which is polluting the Niagara River from the United States side, should be proof of that.
The Minister, as usual, is reading her mail, but she is not listening or responding in any concrete fashion. This morning in debate the Minister had some unkind things to say about this Party and about the New Democratic Party because of the concern we on this side of the House are raising about environmental issues. She says we are behaving "odiously". She says we are "making faceless accusations". She says we are "engaging in buffoonery to attract the press which is already on the lookout for scandals". In effect she is saying that the press has been scandal-mongering on this issue of fundamental importance to Canadians relating to the heritage of this country. If we have been blessed with anything in Canada, it is the birthright of one of the last great frontiers in the world, which is an absolutely priceless heritage, and that is what we on this side of the House are trying to protect.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: That's all we heard this morning, Mr. Speaker. It is the motto of this Government that when the heat is on, lash out at the other side. Do not respond in terms of substance. Do not respond generously and directly to the questions. Do not respond in an expansive fashion, so that the people of Canada can take some comfort in the fact that the Government really does care about our heritage and our environment and about the priceless land and water we have been given by the Almighty.
Did we hear from the Minister about what she plans to do? Did we hear from her about what she stands for? Not a word. Did we hear from the Minister what action she would take to pressure her Tory colleagues in the Government of Ontario to bring into force a "spills Bill"? Let me talk about the Ontario "spills Bill". It was an Act to amend the Environmental Protection Act, Part IX. It was introduced in the Ontario Legislature in 1978 and passed by the Legislature in 1979. If it is ever proclaimed, it will oblige polluters to pay. But this Act, on the books at Queen's Park since 1979, has not yet been proclaimed into law. What is the Government of Ontario waiting for? Does the Minister know? Can she tell us why? Has she been in touch with her counterpart at Queen's Park to urge him to proclaim the Bill to give the people of this province some protection so that within the joint jurisdiction the two Governments can mobilize against the kind of incidents we are describing? Her colleagues in Ontario, the Ministers and the Government, are dragging their feet on this Act and on other environmental issues, and they have been doing so for the past six years, and it is becoming very obvious that the only thing the two levels of Government share on environmental matters is neglect.
Returning now for a moment to federal responsibility, we have had no explanation from the Minister of the reason for the cancellation, as of April 1, of the $2.5 million program regarding toxic chemical control, which cancellation will be
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particularly damaging in Ontario and Quebec. This program reviewed and monitored emissions by municipalities in Ontario and Quebec, emissions from industry and dump sites of toxic chemicals, waste and refuse. It was an absolutely essential program and the Minister either did not have the clout with Treasury Board or with the Minister of Finance, or else she was not advised that the program was about to expire on March 31. In any event, she has done nothing about it and that program is now dead, to the detriment of the people of Ontario and Quebec, indeed to the detriment of the people living around the international waters adjoining those two provinces. We did not get any information about that this morning when she responded in this debate. All we got, once again, was a feeble attempt to attack the Opposition.
I want to tell the Minister once again that that will not wash with the people of Canada. They want leadership on the environment and they are not getting it. She can smile, but it may be one of her last smiles as the people of Canada finally mobilize.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: We have heard nothing from this Government on what action it intends to take to encourage the U.S. administration to take action to force its industries along the Niagara River to clean up leaking dump sites. One of the most pressing problems we face is the devastation of acid rain. At least 50 per cent of it comes from the U.S. and showers down on our forests, lakes and rivers, not only polluting but killing and poisoning. What was the Minister's response when we first brought this issue up in the House? Here are her exact words: "It is not a priority." The Prime Minister's response: "We are not doing our part on this side of the border so how can we expect the Americans to do theirs?" But as our critic, the Hon. Member for Davenport (Mr. Caccia), who spoke so eloquently this morning, was so quick to point out, the truth is the opposite. Canada has done very well in reducing acid rain. We have had a program in place to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions by 25 per cent by 1990, and 50 per cent by 1994. The U.S. has no such program. They produce 19.6 million tons of nitrous oxide per year while we produce 1.7 million tons. So let us not play around with the facts in this particular case.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) said that acid rain was going to be at the top of his agenda at the Quebec Summit. We threw all our cards on the table. We told the Americans we were mostly to blame. We put in a last minute $300 million program spread over a number of years, true, but we told the President of the United States in effect not to worry about it; mea culpa on the Canadian side, we are responsible. So the President came here hardly believing that we took the issue seriously on this side of the border. We threw all the cards on the table and got nothing in return. All we got was two envoys, Drew Lewis from the United States, the former Secretary of Transport-and there is nothing wrong with that-and we got the former Premier of Ontario, William Grenville Davis.


Mr. Darling:: Nothing wrong with that either.

April 22, 1985
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John Napier Turner: Nothing wrong with that if he wants to do something about it, but I suggested to this House before, and I say this to the Hon. Member for Parry Sound-Muskoka (Mr. Darling) that the $1 per year which Bill Davis, in his patriotic fervour, is accepting, I venture to say that a year from now he will be overpaid at that.
What about the urgency with which Mr. Davis and his colleague, Mr. Lewis, have been taking this matter? They finally met just before the weekend, an hour and a half over a cup of tea or coffee or whatever was served. What was the purpose of the meeting? To get acquainted. A nice one and a half hour meeting to get acquainted. When is the next meeting going to be held? We do not know, they did not tell us. That is the type of urgency displayed by this Government and the U.S. administration, such that they are devoting another year of study, a moratorium and no action.
It is not just members of this Party who are critical. Congressman Henry Waxman of the United States calls it "just another delaying tactic". The action of the American administration and of our Government has been criticized by the Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, the National Clean Air Coalition, the Canadian Acid Rain Coalition, but you will be comforted to know that the acid rain envoys have finally met to become acquainted. That is the only action we got.
What we should be proposing from this side of the border is a clean air treaty binding on the U.S. and Canada, just as the Boundary Waters Treaty has helped us clean up the Great Lakes. We should have the same monitoring system and the same power of enforcement. We should have the same commitment of the Governments and the same dedication these two countries together since 1904 have devoted to the Great Lakes. With a lot of effort over the last 10 or 15 years, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario and Lake Michigan have been cleaned up. There are salmon again in Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario. In the same way when the two countries get together they can do something about the air. Just as important as the water along our international boundary, right up the same St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes system into the Superior-Quetico system, into the Kenora-Rainy River system, all the joint waters we share, equally important is the air we breathe crossing that border in both directions. The prevailing winds are now dumping refuse and poison on our forests and our lakes. What this Government should really be doing is bringing to Parliament and the committee a clean air treaty which will be signed and binding on both sides of the border, having been legislated in Parliament to cover federal jurisdiction and legislated in the Legislatures to cover areas of provincial jurisdiction. That is what we need.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: Members of the Government are smiling and laughing at Canadians who are concerned about this very serious problem. But there is another urgent issue which is not a laughing matter either. There is the disastrous spill of PCBs on the Trans-Canada Highway near Kenora in northern Ontario. Let me say first of all that there
is absolutely no scientific doubt that PCBs are dangerous. They have been found around the world, they are carcinogenic and can cause other health problems. As the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) said, we do not know how long traces of those chemical substances can stay in the system in a sub-viral way until they become lethal years later. We do not know.
We learned last week that as part of the November cuts announced by the Minister of Finance, the Government of Canada cancelled an important study by the National Research Council on the assessment and analysis of PCBs requested by the Government of Ontario. Now, isn't that dandy? In addition, as my colleague, the Hon. Member for Windsor West (Mr. Gray) pointed out on Friday, the Government has also downgraded the provision of the Department of the Environment dealing with the emergencies in the interprovincial transportation of dangerous goods by 25 per cent, or some $1 million. Isn't that dandy? The services which could help the Canadian people to be prepared, to anticipate and to forestall a repetition of this kind of tragedy have been cut by the Government of Canada.
What was the initial response by the Minister on hearing of the PCB spill in Kenora? I can cite Hansard, and if she denies it we will quote it back to her this afternoon. Was her reaction one of outrage? Was it concern for the individuals and families involved? Was it concern for the safety of transporting dangerous and toxic materials? Was it a promise to ensure that this tragedy would not be repeated? No, it was none of those. The Minister's response was simply a rather pathetic claim that this spill of a toxic substance endangering the health of the people in the area, and possibly anyone else on the Trans-Canada Highway from Montreal to Kenora, was a provincial responsibility.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame!


John Napier Turner: She implied that it was just a little problem which the provinces could handle. After all, the Minister of the Environment of Ontario had assured everyone that the only ones in danger were roadside rats which might eat the PCBs. He may be on an election trail, but he certainly is not in control of his Ministry. That reply was echoed by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Fraser) and the Minister of Transport. The Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier) was not in the House when I put the question and it was responded to by the Minister of Fisheries. Anyone who says that maybe only a few rats will be involved really does not understand the gravity of the situation.
As my colleague, the Hon. Member for Cochrane-Superior (Mr. Penner) has said, there is possibly a path of poison stretching from Montreal, through Hudson, Quebec and Hawkesbury, through this capital City of Ottawa, up to Arn-prior, Renfrew, Pembroke and North Bay, through Sudbury and the north shore of Lake Superior right to Thunder Bay. We have heard people complaining about the effects of the PCBs such as rashes on children and nausea in adults. There is
April 22, 1985

a general fear and apprehension over this spill. Meanwhile, the Minister is behaving like a latter day Lady MacBeth trying to absolve herself of responsibility. "Out, damned spot!" She hopes it is going to go away. She is a modern day Lady MacBeth hoping that the environmental traces left by this poison across the Trans-Canada Highway will go away and that people will forget about it. People are not going to forget about it. They are not going to forgive or forget.
There was a PCB spill on Friday in the Bank of Canada building in the capital. I do not know how much was spilled. I do not know whether the Minister has been advised of it yet. I would advise her to consult her colleagues. One employee has been affected already. I will give her a little lead time because we are going to ask her about it tomorrow, perhaps. Avis au prealable.
The Hon. Minister cannot wash her hands of this dangerous spill. She cannot wash her hands of the responsibility which she and the Government have to ensure that Canadians are protected from these dangerous chemicals. It is in the legislation and in her mandate as Minister. It is high time she lived up to her responsibility.
How many other trucks on the roads are carrying these toxic chemicals? How many other people's lives and health are being put at risk? We do not know. What is even more shocking and disturbing is that the Government does not know either. It is high time that the Government abandoned the idea that the protection of the environment and of Canadians from dangerous substances is something to be placed last on a list of priorities. It is not. It is time that the Government abandoned the idea that it is OK to ravage our environment today, because we can always clean it up. In fact we cannot. It is high time the Government abandoned the idea that provincial Governments, the private sector, or Governments of other countries are going to take the lead in protecting our environment. Mr. Speaker, they are not.
It is high time the Government woke up to the fact that Canadians are not going to sit idly by while the responsibility to protect and enhance our environment is neglected, because they will not, and neither will Members on this side of the House. We will not allow the Government to continue in its direlection, negligence and abandonment of its responsibilities affecting the birthright, heritage, and environment of the country.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, although I agree with a great many of the things that the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) said, the motion moved by the Official Opposition has to do with environmental policy in general. In that context I would like to ask him a question about an issue on which his caucus seems to be speaking with two voices. My question is with regard to the proposal known as the Grand Canal. That is a proposal to damn James Bay, turn it into a fresh water lake of great magnitude, and pipe or otherwise divert water from there to southern Ontario and to the United States of America.
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I have heard two different voices from the Liberal caucus on this matter. I have heard the Hon. Member for Davenport (Mr. Caccia) indicate that he is against that, if I understood him correctly. On Friday I heard the Hon. Member for Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador (Mr. Rompkey) speak favourably about that same project. He asked the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) about it, and the Prime Minister seemed to speak favourably about that megaproject.
In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, one of the greatest environmental issues of the coming decade will be the future of water in this country and how we handled the 20 per cent of the world's water supply that happens to be entrusted to Canadians. Would the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition tell us where he stands on this megaproject proposal? I happen to think it is one of the most bizarre ideas to come along in a long time.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman from Winnipeg-Birds Hill took some advice from one of our Alberta colleagues who has been around here for a long time. I was here in 1962 and 1963 and had the honour of being the Parliamentary Secretary to the late Arthur Laing who was then the Member of Parliament for Vancouver South and our Minister of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources, as he then called the portfolio. He was a very great British Columbian and a great Canadian. I had the responsibility of liaising with the standing committee. In those days we brought our treaties to Parliament. My first task was piloting through the committee the Columbia River Treaty, which involved the export of water to the United States. I recognized the concern that was building up in British Columbia and across the country with regard to whether we would ever have a future Columbia River Treaty type of project or whether we would keep the water and export the power instead.
In 1963, Tom Kierns, who was then living in Sudbury and now lives in St. John's, Newfoundland, brought his Grand River project, or Harricanaw River project as it was then called, before the standing committee. He asked to be heard as a witness. I had the opportunity of listening to him and cross-examining him on behalf of the Liberal Members on that committee.
That project involved the diversion of waters that are now flowing aimlessly into Hudson's Bay and the Arctic, back into the Great Lakes river system and the joint international waterways of the United States and Canada. It was very deep environmental and economic impacts. It goes right to the heart of the political sovereignty of our waters. My colleague, the Member for Davenport, has taken a personal position against the export of water. I can understand his feelings. I can understand the feelings of my colleague, the Hon. Member for Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador, who wants the project constructively studied.
I think this matter should come before the House and a standing committee so that the economic, environmental, political and social impacts can be analysed and we can determine whether Canadians wish to become part of a North American water scheme.

April 22, 1985
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At one time when I was in Washington as Parliamentary Secretary I met with the late Frank Moss, senior Senator for the State of Utah, who was very interested in this same project. I told him, and later a congressional committee, that there is no such thing as a North American resource policy or a North American water policy. There is an American resource policy and a Canadian resource policy. That is the subject that would have to be investigated by this particular committee.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, my question is prompted by the number of times that the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) ignored parliamentary procedure and made reference to attendance in the House. I would not normally bring this matter up, but since the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition has chosen this forum to fight the Ontario election, I would like to ask him if he has chosen this forum because-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. Both Hon. Members know that comments of that nature are out of order. I know that the Hon. Member will say what is good for the goose is good for the gander, but the goose and the gander are both out of order. No one should raise the question about who is absent from the House. I am sure all Hon. Members realize that. Does the Hon. Member have a question?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, is the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition choosing to fight the Ontario election in this forum because he will not be given any position on the hustings by David Peterson, Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, you know how frivolous that question is, but I will answer it, not because 1 want to give credibility to the Member but because I want to give dignity to the House by responding to questions.
The answer to the first part of the question is yes, the Member is right that we do not refer to the absence or presence of Members in the House. However, this motion concerns the Minister and therefore I believe her presence is essential in terms of courtesy and of the dignity of the House.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: She is here.


John Napier Turner: She is here this time. She was not here the last time. It is also relevant, when issues involving a crisis such as the tragedy of PCBs, is raised perpetually and repeatedly in the House and does not receive the attention of the Minister because she does not happen to be here. I think that is relevant.
With respect to the Ontario election, I do not know whether the Hon. Member would like to follow me but I will be in Hamilton on Thursday and Renfew and Pembroke following that. I want to assure him that there is very, very close co-operation between the two Parties, not a type of closed circuit, hermetically sealed television between the two leaders.


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the right hon. gentleman criticizing
the Hon. Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier) and in particular making remarks as to her demeanour, facial expressions and so on. Although I was disappointed at hearing it, I must say that I was incredulous at references to Lady MacBeth and remarks of that nature. He went on to accuse the Minister of not taking this matter seriously. He suggested that she did not understand the gravity of the situation with regard to PCBs. The Hon. Minister and our Party indeed take the situation seriously.
How does the Right Hon. Member reconcile his concern about the gravity of the PCB situation with the remarks of one of his colleagues, the rather shrill lady, the Hon. Member for Hamilton East (Ms. Copps)? Last week in the House, during a very serious question posed by the Member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Clark) to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) with regard to grasshoppers, the Hon. Member for Hamilton East said, "Spray them with PCBs".
Why does the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) find the remarks attributed to the Hon. Minister of the Environment offensive but he somehow glosses over the remarks of his own back-benchers?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, that preamble was so labyrinthine that I really got lost.


Mr. McKenzie:: Mr. Speaker, we in Manitoba are very concerned about environmental problems there, and this nonsense of laying the blame on one Government is simply not acceptable. All of them must make improvements and we must find huge sums of money to help out because one problem is that it will require billions of dollars.
One of our concerns in Manitoba is that the levels of mercury at South Indian Lake are four times the accepted level. If these socialist hypocrites are so concerned about the environment, I find it very strange that this issue has not entered into the debate today and into questions in the House. I certainly will be pursuing the Minister about dealing with this problem and I want her to find out if criminal charges should be laid against the NDP Government in Manitoba for its negligence in this area at South Indian Lake.
Furthermore, I am concerned about the statement made by the Canadian Nature Federation. Its shows that Ontario-


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. The time for questions and comments has expired. I will recognize the next Member to speak on debate.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Would you enlighten the House as to whether there is some criterion guiding the Chair which states that questions and comments must be at least remotely relevant to the speech made by the previous speaker? Should not the remarks of the Hon. Member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. Wilson) and the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine (Mr. McKenzie) be related to the previous Member's speech?
April 22, 1985


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I believe it is left up to the Speaker to decide whether or not they are relevant. I did not let the Member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine (Mr. McKenzie) carry on with his remarks, and 1 would do the same the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) if he were doing the same thing.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 45, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie)- Environmental Affairs-Request for assurance of investigation. (b) Compensation for victims; the Hon. Member for Westmorland-Kent (Mr. Robichaud)-Bilingualism-Decision to reduce number of bilingual positions at Renous penitentiary; the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow)-Indian Affairs-Assistance programs for natives in urban centres, (b) Advisory committee.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Caccia;
That, in the opinion of this House, the Government has displayed negligence with regard to the protection, maintenance and improvement of the environment as manifested in its ill-advised reduction in services, its complacent attitude toward controlling potential hazards and its complete abdication of any leadership in the protection of the environmental health and safety of Canadians.
Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, at the outset I was going to respond to some of the comments made by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner). On reflection, however, I think he will agree with me, after he has had an opportunity to read and assess the content of his speech and some of the points he made, particularly with reference to the attendance of some Hon. Members, that today is not one of his better days in the House of Commons. I say that with the greatest of respect because I have known the right hon. gentleman for a long time. He has been a distinguished parliamentarian and I am saddened by the fact that he has engaged in an action today that is really not very becoming nor up to the high standards that he has set.


John Napier Turner: What you really mean is that you want to read your own speech.
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Donald Frank Mazankowski: Unlike the Hon. Member, no one has prepared a speech for me. I know that the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition has thrown away the cue cards and has prepared his own speeches. That is quite obvious, but there is nothing wrong with that.
At the outset let me say that we have heard a lot of flim-flammery-[DOT]


John Napier Turner: Don't look at those notes.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: We have heard a lot of flim-flam and advice from instant experts today. We have heard much about what should have been done with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight.
When the Opposition, particularly members of the Official Opposition, engage in the practice of suggesting what should be done on the basis of hindsight and condemning this Government and the Ontario Government, it is, in effect, condemning itself. It was the Liberals who were derelict by their own standards. They cannot escape that. When they occupied the Treasury benches they failed to do many of the things that we are doing today.
The right hon. gentleman said that we should have a Clean Air Act. Judging from some of what he said and the remarks of some of his colleagues, I suggest we need a hot air Act to clean up some of the rhetoric and flimflam in the House of Commons.
The fact is that this is a serious matter, one that is complex. It is an issue in which there is a split jurisdiction. There is no question that we must respect that jurisdictional issue. May I simply remind Hon. Members that the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act was proclaimed on November 1, 1980.
The last Government had four years to promulgate the regulations respecting the transportation of dangerous goods. It had four years. We came into office and accelerated the process. We announced the regulations on January 24 and worked out a deal with the provinces and the industry so they could be phased in in an orderly way. The purpose of the Act is to promote public safety in the transportation of dangerous goods. The Act covers all modes. For the first time we have a single legislative authority to deal with the handling of things for transport, offering for transport and transporting Dangerous Goods. A lot of it emanated from the initiative of the Conservative Government in 1979, which accelrated the passage of the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act and then caused a full-scale inquiry into the Mississauga incident. It really provided the framework for the establishment of the legislation and the rules and regulations which we are now putting in place.
The control and regulation of transportation is a shared responsibility between the federal, the provincial and the terri-

April 22, 1985
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torial Governments. The transportation of dangerous goods was partially regulated up to this time in more than 20 different statutes. When you have 20 different statutes, it really takes a little work to try to consolidate that effort into one embodying piece of legislation and one embodying group of regulations. That is what has been done. It requires negotiation and co-operation. It requires respect for the jurisdiction of the two levels of Government. That is what we have tried to do.
I do not think there is anyone in this House that has a monopoly on safety. As far as we are concerned, our Government and the actions of individual Members really speak loud and clear. In 1979, as I said earlier, we commissioned the Grange inquiry into the Mississauga incident, which was a major step forward. In 1979 we commissioned the Dubin inquiry into aviation safety. The legislation framework flowing from those recommendations is currently before the House and the committee. We accelerated the transportation of dangerous goods Bill. We did not water it down, as the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate (Mr. Baker) said. There was no watering down. There was an acceleration. As a matter of fact, this was done against the wishes and the desires of the provinces, the industry and specifically the trucking industry. There was a clear understanding by the former Minister of Transport that these regulations would not be promulgated for a year. I can show stacks of correspondence from the respective provincial Governments, the trucking association and so on, recommending that the transportation of dangerous goods regulations not be promulgated in 1985 but rather in 1986. We said that in the interest of public safety and in the interest of transportation safety we must act, which is not to suggest that people should not follow good practices before the regulations are in effect. A good trucker and a good operator is following the rules today.
There are unwritten rules, the rules with respect to containers for the transportation of flammable goods, for instance. Theoretically there is nothing in effect, but practically most operators follow a very strict code. Some operators voluntarily do a good job and others do not. What we are trying to do is to move toward the establishment of a clearly understood, clearly enforceable set of regulations with which everyone can live and which everyone can respect. That is what has been going on.
What is unfortunate about this debate-and it was alluded to by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner)- is the fact that both Parties have seemed more interested in scoring political points by bringing the Ontario election to the floor of the House of Commons than in dealing with the hard issues. It was reflected in the way in which the Hon. Member for Birds Hill-


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Winnipeg-Birds Hill.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Excuse me, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie). He tried to explain away the disastrous record of the NDP Government in Manitoba concerning environmental issues. When he was trying to explain
to the Hon. Member for Selkirk-Interlake (Mr. Holtmann) and to rationalize that study, it reminded me somewhat of his own leader claiming victory in the last election while at the same time losing two seats.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: One seat.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The fact is that the Winnipeg Free Press of March 15 had a headline which read, "Province fails test on environment".


Cyril Keeper: You will lose a lot more than two next time.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Probably that Government in Winnipeg with its record on the environment will be turfed right out, as it should be with this kind of record. Let me quote as follows from an article in the Winnipeg Free Press:
Manitoba does less than any other Canadian province to protect its environment, says the Canadian Nature Federation.
Look at that double standard, Mr. Speaker. People are trying to lay the whole blame on the Province of Ontario. Here is another headline: "Manitoba score in forestry area lowest in report". Who is number one in this report, Mr. Speaker?


A. Daniel McKenzie: Ontario.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Alberta is number one in this report.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Ontario is number two.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: And you know where Manitoba is, Mr. Speaker? Manitoba is number 10 right at the bottom of the heap. That is where that fellow will be right after the next election if he keeps spouting non-substantiated information. He talks in a very sincere way. He is a good performer. 1 give him full credit.


An Hon. Member:: A bit sanctimonious.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Sanctimonious a bit, just a bit. That is right. I can tell Hon. Members that most of the Hon. Member's words are hollow. They somewhat express a double standard, particularly when he attempts to lay the total blame on the Province of Ontario.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: He tried to lay it on you.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: He has been fair. I must say he has been fair with me, but we have to put this whole debate into perspective.


Cyril Keeper: We do not want to be too rough on you.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I appreciate that. The Hon. Member said he did not want to be too rough on me, and I appreciate that comment. He knows I am a very kind, considerate, and compassionate person and that I like to do my job.


An Hon. Member:: And modest?
April 22, 1985


Donald Frank Mazankowski: And modest, very modest, as well.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I know that this issue has evoked a lot of emotion. There have been a lot of impassioned statements. Some of them have been useful. This debate has been useful, there is no question about that. I think it is appropriate that the Opposition should bring forth an issue like this for debate.


John Napier Turner: Thanks a lot, Don.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I appreciate that the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition engaged in the debate even though it was not one of his better days. He did much better on Saturday night.


John Napier Turner: You were in a much better mood on Saturday night.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: It has served a useful purpose and I think it is important for all of us to be cognizant of the fact that emotion and rhetoric will not resolve the problem. We have to approach this issue in a very responsible fashion and in a practical way. When I hear some of the suggestions coming forward, they are difficult to understand, such as, for example, having convoys associated with the movement of dangerous goods. If you really break that right down, it means you would have a convoy with every gas tanker going up and down the highway for every truckload of muriatic acid, or sulphuric acid or caustic soda. We know that is not practical. People are now suggesting that the directive I issued on Friday should have called for a convoy. If the PCBs are put in proper containers and are properly fastened, there should not be any need for a convoy. They should not be any more dangerous than gasoline tankers going up and down the road. I mean, talk about an explosion if a gasoline tanker hit a corner store in Kenora! The whole community could be wiped out. Surely Hon. Members are not suggesting that we put convoys with every gasoline tanker which goes up and down the road. I think Hon. Members are carried away with these kinds of impractical suggestions. Surely there is a happy medium, surely there is a responsibility which we must all take. However, let us be realistic and practical. Let us engage in some common sense. Hopefully, after the Ontario election is over, we will have that sort of common sense and practical approach on the part of Hon. Members across the way.


Mr. Parry:: With an NDP Government you will.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: We heard that leading up to the September 4 election, and I think the results speak for themselves.
1 should like to deal with the role of Transport Canada in respect of this spill. CANUTEC was advised within two hours of the occurrence of the accident. There was constant communication at all times with all Departments of the Ontario Government which were on site, the police department, the
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emergency co-ordinator, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and our own Department. When it was deemed appropriate, there was a representative of Transport Canada on the scene.
Last Friday, as all Hon. Members know, I tabled a directive which has the effect of providing for very strict regulations with respect to the movement of PCBs. I will not go into the details. I think the record speaks for itself. As well, today I instructed the Inspector General of Transportation Safety, Mr. K. J. Thorneycroft, to commence an investigation at the earliest time possible into the circumstances and subsequent events of the April 14 spill of polychlorinated biphenyls at Kenora, Ontario. I have asked that a preliminary report be made to me by May 30 and that a final report be submitted to me by July 30. We believe this is important, having regard to the fact we are just in the process of promulgating and indeed enforcing the rules and regulations with respect to the transportation of dangerous goods. The information we may be able to obtain as to what was done, what was not done or what should have been done will be most important. I know there will be other investigations. This is certainly not meant to pre-empt other investigations, but it will certainly ensure Transport Canada's presence.
The investigations and reports are to be comprehensive and include all circumstances and subsequent events of the accident falling within the mandate of Transport Canada. We are asking the Inspector General to identify and report upon the responsibilities and actions of other federal Departments whose mandates may have encompassed the general or specific aspects of the accident. We are asking for his report to set out the general and specific responsibilities of the provincial Government in the circumstances and subsequent events of the accident and to link those responsibilities to that of Transport Canada and other federal agencies.
Despite the criticism, I think all Hon. Members will agree that we have taken action within the mandate given to us. When one sits down and analyses the matter, one finds that, while it was a serious accident, I suspect one could say, thank God it was not more serious. We will certainly be doing everything we can to prevent such occurrences. However, 1 believe that we will all agree-in the final analysis-that the Kenora accident, while serious, was professionally and properly handled by personnel of various provincial and federal agencies. We have learned lessons from the accident. We have made appropriate responses to reduce the possibility of further such incidents. Perhaps what we have to do is to address more vigorously the larger question, that is, how we dispose of products such as PCBs. That poses a very serious question regarding public attitudes, the location of disposal sites and methods of disposal.
As one who comes from the Province of Alberta, I can say that this has been a very hotly debated issue. Many people residing in that province are asking the following question: How come they are hauling all that waste from Quebec and Ontario and parking it in our backyard? There are some very legitimate questions about the principle of where disposal sites

April 22, 1985
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will be located and whether in fact we should be engaging in the transportation of these goods, particularly over such long distances.
The issue has focused on some very fundamental questions with which we have to deal. 1 welcome the opportunity to have been able to say a few words about this particular issue. I certainly thank all Hon. Members for their suggestions and their advice. I am sure we will be watching very closely the reviews, reports and investigations which come out. Hopefully we will be able to transform them into legislation and regulations which would serve to prevent a further recurrence of such a serious issue.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, 1 think the Minister complained about the Opposition dealing from hindsight, the event having taken place and the wisdom of being able to look back at it. I wonder whether he mentioned the Mississauga incident of a number of years ago.
There was an explosion in the CPR yards in Winnipeg. It was a small explosion but it scared many people. There were local calls for the mandating of an investigation with judicial powers to investigate the danger of the CPR yards being located in Winnipeg. I am wondering whether we have to wait for another accident in that city. Could the Minister take a serious look at the location of the yards in Winnipeg and at the potential danger in a city of half a million people? He has the Mississauga study in his hands. I wonder whether he would look forward and see whether anything could be done about the calls of the community of Winnipeg for a full public and judicial inquiry into the previous accident in that city rather than wait for a future accident to take place.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is implying that we should move the rail yards. There are many cities from which rail yards should perhaps be moved. The question is whether we can afford it. There are costs involved. The City of Calgary has the same problem. Every major city has the same problem.
When the Mississauga incident occurred, I think the present environment critic-perhaps I am wrong there-or one of his colleagues came forth and said that we should put a ban on the movement of all dangerous goods through the City of Toronto. That may seem appropriate in the heat of debate on an issue, but it does not make sense. The fact of the matter is that if we were to put that sort of moratorium on the movement of all dangerous goods, it would grind our country to a halt.
Yes, it is a very serious matter. I think the issue, in particular, has been addressed by the CTC. Some very good recommendations have come forward which are being considered by the Inspector General of Transportation Safety and will probably form part of the future regulations that will be promulgated with respect to the kinds of containers in which dangerous goods should be shipped. The simple answer is yes. I suppose at one time we wanted the railroads running right through towns. At one time we wanted all our highways running right smack dab down the middle of Main Street. Those attitudes have now changed. The cost of adjusting to
current day realities is exorbitant, but in the meantime there is much we can do in improving safety and standards with respect to the movement of dangerous goods. I think progress has been made with respect to the rail field in particular.
Truckers have complained to me about the fact that we have given railways from five to maybe ten years to improve their standards with respect to safety and that we are asking them to do it within a shorter timeframe. They have told me that they will co-operate but that there is a balance and a degree of practicability which has to be taken into account when abiding by the rules and regulations. It is easy to stand in the House and say that we will force them to do something. However, we have found that we can probably work it out in a much better fashion if there is understanding and respect and if we are working together in a co-operative way.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to deal with two matters which the Minister spoke of in his speech. He indicated that the legislation on the transportation of dangerous goods was a single legislative authority. As I add it, there are some 26 jurisdictions; federal, territorial and provincial Departments of Transport, federal, territorial and provincial- federal Departments of the Environment. There may be some areas where the Department of Labour is involved as well as some federal Government agencies. That is the problem. Too many, including myself, have the impression that no one is really in charge.
Does the Minister agree that it is time to retain under a single federal jurisdiction the transportation of dangerous goods? I have no objection to reciprocal arrangements between provinces with regard to speed, weight limits and size of vehicle. However, on the transportation of dangerous goods and health and safety standards, will the Minister agree that we should return to the sole jurisdiction of the federal authority? The Minister is responsible for interprovincial and international trucking.
My second question to the Minister has to do with his remarks about convoys. I was in the Armed Forces during World War II. When we moved artillery shells, plastic explosives or other high explosives, we travelled in convoy. There had to be at least one vehicle following so that if anything did happen, somebody would be there to do something about it. I do not accept the Minister's comment that convoys would be necessary for the transportation of every dangerous good. With regard to gasoline and so forth, we have experience, technology and equipment whereby they can be transported safely.
In the last 10 or 12 years, we have been in the phase of transporting new dangerous goods, such as PCBs and atomic waste, with which we have little or no experience. Until such time as we have the experience and the proper equipment, does that not call for convoying? It can be done by highway patrol. When a vehicle reaches a province, it could be followed. Something could then be done in the event of a truck going off the road or the driver falling asleep. Anything could happen until such time as the regulations are in place and we have the
April 22, 1985

proper equipment, experience and knowledge with regard to the movement of these new hazardous products.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: There we go again, Mr. Speaker. It is obvious that the Hon. Member knows more about PCBs, their impact, toxicity and danger than I or anyone in this House, surely more than the Inspector General with regard to safety or those who will be investigating this. If after the review there is a strong recommendation made that future transport of PCBs should be governed in such a way that they are accompanied by convoys, certainly we will give it close consideration. However, the Hon. Member is engaging in the kind of overkill I talked about earlier. I am not discounting it totally. However, there has to be a reason for it. I know the Member has a lot of experience in transportation. However, I would need a better authority than him before I would make that kind of recommendation.
With respect to the split jurisdiction, the Hon. Member is right. There are a number of different legislative statutes. We have been trying to embody them in one piece of legislation and one regulatory framework. That is being achieved. It just takes a little time. I do not think we would get very far if we came in by unilateral decree and said that we are going to do this, here is the hammer, do this or else. What we have done is make progress through co-operation, consultation, collaboration and working together.
The federal Government is the co-ordinating body. The Transportation of Dangerous Goods directorate is located here in Transport Canada. The directorate has inspectors for industry compliance in Vancouver, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and Dartmouth. The Transport Canada air administration and marine administration have regional inspectors located throughout the country. The federal Government is taking a lead role in co-ordinating.
I repeat, and this is something we all have to recognize, safety is a shared responsibility. The transportation of dangerous goods, by virtue of our legislative framework, is a shared responsibility. We have tried to bring some order into that sharing so that there will be a clearer delineation of authority. I regret that it takes a little time. However, when the regulations are promulgated in July in an orderly way and subsequently upgraded to cover some other matters, I think Hon. Members will recognize that we probably have gone the right way.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, 1 want to make a short comment on the accusation levelled against me by the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) whith respect to having a double standard. 1 take that kind of accusation very seriously. If the Minister checks the record, he will see that as far back as my maiden speech in 1979, I indicated with regard to environmental concerns that I thought all political Parties and all ideological traditions in this country have a blind spot when it comes to that.
The Minister will also notice if he checks the record that on occasion 1 have been critical of NDP Governments for environmental policies that I have not agreed with, most notably
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the Uranium mining in Saskatchewan on the part of the NDP Government at that time. I ask the Minister of Transport to consider that because I take very seriously the charge of a double standard. I do not have one.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret that the Minister's time-


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If I in any way offended the Hon. Member, I certainly want to apologize. I was not my intention to do so. In the thrust of debate, we probably say things that may be interpreted in a manner that may leave that implication, but I have the highest regard and respect for the Hon. Member. I know he sincerely deals with these issues with a great deal of vigour. Notwithstanding that fact, he did have a little difficulty defending the record of his colleagues in the Manitoba legislature. It was in that context that I was suggesting that perhaps he was not as fair as he usually is.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The time for questions and comments has expired. The Hon. Member for Saint-Jacques.


Jacques Guilbault: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to rise in the House and add my comments on the motion moved by my hon. friend from Davenport (Mr. Caccia). First of all, Government Members may find my hon. colleague's motion rather severe, but if we look at this Government's record on environmental affairs since it came to power last September, the conclusion is, unfortunately, that the Hon. Member for Davenport was being relatively polite and moderate when he sat down at his desk to draft the motion before the House today. Mr. Speaker, this morning I was watching the Minister, who gave us a deplorable performance in response to the motion moved by the Liberal Party on this Opposition day. I say deplorable, because the Minister spent more than three quarters of her time criticizing the Opposition and attacking the Opposition parties, especially our party, in every way she could, instead of rising to defend the Government's record. Well, I can see why she acted the way she did, because first of all, the Government's performance on environmental affairs since last fall is not easy to defend, and one of the best examples is the incident that occurred recently, and I am referring to the spill of toxic materials, more specifically, PCB's, in Ontario near the town of Kenora last week. It is no surprise to me that the Minister should be constantly attacking the Opposition, nor her concern to wash her hands of any responsibility in this area, something she has been doing for most of the last week. Today, we hear the Government defending itself by attacking the Opposition and accusing us of having tried to score political points with this spill of toxic substances in our environment. Just think: an Opposition party that is just doing its work and trying to reflect public opinion by putting pertinent questions to the
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Government is now being accused by this Government of trying to score political points. Anyone reading the papers or watching television during the past week would realize that aside from politicians, everybody was talking about the very serious news of the PBC spill in Ontario. Why should an Opposition Party worthy of the name, as the Liberal Party believes itself to be, refrain from asking the Government pertinent questions about its involvement in this case, and the delay in dealing seriously with this incident? Why? Because we would be accused of wanting to score political points? Of wanting to act responsibly in the House?
The Minister's comments, which lacked substance, consisted for instance, in saying that legislation on the transport of hazardous materials should have been implemented by the previous Government. It is true that the legislation was adopted by the House of Commons some time ago, and that because of negotiations with the provinces, the regulations were not yet in place. However, today the Minister is going to have to deal with similar problems because when my hon. colleague from Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) asked her what she was going to do about disposing of toxic materials such as the PBCs, the Minister said she was currently discussing the matter with the provinces with a view to deciding on disposal procedures and finding appropriate sites.
I would like to point out to the Minister that such discussions cannot go on for much longer, because the Minister already has a problem now. The Province of Alberta announced last week that its PCB disposal site would no longer be open for the disposal of toxic substances from outside the province and that the site would be reserved solely for PCBs within the province.
I would therefore point out to the Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier), who has just come back to the House, that she will have to hurry up her discussions with her provincial counterparts, because she cannot afford to spend months on finding ways to dispose of these substances. A cleanup is taking place in Ontario at the present time, and the substances will have to be disposed of somewhere. And according to what we are told by Mr. Lougheed's Government, there will be no disposal of Ontario's PCBs in Alberta.
I think the attitude of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) was rather odd just now when he asked the House some questions, and he said:

"The problem is, how do we dispose of PCBs?" Is that not a strange question for a Minister of the Crown to be asking? As a matter of fact, that is the question which everyone at home is asking. However, one is likely to expect a Minister of the Crown to have some sort of answer. No, the Minister asks: "How do we dispose of these substances? How come they are hauling that stuff across the land?"

These are questions everyone is asking in Canada, but that we would not expect a minister to ask. I can give part of the answer to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of the Environment. I would say that the role of these two ministers is to make every effort to discourage the transport of these dangerous substances instead of asking why they are being transported. Their role is to discourage the transport of these substances and to identify as soon as possible sites where these substances can be kept which are closer to where they are being used. It is all very well to regulate the transport of these substances, but the best practical solution to the problem would be to discourage such transport and to speed up research on methods and technologies to dispose of these substances. The solution is not to act surprised and say: Heavens, why is it that such substances are being transported across Canada?
These are the two pieces of advice that I can give the Department, first find ways to discourage the transport of these substances, and second, determine how they can be destroyed.
Briefly, Mr. Speaker, my comments will now deal with acid rain, an extremely hot issue, especially in my own Province of Quebec and also in Ontario. As we know, those provinces are the most threatened by winds blowing from the South that carry S02, nitric oxydes and other gases in solution in the atmosphere that acidify our rain, endanger marine life in our lakes, curtail the production of maple sap as we have been told recently and damage certain other crops. Despite all the racket we hear from this Tory Government since it came to power who wants to have us believe that they have a quick, adequate and serious solution to the problem of acid rain, we should not forget that measures to that end had been initiated well before this Government came to power.
Under the previous Liberal administration, the goals of a 25 per cent reduction of emissions by 1990 and 50 per cent by 1994 had already been agreed upon with the Provinces. Of course we have been subjected more recently to the public relations ploy of the Minister of Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier) appearing with the provincial ministers before the public to once more celebrate the fact that those standards had already been accepted. On that occasion came the announcement of a $2 billion program to clean up the atmosphere over the next ten years. But I suggest this is a project without muscle because the federal Government is committed to spend a mere $300 million over ten years, or some $30 million a year. In line with that public relations ploy, the Canadian Government bragged in front of the TV cameras: "We are going to make a big clean-up, but suggested that every citizen would have to pay. Every buyer of a new car will be dishing out close to $200 to have presumably an internal device, a catalyst to reduce emissions. But all Canadians will have to pay for it.
April 22, 1985

The federal Government bares its teeth without having the money to carry out its plans.
And after that first public relations exercise comes the second one in Quebec City, which saw the demise of all those beautiful government plans and the abdication before the American Government: "Yes, Mr. President, we are going to wait another year before making any move, before going further along the road to acid rain reduction. Yes, Mr. President, if it is your wish, instead of acting now and signing an agreement, we are going to appoint two representatives, two envoys who will spend a year thinking about the acid rain problem and who will then make a report." There is quite a gap between that second public relations exercise and the first one launched a month or a month and half earlier when we were told: "We are going to act now on acid rains. We are going to reduce emissions by 25 and 50 per cent in 1990 and 1994 respectively." As soon as Uncle Sam sets foot on Canadian Soil, out comes the jug of Irish Whiskey. And we hear: "Yes, Mr. President, we understand, we are willing to wait, we know that expenditures to reduce the huge quantity of acid rain blowing in from the United States are very heavy. We do understand. We will wait".
For sure this is not a conrageous attitude. Looking at those facts, it is more readily realized that the motion put forward by my friend for Davenport (Mr. Caccia) may sound harsh. In fact, it is not harsh at all, it reflects the moral offence of someone who fought for years to protect the environment in Canada, who has been sent into in opposition by voters but who lost nothing of his aggressiveness and commitment to the Canadian environment. And I very well understand my colleague for not being satisfied with the treatment applied by this Government to our environment problems, and I understand very well that he would put such a motion forward.
Mr. Speaker, to this day, this Government has no reason to brag about its performance in the area of the environment. And since the Minister of Environment is now back in the House and is listening to some of our remarks, I only wish that over the coming months and for the time she will be holding that portfolio, she will deal more seriously with the problems facing her.


The Acting Speaker (Mir. Paproski):: Are there any questions or comments? Since there are no questions or comments, we shall resume debate.


Mr. Gary Gurbin (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I have been here only for the last three speeches. I heard a little of the speech of the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner), who is not here, unfortunately, to hear my reaction to some of his comments. I really think it would have been a lot more appropriate if this motion had been changed, in fact. I believe an appropriate
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motion which could have been discussed intelligently by Hon. Members on all sides of the House, would probably read as follows:
After years of relative neglect, relatively unproductive efforts, inconsistent and often inadequate funding, the Government should be strongly encouraged to advance the protection of our environment with the principles that have already been established by the Progressive Conservative Government, and those are of rapid implementation of action plans; continued tangible financial commitments like the $350 million that we have brought forward for the acid rain seduction program; continued and improved communication and co-operation such as with the Hare Commission, the MMT study group and others; and the continued co-operation and working with industry, provinces, the scientific and other interested parties, to help make the Canadian environment safe.
Further, that the Government should be encouraged to continue to demonstrate the important leadership that it has established through many government Departments, including the Prime Minister's Office, and to ensure that the next generations do not face the continued and unfortunate abuses that have been thus far threatening our environmental future.
I believe, Mr. Speaker, if you look at the record over the last seven months, that would be a genuine, reasonable and honest type of motion which we could debate. I believe that this Government wants to be encouraged in the handling and management of the environment and important environmental issues which will continue to come before it.
Why are we dealing with the PCB problem, Mr. Speaker? Why are we dealing with acid rain? Why are we dealing with difficulties in transportation of any dangerous or hazardous products? What is the problem? How serious is the Hon. Member for Davenport (Mr. Caccia) when he can bring forward a motion such as the one he has knowing that for the last number of years in a number of areas there has simply been an inadequacy in dealing with the important issues? There is example after example of the type of thing to which I am referring. Let us take acid rain, for example. Back in 1977, acid rain was identified by a Minister of the then Government as a ticking time bomb. Since that time how much reduction have we really accomplished? What do we have to show until the last six months in terms of an action plan which would bring about a satisfactory resolution? There have been goals. There have been some nice words and some great debate. But where was the solid plan? If there has been a piece of legislation brought forward or some kind of tangible, solid evidence that the Hon. Member for Davenport could point to, that would be all right, but there simply has not.
Another prominent area of debate has been the transportation of hazardous products. We as an opposition Party in 1980 very strongly supported changes to the Act or the introduction of an Act which would in fact control the transportation of goods like PCBs. But what has happened since 1980? Here we are in 1985, having to depend on the intelligence and the understanding of the now Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazan-kowski) in order actually to do something. Yet we still get the kind of-we would not want to think it was dishonest, but the political, if you like, harping from the Hon. Member for Davenport and other Hon. Members who have had their chance, and we still have the problem.
There are many other examples, Mr. Speaker, but one of the things I would like to focus on now is the question of relevance. Probably nowhere is it better able to be demonstrated than

April 22, 1985
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with respect to the question of the PCB spill. The problems which can be created in those incidents bring forward all of the important issues, transportation and the historical aspects. Just about every part of a hazardous product which one could think about or discuss is identified in this single focus.
I believe the first thing we have to do is to look at the relevance of the issue. As compared to gasoline, how dangerous are PCBs? From the notes which I have to make sure I do not make any errors I see one of the things which struck me in trying to find out just how dangerous PCBs are. What has happened historically with this substance? There have been several spills we can go back to to try to get an accurate idea of what the relative level of danger is. In 1968, hundreds of Japanese who consumed PCB-contaminated rice developed acne-like skin lesions, discolouration of toe nails, fingernails and gums. They showed a thickening of skin, especially in the region of the eyelid. In 1979, a similar outbreak involving some 1800 Taiwanese occurred. I would note, Mr. Speaker, the fact that these events were not the result of a one-day acute exposure but rather the result of very long and high level of sustained exposure. The skin diseases developed slowly and lasted in some cases for years. The onset of the skin signs occurred three or four months after the start of exposure and only after individuals had ingested more than one gram of PCB.
There is one other piece of very specific information I wanted to bring forward. It is a question of the concern about cancer. I was particularly interested in that. I am looking for the actual reference here, but if my memory serves me correctly, the longitudinal studies, after 17 years, of the highest level of exposures that we know of, have not confirmed any higher incidence of cancer in that population. I do not give that information to try to suggest that we should not continue to consider this matter with gravity and as a serious exposure because we do not know all the answers. The Hon. Member for Saint-Jacques (Mr. Guilbault) asked a question of the Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier). I think what the Hon. Member should do besides asking the Minister of Environment that question, is to ask the previous Minister of Environment, and perhaps even the next Minister of the Environment or the New Democratic Party critic on the environment, because there is no conclusion at this time. Because of the process which is under way right now, which is supported very strongly by the Minister of the Environment, we hope that an answer will be forthcoming. All of us are waiting for the answer, but we must first have public hearings, look at the technology and arrive at the best conclusion possible. Those things are under way.
If the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) is honest, he will know that one of the difficulties in arriving at a conclusion for disposal is the fact that we have gone through public hearings and we know that there are very few people in Ontario who want to have a chemical waste site next-door to them. There is a very great deal of difficulty in the public's mind, and even in the scientific mind, in deciding what is the best technology to dispose of PCBs and other contaminants. So
we either deny that process or go through it as well as we can and try to arrive at the best possible conclusion. That is precisely what we are doing. We are doing it as quickly as possible. The Hon. Member for Davenport should know that the Government of Ontario has been very much involved in this process, which it initiated, supported and is trying to bring to a satisfactory conclusion as quickly as possible. It is the process itself we are in the midst of right now. It is not a question of addressing the problem but one of trying to deal with it in a fair and reasonable way.
1 have been focusing on the PCB problem and 1 would like to go back a little bit and talk about what the Minister and her Department have been doing in the last few months, as well as the umbrella under which she has been doing it. One of the things that confused me in listening to the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition talk about this issue-I am not sure whether he was reading his own speech or whether he had a speech writer-was that either he does not know or else it was just the way he said it, but he was saying that the Minister should bring in a clean air Act. This was a little bit like listening to the Hon. Member for Davenport when he sometimes talks about an environmental contaminants Act. I sometimes wonder if he was ever Minister of the Environment because he does not seem to understand just exactly what that Act does or how it should work. 1 know he may not have been Minister for very long but he should have a better idea of precisely what is going on than he seems to have judging from some of his questions in the House. But going back to the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition, we do have a Clean Air Act. It is at the disposal of this Minister of the Environment and was at the disposal of the previous Minister of the Environment in order to try at the federal level to control pollution from being spread from province to province and country to country. This Minister is using it and doing so in a very effective and action-oriented way, as against just discussing it. We have that Act and it has regulations.
Quite apart from that, and to offer some support to the Hon. Member for Davenport because he may not have had a full sense of it, I might say that one of the things that the Department of the Environment had, without reference to the Act or the regulations or anything else, were guidelines on how to handle PCBs. It is my understanding that the company transporting PCBs had committed itself to working within the guidelines provided by the Department. I cannot give you the year they were written but they have been out for some time. Clearly the company did not do so or it would not have had the problem.
We have a number of Acts. I mentioned the Environmental Contaminants Act and the Clean Air Act. There is the Pesticide Act. There are Acts such as the Canada Water Act, the Food and Drug Act and the Pest Control Products Act.
One thing that any Minister of the Environment has a problem with is trying to bring together a comprehensive and reasonable plan of action for the literally thousands of new
April 22, 1985

chemical products which come on the market every year. One thing I think we will see over the next few weeks is the very serious, very reasonable and very constructive work being done under the direction of the Minister to try to bring some reason to this mish-mash we inherited. 1 think every one of us could understand how it might happen, but the fact is that it is not adequate for today's technology or the conditions under which we have to operate. In bringing together and rationalizing the management and control of toxics in the environment, the Minister will have provided the kind of service we need from our environmental controls to look after the problems we will inevitably have.
I spent this morning speaking to two very significant groups from Ontario who were having a joint annual meeting under the umbrella of a larger federal organization to consider their activities in the management of the environment. They dealt particularly with air and water. Our discussion was good and we had an opportunity to consider what the federal Government was doing, the very real and concrete actions taken at the federal level concerning money, organization and regulations where appropriate and the co-operation we were trying to bring forward with groups like themselves, including such industries as the automobile industry. There is a group called PACE which deals with environmental problems in the oil industry. All these groups are starting to get a sense of the way we can work together because of the shared responsibilities we have.
1 hope that in future opposition Members will view their responsibility in a serious, constructive and responsible way. I hope they are going to be able to take advantage of the emotional elements which surround these issues. I hope they will be able to take advantage of the legitimate fear which is raised in the minds of people about these substances. I wondered several days ago how much of an issue polychlorinated biphenyls, given the way we have to say it, would become. They would still be the same problem but one that would be much less attractive politically, because it is kind of catchy. One of the scientific experts who has been following this issue indicated that a lot of people, myself included, without being able to get into some of the substance of the technical aspects, get confused when they talk about dioxins. How are people to know what the relative dangers are unless there is a responsible discussion instead of trying to score political points and advance notions which could create almost as many problems as they solve? We look forward to getting that from the Opposition. I think it would serve Canadian interests and 1 look forward to it in the future.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, 1 certainly appreciate the tone of the Hon. Member's contribution to this debate. He put some blame on the previous Liberal Government and its failure to take appropriate action at the appropriate time. But what bothers me is that he comes from a Party which has held office in the Province of Ontario for many years.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: And many more, too.
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Michael Morris Cassidy: That may be; we will have to see on May 2. At the rate they are going, they may disappear below the floor before May 2.
I was in the Ontario Legislature in 1979 when we passed the Hazardous Products Act. It was called the spills Bill and it provided that the transporter of hazardous and toxic substances would be liable for any damages caused by those substances if there was a spill. It was a good piece of legislation and we laboured on it long and hard. My colleague, Marion Bryden, in particular worked very hard to get that Bill adopted. However, while the Hon. Member's tone is very positive, one has to look at the record. His leader is going to campaign with the Premier of Ontario in three or four days and say what a great guy the Premier is and what a great Party the Progressive Conservative Party is. That Bill, which would have in fact given some specific remedy against the spill in Kenora this week, has not been proclaimed for six years. That is a real dereliction as far as Conservatives are concerned. You cannot go with them when you try to win elections and then distance yourself by saying, "We have a great record and look at the record that they have". I think that is shoddy politics.


Gary Michael Gurbin: Mr. Speaker, I am never going to be able to match the Member's passion.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: That is true.


Gary Michael Gurbin: Just wait a minute, let us put this in context. The question is irrelevant in this case because that company has accepted liability.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Birds Nest. I mean the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie).


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I will refrain from commenting on your obvious unintentional error.
I would like to comment on what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Gurbin) had to say. He expounded on the fact that we do not know enough about polychlorinated biphenyls. Would he now answer for the Minister and tell us whether the Department of the Environment and the Minister intend to stand by the decision to cancel the study asked for by the Ontario Government into the assessment of PCBs, which cancellation was a result of the announced cuts in the environmental secretariat under the NRC in the November 8 statement?
In the interest of being fair, would he take some time to look at the development of the debate as it began last week after the PCB spill? He made some charges with respect to people being emotional, taking advantage of fear, et cetera. If he refers back to the first question which I asked of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) he will notice that the question was asked in a very straightforward and calm way. 1 asked him about a moratorium in my first question.

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I lost my temper the next day, and I make no apologies for it. In my first question I asked the Minister of Transport flat out whether he was considering a moratorium on the transportation of PCBs until such time as the regulations came into effect on July 1. Regardless of what you think of the merits of the question, if you check the tape of that you will find that it was asked in a very calm way. You will see that the Minister of Transport came back at me as though I had charged him with some heinous crime, when all I had asked him to do was to consider a moratorium. The theatrics began with the Minister of Transport who went on to talk about the Aeronautics Act and things that the NDP had done. All I asked him was whether he would consider a moratorium.
Before you go around making charges about who emotionalized what and who exaggerated what, check the record. It was not until the next day, when we could not get the Government to take seriously what was happening and to do then some of the things that it has done now, such as order an inquiry and issue interim protective directions, that we began to shout, yell, and express the legitimate outrage that opposition Members and Canadians in general felt about the rather relaxed attitude that the Government initially took forward this event. The Member's own Minister got up and said that it was just a question of provincial jurisdiction and he asked why were we even bothering to ask the question. Before you go around charging people with being emotional, check and see how the debate developed. While you are at it, answer the question about the study into the effects of PCBs which was cancelled.


Gary Michael Gurbin: Mr. Speaker, I think the context of that moratorium question was really important. I was here for that question. If the Hon. Member will read Hansard, he will know that if he had defined it as PCBs, probably the Minister of T ransport-


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Do you want the Hansard? It says PCBs. Read Hansard.


Gary Michael Gurbin: The context in which the Minister was being asked-


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: It does so. Read it.


Gary Michael Gurbin: The context in which I know that the Minister had to deal with the question was the cancellation of the transportation of all "dangerous goods". That was certainly the context in which it was coming forward. That would have meant that your farmers-


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: You haven't read Hansard.


Gary Michael Gurbin: -could not have planted their crops. That would have meant that you would not have been able to carry on normal commerce in the whole country.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Read the record. Read Hansard.


Gary Michael Gurbin: 1 had the sense, from watching-


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: You're not telling the truth.


Gary Michael Gurbin: In answer to the second part of the question, I am pleased to bring a little additional information to the House. With regard to the PCBs, an epidemiological study is being set up by Dr. Friesen. His staff telephones are manned at all times, and all persons who even think that they might have been in contact with PCBs are being asked to complete a questionnaire. They will follow up on any health problems that may in fact emerge. Records of all information of this epidemiological study will be kept over a long period of time.
My second point is with regard to chlorobiphenyl regulations which are now prepared and before Cabinet. Regulation No. 2 will accelerate the removal of PCBs from service in the existing allowed uses. These are uses that were allowed under the previous administration. They are 1977 regulations under the Environmental Contaminants Act. The regulations will do this by prohibiting the sale of PCB equipment where the concentration of PCBs in any liquid contained in the equipment is greater than a certain part per million.
Regulation No. 3 will further control the dispersal of PCBs in the environment by placing quantity and concentration limits on the wilful release of PCBs into the environment during commerical, manufacturing, and processing activities. As all Members know, Mr. Speaker, the actual use of PCBs, in any additional manner, was banned in 1977.
Finally, to answer the last part of the question, on behalf of the Minister of the Environment and the Government I am happy to make the commitment that we will continue to fund, with a commitment for five years, any research program that requires a particular type of activity on the part of the federal Government. We will fund those research programs. We have not in fact taken away our ability to do the kinds of research which we think is necessary.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: What about the study that was cancelled?


Gary Michael Gurbin: In relation to other studies-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret but the Hon. Member's time has expired. I will recognize the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry).


John Edmund Parry: From the debate this afternoon and this morning the origin of the motion before the House today is very obvious. In that sense I, as the Member for Kenora-Rainy River where this spill occurred, am somewhat of two minds on how to view this attention. On the one hand, I would like to see the House offer a full examination of all forms of environmental contamination and of the record of the present Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier). On the other hand, I am naturally very interested in having a full discussion and getting facts on the record concerning the spill of polychlorinated biphenyls in my riding. It is my belief that a spill like this, which has commanded national attention, should command national attention. That is a statement and a judgment which I think requires some qualification.
April 22, 1985

.10)
Similarly, I would say to the Minister, who has been flitting in and out of the House all afternoon, that while she has indeed, as has been said, been the victim of some sexist and biased reporting in the media, just because the media are against her does not mean that she is in fact doing her job. It is my belief that the extensive cut-backs that have been inflicted on the Ministry of the Environment by the present Government are indicative of a relative lack of strength in that Ministry. It appears to have allowed itself to be set up as one that can be readily cut back without offending regional interests or getting powerful members of the Cabinet opposed to its cuts. I feel that is an attitude in Cabinet which we do not have the luxury of allowing to continue.
Let me briefly go through some of the chronology of the recent PCB spill between Ignace and Kenora. On April 15, the Minister of the Environment responded in the House that this was a provincial responsibility. At the same time, provincial officials were saying that it was a federal responsibility. It seems to me that a criticism that we should all take to heart is that, as Canadian elected political leaders, all too often we think in terms not of what is happening in our country and in our communities but in terms of what level of Government is responsible for the corrective action or the original omission that has led to the problem.
After all, in the House on Tuesday the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) said that it was a federal responsibility, while, on the other hand, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Fraser) was saying that it was a shared responsibility. Notwithstanding the evident disagreement among three members of the Cabinet, they looked rather good in comparison with the Ontario Minister of the Environment, who stated that the only danger from such a spill would be if one were a rat licking the material off the Trans-Canada Highway. That gentleman may have some funny ideas about what people in northwestern Ontario keep as pets, but I should let him know that there are indeed at least two cats which have been contaminated by the PCBs, which took that material home and consequently contaminated the home environment where they were pets and, of course, the people who tried to clean them up.
I believe the most encouraging aspect to all the government actions and reactions to this situation was at the local level. The actions of the local officials, while certainly not beyond reproach-since hindsight is 20-20-do them some credit. 1 think the municipal Government in Kenora and the municipal emergency measures coordination group worked well to establish the mechanisms that were needed to respond to the legitimate and real concerns of the people of the Kenora area.
1 am glad to see that they used that CANUTEC number. When I was a mayor in a neighbouring community, I had that number posted on my desk for such an eventuality. I think that some of the activities of the health officials in the area also bear commendation. While the pamphlet put out by the district medical officer of health seemed to have some minor
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contradictions, I thought it was a commendable initiative in the circumstances.
In my question in the House on Tuesday, I cited the statement made to me in a letter from the Minister of the Environment that her officials and the officials of the Department of Transport had been working for years at the federal level on the transportation of dangerous goods. I was critical of the Minister of Transport at that time for offering the July 1 implementation date for the regulations that presumably resulted from that consultation process. I must acknowledge with pleasure that he has chosen now to make the ban immediate.
It was four days after the spill when the first federal official arrived on the scene. Even after the initial spill we saw some errors being made by government officials that were unfortunate errors, not errors of malice, of course, but errors of oversight in the shipping of unmarked boxes containing contaminated PCB samples on Nordair, a commercial air service, through Dryden, without telling the people who were handling them what they were handling.
Such an occurrence should not be permissible in our society. 1 am glad that the Minister of Transport, in his answer, at least contemplated some form of disciplinary action being taken in those circumstances.
The advice that has gone out to residents in the area has mostly been good. While some has been contradictory, I believe that over-all the local Government would appear to be well in the lead of the provincial and federal Governments in the effectiveness of its actions in relation to this spill.
When something like this happens in northwestern Ontario, we who live there have a very ambivalent reaction to the resulting events. We are descended upon by a media circus that we only see during election campaigns other than when there is an environmental disaster. It is indeed a media circus which exhibits a dedication and ferocious attention to the matter that it believes to be at hand, but which, to many of us, smacks of tunnel vision. It is certainly not that we would wish bad news not to be reported. This is bad news and it has been extensively reported.
There is also other bad news. Something that strikes me when looking at this recent spill is the clouding of people's vision which occurs, for whatever reasons, to some of the other problems that exist both in our environment and in my own region of northwestern Ontario.
For example, the spill did not lead directly to the death of a young man on a dangerous corner of the Trans-Canada Highway on Thursday night. The spill was not responsible for that. That death was not reported in the national media. It was not recorded on the CBC, but that is an example of what happens when that media focus all of their attention on a single issue and do not look at the social, economic and environmental aetiology in the area in which they are making their report.
We have a situation where the bureaucrats rather than the Ministers or the media actually come out looking the best in this situation. We also have a situation of a psychology, of

April 22, 1985
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which most of us are guilty-I would not exculpate myself- which makes us look not at the appropriateness of corrective measures but at where the legal responsibility for corrective action lies.
1 feel that the House would do well to take to heart the words of my colleague, the Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie), when he spoke of the moral imperatives of such a situation and the moral considerations which should be borne in mind when addressing ourselves to such an occurrence and to the underlying causes, the lack of regualtions or legislation to ensure adequate protective measures.
The spill, having happened over a week ago now, still leaves many outstanding environmental issues. There is the question of whether the sealing which has been applied to the road surface will be effective and whether it will prevent the leaching upwards of PCB contaminated oil. There is also the question of whether that oil may not also leak downwards through the granular sub-base of the road and thus run the risk of contaminated water courses and ground water. There is the risk to human health, which I am sure the parliamentary Secretary to the Minister (Mr. Gurbin) did not wish to downplay overly. Let me quote from the McGraw-Hill Encyclopaedia of Science and Technology. In the Japanese case there have been deaths attributed, though perhaps not completely attributable, to acute PCB poisoning. Polychlorinated biphenyls are contaminated, as indeed many complex chemical products are contaminated, with byproducts that occur in the manufacturing process. In this case it is polychlorodibenzofu-ran and polybrominated biphenyls which may be responsible for the effects that have been noted in the Japanese case.
I would not wish to over-dramatize the Kenora situation. That would be to do a disservice to the residents and tourists of our area. Even the symptoms of people who have had the most acute exposure obviously do not compare in intensity and frequency with those of people who have been eating rice contaminated with PCBs over a period of several weeks.
The question of human health is a serious one. I think it is now being appropriately addressed by the message being pounded in through the media for people to go and see the doctor if they are in any doubt about the symptoms they may be experiencing.
There are other outstanding issues, such as the integrity and the cleanliness of the environment which is so precious to us in northwestern Ontario. Perhaps the cleanliness of that environment is the leading one. I would call on the provincial and federal Governments, when they sort out the appropriate responsibilities, to institute a monitoring sampling and testing program at the roadside of the contaminated portion of the highway. I would hope that they do this over a period of years and even decades and make sure that samples are taken to determine whether the PCB-contaminated oil is leaching out.
I would like to see the truck which is presently in Kenora still leaking PCBs moved to a place of safety. I would like to see the commitment to clean up carried through right to its
logical conclusion so that all contaminated areas and materials used in the clean-up can be safely disposed of.
I would make reference to a situation that is similar in southern Ontario. I quote the provincial Leader of the New Demoratic Party, Mr. Bob Rae, saying that an investigation is needed to discover why it took the Government more than a year to act after discovering the firm of Chem-King was storing PCBs without a permit. If PCBs are being stored without a permit in southern Ontario, in how many other locations are they being stored? If they are being stored illegally, they might be moved illegally, thus putting the environment at further hazard.
The thought of PCBs contaminating the environment leads me to another theme that I have been contemplating over past days, and indeed for a longer period, namely the cumulative effects of the wide array of chemicals used in so many manufacturing processes, in so many materials, and even in food, on ourselves, our children, and our children's children. We live in what is literally a chemical world. It is said that since the end of the Second World War the number of chemicals in common use industrially have quadrupled. PCBs are just one example of a wide range of contaminants being absorbed into the food chain, which they will if they leak into the lakes in the Kenora area, and then be absorbed into our own bodies. The combination and permutation of this may have effects of multiplying exponentially the toxicity of any individual agents by combinine the effect on people, animals, crops, plants and on the environment. We have a growing incidence of hypersensitivity to chemical products, chemical contaminants in the environment, indeed not only to contaminants, but to products that previously were not known allergens.
There are centres in the United States which unfortunately have no real parallel in Canada for the testing and analysis of people who have built up this extreme sensitivity, sometimes over a period of decades, and who in many cases cannot now live normal lives because of it. If there is a lesson to be learned from the Kenora spill, it should be put on the record in this House. I would like to offer my own modest ideas.
I do think there exists at the federal level a real need for co-ordination and for discussion with the provinces of an over-all waste management strategy for this country. Let us not forget that those products that are perceived to be safe today, acetylsalicylic acid, for example, may be found tomorrow to have very significant health risks to them. We have to have some form of social costing mechanism in Canada so that no company producing, as a main product, a byproduct, or a waste product, can be allowed to dispose of it without some form of approval. There has to be some knowledge, some calculus that will let us know whether we are building future Love Canals that will come back to haunt us at immense cost, not only socially but also in terms of dollars and human health.
Research has to be expanded, not curtailed. There has to be a comprehensive registration and evaluation system for new chemical products and processes before they are put into commercial production and not after.
April 22, 1985

We have to see the environment as a trust. We have to see this country and the beauty of it as something that is not inherited from our ancestors but borrowed from our children. [Translation]
We should know in Canada that the resources of our planet are not inexhaustible-

-something that is capable of being damaged and damaged permanently. We have to forget the old Anglo-Saxon concept of title, that we can use everything on the earth just as we please.
1 heard a babe calling in the Gallery earlier today. I was glad to be reminded of those for whom we are ultimately doing these things. It was something I learned early on in my political career from the Indian people who never exclude children from a meeting because they are the ones to benefit from whatever topic is under discussion.
In closing, I am reminded of the epitaph on the tombstone of the noted Georgian architect, Sir John Van Brugh. It reads: "Lie heavy on him earth for he laid many heavy loads on thee". Van Brugh was an architect who liked to build on a massive scale and in a grand style. We have laid many heavy loads on this earth of ours and it is up to all of us to show some leadership in lightening them.


Gary Michael Gurbin: I have a question for the Hon. Member, Mr. Speaker. I would like to congratulate the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry) for a reasonable and reasoned intervention. He mentioned two things to which I would like his response concerning activities at the local level. He may or may not be aware of or familiar with the reaction, response, or outline, an agreement on which was arrived at in consultation with the municipal, provincial and federal authorities. Could the Hon. Member comment on how he feels it would be appropriate, especially if one wanted a rapid response to a question that there is someone better than the local officer of health, someone better than the OPP, someone better than the fire department locally to deal with emergencies like this that could occur any time, any place, anywhere. Does the Hon. Member feel there is a better way of being able to arrive at that immediate response? Is the Hon. Member more familiar or does he know of any other cases than the cases of the people who were in the car who went to Manitoba? Does he have any additional information? The only other two cases of which we know of persons who came into skin contact with the transformer fluid were, first, that of a person who was changing a tire on his car after having driven through the oil spill, and the other was that of a person who cleaned a cat which had been soiled with it. Those are the other two cases of which we know, other than the people who were in the car. Twelve people telephoned Dr. Freisson, the local medical officer of health, who were concerned that they had in fact breathed in some fumes which might have contained PCBs. He has done the appropriate things in that regard and is following it up in the appropriate way. I wonder whether the Hon.
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Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry) could respond to these two questions.


John Edmund Parry: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary. Obviously there is little capability for predicting incidents of environmental hazard or disaster before they occur. Therefore, the primary role for detection and for coordination lies with the local authority. When I was mayor of Sioux Lookout, I remember attending an emergency measures planning course with the then Mayor of Kenora, who is also the present mayor. I think the emergency measures organization under the aegis of the municipality is an appropriate model. In terms of the incidents of contact in this event, I will be happy to check my information and get back to the Parliamentary Secretary so that we can compare notes on the number of people who have been affected.


Mr. Vincent:: Mr. Speaker, I must congratulate the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry) on his comments. There are now certain guidelines, including some entitled "Guidelines on waste management of materials containing PCBs". I would like the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River to state his position on these guidelines. How does he see these guidelines being applied so that such incidents do not happen again and the guidelines are more generally and more strictly implemented?


John Edmund Parry: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for Trois-Rivieres (Mr. Vincent) for his question. Certainly it would appear to me that guidelines for compensation in such cases should be laid down. I do not feel that it is really a productive method to take cases on an individual basis, bearing in mind the number of cases of similar contamination which have occurred. Of course, the mercury pollution of the Eng-lish-Wabigoon River in my own riding is another example. I feel that there should be some mechanism for environmental compensation tribunals so that people whose health has been affected or whose property has been damaged can have some form of less adversarial mechanism to which they could bring their claims. Similarly, the bonding and insurance of transporters and users of all potentially dangerous material should be examined to ensure that there is adequate coverage for the potential risks in the event of leakage or spillage.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I compliment the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry). Obviously he brings a local perspective to the question of spillage and the problems surrounding it. I compliment his on his contribution to the debate. Also I should like to compliment the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) on his contribution. They were constructive contributions. We know that we do not have all the answers but we have to learn from crises. One cannot always predict crises and how one will react, but I think their contributions have been useful.

April 22, 1985
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1 should like to point out to the Hon. Member the achievements that have been made by the Government in terms of the agreement for a 50 per cent reduction in sulphur dioxide emissions and the tougher automobile standards which were introduced. Also we have provided and assured budget to the science monitoring program and took steps in creating an acid rain office. There was also a budget of $150 million for the smelting industry for modernization and installations.


Douglas Cockburn Frith: That is a speech, not a question.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: It is a comment. We also spent $70 million on developing technology for the use of coal. All these things were an effort by our Government to pick up from the stagnation which occurred under the Liberal Government in earlier years. Perhaps the Hon. Member, in conjunction with the positive things he said about the PCB problems, might want to comment on those actions.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The period for questions and comments has now terminated. I recognize the Hon. Member for Sudbury (Mr. Frith).


Douglas Cockburn Frith: Mr. Speaker, I want to begin where the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry) left off. He left off on the issue of leadership which must be taken into account because each year spills occur in different provinces across the country. The only way in which we can judge the importance which Governments place upon the issue of spills and upon the protection of the environment is to witness the way in which the Government of the day reacts to a crisis.
I will not suggest that the Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier) was responsible for the spill which occurred on the highway in northwestern Ontario. However, the only way in which we can judge the political will of that Minister is to interpret from her actions the way in which she views the effects of that spill on the environment. Let us take a look at the leadership which was exhibited by the minister in this particular case. After the spill in northwestern Ontario was brought to the attention of the House, the Minister refused to show up in the House for several days to answer questions on the issue. We asked why the Minister of the Environment did not-
[ Translation]


Claudy Mailly: Mr. Speaker, I was just wondering about something. It seems to me that under the rules, one should not comment on the presence or absence of other Members in the House, but the Hon. Member is now getting into a debate which is not usually-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Yes, I understand. I addressed that same question earlier. I ask the Hon. Member not to comment upon the presence or absence of Hon. Members.


Douglas Cockburn Frith: One should ask whether a Minister who refuses to instruct her officials to inspect the site is exhibiting leadership in this manner. For several days there was no communication between the federal Minister and her counterparts in the Province of Ontario. The Province of Quebec was just as negligent in its duties with respect to the spill in northwestern Ontario. Those issues involve leadership.
Let us look at the record of the Government in terms of the environment. Turning to the mini-statement of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) on November 8, the Minister of the Environment allowed him to override her concerns about the impact the cuts would have on the Department of the Environment. What did we end up with? There were cuts in the budget in terms of waste management. Instead of trying to protect her Department, the Minister of the Environment allowed the Minister of Finance to run roughshod over her departmental officials. We have had cut-backs in wildlife services and in research into the medical effects of these kinds of spills. Is that the kind of leadership we want from Conservatives? I do not think so. As the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry) said, Canadians want a leadership role taken by the federal Government to co-ordinate programs to deal with these kinds of emergencies.
As I mentioned earlier, this spill is not the first one to occur, nor shall it be the last. Examples abound, not only of PCBs but of other chemicals which impact upon the environment. It is important to note that part of the job of the federal Minister of the Environment is to protect the interests of her Department and the health of Canadian citizens. Also she must become an advocate for her Department when it comes to budget time, indicating to the people of the country that she will stand up and protect the health and safety of Canadian citizens. We are not receiving that.
This is not the first occasion where the Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier) has neglected and been quite negligent in her duties with respect to the protection, health and safety of Canadian citizens. That is the kind of leadership that Canadians want from their federal Government. The suggestion that it was only in the last 24 hours or six to seven days that regulations had been passed to deal with this problem of interprovincial transportation is to stretch the imagination of the Canadian public that we have a Minister of the Environment who cares.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. It being six o'clock, it is my duty to inform the House that, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 62(11), the proceedings on this motion are now completed.
April 22, 1985



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on my questions to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) on Friday, April 19, having to do with the PCB spill that we have been talking about all day. I am not sure who is in the House to respond to my comments. In any event, on Friday I directed three questions to the Prime Minister. One had to do with the question of charges in respect of the PCB spill. The next had to do with compensation for the known victims, the family driving behind the truck. The third had to do with the cancellation of the study into the assessment of PCBs that was requested by the Ontario Government and which was cancelled by the federal Progressive Conservative Government.
On the question of charges, the Prime Minister indicated to me at that time, and I quote:
-it may be that there were violations of law and regulations and disregard for human life, in which case I can assure the Hon. Member that prosecutions will be made with vigour and to the fullest extent of the law.
I would ask the person responding on behalf of the Government to indicate in what area the Government might be contemplating this kind of action. Will the investigation announced earlier by the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazan-kowski) when he was speaking to the House on this be the kind of investigation that could lead to prosecutions, if that was judged to be warranted after the investigation? Also, in the course of that investigation will not only the company involved but also the Province of Ontario be looked at in that same critical light with respect to its actions?
I also asked the Prime Minister about compensation for the family that was driving behind the truck and which had their car impounded. The Prime Minister replied:
With regard to individual families who may be suffering unduly, apart from the tragedy itself, as a result of it, we will look at that, and where we can be helpful we will be delighted to come forward and provide facilities from the Government of Canada to assist them in any way we can.
Can the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Gurbin), who apparently will be responding on behalf of the Government, tell the House whether the Government has made any overtures to the family and whether any provision has been made, for example, for transportation back to Red Lake, and any other short-term things of that nature that the family may require? I would appreciate being brought up to date on that.
The third question was the cancellation of the NRC study on updated scientific analysis of key issues in the assessment of PCBs. As I mentioned before, this study was requested by the
Adjournment Debate
Ontario Government. The study was cancelled as a result of the cuts announced by the Government on November 8. In response to me at that time, the Prime Minister said:
I think all Members of the House will be seeking the assurance that it never happens again. If that representation-
That is to say, the representation which I made on behalf of reinstating that program-
-turns out to be one way we can ensure that, Hon. Members may be certain that we will proceed.
Could the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment tell us whether or not, as a result of the Prime Minister having said that to me on Friday, any reconsideration has been given as to the wisdom of reinstating the study on up-dated scientific analysis of the key issues in the assessment of PCBs? The Prime Minister probably heard about the cancellation of the study for the first time on Friday, and I did not expect that he would have mastered all of the details of the cuts, but I believe that a light went on and the Prime Minister, in light of recent events, might have thought that cancelling that program was not such a great idea. Could the Parliamentary Secretary indicate whether any reconsideration has happened?


Gary Michael Gurbin: Mr. Speaker, in the brief moments which are allowed, I will try to respond to the many questions which have been raised.
I would like to deal with the question of support for the family. As the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry) indicated, the response mechanism, by agreement, is through the local medical officer of health and local officials. As part of the total response package, we have offered to provide, through the local authorities, an airplane or anything else which might be required by the people who are affected. I can assure the Hon. Member that that was done, and that the offer will remain if it becomes necessary. As well, I am sure that the offer can be expanded if it is appropriate from the point of view of local officials.
With respect to the investigation, I cannot specifically answer his question as to what might flow from the investigation which has been announced by the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski). I do not know whether that investigation has anything to do with charges, but 1 will undertake to find that out for the Hon. Member. However, I can tell him that the liability has already been accepted by the company. I do not know what happens under the legal system following that, but the liability has been accepted.
I also indicated very clearly that there is a code of guidelines for the management of PCBs, which was established before the Hon. Member for Davenport (Mr. Caccia) was Minister of the Environment. My understanding was that the company had been transporting materials in agreement with that code. However, clearly the company did not do that. However, it had made that commitment to the Alberta Government. Therefore,

April 22, 1985
Adjournment Debate
again the liability is established. I do not know how that fits into the investigation. I believe the investigation was meant to be more broad than that, but it might include that.
The point which I think has to be made, and I can make this with some force because I was involved very directly-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I think the Hon. Member will have to make that point at another time.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member finished at six minutes after six o'clock and the Parliamentary Secretary had three minutes to speak.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, we might seek the unanimous consent of the House for the Parliamentary Secretary to finish his remarks. That was not the way I read the clock. I thought that the Parliamentary Secretary had at least another minute.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: He had his three minutes.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: No, he didn't.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. If the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary would like to finish his remarks, I will grant him another 30 seconds. But, the Hon. Member finished his question at six minutes after six o'clock and the Parliamentary Secretary had three minutes in which to make his comments. Those are the time limits as far as the Adjournment Debate is concerned. If the Parliamentary Secretary has anything else to say, then he can say it.


Gary Michael Gurbin: I have much more to say, Mr. Speaker, and 1 will take 30 seconds to do so. The liaison which has occurred personally between our Department and the provincial Department, and those people on site, has been ongoing and extremely good from the very beginning. Finally, in my last 15 seconds, 1 will say that reconsideration of the whole toxic program is in fact what the Minister is spending all of her energy on right now. She has focused in a direct way on the consideration of all the programs which fall within that gambit.


BILINGUALISM-DECISION TO REDUCE NUMBER OF BILINGUAL POSITIONS AT RENOUS PENITENTIARY
Mr. Fernand Robichaud (Westmorland-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, my question was directed to the Solicitor General of Canada (Mr. MacKay) and concerned the number of bilingual positions at the Renous penitentiary in New Brunswick.
His colleague, the Hon. Member for Northumberland-Miramichi (Mr. Jardine), stated a few weeks ago that the number of bilingual positions in Renous would be reduced
from 50 per cent to 30 per cent and exclaimed that this was good news. In addition, Mr. Speaker, the Solicitor General added in one of his statements in this House that this proportion was quite representative of the local population.
The question I ask myself and want to ask the minister is this: Should the Atlantic institution in Renous satisfy the local population first or should it instead serve its inmates as its first priority? In my opinion, it is obvious that our Atlantic Institution will have to accommodate first and foremost the inmates coming from every Atlantic region and even from elsewhere in Canada. It is therefore difficult if not impossible to predict the linguistic distribution of future inmates. That is why it is imperative to make sure that penitentiary services are available in Canada's two officials languages. Consequently, as much of the staff as possible ought to be bilingual.
Mr. Speaker, it is a matter of logic and justice, especially. Why should people who have spent years in penitentiary and who already have heavy responsibilities be forced to speak in only one language? Just because a group is in minority does not mean that their needs can be disregarded. On the contrary, you undoubtedly know what the Commissioner of Official Languages said about this issue. Here is a quotation from his latest annual report:
The Correctional Service has responded to our 1983 audit but will have to do a great deal more to provide adequate minority-language services to inmates.
Further on, he goes on to say:
Despite everything, Acadians are still considerably less equal than Anglophones with respect to Government services in their own language.
In other words, Mr. Speaker, the Government must implement the recommendations of the Commissioner of Official Languages.
Secondly, even if we keep in mind the argument of the Solicitor General who claims that the proportion of unilingual and bilingual positions must reflect the linguistic reality of the population, there again he is mistaken. When the establishment of the penitentiary was first announced, had it not been agreed that the staff would be hired in the ridings of Kent, Northumberland and Gloucester? Population figures for those three ridings reveal that the anglophone-to-francophone ratio is the opposite of that in the Miramichi region. To put it another way, those ridings and the one I represent have a lot more Francophones than Anglophones.
In addition, I must emphasize that New Brunswick's unemployment rate has increased to 17 per cent, and that in the south-eastern part which includes the counties of Albert, Kent and Westmorland, the rate has soared to 21 per cent, and that is totally unacceptable. And yet, we had been promised tens of thousands of jobs. It is really terrible!
Why did the Minister not respect the first agreement, and why did the Minister not take all those figures into consideration, for they fully justify his initial decision to hire bilingual applicants to fill 50 per cent of the positions?
April 22, 1985

No matter what the Solicitor General says, Acadian groups in the region have not been consulted in any way. The Minister has made non-substantiated claims. I might add that I use this euphemism to be polite, knowing as I do that it cannot be said in this House that a colleague is not telling the truth.
In fact, the vice-president of the Cercle frangais de la Miramichi said in the Times & Transcript that the Association is entirely against a reduction in the number of bilingual positions. Consequently, how can the Minister assert that Acadian groups favour the decision?
Finally, the Minister has no option but to withdraw his decision. In doing so, he will also have to determine and announce the breakdown of unilingual positions, what percentage will be classified Anglophone and what percentage Francophone.
Mr. Speaker, need I recall that the struggle of Francophones in New Brunswick has been a long and hard one. It is still hard. It took a will of iron to overcome the threat of assimilation. However, the French-speaking community has gained ground, and today, the Province of New Brunswick is officially bilingual. By maitaining its decision to reduce the number of bilingual positions from 50 to 30 per cent, the Government is undermining and denying the special situation in this province.
Mr. Speaker, we must respect the integrity of our Francophone communities and help them prosper in a favourable and privileged environment. Instead of putting obstacles in the way of this community, we should promote its development.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I welcome back the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General (Mr. Towers).


Mr. Gordon Towers (Parliamentary Secretary to Solicitor General of Canada):: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
During Question Period on March 27, 1985, the Hon. Member for Westmorland-Kent (Mr. Robichaud) asked about the announcement with respect to the percentage of bilingual positions at the penitentiary to be called the Atlantic Institution, now being built in New Brunswick. I trust, in the interests of fairness to the residents of the community involved, he will accept my reply.
Under the circumstances I cannot agree with the statements made by the Hon. Member that Acadians are less equal than the Anglophone population. The 30 per cent bilingual target to which the Hon. Member referred is considered appropriate to reflect the approximate percentage of Francophone and bilingual inmates who will require services in the French language, and reflects the demographic area in which the institution is immediately located. Since the percentage of Francophne inmates now serving sentences in the Atlantic region is about 12 per cent, and since the Francophone population in the local area is 25.8 per cent, it is evident that the target established
Adjournment Debate
for bilingual positions more than meets the minimum requirements for the provision of services and for equitable representation in terms of staff positions.
I must also make it clear that the Treasury Board policy with respect to official languages in the Public Service of Canada was duly respected and incorporated into the identification of the bilingual positions. Federal agencies are guided by the Treasury Board guidelines in the determination of bilingual positions. The bilingual status of the Province of New Brunswick was also taken into account in developing the language identification plan for the institution.
I spoke earlier of the linguistic profile of the area in which the new penitentiary is located and how the percentage of bilingual positions reflect that profile. That is an essential consideration in staffing a new institution. But, another essential consideration relates to the degree of acceptance of a penitentiary's existence within a community and the interdependent relationship which must be established and maintained. This cannot be accomplished if the penitentiary staff is a separate entity which has no reference to the community itself. The target set for bilingual positions in relation to the make-up of the local community will bring about a maximization of the employment opportunities in the immediate area, and this is the basis upon which the relationship between a penitentiary and the community should be established and upon which it shall flourish.
The identification of bilingual positions at 30 per cent will mean that the Atlantic Institution will be the most bilingual federal prison in Canada. In fact, the ratio of bilingual employees to French speaking inmates will probably be in the order of two to one; two bilingual employees for each French speaking inmate. Furthermore, the language identification plan has also taken into consideration the requirement that both Anglophone and Francophone employees must be supervised in their preferred official language. To this end, 41 per cent of the supervisory positions have been identified as bilingual.
The Solicitor General (Mr. MacKay) is confident that the needs of the two client groups, inmates and staff, have therefore been met equitably through the bilingual targets set. The former Minister, the Member for York Centre (Mr. Kaplan), the Member's own colleague, was obviously in agreement with this, since he announced at a reception following the laying of the cornerstone of the new penitentiary in August 1984 his approval of this same bilingual target. Indeed, the Saint John Telegraph Journal of August 10, 1984 reported that the former Minister stated he had signed a directive allowing 70 per cent of prison employees at the Atlantic Institution to be unilingual English, with the remaining 30 per cent to be bilingual.
I trust, Mr. Speaker, that the Hon. Member will have a favourable understanding of this reply.

April 22, 1985
Adjournment Debate


INDIAN AFFAIRS-ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS FOR NATIVES IN URBAN CENTRES. (B) ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, last week when the press carried a report that a task force appointed by the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Nielsen) had recommended that funding for native programs be cut by $169 million there was, of course, an immediate attack on that proposal from native organizations and Members of Parliament. Many questions asked about this proposal. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Crombie) made it very clear that the proposal of the task force would not become part of the Government's policy.
Recently we have had a good deal of discussion and reporting in the media about the problems of native people. Most recently, however, the discussion has been about the issue of Indian self-government and aboriginal land rights, with less discussion about the abysmal conditions under which most of the native people in Canada live. It was reported in a survey done a few years ago that conditions on most of Canada's reserves were truly disheartening. The report referred to poor housing, inadequate education, and sub-standard health care. Unemployment on the reserves is a high as 80 per cent. Sixty per cent of the people on reserves live in homes without running water, and life expectancy is 10 years less than the national average. Perhaps the saddest and most revealing statistic of all is that the suicide rate among young people on reserves is six times that of other Canadians.
That kind of information is well known to many Canadians. What is less well known is the very serious plight of the native people who have been living in and are now moving, in increasing numbers, to the cities. A study done a couple of years ago reported that there were 15,000 to 20,000 native people living in my city of Winnipeg, 10,000 to 15,000 living in Edmonton, 5,000 to 10,000 in Calgary, 15,000 to 20,000 in Vancouver, and 15,000 living in Regina. The plight of native people living in those and other cities is truly alarming.
It has been estimated that in my own City of Winnipeg, 50 per cent of all the child welfare cases come from the native community. A high percentage of the people on welfare in the City of Winnipeg are native. Close to 50 per cent of the inmates in western Canadian prisons and jails are Native. In six schools in the core area of my City of Winnipeg, 50 per cent to 80 per cent of the students are Native people and many of them have a very limited knowledge of the English language. Those problems have been ignored to a large extent by federal Governments, both Liberal and Conservative, because they have taken the position that federal Government's legal responsibility is to Native people living on reserves, and once those people leave those reserves to go to the cities they are no longer the legal responsibility of the federal Government. As I have indicated, the plight of Native people living in the cities is close to a disaster.
Some good things have recently been accomplished in my province. The Children's Aid Society has been dissoved and Child Welfare Service has been reorganized so that there are now smaller regional agencies which give representation to Native peoples in the areas in which they live. We are beginning to get Native social workers who have been trained in our universities and community colleges and in special programs established for Native people. In Manitoba there are more than 500 Native teachers who have graduated, having received their training in special Native teaching training programs that were funded jointly by the Federal and provincial Governments.
There are special employment training programs in Winnipeg in the Core Area Development Program, a program funded by the federal, provincial and municipal governments. Recently, the Secretary of State sponsored a national conference on Native women in business in Winnipeg. In Winnipeg we have KNEW Housing, an organization operated by Native people using funds supplied by the federal Government. It purchased homes, remodels and refurbishes them and rents them to Native people who live in the City of Winnipeg.
Improvements have been made but a great deal needs to be done. I am pleased that the Minister says he has an advisory committee to look at these problems, but I call on him and the Government to do a great deal more than they have done to deal with this very serious problem.


Claude Girvin (Girve) Fretz: Mr. Speaker, 1 want to speak to the issue raised by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) concerning Indians living off reserves, especially in urban areas. Indeed, he has raised a question that concerns all of us.
As the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Crombie) indicated in the House last Thursday, there is consultation under way to review key concerns regarding Indian people living off reserves. The Minister recognizes the seriousness of the problem and already has taken initiatives on this matter which has been left uncertain because of overlapping responsibilities between the various levels of Government. He has already met with the mayors of a number of major municipalities including Vancouver, Winnipeg and Toronto, and has indicated that a solution to the plight of many off reserve Indians must and will be found.
The seriousness of the problem should not be underestimated. The percentage of status Indians living off reserves doubled between the years 1966 and 1976 and has increased by a further 30 per cent since then. A large portion of these people tend to be unskilled and poor. Many move to the cities to seek better employment opportunities only to find themselves trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and mounting social problems. In turn, this situation places increasing strains on the relationship between Natives and non Natives in these communities.
April 22, 1985

The most pressing issues are housing, education, health care and employment assistance. In these areas, jurisdiction is fragmented among federal, provincial and municipal Governments and financial requirements are increasing. It is recognized that better co-ordination is required among the three levels of Government to eliminate duplication of services, thereby maximizing the benefits from the existing resources. In addition, programs should be structured to be complementary and to address the basic problems rather than merely some of the social symptoms.
Adjournment Debate
The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is committed to finding practical ways of dealing with the issue and I assure the Member that the Minister will continue his discussions on the subject with Native people, municipal leaders and provincial Governments.


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 2(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.30 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, April 23, 1985